Medics were shocked to find that a fisherman had been struck with a harpoon — and not by accident.
Sujit Klingtalay was out with friends fishing and drinking beers in the Nakhon Ratchasima province of Thailand when the recent incident occurred.
The 45-year-old told Viral Press that he and another friend got into an argument about which man had caught a bigger fish.
“I was fishing with my friend, and we joked about the fish we had caught. I said [that] I had caught bigger fish than him, but he was offended,” he said.
Out of anger, Klingtalay’s friend decided to aim a fishing harpoon at the back of Klingtalay’s head — which lodged inside in the skin.
I listened to a comic talking about his wife. It started like the title. We were on the beach getting fucked up and his wife said they needed to do something. His response was we are doing something, we’re getting fucked up on the beach. Nothing is something if you want to relax, only not for extroverts.
I have a family that can’t sit still. Going on vacation is a relay race of the next thing to do which for an introvert, results in me burning my candle to a nub and running out of social battery. Just the planning alone, which consists of a ton of stuff that will never happen just to go through every option. It is mentally exhausting. I’m toast before it even starts. When none of the plans might get done, I’m already burnt and nothing has even started. It gets these extroverts wound up with excitement and inevitably leads to disappointment as it rarely meets expectations. Then there is the discussion afterwards as to why it wasn’t as great as the plans. It was the build up of unrealistic expectations.
I want to get away and not have to do something, all the damn time. When it is over the way they do it, I need a vacation from taking a vacation.
If I can relax, I always meet my expectations and am almost always recharged, what a vacation should be. It meets my expectations when I do it their way also, I’m burnt out before it begins.
Now, this:
The pendulum is swinging away from jam-packed trips and Instagram-worthy adventures and toward vacations with little to write home about beyond a pretty sunset and a cold drink.
More vacationers say they want a true break to rest and recharge during their time off. Their do-nothing vacations have no schedule. These aren’t beach trips that involve surfing or kayaking, or foodie tours requiring hours of research—and decision fatigue.
“Rest and relaxation” jumped ahead of having “a fun time” and spending “time with immediate family” as the main motivator for leisure travel, according to a nationally representative February survey of 1,000 U.S. travelers from Longwoods International, a market-research firm. Rest and relaxation rose to 21% from 17% between the September and February surveys.
All-inclusive resorts are helping travelers meet this need. Bookings for Apple Leisure Group all-inclusive properties in the Americas, which include Secrets resorts and spas, are up 11% thus far in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the same period last year, a Hyatt spokesman said. Hyatt is the parent company of Apple Leisure Group.
The full story is that testosterone isn’t just for puberty. Testosterone differences between people with XX and XY chromosomes start in the womb and continue during the first half-year of life. These differences are associated with cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and body composition dissimilarities that may affect how each plays sport in later life.
Perhaps a more complete understanding of testosterone’s influence from the womb will help resolve some points of contention in the Trans conversation.
Testosterone levels can be affected by social, economic, and biological factors in an individual’s life. To eliminate such variables, Patel studied twins in utero. In particular, he compared opposite-sex and same-sex twins…
Based on Patel’s research of twins, males who had higher levels of testosterone available to them in the womb are more likely to go on to be self-employed.
They are also more likely to play full contact sports like rugby or football and to work in financial services careers. In general, more testosterone is associated with lower levels of risk aversion, so people with more testosterone may take more risks. (Emphasis added.)
I for one am glad. I’m old enough that most of my fucking up in life was before the internet and only I really know the story of my misdeeds and untoward activity.
A lot of people say stupid shit online, or brag about stuff they shouldn’t to show off or get likes. Until now, the internet was forever. It may still be if you search hard enough, but Google is evil and presents the worst of behavior easily. Now, the idiots may be protected.
Google will no longer be keeping a backup of the entire Internet. Google Search’s “cached” links have long been an alternative way to load a website that was down or had changed, but now the company is killing them off. Google “Search Liaison” Danny Sullivan confirmed the feature removal in an X post, saying the feature “was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”
The feature has been appearing and disappearing for some people since December, and currently, we don’t see any cache links in Google Search. For now, you can still build your own cache links even without the button, just by going to “https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:” plus a website URL, or by typing “cache:” plus a URL into Google Search. For now, the cached version of Ars Technica seems to still work. All of Google’s support pages about cached sites have been taken down.
Cached links used to live under the drop-down menu next to every search result on Google’s page. As the Google web crawler scoured the Internet for new and updated webpages, it would also save a copy of whatever it was seeing. That quickly led to Google having a backup of basically the entire Internet, using what was probably an uncountable number of petabytes of data. Google is in the era of cost savings now, so assuming Google can just start deleting cache data, it can probably free up a lot of resources.
Cached links were great if the website was down or quickly changed, but they also gave some insight over the years about how the “Google Bot” web crawler views the web. The pages aren’t necessarily rendered like how you would expect. In the past, pages were text-only, but slowly the Google Bot learned about media and other rich data like javascript (there are a ton of specialized Google Bots now). A lot of Google Bot details are shrouded in secrecy to hide from SEO spammers, but you could learn a lot by investigating what cached pages look like. In 2020, Google switched to mobile-by-default, so for instance, if you visit that cached Ars link from earlier, you get the mobile site. If you run a website and want to learn more about what a site looks like to a Google Bot, you can still do that, though only for your own site, from the Search Console.
click above for more, but I think you get the drift
Note that term is a Millennial/Gen X/Gen Y loser term. Life has a way of circling back on your choices and decisions. You may think you are only living once, but you are only living for the moment.
Actions have consequences and so do bad credit decisions….read on.
A growing percentage of Americans are becoming reckless with their spending, fueling what one economist calls a “super duper” credit bubble.
In a note to clients, economist David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research warned that Americans are taking on too much debt to buy things they really don’t need. He calls these people “YOLO spenders,” which refers to the catchphrase, “You only live once.”
“There is no acknowledgment today that, yet again, we have a super-duper credit bubble on our hands,” Rosenberg wrote. “It isn’t just about fiscal recklessness at the government level; the dilemma is that the consumer commands a dominant 70% share of the economy.”
For starters, more Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments. According to Rosenberg, one in every 12 credit card holders is in this predicament.
The last time delinquency was this high was in 2011, when unemployment was 9%. The national unemployment rate currently stands at 3.7%, among the lowest in history.
“As far as consumer credit is concerned, the default cycle isn’t merely looming. It’s arrived,” he warned.
If they act like this and are this selfish, you need to run. Run quickly and far away and never look back. If they are going to act this crazy, your life is not worth being ruined. I’ve been around long enough to know the red flags. These types of girls are waving an armful of them.
There is more, so much more at the link above. Life is too short for this kind of shit in a relationship. I promise there are a lot of girls out there not this crazy.
It’s as bad as it sounds. It’s how women ruin marriages. 70% of divorces are initiated by the wife and here we have one that has to tell the world how crazy she is. I pity the husband. But seriously, do you have to tell the world because you are the irresponsible one who set out to ruin things?
In the summer of 2022,I lost my mind. At first, it seemed I was simply overwhelmed because life had become very difficult, and I needed to — had every right to — blow off some steam. Our family was losing its apartment and had to find another one, fast, in a rental market gone so wild that people were offering over the asking price on rent. My husband, Keith, was preparing to publish a book, Raising Raffi, about our son, a book he’d written with my support and permission but that, as publication loomed, I began to have mixed feelings about. To cope with the stress, I asked my psychiatrist to increase the dosage of the antidepressant I’d been on for years. Sometime around then, I started talking too fast and drinking a lot.
I felt invincibly alive, powerful, and self-assured, troubled only by impatience with how slowly everyone around me was moving and thinking. Drinking felt necessary because it slightly calmed my racing brain. Some days, I’d have drinks with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which I ate at restaurants so the drink order didn’t seem too unusual. Who doesn’t have an Aperol spritz on the way home from the gym in the morning?
William “Bill” Post — the man who created the beloved toaster treat Pop-Tarts — died on Saturday, his family announced. He was 96.
Post, a Michigan native and son of immigrants who worked his way up from a truck washer to a senior vice president, brightened millions of Americans’ mornings with the sweet pastry that hit the shelves in 1964.
The great-grandfather is often credited with inventing the breakfast treat, though he would always say it was a team effort, according to his obituary.
Post was raised in Grand Rapids as one of seven children of Dutch immigrants. He married his high school sweetheart, Florence Schut, and served in the Army Air Corps in occupied Japan.
I ate them, but it wasn’t the staple it was for my kids. Knowing what I know now about diets, I’d have never given them to the kids, but when you are working on a couple of hours of sleep and you’ll do anything to get food in your kids before school…..pop tarts.
In grade school, we made bags for all the kids to put in a Valentines card for everybody in class. It was before we were old enough to have gf/bf and before the woke ruined everything it touched because some kid didn’t get one.
We’d get a pack of 30 of these at the five and dime and then sign your name on them and put one in the bags.
As I look back on this, I have no idea if I got one from every kid or not. I never checked. I bet every girl made sure they got one though. The girls understood social stuff way before the guys did.
I recall it being a tedious task because just like now, I didn’t really care that much about others socially. I knew they weren’t really all my friends, and this would prove to be true in life as I went to school with these kids as much as 21 year for some (kindergarten through college).
Puberty hadn’t set in and we (they) hadn’t started imposing the caste system of have’s and have not’s on kids based on looks, sports ability or general group hate. Kids are mean.
Fortunately, I kept to myself and stayed on the sidelines on this, but I knew then what I know now. That is the life of an introvert. As soon as the bags were opened and you looked at the cards, no one cared anymore. I saw this in advance. It’s why I had no clue whether to see if I got one from everyone, or even to check.
It’s why now if I give a gift, I meant it. Conversely, if you didn’t get one, I meant that also. I could never really deny my feelings to fit in. I just didn’t want to and knew it wasn’t worth it.
As soon as we didn’t make the bags, I didn’t give the card.
As I grew older though, my girlfriends all got good gifts from me while they were around. On the other hand, I don’t recall ever getting a good VD gift. Not even VD on VD.
Since the beginning of time, girls invent childish shit tests to see what they can make you do to prove your love. Once you are not willing to do stupid stuff and are confident in yourself, you can have an actually good relationship. It happens when you kick these types of girls to the curb immediately. It will save you a lot of time, trouble and social media BS. Once you realize that they can’t hold their nookie over your head, you can then be adults about it as girls have no other leverage. As I told one ex when kicking her out, there is no golden pussy.
These are invented by assholes on Tik Tok to poison girls into thinking this is love. It is much deeper than this type of relationship control, but nevertheless…….
Here goes:
Would You Dump Someone If They Didn’t Peel An Orange
Like one of those secretly mordant fairy tales about mermaids sacrificing their fins or maidens poisoned and sleeping forever, there is apparently a new test to tell if love is true: fetch and denude me an orange.
The gist: If your partner strips the rind off the citrus and serves it to you with kindness, then their love is for real. If your partner refuses, then this love is hollow and false, and you must now make a deal with a sea witch or reenter the dating pool. This deeply unscientific experiment, known colloquially as the orange peel theory/test/trend, is usually administered by heterosexual women on their male partners. And because of its simplicity and clarity, and social media’s penchant for anything that creates a reaction, the test has gone viral on TikTok.
Some videos of men peeling or not peeling oranges for their partners have millions of views. Millions!
Does separating citrus from its skin really indicate true love? What happened to building the Taj Mahal or, you know, buying some diamonds? Should women carry a mandarin around at all times just to be sure?
“An entire intimate relationship can’t be boiled down to what a partner does or doesn’t do with an orange,” says Alexandra Solomon, a psychologist and author who teaches at Northwestern University and specializes in relationships. As Solomon explains, one does not need to throw a romantic partner away like an orange rind because they did not peel a fruit in a pleasant way.
What TikTok’s ‘Ketchup Challenge’ Actually Says About Your Relationship
At first glance, the viral social media trend known as the “ketchup challenge” may sound like TikTok’s latest household hack, involving cleaning with the common condiment. And while cleaning is (kind of) part of it, the actual aim appears to be secretly testing a romantic partner.
Similar to the “orange peel theory,” the ketchup challenge is being used as a relationship test of sorts, in which one person (usually a woman) intentionally squirts some ketchup on the kitchen counter or a table, then asks their partner (usually a man) to clean it up. Naturally, the whole thing is captured on video and posted to TikTok or Instagram, where commenters are able to weigh in on the man’s ability—or lack thereof—to effectively clean a simple mess, rather than smearing it around, making it worse.
Clearly, this is about much more than ketchup, but out of all the relationship “challenges” floating around online, what about this one has struck a nerve? Two clinical psychologists specializing in relationships explain.
Oh, and by the way, Happy Valentines Day tomorrow. Don’t fall for these and if you get this from your girl, you’re better off dumping her rather than suffering a minute longer with a child who resorts to this low level of immaturity. She reads too much social media online, another red flag for you
It’s just another indication that social media ruins a lot of what it touches and the most vulnerable fall for it first.
Portland, here is what happened when they de-funded the police. They turned make Portland weird into make Portland a crime zone.
I have a relative there and have to go in a few weeks. I can’t say how little I’m excited to go travel.
Hopefully, I’m not on a Boeing plane that is missing bolts or stuck next to traveler who starts a fight. Both seem to be a trend lately.
When I get there, the homeless and the crazies have destroyed the city, so I can’t say I’m looking forward to that either.
Like all trips, the best part is leaving and coming home.
As for being an introvert, as soon as I committed to going, my irritation level shot up. My social battery is not able to recharge because it can’t knowing I have to face this. A countdown to leaving (to come home) automatically begins in my head, I can’t stop it from happening.
It will be over in a bit, but for now I’m suffering until it is over and I’m back home.
A Brazilian man who feasted on one of the most poisonous fishes in the world has died after spending five weeks in hospital fighting for his life, according to reports.
Magno Sergio Gomes, 46, and his friend ate a toxic pufferfish — known to be 1,200 times more poisonous than cyanide — over Christmas after receiving the fish as a present, according to Newsflash via the New York Post.
However, less than an hour later, both Gomes and his friend fell seriously ill, his heartbroken sister Myrian Lopes told Newsflash, adding that her brother had never cleaned a pufferfish before.
“Magno started to feel numb in his mouth, then he went with his wife to the hospital, driving his car,” Lopes said, according to Newsflash.
“When he got there, his mouth was even more numb, and he felt sick. Soon after, he had a cardiac arrest that lasted eight minutes.”
Lopes said that Gomes was intubated and put on life support but never recovered. He died Saturday.
There is a sweet amount of satisfaction in doing this. You buy a cockroach or rat, it gets named for your ex and is feed to an animal at the zoo. You get confirmation and everyone is happy. Also, fuck your ex.
For the second year in a row, the wild and crazy staff at the San Antonio Zoo offers the brokenhearted a novel way to oh-so-satisfyingly get back at their exes on Valentine’s Day. Yes, their incredibly popular Cry Me a Cockroach Fundraiser is back!
For a small non-refundable donation of $5.00, $10.00, or $25.00, the zoo staff will “symbolically name a [cock]roach, rat, or veggie after your ex or not-so-special someone.” The San Antonio Zoo staff will then happily feed your selection of a bug, a rodent, or a vegetable to a deserving and hungry zoo animal.
Don’t worry, animal lovers and PETA, no additional rats are killed specifically for the brokenhearted’s vengeful pleasure. All the rats used in the fundraiser are pre-frozen, just like the usual rodents that are fed to the animals as part of their regular daily scheduled feedings. “They are delivered frozen from a mouse farm and stored at [the] Nutrition Center until thawed for feedings,” the zoo’s website states.
Additionally, participants of Cry Me a Cockroach receive “a digital Valentine’s Day Card” showing their support for the fundraiser, including the cockroach, rat, or veggie dedication to your ex. And just for, um, fun, this card could be sent to your ex or posted to your personal social media to let the world know you’ve been, um, thinking of your ex. Sharing is caring, amirite?
I played this game with the El Paso Zoo a couple of years ago. I named one for my college gf who turned into a traveling whore when she was a stewardess. The other was just deserving of one. She cheated on her husband although not with me. I had nothing to do with it other than watching her (from the sidelines) ruin someone else’s (and her own) life.
The people at the zoo were amazed at how much vitriol people had for the ones that did them wrong.
Small talk is one of the more tiring things for introverts,. I avoid that situation at every chance. I love a deep conversation, but once someone starts in on how their day went in minute detail, I can’t help but turn into my own world and wish the conversation to be over as quickly as possible.
The other is ice breakers. Tell us something about yourself. Um, I don’t like to talk about myself, how’s that?
I’d hold it before I’d go just to not talk to not be here. This is at a Dr.’s office though. I see the door where you pass the piss sample in the cup
If I say call me, it’s because I’m betting you won’t. I’m tossing over the fence for you to make the move. I wouldn’t call either way. A cryptic text at best that doesn’t leave much of a window to respond.
These kids belt out the national anthem and are proud of the country, unlike the girls soccer team that lost while trashing and hating the country, men and strait people. Take that Rapinoe, you horrible person.
I suppose everyone says this. I can’t change anything so I’m not going to try to. I’m just trying to enjoy these times. If I’d told myself what to do/not do, it would have turned out different. It might have changed the whole space/time continuum, and I don’t want to tempt God or the Sci Fi world.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and the present is gone in an instant.
At the end of the year, we hear predictions about the future, many of which have been proven wrong — from the end of the world due to climate change, to the telephone is just a toy.
(There is a story, probably apocryphal, that in 1876, the president of Western Union, William Orton, dismissed phones as a “toy” when Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell him the patent for $100,000.)
The past is a better teacher if we will pay attention to successes and mistakes so that we might avoid one and embrace the other.
A hundred years ago, the ’20s were roaring and President Calvin Coolidge did things the current president and Congress would do well to emulate.
Coolidge won a landslide victory running on a platform of limited government, reduced taxes and less regulation.
He followed through on all three, creating an economic boom. (Where have you gone, Silent Cal, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you).
Coolidge also signed an immigration law that regulated the number of foreigners who could come to America.
Asian people were especially targeted, but one must understand the challenges of the time, which involved civil war in China and growing unrest in Japan.
According to Densho Encyclopedia, the announced motivation of the legislation was the “widespread fear of radicalism that contributed to anti-foreign sentiment and exclusionist demands. Supporters of immigration legislation stressed recurring themes: Anglo-Saxon superiority and foreigners as threats to jobs and wages.”
Sound familiar?
A lot happened in 1924.
Vladimir Lenin died at 53 from a stroke. Lenin’s body was embalmed and put on display in Red Square for public viewing.
He seems to have been reincarnated as Vladimir Putin.
Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch.
He is released after just nine months, but uses his time while incarcerated to write “Mein Kampf,” which, among other things, describes how he became antisemitic.
His poison still infects us.
J. Edgar Hoover is named head of the FBI.
George H.W. Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts. Woodrow Wilson dies.
Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia.
Actor Marlon Brando, who would change the way many actors performed, was born in Omaha, Nebraska.
Also born this year is American novelist and playwright James Baldwin in Harlem, New York, as is Truman Capote.
The comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” debuts. In the 1970s it would become a hit musical on Broadway and a movie.
The first newsreel pictures of American presidential candidates are taken, forecasting the age of television and its use during election campaigns.
The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held in New York.
In sports, Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry was born, and the Washington Senators won their first World Series.
It would be 95 years until they win another one under a different name (Washington Nationals).
Johnny Weissmuller sets the 100-meter world freestyle record at 57.4 seconds. His fame would increase when he played Tarzan in the movies.
Carol Taylor invents the ice cream cone rolling machine. Yum.
May we celebrate together, but alone and separately. Talk to you tomorrow because I’m not talking today.
It’s my favorite holiday after just suffering through Christmas and New Years. I can be alone today. Somewhere out there (although probably quiet) my fellow souls finally have some joy. It’s doubtful others will hear about it as we don’t boast, and other times you can’t get a word in edge wise for all the yapping.
I know and so do others.
PS, I’m not an INFJ.
This next one is me. I’m always in the back, next to the door so I can leave if I need to escape or panic
It won’t get as much coverage as other Pride parades or whatever day’s. I’ll bet people don’t know how many introverts there really are in the world. They just don’t need to tell everyone about it, like the vegans.
For the first time in 47 years, the Adams County SPCA in Pennsylvania is completely empty. All of their dogs got adopted. 14/10 for everyone ❤️ pic.twitter.com/OQp4Ip8fBi
What does tomorrow mean to us? I thought about that today. It occurred to me that I don’t have as many tomorrows left. As endless as they used to be, I’d grab at a new handful of them. For now, I’m glad to have the next one. They grow fewer every day (sorry, I had to put that in)
Young
When I was young, I never thought about tomorrow. It always came. Some took forever like when I cared about my birthday, and others flew by.
When something has an endless supply, the value is less. It’s economics. I never considered that I’d be working, or retired, or would have kids, a mortgage or any responsibility. Live for today. It was all about today. I had no real yesterday’s to learn from yet.
If I did think about tomorrow, it was the kid dream about being an astronaut or pilot (what I thought about).
That was so long ago and the days between now and then are so numerous that it seems, like another life for me. I’ve lived many different lives within the one I chronologically am still in.
School
I recall sitting in the classroom watching the clock ticking away. Tick, tick, tick towards when I’d be able to go home. Time was endless on those days, and this was just between 2 and 2:15 in elementary school. The only good tomorrow started on Friday.
By the time I got to college, I was aware that life was right around the corner. Still, I enjoyed the day without a care. I ignored that inevitable tomorrow. When it came, it was in the form of an exam, or a girlfriend or another event in life. It was finite and had little consequence as to what my next day held. Still, I had no real cares and a lot of what tomorrow brought was a new experience.
Letdowns started to happen, but the ocean of tomorrows never crossed my mind as I did stupid stuff. I think I lost a few tomorrows by taking too many risks. Somehow I survived and was able to live to the next day, always another tomorrow. It was expected.
Responsibility Years
Life marched on and I grew up, bought a home and started a family. Tomorrows always came, but now they came with other’s problems also. It wasn’t the carefree days when your kid is sick or in trouble. I didn’t have time to think about tomorrow as today brought 10 tons of manure in a 5 ton truck.
So much is happening in your life you take tomorrow for granted or you are too busy to think about anything but today. If you do, those thoughts are invaded with things you have to get done or do for others.
I did notice one thing. I was starting to have a lot of yesterday’s. Some of them happy and some sad. There were lessons learned on both.
The ocean of tomorrows was still seemingly full as it (now) quickly drained away.
Deaths
The first reminders of fewer tomorrows happened here. Those you used to know have run out of tomorrows.
When you are young, say at a grandparents funeral, you can’t comprehend time not being endless for you. By middle age, you know it is closer, but most choose to ignore the reality of time slipping away.
Growing Older
Rarely, do tomorrows bring something new to me. Occasionally, I get a different version of something I’ve been through. I have many more yesterdays now than the number of tomorrows remaining.
The kids are grown. The mortgage is paid off. I no longer work. I’m among the oldest of my relatives now. It brought me to how many tomorrows there will be. Among those, how many will be good or bad? Will there be tough times?
I try to enjoy the days, even if the tasks are mundane. I have less patience for things that don’t seem meaningful to me. My meaningful scale has changed dramatically over life.
From time to time (becoming far too common), people I know run out of their tomorrows. As I sit at the funerals, life comes into perspective for me, at least the part on Earth.
Tomorrows aren’t endless. You only come with so many. Some have more than others and some enjoy them more than others.
Most of life’s struggles are over, except what happens when the tomorrow’s are running out.
Here’s hoping for another tomorrow, and that it doesn’t suck for me.
This much attention is overwhelming for an introvert. i can’t wait for it to be over. I can’t hear another Christmas song on the speaker anywhere.
What I hate the most is how people change and act different when I know damn well what asswipes they are the rest of the year. I hate their fake attitude because it’s the Christmas spirit, or whatever lie they are telling.
I like the meaning of Christmas, but the crap that people do around it, compounded by the commercialization since September and I want to pull my hair out.
This is true every year. I can’t wait for it to be over so we can go back to being who we really are.
“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” — Aristotle
I have to deal with Scandinavians I’m related to by marriage. They believe in the concept of Janteloven and continually use it to trash the USA. Mostly they try to justify that their country is better. Fortunately, I can almost gauge what is the wrong thing by them telling me what they believe in and that is it. Their country is of course held up as the model of socialism by Bernie, the Squad and other idiots. That’s just more proof for me to intuitively know it is wrong.
I call BS on it because history says otherwise. Did the USA go to the moon because of equality or exceptionalism? How about helping the rest of the world with medicine, discoveries, advancements in technology and improving the quality of life around the world. What has Jante given the world other than stopping being conquering Vikings?
School board administrators in their mindless pursuit of “equity” have decided to eliminate honors English classes in a prestigious academic district where parents would be delighted to enroll their children: Santa Monica High School.
The sentiment behind the initiative was best summed up by Sarah Rodriguez, an English teacher at the high school. She, and others involved in the 1½ year pursuit of the initiative, wanted to be “fair” to all students, and not make anyone feel left out or marginalized.
“This is not about labeling students or labeling classes,” Rodriguez says. “What we’re doing is, we’re saying this is a new paradigm.” Her overview of this new paradigm — she insists — is about “all of our students (being) capable and we’re going to meet them where they are.”
It’s a beautiful sentiment, but lacking in reality of what’s going to happen to the bright and gifted students’ opportunities for advanced education. She failed to mention how the initiative would “meet” their needs in a dumbed-down curriculum.
Parents have made it clear to administrators that they view the “equity initiative” as another example of administrators being shortsighted, if not blinded, by the end results of their bad decisions. “A race to the bottom,” is now a popular term used by parents to describe this and other diversity programs contributing to the eroding academic standards in public schools.
“We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not taking away opportunities for advanced education and study,” says parent Joanna Schaenman, who spearheads an effort to reinstate honors class at a school where her child attends in Culver City.
The one-size (academic curriculum) fits all students, Schaenman says, is not beneficial for the students who are willing to work harder and achieve higher academic outcomes.
This parental push back is popping up at school board meetings at different high schools operating in one of the nation’s most “progressive” regions: Los Angeles Unified School District.
“I have a child in high school,” one mother told the school board in Culver City. “It is too easy in his classroom” since the elimination of the honors classes. “They (administrators) say it’s equity, they say that’s the reason and therefore it’s okay,” she added. It is far for “okay,” she says, pointing out her son is “no longer challenged in class.”
This complaint is shared by many parents who are watching the decline of their children’s education. Now my son is “bored in class,” offers another parent.
Sensitivities expressed by the administrators in the interest of underperforming students does not appear to extend to parents of the more accomplished students. Parents objecting to the “dumbed-down” curriculum have been subject to slurs and insults by faculty and administrators: “Racist” is a common fallback term used by administrators to label parents objecting to the “equity initiatives.” At one school board meeting in another district, Asian parents were met with a sign that read: “Leave your Asian privilege at the door.”
It is now becoming harder to tag the parents as racists.
Many of the upset parents are immigrants themselves who appear as dark as the students who are underrepresented in the honors classes, primarily including Hispanic and black children.
Pedro Frigola, who is from Cuba, has two daughters attending Culver City High School. He claims the school is “performing a disservice to the students and community” with the elimination of advanced instruction.
He pointed out in a Fox television interview that the administration put forth the claim that the initiative is hatched in the name of “equity,” but “it’s not defined,” The parent stresses the necessity to provide equal opportunity for all students, but not remove opportunities for students who are excelling in their studies.
“Achieving equal outcomes at all costs,” says Frigola, is an ideology that results in holding many children back, That’s not the only drawback. Students now cannot list “advanced placement” (AP classes) on their applications when applying to Ivy League colleges, placing them at a distinct disadvantage.
This reality isn’t getting in the way of administrators championing their cause. They claim that teachers — who work with students day in and day out — are completely supportive of this “equity initiative.” That has not been Mr. Frigola’s experience when he has discussed the issue with teachers at his daughters’ high school. He reports they have expressed their concerns about the detrimental effects this initiative will have on the high-achieving students. “Of course they’re afraid to speak out because they don’t want to be reprimanded,” he says. “They have their careers to worry about.”
Mr. Frigola, who had grown up in Cuba, thought he had left behind the communist culture of censorship and fear of expressing a dissenting voice, but he was wrong.
In the meantime, embattled faculty and teachers have become more firmly entrenched in espousing their ideology. Rhetoric is becoming more harsh, with administrators now claiming advanced English classes were “perpetuating inequality.” They tend to rely on statistical data verifying black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in the honors classes. Of course, Asian students — who score consistently higher — remain overrepresented in percentages enrolled in advanced courses vs. make-up of population.
Less accomplished students appear to be picking up the messages of victimhood from the faculty. One student described his feeling as “unable to break out of the mold” and another as feeling inferior “because of the segregation” of honors from regular English classes.
“Whatever happened to the concept of working hard and earning a place in an AP class,” one parent commented on social media. “Are we teaching these children to whine rather than work hard?’
It is fair to wonder whether today’s educators are failing to prepare students for their matriculation into the real world. Students who were coddled and protected — from revamping curriculum for “equal outcomes” to handing out “participation awards” for non-athletic winners — will be sorely disappointed when they enter a merit-based system and find themselves at the end of the line for a salary increase or promotion up the corporate ladder.
I lost the link to this story, if anyone has it I’ll give it retribution.
I’ve done this many times. Works like a charm. I even stay in longer so they think I’m getting them more presents, or am having a hard time wrapping gifts.
This is the first update in a while, but it was well worth it. If I missed one, please comment and I’ll include it.
If one of these offends you, take the complaints elsewhere, I’m the one that got dissed here.
A beer short of a six pack A brick short of a load A couple of eggs shy of a dozen A couple of gallons short of a full tank A few ants short of a picnic A few beers short of a six-pack A few bricks short of a pile A few bricks short of a wall A few cards short of a deck A few clowns short of a circus. A few feathers short of a whole duck A few fries short of a Happy Meal A few peas short of a casserole A few tomatoes short of a good thick sauce
A few soldier short of a squad A few trucks short of a convoy A fortune cookie short of a Chinese dinner A pepperoni short of a pizza A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on A sandwich short of a picnic A train short of a full service? About as bright as a burnt out 20 watt light bulb. About as useful as a chocolate fireguard Ah say, that boy reminds me of Paul Revere’s ride; a little light in the belfry An experiment in Artificial Stupidity An intellect rivalled only by garden tools As much use as a hedgehog in a condom factory As much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle As quick as a tortoise on Prozac As smart as bait
As smart as Joe Biden As useful as a screen door on a submarine As useful as a wooden frying pan As useful as tits on a bull Body by God, Mind by Mattel. Bright as Alaska in December Couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel
Could screw up a one car funeral Doesn’t have both oars in the water Doesn’t have all his corn flakes in one box Doesn’t have all his dogs on one leash Doesn’t have all the dots on his dice Donated his body to science before he was done using it Dumb as a corn cob. Dumb as a stump. Dumber than a bag of hammers. Dumber than a bag of rocks
Dumber than a lobotomized rock
Elevator don’t quiet make the top floor Fell out of the family tree Forgot to pay his brain bill Goes surfing in Nebraska Golf bag doesn’t have a full set of irons Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together Got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t watching Gross ignoramus — 144 times worse than a normal ignoramus Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt
This is the one —> Has delusions of adequacy.
Has two brains, one’s lost and the other is out looking for it Having an intelligence rivalled only by garden tools. He fell out of the Stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down He had a little too much chlorine in his gene pool. He is so dumb, he would look for a wishbone in a soft-boiled egg. He is so dumb, the only thing he ever read was an eye-chart. He played too much without a helmet He’s got a mind like a steel trap, rusted shut He’s got a leak in his think-tank He’s got a mind like a steel sieve He’s got his feet firmly planted 3 feet above the ground He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer He’s so dense light bends around him He’s so dumb he couldn’t pour the water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel His belt doesn’t go through all the loops His cheese has slipped off his cracker
His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork His porch light ain’t on I say, that boy is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice If brains were chocolate – he wouldn’t have enough to fill an M&M If brains were dynamite – he wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose If brains were dynamite, he wouldn’t have enough to blow his hat off If brains were gasoline, he couldn’t ride a moped around a fruit loop If brains were taxed, he’d get a rebate If he had a brain, he’d be dangerous If he had another brain, it would be lonely If he were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week If stupid were a talent, he would be considered gifted
If stupid could fly, you’d be a jet. If you gave him a penny for his thoughts, you’d get change back If you stand close enough to him you can hear the ocean Isn’t firing on all 6 cylinders Isn’t firing on all thrusters Its hard to believe that he beat out half a billion other sperm
If I wanted to kill myself I’d climb your ego and jump to your IQ Kangaroo loose in the top paddock Like a pair of children’s scissors, bright and colorful, but not too sharp Million dollar body and a 2 dollar engine. Mind is in neutral, body is in gear Mind like a rubber bear trap. Needing a few screws tightened Not firing with all spark plugs Not the brightest light in the harbor Not the brightest light on the Christmas tree Not the sharpest hook in the tackle box. Not the sharpest pencil in the box Off his rocker On/off switch is broken in the off position One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl One neuron short of a synapse One taco short of a combination plate One turbine short of an airplane One-celled organisms out score him in IQ tests Prime candidate for natural deselection Proof that evolution CAN go in reverse Requires directions to lay sod Room temperature IQ Running about a quart low Running on empty Sets the lowest possible goals, and consistently fails to achieve them. Sharp as a bowling ball. She is so dumb, she couldn’t tell which way an elevator was going if she had two guesses. She is so dumb, when I asked her to pass the plate, she said: “Upper or lower?” She’s not tied too tight to the pier Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled Strong like bear, smart like tractor. Takes him 1 1/2 hours to watch 60 minutes The elevator is stuck between floors. The lights are flashing, the gate is down, but the train isn’t coming The lights are on, but nobody is home. The wheel’s spinning, but the hamster’s dead Too dumb to pull his head in before he shuts the window Too many yards between the goal posts Two hub caps short of a Buick. Warning – Objects in mirror are dumber than they appear Was left on the tilt-a-whirl too long as a baby Would be out of her depth in a mud puddle. Your the flower of my life (you blooming idiot) You can’t call him an idiot, you’ll insult all the idiots in the world.
Your mouth is writing checks that your intellect cannot cash
“I’m not saying you’re the dumbest person in the world—but you better hope the dumbest person in the world doesn’t die.”
Surely your parents only met once. Money was involved; no more than a twenty. And they say she was dressed as a boy at the time.
Everyone has that one friend. In my high school, his name was Rick. For some reason, his stomach did more than ours did and when he farted, it cleared the room. One time, we were outside waiting for a concert and he let one fly. Even in the open air the crowd parted it was so bad.
He became a stewardess after college. He told us about crop dusting the passengers near the bathroom so they would think that it came from someone dropping a deuce.
The best story is that he was visiting the Empire State Building. Right before he got off the express elevator, he let one fly that was God awful he said. A bunch of his male stewardess friends were just getting on, and they were stuck for 50 floors in his sewer air. It was so bad that one of them gave him a hard time a full 3 months later for trapping them in that stench. I’ve tried without success since the day he told me that story to duplicate this feat.
As for me, I’ll pick the empty car every time, even if it is just one floor. I admit I’ve closed the door before others could get in. Why do people get so awkward in a specific place?
As an introvert, every closed room with strangers is awkward. It gets compounded by a group of chatty girls (any age) or someone who wants to talk. That is the quiet zone, like the library where you should STFU until it’s time to get off.
Be a good citizen and kind to introverts. Don’t talk. Also, don’t fart in elevators.
In 2015 saw a Fake Book post by Tim Charlino, a guy I used to ride bikes with that we’d elected Hitler when Trump won. It’s the new Godwin’s Law. It shows people don’t know history as well as they know name calling. Politicians routinely call each other Nazi’s to the point that it doesn’t even have any value.
Hitler killed 6 million Jews, took away their land, property, businesses, lives and dignity. That is the real Nazism.
Hamas attacked Israel on October the 7th and beheaded babies, put them in ovens, raped women and sucker punched over a 1000 people to death. They did it out of hate for Jews. That’s a lot closer to Hitler and Nazism than electing an Alpha Male from New York.
We are going through this antisemitism with Nazi like passion lead by the Muslims. Let’s call a spade a spade.
Sorry Tim, Trump isn’t Hitler, but Hamas is doing their best to carry out Hitler’s dreams.
Here’s a link around of the actions that are eerily like Germany in the ’30’s
“Our message to the sheeple of the settlers: We are awaiting you in all the cities of the West Bank from Hebron to Jenin. We will slaughter you and thou shall say afterwards what Hitler did to you was a walk in the park. We will drink your blood and we will eat your skulls. Come forward, we are awaiting you.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was one of the highest institutes of higher learning in America. It’s where Matt Damon went in a janitor and came out a really smart masshole. Sadly, as we see with other once-respected schools, it’s nothing more than another woke antisemitism factory. And the viral video of a math class being interrupted isn’t the worst of it.
$250,000 so your math class can be interrupted by a pro-Hamas advocate screaming nonsense comes with the territory of going to an “elite” university. MIT alumni tried to warn about the woke mind virus. No one listened. This is what you get.
New York, home to more Jews than most places is also a palace of hate:
Palestine supporters attempt to enter Grand Central Terminal East 42nd Street entrance
It’s not that I don’t like others, just not all the time. Actually, I’d rather be alone most of the time. I don’t even miss others or think about missing them. Most of the time, they let me down or make the time spent together difficult. My appetite for that is over.
People drain me and consistently let me down. I’m sure I let them down when they think I should act like an extrovert, but then I don’t force myself on others.
Small talk is the most draining thing during the day. I know as soon as I get into it that it’s going to be a dreadful and useless conversation. Society expects you to go through this ritual, but that doesn’t make it meaningful or any less painful.
Give me meaningful and deep discussions and you have my attention. Otherwise, I’m happiest writing in my diary and reading.
Not caring what others think about you is a blessed relief. It’s the same when they don’t think of you also, like the remote parts of your family that are annoying.
The best man at my wedding George has the best sphincter control of anybody I’ve known. He drove across the United Stated (horizontally) and didn’t unload the whole way. He also made me paranoid about having to drop a deuce on a public toilet.
I’m a germaphobe to begin with. I don’t trust a hotel room, knowing what I’ve done in them and listening to other peoples stories also. When George was a motel manager, he’d wait until the maid cleaned the rooms and put a clean paper ribbon over the toilet seat. He took the master key and slid off the ribbon, took a shit and then put it back on.
So I’m in the gym today. It’s bad enough already as you are trying to work out and I live in a college town. That means the girls come in to work out in the fuck me shorts all decked out in nips and lips, prancing about. They show off the goods and preen in front of the mirror wearing a ponytail holder on their wrist. God forbid if one of the guys looks, then the whole gym creep thing comes out. I won’t stare because that is what they want. One girl came by this day in the see through lime green sherbet outfit 2 sizes too small and I had to do a double take to see if she was black or white. She’d spent so much time on the tanning bed she could have been either, but that makes her white. Please.
The opposite is also true. There are some that need to be at the gym because they need to lose weight and get in shape. I applaud them for doing something about it, but I am trying not to look at them either. It’s because they are trying to wear the same thing the hot girls wear and it’s not working for covering that much mass. I looked up and almost had my face in a cottage cheese barrel.
It used to be that the gym was just guys in sweat clothes would be there. Then, Jane Fonda let in all the girls and taught them take more and more off. At first,the A/C would make it nippy, but now they wearing body paint skin suits that don’t cover a thing. You know by looking whether you are ordering a #3 roast beef combo or a peach fuzz smoothy without trying. They then proceed to push their cookie up in the air like they were doing upside down doggie and we have to act like we don’t notice. They entice you to look and then get mad if you do.
Anyway, why I wrote this.
I was doing legs today. I work out in the afternoon when the traffic is light so you don’t have to wait for a machine you want to use. I do all my sports page reading business first thing in the morning so it never crossed my mind that I’d have to take a dump. It never happens past mid-morning. I felt a rumbling in my stomach and thought it couldn’t be. I was hoping for a fart and it would pass.
So I’m listening to music during hamstring curls thinking that I could move around some air and the crisis would pass. Wouldn’t you know that the song that played was Should I stay or should I go by the Clash.
I’m in a complete dilemma now as I’d just gotten there and didn’t want to leave, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. I let it go one too many leg curls until I knew I was in trouble.
Having to go on a public toilet is as much a torture thought for me as dropping the soap in the shower in jail. I didn’t have time to be able leave to find the most expensive store nearby as they usually have the cleanest bathrooms according to George.
I realized it was going to happen and I couldn’t stop it. The train was leaving the station. I grabbed the disinfecting wipes for the gym equipment and made my way to the locker room. I’m in there 4 times a week and every time I see legs in the stall with some guy laying rope. I think how disgusting that is using a public can. A bunch of sweaty MF all shitting on the same toilet. I don’t know how girls do it.
I usually go for the cripple stool as is it is less used than the regular stall. It was out of order, so I have to go on one that has been destroyed since midnight as this is a 24 hour gym.
Well, I scrubbed down the seat, then papered it like the second coming of the Mummy and all hell broke loose. You’d think I’d taken the colonoscopy medicine.
I don’t even like going on a can that others use at home and have my own bathroom I call home base. It has a bidet built in so that if I don’t get a clean break, I can get the old Japanese wash and blow dry from my seat.
My fear at the gym was that I’d have to use the whisper thin paper that doubles as a cheese grader that this was going to happen.
I didn’t even run out of toilet paper during Covid because I use the bidet seat so my bung hole has gone back to virginity. TP wiping is something I don’t do anymore.
There was someone in the bathrooms while this was going on, but I didn’t care as your rarely see the same people. It turned out to be Fred the maintenance man. Fred is there every time I’m at the gym. He is kind of like a rain man about cleaning and walked in as soon as I walked out. It was a WWIII destruction zone and I’m going to see Fred again the next time I’m there. I’ll bet he wishes he wasn’t there.
It was a terrible experience, having to open the Bombay doors somewhere other than on home base. I came home and showered, but felt violated that I had to sacrifice my standards because my stomach wouldn’t give me fair warning before I left.
All though I am the same person, I’ve run low on patience in life. I’ve tried to be nice, but this is how it is anymore. I’m a very loyal person, until you cross the line. Once I sense you aren’t loyal, all bets are off.
Like some of my other stories, there is sex, cougars and booze in case you don’t want to read about it.
About the middle of my career, I worked for a disk drive reseller, CORE International. The owner claimed they were a manufacturer, but Control Data made the drives. He lied a lot. See the artificial reef and the Time Tunnel to find out more about CORE.
We went to all of the trade shows, and in the 80’s, Comdex (Computer Dealer Expo) was king. It was in Atlanta and Vegas, but for me it was time for me to escape South Florida and explore the industry. Since I was in charge of the marketing department, it included the trade shows for CORE.
I went prior to the show and set up the booth for a week of displaying our wares to the public, going to the parties and putting up with the wieners and asswipes I worked with.
I always arrived first to set up the booth, then brought out someone from engineering or tech support to set up all the computers. There were a lot of things that have to come together before the show starts.
When I say weenies, most of the engineers couldn’t get a date if it was paid for. For this Vegas trip though, Bob the tech was married to his high school sweetheart. He was well settled down in life while I was still chasing ass. He was a good mid west salt of the earth guy, pretty much the opposite of me when it came to the opposite sex.
It was a time of life that I was at the top of my dating game. Because it was still my party days, decisions on my moral choices were more relaxed than now.
BOOTH SET UP, BRIBERY AND THE MAFIA
During set up, you had to work with the show contractors who supplied mechanical, electrical and moving your booth in and out. If you know the history of Las Vegas, it was built and probably still is run by the mafia. That means you didn’t do anything without them or they would fuck up your booth at night to teach you a lesson. I’ve seen them drive a fork lift right through a crate that held a vendor’s booth worth thousands, destroying it “by accident”. This was after a vendor yelled at them for not getting their booth delivered on time.
You could always get better service with a little green under the table. You would say you were from the Franklin company ($100 bill exchanged hands) and got in line ahead of others when I needed service. Everything ran through the mafia though and that is how it got done.
Sometimes, you had to wait your turn for service. Big companies paid bigger bribes and my company was small potatoes. The CORE owner was cheap. That meant going through their hoops to order what they had left in stock, then waiting for the supplies and manpower to get your job done. It cost me days sometimes in set up time. If he’d had let me play by the mob’s rules, I could have saved thousands on travel, hotel and food, but that’s another story.
I got accused of leaving earlier each time by one of the software engineers who my art director nicknamed needle dick. Since he was a nerd, I didn’t respect much of what he said so I went when it was right. Needle dick couldn’t scare up any gash if his life depended on it. He got adopted by a cougar at work 20 years his senior (and she had lost what little SMV she had – look that up). She got nicknamed Canyon Cooter. This difference in age was compounded by him being smart, close to the autism scale and she was one of the dumbest females I’d ever met. It made for one the biggest mismatches you’d ever see. More about them later, but suffice it to say she was going to teach him how to get a date because in his late 20’s he couldn’t get one, but wound jumping his bones.
YOU BITCH
Back to the story. I was setting up with Bob and needed some extra electrical at the booth. I didn’t have money left to bribe them so I was about 5 deep waiting in line. I watched the forms administrator girl at the desk give everyone an attitude. They knew everyone had to go through them and sort of lorded it over the exhibitors as they were the only game in town. Plus, I’m sure they could have sent Guido or Carlo to fuck up our booth if we didn’t play nice. So, I waited in line.
I looked at her name badge and it said Mary. She was the one at the counter giving the guy in front of me a really hard time. At one point, he looked back at me it was so bad that I held my hands up and shrugged. I sort of thought it might be her time of the month, or she didn’t sleep well or hated her job. It pissed me off and I felt bad for the guy taking such a beating. He was a beta male who didn’t do anything as Mary snapped at him while I watched.
I was tired from days of set up by then and knew I was going to have to deal with another time delay and an attitude when I walked up for my turn to order. Age wise, I’m well practiced at the art of pick up and had an Alpha male game going when talking to girls. I’d learned to dish it out with the best of them.
For this reason, I decided I wasn’t going to take the shit she gave the guy before me. I walked up and my opening line to Mary was, “Are you this big of a bitch to everyone?” Needless to say, it caught her off guard. She changed her attitude and minded her manners. We chatted and I caught a sly smile from her as I went back to my booth. I brushed it off and thought little of it.
I tried to explain this alpha male/female transaction to one of my in-laws, who I’ve nicknamed flounder. He reminds me of Kent Dorfman from Animal House, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.
Sometimes, girls like the man who takes control and put them in their place. Flounder never understood as he only had one girlfriend in life. Mary got it though.
This time of life found me dating a girlfriend back home so I wasn’t looking for ass, but Mary was hot-ish in her own way. I kind of liked that she was feisty unlike my girlfriend who was a milk toast and was a nag right before this trip. In my head, I’d kind of broken up with her and did shortly thereafter. That’s another story
We went back to working on set up and I told Bob I’d called her a bitch. It meant that it could be a while before we got any service, so we did what we could until the help arrived. The electricians came way early so we were both surprised. (Electricians meaning they got paid $100 an hour to bring you extension cords, lay them out and plug them in, a total racket but…Mafia). Mary bumped me to the top of the list for calling her a bitch.
The day rolled on, so we finished work and were ready to call it by going to dinner and crashing at the hotel. I wasn’t a big gambler and knew we had a lot to do tomorrow so we headed out past the contractor tables kind of thinking about tomorrow.
Because the owner of the company was the biggest tightwad I’d ever met in a millionaire, I had to share a hotel room with Bob. I’d get my own room only if there was an odd count of people and I’d take the single because I was trade show manager. I also didn’t want to share a room with any of the tech wieners ever.
As we passed by, Mary was still sitting there and I wasn’t looking my best. I’d been sweating while busting ass all day in jeans and a T-shirt. They had the doors to the convention hall open as they hauled in equipment all day long. It’s hot in Vegas so I was scruffy looking in the Han Solo sort of way. Mary on the other hand had to dress appropriately as that was her job, attitude and all.
While walking by, I threw out a trial balloon to attitudy-Judy and said, Bob and I are going to dinner, I’ll buy you one if you want to come. I guessed that I’d get a laugh and figured she heard it at every show she worked. So I was preparing for the brush off when she said why not……game on.
I was finally making it in life and could afford better clothes, so I cleaned up and put on my Don Johnson Miami Vice outfit (t-shirt and white jacket with nice slacks and loafers, just like on TV). Bob was in his causal married look and wasn’t sure what to expect now that I’d invited a stray to dinner. He also knew we were sharing a room and any copulation calisthenics would have been awkward.
THE TRANSFORMATION
When I called her a bitch, I was speaking to a hair up in the bun, glasses wearing school marm girl. I could tell though that she had a tight body and had potential. Needless to say, Mary had gone home and dolled up into a strapless dress that complimented her good looks. The dark hair came down and the glasses were gone and she went from librarian to a keeper. Even Bob was shocked at the transformation. She was both hot and hopefully hot to trot.
It’s hard to believe knowing the person that I am now was able to be that entertaining then, but I chatted her up over cocktails and a bottle of wine. Bob is enjoying an upgraded dinner and we both thought that would be it. It turned out that Mary was a very smart girl. We had an intellectually stimulating conversation both ways. I learned a lot about the machinations of how things got done as well as life in Vegas. She had a brain to go with the rest of the package. Maybe that is why she gave others a hard time.
I was the only one at CORE authorized to people out to dinner above the expense rate other than the el cheapo boss, but only if I was taking out important people or reporters. Bob didn’t say anything because he got a way more than the expense approved dinner, and I invited what was now a hottie to dinner. I’m sure I filed that expense report to the head accountant Tony (sounds Mafia also) that might have not been exactly accurate.
At the end of dinner, Bob excused himself to go to the bathroom before leaving and I figured what the hell. The odds were against anything else really happening between Mary and I, and I really didn’t care. We were on our way to being drunk and I’ll never see her again, plus I have to deal with sharing a room with Bob. I made the first base move anyway. The next thing I knew, Bob came out of the bathroom to see Mary and me tongue deep in the middle of the restaurant.
I now have the dilemma of the where to go logistics. I’m sure Bob’s wife didn’t want to hear about Mary and me slobbering on each other all night long and I’ve got the stingy accountants hanging over my head about spending money for extra rooms in Vegas.
I knew that once everyone came into town in a couple of days, that I’d be moving into the single room. I’d pre-arraigned to have the prerequisite odd count of people enabling me to have the single, but expense policies required us to save the penny pinching company owner money prior to that.
My judgement is now sufficiently impaired by alcohol and my hormones were raging by, so I said fuck it. Next thing I knew, I had Mary in tow and stood in line at the hotel lobby and charged a single room to the company credit card. President Hal and VP Robert A were going to shit when they saw my expense report already as I’m down a dinner way over the per diem by 3 or 4 times. I now add a room that I wasn’t supposed to be charged for 2 more days. Those two dicked around the employees so I wasn’t motivated to help them in any way. I was thinking with the little head by then, so the night progressed and we said goodbye to Bob.
I wonder what Mary was thinking. Her day started with a boring job of grilling show people about filling out the forms for electricity. She’s now out to dinner with a charming stranger and about to go back to a hotel room with someone she’s known for a couple of hours who called her a bitch.
In my head, I’m playing We’ve Got Tonight By Bob Seger. It was the part that goes:
I know it’s late I know you’re weary I know your plans don’t include me Still here we are Both of us lonely Longing for shelter from all that we see Why should we worry? No one will care girl Look at the stars so far away We’ve got tonight Who needs tomorrow? We’ve got tonight babe Why don’t you stay?
As I mentioned, I’d been around the dating block by now and knew how to game girls. I’d been pulling ass for a long time and it wasn’t like I was trying to lose my virginity. We checked into the hotel and had another heavy make out session when Mary excused herself to go to the bathroom.
The night is ticking away, I’m drunk and realize I have another long day tomorrow. I knew Mary had to show up at the contractors desk early. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to try hard because if was going to happen, fine…if not, also fine.
While she’s in the bathroom, I’m thinking of how I’m going to say goodbye and I had a nice time after getting told no, then catching some shut eye. I’d had about as much fun as I figured I was going to have and didn’t have a lot of patience to wait all night for nothing. I’d done enough of that growing up and rejection was going to be as good as success. The outcomes were equal to me.
Just about that time, Mary comes out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. As I started back to kissing her, it fell down and she said, we’ve got to get you out of these clothes.
One thing led to another and we did what grownups do in the prime of your life, for a long time, all over the hotel room. She enjoyed it immensely, which I found out later. I did my best John Holmes impression to make it worth her while. She said she visited the big O hall of fame multiple times. It was our first night so we hadn’t been together long enough for her to lie about it yet. I had put so much effort into it that night to make her happy that I’d passed out and she went home.
When I woke up the next morning, on the mirror I found a post it note to call for round 2 as she wanted more. Comdex hadn’t even started and my trip has already been eventful.
I glided by the contractor table the next morning and the attitude was much nicer. It turns out that all she needed was a good time and to get laid. It was on for us now.
I didn’t say anything to Bob. He’d seen me sucking face and I didn’t come home last night.
I enjoyed the week with Mary. She didn’t have to work during the show, unlike the 12 hour days on my feet. She was a good sport about showing up to see me at the end of the day. It was nice to share time together and got me the hell away from the CORE douchebags. One of the days when I was coming back from the show, I met her in the lobby and we immediately dumped the rest and headed up to my room. I’d walked back to the hotel with Bill Quinn, a serious stiff who knew I was his only key to after show entertainment. He was lost without me getting him or the others into the show parties. He kept asking what happened as he saw me meet and leave with a girl in the elevator. He wouldn’t see me again until the next morning. He told me he wanted details, but I gave up nothing.
TECH WEENIES TRYING TO ACT HIP
I refused to hang with most of the CORE people I had to work with as they were too lame to be around. Case in point, one of the nights there, I had to invite them to a computer magazine party, because the owner Hal was there. I picked the one that was the shortest to end my pain with them. I was going to the real party after that. I must have had that night off from Mary. Duty calls.
The DJ played the song Shout (Otis Day and The Nights for Animal House Fans). These losers called it the CORE song and went to the dance floor to look like fools. This included needle dick, canyon cooter and Sondra Arken (who got nicknamed Barkin as she was an ugly feminist with an ugly attitude who refused to shave her legs and pits). Also acting the fool were some people I’d come over to CORE with when General Micro Computer went chapter 11 like Trish Brainard, Holly H., Susan (Suzy Q, the JAP with the huge ta ta’s). They were such idiots that everyone from GMC except me got fired shortly after this for being incompetent. I pretended to go up with them as we left for the dance floor, but diverted to the men’s room to hide as I refused to be seen with them. I don’t think it was lost on them.
Here’s the deal. I was the president of my fraternity when Animal House came out. We’d already done everything in the movie other than kill a horse. We’d had a real toga party when listening to Shout. The CORE pussies were nursing a light beer. When I was in college, we were drinking grain alcohol punch dressed in sheets. There is a difference. They were embarrassing as they were trying to act hip, but at best pulled off a broken hip. There were a lot of losers in the computer industry and some of them worked with me.
I dumped them after that and went either to see Mary or to the real after party. They never knew.
THE GEEKS LOSE THEIR VIRGINITY
So I’m being very discrete about my encounter with Mary. Even when seen, no one knew what I was really doing. Bob the tech didn’t tell everyone there about the night prior to the show…….As opposed to this next part.
In the background, Canyon Cooter has made her move on needle dick who’s never seen a boob in his life, much less hold one. They now show up to the booth in matching outfits. She was getting divorced was old enough to be his mom. They dressed like sherbet Ice cream in their matching lime green and orange suits. When you fuck around at work, at least don’t advertise it by making a fool of yourselves. He never had a chance as she pretty much adopted him. They looked like a kid and his mom in a gag worthy moment. It was the only pussy he would ever had in life at and that statement is pretty sad. He wanted her to show him how to talk to a girl at work he couldn’t get a date with, and the next thing you know they are bumping uglies.
When you score your first touchdown, act like you’ve been there. He was a trained puppy on a leash from then on following her around. They were saying nothing was happening, but were so bad at hiding it we couldn’t avoid the obvious. It was as bad as having to hear about your parents having sex, freaking disgusting for all of us.
I on the other hand am having a grand time with a hot girl and giving her the ride of her life while telling no one. Here’s how I know. When I left Vegas after the show was over, she looked me up in Florida to try and find me for more (no internet back then so it was a big effort). It turns out that I am a namesake and she wound up calling my parents in another town, also in Florida. I thought it was a nice gesture and Mom had to know what was going on. She wasn’t born yesterday.
All good things come to an end and it was time to leave Vegas and go home. I have no need to go back to that town other than for computer shows so I knew it this was ever only going to be a week. I hate Vegas despite the time with Mary. I never promised anything to her other than when I was there. I never led her on. It was what it was. She had the next show rolling into town the following week (the Car Show). It just didn’t have a future written on it.
I recall our last moment together. She finished on top and I was staring at her right boob. I thought to myself, I need to remember this moment for when I was in a dry spell.
Life goes on. Needle dick wound up marrying canyon cooter. Ben Greene told us all that the bill would come due when she turned 80. He’s probably changing diapers now. I saw the disappointment on his father’s face at the wedding. He married his mother, a washed up flabby old lady. At least they didn’t reproduce. The world is better for it.
Bob left CORE and went to Novell, then the Networking leader. Hal sold the company to Sony after lying about the contract he had with IBM. Robert came out of the closet and was queer as a 3 dollar bill, but he was a prick to everyone anyway. I filed the expense report and I think I went over by so much that El Capo, Tony wouldn’t approve all of it. I made it all back on the next expense report. CORE went out of their way to screw over the employees. The per deim wasn’t enough for one meal, let alone 3 per day in Vegas. I never tried to come out ahead, but they wound up paying for everything on the next trip. We ended up even.
I still had to work with the other wieners who rarely got any girl action. Despite the stories that got told about my escapades, I would never admit it because I didn’t need to spike the ball. I never told them this story either, until now. Bob told them enough when we got back that I got the stink eye from the engineering and tech support departments. Most of them were still 0 for life in girls when I left.
Mary and I never spoke again. By the time I found out from Mom that she’d called, months had already passed. I hope she remembers it fondly. I guess I’m the one that got away. I would have picked her over my milk toast girlfriend. She was better in every way.
Life moved on, but times like this are burned into my memory bank. A version of this story would happen to me again at future computer shows, more than once and different countries.
I have fun memories of that week, it’s just that we lived on opposite sides of the country and what happened in Vegas like most times, stayed there.
I can hear it now. Tell everyone three things about yourself
Compounding it would be a networking event. Dear God, why do they put is through that.
I’ve never remembered anything that someone told about themselves, even if it was extremely clever, which some have been. They won’t remember about me either.
When will the world stop trying to fit everyone into the same box. I hate this exercise and avoid groups to just not have to go through it.
At least have the courtesy to say you don’t have to go through this if it offends you. No one cares about our feelings and being put on the spot is as bad as it gets sometimes.
Extroverts love this as they get the rush of dopamine when they can talk about themselves to others. I don’t think they really care what I or they say, so why do we have to do this?
My mom told me I had to stick with my family and put up with gatherings because they are blood. She was right on most things in life, but not this one.
I look at them like I look at most people. If we were friends or wanted to see each other, we’d get together. Now, it’s just weddings and funerals, and I avoid those if possible. I missed the last one that made me the patriarch of both sides of the family now. That’s not a burden I relish or will give any attention too.
Besides avoiding both sides of my family whenever possible, my wife’s family doesn’t live in my country, so I have it easy there. They sit around and trash the US to feel morally superior so I don’t want to be a part of that.
Best of all, I stopped drinking a while back. Most of them drink a lot when they are together, so I don’t get invited to almost everything. I think I make them feel uncomfortable. They are happier to be around people who drink a lot without feeling guilty. I don’t get invited and it’s one of life’s blessings.
I treat others like they treat me. Fortunately, most of them don’t want to talk and I keep my head as low as possible so I don’t get in their line of fire.
Still, leaving is always my favorite part of getting together, family or otherwise.
The world and the media and especially Social Media is trying to tell you how to live, what to say, what is politically correct and so forth. It’s so much shit that you don’t know which way to turn.
I’m finding that staying to myself makes it easier. I don’t have to fit into the world’s definitions of what I should be doing instead of what I want to do. It used to be a lot easier before the Karen’s and Chad’s tried to build their power base by judging others. I got fed up enough of that crap with the high school childish games we suffered through.
I decided to grow up and make my own rules. It’s because I’m an introvert and didn’t do stuff like get the Covid Jab. I’m not as accepted for what I believe, but like Groucho Marx said, I’d never belong to a club that would have me as a member. It’s made my life a lot easier.
This is the way they want you to behave on social media now. I had to eliminate that to not drive myself nuts. I got the added benefit of not having to find out what others did to try and make themselves feel better when they got likes. My favorite benefit was re-losing people I was able to move on earlier in life. They found me on social media, but I already removed them once for a reason.
The way I looked at it, if I wanted to stay connected (or we wanted to together) we would have. Not for likes. I guess I just don’t care enough what they did after we parted ways all those years ago. I got to lose family that made life difficult also.
I get some love to reconnect and rehash things, but I already did that in my private journal. If it was that good, I wouldn’t need social media to see what they ate or drank while doing stuff I didn’t care about.
This version of non English is how social media is. Almost non-sequitur.
With all the bullshit with the lying about the politicians and covering up by the media, if I get too involved with it, this happens to me
I can always revert to my introverted life and spend time alone with my thoughts and pets. That way people aren’t ruining my life as much.
“Roll down the window.” Cars have had automatic windows for ages, making the manual rolling down of windows a thing of the past. I still say this, though, in my 1964 Mustang.
“Check the answering machine.” Voicemail on cellphones has obliterated the need for a physical answering machine. I think it’s super interesting Apple’s iOS 17 lets you listen while someone leaves a voicemail so you can decide to pick up. New? Hardly.
“Dial 411.” My mother designed the 411 directory system for Bell Labs. Now, just look someone up online and you have their digits.
“Beep me.” Pagers were all the rage once upon a time. Today, they’re used almost exclusively in healthcare or other specific industries.
“I’ll tape it.” You no longer “tape” shows with DVR and streaming services. You just hit “Record” on your device or catch it later on demand.
“Rewind” or “Fast-forward.” These phrases made perfect sense for cassettes and VHS tapes, and, yes, we still use them metaphorically, but you’re not actually winding anything.
“I need to find a payphone.” My dad used to make me carry a quarter just in case I needed to make a call. With a cellphone in nearly everyone’s pocket, payphones have become an urban relic.
“Get the film developed” or “Don’t waste the film.” Oh, the good old days of waiting to see a picture you looked horrible in. Digital cameras and smartphones have done away with this.
“Look it up in the White (or Yellow) Pages.” Online directories have replaced those hefty books.
“I’ll fax it to you.” Fax machines are just about dead. Warren Buffett once told me that’s the only way he’ll do contracts. Why? No one can hack a fax machine, unlike email.
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Sensitivities expressed by the administrators in the interest of underperforming students does not appear to extend to parents of the more accomplished students. Parents objecting to the “dumbed-down” curriculum have been subject to slurs and insults by faculty and administrators: “Racist” is a common fallback term used by administrators to label parents objecting to the “equity initiatives.” At one school board meeting in another district, Asian parents were met with a sign that read: “Leave your Asian privilege at the door.”
Delusions of Adequacy 