Humanity.

There are plenty of silver linings to point at, but ultimately we’re pretty fucking awful to each other.

'murica checking in.

Yeah fuck it: government. Hard to imagine it doing a worse job than we are.

/shrug.

I’m in my mid 30s now: no idea if it’s normal at this point to remember or forget that stage of childhood.

Money is freedom. It feels a bit icky to attach your love life to that, but your daughter just unlocked a better life-in-general than most of us can have -any- hope for.

She weighed her options and made a decision. More power to her …literally in this case.

Please encourage her to use that power for good.

2016 and the yeas since, but especially the US presidential election that just happened, have absolutely destroyed my faith in the people of my country.

Always figured the govt was fucked, but that the average Joe had a shred of good in him. After the bullshit of the 2016 election, the 4 disastrous years after, and the 4 years following of nonstop Nazi rhetoric from Trump… 74 million of my neighbors decided he’s the guy who represents them; and another 90 million or so decided not to lift a fucking finger to intervene.

No. Good people are a minority. I’m surrounded by hateful bigots who will go as far impairing their own quality of life if it means they can can harm others by doing so. This country and the majority of its inhabitants are evil. We deserve what’s coming.

I have some vague memories from around middle school, but pretty much nothing prior to that.

Highschool and later are locked in, but before that goes from hazy to brick wall real quick.

I’m impressed with the amount of people who can actually remember what they were like as a 10 year old. I’ve got some pictures n’ shit of myself from back then, but honestly that might as well be a completely different person, and I can’t tell you jack about what’s going through their head.

Engineering points for opposing teeth orientation - forward grip on the back wheel for accelerating, backwards on the front wheel for breaking. I like it.

I was an active duty surgical tech in the US military; promoted fairly quickly and ranked up to Staff Sergeant at about 3 years. Shortly after taking that rank, we had a perfect storm of deployments, a retirement, a medical separation, etc that left me as the highest ranking enlisted in the surgery unit, which made me (a still-kinda-newby-surgical-tech) taking the responsibilities of basically a charge nurse. Chief among these was attending morning morning briefs with the top dogs of the hospital (high ranking officers) and giving report. Fortunately I knew where to access the OR’s metrics, so my report was always just a summary of our case load, average times, etc.

This lasted only about a week until we got a new Master Sergeant and Tech Sergeant. Apparently I got some pretty high praise from those top dogs for stepping up (not like I had a choice) and doing a decent job – but that was PURE luck lol. I only did well because things went relatively smoothly on their own. If there was an emergency or something I would have had no fucking clue what to do; and all the junior enlisted seemed to just know that I wouldn’t have been able to do shit for them during that time, so everyone kept the smaller fires to themselves during that time.

It was a weird time.

This is a weird one, but grocery stores for cultures other than my own.

For one, there’s SO MUCH cool shit and delicious foods I never even knew existed. I think the biggest factor though is it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to actually traveling. Can’t afford the real thing.

While I also love their restaurants and cultural events, there’s something about being served or attempting to showcase major cultural highlights in some event that kills the authenticity of the experience.

In their grocery stores, I’m surrounded by that same culture, but none of it’s about me: the other shoppers don’t give a fuck about me, the staff only interact at the checkout… and other than that it’s just me and a can of… some kind of sauce? I can’t read it… but some elderly Asian woman just grabbed two of them and the rest of her cart is filled with what will undeniably become an amazing meal… fuck it, I’ll give it shot!

The drinks and junk food too are also usually a safe option to find something both very different from what I’m used to and very tasty.

Definitely spent more than a few bucks on things that weren’t… eh… compatible with my palette, but finding out is part of the experience.

Idk. Weird thing to get excited about, but it’s a good time.

That’s not how Republicans do. They’ll love every second of their own oppression so long as women/queer/colored/etc people are being oppressed too.

…wait how many plagues were supposed to be? I thought we were done with this after the locusts n’ shit.

In a work environment, best response is to ask things like “why?” “What do you mean?” Etc and let them either dig a hole that you can bring to HR; or come to the realization that their derogatory mindset actually feels really dirty when they spell it out, and drop it on their own.

Lots of talk about which search engine to use; surprisingly little talk about extensions.

Block or Highlight Search Engine Results is my personal recommendation. Whichever SE you use, when you see a result that’s AI slop or a garbage website like Forbes, just add bullshit.com to the filter, set to hide, and you’ll never see that trash in a search result ever again.

Be diligent about it for a good week or so, and your search result quality will absolutely explode, whether your using Google, DDG, or several others.

Gotcha - shouldn’t be an issue with digging to get to the good stuff. That’s more of a small parrot thing with like parakeets and cockatiels.

If he’s eating some I’d just keep an eye on him. Fresh stuff you don’t want to sit for very long, but seeds and pellets can stay in a dish practically indefinitely until they’re eaten.

If he’s not eating at all, or less than normal, vet ASAP. Parrots are REALLY good at hiding symptoms, so any sickness that’s bad enough to make a noticeable change in their behavior means it’s already gotten pretty bad.

For food, just make sure he’s got a good mix - fruits, veggies, nuts, pellets… I’ve never had a macaw, so I’d look up any diet weirdness for them specifically, but in general, variety is good.

Has he eaten any of it? Some parrots will skim the surface, eating all the ‘good stuff’ they can see, but they can be dumb sometimes and don’t realize there’s more food underneath the layer of now-empty shells.

What kind of parrot is it?

Months ago a headline popped up with ‘spanked’ instead. I’m a little disappointed it didn’t take off.

/shrug. No insight on the effectiveness of the design; that’s just what’s in use now.