Jackie's Fridge

I use a Kaweco Sport as my daily driver.

Bonus: Nobody ever “borrows” it at work because it confuses and terrifies them.

I’d love to say I solved that for myself by not having kids, but I just found other sources of stress.

Greetings Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada…

I am with you on every one of these points. The image selection process is terrible now, where before it was quick & simple. And in the past couple of updates, sending larger images and gifs was sporadic until now I always get an error. I was happy when they added message reactions, then puzzled when they just stopped at six, half of which are rarely useful.

I’ve been a paid user for years, but now I’m causally shopping for something else. If they’re giving up on their app, so am I.

She vaguely thinks there may be something out there but it has zero bearing on her life. I think that makes her functionally an agnostic atheist.

It has been surprisingly un-stressful so far, probably due to the ridiculously supportive community there. The best part is that everyone’s submissions go live at the same time every week, so there’s a whole new playlist of brand new music to enjoy!

First of all, excellent username. Second, I would love a chance to win the Tomb Raider I - III remaster just for the nostalgia. Third, the cool new thing I’ve done this year is take part in WeeklyBeats, a year-long challenge to create and post a new music track every week of 2024. So far so good! Fourth, I don’t have a decent meme to share but here (if I can get photos to work) is a photo of my void.

Another vote for the T480. I have a T480s running Mint and it’s been lovely. No driver issues and for office/light media creation/consumption it seems to work without a hitch.

A Mary Sue can fail, but those failures don’t usually have a massive impact and are easily reversed without the feeling that the MS had to struggle to earn the reversal.

The more flaws a character has, the more they have to work to balance them out. Readers are more likely on the side of a character that has to work and make sacrifices to make it through the difficulties the plot throws at them.

Random Example: Diana Rowland’s “My Life as a White Trash Zombie”. Protagonist Angel has a criminal record, drug addiction, abusive home life, and generally makes very bad decisions. Because of her life course, she has very few resources (she can’t go to the cops, nobody she knows has money or connections, etc) but she can think quickly and has a sort of desperate resourcefulness. Because everything is working against her, she has to fight for any positive forward movement, and one misstep can be a serious threat - and those happen frequently, undoing any success and forcing her to burn her resources to try a new path. IIRC in one of the books the B-story is her trying just to earn her GED as the main plot around her is utter pandemonium. Just that struggle to graduate high school is a herculean task given the deck stacked against her. Readers aren’t thinking “how will she win”, they’re thinking “well what’s going to go wrong this time?”

TL;DR: If every time your protagonist has a setback the readers shout “can’t she ever catch a break?” instead of “ah she’ll just breeze through this” you should be doing okay.

It’s been around for a while. Over a decade ago Target ran a cheeky back to school advert featuring a slow pan across school cubbies with lunch pails all labelled with variant spellings of “Braiden”. I thought it was hilarious.

Respond to nothing. Block everything.

It’s a short series (six episodes so far) but with two more in production: The Devil’s Hour.

Go in blind, don’t spoil it for yourself.

If you like a series that gives you all the clues but none of them fall together until the last episode, this one is dark, brain-bendy supernatural mystery with an excellent cast.

Listening to other people, especially to women, is a skill. Don’t spend silent time in a conversation waiting for your chance to speak or be smart or witty, stay quiet and really process what you’re hearing. Imagine yourself in their situation. Accept that what they say is exactly how they feel.

The less time you spend talking, the more your conversational partner will tell you, and the more you will start to understand them, their lives, their goals, and their anxieties.

Knowing and understanding other peoples’ experiences will help you not only make better decisions in your own life, but understand why other people act and think the way they do. You’ll be less likely to snap-judge or make assumptions about others. And knowing more about your loved ones, co-workers, and neighbours will allow you to help them effectively if they need it.

And travel abroad as much as possible - listen to people from other countries and cultures. The human experience is wildly varied and endlessly fascinating.

“Now you can own every installment of the FlatOut franchise at a great low price!”

Except FlatOut: Head On for PSP. Guess I’ll be hanging on to my UMD for a while longer.

If you like twitchy reflex killers, two oldies-but-goodies from Terry Cavanaugh: Super Hexagon and VVVVVV.

Fun chiptune soundtracks, minimal graphics, and so much “I died already? Okay just ONE MORE try and then I really need to get some work done. ARGH - okay maybe ONE MORE try…” And when you finally succeed the dopamine is second to none.

The Room series are great games.

That’s fair.

I think we’re talking past each other but agreeing on the fundamentals. I’m approaching it from the angle of all government positions - absolutely if a progressive candidate has a chance to win any office from dog catcher to president, get them in so they can influence policy. But if they have no chance of winning, it’s just damage control.

Didn’t win? Dude’s a congressman. He’s in.

Voting for other candidates only shifts the needle if they win. If they can’t possibly win, nothing is accomplished by voting for them.