Damn, that was good. I probably should’ve phrased things differently, haha.

I can’t wait to play this game three days straight with the upcoming long weekend.

(For the international crowd - next Monday is Memorial Day in the US, a federal holiday and one of the rare ones where my workplace is closed.)

It misses the part where the person went to college anyway and still wound up “flipping burgers” because their field isn’t hiring. Except now they have to pay off several tens of thousands of dollars of debt with that measly salary.

I must be out of the loop. What does “blue dot fever” mean?

I’m grateful that my work involves running around with children, lifting them up, spinning them, etc. I get a bit of cardio and strength training while making money.

Except today. It was hot as balls and the air conditioner wasn’t fully working. I produced enough sweat sitting still to put a gym bro to shame. At one point a kid was spinning around on a spinner toy and I sat next to her just so I could feel the breeze it made, like a little fan.

Everything I’ve learned about flood water makes me think this “wade mode” thing is a lawsuit waiting to happen, especially given all the cybertruck’s other issues (like the hidden emergency door handles.)

Can’t see the bottom of the road due to all the fast-moving, murky water? “Don’t worry, I’ve got wade mode!” - famous last words before driving a cybertruck into a concealed ditch and getting swept away by unseen, underwater currents.

As if foolish people need extra confidence to do dangerous things. I might trust a traditional truck with this feature, but that’s just because most other vehicle manufacturers don’t appear to be trying to kill their customers. Tesla, on the other hand…

Yeah, they’re just sharing your info with their 1000+ “legitimate interest” partners. Nothing sketchy about that, no sir.

Oof, my brain took this in a dark way. My first thought was that ICE took the teacher.

Fuck this timeline, I can’t even properly interpret a simple, light-hearted comic strip anymore.

The city I live in hasn’t updated its lane designations in ages. There are numerous streets where there’s no visible line at all anymore, and you honestly can’t tell if there’s supposed to be one lane or two in a given a direction. Sometimes old lines are faded but still visible, while new lines were just lazily slapped alongside them. Then there are intersections where the lanes don’t match up with each other once you pass through - that is, you could be driving in the center lane, but if you continue going straight across the intersection, you’ll wind up in the left lane. The road shifts over without warning or guide lines on the street.

My car doesn’t have lane assist or departure warnings or any of those bells and whistles. I can’t imagine how much more difficult navigating here would be if it did.

Honestly, it’s is a good argument in favor of letting kids become bored. Being bored used to be a universal experience before we had pocket screens everywhere. It gave us the opportunities to explore reading, creativity, and the world around us. Putting screens in kids’ faces at every potentially-boring moment in life deprives them of that, and trains them to consume entertainment instead of creating their own.

I cherished sitting quietly in the back seat of the car on long rides. I loved the peace and the changing scenery, it’d let my mind wander. I’d ponder questions, come up with stories, and analyze my emotions and experiences to better understand myself. It’s scary to think that the future generations will be practically born carrying tablets, and as such will rarely, if ever, have experiences like we did to sit in peace and find comfort in it.

I disagree that the rules and patterns are easy to figure out. However, I agree with your point about gut feelings and therapy.

Different people can act/react in different ways, which is part of what makes these moments confusing. Sometimes gut feelings can clue you in to things you’re not consciously aware of, but in interpersonal situations gut feelings can also be colored by your own hopes, fears, and biases. Someone who likes another person may be more likely to read another’s cues as flirtatious. Similarly, someone who doesn’t like another person may read different cues as confirming that they aren’t liked in kind.

Either way, this isn’t enough information to go on. I do get a positive vibe, but what that means can vary. She could like OP romantically, or she could like OP as a colleague and friend. Assuming romantic intent too soon can be disastrous, but building a friendship in the meantime has pretty much no downsides. Personally, I’d let it simmer for a bit and see if other signs come up before making any decisions that could jeopardize either kind of relationship.

I’ll second a vote for citrus cleaner/degreaser. I learned about it from my dad, who’s a (retired) mechanic. I keep a bottle of something called “Fast Orange” under the sink for situations like this, but I’m sure there are other brands that do the same thing (like Gojo.) It’s got a mild grit to it that helps scrub off gunk. The important thing is to use it when your hands are dry and only use water as a final rinse-off.

Precisely. If it’s dark, it’s dark for a reason. At the very least, ask whoever’s in the room if you can put the light on. When I’m dealing with a light-induced headache, putting on the light is a form of torture.

So, you don’t have evidence of plants feeling pain. You have a link to the same article that’s on the top of the page we’re on, and a claim that insects don’t have “animal nerves,” whatever that means.

Insects absolutely have a nervous system comparable in design to those of other animals, albeit with ganglia as their brains. They don’t have the processing power of animals like mammals, but that isn’t vital for interpreting pain.

So again, do you have evidence that plants can transmit or process pain signals? It would be a revolutionary discovery if so.

Humans have nervous systems. Plants do not.

This is a science community. Do you have evidence that plants have a way to transmit or process pain signals? Or are you anthropomorphizing a plant’s reaction to stimuli?

because you look away for one second and they just grow half a meter tall.

Were they bolting? Bolting occurs when the plant is getting ready to flower, usually in response to high temperatures.

If you see your basil plant beginning to bolt, give it a trim. Otherwise it’ll turn bitter. The link provided has more information about when and how to trim it to keep bolting under wraps.

Pops and cracks from a stressed plant doesn’t mean a physical sensation of pain is occurring.

I’ve been buying more frozen vegetables than fresh lately. It lasts longer.

Though a small, personal thing I’m more concerned about is the fact that my work is still planning a potluck next week. Every trip to the grocery store is more stressful than they ever were before, as I’ve had to downsize my shopping list every month. The idea of spending money so I can be seen as a “team player” at the place that I go to make money in the first place is concerning. Most of my meals these days are simple sandwiches, because buying what I really want to buy has become too expensive. Although I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade when they’re trying to plan something fun, I might end up talking to a manager about it. I just can’t justify spending extra money right now. (I am open to advice on how to handle this.)

Joke’s on you, the only people at parties that I want to talk to are fellow nerds who spout random facts.

So many people can’t even change their shopping habits to make more ethical choices. There’s no way a sizeable population is going to forego passing on their DNA just to send a message.

As a teen, I figured I’d adopt kids when I got older. The amount of people who were dead-set on “b-b-but my genetic lineage!” was startling. As I’ve aged through my 20s and now my 30s, I’ve seen them stick true to their word and have their own babies, even with the world circling down the drain. The biological call to reproduce seems to override a lot of other matters.

Now consider how hard it is to get people to quit something without a biological imperative, like shopping on Amazon…

Anyway, I admire your initiative. I just can’t imagine people participating en masse in a protest that involves forfeiting something so dear and intimate to them as their choice to reproduce.