Every year we have a big family group chat to decide who will bring what to Thanksgiving even though everyone ends up bringing the same thing every year. I always bring pies.

This year, my young, recently-married cousin said his wife was going to bake a pumpkin pie. He got that message out just moments before I hit send on my annual “I’ll bring pies” text. A few minutes later I got a text from my dad saying, “Your grandma wanted to make sure you didn’t buy a pumpkin pie since Allie is going to make one.” I said I did see it and I promised not to upstage the newest member of the family. Apple and cherry were still mine to cover.

Three days later grandma died in her sleep, and I take that as a sign to never buy pumpkin pie again.

I am not a socialist, trade unionist, or a Jew, so I don’t see any problems here.

Coronation Street. I spend $10 a month for a BritBox subscription to watch just that.

Nice pair of sunglasses. Wanted them, didn’t need them, bought them anyway. My wife thinks they look nice on me. Win win.

What has worked (a little bit) for me…

Make notes and reminders everywhere. Everywhere. I have time blocked off on my work calendar, do this specific task at this time, do this specific task at this time, 15 minutes of fucking around time in between. I will literally make a calendar appointment for taking breaks from work. I have a Kanban board of personal tasks to work on. I have alarms on my phone and watch reminding me to take a break for lunch or when to clean the litter boxes, etc.

One benefit of having reminders everywhere is that even when I’m consciously avoiding “The Thing I am Supposed to be Doing,” there’s a higher probability that I will land on something else productive to do instead of zoning completely out. I know I need to write this report by the end of the day, but I just saw a reminder that I need to reschedule my dental appt. Great, I still did something productive. Now I’m one step closer to actually writing that report.

It’s also important to give yourself grace and acknowledge that you’ll never be perfectly productive. Sometimes my 15 minute fuck-around break last 30 minutes. That’s OK. Breathe and get through it. Find the next post-it note or block of time on the calendar that tells me what I should be doing and make an honest attempt to do that. It’s not 100% effective, but it does help set the guardrails so I don’t get too far off track.

Not for the music video so much, but the song “5 out of 6” by Dessa. Such a great hype song. Cannot walk normal when this is in the earbuds, have to strut.

Not as bad as when you think, “That first time was probably a fluke…I’ll try drinking again.”

Some things are in our control and others not.

Epictitus, The Enchiridion

Boston is further north than NYC.

I’m in a fight club, but I’m not supposed to talk about it.

At the moment, it’s that I’ve been awake since 2AM because I can’t shut my brain off about an issue I think might come up later this week at work, that I have no control over, yet can’t help but feel responsible for.

And I would really like to just get some fucking sleep because I’m not being paid to worry about this shit right now.

I’ve had my Hotmail account since 1999 when I was in high school and it still works well enough. It’s what 99% of my accounts or web presence is tied to. I still occasionally get emails from old friends or forum members I haven’t heard from in years who only know me at that address.

I’ve spent (to me) a significant amount of time getting the folder structure, auto-sorting rules, and junk mail filters set up the way I like them. I just can’t be arsed to do that all over again for some new address that will also be considered uncool in a few years time.

I do have a couple more ‘professional’ emails, like first.last@respectableprovider.com, but they just forward to my Hotmail account anyway.

I don’t know about Florida specifically, but in my experience…

Show up at the courthouse or wherever your reporting location is. You will have to go through metal detectors/security similar to an airport. Bring a book or something to entertain yourself, there will be a lot of waiting around.

Everyone reporting for jury duty will get signed in and sit in a big boring room. You may be in this room for hours. Court officials will call a group of 20-40 people by name or juror number and lead you into a courtroom. A judge will give you basic details of the court case and ask if anyone has any disqualifying circumstances (you’re the sole income provider for your family, you’re a student and it’s finals week, the case involves a profession or industry that you’re part of, you personally know one of the people involved, etc…). Both lawyers will ask your group questions to determine if they want you on the jury or not. This isn’t a one-on-one interview, it’s more “Raise your hand if you think insurance companies are the bad guys,” or “does anyone here have really strong opinions about sexual abuse?”

If you get selected to participate on that jury, you’ll stay behind and get further instructions from the judge about the trial and when you’re to report back next. They should give you a general idea of how long they expect the trial to last. If you’re not selected, you may be released immediately or you may get led back to the holding area until you’re called for selection on a different trial. This process could repeat several times. It all depends on what the case load for the courthouse is that week. You may get lucky and get released as soon as you check in if they’ve filled all their juries for the week already (I had this happen once), but since you’re showing up on a Monday I wouldn’t bank on it.

Before you’re released, you should get a piece of paper that acknowledges you’ve fulfilled your jury duty and something to show your employer to prove you weren’t just playing hooky from work.

Bring a book. Be patient. Expect it to take most of the day.

Yes, you have correctly interpreted the answer.

Big Tea.

Looks like some conservative astroturf organization co-opted the name in 2022…

I ain’t gots nowhere else to go.

In an impromptu conversation this doesn’t bother me as much, but if you’re running a meeting or giving a prepared briefing, don’t say uh or uhm all the time. One, because you should know the material you’re presenting, but mainly because I’m easily distracted and will just start counting how many times you say uh instead of paying attention to the actual information.

I have a hoodie with a little tunnel sewed in it to route your headphone wire down to the phone pocket.

Not sure I fully understand the question, but does your water heater have (or can you add) a sacrificial anode?