Oh. Oh my. It’s got a clear case, RGB everywhere, cheap gamery keycaps, and for some reason has a double-sided sex-toy stuck to it. I try not to judge. I’ve made some interesting aesthetic decisions with regard to keyboards and even invested a fair amount of time into realizing them, but I have to agree with you. Also…

36g actuation force

Okay, some people will disagree with me and my love of heavy clickies, but that’s not a keyboard switch; it’s a proximity sensor.

Well, it is as big as a whale.

Yeah, of all the Tudor neologisms that didn’t really stick, ‘counterblaste’ is one of the more regrettable ones.

To be fair, James VI/I was a deeply, deeply weird dude, but he was ahead of the curve on second-hand smoke.

Definitely before they knew, but not before some suspected.

Maybe it’s US only? I dunno.

In the US, in high school, and increasingly in lower grades, you can pay for a book that you get at the end of the year that has a headshot of every student and teacher, group photos of all the student organization, summaries of the sports teams’ seasons, nostalgic musings, and various other miscellany. In high school, one of the student organizations is the yearbook staff.

Traditionally, you will all spend some time signing the inside covers of your classmates’ books with inside jokes, inspiring messages, etc. In the long ago, people who kinda liked you might even put their phone number in it.

It used to be a thing in colleges and universities as well, and maybe still is at some, but it’s no longer a traditional part of the experience, probably due to being associated so closely with high school.

Here are some.

Try Love is Blind Habibi. They do it in Dubai, and the juxtaposition of a mostly American style dating show with international Muslim culture, all in a country that wants to politically have its cake and eat it too, it’s a trip. Plus the one couple seems nice.

Yeah, I can’t quite explain it, but it works for me, despite being sloppily plotted, historically absurd, and with a supposed lead who’s the weakest performer on the show and little more than narrative connective tissue. Jay is fun though, and I was fond of Utkarsh Ambudkar dating back the The Mindy Project.

All of those people think they’re not going to fall down, and then they do, with great pneumatic gusto. It’s literal caveman humor, and I’m there for it as long as it’s not trying to be anything more.

Sometimes people win the buzzer thing and then pass. Why do they pass?!?!?!?!? The survey writing is so lazy and weird that there’s always 2-3 reasonable answers and then a bunch of noise from the deeply disturbed or stupid “people” who supposedly provided the responses. Stealing almost never works because the garbage at the bottom of the list is completely unpredictable, and if you go first you get however many answers you uncover plus three more of your own idiotic notions.

We often leave it on as noise now, skip to the end of most of the competitions, and routinely ask each other “who the hell is that?” on the final show where they all come back, but my wife and I have been watching US Big Brother since something like Season 3 or 4. At this point, the formulas are clear and they mostly just re-theme the existing competitions. It does seem like they may have retired “The Racist One” as one of the casting mandates; even the MAGA-coded blonde girl who almost won this past season managed not to say anything to get herself kicked out, though this season ended before the election results made racism okay again.

For shows that I enjoy unironically but can’t in good conscience recommend to anyone, my current favorite is the US remake of Ghosts. I am like a moth to flame when it comes to stupid high-concept stuff, but I bail if I don’t like it. Despite the very sitcommy gags and plots, I find the cast charming and the out-of-time twist on the usual banter is fun. But yeah, it’s still very much a zinger-based sitcom full of stock characters in some form of historical cosplay.

Finally, I giggle like a twelve year old with a fart machine through the opening segment of “Wipeout,” where the only question is how hilariously giant foam-covered machinery will clobber people. The only competitive point is who failed the least, and the edit of the episode doesn’t even pretend to frame that in any cohesive way, likely so they can rig it. I generally watch something else once they move to the next phase. I don’t give a single shit who “wins” and the rest of it is just a traditional physical competition game show with a few pratfalls.

Exactly. They can still do all the line item hijinks and market segmentation they want, they will just have to do it up front and not ignore the discretionary price that they are charging.

The rule would not stop businesses from charging fees. But they would be required to list prices clearly from the onset and to display the total cost more prominently on a website than any other price.

Businesses already get a huge break in the US by not having to advertise prices inclusive of taxes and government fees. They can at least tell us how much they’re choosing to charge us.

Ah yes, the old Manafort special, for the enterprising file clerk who is willing to get fired for leaking info but would prefer not to go to jail.

Even apart from the whole “descent into a Christo-fascist nightmare” thing, which some might argue is the real issue, I suppose, the post-Trump GOP is also going to be so incredibly cringe as a bunch of angry Poli-Sci nerds of varying personal commitment to their awful positions clumsily try to replicate Trump’s brand, which for all of its literal lying and ignorance, rings true to who he is as a person and genuinely taps into the ugly id of many people.

Also, unless I’m seriously overestimating the novelty wrapping paper industry’s commitment to inclusivity, I’m not buying that they couldn’t find anybody willing to make the wrapping paper. Almost guarantee the staffers reached out to a few campaign-merch middlemen who work with Republicans, got told no, and then gave up and told their asshole boss it couldn’t be done.

IIRC for Single vs Double the difference is they will enforce the “form of a question” part. In either round, they will let you mangle the pronunciation as long as you don’t insert or omit phonemes beyond what could reasonably be the result of only having read the word.

So “Alexander Dumb-ass” would be fine, though you’d likely get some gentle chiding, or maybe even have to refilm the question (“portions of the show not affecting the outside have been edited”) afterwards, but if you were expanding NASA and left the ‘s’ off the end of “Aeronautics,” it would be wrong.

From the category COUNTRY, NON-SHITTY VERSION, I have some good ones:

• Merry Christmas from the Family, Robert Earl Keen
• The sequel, Happy Holidays Y’All
• Grateful for Christmas, Hayes Carll
• (Close enough to Christmasy) Snowin’ on Raton, Townes Van Zandt
• Arbolito, Tish Hinojosa
• Literally any traditional carol sung by Willie Nelson or Emmylou Harris
• X-Mas on the Isthmus, Terry Allen and Guy Clark
• Christmas in Washington, Steve Earle

Poor Schwartz.

Sounds like a middle management role at a property management company, managing teams that will do some combination of developing new software, procuring outside software, configuring software, doing shit with integrations including rolling in whatever clusterfuck of legacy systems and data any corporate acquisitions would bring in, and providing tech support under Service Level Agreements. My first impression is that the packages in questions would probably be about some combination of rent pricing, market analysis, maintenance ticketing, and contract lifecycle management.

Frankly, it sounds awful. 🤣 The word soup could also be partly that they’ve already identified internal candidates but have a corporate requirement to post publicly.

In the Permian Basin? You’re not wrong. This isn’t really a case of blue city in red county. Odessa city population makes up over 2/3 of 74% Trump-voting Ector County’s and is the literal Friday Night Lights town. This should not be dismissed as an important moment. It definitely is.

There are things they actually care about enough to throw out your resume on pre-screen though. That’s de facto required for that particular job.