Don’t you fucking dare speak ill of my Martha. I will hunt you down and force you to eat honey braised turnips from Martha’s website until you agree that her shit’s the bomb

I was the kid whose creating writing assignments over the years triggered more than one parent-teacher conference.

But in all fairness, I absolutely loved horror movies and my parents let me watch pretty much whatever scary movies I wanted regardless of the violence and sexual content. And I turned out okay, I guess, depending on who you ask and relatively speaking. I mean, I have relatives around the same age who are already dead due to their bad decisions in life, so I’m just saying who cares if an 8 year old writes a story about crocodile-like aliens that eat their meals ass first.

… and nobody is there to poop on it, does it even bear repeating at all?

Yeah, I just commented before I saw yours. Taco Bell has declined the most, by far, of the fast food places I’ve eaten at in the past 5 or so years.

I gotta give their corporate overloads credit – it’s kind of impressive that they figured out so many ways to make trash tier food so much worse, charge triple or more for it, and still remain in business.

If that’s a Taco Bell 5-layer burrito, I don’t remember them being 29 cents (grew up poor, we rarely ate out). But by the time I was out on my own as an adult, I could get two 5-layer burritos and a drink for around $3 - $4 USD and some change. It was enough food to sustain me for a day if it came down to it.

But yes, these days the 5-layers are more like dried out 3-layer mini-burrito abominations that cost $3 or $4 a piece. They are pretty much nothing like the large succulent many layered dollar / value menu beasts of the past.

I guess if typing up this post is considered yelling and web hosting is basically all cloud-based these days and I’m an old man by 2025 standards, then yes, I am indeed an old man yelling at clouds. But mostly I’m an old man avoiding Taco Bell now that it’s completely ruined its brand.

My granny used to snatch them things out the air with her hands and shove them in her mouth. Said they tasted good. But she stopped after one time she accidentally caught a palmetto bug instead and bit down before she realized what was happening.

Low pressure front will be moving in from the west early next week so we can expect things to be a few degrees more abysmal and overcast.

MMMMM My favorite flavor, too! Blue Raspberry Pi

I bet he’s got a magnificent, luxurious bush or maybe he’s a torso fuzzball like moi.

I’m here, so keep that in mind, but as far as I’m concerned and objectively speaking, Lemmy does not offer what most casual users / general public want nor does it really operate the way people expect. Whether or not that’s a good thing or bad thing or something in between is more subjective, so I’ll leave it at that.

For example, if I want to scrap my account and start new, fine. But with Lemmy, it’s been forced on me at least 4 times, and several other times I have done it because the instance I was on was unstable, had unacceptable technical issues, or just too much outage. Reddit definitely has outages and other issues like that, but those are generally addressed in minutes to hours, not days/weeks/months.

I’ve long given up on finding a place here for my main hobbies. There are communities, but I don’t enjoy talking to nobody, posting to myself. If I wanted to do that, I’d just get a Twitter account and tweet into the wind. So, honestly, I can see the appeal of going to Reddit so you can actually discuss things and share with other people.

Those are just two examples of things that might keep the average person away. Of course, there are plenty of issues and concerns with Reddit and other social media platforms, but as long as they continue to work in a manner that people understand and expect and offer what folks want, most people aren’t going to go seeking out alternatives that have many more downsides, relatively speaking.

What was the recovery from that surgery like? Any pain / discomfort / concerns?

I am considering getting lens replacement for my dog if I can come up with the money, but financial concerns aside, my other biggest concern is how stressful / painful / risky that kind of procedure might be for her.

I’ll probably butcher this fact, but 20/20 vision does not mean you have perfect vision. It means you have average / normal vision.

I’ve always had 20/20 (or perhaps better) vision. But now that I’m on the downhill side of ancient, I’m noticing that my vision is blurry. Especially while watching TV, reading, etc.

Yet, at both my primary care provider and at the optometrist, I’m able to accurately see all the letters on the vision charts and based on that I have 20/20 vision.

The optometrist (or maybe it was an assistant) explained that it’s pretty common and that 20/20 is just average vision. It doesn’t mean your vision isn’t blurry and it doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from glasses.

The more you know!

You wouldn’t believe how many people go postal once they see my tramp stamp.

Gray squirrels in my area will raid bird nests to feed on the eggs and young chicks. They also hunt and eat cicadas. They sometimes scavenge from animal carcasses and are known to gnaw on mammal bones (like from a dead deer) or even turtle shells for the calcium.

Chipmunks will catch and eat crickets, worms, and beetles as well as small reptiles or even frogs. Although I’ve not witnessed it, I bet they’d at least gnaw on animal bones for calcium.

However, I think hunting voles is kind of a bit more advanced / unique.

Dozens of accounts, yes. But probably only like 3 or 4 real human people if we’re being generous.

To a certain extent, this is why I am trying to stick with a mission driven career, choosing opportunities that I feel actually make some small part of the world a better place. Granted, yes, I’m ultimately doing the job because I need the paycheck since I prefer to have food, shelter, and some degree of freedom/control over my life.

Not everybody has that luxury, though.

And expecting people to play pretend all day as though it’s anybody’s life dream to be typing up OBMC reports because that’s their passion in life and that the people they work with are family and that the ultimate goal of being the dominant player in the disposable widgets industry is for the greater good of humanity – yeah, whatever that’s just subversive mind control games. Glad some people can live in that and deny reality, but for the rest of us, you want me to work, then pay me.