99.9% of jobs do not require urgency of any kind, really they don't. We've all had a boss who acts like someone will die if we don't hit some made up deadline by people who don't even do the job. No one needs their meal 1 minute faster or the paperwork before tomorrow morning. Your time off actually doesn't need to wait. Sometimes I think about how legitimately bad most businesses are at time management and hiring, and I wonder how they manage to exist at all.
This was one of the biggest culture shocks for me a couple years back. Had been working for a marketing agency for a decade, when they lost their primary client and shut down. Suddenly out of a job. Found new job in pretty short order, remote work for a medical supplies provider out of state.
The difference was staggering and totally not what I expected. I used to build websites that sold or facilitated selling frozen burritos. They treated everything like the next apocalypse. I was concerned about going into an even more important industry, medical supplies.
I was wrong. Nothing happens quickly unless it's truly an emergency and even then, there's checks and balances to making that distinction. You are not only unimportant as a single developer you're also imminently replaceable, and that feels amazing. My mental health changed significantly for the better since I was forced to find my current job.
Me, thinking about the Walnut Sticky Bun, Bowl of Bing Cherries, and large handfuls of Corn Chips I ate when I realized I forgot to eat breakfast: Ummm... kind of a salad.
The Waterboy, mostly for Kathy Bates. She's got such amazing comedy chops but they're so rarely used. Fried Green Tomatoes, on that note though, is a good watch too.
Gonna post a second time because while this isn't a movie, it's a video my kid watches all the time on YouTube and it honestly cracks me up every time.
It's the dumbest thing but you can't help but laugh.
This was a fun one, so let's do it again. What is something you've learned that seems unlikely, even though you know it's true? Here's one I think about a lot:
Sight, while being something something many people are born with, is not an innate ability, but something we learn to do. People who were born blind or were blind for a long time, who get sight, have to learn to see.
Matter, all matter, never really touches anything physically (under normal earth surface circumstances). Never. If you physically connected your matter with say, that of a chair, you'd cause some kind of nuclear fusion reaction and probably create a pretty wicked explosion. You're definitely gonna make headlines.
Instead the magnetic fields of individual atoms interact and repel each other.
In quantum theory this is often demonstrated by saying something like "and that means you can calculate a non zero probability that you'll lean against a solid wall and pass right through it".
I prefer the other end of that same lesson: there's also a non zero probability that all the atoms that make up your entire body just up and blast apart and you dissolve in an instant. Every waking Planck second of existence, there is a chance and that die rolls. Keeps the students more on their toes, I think.
Because like the wall in the first example, you and your limbs and organs are also made of atoms that aren't actually touching either. Just happen to be spinning round eachother by virtue of countless tiny little physical reactions that started before you or even your mother was even born.
I just got this skit flashing in my mind with Neil DeGrasse Tyson mansplaining quantum physics to his daughter when she complains that her brother hit her in the back seat during a road trip
"Actually, he didn't hit you Miranda. Travis created a wave of interactions starting from his shoulder and propagating down toward his hand and across empty space into your shoulder..."
They don't define words, they play with words despite their definitions. It's a subtle but important difference. That difference goes to the heart of why their brand of politics is just authoritarianism. The ultimate desire of the authoritarian is to dictate objectivity as desired, moment to moment.
You could use the definitions they use against them and they'll just redefine it again and scold you for using an old definition.
Work with what we got. History shows new parties emerge out of old ones, the ones that stick around anyway. There's flashes here and there but generally they come from something that existed before. So I'm gonna keep pushing progressives into the Democrat party, keep pushing them further left. It's the best option.
Might curb your cynicism a bit to consider that theirs is a reactionary standpoint. The further we push to the left, the more they're going to push back. They're getting cornered. There's losing, badly.
That they're pushing so hard for fascism all over the world today is terrifying, but also indicative that all over the world people are getting more progressive and are not hearing their bullshit. It creates a three steps forward, two steps back situation that cycles but it is ever heading to the left as we look back in history.
Our side has the numbers and the historical precedence. Theirs has insistence. It's gonna be tumultuous to say the least but they're going to lose like they always do.
I used to babysit a lot, and I was kind of famous for getting kids to try foods they normally wouldn't. I was never pushy about it, just included them in the shopping/harvesting/cooking process, and asked them to try a little bite of everything, and to remember that your tastebuds change as you age, so keep on trying stuff.
This backfired on me occasionally though. Once as an adventure, we went to a Japanese restaurant, and I ordered the kiddos some Katsu (who doesn't love something fried with dippy sauce), and got myself a plate of sushi rolls and sashimi. Well, since I always asked them to try one bite of something new, they looked at me expectantly, so I let them try a bit of each. Turns out they were all in for sushi, and those little nerds ate most of my plate, and then they always wanted to go. Kids, I don't have sushi money every day!
My kid is autistic, with one of his biggest traits being his food aversions. He only likes crunchy things. It's very difficult to get him to eat stuff.
One day back when he was maybe five, before his food aversion thing started, he saw his mom eating hot cheetos and seemed interested. Mom offered him one, hesitantly, and he ate it. Then he started crying because yeah, they're spicy. That was his first really spicy thing.
Mom felt bad of course, and began apologizing. But the kiddo stopped crying right away and went for more. They're now his favorite thing, so much that we have to stop him from eating too much. He ate a whole big bag in about one sitting without us realizing it, while Mom and I enjoyed the peace and quiet. He paid for that later that night, on the toilet, but didn't learn the lesson. And I've learned that he's probably going to have addiction problems like his dad and his grandma, so that's something to watch for.
My reason for moving: When Trump got in, I said to Mr. Laffy, "He'll now have the courts. We can't overcome a lot of that." This is what I was referring to:
#BREAKING: #SCOTUS upholds #SouthCarolina's congressional map, reversing a lower court decision that struck down the map for racial gerrymandering.
Pointedly asking what prevents Biden from appointing a handful of judges anyway.
The number of judges on the court isn't mandated anywhere in the Constitution or by federal law. The number of justices is simply traditional. Rubio proposed an amendment to limit it to nine but good luck getting 2/3rds of Congress to agree to it. They haven't, not in the five years since it was proposed.
The fact that Rubio and Co even proposed the change shows they're aware of that hole in their defense. When your enemy shows you their cards, you take advantage.
Months ago I was at teppanyaki with my wife, the kind of spot where the chefs carry around a speaker to play some music during their cook/show.
My wife remarked to the guy after a while that she "loved all these songs" and the guy says "I gotchu girl, don't worry" and he picks up his phone and shows us the playlist pictured.
I died laughing y'all, and while my wife felt probably more seen than she ever had in her life, she took his phone and scrolled through that playlist and just said "God dammit, I love ALL these songs!" and then went and added the playlist to her account.