The other day I saw a mid-90s shitbox in the parking lot and it made me so hopeful for my 2008 car. Like, that’s a sign my car has at least 10 more years in it.

I’m on a queer librarian Mastodon instance and it’s pretty chill.

Agreed. My condo complex doesn’t allow flags or signs. We’re allowed holiday-appropriate door wreaths and that’s it. I’m wicked glad I don’t have to know my neighbors’ politics.

Partner and I once test drove a car that had “passed” a something something-point inspection at the dealer. As partner turns onto the highway he realizes it doesn’t have a rear-view mirror. We were not impressed with that dealership. (Partner later said that when he got in he made sure the mirrors were adjusted, but his brain didn’t clock that there wasn’t a rear-view mirror until he had to use it. TBF, the missing mirror wasn’t pointed the wrong way.)

Same dealership tried to badmouth my Prius in order to get it as a trade-in. Partner had introduced me as his roommate and driver, which made it even weirder.

I have a trans teenage cousin in Texas. We’re not close, but I worry. All I can really do is let him and his mom know I exist in a “safe” state and hope they reach out if they decide to leave.

No worries. “No contact” is the only path to a peaceful existence with my mom. I’ve tried working with her and it doesn’t take. Latest example of why I should just lose her number which happened just now: I missed a text from her then got one less than 24 hours later saying

“Sorry to bother you. I thought you might give a fuck but I see i was mistaken. I won’t bother you again.”

That’s gross dude on a dating site behavior. Tbh, if it was important she could have called or emailed.

Anyways, I’m going to treat her like a gross date and lose her number. This isn’t the first time she’s threatened to go no-contact and I see no reason to protest.

I can’t even get folks to use the right pronouns for me. I have no hope of getting my narcissistic mother to treat me as an adult. She won’t even believe me about basic facts about, for example, about how my city’s public transit works (facts listed on a very large poster she could read herself) if they contradict her first impressions.

Hard disagree. Children should be treated as children, not parentified.

At my grandmother’s funeral, she wore her jewelry for the viewing but it was quietly removed by the funeral home folks and handed to my mother before the burial. So there might be less jewelry than you’d expect.

I’m on Mint Mobile and they’ve not disappointed me yet. TBF, I have minimal expectations.

I just got a can of diet Coke in exchange for a 5-star review of a local eatery. I legit like the eatery, but would not have left a review without the bribe.

Is that a legit review or a fake one?

Same thing over on education. US government entities down to the local level have to comply with WCAG 2.1 by April 2026 iorc, with some exceptions for content created before the cutoff. The exceptions aren’t clearly defined which is causing me a bit of a headache.

I mean, I’d love for all of our legacy documents and images to magically get image descriptions and quality OCR, but the archives have a terabyte of images and PDFs. It doesn’t help that the ruling uses “archives” to mean “legacy stuff unlikely to be used” and we use “archives” to mean “stuff about the history of the college, which students are encouraged to consult”.

Anyways, I’m all for accessibility. It’s good. I’m just borrowing worries from tomorrow about implementation.

I just had the thought that some of our documents are handwritten in ye olde handwriting. That will be the biggest pain in the neck to transcribe. (Shout-out to Transkribus for making it suck less, but it’ll still need to be proofread). I worry that we’ll scan and post fewer of our documents going forward if we have to provide a transcription when we post them.

It is hard to find onion-free chicken stock. My dog goes nuts for chicken but is a fussy eater otherwise, so we’re always on the lookout for dog-friendly stock to add to his kibble.

I don’t eat pig and Applebee’s adds bacon to their Mac and cheese. They list like 8 different cheeses in the description but don’t mention the bacon. Parents didn’t want me to make a fuss so I ate it. That was not fun. (This was years ago, ymmv, I don’t talk to those parents anymore because reasons.)

Me and mine have various food sensitivities (latex, nightshades, pork). I use an android app “fig” to check things at the grocery store–scan the barcode and Fig tells me who shouldn’t eat it and why. It does smart things like label “spices” as yellow because maybe it’s peppers maybe it’s not. The free version is sufficient for one person. The paid version lets you add more profiles.

That’s effectively what I had as an undergrad and it was lovely. Wednesdays were (mostly) reserved for labs, so if you weren’t taking chemistry or another class with a lab, you had Wednesdays to sleep in. I rather miss that.

Ah, I thought you were being racist against people who might sing a song in a non-English language.

Nah, it’s just wicked repetitive and I hate it. I had a cubicle neighbor that played the radio and it felt like that frigging song played in a loop, alongside the “kars 4 kids” jingle.

Feliz Navidad.

USB hand warmers are your friend. Layers of clothing, so you can get less dressed once you get where you’re going. If you drive in the snow, pretend your brakes have been cut and so you need much more stopping distance. Gloves that have capacitive finger tips so you can use your phone while wearing them are awesome. Walk like a penguin (shuffle feet, short steps center of balance always above your feet) on ice, so you don’t slip and fall. Snow is reflective, like the ocean, so sunglasses are nice in winter.

It’s 4-wheel drive, not 4-wheel stop. (Ok, technically brakes can be on each wheel, but that still won’t help in sufficient lack-of-friction)