“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.” - Benito Mussolini

Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy. Both the books and the radio shows.

That’s just Melanie Scrofano.

The correct answer is chile verde and cheddar cheese. I don’t care if you need to eat it with a fork, it’s what happiness tastes like.

You do have the benefit of being right though.

The word octopus is a classical Greek word that comes to English via Latin. The Greek plural is octopodes, the Latin plural is octopi. But we don’t speak Latin or classical Greek. We speak English. Because octopus is the English word for octopus it follows the English rules for pluralization, which is to add “s” or “es” to the end of the word. Cases can be made why octopi and octopodes could be technically correct, but for English speakers octopuses is the most correct.

Usually breading meat starts with dipping the meat into an egg wash before you dip it in the bread crumbs, so the yellow probably comes from egg yolk.

Rom-coms are aspirational fantasies. They’re modern-day fairy tales of getting swept off your feet by a handsome prince and living happily ever after, never wanting for anything ever again. Material comfort is always a factor in these stories. If it’s not overt, as in Pride and Prejudice where the main character betters their station by ending up with the mega-rich guy who seemed like a dick but turned out to have a heart of gold, then it has to be implied by the setting and the lifestyles of the characters. If the material wealth of the love interest isn’t going to be a factor in the story then it has to be demonstrated that those financial needs are met in some other way.

You’re probably never going to see a rom-com where the main character gets their one true love, but being with them condemns them to a life of struggle and poverty. No matter how you try to spin it so it’s ok because at least they have each other, that would never be a truly satisfying ending in this type of movie. Material needs to be taken care of too. Even in movies like Overboard where the whole point of the movie is Goldie Hawn learning to be a human being by struggling through a working class lifestyle, they still have to end up rich at the end for the story to feel fully resolved.

It’s polite to pretend that money doesn’t matter, and a lot of rom-coms try to down-play it, but it does. It does matter. And it always shows up in one way or another.

I don’t know that I’d consider myself an audiophile, but I am a musician. I run a pair of powered studio monitors out of the back of a Focusrite Scarlett usb audio interface for recording, and it’s way better than any computer speakers I’ve ever owned in terms of sound quality and fidelity. Of course, I’m also not trying to have a dance club setup that’s going to rattle the windows on my nextdoor neighbor’s house with super-ultra-mega bass, but it’s an avenue to consider.

Depends on which map you look at.

In the same CoolZone Media vein, Hood Politics might fit the bill as well.

There’s really only one choice .

I used to have this idea of shady lobbyists skulking around Washington with big bags of money, trying to entice wayward congresspeople and lure them to the dark side. Then a friend of mine did a short internship in the office of a congressman, and I found out it’s actually very much the other way around.

You’d think a congressperson spends most of their time reading, writing, debating, and voting on the laws on which the country is run. That’s their job description. That’s what we’re taught in school that they do. But what they actually spend most of their time doing is cold-calling people and soliciting donations. So if you define their job by what they spend the largest amount of time doing, your congressperson and your senators’ job to beg for money so they can keep their job. There’s a big call center just off the Capitol grounds, and as soon as the session at the Capitol ends they all walk over to the call center, plop down in their cubicle, and spend the rest of the day calling past and potential donors.

But a principled politician could just choose not to participate, right? Maybe, but even if you could self-fund your own campaigns, you still have to get out and earn for your party. Having the support of your party is contingent on hitting predetermined fundraising metrics based on the population, demographics, and economics of your constituency. If you don’t hit those metrics you might suddenly find that it’s tough to find support for your legislation. It’s the same in either party.

It was one of the most disappointing things I ever learned about how our country works. The corruption isn’t just baked into the system, it’s all but mandatory. And this was like 25 years ago, before Citizens United. I can’t imagine it has gotten any better since then.

Obviously the greatest documentary ever committed to film: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

It was the spider solitaire from the games solitaire and casual games folder in the start menu.

Yeah, it’s very annoying. So annoying that I just stopped playing solitaire rather than sit through the ad. It remains unwatched.

Yeah, being forced to sit through unskippable ads in order to even just play solitaire is real special. And even if you close the program and restart your PC, the ads are still right there waiting for you to watch before you can continue with your game. This is probably going to be my last Windows machine.

My new mattress is getting delivered tomorrow. I’ve been sleeping on a cheap crappy Ikea mattress for years, and I just couldn’t ignore how bad it is anymore. Hopefully with the new one I’ll finally be able to sleep longer than six hours without waking up feeling like I’ve been in a fight.

Good for you. Quitting nicotine is fucking hard. I quit smoking over a decade ago, but I finally got completely off nicotine products just last year.

Just some advice that helped me: keep a zero nic vape around so if you’re out drinking (or some other situation where your willpower is low) and find yourself needing to vape you have one that you can hit without backsliding with nicotine. Otherwise you’re going to find yourself hitting a buddy’s vape loaded with 50mg nic salts or something, and you’ll be back to square one.

Also, notes taken with pen and paper never run out of battery, or need to be charged. They’re powered by basically any light source.

Literally dozens!