I like two strong vocal leads playing off each other. I’m thinking Alice in Chains, B-52s, the Beths. I have more, but have to close the app and do some real work.

Ho ho ho, future Santa checking in. Mrs Claus is a hair stylist, so we have some insight into what I’m going to need when the days grow short and the beard (hopefully) grows long.

The biggest thing is: full beards take time. And not just time to grow the length, but time (years) for your face to mature and get those hair follicles in the Christmas spirit. There’s really not much you can do if the fullness isn’t coming in yet but wait. I’m in this phase now. It’s hormones. What are we going to do? Not drugs, not Rogaine: not going to help. Take care of what you got.

But you mentioned you DO have a beard, so maybe you have the stellar volume you need to be St Nick, just not the length. Short answer, skin care IS beard care. Get a good skin care regimen that works for your face and your beard will fall in line. You’ve signed up for an everyday commitment to becoming a touchable beard, and they WILL ALL touch it. Toddlers to Grannies, especially, Grannies.

You have the beard! Now you need the color. This depends on your hair color and how your hair accepts color, so you really should go to a professional. If you want to be a paid, real-beard Santa, a good color job will be the LEAST of your expenses and it will pay off on day one.

Being a good Santa is being a good person. It really is just that. But there is a physical barrier that is conforming to the Coca-Cola ideal of Santa, which is the tutorial I just provided for the BEARD ONLY!

I wish you well and I hope you enjoy bringing hope, magic and love into the hearts of children.

"India’s fertility rate has fallen substantially - from 5.7 births per woman in 1950 to the current rate of two.

Fertility rates have fallen below the replacement level of two births per woman in 17 of the 29 states and territories." - BBC

The replacement rate is 2.1 births per woman, just for accuracy. So the country’s rate of 2 per woman on average is below replacement level.

Ha! Gym mat! I can feel the toughness and taste the salt; that is a grim picture you paint.

My wife and I never really went to steakhouses that often, but now that we can cook a better steak than anyone else, it’s once in a blue moon that we go out for one. Marcel in Atlanta is the only place we go for steak and it’s an incredible experience. I just want to put that out there so that people know it can be done right, just rarely is.

If you haven’t read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, put it on your list. Please and thank you.

Speech makes the case we can save a lot of money paying the unhoused to teach us about life instead of universities. Anti-college before it was cool.

My niece suggested this place for lunch today and was quickly shouted down by the rest of the kids here. They know!

Everyone’s going low, but Ruth’s Chris is the worst fucking restaurant experience I’ve ever had. And I’ve been a couple of times, once with family and once because we were given a gift card. Shit apps, shit sides and an acceptable steak for way more money than it should be. The wait staff was creepily servile, like the “how may I pleasure you” that Chick Fil A used to force. And the lights were a cool 5K color temp like I was eating dinner in the parking garage. Fucking garbage.

About 2 weeks on jury duty (USA). The defendant was accused of molesting a little girl. He was the mother’s boyfriend and the breadwinner of the household. They were all immigrants and a guilty verdict meant definite deportation (this was years ago).

The case was in court because the little girl, 9 at the time, had changed her story about the abuse. The mother was the first to come forward to the cops about the abuse, but then also changed her story. We started the trial hearing the prosecutors reading all the original interviews with the witnesses. Then we ended the trial with all of the witnesses (and the accused) being interviewed in front of us jurors.

We had to decide the truth. What happened to this little girl? I took notes. You can’t talk to the other jurors about the trial until the end when you have to make the decision. So I was trying to be diligent and unbiased and come to this very murky conclusion on my own with enough evidence to swing other jurors to my side if need be. It became clear to me that the statements made upon the arrest were concise and corroborated, and the statements made on the stand were awkward and contradictory.

The time came. We were ushered into the deliberation room to do what we came there to do. Someone who has done the juror thing before started with “okay, show of hands so that we can get going, who thinks he is guilty?” Everyone raised hands in unison. I thought I would have to convince people of his guilt with a heroic string of logic and it turns out everyone saw through the bullshit.

Putting the girl on the stand sealed it. Those of us with kids or that had experience with kids knew she’d been coerced. It strongly reinforced the concept of trial-by-your-peers, that due process was integral to the functioning of society, that justice was attainable. I hope she and her mom found some sort of peace and that she’s healthy and happy.

I get called for jury duty all the time but have not served since then.

There is a game where you try to guess the paint color after reading the name that some paint brand has used. Here: https://colorguesser.com/

From the article: “The company claims One UI 8 brings “multimodal capabilities, UX tailored to different device form factors, and personalized, proactive suggestions.” Having used the new OS for a few hours, it doesn’t seem like much has changed with Samsung’s AI implementation.”

If you are curious, the article goes into more detail about the tweaks to the AI layer. I just wanted to provide a TLDR for those keeping up with the general AI shenanigans.

Well, that’s one area you definitely don’t want dandelions growing.

I just watched this a few hours ago. Nothing else to add, just neat.

“Wow, three whole openings!”

This is a total flip of the intention of the source material, but in this moment (in the film) it reads in the character’s voice. I think this is a good message buried in a questionable meme, unless I’m missing something. I’m old, so i used to be meta, but then they changed what meta was, and now what is meta is strange and scary to me.

They’re related, those incestuous, chinless WASPs. Brother takes sister to a formal dance and stops by the pharmacy to get a malt and let Dad get a whiff of sister’s corsage. Keep it in the family!

The Red Room hands out estrogen pills as yet another form of control. If you don’t behave, you don’t get your daily fix. You can tell the non-compliant girls by the lack of secondary sex characteristics. Ol Washboard Wendy over there is a rebel!

“This video is based on a 72-page treatment by William Goldman, Oscar-winning screenwriter of All The President’s Men”

“Technotronic got their name by combining the word ‘techno’, meaning a sort of dance music, and ‘tronic’ meaning ‘tronic’”

“The original 12-inch release of Pump Up The Jam came with a free horse”

I remember every beat of that, but ya know? It doesn’t hold up.

They do, and as a Canadian, they should know that fellow Canadian John Hopps invented the 1st pacemaker. He’s even considered the father of biomedical engineering. I dug through trying to find out if he coined the term “heartpacer,” no such luck. It sounds like a Dutch translation to me.