Miles O'Brien

I take issue with the title.

The term “new MAGA bosses” says “these ARE their new bosses and the staff aren’t letting THEIR NEW BOSSES in”

Ajent Ornj doesn’t have the authority to place these goons into the library of congress, therefore THEY ARE NOT BOSSES, new or otherwise. They are THUGS trying to break into a library after being told to leave, because they are there to ruin any positive thing there and burn half the contents. Figuratively or a literal bonfire, doesn’t matter.

Suggested new title: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS STAFF TURN AWAY MAGA THUGS WHO CLAIM AUTHORITY WHERE NONE EXISTS

Whatever their chosen idol does is good and correct, regardless of how many times their idol changes their mind.

Anything else would be admitting they might not have been correct, and that’s not an option for these people.

They get to send strongly worded letters to formally request that other nations possibly consider the contents of.

Or possibly maybe at some point in the future face slight financial consequences.

They’re protesters with guns that refuse to use the guns to actually help people unless it’s inside the extremely narrow scope of their rules.

When you’re dealing with a person that refuses to listen to anyone around them, holding an intervention is useless. Discussing the problems don’t help unless the person doing something wrong is willing to listen to the people they hate.

I know a woman who doesn’t stutter, but has some pretty severe social anxiety. Among other problems.

She began playing a game much like D&D but uses cards for various actions (my parents knew the game creators so we always played that with their game groups instead of D&D)

Super shy and quiet when she started coming to the games, and she didn’t know anyone there. She just saw the sign for the group and decided to stop in (the sign basically says “welcome in, ask questions, stay for a game or two” ) and stuck around. We figure she mostly stayed for the free food.

Once we started playing this not-D&D game, she decided to join during session 2 after observing sessions 0/coordinating/creating and session 1. Had a full character with cards ready to go, even though she hadn’t approached any of us about how to make a character or play, she was not only spot on from the start, she (in a good way) absolutely would not shut up while playing.

Her character is (I think) everything she wants to be. She’s popular, she’s outgoing, as quick with her dagger as she is with her tongue. Basically a rogue/bard wombo combo of charisma and extroversion.

At first nothing changed. The moment the game ends, she shuts down and goes back in her shell.

Then slowly as we wrapped up game sessions, she would begin chatting with her seat neighbors.

Then she started showing up early to sessions when it’s just a bunch of socializing.

Then after awhile, she basically just stayed in character after the games, showed up to sessions already in-character.

After about 6 months she stopped us as we were breaking things down, and had an entire prepared speech where she thanked the group for giving her something to live for.

Apparently she was not only homeless when she first came in, she was suicidal. She just wanted a place to sit and not be judged. Then she noticed we had food. Of course everyone always greets people when they come in and offer any snacks they want. She came back for the snacks. Then she came back for the vibes. Then the game.

She could barely speak to people before she started playing. Panic attacks when she tried. Her character is confident, and when playing with us she feels like she’s confident too.

Now she pretends like she’s her character in her daily life. She got a job at the library we played in every few weeks. She got an apartment, got a bicycle to get around quicker. Made friends outside of work and the games group.

I can’t remember her name, this was almost 20 years ago now, but I will ask my parents about her, I’m curious how her life turned out. I was a teenager and barely cared about some so story that wasn’t my own (cue emo music and it’s not a phase mom) but I’m sure they remember her.

I continued to see her every so often around town when she stopped coming to the games after moving, but she didn’t go back to the library any of the times I was there.

You never know how small a gesture might completely change someone’s life, whether it’s a huge lifestyle change or just someone being a bit more outgoing in certain situations.

No, surely they must mean set on fire.

It’s one banana, what could it cost, 10 dollars?

I actually used a similar process to make the paper for my wife’s leatherbound journal.

Except I used a regular blender (you’re right about the pain to clean)

Then grabbed a large rectangular plastic container and filled it with about a gallon of unsweetened, extra strong tea, and poured out the goopy almost-paper.

After sloshing things around to thin out the paper, I used a mesh screen secured to a rectangular frame, a4 size… Ish… To pull out a thin layer of pulp that’s now a browner tint thanks to the tea.

Once this drains of water for about 30 seconds, enough to keep together, I flip it onto some cotton fabric, and cover it with another sheet of cotton.

Layer about 5 or 6 of these, then I use two boards with a 6mm threaded rod in each corner to sandwich the cotton/pulp stack.

Tighten the bolts on the rod and squeeze the ever-loving shit out of the whole thing, which gets rid of almost all the water.

Then I peel everything layer by layer, and let the foldable-but-weak proto-paper dry out on a wooden board overnight.

The result is fairly smooth, but textured with whatever it was pressed with, paper that looks like it belongs in a medieval fantasy rpg.

I’ve also press dried flowers, made a super thin layer of pulp, tossed a couple petals in, and finished the pulp layer to make embedded flower pedals. Those can be hard to keep nice the way I do it but the result is an invitation or event card that you don’t want to give away. I haven’t used it for any journal projects because it doesn’t stand up to flexing very well.

If anyone is interested I can take a couple pics of the journal when I get home. I have no pics of the process, unfortunately. I’ll have to make more this summer.

im guessing some people have political reasons to dislike russia

If you consider trying to genocide a neighboring country “political reasons” I guess.

I would still say I don’t understand written German, and I certainly couldn’t understand SPOKEN German, but I understand enough to understand the memes.

So thanks for that, ich_iel!

“FTC personnel want bribes and to give the government time to kill the rule so they don’t have to do anything difficult right now”

New headline.

Honestly there’s no legitimate reason to delay this unless you’re stalling for something.

Good thing it wasn’t a Tesla, then “the man” would be doxxed by mainstream media outlets, he’d be tried as a terrorist, and the cops would have been deep into investigations before the sun came up.

I’m getting very tired of being told I’m overreacting because such a thing could never happen.

And then the thing happens.

Rinse, repeat.

At least some nutters have the decency to say that it’s mind controlling chemicals, not the “you’ll be dead soon” kind.

Kind of like the covid vaccine. I should have been dead in 3 6 8 months a year 2 years 3 years 4 years I’ll be dead in 5 years!

I can confirm yahoo still exists, and they’re great for my junk mail since I don’t have anything signed into it, it was made before you needed to link any personally identifying info so I think my name is still something like “fart boob” or something like that. 13 year old me thought it was hilarious.

Honestly if someone managed to hijack that account, either they’d quickly realize it was worthless or I’d be laughing as I tell them to have fun with their garbage, I’ll be sending some more soon.

I’ve meditated a lot.

I’ve done a few drugs.

I liek drugz

My brother in law, without skipping a beat: “obviously he meant Micronesia”

My reply, apparently not enough to get a response: “So you’re okay with a president who’s so cognitively vacant he can’t tell the difference between two very different sounding words?”

And dint forget, no matter who you voted for you’re still a dirty American and FUCK YOU for existing at a time when your country sucks more than usual. It doesn’t matter how you voted or what your beliefs are.

And also if you can’t move out of the country it’s your fault for not… Something. I guess.

And also depending on what community you’re in, SUPER FUCK YOU for deciding to leave your country instead of fixing it.

And of course, as we can already see, every single shortcoming of your country is CLEARLY your fault or at the very least you deserve to be punished for your country being shitty in any way, whether it started long before you were born or not.

I don’t trust anyone with one foot in the grave to make long term decisions that benefit young people more than themselves any more than I trust a small child to make sound logical laws about bedtime.

That one I think is more “the people in charge figured they would all be dead before it became a problem”

I fully expect that if the cure for aging was discovered, billionaires would suddenly care a LOT more about climate change.