My primary plan is to hatch extra and expect some losses. Wildlife needs to eat, too, and I can’t fault it for doing so, even if it’s inconvenient for me.

However I’ll also employ roosters, which are annoying but do great protecting the flock (even sacrificing themselves to save their ladies). If you can’t/won’t have roosters for whatever reason, a couple geese will help as well, or you can add them to the roostered flock for extra protection, I believe.

Personally, the only way I’d ever shoot something going after my flock would be if it’s a threat to the enclosed run/coop where they stay at night and in bad weather. Or if they were habitual about raiding my flock.

But chickens should be in a coop at night so as long as you have one critters can’t get into, you probably won’t have too many losses.

Legit just watched that again yesterday for the first time since it came out and it was… shockingly accurate other than the part where they listen to the smartest people…

And Costco is actually Amazon.

That’s why I’m careful, but there have been times I’ve swung it too far when the adjustment slips, so… very quick path from totally fine to felony.

I use a green laser pointer to sight my telescope…

I’m careful there’s no planes or anything but all the same.

Whenever I click an MSN link it takes me to the home page list of recent articles or whatever. Doesn’t bring up the article at all.

Different browser but all the same. Fuck msn.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,” she wrote. “Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

In saying this, however, Leavitt gave an opening for a large coalition of Democratic state attorneys general suing to permanently block the order to tell a federal judge that they needed a restraining order against the administration.

”In court just now, the states are introducing @PressSec tweet saying the funding freeze is still active as evidence that their lawsuit should continue," reported Politico’s Kyle Cheney. U.S. Chief District Judge John McConnell granted the states’ request, saying the “hugely ambiguous” withdrawal of the OMB memo is irrelevant "based on comments by the president’s press secretary.”

Emphasis mine

I really hope this goes somewhere…

Today, I’m playing the original devil may cry (ps2 via emulation, so smoothed and upscaled). I’m all in on retro/classics this month, as it reminds me of my mid-late teen years, and these enhanced games look pretty good actually.

It’s kinda short, and pretty good overall, but I really can’t recommend it. The controls are absolutely awful; static camera with frequent angle shifts, and character controls that require changing movement direction with every camera angle change, even while fighting, is just… very very bad coming from playing more modern stuff.

If it had a dynamic camera, even a poorly placed or inverted one, the game would be quite good. Instead it’s super frustrating.

Congrats on your matrix-style bullet dodge.

This is far more entertaining than it has any right to be.

I used to do that, but I stopped because I’m trying to be less of a people-pleasing doormat in general. Plus people don’t like empty apologies from company reps anyway… it often led to more hostility. Apologizing also tends to give to the impression that they are right to be pissy whiny assholes, which isn’t something that should be encouraged at all.

Instead, I started saying “I very much understand your frustration; let’s see what we can do to get this resolved for you.” This makes you and the customer (psychologically) a team against the problem, and they are less likely to go off on you.

I definitely stole that tactic from car salespeople. And it works super well.

TW: loss (not the meme)

I had a cat who just loved the vet. He loved everyone he met, honestly. But the vet (and nurses and stuff) was there to see him, specifically, and he just loved all the attention. Everyone loved him so much. He was so bold and friendly, very much a dog in cat clothing.

He was sick for a long time (CKD dx in 2016, and various other old-and-failing issues I did my best to manage for him), but vet appointments were always fun for mr social. But when he went in for his last appointment July of 2023, he wasn’t friendly or social, he was tired and sad and pained, and it was the only time I’ve ever had to comfort him. And I miss his charming personality.

I had another cat who hated being put in a carrier or, like, dealing with anyone but me… and my vet did house calls so she got the vet to come to her. Thankfully, when she died November of 2023, it was a stroke and she went quick… that was honestly best for her, even though it was super traumatic for me. She would not have done well with multiple appointments or long-term treatments or anything. Overnight hospital stay? lol good fucking luck.

Maybe this release is why I struggled so freakin hard today to get wine working…?

I’ve never managed to get wine working for anything… it’s… probably a great compatibility layer, I have no idea. I’ve never managed to get through all the missing dependencies and errors to make it work, try as I might. I tried it several times around 2016-2020, and have a mostly fresh install to play with now.

And like I’m not on a fancy rare complicated distro… I’m on, and was on, Ubuntu (yes, yes, I know. Ubuntu bad. Eat shit; don’t care.)… I had to fully upgrade to 24.whatever from 22.04 (seriously I tried everything before that… I really didn’t want to upgrade…) and even that didn’t actually fix the problem… but it did push me to find a game manager that has all its own compatibility stuff and could thus work with the broken-ass wine I ended up with… maybe? It’s halfway through installing a game, so I still don’t know if it actually works, and won’t for at least another hour, but this is the furthest I’ve managed to get.

Why?

I haven’t had whattaburger since like 2008, but I used to absolutely love it, especially the triple triple. That was a great betting burger.

You know… that’s probably all it is…

This is a bachelor party/weirdo sex thing rental space, and basically nothing else, isn’t it…? Or at least that’s what whatever dumbass designed it to be…

You definitely wouldn’t. It’s not Chicago, not even that close (almost 2 hours by car), not even the same state… at best it’s part of Milwaukee, and even then it’s a stretch.

There’s a lot of land in the area, and where that house is is full of mansion type properties that have 5-50 acres. That’s normal for the area, and not at all something worth getting rid of. Nobody lives where land is cheap because it’s inconvenient, not because land is actually unaffordable.

I’ve literally never had this problem in my nearly 40 years of life. 🤭

Room temp water gang represent! 🫠

Facts. It’s all of the dells honestly, it’s all weird and themed and wet and sleeps too many or not enough. And only really fun for like a small part of the year, but everyone tries to pretend it’s enjoyable all year…

I totally respect their choice and will be making a similar one in the near future, for many of the same reasons, but a bit differently.

I sold my inherited firearms years back… I mean what good is a bolt action .22 gunna do for protection in town, really, where I need to worry a lot more about securing my firearm despite living alone? It was a farm firearm, and now I regret getting rid of it because I want farm-space where a firearm will do me good… so I’ll have to get another… whoops. Should have just waited til I was older. On larger tracts of land, where you have warnings of people or animals approaching, it makes sense to have a firearm like that handy.

But I think another bolt action or similarly cumbersome rifle is about as dangerous as I want… I’ve been at least passively suicidal my whole life (thanks, chronic pain!), but I can’t easily bite that bullet, flexible as I may be. :)

I have Navy expert marksmanship qualification, though. I had never fired a real firearm before that day, only airsoft or arcade light guns, did the training (and listened and followed directions) and have not since fired anything.

That is by far the worst use of 2,000+ sqft I’ve ever seen.

And I’m actively house hunting for around that size, so I’ve seen some… interesting spaces.

I read a thing long back that I’ll never be able to find again… (sorry)

But it focused on that whole aesthetic thing. It focused mostly on Trump and Boris Johnson, two men known for looking absolutely ridiculous.

It was about how the fabricated image of being disheveled or incompetent worked in their favor, making people think their negatives were mistakes, bumbles, when really they were intentional actions.

Basically it was about how they cultivate the image of incompetence to get away with doing horrible unpopular things.

And I can’t unthink that, now that I’ve thought it.