fuggled

We watched the new Haunted Mansion with Rosario Dawson and Owen Wilson at the kids' request last night. I had extremely low expectations but it was a solid family movie. The Eddie Murphy version from 20 years ago was complete garbage, but this new one was fun. Not a bad choice if you're trying to find something new for the kids on movie night.

Oh for sure, I should have mentioned that. The Octopus deal is that they can adjust your thermostat in some situations. I don't have the right kind of thermostat, so I've never looked into the specifics of it. But anyone should definitely read up before pulling the trigger. The EV thing seems less invasive to me,. I think they let you request how much you need to charge by a certain time and then they'll balance the electricity to give you a lower rate.

I'm about 18 months into a 24 month contract with Octopus Energy and have been happy with them. They have special plans if you have an EV or certain smart thermostats that seem to be some of the cheapest 12 month plans. I'm not able to take advantage of those (no EV yet, and wrong brand of thermostat), so I'll probably have to switch when this contract is up. But, if you already have an EV or a compatible thermostat, it could be a good deal for a shorter term contract. They're also 100% renewable. If you sign up using my referral code below you get $100.

Yeah, I've had some cherry shrimp that have done that. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that it could be related to their mineral intake or maybe their molting cycle. Can't really remember. It was never widespread for me.

I'm glad somebody got this thread going again. A couple years ago I had posted about challenges I was having with our first planted tank here. Thanks to some of the advice on this thread, I've really been able to get it dialed in. Here's what it looked like at first just throwing some plants in there without knowing what we were doing. The house sitter didn't help leaving the light on all the time. Six months later we'd done a lot of experimenting and things were looking much better: After another 12-18 months, we had a lush little ecosystem going that I felt confident I could sustain. It was a long journey, but we learned a lot from. After that experience, I decided to take a shot at building out a new aquascaped tank now that I knew a little about what I was doing. I'm about 9 months into that process now. Once I have a little time, I'll share some photos of that tank. You gotta tell her that a 20 is going to be more stable and easier to maintain, plus it doesn't really take up much more room.

This past Saturday I was making breakfast for my 9 year old. Son: "Dad, what does superstitious mean?" Me: thinking..."Well, superstitious is when you believe in something even when there's no evidence for it." Son: "So, like God, right?" Me: "...don't talk to your Mom about this."

Did this guy refer to Paxton as "the general"? 🙄

I think you should take a closer look at the debt relief plan that has you so upset. Here's the gist: People enrolled 20+ years ago in repayment plans with the agreement that their loans would be forgiven once they pay for 20 years These people paid for 20+ years Because of administrative screw ups, those people didn't get credit for their payments and had to keep paying well beyond the 20 year mark with no clear target on when their loans would be forgiven Biden's plan is forgiving the loans of those people if they've already paid for 20 years In other words, these people upheld their end of the bargain but the plan administrators screwed up. Biden's plan is correcting that. Why is this such an injustice in your mind? More info: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-administration-begins-wiping-student-loan-debt-804000/story?id=102264052

Got a link to where you pulled those charts?

Dude...just two posts above yours @Longboard Horn posted a meme featuring Rapinoe in comparison to the Swedish team. The underlying message of that meme is, "women who don't look and behave the way I expect women to look and behave are deserving of hate and ridicule." That's the joke. It's a joke that only bigots will find funny. Pointing this out is not ignorant.

I believe Operation Kindness relies heavily on foster families. You might have more luck getting the dog into their system if you or your neighbor is willing to foster for a while.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but the full page Google "vignette" ads in CR are causing navigation problems. For example, let's say a thread is 4 pages deep and I've read 2 full pages so far. If I click on the thread name, it should navigate me to the top of page 3 as the first unread post for me. But sometimes a full page Google vignette pops up on the redirect. After I close the ad, it sends me to the top of page 4 as if I already read page 3. I hope that makes sense, but happy to clarify if not.

It is their talking point, but it's also a little true. At the White House Pride event, a trans woman with breast implants took off her top/bra and was dancing topless. She was arrested, removed and banned. Before this incident occurred she took a photo with Biden.

@Helobious Two other Biden accomplishments that I didn't see mentioned but should register with you and everyday Americans are 1) the PACT act protecting veterans impacted by burn pits and 2) the part of the Inflation Reduction Act that capped insulin and out-of-pocket prescription codes for seniors on Medicare. Both will help a lot of people and are easy to understand.

Really, it's not a niche accomplishment and you should be pumped to give Biden credit for it. Everything in our lives revolves around semiconductors. Remember how dealerships didn't have any cars to sell during the pandemic? That's because they couldn't get chips. 75%+ of chip manufacturing is in Asia now. That's a threat to our security as much as if we relied on Asia for 75% of our food or oil. The CHIPS act brings manufacturing back to the US, protects our supply chain and makes us less dependent on foreign countries. When you run into those people who don't care about, feel confident about educating them on what a big deal it is.

It was actually Trump's State Department and the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee that investigated. They found "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/us/politics/state-dept-inquiry-clinton-emails.html

It really was a blessing that everyone was completely unified and nobody hated anyone else in the '50s: McCarthyism says hi

@Mullet Free, are you absolutely certain it was actually the coach posting? I can easily imagine 12 year old boys impersonating a teacher to troll classmates. Just throwing that out there.

I had the same reaction. It seems like companies have been hoarding tech talent for the past ~18 months and now things are rebalancing. It's not just these tech giants, but large banks and automotive firms have been stocking up on people, probably other industries I'm not exposed to as well. Hopefully things are calming down and the talent pool will stabilize.

Does anyone have good solutions for monitoring kids' texts on an Android phone? My wife has not been happy with the Gabb phone my 12 year old daughter has. She (wife) is pushing for a Pinwheel because it has text monitoring built in, but I don't really want to shell out for a kid-specific device that is locked into it's own OS and set of apps. (Partly because we're only halfway through the 24 month contract on the Gabb phone that my wife didn't realize was a 24 month contract, but that's another story...) I'm trying to setup my old Pixel 5 for her and I like most of what you can do with Google Family Link. Part of why I like it is we can still give access to any apps we want, like Netflix and such, without worrying about social media apps. Having that flexibility is nice for traveling and things like that. I've got it locked down where she can't install apps or even visit sites without permission. The time limits and locking are great for what we need to do. But there's no text monitoring and my wife is really set on this for some reason. I've been playing with Qustodio also, but it has limitations. It captures SMS messages, but won't log MMS or any message when Google Chat Features are enabled. I'm not sure if there's a good way around that without going to something like Pinwheel. I'm leaning towards dumping the data plan, limiting her to SMS and sticking with Family Link and (maybe) Qustodio for now. That would work for me, but the wife is really hung up on having a real-time feed of all texts (even if the kid deletes some). Any suggestions? PS - @Jerry Callo @Damor thanks for sharing the contracts above, those seem like a good idea.

I made up a batch the first week of November that's been aging in an old milk jug. Plan was to crack it open tomorrow when I'm smoking two briskets for the family. My wife had a cleaning crew come in today to deep clean the house before guests arrive. The cleaners threw out the nog because it had a November expiration date on it. Words cannot express the depths of my sorrow. I need to make a visit to the wives thread...

Honest question...why do we care what Paul said? Why does he get the final vote? Paul was obviously very influential and changed a lot of hearts and minds, but who decided we have to accept his opinion on all things? In my best estimation, Paul was a man moved by God to be better and to encourage others to be better. He's doing the best he can to share this message, but at the end of the day he's a fallible person and he probably didn't get everything 100% correct.

All good now, thanks