Apep

I've actually read some modern SF and witnessed the puerile push for diversity. I followed along as it took an okay pulp series and ground it to dust under an overweening interest in sexuality. ST, both Discovery and Picard, don't even move the needle. Well, Discovery's season 2 close was about as childish as the end of the David Tennant-era Doctor Who, but not because of diversity, just shitty episodic writing. Picard? We haven't seen enough eps to know whether it is that shitty.

It's fucking stupid. As I recall, if two 18 year old students are dating, one graduates, and picks up a job as a janitor at a different school in the district, their existing and ongoing sexual relationship is a crime in the state of Texas. (I hope the Lege fixed this, but I haven't looked it up.)

Amazon is my go-to for pretty much all non-food items, but I'll double check the Walmart app if the Amazon price seems high or I want the item now. I also use the app to check local stock, see prices, and even navigate within the store.

The cheese grater only removes the outer layer of the calluses. I’ve never noticed tender feet after treatment.

Are the Borg still a major threat after the events of Voyager? Seven will be in the show, so those events presumably still happened. I'm not sure what the Reclamation Project angle is. All I can think of is that Borg are an augmented hive mind. They are not synthetics. They are not even AI, though the difference may seem arbitrary. That may be why there isn't a big problem with the project. And Romulans running it actually makes some sense in that they could limit the research to engineering applications outside of AI and synthetic beings. Wasn't the cube also in the Beta Quadrant, so Romulans make perfect sense in that regard.

I think you’re missing my point. The first thirty minutes of the show had sufficient exposition to establish that Picard told Starfleet to go fuck themselves, rather noisily, over the Romulan relief effort abandonment. IOW, the interview was evidence of why she loathed him, not why she hated him. Later exposition appears to suggest that he may have even mutinied along with his loyal officers. That might explain why he has Tal Shiar guards on earth.

I'd guess it ties into Control/Red Angel from Discovery. Both could be related to the Temporal Cold War. I'm not sure we watched the same show. Didn't the opening dream sequence of the first show establish the destruction of Mars? Didn't the interview establish what Picard had done? And even that was reiterating prior exposition with the housekeepers, IIRC. The admiral's reaction was entirely expected.

Is this criticism? If so, I don't understand it. Picard usually surrounded himself with very pliant, but strong women, e.g. Crusher, Troi, or this new blond Dr Juratti. The take-you-down-easy-with-a-smile type. He did not work well with stronger women like Dr. Pulaski. Part of his TNG character arc was to mostly get over this, e.g. his relationship with Ensign Roe. Likewise, Crusher and Troi became more resolute as time passed. We especially see this with the future Crusher when he was enfeebled by Irumodic Syndrome. I think the strong woman housekeeper helps establish that he was not what he was. Raffi reflects the post-Roe character arc. And we'll probably see Juratti have a similar story arc to Crusher. Having strong, established characters ready to step if Patrick Stewart dies mid-production isn't a bad idea at his age. Oh and most of the other TNG men were please-pardon-the-phrase "beta cucks" outside of Riker and usually Worf. Looks like the pilot will take Riker's place. Due to a likely group of hard-headed misfits, I'm also willing to consider this is part of the long-desired (and planned-by-Roddenberry) fall of the Federation storyline.

If the property was placed in service as a rental in the same year he disposed of it, (i.e. sold it), then he would not claim depreciation on it. Assuming this took place in more than one year, since he didn't successfully rent it, it may not have been placed in service. Figuring that out would require him to work with a knowledgeable tax pro. But yes, if he took depreciation on it, he might have to recapture the "unrecaptured section 1250" gain.

Don't worry, the IRS won't talk to you because they will think you are already dead. (Hope I'm kidding, because that is a tough situation to unfuck.)

I get pedicures. A few months ago, my wife and I went to go get them together. There was this uber-metrosexual (or homosexual) dude getting one and he stares at me like I'm a martian. Then a scraggly millennial wanders in with his wife to get one. Then a sun-bleached Boomer with his wife. I don't know about you guys, but I've never liked cutting my nails. If I can pay a (usually) cute Vietnamese girl to give me a mani-pedi and soften the sandpaper feet my wife complains about, I'm cool with it.

Did you already get the W-9s? If not, and especially if the contractors no longer work with you regularly, you won't get their tax info. I personally use Greatland/Yearli to file small W-2s and 1099s. Turbotax can do it, but you are right at the deadline and setting up something with Yearli might be easier if you know enough to put stuff in box 7.

So I have some 3M N95 approved masks, roughly 40 or so. Google says the shelf life is five years. Mine are 12 years old. Probably time to replace?

For most of us, it doesn't matter whether we buy a kit ourselves. All that needs to happen is a reasonably close, blood relative gets tested. Once that happens, there isn't much point in avoiding them.

As I've recounted in other threads, my half-sister discovered an extra half-brother on 23andme. My dad never knew he knocked up a girl at the end of his freshman year of college. He can't figure out who the mom was, but since he was playing clubs all over Texas and into Oklahoma and Louisiana at the time, he might not have even known her name. Personally, I'm more troubled by the lack of matches with people who share my surname. The name isn't common, but I've always heard that 90% of the [Apep] family is descended from one dude, so I was expecting tons of distant cousins. I looked at my family tree and saw that more daughters survived to bear progeny than sons in the last 140 years or so, but surely I'd pick up some distant cousins? I'm also troubled that Ancestry.com now shows I have 1% indigenous Cuban DNA. Can't find anyone else on any side of the family that has that. I'm also scared to give my son a kit. Even though I have no reason to suspect he isn't my son, it would be so devastating to find that out. I'm also scared that my ex and my wife could be related, since they both have Okie ancestry. It would piss off my wife.

They're demolishing it for real this time? It's been on the chopping block for the last twenty years. It's a real shame; I'll miss the unique facade.

Great. You just outed yourself as Neal Stephenson.

Who cares? The stations will still get blasted on Nextdoor and Facebook and will still lose local business. This primarily affects frequent travelers. Maybe someone should make an app?

The Fort Worth and Dallas dioceses took down the signs after a few church shootings. I don't think Tyler ever put them up. As for the others, no idea. I'd guess San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, and Austin still have them up or in bulletins. And the bulletin thing sucks because there's no way for a layperson to know whether those are effective.

I use braided nylon cables from AmazonBasics. They'll last at least a couple of years for me. My son runs through them in a few months.

This past year has been one of the few I've gone over 100 orders on Amazon. This holiday season, most deliveries have arrived early or no later than on-time. Earlier in the year, there were a few problems with stuff showing up late or getting "lost" for a couple of days, but the Amazon delivery drivers have gotten much better delivering packages. I did have one problem this year, a package that never arrived, but I could not get a refund through normal processes. And yes, it was one of those prime, "guaranteed two-day delivery" items. After ordering, it got bumped to two weeks and would have been delivered while I was on vacation. So I try to cancel the order, which kicked off a multi-week process with one of the most helpful support people ever. Seriously. Amazon's support people have been amazing. I tend to order Amazon- or name-brand nutritional supplements, clothing, small electronics, hard-to-find, non-perishable foodstuffs, and small tools from Amazon. I try to make fewer, larger orders and use their once-a-week delivery day.

Best episode of the season, though it can't redeem all that came before. My only complaint is that they didn't focus enough on the snake world.

Because you use one to prop up your FUDA and expose the base while the other one jacks it?

I don't agree with Derka that the show isn't funny anymore, but it is not what it was. Most episodic shows have trouble sustaining character development across several seasons and get stale. That staleness can be made tolerable if there is a visible connection to the overall character or story arcs, at least some of the time. I'm having trouble seeing any connection. The main characters seem like hollowed out shells compared to their season 3 selves. The gags still work, some or even most of the time, but those too foten come off as the showrunners throwing shit up against the wall. Honestly, I'm really hoping my this-is-a-prequel-season theory (or something similar) is true, because otherwise we've been through this crap for nothing. Throwaway eps happen. Throwaway half seasons?

Completely power down both modem and router for a few minutes. Unplug the cables. Dust the router and modem. Make sure their vents are not obstructed. After they've been plugged back in for some time, listen to see if the fans are still working (if they have them). Try a different cable between modem and router. (I recently doubled my speed and eliminated drops after replacing a bad cable.) If none of this works, have a tech come out to your house to see if the wiring to the house is still good. I replaced that bad cable only after buying a new modem. That was my big mistake. Anyway, my place is small enough and my internet slow enough (200 mb/s) that a dual-N router was fine. So I purchased a Netgear Nighthawk R6700. No heavy gaming online, but we have two adults and a teenager that may be streaming video and constantly browsing the internet with no bandwidth problems. After replacing the bad cable, it has been rock-solid.