That Moe/Barney interaction in #3/#4 was intense

Casually ignore them and walk away.

Then I’m not in sight anymore I circle back around and follow them to their car, noting their plate number to I can pay a police buddy to get me an address. The I follow them to until I know where they work and what their job is.

Then I take on training and job experience that would make me a good manager for that type of work, and monitor job postings at their company until I see my opening, nail the interview, and become their boss.

At this point, they’ve likely moved on and forgotten who I am.

But I haven’t forgotten them.

I proceed to make their job miserable and impossible, until one day I call them into my office to explain that why need to let them go for poor performance. Then I lean way in, right up in their face, and say quietly “And, to be honest… I don’t like you.”

Then I quit and go back to my normal life. No sweat off my back.

Thought they’d arrested the actual Georgian opposition who serve Russia and got my hopes up for a bit

Prospect? Trump handed out pardons like candy to far worse people who happened to aligned with his politics. After 8 years of seeing Trump rat-fuck norms and laws and precedent and unjustly go after his family and get away with everything, while everyone else tries to play by the rules, Biden is probably asking himself why he has to let his son risk prison when he knows everyone in the incoming administration wouldn’t even give a second thought to pardoning.

I don’t support it, but I get it. This is the kind of shit America voted for, right?

I’m looking at job postings in Buffalo, there are definitely snow shoveling jobs that start at lower than $20/hour on Indeed/ZipRecruiter. Again, maybe it’s not great, but they are there. And again, this is a one-off job with no retention, so it’s not surprising it would be on the lower end of the scale.

Let me summarize: it’ll cost you everything, and gain you little more than what could be achieved with the slightest bit of reasonable diplomacy with your close kin in Taiwan.

Look, i even saved you an expensive trip, and you can do something less depressing than hang around in wartime Russia during their economic collapse.

If any major superpowers are looking for consulting work I charge very reasonable rates.

I didn’t say it was great, but it’s comparable to similar snow shoveling job postings in that area and requires no training or employee retention.

And some Stallman memes for good measure

The snowflakes-hating snowflakes are in control now

Not sure if anime fits your bill here but Mushi-shi is incredibly relaxing and even though i don’t really watch anime anymore it still jumps out to me when i think of chill/mellow/relaxing. Traveler investigating forest spirits and whatnot, soft Japanese music score, taps hard into those nature vibes, more of a rainy day relaxing though not really happy-chill.

I was a bit peeved about looking for free labor until i saw they’d get paid $20/hr and food.

Pyramid Head still gives me the heebie-jeebies

Yah it’s like once every few months or so to fix up a new outfit or something. It just happens to be close to where the upstairs TV is so she’ll grab them if she needs some while we’re eating while watching a show or something. Then they end up in the utensil drawer and I’m usually the one that finds them and furrows my brow a bit before putting them back by the sewing machine

It was always a grift with these guys. It’s almost comical to think they ever cared about saving/helping humanity at this point.

It’s a shame more fabric enthusiastics don’t do this, we’d have an army of skilled blade sharpeners and weapon/fabric enthusiastics could join forces and reign supreme

My wife cuts food with her own sewing scissors. I never realized i was living with a crazy person until this point. (Ok maybe i kinda did)

No, he’ll give Israel nukes Ukraine and Gaza will be left to fend for themselves

How long before Musk threatens to invade EU over some new misinformation regulation that affects X?

Look back far enough and everyone is a monster

It’s a nice and fitting bonus that it brought a boon to local/traditional trades like stoneworking. Not that it was a good thing, but they seem to have made the best of a shitty situation 👍