I think the relevant question is whether the aliens will fuck us … and whether or not it will be any good.

Definitely unrelated … here let’s pull the trigger together.

You forgot the part where we just kept mashing in the gun, over and over again, into the hole even as it poked through the wall and aimed the barrel at our forehead.

Get to the bottom … “Son! did you take down the garbage for pickup!?”

Don’t worry … Princess doesn’t bite.

I have an old clock in my cottage. I got it years ago from a previous cottage I renovated. When I found it, the glass had broken so I just treated it as a piece of junk. I renovated that first cottage over a winter and left the clock there to freeze. I put in an AA battery and forgot about it. It kept time great and didn’t lose time … for about two years on the same battery!

The dammed thing outlasted every other wall clock I owned. So I kept it, removed the broken glass and just left it like that.

After about 15 years I still have it in my cottage and it freezes and thaws with the northern Canadian weather. And I’ve only ever changed the battery with the same basic energizer alkaline battery maybe four times!

I’ve never found a comparable clock anywhere. Every new clock I’ve ever bought either fail prematurely or I am constantly changing batteries every two or three months.

So far I’ve junked about a dozen new clocks because they stopped working while this old cottage clock just keeps ticking reliably.

I’m never getting rid of my cottage clock.

But 1989 … wow! … I also had an old Italian friend who was very frugal with her money and the vehicle’s she owned. She also had an 80s era Volvo station wagon that she ran for about 15 years before she got tired of it and traded it for another newer Volvo in the late 90s.

I am a polyp that lives in the gastrointestinal internet tract and I do not want to leave.

Feel the same here … I miss my 960 … it was known as a diplomats car … the thing was luxurious inside and it looked like a plain vehicle from the outside. And it could turn on a dime! I used to love being able to turn around on two lanes without doing a three point turn! I joked with my friends that it had a turning radius of a bicycle. The main reason I didn’t want to sell it to the demolition derby guy was that I didn’t want to see the car destroyed!

1990s or 2000s era Volvo station wagon or sedan

I owned a 96 Volvo 960 for about 15 years before engine gave out with fixable problems … I didn’t have the money to get it fixed, sold it and from what I heard, the new owner is still driving the thing. (one potential buyer that wanted it was a young guy that wanted it for a demolition derby as he claimed that Volvos were great for this kind of use because they are indestructible in a crash. He said the engine is so well placed and protected that it would take several hits from other vehicles before being compromised)

Later bought a 2004 station wagon and other than a few minor problems (electrical issues that aren’t critical to driving the car) and a bit of rust spots, it’s still my daily driver. I met a young guy a few years ago that had a 1992 Volvo Station wagon with a million kms on it (the thing was covered in rust and looked like hell but it was still driveable)

Yes, but at a certain point in history, they were considered so normal they were everywhere.

More like

Microsoft … I make billions spying
Google … I make billions spying
Apple … I make billions spying

Linux … you guys make money spying?

Company hires eight parrots as project workers because they are all able to say

• ‘we need to move the project deadline back by two weeks’
• ‘get back to me tomorrow’
• ‘can we do a zoom call to discuss this?’
• ‘I’m waiting on material from parrot #5’
• ‘I’m waiting on material from parrot #4’
• ‘Our shipment hasn’t arrived yet’
• ‘What was the project goal again?’
• ‘We need another project manager’

Instead we use a worldwide network of interconnected computers and systems to micromanage everyone’s lives and convince them all that billionaires are good for the economy, infinite money is possible, immigrants are bad, global warming is not real, perpetual war is normal, no one landed on the moon, the earth is flat and nazis are OK.

A baby crying

or

a young woman’s scream

less so would be

a grown man screaming in agony … (something along the lines of saying something like 'OH GOD, MY LEG, MY LEG, OH GOD, GOD NO, MY LEG!!!, OH GOD, HELP ME, MY LEG!!)

You don’t vote for contractors.

Bloody Roofer!

I upvote everyone I interact with … positive, negative, agreeable, disagreeable, questionable, correct, incorrect, dumb, intelligent … the only time I downvote is if someone is genuinely advocating violence or death or murder against anyone

I’ve seen many of these up here in northern Ontario and everyone raves about them.

The funny part is, every single one I’ve ever seen is a broken down hunk of junk in someone’s barn / backyard / garage / storeroom / warehouse that hasn’t run in decades. Every guy who ever owned these remembers being a kid and seeing their dad / uncle or other adult running it and calling it the greatest thing ever made. Then then grow up buy a broken down useless vehicle, work on it for a few days, plan on fixing it and never get it running. It stagnates on the property for a decade and then someone else comes around buys it and does the same thing.

I see it as a mythological thing from some forgotten past at this point. It’s like saying unicorns or minotaurs existed in Canada a generation ago. It might be true but I’ve just never seen a working machine in real life.

The last time I saw one was with an old elderly friend who had torn one apart and I spent an afternoon with him fixing it up. He said he needed about a dozen parts to get it running … he died a few years later, and never got the parts or the machine running. It got sold off for a hundred bucks and now the next owner is doing the same thing again.

Whenever someone asks me what little bird that was … I just immediately answer ‘Eastern Woodland Tit Pecker’

I will add Black Throated Bushtit to my bird watching vocabulary

… also that second image looks like the little guy reacting to you calling it a ‘Black Throated Bullshit’