So I guess the drought finally eased, and the reservoir that supplies the fresh water for the locks is doing better, but yeah, even with a new dam that should finally get started soon, the canal probably has 50 years or less as a viable commercial route, though honestly 150+ years isn’t a bad run as an economic project, and one of Jimmy Carter’s most humane legacies was overseeing its transfer back to the people who were dominated into letting Americans build it in the first place.

Yeah, of all the Tudor neologisms that didn’t really stick, ‘counterblaste’ is one of the more regrettable ones.

To be fair, James VI/I was a deeply, deeply weird dude, but he was ahead of the curve on second-hand smoke.

Definitely before they knew, but not before some suspected.

Maybe it’s US only? I dunno.

In the US, in high school, and increasingly in lower grades, you can pay for a book that you get at the end of the year that has a headshot of every student and teacher, group photos of all the student organization, summaries of the sports teams’ seasons, nostalgic musings, and various other miscellany. In high school, one of the student organizations is the yearbook staff.

Traditionally, you will all spend some time signing the inside covers of your classmates’ books with inside jokes, inspiring messages, etc. In the long ago, people who kinda liked you might even put their phone number in it.

It used to be a thing in colleges and universities as well, and maybe still is at some, but it’s no longer a traditional part of the experience, probably due to being associated so closely with high school.

Here are some.

IIRC for Single vs Double the difference is they will enforce the “form of a question” part. In either round, they will let you mangle the pronunciation as long as you don’t insert or omit phonemes beyond what could reasonably be the result of only having read the word.

So “Alexander Dumb-ass” would be fine, though you’d likely get some gentle chiding, or maybe even have to refilm the question (“portions of the show not affecting the outside have been edited”) afterwards, but if you were expanding NASA and left the ‘s’ off the end of “Aeronautics,” it would be wrong.

Poor Schwartz.

Sounds like a middle management role at a property management company, managing teams that will do some combination of developing new software, procuring outside software, configuring software, doing shit with integrations including rolling in whatever clusterfuck of legacy systems and data any corporate acquisitions would bring in, and providing tech support under Service Level Agreements. My first impression is that the packages in questions would probably be about some combination of rent pricing, market analysis, maintenance ticketing, and contract lifecycle management.

Frankly, it sounds awful. 🤣 The word soup could also be partly that they’ve already identified internal candidates but have a corporate requirement to post publicly.

He’s our little chonk. Was on “the list” at a city shelter when a rescue got him. He’d been a stray for quite a while, to judge by scars, weight, and polished footpads. Now his heeler stubborness comes out in determinedly refusing to do anything that isn’t relaxing. Our lifestyle is compatible, so he mostly only has to leave when he goes to the vet. To see him come out of shell and start feeling entitled to simply being loved has been very gratifying, though.

LOL, y’all are makin’ me sad. Stetson is alive and well, and still the same delightful curmudgeon he’s always been. If anything, the farther he gets from being a stray on city-shelter death row, the more relaxed and puppyish he gets.

I like this. The arrangement is on point, the greenscreen is fun, and even the vocals are close. Well done.

I’m (technically) a lawyer, and I frequently pop in to various Dollar-themed discount retailers. Gotta be careful with where they find their profits, though. The three-dollar broom is probably worth three dollars, but the three dollar bottle of overly diluted glass cleaner probably isn’t.

Not knowing that puffery is a thing is a dead giveaway for our green-shirted friend, there, though.

I understand that the trail divides here and one can either float the river or take the Barlow Toll Road.

I like the Knives Out movies. I like Rian Johnson. I like Daniel Craig. I love Benoit Blanc as a character.

The movie’s going to be in theaters exactly long enough to qualify it for awards, and I would rather watch a light murder mystery romp at home anyway.