Starbucks gains a new customer!
Maine gets 1st Mega Millions jackpot with $1.35B grand prize
Congratulations to the lucky winner. $1.35 billion should be enough to buy a 3-oz. junior latte once a week for a whole year without taking a mortgage! Don't forget to bring that $2000 iPhone with Apple Pay, because they don't allow cheap Android phones, and they don't take American Express™.
I might be joking about the last part, which was a line from Visa card's 1980s TV ad campaign. I actually have no idea what credit cards Starbucks takes. I still have a “pandemic” hairdo of long gray hair in a ponytail, and it was raining, so I was wearing a homemade trash-bag rain poncho. They didn't let me past the velvet rope because they thought I was just there to use the bathroom, which was placarded “For paying customers only!” 😉
Khrushchev's World War II Soviet Gas Attack, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Uranus
While reading a Wiki article about Cold War Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, I came across this interesting passage about his military service in the Great Patriotic War (edited for readability):
Khrushchev “proposed a counterattack, only to find that other generals had already planned Operation Uranus, a plan to encircle and destroy the Germans. Before Uranus was launched, Khrushchev spent much time checking on troop readiness and morale. After Uranus forced the Germans into retreat, Khrushchev served on other fronts of the war.”
What made Uranus so powerful that it could defeat the Third Reich? Did it have anything to do with excessive consumption of Taco Bell value meals? Most importantly, is Preparation-H now the moist ointment that greases the wheels of diplomacy in the post-Soviet era?
My Landlord Drinks Starbucks
So how about Starbucks anyway. The Starsucks inside the Kroger on the “good” side of town has an actual velvet rope to keep out the riffraff like me! I don't have a black turtleneck sweater, little round glasses, or a $2000 iPhone, so I don't think the doorman (if they had a doorman) would let me in. Imagine what they'd say: “Is that an Android phone? You're slumming up the place.”
I can't afford to try their coffee, but a lot of people tell me it wasn't as great as they expected. I think some people go there more for the upper-middle class suburban hipster vibe than for the actual coffee. Here's a $1 teddy bear with a jar of my favorite cheap, strong instant coffee:
Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee wants to outlaw birds!
Via Nitter: https://nitter.platypush.tech/FSCArmy/status/1603434131710349312
The senator from the party of free speech and small government wants to stuff his religious superstition down the throats of Americans by making it illegal to show cocks and tits in the U.S. While that would make it hard to put on a bird show, it might have the salutary effect of stopping unsolicited duck pics.
Courtesy of https://wikiless.tiekoetter.com/wiki/File:Bucephala-albeola-010.jpg?lang=en
Since Twitter is now censoring alternative links [edit: they're no longer doing that as of 19 Dec.], here are some other places where my friends can find me:
@[email protected] 🐘
https://post.news/jmorency 📩
I don't plan to quit Twitter unless it becomes a pay site or demands intrusive personal information (credit card, verified phone number, etc.), but I look forward to seeing you all either here or there ❤️️
Landlords, LMAO
My landlord scheduled a Thanksgiving dinner for the motel denizens, promising “good, free hot food” to the mostly poor people who live here. It was a great way to get some 40 of us middle-aged folk to gather, unmasked, in a small space outdoors in the cold wind. After an hour, someone passed along the word that the event had been cancelled. The good part? I don't have to worry about getting food poisoning. The not so great part? I get to find out just how well that bivalent Covid booster works for someone immunosuppressed like me.
ETA: I like to joke a lot, but I'm not a trivial person. I didn't risk Covid to get a free hotdog: I wanted to meet the new manager and talk about rent assistance programs.
Quick newbies' Mastodon guide:
1 Read the rules before joining a server
2 Write an introduction post & pin it
3 Use hashtags a lot! Mastodon isn't searchable without them
4 Content Warnings (CW) are used on Mastodon much more than Twitter. If in doubt, use the CW button
5 Use the CW button for political posts! Add #politics, #USPol, etc. in title
6 Use https://fedifinder.glitch.me to export your Twitter followers who have Mastodon accounts linked
7 Watch out for romance scammers
8 Have fun!
High Enough (humor)
So I was at the doctor's office the other day, and they had this vending machine. It was filled with all kinds of unhealthy jumbo-sized Cokes and other soft drinks. The one thing I was interested in was a bottle of mocha coffee, but it was from Starbucks, so of course it had to be expensive. How expensive was it? $4.20, as in weed, meaning you'd have to be high to pay that much for a cup of glorified chocolate milk with a dash of caffeine powder.
If that's not high enough for you, consider that on the same day, I also got to see Schrodinger's taxicab. That's the taxi that is both at your destination and en route, at the same time. Thanks to the magic of smartphones and computer glitches, that's now possible.
