Fiji

On our trip to Pago Pago, American Samoa, we had a layover in Fiji. Nice nation. Beautiful island chain. Actually really nice.

The thing is, we arrived in the Spring. And the trees and flowers were all in bloom. It was stunning and so beautiful. Smelled wonderful… BUT… it turns out that I was allergic to the trees. The entire time we were there I was sneezing and coughing with blurry and watery eyes.

Ugh.

Pretty, but not for me. Oh well…

Life can be silly. I really wonder what the Hell I was thinking when I decided to incarnate.

Today…

What is the rudest thing that a new neighbor has done to you immediately after you had moved in?

Years ago I moved into an apartment/flat. I was on the 2nd floor and shared a long balcony with my neighbor. It was just us two on the floor in that building. The balcony didn’t have a divider between us but it was a long length balcony. I put a small patio table and chair right by my door to relax on the balcony early mornings with tea or evenings to enjoy a book. Well, one morning I went out to sit on the chair by the small table. What did I see? The table was full of beer cans and a huge ashtray full of cigarette butts. The only person that could have done that is my neighbor. It annoyed me. It was one thing to use my patio table and chair without permission, but to leave a disgusting mess for me is another thing. I picked up the cans and ashtray and put them on the ground right in front of her door. Although I never spoke to her I had seen her. I wiped off my table and wrote out a note that said this, “Please ask for permission before using my table and chair. This table and chair are not community property. They belong to me. If you get permission to sit here, please clean up your mess. I am not your maid. Thank you”. I left the note taped on the table. Guess what? You guessed it. The next morning I found another load of beer cans and a full ashtray on the table. Same thing as the day before. Only this time, the table had a beer and food mess. I lost it. I grabbed the beer cans that were not all empty and the full ashtray with cigarette butts and ashes. I walked to her door and spilled beer all in front of her door on the concrete. I then poured the full ashtray all in the beer and it made a yucky mess on the concrete. She’d have to step in it going out the door. I then wiped down the table and folded it up along with the chair and put them by the wall next to the front door inside my apartment. This meant I would have to put them up outside every time I used them. It was a pain in the ass but I did it. She could get her own and clean up her own mess. Didn’t have any issues once I removed the table and chair. A few months later she moved out. Someone else moved in a couple of weeks later. A cop and his wife. The new neighbors were polite. So back out for good my patio table and chair went. Thank goodness.

**EDITED: Response to people commenting why I didn’t just knock on her door and talk to her**

People on the ground floor of the building said she was very rude like that to them as well. One time she took someone’s clothes out of the washing machine and threw them on the ground so she could use the washing machine. She had a bad reputation for not being one to reason with. I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to talk with her to try to come to a resolution. She wasn’t one to compromise with. So, therefore, I did what I felt was best how to deal with a person like that. Another person said she was also a bit violent. So to be honest, I didn’t want to put myself in the position to be physically attacked by her. I would have likely hurt her trying to defend myself because I am trained in martial arts. See what I mean?

Put in the work

I think it is an uneven pair-bonding.

Best Bohemian Kolaches

Kolaches are a type of pastry that holds a dollop of fruit rimmed by a puffy pillow of supple dough.

Ingredients

Dough

• 8 teaspoons dry yeast, dissolved in 1 cup warm water and 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3 cups 2% milk, scalded
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 10 to 11 cups flour (don’t make dough too stiff)

Prune Filling

• 1 pound pitted prunes
• Sugar to taste
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Apricot Filling

• 1 pound apricots
• Sugar to taste

Cottage Cheese Filling

• 1 (16 ounce) container cottage cheese
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• Dash of nutmeg
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 teaspoon flour
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar

Poppy Seed Filling

• 1 (2 pound) container poppy seed filling from a bakery
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• Cream

Instructions

1. Dough: Dissolve yeast in water until foamy.
2. Heat milk, pour over butter and sugar. Stir until melted. Add 2 cups flour, then beat until smooth. Add yeast, eggs and salt. Add flour until a soft ball forms. Grease top; let rise. Punch down and let rise again.
3. Stretch dough on floured board to about 1/2-inch thickness. Cut into rounds using a soup can. Put on greased pans and let rise. When nice and puffy, make indentations in center and fill with favorite filling like prune, apricot, cottage cheese or poppy seed. When risen to a nice puffy look, bake at 375 degrees F until a golden color.
4. Prune Filling: Cook prunes until soft. Grind and add sugar, vanilla extract and cinnamon. Stir well.
5. Apricot Filling: Cook apricots until soft. Grind and add sugar. Sweeter is better. Stir well.
6. Cottage Cheese Filling: Put cottage cheese in blender. Add egg yolk, lemon juice, nutmeg and 4 tablespoons flour and blend some more. Take out of blender and add raisins. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon flour and sugar.
7. Poppy Seed Filling: Mix together. Use enough cream to make it easier to put into kolaches.

Legit

Can China win a war against the US over Taiwan in 2023?

I’m almost out of the door to buy groceries, and I saw this question, and I have to say something.

…deep breath…

WHAT THE FUCK WITH THIS OBSESSION OVER WAR?!

I’ve seen this type of hypothetical war question all the fucking time on social media (not just on Quora). And it’s always hypothetical wars between nuclear powers. It used to be the US vs USSR. Now it’s US vs China. Every single fucking year, you guys come back with the same zeal asking who would win in various hypothetical scenarios.

What do you think war is? Civilization V?! Colorful avatars on a digital map?! You move your troops forward, and boom, the city is yours?!

I swear you armchair general manchildren are the fucking worst! You want war so much, why don’t you enlist? You think you’re fucking military expert because you played Call of Duty, and you know what a battleground feels like?! You can hide behind cover and breath heavily for a few seconds and recover from bullethole in your fucking stomach?

You know, I don’t mind actual military experts theorizing potential wars. That’s kind of their job, to think of the worst scenario so we can be prepared. I get that. But you lot ain’t experts. You are doing it because it is fun and exciting for you. It makes you feel powerful the same way playing Civilization V makes you feel powerful.

You never thought about what war actually means to the people it impacted (yes, that includes you, too, you moron!) There’s no glory in bloodshed over nationalism or fighting over resources.

But sure, let me answer your question: can China win a war against the US over Taiwan? Depending on how you define “winning.” The most likely scenario we have is a Vietnam War V2. The US throws its weight around, and millions of young people die on both sides, fighting in the fucking jungle. Taiwan, once named the “Island of Treasures,” was decimated. Its factories were destroyed. Its beautiful forests and coasts were poisoned by chemical weapons. The price of PCs and other electronics skyrocketed because Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of semiconductors, producing over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones.

After years of death, destruction, and misery, the US finally decided to withdraw its troops, and Taiwan became a province of China.

And that is the best scenario you could hope for, you moron. The worst scenario is both US and China decide to use nuclear weapons, and we all fucking die in the fucking nuclear winter.

Still feeling good about yourself? Still think this is a fucking video game?!

Fuck all of you war fanatics! Go read another book about WWII and fuck all the way off my feed.

I’ll leave you with this poem: 劝君莫论封侯事，一将功成万骨枯

“Please do not speak of getting noble titles (through war). One general’s success was built upon millions of corpses.“

---

Unsurprisingly, I got several comments saying China is an authoritarian state and has been threatening Taiwan for years.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that what you said is true, that China is indeed an authoritarian state and China has been “threatening” Taiwan for years.

So? SO? What’s your point? That China, a country of 1.5 billion people, most of these 1.5 billion people live peacefully and minding their own business, deserve to be destroyed because… you do not agree with how an independent sovereign nation governs itself?

OK, by that logic, can China start a war attacking the US because everything the US did in the fast 70 years, including invading Iraq on a lie, created several coups in South America for the sole purpose of destabilizing the local economy and forcing these countries to rely on the US for their survival, and systemic racism, persecution of homosexual people and trans people, drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya…

I mean, if we want to compare fucking skeletons in the fucking closet, we can go all the way back to Operation Paperclip. Better yet, let’s go all the way back to colonialism and chattel slavery. The US is covered, head to toe, with innocent blood. If there is one country that deserves to be destroyed, according to your logic, the US would be the first in line.

So perhaps get off your moral high horse and shut the fuck up.

We were ROBBED in Finland! (Let’s Go Back to China!)

Who was the rudest customer you’ve had, and how did you deal with them?

I was a male waiter at a diner in Hillbillyville. I got very few tips because tips were for making passes at waitresses. Working the late shift, I dealt with more than my share of drunks and as well as the ordinary assholes. From teens squirting full ketchup bottles on their dinnerware and tables after their meal, to those who would fall into a drunken coma at my tables.

The one that stands out to me was a retired farmer who would come in every Sunday night with his wife and another couple. They had all been drinking. But the retired farmer, who had a reputation for being a loud-mouth know-nothing decided to harass the help (me and the cook) throughout their meal. He and his entourage thought it was very funny to disrespect us.

After their meal and lots of juvenile remarks, it was dessert time. They all ordered. The retired farmer decided he wanted a hot fudge sundae, which he knew we did not offer.

I told him “We do not have hot fudge sundaes.”

He replied, “Do you have ice cream?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have chocolate syrup?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a microwave?”

”Yes.”

“Then heat up some frickin’ chocolate sauce and put it on my ice cream!”
His group suddenly went quiet, realizing he had just crossed a boundary not even they would accept.

I put my hands on their table, leaned across to the foul farmer and said, “Would you liked crushed nuts with that?”

He went silent as the others at the table burst into laughter… especially his wife! They believed he had it coming… probably for years!

Dickhead left me a nice tip that night and had a new demeanor every time he stopped to eat.

I was pleased with myself. Other customers as well as staff openly approved of the way I handled this little turd.

The best Christmas ad…

Have you ever seen an employer fire someone without realizing what a crucial role the employee played?

I fired a friend who worked closely with me in the forge. He’d set up some of the equipment, and knew how to maintain it. He was a good solid productive worker, and a lot of fun to work with.

He also drank.

I told him he could not drink on company property, and he could not come in drunk to work.

He did it anyway. Repeatedly. Hid it. More than one warning.

Then I fired him.

He said I couldn’t, that I needed him, that I didn’t know how to maintain the equipment, it would cripple my business to lose him.

He was right.

And yet… I still had to do it. He was a hazard to himself, and to the business. At one of the venues I vend at, they have a clear written rule forbidding this, and he was violating it, and I could have lost my business there (and it’s responsible for 75% of my annual income)

I bent over backwards to avoid doing this, and when I finally did, it was every bit as bad as he thought it would be.

Production dropped by more than half. A couple of the tools got ruined. I learned how to maintain the others, and gradually got things back into shape, but it took many months.

But I can’t honestly say I didn’t know what was going to happen when I did it. I just didn’t have any other choice.

Another gym

What’s something a poor kid would understand, but would utterly confuse a rich kid?

I have friends who never understand how I can take a costco rotisserie chicken for $5.00 and make it into a week’s worth of meals, including using the bones and meat chips from the carcass for bone broth to make soup. I can pick a chicken or turkey bonee clean of meat long after others would have given up. I use veggies and eggs to extend it to omelelets, wraps, chicken fritattas, tacos, chicken salad with mayo, stir fry, topping on regular salad with dressing, an entree, and then finally soup. I buy the large quantity of meat on mark down and make four or five different meals, freezing several. That way I always rotate the meat or meal we eat during the week, and we feel like we never have to be without meat except our once a week vegetarian meal. I made ham and bean soup the other day with the Christmas ham leftover scraps and the ham bone. My mom fed a family of seven with groceries she bought while a grocery store meat wrapper. My dad worked in produce. We had cans with no labels she bought for 10 cents. We had a cat and a dog, but never knew which vegetable or animal food was in the can until we opened it.

I always eat the free meal buffet at hotels and take extra fruit to my room. There will always be a bag of dried beans, box of pasta, and cans of tuna in my pantry ‘just in case’. I had some for the lunch the other day because it was getting close to expiration. I drive around town on errands and find myself noticing open public bathrooms, places where people could park overnight, etc ‘just in case’, even though I’ve never been homeless. I’ve been scared when I was close. I go into survival mode as soon as an extra expense happens even if I am prepared.

I use coupons, shop the sale items, and overstock my pantry. My mom taught me back when rebates were constantly available. We had ‘FHB’ or ‘family hold back’ meals where extra bread was added to the table if someone stopped by unexpectedly. It was the signal for the family to fill up on bread and ‘hold back’ from eating so the guests were satisfied. I still fill out restaurant and fast food surveys for the free meal. I’m the one willing to pick up the company meals nearby, so I get the rewards. People think I’m just being nice or someone in the office is taking advantage of me. I go to the extra early sales to get the extra $10 coupon for the first 100 in line. Early in my career, I used to use the ‘free reward’ items from ordering office supplies to sell at yard sales.

My partner understood before he passed. He had used cracker packets and ketchup packets from fast food with a cup of hot water to make ‘tomato soup’. He had had it worse than us growing up. Most people will never understand.

Our son has never known true hunger, but he has seen enough scrimping that he knows not to waste. As a teen, I gave him the coupons, the sale paper, and $10 with a shopping list. I taught him to use the ‘money back rewards’ with double coupons and buy one get one sale items for anti perspirants, etc to buy the extra milk and things he needed for the week. Even today, I will invite him to a restaurant and he will ask if it can be another day, because he has xxx leftovers to finish before they go bad. You keep the mentality.

Oh and the hand me downs. I wore the same homemade dress in four different sizes. My mom had made each of her five girls tge same blue dress with three buttons. My one sister was so much larger than me hers couldn’t be altered enough or I would have had five. I was thrilled to get a new outfit at Christmas when my sisters were growing up and moving out. There was a little more money then. I quizzed every sister how much their bills were and wrote a budget. I owned everything to move out by 16, down to a vegetable peeler. I wasn’t taking any chances. I used my babysitting and yard work money earned from neighbors. Once I could work fast food, I lied to my parents that I was over a friend’s house when I really worked a full week with overtime all summer long. The child labor laws apparently didn’t check much in those days. I had discovered making money. I was the only kid I knew that lied about having fun so I could work. I worked hard enough to become management before graduating high school. I just wanted to keep earning and saving the most I could. I always worked two jobs until my son was born. You take every chance you get.

What is the biggest turn-off you’ve ever had on a date?

I come from a very dignified and respectable family. My parents always taught me values and how I should be respectful of other.

I was asked out on a date by a coworker. He was older to me by 8 years, nevertheless he was charming and spoke very well. I thought he seemed like a nice, family man.

We ended our date after a meal at a restaurant and he offered to pay. I asked him if he wanted to share the tab but he declined. Afterwards we both were walking towards the car parking area. There was an ATM kiosk.

He tried to withdraw some cash from his card but told me that there was some problem with his card. He then did something weird. He asked my card and my PIN number. And me, like an idiot told him.

He took my purse from me, took the card, punched the PIN number and withdrew a 1000 INR. He took the cash, put it in his pocket and continued walking.

I asked him what he did. To which he replied “oh that was for the dinner and the rest of it is for the petrol I will be spending dropping you back at home”.

That was my first and last date with him.

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone for a while and then found out something very odd about them?

Back in 2015, I’d been dating my then-fiance for some time. We got engaged super early, so it wasn’t exactly “a while,” but it had been at least three months and let me reiterate: we were engaged to be married.

Blake Diamond and I had already sent out requests for our bridal party hopeful-members to become actual-members, and one person said to me how odd the name sounded. “It almost sounds fake, don’t you think?” he asked.

“I mean… maybe?” I said. “I knew a guy in high school with the last name Diamond, and Blake is a name that I’m familiar with, so maybe it’s not that unlikely.”

Several weeks passed and as I began to get deeper and deeper into wedding planning, I needed to know his parents’ address so that I could send things to his family. “I’d rather keep this under wraps. They don’t need to know about all the planning yet. Plus, their last name is Bingham,” he said to me one night.

“Bingham? That’s odd. Yours is… different?”

“Oh, that’s, uh… maybe I didn’t tell you,” he conceded. “Blake G. Diamond III is my online alias.”

I… what?

“What? Why did I not… know that… before you asked me to marry you?”

“I like to go by Blake Diamond, not by my real name.”

He still was hesitant to spill the beans, but when I became inconsolably irate after several minutes of arguing, he finally gave in:

Joe. His real name was Joe.

Project 8200 Exposed | CIA Psychics Find Alien Bases Underground

What was the last conversation you had with your father?

“No dad, I didn’t do it.”

“You know damn well that you did it.”

“No I didn’t. I can save money to buy another one for you if you want.”

“You think I want it from you? I raised a dumbass for a son. Leo, I know you did it.”

“I swear I didn’t.”

“So you’re the only on in the roo-”

“I was asleep on the sofa. I didn’t do i-”

“Just watch, when I come home with your mother you will admit to it.”

I began to laugh, “Good luck. Know what? Take your fucking time coming home.”

And that’s it. I turned off the phone and went to my room, and angrily waited for them to come home. I awoke from the sofa earlier and found the T.V broken. Absolutely crushed.

I called my dad and he was quick to point the finger at me. Which makes sense, the T.V didn’t break itself and I was the only one in the room. Though the truth is that I didn’t do it.

I shouldn’t have been such a fucking snob with my response because they never came home after that.

A knock came at the door and I stomped over, ready to face a loud scolding. But the person at the door wasn’t my dad, or anyone I know. He is wearing a police badge and a police car with our states name written across it is outside the front door. I figured that my dad must have called the cops to see who broke the T.V after realizing it wasn’t me. “Yes?”

“Is this the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Alexandric?”

“Yes.”

“And are you Leonardo?”

“I-yes.”

“Would you like to take a seat?”

All at once my entire body stiffens. “No. Why are you here? What happened?” The T.V is broken. That’s all. Nothing’s wrong. I kept telling myself. But the truth was, everything was wrong.

“Your parents. They’re dead.”

The frankness of his words and shock of it all is too much and I begin to laugh. He looks calmly at me, like he’s used to this type of reaction. He probably was.

“You didn’t answer my second question. What happened?” My voice is shaking and I knew I was on the verge of tears.

“Son, your parents are dead. They got shot. That’s all there is to tell you.”

I stay frozen at the door saying nothing.

“We called your Aunt and Uncle. They’ll be here shortly. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to make sure you’re safe.”

I nod and open the door for him to come inside. I’m too shocked and lost to ask for proof or a warrant of some kind. I just stand at the door and glare at the man until my aunt comes.

She comes with my uncle and she’s screaming, acting hysterical. She grabs me in a hug and doesn’t let go until she faints from exhaustion. That was the last conversation I had with my father.

I never cried about their death, it’s made me colder. I just feel numb thinking about it. I thought it was my fault for the longest time. I did this, I told him not to come back. I know that it’s not true now but it still haunts me.

Please do me a favor and go tell you parents that you love them. Don’t be stupid like me, because no matter how stable everything seems, no one knows when death will strike.

Pride

What is an “Only in Japan” moment?

This is a true story that happend to a friend of mine.

He was fairly new in Japan and went to Yoyogi Park, the most popular and well-known park in Tokyo.

He was playing some sport with his friends for a while, and went home as it started raining.

On his way back to his house, he realized that he forgot his iPad on a bench at the park.

He felt hopeless as the electronics left in public quickly get lost, at least that was the commonsense we generally have, but he went back anyway to where he was in the park.

Photo: Wikimedia

He looked at the bench where he left his iPad, and saw a newspaper.

He removed the newspaper, and there it was. His iPad was sitting there intact! But why was there a newspaper on iPad?

Well, apparently, a kind-hearted anonymous person thought the beautiful iPad shouldn’t get wet in the rain.

My friend calls that an “only-in-Japan” experience. However, as myself being Japanese, I wasn’t surprised.

I’ve lost my iPhone twice on the train (yes, twice..) and found both times at Lost & Found of the railway company.

One learning from my friend’s story and my own experience is “don’t give up finding it when you lose your gadget in Japan!” 🙂

What is the best way to improve life?

Mike has never put more than 40% effort into anything in school.

He sits in the back of the class. He never listens. He figures out how to sleep with his eyes open, or hide under his desk to take naps.

Maybe his dad abandoned him. Maybe his parents never motivated him. Or maybe he’s just plain lazy.

Who knows the reasons. But the effort isn’t there.

Nothing his teachers or parents have ever said or done have been able to turn the fire that burns within him into anything more than a low smolder.

He goes through his early years, turning in the minimum grades to squeak by in everything.

One day, as he shrugs off another bad grade, the teacher stands up at the front of the class.

The teacher points at Mike.

“Study hard – or you’ll end up like Mike there. Dim, lazy, and on the path to flipping burgers for a living.”

A certifiable asshole comment by a teacher.

Mike, typically thick-skinned and nonchalant about life, is pissed.

An authority figure publicly branding him in front of the class, the class laughing, and the obvious implication that a good majority of them shared the teacher’s view of Mike was too much.

He’d had enough.

Deep down he knew he was lazy. But he wasn’t stupid. And he sure as hell wouldn’t be flipping burgers.

That day forward Mike starts studying.

It hurts his brain at first to think and concentrate so much. It’s almost like going to the gym for the first time.

He keeps going. Each day he gets better at it. The rust comes off, those sleepy neurons start to light up between his ears.

Quickly – he gets into a groove. His grades pick up.

They get better. They get better. He learns a couple study tricks he should have known years ago.

Cute girls are suddenly asking him for help in school.

He realizes school isn’t that hard. He realizes what he already knew – he wasn’t dumb.

In fact, he realizes, he’s a lot smarter than he thought he was.

Suddenly, he’s getting the top grades in his class.

Mike – was so much more than even he ever thought.

He’d been a darkhorse scholar in his class.

He is acing test after test. He dethroned the former smart kid who now eyes him with jealousy.

And one day – his teacher asks him to stay after class.

His teacher comes over, sits on a table across from him.

He stares at Mike.

He walks over, reaches out and shakes Mike’s hand, saying, “Mike – I apologize. You had it in you all along. I never knew”

Mike, your quintessential, stereotypical gifted slacker, had announced his arrival.

I’ve found that harsh criticisms can cut deep particularly if there is a grain of truth to them.

The knee-jerk reaction is often to punch back, recoil, bury yourself away from it.

The next time a criticism cuts deep, step forward and into it.

Look within the pain rather than react to it. What does it show you?

Are your talents being buried by inaction? By weakness?

Look at it.

It is right there.

Do something about it.

If someone shines a light on your demons, don’t flip the light off, expel the demons.

If someone mislabels you, sells you short of what you are, what you are capable of, do something about it.

Show them the truth.

You’ll enjoy it.

Nothing beats proving people wrong.

Real Living Cost In Shenzhen, China Will Shock You

What are your thoughts on industries moving back to the United States from China? Do you think it is due to rising costs and stricter environmental regulations in China, or do you think they will stay there permanently? Why or why not?

Which one?

Almost none!

Dell was doing horrendously bad and it’s sales in China is almost non existent when it thought playing the hate China can can win sales in U.S. and its cronies.

Well the result is it got even worst.

China’s market itself is close to 30% of the world’s market. And it can make everything. Better and faster at half the cost anywhere else. With that China help you earn heaps of money! Without China you go broke. With China you laugh all the way to the bank.

99.999% of US businessman wants to stay perpetually in China if they can. US business people are smart. US politicians have only one objective. To stay in power. To do that do shit and talk shit on China can get you there.

Americans are so unbelievably ignorant and naive after 24/7, 365 days a year 74 straight years of demonising And fabrications of lies by the U.S media on China. do you blame the Yanks. Imagine going to school, college and university that teaches you white is black and right is wrong that long!

I don’t. I pity them.

Have you ever seen a workplace bully picking the wrong target? What happened?

Worked at Burger King when I was around 16, and I put up with a lot of abuse from a few managers (including one guy in his 30s constantly getting aggressive with me for no reason, just started happening one day and didn’t quit) because in spite of them, the rm and a few of the other managers were really cool. Flash forward about a year and I was one of three people working in the restaurant and the other two people were the aggressive manager and a new manager who was abusing her power. I made all the food correctly, labeled it correctly and put it on hot table for them to bag( it was the middle of a rush) both of them were bagging the food incorrectly, telling me a made the things wrong when I know I didn’t, I knew they weren’t paying attention they were just bagging stuff up and customer kept coming back angry and I had to remake the food. After a few hours, when the rush hit it got worse. And they were still blaming me for their mistakes, but when the aggressive manager went off on me, I literally just walked over and clocked out and told them I’m quitting, to have fun for the rest of their shift because you’ll be the only ones here for the remainder of the day. I dont work fast food anymore, the thought just makes me angry. I’m not saying I’m better than those workers, or smarter, just that I won’t work in the food industry ever again. I was 16, they should’ve picked a target that was older, less likely to quit because they had bills/ kids to take care of, I didn’t.

A declining society

What are some of the most mind-blowing facts?

• The likelihood of surviving a plane accident is around 95.7%. However, around 16% of accidents are fatal. Of all modern transport-category planes, the one with the worst safety record is the Concorde, yet it only had one fatal accident, this is because of its limited service history.*
• Afghanistan’s literacy rate is around 29%.
• Labor Day was an event conceived to cover up some pretty brutal massacres of American workers.
• The sun is one star in 300 sextillion (or 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.)
• After suffering a knife wound whilst giving fellatio a woman became pregnant… even despite being born without a vagina.

*Concorde fact courtesy of Tal R. Thanks Tal.

• Britain’s youngest grandfather was 29 at the time of birth.
• The total weight of all the Earth’s ants is around the same of all the humans.
• Because ants are so small they can survive a session in a microwave by dodging the rays.
• When you sneeze your heart stops for a millisecond- hence the term bless you.
• At 2000 km long, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth.
• Polar bears can run at 25 kmph and jump around 6 feet high.
• There are 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body, so they could stretch around the Earth 2.5 times.
• If you were to drill a tunnel straight through the centre of the Earth it would take you precisely 42 minutes and 12 seconds to get to the bottom if you jumped… but you’d be dead before you got there.
• The strongest creature on Earth, gonorrhea bacteria, can pull 100,000 times their body weight.
• If you apply an electric current to a pickle it will react with the salt, causing the pickle to glow.

• The speed of Neptune’s wind breaks the sound barrier.
• Picasso was a suspect in the 1911 Mona Lisa theft.
• The Queen owns one-sixth of the Earth’s land surface.
• On August 27th of 1896, Britain and Zanzibar fought a war. It lasted 36 minutes.
• The U.S. produces 90,000,000 acres of corn per annum.
• Warner’s Bros. was founded before the Ottoman Empire fell.
• Calculations determine that, in the last 3,500 years, there have been 260 years of peace.
• In 2005 a man threw a grenade at George W. Bush and it didn’t explode.
• If the figures are correct humans were first on Earth 200,000 years ago, and written records of life were first found from 6,000 years ago, 97% of history is lost.
• You can swim through some of the arteries in a blue whale’s heart.
• Thomas Edison’s last breath is in a tube, in Detroit’s Henry Ford museum.
• Most canned laughter was recorded in the 1950’s, so most of those laughs re from dead people.
• A single crayon burns for half an hour.

• In Detroit, 70% of murders go unsolved.
• Excite turned Google down in 1999 when they were willing to sell the company for $1,000,000
• Ronald Wayne sold his stake in Apple for $800 dollars in 1976.
• ‘No melon, no lemon’ spelt backwards is ‘No melon, no lemon.’
• If you spell out every number you won’t use an A until you reach one thousand.
• Marie Curie’s work is still radioactive enough to make you sick, so you must sign a disclaimer to view them.
• Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing the the building of the Great Pyramid.
• Half of the humans ever to live have died from malaria.
• Charlie Chaplin’s remains were stolen and held for ransom. See chaplin.
• **
• If you could fold paper 42 times it would reach the moon.
• If there was no space between the atoms on Earth it would be the size of a regular baseball.
• Ireland’s population is still 2,000,000 less than it was before the potato famine.
• You have a 0.5% chance of being related to Genghis Khan.
• A banana is a berry and a strawberry isn’t.
• Nelson Mandela wasn’t removed from the U.S. terror watch-list until 2008.
• Jimmy Carter, the genius that he is, sent a jacket to his cleaner with nuclear launch codes and secrets in the pocket.
• Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator in the Golden Girls.

**Charlie Chaplin fact courtesy of Murray Robinson. Thanks Murray. 🙂

• The heat of the sun’s core is so hot that if you put a pinhead on Earth which was as hot you could kill a person 160 km away.
• Irish poet Brendan Behan was a confirmed alcoholic at the age of eight.
• Sunandha Kumariratana the Queen of Thailand forbid her subjects from touching her and so they were all forced to look on as she drowned.
• Fleas can jump around 200 times their height.
• A seahorse moves through the waters at about 0.01 mph.
• A giraffe’s spots are truly unique- no two giraffes have the same spots, also you can determine their age from the darkness of their spots.
• Giraffes learn to stand after 30 minutes and can run with their mothers after 10 hours.
• Scientists have submitted papers to exhume and examine the body of shakespeare to see if he smoked marijuana.
• Blue jeans are now banned in North Korea for being a sign of American imperialism.
• Shopping carts have more saliva, faecal matter, and bacteria on them than most bathrooms.
• Barry Manilow didn’t write his song “I Write the Songs.”
• Leo Fender couldn’t play the guitar.
• President John Tyler still has two surviving grandchildren, despite being born some 221 years ago.
• 1/3 of all the U.K. divorce filings included the word ‘Facebook’.

• There was a counting horse called Stanley from Liverpool, who could multiply, divide, add and subtract as well as calculate mileage, it also performed in a theatre production in the Anglican cathedral… he was trained by my Grandfather. 🙂

Crazy gym lifestyle in the USA

What did your mother or father say to you when you were young that you remembered your whole life?

I had a very snooty classmate, mummy and daddy had more money than sense, and whenever we passed a homeless person she was sniff and say “dirty scroungers, get a job!”

My dad on the other hand would always pass the time of day and give them some money. One day we met him on the way home from school, the girl saw dad give a man a few coins and demanded “why give him your money. He needs a job!”

“Yes.”Dad agreed, “and a home, and a nice loving family. Can you give him that? Just as Scaz is my child, that man is somebody’s child. If we all remembered that everyone is somebody’s baby, we would all be happier! When you look at him, you think begger. When I look at him I think “There but for the grace of God go I.”

When we got home, dad sat me down and said “if you remember nothing else, remember this. When someone hits rock bottom, there is only one way left. Up.

If you can’t find a kind person, BE a kind person. When someone hits rock bottom, be the hand pulling them back up, for God knows one day you’ll need someone to do it for you “

Mind vs. Body

What psychological tricks can I use in everyday life?

Here are 8 useful psychological tricks you can use in daily life:

1.When people tell you things you don’t agree with

Don’t object to them firmly.

First acknowledge what they say with words like, “I see what you mean” and continue with your own opinion asking “but have you ever thought about this part of it?” That approach will help you make your point without being interrupted or having someone oppose you.

2. To improve your mood

You can Write down negative thoughts and tossing them in a trash can.

And if you are angry, draw lines. Simple patterns relax you. If you feel sad, paint a rainbow.

3. If you want someone to carry something for you

Hand it over to them while talking. Most people won’t notice that you’re handing them something and they will take it.

But note that this trick may not work on people who are naturally more attentive as well as less close to you.

4. To make yourself look like a naturally good listener, even if you aren’t one

Paraphrase what someone else has just said and say it again. Remember to not be too obvious though.

5. To get friendlier with a person

Emphasize your shared values. In other words, try finding a point of similarity between the two of you and then highlight it.

This is according to the “similarity-attraction effect”, stating that you are more attracted to those who are similar to you.

6. To give someone positive memories of your conversation or interaction

Let them talk about themselves. One study showed that when people talked about themselves, the reward system of the brain became activated, meaning talking about oneself felt actually rewarding.

7. When two people eat together, if you want to know if the other person has a potential affection for you (friendship and love apply)

Pick up a cup and take a sip of water. If the other person also subconsciously picks up his glass and drinks water, he or she is more likely to have a potential interest in you. Related article you may want to read: 20 signs to tell if someone likes you.

8. To immediately feel confident

You may be surprised by the effectiveness of adopting the “power stance”, i.e. standing with your legs apart and your arms spread out so that you cover as much space as possible. If you do this for just two minutes, you flood your body with testosterone and will instantly feel more self-assured.

I dominated

Comparison between Chinese and Japanese disaster rescue operation

Japan :

An earthquake occurred at 4:00 pm, The Self-Defense Forces were still eating, drinking and having fun to celebrate the New Year that night. They did not set out to the disaster area until noon the next day. It took 5 or 6 days after the disaster to complete the operation. There were only 2,000 food supplies for more than 10,000 people and no water for one day., only get one rice ball.

China :

At 23:59 on December 18, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake occurred in Jishishan County, Gansu Province, my country;

Just 3 minutes after the earthquake, fire trucks and ambulances appeared on the streets;

20 minutes after the earthquake, Gansu and Qinghai launched emergency plans at the same time;

37 minutes after the earthquake, the fire rescue teams from Lanzhou, Wuwei and Baiyin had already assembled and went to the scene for disaster relief;

81 minutes after the earthquake, the first trapped person was rescued;

160 minutes after the earthquake, the provincial party committee secretaries and governors from Gansu and Qinghai arrived at the disaster area to guide the rescue;

At four o’clock in the morning, the first batch of 300 rescue troops from the People’s Liberation Army arrived in the disaster area and began relief;

In the early morning of that day, the People’s Liberation Army cooking truck began to make breakfast for the affected people;

At 15:00 that day, the official announced that the earthquake rescue work was basically completed, and the focus of the work shifted to the treatment of the wounded and the living arrangements of the affected people.

In other words, from 23:59 on the evening of the 18th to 15:00 on the 19th, China completed the entire earthquake rescue work in only 15 hours. The affected people even had hot meals in the morning as usual.

a tweet from a Japanese comparing two disaster rescue mission.

do you understand picture above?

Author Note : China is not a perfect country, a smart society has it owns problem. However I notice that they are very optimistic about their economy prospect compared with the rest of the world and second they really proud on how disaster management they have.

What would happen if China became stronger than the United States economically, militarily, and politically?

Nothing will happen. Nothing did happen.

Ignore the single dimension inaccurate GDP! It measures hot air bubble like Wall Street and bloated U.S. greed such as pharmaceutical companies!

China for all intent and purpose has overtaken the U.S. for at least a decade now. Financially, politically, economically and militarily since 2014.

China won’t do the shit that the U.S. do foolishly acting as a worldwide police man that no one wanted and nobody is willing to pay a cent for. The only gain for the US is universal hate and disdain. The U.S. appears to prefer to implode its economy and impoverish its people by paying for Ukraine instead of helping its own poor.

China is very clear it will do everything to make Chinese people live a better life, healthier living and better livelihood over interference, intervention and chaos and coup financing and orchestrating. That is a U.S. thing. American must stand up to stop your corrupt officials from bankrupting your nation and destroying your future.

Unhireable

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

It was dark at the restaurant’s parking lot. I was a young boy in the back seat of my Father’s Thunderbird. My older brother and I were kneeling on the car seat, watching a frightening scene unfold through the rear window. My Mother was in the front seat holding our baby sister while keeping an eye on us and repeatedly ordering us to stay in the car and to not open any doors. (In the 1960’s child-proof locks didn’t exist)

Outside, a loud, angry man walked towards my Father. He was enraged. He pointed at my Father as he screamed profanities and threats. He kept advancing and made it perfectly clear to my Father he was going to kill him. I think the man was upset that my Father had inadvertently pulled into a parking spot he wanted.

My Father stood still.

Although the parking lot was only barely illuminated by a small lamppost, I could still see the vehemence in this man’s face. The shadows the overhead lamp created made him look even more demonic as he kept getting closer. The man pulled an object from his pocket and with some fancy wrist flicks flipped it open and exposed a blade. It looked like this:

Image Source: Google images

It’s called a balisong. The American version is called a butterfly knife.

“I’m going to slice your guts open,” I heard the man say.

“Is that what you wanted? You want a knife fight?” my Father asked. He opened the car’s trunk.

We briefly lost sight of the angry man. Only after my Father shut the trunk did we see what was happening again. We saw the man with the knife. Except now he was much further away; running, stumbling in panic, screaming apologies and running some more.

My Father wasn’t too far behind and closing in with a samurai sword.

I lost track of my Father and the man after they rounded the corner of the restaurant. I don’t think my Father killed him, though, as I didn’t see any blood on his clothes or on the sword in his hand as he calmly walked back to the car. He slid the sword back into its sheath and lowered the trunk door.

“Let’s eat,” he casually said.

---

During WWII, my Father was a member of Marking’s Regiment, a guerilla unit. They took part in several fights, most of which were in thick jungles which involved a lot of ambushes and hand-to-hand combat. (They also fought alongside American units in several operations. Here’s one of them

[1]) The article written by David Lash mentions them in a couple of places. The article’s several pages long though, so I extracted some excerpts:

The Americans were greatly helped by Filipino guerrillas. From the very beginning of the Japanese occupation, numerous bands had been active throughout the Philippines. They ran the gamut from highly effective, disciplined groups to common criminals. But one of the outfits most useful to the Americans was Marking’s Fil-American Yay Regiment, better known as Marking Regiment, a group of Filipino guerrillas about 3,000 strong. This group was headed by Colonel Marcus V. Augustin, a former Manila-Antipolo bus driver who had escaped Bataan and chosen “Marking” as his guerilla name.

---

Marking’s Regiment would be under the direction of Brig. Gen. Alexander Stark, the assistant commander of the 43rd. Its role was to attack the northern flank, largely as a feint to confuse the Japanese. Because of this secondary status, there were no plans to give it significant artillery or air support.

The regiment would be split into a North Force and a South Force of about 1,500 men each.

(Before I continue I want to respectfully say “Thank you” to all the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces – past and present, Thank you for your service.)

---

My Father was decorated with several battle scars. The one that pertains to this story though, at a separate battle from the one mentioned above, is a long scar above his chest, right below his neck. It was courtesy of a Japanese officer in one of their several run-ins. My Father killed him with a bolo (a type of machete) after the officer’s swing and near miss at decapitation. He claimed the dead man’s sword after the fight was over and all the enemy combatants were dead. (They had a tendency to refuse surrender, which was fine by the guerrillas.)

The man with a 5-inch blade had no effect on my Father other than to produce a disdainful sneer. Without seeing his face I know he sneered. I know the man.

Below is a photo of the actual sword my Father chased the man with that night. My Father donated it to a WW II museum before old age finally claimed him. I took a picture of his sword when I went back home for his funeral. He was buried with full military honors.

---

Post Script added 4/5/20 :

My Father was well aware of the value of the samurai sword. He was an executive officer of the Philippines Veterans Museum and played an instrumental part in the creation and building of the museum. After he retired from his law practice, he dedicated the remainder of his life to the welfare of veterans and worked tirelessly for their benefit. He had housing units, similar to barracks, built for homeless or financially needy veterans and their families to live in cost free for as long as they needed.

The monetary value of the sword, to him, was insignificant. Income generated from the museum were used for expenses related to the housing units as well as for the education of the children and descendants of poor veterans. So the value of the sword was not lost, but repurposed to benefit the needy.

I wrote more about him in another answer: Dennis Garcia’s answer to What was the best time you witnessed a bully get owned?

Footnotes

[1]Ipo Dam: A Campaign For Water – Warfare History Network

Thai Boxing

What is the funniest joke you’ve been told that you still think about to this day?

The funniest joke I have ever heard (and what makes it even more hilarious is the fact that I am blind) is the one about the man who takes his Seeing Eye dog into a bar. He picks the dog up by the tail and swings him around his head in a circle. “What are you doing?” the bar tender asks. “I’m just looking around.” he replies.

Another is about a blind man who goes to Texas. He feels the bus seat in Texas and says, “This seat is huge!” “Everything’s bigger in Texas.” the bus driver says. “Have a seat.” So the blind man sits down and the bus arrives at a bar later on. The guy gets off and goes inside.

When he sits down, the bar tender pours him a glas. The blind man feels it and says, “This glass is humongus.” “Everything is bigger in Texas.” the bar tender replies. A few minutes pass and the blind guy is hammered. He asks the tender where the rest room is. “It’s the third door on your right down that hallway to the left of you.” the bar tender replies, and the blind man gets up and advances toward the bathroom. Well, along the way, he trips over a fan cord and as a result, he oversteps and goes out the fourth door instead. He falls into the club swimming pool, and the whole time he’s standing in water up to his chest, he’s screaming, “Don’t flush! Don’t flush! Please, God, no!”

Japanese

What are some mind blowing life hacks?

1. If you have a few hours to kill on the airplane, delete pictures from your phone.

2. Use your travel toiletries at home the night before you leave for a long trip.

3. Sign out of Netflix when checking out of an Airbnb or hotel.

4. When using a grocery delivery service, tip a set amount, not a percentage.

5. Waving someone through a stop sign when they stopped after you is not doing anybody a favour and most competent drivers are just annoyed at you for behaving unpredictably.

6. If you need to memorize information, read it, record it and play it quietly at night.

7. Save your PowerPoint presentation as a .ppsx file that starts automatically when opened.

8. Marry someone who will always have your back, even when they’re mad at you.

9. If you find a faster way to do something at your work, keep it a secret from your manager.

10. Your company didn’t know you existed before you applied and won’t notice you when you’re gone. Take care of yourself.

11. Before buying something, ask yourself two questions: “Where will I store this thing?” and “How difficult will it be to clean this thing?”

12. If the person you are dating invites you over for a home cooked meal, take the initiative and just start doing the dishes without asking. You can thank me later.

13. Ask the person you are dating the non-negotiables of yours in the first few weeks.

14. If you know how late you are going to be, add an extra 5-10 minutes to it. It might be annoying for the people when you say it initially, but when you come before the time you said, it will evoke a far more positive reaction than underestimating the lateness time.

15. Pay Attention to the smell of your home when you come back from a trip. That’s what it smells like to guests all the time, you just get used to it.

16. Do not try to be the man your father would want you to be. Be the man you would like your son to be be.

75 cent rule

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/A0unEiRSWHo?feature=share

What is the most courageous thing you’ve ever seen someone do or say?

I was new to a school. New year for everyone else.

If you thought this was yet another story from my dramatic teenage years, you were wrong. I was seven.

There was a boy in this class. Let’s call him Lewis. Lewis was… let’s just say he wasn’t very popular. He wasn’t bullied, he wasn’t hated, he was just a loner. The sort of kid who no one really talked to, and who didn’t really talk to anyone (he would grow up to be the most mad cap son of a bitch I know).

One day Lewis decides to read a book. I cannot recall what book, only that it had a bright pink cover.

Another kid, let’s call him Darren, decides that this is a perfect opportunity to do what kids do best: be cruel. So he goes to mock Lewis.

‘You’re reading a girls book. You like girly things!’

I’ve been observing Lewis for several days now. I’ve always liked to observe those that stood out to me. Even at my age I was able to tell that Lewis was not the sort of kid who would be able to respond well to that.

Except I was wrong.

‘Yeah I’m reading a girly book. I also like fairy cakes. And I love my mum. What are you going to do about it?’

Y’all know what sort of person I am. Now. But this kid was 7 years old and totally owned who he was. Not only that, but he took what must’ve been the greatest risk I’d ever seen right there.

X, Y, Z…

As a mechanic, what is the strangest thing you have seen in a customer’s car?

Back in the late ‘90s, I began my time at a Ford dealership as a technician. (I had been working on vehicles/machinery since a kid, so, it was a good fit)

One day, right at closing time, a lady came in from about 50 miles away. She had a brand new first generation Ford Escape (it had only come out maybe a month prior) with less than 500 miles on the odometer.

She complained about a shimmy/wobble from the front end and steering wheel vibration. Ok. So, preliminary check while parked outside and her watching, I look at the vehicle head-on and noticed the driver’s front wheel out of alignment, seriously out of alignment. I take a closer look and pop the center cap off the wheel, exposing the hub and axle assembly (this was a front wheel drive vehicle) and what I saw blew me away.

There was no axle nut holding the hub to the threaded axle shaft. Judging from the condition of the hub, no witness marks and the absence of the nut itself, the retainer nut was never installed on this vehicle from the factory.

This customer had driven all that way with only the caliper and brake disk assembly holding the wheel onto the vehicle. This one disturbed me just thinking what could have happened had the brake disk or the caliper failed during her commute.

Damn Right

What happened when a king in medieval times impregnated a servant or a commoner? Were their children called princes and princesses?

Kings in the middle ages did impregnate servants BUT those servants were freqently of noble or “gentle” birth themselves. The daughters of knights, at the least.

Why mess with the runny-nosed maid scrubbing the privy floor when there were wall-to-wall ladies-in-waiting doing the less grubby jobs of helping the queen and princesses dress, doing their hair, mending their clothes, and serving their meals? Not to mention the daughters and sisters of the noblemen serving the king?

The children from those affairs didn’t become princes and princesses because they weren’t in the line of inheritance. But their mothers were often married off to someone with money and who wanted to be in the king’s favour. The king might acknowledge a daughter with an estate and minor title at some point to get her a better marriage or acknowledge a competent young son with a title, an estate and a military command.

In Norman tradition, it was common to give an illegitimate child the surname starting with “Fitz.” Giles Fitzgerald would be the illegitimate son of a nobleman named Gerald of Whatever, while Gerald’s legitimate son William would be William of Whatever. Fitzroy was reserved for the son of the king. There were lots of Fitzroys around sometimes.

William the Conqueror was illegitimate, but since his father, Robert, Duke of Normandy, had no legitimate sons, he picked William to be his heir. William of Normandy, later King William I of England, still got stuck with the name “William the Bastard” by his detractors.

Henry I of England had 25 known illegitimate children by several noble mistresses. He made one of his nine illegitimate sons the Earl of Gloucester and another the Earl of Cornwall. Others (mostly named Fitzroy) were given smaller estates and/or military commands, and at least one went into the church. And although Henry lost both his legitimate sons young, the earls of Cornwall and Gloucester backed up their legitimate sister Matilda’s claim to the throne. Of his daughters, one became an abbess and most of the rest married well — one was a countess, another a duchess, and another the queen of Scotland.

And what did the queens think of this? In the middle ages, they didn’t have much to say, unless they were Queen Regnant like Joanna of Castille, who, when her handsome husband, Philip Duke of Austria, messed with some of her ladies-in-waiting, cut off their hair and spread it across his pillow as a warning.

No shit

What is the best excuse you have given to the police for speeding?

Not me, but a coworker.

We worked at a battery manufacturing plant in a small town in Iowa. One of the primary hazards was lead contamination, so we had to have our blood lead levels checked frequently to be certain they didn’t hit truly hazardous levels (but, working in such a place, your levels were *never* zero).

One day a coworker just slipped in the door & managed to clock in on time, so others asked him why was running so late. He said that he’d overslept & so had been egregiously speeding trying to make it when he was pulled over by Iowa State Patrol.

When the officer asked him why he was going so fast, he looked at him & said “Sorry, officer, but I work at Exide.”

“So what does that have to do you speeding?”

“It’s my blood levels, sir. All the lead makes my foot heavy!”

Apparently, the cop got a good laugh at the excuse & let him go with a warning.

Keep putting in the work

What is something that gets better once you get older?

Two things

One:

Dating is so much freaking better than high school, early-college stuff.

There’s no gossip and drama.

There’s no taboo around sex and hooking up. The people you date typically have many years and notches on their bedpost: it’s not a big deal anymore.

Dating means you exist in your own private channel – nobody else is in the know unless you choose to have them in the know.

And anyone else who is in the know? Who cares.

Two:

Weekends are killer.

And here’s the ironic part.

When you have your own house, your own rules, some money in your bank, what do you look forward to doing most on the weekend?

Not much of anything.

It’s great. Just relaxing, knocking out some chores, indulging a hobby or two. Maybe going out to eat or walking around.

Light activities. But basically nothing.

And maybe getting lucky. (See One).

Being a grown-up is awesome. My 30’s has been my best decade yet – it isn’t even close.

Chinese carrier landing

Pay attention.

Have you ever witnessed someone get fired for over-performing?

Gary was a really enthusiastic teacher. He spent a lot of his free time pouring over ‘How to teach’ texts, grammar explanations and games (for grammar and English communications).

He took lesson planning and student evaluations very (too?) seriously.

He talked of little else.

I liked him and could relate to his passion for teaching.

We were all teaching part-time in a small, uni-sponsored English language program and rarely saw each other since all classes were off-campus.

The director’s secretary called me, asking if I knew of a school that would hire Gary, stating that the director had to let him go for over-achieving.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

Gary had been sent to a high-end accounting firm to improve the English language skills of ten people who were scheduled for promotion to senior auditors IF they exhibited a high level of ability in various skills.

Gary went into overdrive in determining their needs (annoying HR and Training with non-stop questions) and planning accordingly.

He decided that the 30-hour course wasn’t sufficient and approached our director AND the company’s HR. He was told to stick to the schedule.

BUT he (on his own) added an unpaid, extra half hour or more to each class period.

The students were appreciative, but the company and our director took a dim view. The company, like many places we taught, expected the staff to study at 5 p.m. and then put in overtime after class.

Gary’s class extensions were affecting projects, customer relations and students’ output.

The director, although Gary did NOT ask for extra pay, saw this as a financial loss, a practice that none of the other teachers would be willing to do, AND a deterrent to future classes with this company.

He tried explaining and reasoning with Gary with little success. He finally had to order Gary to stop the extra teaching or give up the class.

The company was notified with apologies (our director was an amazing smoozer) and that was the end of it.

But…no.

Gary continued to sneak in extra time, 10-15 minutes or so, and added homework.

When the course finished, the students praised Gary for his concern and gave him high evaluations but quietly asked HR to request a different teacher.

Note: Gary was later hired at a different university as full-time staff, often tutoring students for free.

I traveled to WUHAN, China and it was SHOCKING

Why is Hong Kong refusing to seize the $500 million Russian oligarch yacht docked in its waters owned by Alexei Mordashov?

What an epic marina to enjoy rich lifestyle with a palm-fringed shoreline, roads congested with sports cars, and beautiful women in bikinis sunbathing on a white sand beach.…Not.

Russian steel and mining oligarch Alexey Mordashov’s superyacht Nord has just been re-registered in grim and brutalsky Vladivostok, Russia. It’s been docked in Golden Horn Bay near the borders with friendly countries, North Korea and China, for over a year.

The region is known for its large reserves of tin and tungsten. It’s also rich in copper, fluorite, and coal. Collectors value agates, sapphires, and precious opals that are held in high esteem. It doesn’t manufacture or design absolutely anything of economic value.

The super yacht costs 5 annual city budgets of Vladivostok, which skyline you can see in the photo above.

Having escaped by the skin of Mordashov’s American dental work from being impounded in Italy, the captain turned the transponder off and went AWOL for one full year. All this time, Mordashov desperately tried to negotiate political asylum for his boat in Asian countries – any would do as long as he didn’t have to return to his homeland.

Putin started the war in Ukraine in February 2022, the West retaliated with a barrage of sanctions targeting his inner circle, and oligarchs like Modrashov discovered that they have about as much agency outside of Putin’s diktat and Western playbook as a cockroach about to be sprayed with DDT.

Indonesia and Malaysia told Mordashov off and to head up Nord, which he did. Hong Kong reacted to the man on the run’s request for sanctuary just as they did to Edward Snowden’s:

“We not gonna have reputational risks and jeopardize our dodgy financial schemes and money laundering hub for the sake of your narcissistic self-aggrandizements. Can we recommend a country where you gonna fit right in – Russia?”

The super-yacht was built in Germany and was registered in the Cayman Islands, whose flag features The British Union Jack in the corner, a country that has provided Urkaine with cruise missiles that have sunk at least two Russian warships in the Black Sea, including the fleet’s flagship Moskva.

Launched just two years before the full-scale invasion, Nord spent a third of its lifespan on the run, and a third docked in Vladivostok. Mordashov should convert it to an icebreaker as the only route left for him to take is the Arctic Ocean.

Mordashov is also free to play Tschaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with artillery and all and wait for the end of the hostilities at the other end of Russia to cease.

It doesn’t matter which side is going to win though, Mordashov’s is stuck in Vladivostok forever. I would recommend scuttling and selling tickets to a most expensive private yacht shipwreck diving spot. Chinese millionaires across the border might show interest in buying tours.

Or as they say, “Russian ship, go f yourself.”

Why was mobster Hymie Weiss considered the only person Al Capone ever feared?

Al Capone had balls the size of Texas. He allegedly did not fear anyone or anything EXCEPT the little Polish guy from Chicago.

Weiss had bad headaches and fainting spells. It was probably a brain tumor. Certain he was not going to live into his 30’s, Weiss had balls the size of Alaska. He feared nothing, including the godfather of Chicago’s South Side, Al Capone.

The son of poor Italian immigrants, Capone would rule the biggest criminal empire in American history. Although prostitution, gambling and bootlegging were the moneymakers, killing opponents came with the territory.

The North Side Gang was a mix of Poles, Jews and Irishmen. The South Side Gang was Italians, run by Capone and Johnny Torrio. They did not like each other. Capone decided to delete the head of the North Side; Dean O’Banion was shot dead on November 10, 1924.

Weiss took control of the North Side Gang. He shot up Capone’s limousine, but Capone was not in the vehicle at the time. He then went over to visit Johnny Torrio at his house and peppered him full of bullets. Weiss did not like the Sicilian mafia either, so he stopped by to see Angelo Genna, too. Weiss killed him.

Weiss did his own killing; it was his hobby.

Capone was nervous. His days were numbered, so he contacted Weiss and requested a truce. A meeting was held.

Weiss demanded that the two men who shot O’Banion be delivered for his own personal afternoon of “entertainment”. Either that or he would kill Capone, too.

Capone could not accept the offer. Those two were the best hit men in Capone’s private collection.

As Weiss went to the flower shop where he often slept and where O’Banion was killed, two men, one with a machine gun and the other with a shotgun, opened fire. Weiss, the only man that Al Capone feared, was dead of a bullet wound to the head at the age of 28.

The meal is free

When have you cheaply or inexpensively fixed an item someone thought unrepairable?

Several years ago I was working for a company doing home theatre installs. Often when walk-ins bought TVs they’d ask to have it installed (and mounted). A good customer of ours came in and bought a new TV. At the time this 60″ plasma was going out the door for about $8k. We (I) installed it, mounted it on the wall in their basement. It had been recommended that they purchase a UPS / battery backup /spike protector. They declined. After I finished the install I recommended the same (I was paid salary, so selling stuff wasn’t part of my compensation and didn’t matter except for the obvious protection of this equipment). I didn’t plug the TV into the wall, the customer did that after declining the UPS.

2 weeks later they called stating their satellite dish tower was struck by lightning and the new TV wasn’t coming on. I was sent to evaluate. You could smell the ozone smell, the magic smoke smell even a day later. Warranty doesn’t cover this. They buy a new TV.. the new models just came out and they popped for a 75″… and a UPS this time. I had a helper with me to install the new one, and they asked us to dispose of the baked TV. I called the office and they said load it up and take it away to be disposed, don’t even bring it to the office. Instead of taking it 45 minutes to the E-waste disposal site, I put it in the back of my truck and dumped it on my back porch. It sat there for a couple years. When Covid hit and everything shut down I did what everyone else did… started purging stuff. I looked at this TV and decided to take a look-see before tossing it. After laying it on the counter and getting the back off it, I exposed 3 PCBs. 2 were almost identical, as I looked first at one and then the next I realized that the PCB on the right had a pile of charcoal where a small blue MoV should have been (MoV’s are the protection device in Surge protector bars). I went down to my dead devices pile and grabbed an old dead Bell Sat receiver and found the same part. Unsoldered it and installed it into the TV. As soon as I plugged it in, the screen came on and the audio started hissing that white noise from not being tuned to a channel.

I’m using that TV for over 2 years now without any further issues.

What was the nail in the coffin for an employee or a co-worker?

Oh, the stories one can tell…

Had to fire one engineer for watching porn on the company computer. Worst part? He sued because he wasn’t given a warning…the State Labor board agreed…we had to cover his salary for six months. Despite being clearly covered in the employee handbook as a “no-no”, we apparently couldn’t just fire him. We figured it was just the cost of doing business to rid ourselves of such an individual.

Fired one young lady on the second shift who was “entertaining gentlemen” in her van during lunch hour. If she’d been doing it up on the berm of the State highway it would have been a public matter, but she was parked on company property…with surveillance cameras catching everything.

Fired upwards of a hundred over the years for drug and alcohol abuse on the job.

Some more I knew about (but wasn’t the firing supervisor)…

There were two executives caught “in the act” on the boardroom table. Not a great career choice in general, particularly bad when the CEO is a born again Christian.

Knew another executive who got a job at a private firm…and decided it was a bright idea to share the spreadsheet of bids of all the competitors with the government. Their first act was to fire him, the second was to call the FBI and the Inspector General. He’s doing time in Federal prison.

More “rank and file” firings for time card theft, attempted embezzlement, stealing company property, deliberate destruction of company property, and aggravated assault on a co-worker.

There’s no end to human stupidity.

What things should I never do?

Before I go there, let me tell you a story.

One day I was walking in my building when a girl in my neighborhood, pushed me from behind.

I looked around at her, tried to reason with her but she snapped at me saying I wasn’t looking where I was going.

She was plain rude.

Stop for a moment.

What do you think of that girl now?

Mean? Obnoxious?

Let’s see what actually happened:

I had my earphones on when I was walking so I couldn’t hear the girl walking behind me.

I slowed down suddenly and that’s when that girl bumped into me.

I got annoyed and asked her what her problem was. That’s when she got angry and asked me to watch where I was going.

---

Okay. Same story, two narrations.

The above incident didn’t really happen but I wanted to illustrate something:

In the first story, I never mentioned I had my earphones on.

In the first story, I said that the girl was the one who pushed me.

In fact, I even wrote that I “tried to reason with her” when I had actually blamed her even though I was the one at fault.

I left out the details which could make me look bad and exaggerated the parts which blamed the other person.

Just like, if a person goes ahead and says how all of their exes were crazy and they were the innocent victims, there’s a high chance that the story is manipulated.

Here’s the thing: Every story has two sides.

So, you can never form a judgement by hearing just one side of it.

What things should you never do?

Well, let’s start with, not believing every random thing you hear.

I don’t see why this matters…

What will China do to fight decoupling and drive its economic recovery?

What is the one thing you would never do?

Imagine: You are trapped on your stomach, walls all around you. Each time you inhale, your ribs touch the top of the space you are enclosed in. You can only wiggle forward, inching towards freedom. Oh, yeah-don’t forget: The walls might crumble down on you, killing you instantly. Worse yet, you might get trapped, stuck in a tiny, enclosed space, unable to move as you slowly die of thirst.

Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Spelunking, otherwise known as cave crawling, is the ‘sport’ for people with a death wish. Essentially, you mash your body through tiny cave crevices that have the chance of leading to a larger cave. It’s a claustrophobic’s nightmare come to life.

You might think that it’s safe? Absolutely not. The only equipment you have is a helmet. If you think:

Well, with my trusty hard hat, what’s there to worry about? It’ll protect me if the cave comes crumbling down!

Then you might want to go “spelunking” in a padded room with no windows.

---

The Nutty Putty Cave incident made international headlines.

Spelunker John Jones was well familiar with spelunking. As a child, he had often spelunked with his father, and when he was 23 years old, he descended into the depths of Nutty Putty Cave in Utah. The cave had seen over 5000 visitors a year for decades, and was assumed to be fairly safe.

John went into the cave with his brother Josh and some other friends, totally unaware of what would happen next. At one point, John thought he was in a part of the cave called the Birth Canal, but in reality, he had ventured into uncharted sections of the cave near “Ed’s Push”. He went to climb through a small gap- and found himself seriously stuck. Even worse- he was almost entirely upside-down.

Several rescue attempts failed, and John died of cardiac arrest after being stuck in the cave for over 27 hours. Officials couldn’t even retrieve his body, and Nutty Putty Cave was forever sealed off.

---

There have been countless other deaths in cave systems around the world. Drowning, starvation, noxious gas- you name it. Spelunking just doesn’t sound appealing.

I don’t see how the mashing yourself through tiny crevices is worth the chance of dying an awful death. I’ll fling myself out of a plane, dive down into the depths of the ocean, scale cliff faces- but there’s absolutely no way in the world I’m ever going spelunking.

Shine bright.

Blackballed

Do Chinese people know that their leadership is endangering them by turning the world against them? It seems that the world is slowly starting to see China as the “Great Satan”.

Take India

We have quite a bit of anti China propaganda

Yet most of our Industries are rapidly buying more and more Chinese machinery when the time for replacement comes

This year the demand for Chinese CNC machinery for India surged rapidly

Machines are more affordable and better quality

One Importer said he had less than 15% orders from China in 2015 but now has almost 70% orders from China

The Biggest problem for Chinese Machines in India was RESALE

A Major Industry could buy 50 Chinese Machines but reselling them in the second hand market was a huge problem as they barely fetched 10% of their value against almost 30% for Japanese & Korean and 40% for Western Machines

Yet now Chinese Machines fetch 25% of their value in resale and the biggest part is the same machines can be resold to other countries in Africa

Indian Industries save almost 18% of their production costs that increases their profit plus the re exporting of second hand Chinese machinery brings export revenue

It’s a WIN WIN relationship

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China has this Win Win relationship with most nations in the world

Even the West, which is why despite all the rhetoric, decoupling is not feasible

When Goods worth $ 100 Billion is imported from China, they create finished goods worth $ 200–400 Billion or sell for $ 200–400 Billion in Western Economies

This leads to VALUE CREATION

This contributes to between 13% to 33% of the economic growth of Western economies

When $ 100 worth of components are assembled to sell a final product for $ 300 – that creates an additional $ 200 of value

This helps Countries with value enhancement plus even exports

---

Due to this Win Win relationship, despite all the efforts of the West, China is an integral cog in the Global Economy

It’s why many nations visit China and pledge allegiance and friendship every year

In 2023 – 81 Foreign Delegations visited China against a mere 12 Chinese Delegations visiting other countries

160+ Trade Delegations visited China versus a mere 30+ Trade delegations from China visiting other countries

Every Economy needs China for its sustained growth especially Western ones

---

So the world is not turning against China in any way

Not even the United States is

All these so called Anti China policies are purely ECONOMIC

If Chinese Products now of high quality flood the global markets, it’s likely 50% of the Western Brands will collapse in a decade

NEVs are the best example

Likewise if China manages to make 3 nm chips, they can outprice the entire Western supply by 60% and finish the market of every single Western designer and fabrication industry

Thus they are being throttled

China already finished the markets for all Western chipmakers who sold 450–45 nm Chips

Yet China was necessary to bring down costs in the first place

---

Hence the Anti Chinese Propaganda

To combat the transformation of China from a Cheap Producer to a High Quality Industrialized Nation

Trust me, tomorrow if China scales back down on their transformation and goes back to Pre 2015 mode, Xi Jingping will become a great statesman and China will be the friend of the world to the US Media again

---

Nobody sees them as the Great Satan

That’s reserved for the USA

Even Phillipinos or Taiwanese don’t see China as a great satan despite the recent issues

To the world China is a Country capable of delivering a Win Win relationship

That includes the West too.

What are some unwritten social rules everyone should know?

• When somebody complains about their spouse, don’t badmouth, just listen.
• Don’t suggest a medicine to someone who is ill (unless you’re a specialist).
• Don’t look away during a conversation.
• When you realise your mistake, accept it don’t go on arguing.
• Don’t show your artistic nature on a borrowed book/notebook.

• If somebody is giving you treat, let them order.
• Don’t bite your nails or shake your legs during an interview, it shows you’re being restless.
• Never make sound while eating in public.
• Never shout to prove your point.
• Don’t stare someone while he/she is eating.(I wish I could tell this to my dog)

• If an elder arrives, stand up and offer them your own seat.
• Always say Thank you to the delivery boys/girls.
• Compliment somebody who you think is internally beautiful/handsome.
• If somebody says, ‘Can I ask you something?’ or ‘We need to talk’, be prepared for a serious conversation.

Yup. This is how it works.

What evidence has been presented by Washington to support its speculative charges against China?

The U.S. never had any evidence nor even factual information it just make up lies as it goes a long. China steal intellectual property? China is aggressive, China carry out “genocide”, China is authoritarian, China create debt trap and a whole set of narratives dream up to demonise and cause mistrust and fear.

It is very despicable frankly. But what can you expect from a nation that started by the mass murder and genocide of its natives. Then this nation murdered and tortured up to 30 million Africans to slave and built the U.S. This nation is the only one that nuke to murder 200 thousands due to their skin colour, this same nation also murdered and slaughter up to 100 million innocent civilians or caused it through interference, war mongering and chaos and coup orchestrating.

China and the world knows the U.S. hypocrisy and its despicable nature but talking shit is all it can do and frankly it hurts US economy more than it can ever hurt China. To most nation lying and fabricating to demonise another nation is simply hypocritical and obnoxious and that what the global community sees the U.S. By not lashing back China keeps its moral high ground. And even US slave vassal states and cronies cannot but feel a shame of US behaviour but their short term gain is paramount.

Hence the pretence and the intentional concurrence of the back boneless nations. Shameful.

As a mechanic what was the craziest thing someone said after you worked on their car?

BEST 15 MINUTES I EVER SPENT

In the late 80’s I had been working as a Technician for a Saab dealership in Denver… I grew very fond of the Saab brand and enjoyed working on them….Unfortunately the Dealership closed and I had to go back to working on the poorly engineered and built garbage that was coming out of Detroit in the 80’s so I packed up my $90K worth of tools, into my dads garage, went out and bought a big ol Freightliner and took to the highways…Fast forward to the 90’s….Im (http://90’s….Im) cruising down the highway one fine day, and come up on a pretty little red Saab 900 convertible on the roadside, hood up and steaming away, I wasnt in a big hurry so I pulled over, and took a little walk back to the car where I found a very distraught middle aged lady, and her elderly mother….As (http://mother….As) I walked up I said,”It must be your lucky day, I just happen to be a former Saab mechanic” Can I help you?…She almost kissed me!!!

She stated,” I just picked it up from the repair shop, It cost me $800 to have the radiator replaced, and now its overheating again” I’ve got my mother with me and we are late for a family function…. I immediately knew what was wrong, and told her, I’ll have you on your way in 5 minutes….Went and grabbed my 10mm wrench and a gallon of water,popped the coolant bleeder valve open, told her if you dont get all the air out of the system a big ol air bubble will form inside your water pump, and here you sit….BURP out comes a big blast of air, Let me pay you!!! I said my mother would never allow that and you ladies enjoy your afternoon….Then she says to me, “well it must be YOUR lucky day” as she hands me her business card…..Turns out, shes the Vice President of Transportation for Proctor & Gamble and Sir, any time you EVER get somewhere and need a load, YOU call ME !!!! Over the next 15 years I cant count the times she fixed me up with a good paying load wherever I happened to be…..

Senate Chamber looks like death and mothballs

What is the most shocking diagnosis you have received after going to the doctor for a routine checkup?

At age 60 I was feeling run down & fatigued for a while, attributing it to age & not enough exercise. I decided to check my blood pressure at home and it was quite high despite the blood pressure medication I was taking, so I called my doctor’s office. They were concerned & told me to come into the office right away & they would fit me in.

My BP was still high in the doctor’s office, so my doctor sent me to the lab for a lot of blood work. That afternoon I started getting texts with some of the results of the lab work & I saw that I was anemic. Well that explained a lot & I figured I would need iron supplements.

The next morning my doctor calls me first thing. She tells me that she is admitting me to hospital in order to fully diagnose what is going on with me. I am scared, call my boss to tell her I am being admitted, but I really do not know what is wrong.

Once in the hospital I learned that I had kidney disease, and I was in kidney failure! Never saw that coming! I had to begin dialysis immediately, which made me ill & caused low blood pressure.

I was on dialysis for 7 months, with 5 months of home hemo dialysis. I felt ill and was exhausted all the time, with little appetite & unable to return to work.

Both of my adult children offered to be tested to be living donors. My son was tested first as he lives in the same city and he turned out to be a match!!

I was extremely fortunate to have my 24 year old son donate a kidney to me. He truly saved my life & I am forever grateful for his sacrifice. My new kidney is working well, and my son is doing well too.

Unfortunately I have developed several autoimmune illnesses that I am trying to get under control, but thankfully I do not have to have dialysis.

Kidney disease is horrible. Please consider being a living donor, there is a registry & they can find a match if you do not have someone in particular that you are wanting to help. It is truly life saving.

What family secret did you accidentally find out that changed everything?

My parents were left of left of left. “Those who have more should be required to share with those who have less” kind of left.

I heard that as far back as I can remember. One day when I was in the fourth grade, my grandfather gave me a dollar. A fair amount in 1958. It was hot the next day, and a lot of my friends at school couldn’t afford an ice cream bar from the cafeteria.

Hey, I had more than they did, so I bought several of them a 14-cent ice cream in addition to getting one for me. My teacher found me and gave me back about sixty cents, saying that she had made four of my friends take back their unopened bars. She also contacted my parents.

When I said that I had more and they had less, my parents said that the dollar was for me. They didn’t want to hear about people with less, as we were not rich. They also didn’t want to hear about how it pleased me to give some friends a treat they couldn’t afford.

After that I watched. While my mother did put some of her money where her mouth was to buy a few things for some Head Start centers she helped set up, they didn’t give much else. What was theirs was theirs, and only who they called wealthy were berated in our household for not sharing. Today, by their standards, I would be called wealthy, even though I’m barely in the top 10% in the US.

My parents had some friends who were wealthy by my parents’ standards. They were also exempt because they were “in the cause” of making the other wealthy people pay.

The secret was that they were completely hypocritical about what they taught me. What it changed was that I became somewhat more conservative, and gave way more to charity than they did. I did follow some of their examples, though. My mother worked as a public health nurse with the Hmong immigrants when they flooded in and actually caught a G-I disease doing it. I have volunteered to do things like building a home for homeless boys in Fiji based on her example.

But when it came to finances, their example of “what’s mine is mine, and what’s theirs is mine, too” stayed with me the rest of my life as an example of what not to think.

Girls

How did your boss respond when you told him/her you quit?

Not me but a close friend. She worked with a mid sized oil exploration company and was being paid secretary wages for doing the drunk Geologists job, she did the office work and actually went out and did the field work at times. At the urging of another close friend and myself she asked for a raise and got berated for it and basically told like what you got because that’s all you are worth.

3 weeks later she interviewed with Elf Aquitaine ( French oil company ). She was offered double her current salary with a guaranteed raise after 90 days and salary reviews every 6 months, benefits paid by company and generous matching on savings, offered a opportunity to go to the home office in France for 6 months all expenses paid, encouraged to learn French and was very well treated.

During the interview her new boss said she was the most knowledgeable Geologist they had ever met and that they would pay for her to get her degree since she didn’t have one.

It also helped that she knew all the reports backwards and forwards along with the legal side. She had worked at the exploration company for over 10 years and they just kept adding to her jobs as she mastered more and more of them. They genuinely thought she would never quit and were amazed at what Elf offered, her starting pay was as much as her old bosses, she made enough that she retired at 55 and traveled to world with her husband.

She currently lives in Houston and is an amazing person.

What’s the scariest experience you’ve ever had when picking your child up from school?

It wasn’t my child but my cousin.

I was 15 years old. I was staying with my aunt yet again as my mother decided she needed another break from me and went on another bender.

My aunt was more of a mom to me. As a result I was very close to her family and called her mom Grandma and her sister Aunt. Anyway Grandma was living with my Aunt. She had dementia and was having a particularly bad day. My aunt asked me to pick up my 10 year cousin from school which was only a block away. I did this often as my aunt tried to shield my cousin from her mothers episodes. She gave me some cash to stop at the small ice cream place near her school to keep her away longer.

I got to my cousins school expecting to see her on the playground where all the kids played while waiting to get picked up. She wasn’t there but I wasn’t worried as I knew she sometimes helped the teacher clean up the classroom after school. I went to her classroom and she wasn’t there either! No one was.

Starting to get worried I started roaming the hallways peeking in the classrooms looking for her. She was nowhere to be found!

I ran to the principals office freaked out by then and told the secretary I couldn’t find her! The secretary immediately made an announcement over the PA system telling my cousin to come to the office. 10 minutes passed. She never came.

We went to the teachers lounge and got the teachers to help look for her. I’ve never been so scared! My aunt trusted me with her daughter and I didn’t know how to call her and tell her she was gone.

30 minutes later we heard a shout. One of the teachers had found her. She was in the library reading. She had gone to check out a book when school had let out without telling anyone and the librarian had locked her in.

I hugged her hard and told her to always tell someone where she was going. It was for her safety. She started crying and apologizing over and over. I told her it was okay. Her principal gave her the same lecture and we left.

My aunt hadn’t called yet to say it was safe to come home so we went for ice cream and then to the local park. An hour later my aunt called and told us to come on home. Grandma finally went to sleep.

After my cousin went to bed that night I told my aunt what had happened. At first she seemed upset but then said they were lucky to have me there. I was shocked. I didn’t receive compliments very often. She gave me a hug told me I was a good person and a great sister to my cousin.

My cousin always made sure she was on the playground after school after that.

Bye Bye Ukraine

How many people force their cats to stay in all the time? I understand its ‘safer’, but it seems to lessen the cats quality of living, right?

Here is a picture of Scrappy:

He became my feline friend one day when I was working on my patio. I looked up to find a bedraggled, starving and dehydrated cat four feet from me, crying for help. I went and got him some water and a can of tuna, and set it out for him. I eventually got some additional food and a water bowl, and set it out for him. At first, he was pretty skittish, but after a month he would let me pet him. I started moving his bowls toward my patio door, and after three months, he would come in to be fed.

One day he showed up with blood on his face, and we decided he had to go to the vet. He ended up getting antibiotics, and had a drain and the cone of shame. We had him chipped and neutered.

He was still an outdoor cat, and would periodically get in fights, earning his name “Scrappy”. At one point, he was tested for FIV and tested positive. At that point, our vet said that if we wanted to properly care for him, he should cease his outside existence, as he would be susceptible to infections that could kill him. He was also X-rayed, and found that his left front leg was kind of a mess, having been broken/infected and healed at some point, but with reduced mobility.

We decided to turn him into a 100% indoor cat. He did not like it for the first two weeks.

But he lived. He was safe. He was happy. Occasionally he would get out. He’d usually sit on the patio if it was sunny. If it was rainy, he would turn around and come right back into the house.

Without our intervention he would have died. Instead, he lived for another decade.

Life in the wild for cats is dangerous and short. We have foxes, skunks, raccoons and coyotes in our neighborhood. As well as cars and dogs.

We currently have two other adopted ferals. Their sister (whom we call Patchoulli) is still an outdoor cat, but she sleeps in our garage and we feed her twice daily and see that she gets to the vet and has flea medication. Her brother occasionally joins her outside and catches the odd mouse, but he’s happy to be back inside, usually within an hour.

My wife and I work fairly diligently to provide an engaging environment for our little furry friends, and by virtue of our care, they will enjoy that environment for several times longer than they would be if they were feral.

When have you cheaply or inexpensively fixed an item someone thought unrepairable?

At one point, I was visiting my mom and step-dad. I asked about the 12HP, 3 blade, 42″ cut riding mower sitting out front at the neighbor’s house. Turned out he had run it out of oil, and the engine seized up. He put oil in after-the-fact, but of course it was too late. He’d bought a new one and the dealer had offered to dispose of the old one for him. I asked if I could try to fix it and he said, GO ahead, they’re not giving me anything for it.

We wheeled it into step-dad’s work shop. The piston was vertical stroke, so the spark plug was on top. We poured some new oil through the spark plug hole and went to get lunch. When we came back, we put a socket on the flywheel nut, and a breaker bar on the socket. It broke loose! So we started it up and ran it. It took a couple minutes to burn all the oil out of the top of the cylinder, but then it was fine. My grandfather had been using a really old, 7HP, single blade, 26″ mower to mower about an acre of lawn. I gave it to him. He loved it and used it until he died.

Kitty protections

What’s your most memorable “holy shit, that’s amazing” moment while learning something?

One afternoon, we walked into our Econometrics lecture and found a shopping cart full of tennis balls in front of the door. A second, empty shopping cart stood in the back corner.

The professor waited patiently for us to file into our seats. Then he cleared his throat and announced, “I’m going to need two volunteers today.”

Two hands went up. He handed them each a bucket.

“All right,” he said, “Our two brave volunteers are going to fill up their buckets with tennis balls, carry them across the room, and dump the balls into the other shopping cart. Then they’ll run back and do it again, and again, and again, until all of the balls have been moved.”

We nodded, still confused. This still sounded more like P.E. than Econometrics.

“Before we start this little experiment,” continued our professor, “I want all of you to guess how long this process is going to take. Go onto the class website and type in your guesses – I’ll give a candy bar to the student who gets closest to the actual answer.”

I had no idea what to guess. How many buckets’ worth tennis balls could fit in a shopping cart? How long would it even take to carry a full bucket across the classroom?

In the end, I just took a stab at it and typed in 42 seconds.

“All right,” he said, after we’d all made our guesses. “Are we ready? On your mark…get set…go!”

The process ended up taking 162 seconds.

Then we all went online together to look at our guesses.

There were about eighty students in the class, and I wasn’t the only one who’d been completely wrong – our guesses were all over the place. Some of us had guessed that it would take less than 20 seconds; others had guessed that it would take nearly ten minutes.

Then we looked at the average of all of our guesses.

157 seconds.

Our collective guess, as a group, was closer to the correct answer than 98% of our individual guesses.

It was the first time I’d witnessed a “wisdom of crowds” moment in action. At that moment, all I could think was, Hot damn. Statistics is so cool.

He’d run this experiment every semester, and more often than not, the collective guess would have won the candy bar. This class was one of the reasons I decided to major in economics.

Please and thank you

What did you learn from previous relationships?

When Kirti (name changed) was my crush.

I was waiting outside the R2 Cinemas.

Me (over phone) : The movie has started, where the heck are you?

Kirti : Just in 2 minutes.

Me : I’m watching it for the fourth time I could afford to be late. But a first timer, really?

Kirti : Just shut up.

She disconnected. Finally she reached.

Kirti : Hey, see I told you two minutes.

(I started leaving).

Kirti : Where, you going?

Me : I was watching Interstellar again to experience time dilation in a movie. But when fifteen minutes of mine are equal to two minutes of yours, then it’s time dilation in reality. Thank you.

As I was leaving, she stood unmoved and kept looking at me.

Kirti : Do you want me to say sorry?

Me : I was just kidding. Let’s go watch the movie.

Kirti : Let’s hurry up.

Me : And hey, in case I raised my voice while on phone, sorry for that.

Kirti : It’s okay.

---

When Kirti became my girlfriend.

It was a different cinema, different movie, same Kirti, same me, but a different demeanour.

Me (over phone) : Hey, where the hell are you?

Kirti : Just in.

She comes.

Me : You need to understand I’m not your puppet, I got my time and priorities.

Kirti : I’m so sorry. Please don’t shout like this.

Me : Just shut up, already.

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Previously she shut me up and now I did.

I forgot that she had said yes to me when the world was chasing her.

I would say sorry to her a thousand times when she was my crush and now she is the one saying sorry.

One day, it got real ugly and she ditched me in the heat of the moment but forever. I deserved it.

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What I’ve learnt :

When she is your girlfriend.

When she is your fiancee.

When she is your wife.

Always treat her like

She is your crush.

Women pay attention

Is BYD in China with 3 million battery cars sold in 2023 showing their cars are better than Tesla’s? Sadly US citizens will have to pay prohibitive import duties if they want to try one.

BYD makes most of the batteries used in the world today. Tesla do not make batteries themselves It leads in EV buses and truck world wide and now EV cars itself. It is a highly profitable company but based on Wall Street valuation it is worth 10% of Tesla! Even Warren Buffet who is probably the world’s most savvy investor invested in BYD!

The difference is one is listed and it’s stock is listed in Wall Street while the other is listed and sold in Hong Kong! That is why the GDP of the U.S. is full of hot air bubble! It will come crashing down! For me Tesla is highly overrated and over valued while BYD is highly undervalued!

Now let us look at the number. BYD hardly sell in the U.S. and Europe yet it sold the most EV worldwide this means the Global South market is humongous and the U.S. and EU are small potatoes these days! Both the U.S. and EU are depriving their citizens from benefiting from value for money technology and a cleaner environment. Whatever happen to freedom of choice? What about free market mechanism? Thrown out of your window?

BYD sells very well world wide because of value for money. Tesla profiteers and it is mostly made in China with many parts and technologies from China. Yet it sells at a huge profit. But the U.S. prefers to let its citizens be abused by corporations rather than helping them reduce their living cost!

This is real deal

What’s the most enjoyable thing you’ve ever said to a manager as you’ve quit your job?

“I’m moving to Texas to be with my fiancée. I can either move and work for somebody else; or I can move and continue working for you remotely.”

After she graduated from college, my fiancée moved to Texas to start work with NASA. We had lived apart for almost a year.

I was determined to be with her. So, I planned my move to Texas. After three months of planning, I had some money saved up and a couple of job prospects in mind.

I walked into my boss’s office fully expecting to walk out without a job or my notice given. But, I decided to try something I thought of the night before, instead.

After some small talk, I said “I’m moving to Texas to be with my fiancée. I can either move and work for somebody else; or I can move and continue working for you remotely.”

He sat there quietly for almost a full minute. I’m normally not one to get uncomfortable with silence; but this was unexpected. He was actually thinking about it!

I hid my excitement and let him think.

Finally, he asked “What part of Texas?”

I answered.

He went on to explain that there would have to be a change in my status. Payroll would have to do things so I was taxed for the proper locale, etc.

I was the first person in our group to be a full time telecommuter. This was in 2001.

I’ve gone through six bosses since then and I’m still working from home! Today, most of my team works from home too!

What can I learn in one minute that will be useful for the rest of my life?

1. If you ever get caught sleeping at your desk at work just say “they told me at the Blood Bank that this would happen.
2. When the power goes out search for wifi networks on your phone to see if everyones power is out.
3. Quelling road rage by pretending that every asshole driver really has to poop.
4. If you want to maintain good posture, pretend your nipples have lasers that shoot out of them and you have to keep them aimed at people’s heads.
5. Wiping the water off of your body with your hands in the shower before getting out and towel-drying.
6. If your car is overheating, turn your heat on full blast. When you turn the heat on in a car, it pulls heat from the engine into the cab, thus cooling the engine.
7. Hit “s” while watching Netflix on a computer to skip the intro.
8. If you don’t know whether you should use the word effect or affect, simply use impact.
9. When buying bedsheets, look for striped ones. It will make it much easier to find the long and short sides.
10. If you accidentally press the spacebar and scroll down the page, you can press Shift+Space and go back to where you were.
11. Don’t save your banking information on online stores. Makes impulse buying much more difficult if you have to track down your wallet.
12. If you keep a baseball bat in your car for protection, put a sock over it. If they grab the bat, they will only get the sock, and you will get another swing.
13. Filling in the ‘to’ field of an email last.
14. When buying online, leave items in the shopping cart for awhile. There is a good chance that the website is tracking this, and will lower the price overtime to entice you into buying.
15. If your coworker ever calls in sick for work, you can do the same 1-3 days later. Your boss will think you have the same thing and it’s “going around the office.”
16. Blink eyes rapidly for a minute before bed to tire yourself out.
17. When lending a pen or marker hand it over without the cap, you are much more likely to get it back.
18. If you have somewhat of a double chin or you want your jawline to be more defined in a picture, put your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
19. Whenever you accidentally set off your smoke alarm, give your pets a treat so they learn to come to you when there actually is a fire and you need to escape.
20. Remember that one 18-inch pizza is more pizza than two 12-inch pizzas.

Is Family Law the Main Reason Men Are Going Their Own Way?

What is the rudest thing that a new neighbor has done to you immediately after you had moved in?

4 days after my son and i moved into a townhome I rented, we were physically attacked by 2 women that live behind us. Okay, long story short (ish): school started for my son (6th grade) the day after we moved in. That day, my son had an altercation with a child on the bus. Apparently the kid was saying to my son that his mom was a “Karen” for some unknown reason. We JUST moved in and hadn’t had time or the chance to interact with anyone in the neighborhood, so My guess is as good as any. I havent a clue. Anyway my son verbally defended me and told him to stop. Next day, the child punched my son 3 times in the shoulder and back while passing him in the hallway, which was caught on camera and dealt with by the administrator at his school. The other child was given in-school suspension and the parents were called about what transpired. The video showed the child hitting my son and my son continue to walk and then run away. So, my son wasn’t punished. The following day, after putting my son on the bus I hear someone banging on my front door- and i opened it to 2 grown women demanding that i come outside. Being alone, I refused and called the police. The police show up and talk to both of us and say that the women are now calm and suggest i get some cameras in case something happens, etc. I decided to stay with family members that night and about 5 hours later, we left. We stopped to get gas and check my mail at the old house on the way. As my son got out of the car to check the mail i noticed a car parked directly behind mine in the driveway. The women hopped out and assaulted my son and me with a weapon and left. I managed to get their tag number and called the police. Turns out it was the parents of the kid who attacked my son at school. Needless to say they’re facing multiple felonies and roughly 15–20 years in prison. Craziest shit ive ever experienced in my life!

Is the world de-dollarising?

Beyond numbers, Beyond paper – there is one thing that defines a nations comfort with a certain currency and a certain system

It’s called CREDIBILITY

The US Dollar was accepted as a Global Reserve at a time when there were two major blocs and US was the undisputed leader of its own bloc

It was a country of laws, a country of rules and a country of freedom and ethics and a country with if not brilliant, at least decent leaders

This alone gave the US – Reputation!!!

Countries had no problems trading in the dollar because the US was the best place to keep the dollars and invest in its economy

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Today US no longer has that CREDIBILITY or REPUTATION

Todays US is capable of reneging on ever commitment it has made and steal any nations assets without any rules whatsoever

US has openly stolen Iraqi Gold, Venezuelan Dollars, Afghani Dollars over the past two decades and this has changed things significantly

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The US is a bit like Modi actually

Redundant and Useless entirely yet solely surviving due to there being no alternate option

Yet nobody wants to be entirely dependent on US Dollars any more

They want choices and options

That is De Dollarizing and it is inevitable

Doesn’t mean USD Share will plummet to 10% or something

By 2030, I believe US Share will reduce to a realistic 46%

The more US uses sanctions and asset freezing, the faster will the process take place

The world is tired of the US today

They are tired of the bullying and the threats and the lies all the time

So like I said before – De Dollarizing has already begun and the process is irreversible

Proud Chinese claim China respects democracy and free speech. Why don’t they proof that by posting photos of them standing in front of their police while holding signs up demanding democracy, fight of corruption and the independence of Taiwan?

That’s not how democracy is seen in China

Idiots holding placards is the Western style of democracy

If one set of idiots hold placards, tomorrow another set of idiots will hold placards for another issue and the entire country will be reduced to holding placards for the rest of their lives

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Chinas democracy is a Government for the people

• Keeping food prices low
• Ensuring housing for everyone
• Ensuring energy for everyone
• Keeping inflation as low as possible
• Protection of Middle Class Investors
• Good Healthcare plan for every Citizen
• Providing high quality roads and transportation

Ultimately I believe a Government for the People triumphs a Government by the people

Meanwhile the West is the opposite:-

• Rising inflation falling savings
• Printing money to help Ukraine over Americans
• Declining Healthcare program with uninsured rising by 23% in the last three years
• Poor quality infrastructure
• Sacrificing the Middle Class to keep the upper classes and rich

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So the Chinese are right when they say China respects Democracy

It’s a different definition from the hypocritcal one the West made up.

China’s Newest Tank is Doing the Opposite of Everyone Else

At what point did you realize no one cares about you?

I went through a divorce from my wife of 5 years. I was young, broke and (as the saying goes) stupid. She left and went on to live with her parents and I was stuck with the apartment contract and all other monthly bills. Also a truck that was in both of our names, broken engine, and was $5,000 into a loan. I also was buried in debt from student loans $42,000 and a credit card $9,500.

I fell into ddepression and a solace that can only be explained by living in a state of vacuum. None of what I did would have any effect on my personal economy, or my emotions, or my connections with others. But I tried my best.

One day I started to reach out to old friends only to realize that they had moved on, didn’t care or just didn’t want to associate.

I was broken, and I was in pain. And I was done with my family, and with people, and with the world as I knew it.

I worked hard. No one cared. I cried hard. No one cared. I paid my debts, got off the grip of the financial abominate soul-consuming xenomorphic monster called the United States Department of Education when I sent the last check and demanded a paid in full notification sent to me.

I made new friends, and created a new path with a different vision. I transformed my life around, and declared freedom. I don’t care if no one cares. I do. My life, my business.

Russian President Lays Out His Judgment on the Continued Existence of the US and Europe

World Hal Turner 04 January 2024

In a speech in Russia today, Vladimir Putin laid out his Judgment on the continued Existence of the US and the EU. “The concepts of honor, trust, and decency, are not for them.” and ” . . .  they got used to spitting on the whole world.” He went on: “Indeed the Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.”

An excerpt from today’s speech appears with English sub-titles below.  To even the most dense viewer, it should occur that this man is laying out the reasons the United States and Europe should no longer exist.

That’s a hell of an ugly reality coming from a man whose country literally has the ability to wipe us all out.  It is almost as if he is priming the world for what may be coming, soon . . . 

Here’s the speech:

Hal Turner Editorial Opinion

The reason the elites of the west have become “a symbol of total, unprincipled, lies” is because to date, there have been absolutely NO CONSEQUENCES FOR THEM as they go about all their total, unprincipled lying.   No one gets fired.  No one gets prosecuted.  No one gets thrown in jail.  This needs to change, but it WON’T because the very people who CAN fire, prosecute, and jail the liars, ARE the people doing all the lying!

If what the Russian President was talking about merely affected those doing the unprincipled lying, that would be one thing, but he’s not talking about affecting only them, what he’s talking about would affect the rest of US too.

We have the right to defend ourselves from the horrifying wreckage, death, and destruction, these western elites will cause to be heaped upon us.   It’s time to begin doing just that; while we still can.

What do people underestimate often?

Last night, The Teenager and I were cuddling on the couch when she asked me, “Mom, do you want me to become an extraordinary person?”. I was a bit surprised by the question, “Erm, I’ve never thought about that. Since you were born, I’ve always just wanted you to be healthy”, I told her.

“I had a talk with my friends today at lunch”, The Teenager said, “Everyone wants to become Someone in the future. Wants to stand out. Wants to be different. Wants to be a big deal. I mean, why someone always needs to be extraordinary to be ‘good’? Being ordinary person is also good. The Earth has 8 billion people. Am I lame if I just want to be a normal person, and has a normal life?”, she asked me.

I hugged her, “No, sweetie, of course not. As long as you are healthy and happy, being normal is extraordinary in its own way.”

And that, made me thinking. Is that the thing we usually underestimate? Being just an ordinary person leading an ordinary life.

When did you realize your parent was a total badass?

My dad had a big scar on the side of his face. I didn’t think anything of it as a kid, since I had seen it all my life. It wasn’t until I was a teenager and studying history that it came to mean something.

Dad fought in WW2. He was a captain in the mechanized cavalry and commanded tanks under Patton. Apparently, when there was fog and the driver couldn’t see clearly, it was SOP for someone to open the hatch and sit with his feet on the driver’s shoulders, giving directions by touch.

A German artillery shell hit his tank one foggy day when he was in that position. If it had hit about six inches higher, i wouldn’t be typing this message. He took a massive load of shrapnel in his face and hands. His goggles saved his eyes, but one of his ears was blown off and later surgically reconstructed. He was in the hospital for over a year. They left a lot of the smaller pieces of shrapnel in his hands and I remember him having several episodes when one would decide to come back out years later.

I could rarely get him to talk about the war. He’d gladly tell stories about the mounted cavalry days, but would rarely talk about combat. When he died in 1990, I found his medals stored in a box and he had a shitload of them.

But all that time, he was just Dad.

Chocolate Marzipan Slices
(Mandulas Szalami — Hungary)

Ingredients

• 2 (3 1/2 ounce) tubes almond paste
• 2 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds
• Confectioners’ sugar

Instructions

1. Mix almond paste, chocolate and almonds thoroughly. Knead on surface sprinkled with 1 to 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar until of uniform color and consistency. Shape into 6-inch long roll; roll in confectioners’ sugar. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate at least 12 hours.
2. Cut roll into 1/4-inch slices.

Makes about 2 dozen candies.

What is a time you had to deal with a difficult co-worker?

Years ago I had an employee call loudly, “hey asshole”! It was heard by at least 10 other people. I was the CEO of the company. I had one choice. I fired him that instant and had Security remove him from the property. You see he had other options. He chose the one with a severe penalty. All of my employees know that they are free to come to my office, anytime I’m alone, close the door and call me an asshole and I’ll give him the opportunity to tell me why he feels that way. We can discuss the problem and I will explain it from my perspective. Obviously the same latitude isn’t given for public insubordination. Now during our private meeting we may reach an agreement, or we’ll be unable to. The employee had the option of meeting with me. If he and I deadlocked, one of us has to go!

Jason & The Argonauts | Full Movie | Creature Features

A real treat for today. This is a great lazy afternoon movie for your enjoyment.

https://youtu.be/HdpjoBcRrzQ