I look him up and down. I’ve seen it a thousand times. He is all bravado and boot jingles. Dressed like he stepped straight out of a Western Warehouse. I could tell those shiny boots had never stepped foot on a ranch. Just puffed-up pride wrapped in a cowboy hat, trying to mask the desperation of someone who’s never been anywhere else. And doesn’t realize he is the one getting fucked by the system.

“You’ll be seeing me soon, huh?” I say, watching his eyes flicker. “Let me tell you something, partner. If you don’t straighten out that attitude of yours—if you don’t drop this little act and do your job like a professional—I’ll find someone else to sell this house.” I let the words sink in before delivering the knife twist. “Maybe a dame.”

His mouth opens, then shuts.

“Oh yeah,” I continue, my voice smooth as the whiskey he probably pretends to drink neat. “I’ll bring in one of those ‘progressive libs’ you despise so much. Maybe someone fresh out of California, with a Prius and pronouns in her email signature. Someone who’ll take your commission, your sale, and leave you standing in the dust.”

His face twitches. The bravado cracks. He swallows hard. His grip loosens on my hand.

“Good talk,” I say, finally letting go of his hand. “Now get to work.”

My wife and I sat across from each other, eyes heavy with the kind of exhaustion you don’t shake with a good night’s sleep. The school had made its choice—they put our boy in harm’s way, ignored the words on paper that were supposed to protect him. An IEP, they called it. Just another stack of bureaucracy to them. To us, it was supposed to be a shield. But shields don’t work when the people holding them don’t give a damn.

So we made our choice too. He wasn’t going back. Not to that school. Not to a system that saw him as a problem instead of a person. We are taking matters into our own hands—homeschooling.

And Texas? We were done. Finished. Washing our hands of it. This place chews people up and spits them out, and we aren’t waiting around to be next. Somewhere out there, there had to be a place where education means more than lip service, where kids aren’t just numbers on a budget sheet.

Tomorrow, we meet the realtor. Sell the house. Cut the ties. A clean break. A new start. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a place where they gave a damn.

I have 6 programmable keys on my keyboard. I have macros for a few snippets that I have to type a lot and my email because my company has a stupid long name that I’m sick of typing out.

Karma - there are way too many shitty people who just continue to be shitty because nothing ever comes back to bite them. Meanwhile, people who actually try to help are kicked around the most.

Zebra F-402 - I write really small and their fine tips flow great but don’t run. Plus they’re cheap enough that I don’t care when my wife or kids steal them out of my desk.

I was in the military and we had this big conference table that could fit a good 12 people at. About once a month our boss would give us the key for the weekend and we’d play Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, and Red Alert 2 for 12-18 hours straight while pounding back Mountain Dew Code Red.

And so you don’t have to keep clicking

https://deslide.clusterfake.net/?o=html_table&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwhatculture.com%2Ftv%2F21-star-trek-actors-who-died-in-2024

A few year back, I took my daughter to an urgent care clinic. She was around 2 or 3 years old. While in the waiting room their office phone rang and my daughter jumped and went, “What was that?” because she had never heard a landline ring before.

Inserts disk: click, click, click

“fuck, I knew I should have put that on a CD-RW.”

Believe it or not, I recently have to script transferring files to and from a BBS. Got to love working with state governments.

It tastes nothing like OK Soda

For those who are younger than 40 or not from one of the few test market cities - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda

Avenged Sevenfold - Exist is a 15 minute song that is about the big bang all the way to Earth forming and cooling.

American Pie - Don McLean it’s the history of rock and roll from the 50s through the 60s

After watching 12tone’s analysis of this solo it gave me an all new appreciation for this cover and Prince. Don’t get me wrong, before I thought Prince was top 10 now I’d consider his in contention for number 1.

https://youtu.be/lT_mlbMjcxo

The Six Triple Eight - it’s a great story that I can’t believe I never heard before, some of the acting was great, but some characters felt forced. Like the sassy grandma or the mom worried about money. Or the friend with the potty mouth and the preacher’s daughter who always got offended. It really felt like they had a checklist of stereotypical characters to have.

I stopped watching about halfway through. I just couldn’t watch anymore after ::: spoiler spoiler the scene where she gets upset about the dog tags that ends with them just going, we’ll find his letters, then cut to swing dancing. :::

In the military there are two separate classes, officers and enlisted. Officers had at least a bachelor’s degree and the military is a much different experience for them. They come in day as leaders, are paid significantly more, and have more opportunities to make lifelong connections with powerful people.

Enlisted are treated like blue collar workers, the grunts. Just in their day to day jobs enlisted people are going to have more wear and tear on their bodies. Take battle experience out of it, just as is, officers have a much better path forward.

Fraternization is illegal between officers and enlisted which basically makes it two segregated classes.

Enlisted folks also tend to come from lower income families, so while they are giving more opportunities than staying in their home town it can still be difficult for them to advance much higher.

In short, you have a large mixture of people from different ways of life with different education levels. Some take advantage of stuff like the GI Bill or other opportunities,. others don’t. Also some give their bodies to the extent that they can’t really function at the same levels on the outside.

I got invited to a new years party thrown by a coworker. My gf had to work that evening, so she dropped me off on her way to work and was going to pick me up after her shift. This way I could drink and not have to worry about driving.

When I get there hang out and have a beer. Then my my coworker pulled the, “hey your good with computers right.” After spending an hour or two fixing his computer, I went to join the party. I didn’t know anyone there and no one would really even talk to me. Except this one huge guy who just kept wanting to fight me.

I spent most of the night sitting outside drinking by myself just waiting for my gf to get off work and pick me up. While waiting for her I drank more than I should have and as soon as we got home I spent the rest of the night puking.

When the original came out I was a teenager who wore all black listened to NIN and was into comic books. In other words the perfect demographic for that movie. And I absolutely loved it. My friends and I would watch it all the time. I’ve continued to watch it and enjoy it throughout the years.

After seeing the first preview for the new one, I had zero interest in seeing. So much so, that I had completely forgotten about it again until reading your comment.

It sounds like I need to add this to my never watch list. Along with every single terminator movie after T2.

I just watched it for the first time last night, it was a fun popcorn movie and gave me a few good laughs. My only real complaint is that they shoved too many plot lines into the movie. They could have completely left out Delores, Jeremy, and Rory and it would have been just as good if not a better movie. Each was met with a such unsatisfying ending to their stories it felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with them either.

It depends, if I’m feeling cathartic then I’ll listen to something like Gary Clark Jr. - When My Train Pulls In

If I want to feel better then Electric Callboy - We Got the Moves

If I want to get angry then Off With Their Heads - Clear The Air

This pretty much mirrors my experience. The only thing different I saw was the assigned potential jurors group numbers. Each group was assigned to a particular courtroom/judge. If all the cases accepted plea deals they’d let that entire group leave. Most people were out of there by 10am.

Of course, I was assigned to the one case that did go to trial. The jury selection took the rest of the day. I was number 26, but enough people before me got eliminated, so I ended up on the jury. A couple of people after me did too.

The trial, for the most part, was insanely boring. It was for a DUI and vehicular assault, and the only reason it went to trial was because it was his 3rd strike. The first day we had to watch the entire recording from the police body camera from them arriving at the accident, to arresting the guy, driving to the hospital to get his blood drawn, and all the way to dropping him off at the jail. The only entertaining part was when the defense attorney put the drivers girlfriend on the stand. She started saying some bat crazy shit, and the defense attorney trying to cover for himself asked her if she had any mental health problems. This caused her to lose it and she started yelling and screaming at him.

In the end it was a great learning experience and gave me a closer look into the criminal justice system.