Customer: "A beer for my wife and me."
Me: "Sir, in compliance with our minor control plan, I can only serve one drink per person."
Customer: "But my wife is already settled in her seat!"
Both of these were put aside to gulp down two of the honestly least memorable of Robert B Parker's Spenser thrillers, Double Deuce (#19) (1992) and Thin Air (#22) (1995) (I even skipped the inset passages from kidnapping victim's viewpoint) which was basically the equivalent of needing a stiff drink after wrestling with the 'prove you are a real person with verified identity' app last week.
Also read classic noir by William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley (1946), as having been wanting to do so since we watched a movie version some while ago. Very bleak - and the central character is profoundly unsympathetic even by noir standards.
Also another Parker, Back Story (#30) (2003), a bit less dire - part of that subgenre that was going around at the time in mysteries/thrillers, whereby something that happened in the heated days of the 60s/70s has repercussions or case is reopened or whatever.
I'm still going through books and discarding ones that don't grab me after a chapter or so. (Lots grab me within one paragraph).
Stir it Up! Ramin Ganeshram
A Trinidadian-American girl wants to be a celebrity chef. It begins with a recipe for "two cups of love, a pinch of sharing," etc. BARF.
Before the Fall, by Noah Hawley
Hawley is a TV writer/creator who did a show I loved (Legion) and a show I liked (Fargo). The premise of this book - a man who, along with the young boy he saves, is the sole survivor of a plane wreck and starts investigating the victims to find out if it wasn't an accident - really appeals to me. Unfortunately, it's written in a style I can only describe as "Middle-aged white dude writes New Yorker fiction." Not for me.
Guns in the Heather, by Lockhart Amerman
In a fast-moving tale of international espionage, Jonathan Flower is lured by a false telegram from the school he is attending in Edinburgh. With his father, he is involved in a grim hunt in which they are stalked by a ruthless band of foreign agents.
The plot sounded fun but was actually kind of tedious. The best part was the author amusing himself with the dialogue. I am recording some for posterity:
Tommy is a fat, jolly sort of character who likes to talk jive with a Glasgow accent. This is purely so he can say stuff like "We dig it, mon, but good."
Her voice and her person both reminded me of the Scots adjective "soncy." This is purely so she can say stuff like "There's a bit sandwich forby - under yon cover."
"Wullie's awee the dee?" (His accent was what we call in school "pure Morningsayde.")
"We're teddibly soddy, of course. It's so fearfully dismal to be doodly with a gun."
Me: "So… I quit."
Manager: "…Fine. Hand in your two weeks later today."
Me: "No, no, no. I quit, as in right now. I'm talking to you now solely to tell you that I am walking out now."
Customer: "Don’t you sell regular coffee? What’s all this bubble stuff?"
Me: "We don't sell regular coffee, but there's a really nice coffee place literally next door. If you wanted to drink one of their beverages in this store to enjoy with your daughter's drink, that will be fine."
bnha_fans is hosting another Themed Rec Fest to celebrate Dreamwidth this year :) If you're a fan of Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia, consider popping by to share your recs and enjoy other members'!
Bouncer: "Listen, bud, I'm gonna count to five—"
He couldn't finish the thought because the guy instantly shouted back:
Guy: "—MAKE IT THREE! I AIN'T GOT ALL NIGHT!"
1. What decade did you attend/are you attending high school or college? Mid-90s through early 2000s.
2. What clothing fashion from that time are you glad/do you wish went out of style? Babydoll dresses. Every once in a great while I miss grunge before remembering that some folks just showed up dirty. Also there are far fewer folks wearing black lipstick these days.
3. Do you still listen to the music from your high school/college years on a regular basis? Sometimes I spool up 90s songs at the gym or in the car, but mostly I find it playing in public spaces. Hearing "Sex and Candy" at the grocery store (the original or as a Muzak version) or NIN's "Closer" while at physical therapy have been a little disconcerting.
4. What hairstyle/hair color did/do you wear during high school/college? In high school I pretty much wore my natural hair color, probably fried a little with Sun-In because we were not a family that could afford salon highlights. In college, I probably went through 20 different hairstyles, from long to bob to pixie. I tried the Rachel but on me it just looked like bad layering. Also my hair color went from bright blonde to deep auburn to dark black. An old acquaintance once joked that I would change my hair after every major life decision, and she wasn't wrong. It may have been my way of trying to combat the depression I was in.
5. What was/is "the cool thing to do" while in high school/college? Gods, I have no clue what this would be, I was a social outcast. I came of age in a podunk area and being an outsider to them, wasn't able to fit in anywhere. I spent a lot of high school lunches hiding in my teachers' rooms as the cafeteria was brutal. I had my first child early in college/at age 19, which is an entirely different story unto itself, so I didn't have a typical experience there, either. That said, that is the age in which I discovered Livejournal, and met several lifelong friends. ♥
Me: "I just had to explain to a customer that the ATM outside saying 'Free Cash Withdrawals' meant that we don't charge them to withdraw their own cash, not that we will literally give them free cash. Tell me people aren't that stupid?"
This is one of my favourite stories about my kids surprising me for Christmas. I, my husband, and our youngest son live on a farm about two hours away by car from the nearest city with a [Big Box Store] in it. Our daughter and second son are scattered around Canada for post-secondary education, but […]
I'm ushered into a room, and am told by someone (a tech? a nurse? who knows, because they did not say a single word of greeting or introduction to me) to strip down so they can do my ultrasound. There are no robes or sheets provided, or even nearby on a shelf anywhere in this room.
I am the same middle school teacher who submitted the story “Be Careful Coming In That Hot Around The Gas Pumps”, back with another story of the perils of being a big-and-tall man with full biker-style facial hair who happens to teach middle school. This story happened a few years ago, before the other story […]
I work in a games shop. One of my coworkers has almost single-handedly designed the way that our back room is sorted, “prioritizing ease of access, awareness of remaining stock, and grouping games for the same console together” – and has printed out a guide to keeping it thus sorted whenever he’s not around to […]
I'm doing some shopping when I get a tap on my shoulder. A man asks me for help getting a jacket from a higher-up rack.
Me: "Oh, sorry, man, I don’t work here."
Other Customer: "I know, you’re just taller than me, so you can help."
I am 5'9" on my tiptoes, and this dude is 5'7.
In honor of Three Weeks for Dreamwidth, I'm hosting a little Pokémon prompt meme on my journal, like I did back in 2024! It's 18+ only, but open to all mediums, ratings, and Pokémon subfandoms! Come join us!
I work at a small convenience store and being in the part of Honolulu that we are located you get used to seeing a lot of homeless individuals. There are, of course, those who cause problems but a vast majority of them are just people who couldn’t make it anymore in Hawaii’s economy. On this […]
We had one visitor a couple of weeks ago who looked around the library in awe and told me, "You know, this place could be so nice if it weren't for all these books! No one cares about all this old stuff."
(I’ve been grounded for the weekend. Mom is scolding me for looking for other random things to do which i am not forbidden to do.) Me: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! Mom: *face turns red* I’m not a lemon!!!! Me: You’re as sour as one!
When I started at my job, I was a floater: I had a certain minimum number of hours I could expect to work and a timeframe of when those hours could fall, but I didn’t always do the same job. I covered coworkers who were out sick, had a vacation, were on maternity leave, etc. […]
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Customer: "I want to claim on your device protection to get another one."
Me: *Looking into his account.* "Sir, you can't claim. You haven't been paying your bill, hence why your phone is not only disconnected, but you haven't been paying for the device protection either."
Customer: "Well, I'm not paying for a service that doesn't work."
Anybody able to recommend a library or ten that allows for nonresident digital cards?
There’s a series I was reading, and the three libraries in NYC have books 1 - 4 and then 9 - 11. I don’t like it enough to pay for just the missing books. I still want to read them. More library systems, that I would pay for. (And hopefully get these books.)
Day Trip Customer: "It's cheaper at Walmart."
Me: "I would expect so, it's Walmart."
Day Trip Customer: "That's all you got to say?"
Me: "What else would you like me to say?"
1. Last night when I took a shower the water never got that hot, and I thought it odd because while Carla had taken a shower, it was hours before and should have warmed back up within 15-20 minutes. Then this morning I did dishes and the water never got above warm-ish, and that was even having it fully on hot and not using the cold tap at all.
I went out to check the water heater only to find that sometime between when it was installed (eight years ago, according to my journal) and now, the sort of shed/add-on thing that it's inside had shifted slightly so that the door was now sitting below the adjoining back steps and couldn't open at all. Thankfully the door is wood, and we have a small saw, so I sawed off the bottom bit of the door so it could open (it is old and crappy anyway, so this is not damaging it or anything).
The water heater has a thing on the front that helpfully tells you what the issue is if the light is red and blinks X number of times. It was blinking 7 times, which is gas or valve failure, so we called a plumber and they said that replacing the broken part would cost like $400 plus over a thousand in labor, which seemed ridiculous. A new one is about $800, and they said we could go get one and they could install it, but they were quoting like $1800 for the replacement and removal, which again seems ridiculous. In my journal entry eight years ago, we were charged for one hour labor and free removal, which was a different plumber. I know prices have gone up a lot in the intervening years but that seems excessive.
So since I didn't think we'd be able to get a water heater in our car to bring it home anyway, I told them we'd just pay for their diagnostics today and get back to them. I ordered a new water heater from Home Depot and they delivered it today and we called the plumber from last time to have them come out tomorrow. They couldn't give us an estimate over the phone, but I feel it can't help but be cheaper than today's guys.
Anyway, we still have some warm-ish water we can at least use for washing dishes, and maybe just save the showers for tomorrow after they install the new one.
2. I was already planning on working from home today, which worked out well for all the plumbing stuff.
3. First puzzle finished since getting back from vacation:
This one was a lot of fun. I think when I bought it I saw some other similar ones, so I might have to check those out.
4. I've been sleeping better and waking up at my usual time again for several days in a row now, so I'm feeling a lot better about that. Now that I have this morning walk routine, it was really throwing me off to be waking up so much later.
A customer (with a loyalty card) comes into my checkout with a full cart and pays in cash. In fact, he pays in exact change.
As I'm counting it out, I hear this exchange between him and the next customer in line.
Next Customer: "Are you f****** kidding me? Just take the payment, lady!"
When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!
A coworker has been on a call with a user for almost half an hour, trying to figure out why her computer isn't powering up.
Coworker: "And you're sure the outlet is working okay?"
Pause.
Coworker: "Wait, you have a space heater plugged into it too?"
Customer: *Presents a Visa gift card.* "Wanna buy this."
Me: "How much do you want to put on it?"
Customer: *Presents a $50 Target gift card.* "That much."
For everyone who tried on the slipper before Cinderella
after Anis Mojgani and Audre Lorde
For those making tea in the soft light of Saturday morning in the peaceful kitchen in the cool house For those with shrunken hearts still trying to love For those with large hearts trying to forget For those with terrors they cannot name upset stomachs and too tight pants For those who get cut off in traffic For those who spend all day making an elaborate meal that turns out mediocre For those who could not leave even when they knew they had to For those who never win the lottery or become famous For those getting groceries on Friday nights
There is something you know about living that you guard with your life your one fragile, wonderful life wonder, as in, awe, as in, I had no idea I would be here now.
For those who make plans and those who don’t For those driving across the country to a highway that knows them For the routes we take in the dark, trusting For the roads for the woods for the dead humming in prayer For an old record and a strong sun For teeth bared to the wind a pulse in the chest a body making love to itself
There is every reason to hate it here There is a list of things making it bearable: your friend’s shoulder Texas barbecue a new book a loud song a strong song a highway that knows you sweet tea an orange cat a helping hand an unforgettable dinner
a laugh that escapes you and deflates you like a pink balloon left soft with room for goodness to take hold
For those who have looked in the mirror and begged For those with weak knees and an attitude For those called "sensitive" or "too much" For those not called enough For the times you needed and went without For the photo of you as a child quietly icing cupcakes your hair a crackling thunderstorm
As I said over at the AO3, the club scene in 1x04 is brilliant, and also, with all love and respect to Jacob Tierney and Scotty Taylor (the show's music supervisor), I wanted to see Ilya Really Going Through It set to a song by actual lesbians. (Tegan & Sara, being Canadian, were the obvious choice, but, uh, I have some prior associations there.)
So when I got stuck on a different vid, I pulled one of the new MUNA sad bangers into Premiere and started throwing club scene clips over the chorus to entertain myself. And then I wanted the rest of the vid. So I made it.
Big thanks to sisabet for beta, kouredios and kass for cheerleading, and sdwolfpup for providing encouragement even though she seriously could not care less about Heated Rivalry. ♥
Boss: "She seems pretty good. I knew as soon as I saw her that I was going to hire her. There are so few women network engineers. Every time I get an applicant who's a woman, I always immediately hire her!"
On April 28, 2026, the United States Department of Justice indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a mildly sassy arrangement of seashells. The charge is preposterous and no competent or honest prosecutor would bring it. It represents a betrayal of the professional and ethical obligations of every U.S. Department of Justice attorney involved, and reflects the complete collapse of the Department’s credibility and independence in favor of a cultish and cretinous devotion to Donald Trump.
The indictment concerns James Comey’s May 25, 2025 post to his Instagram account remarking “Cool shell formation on my beach walk” and showing shells arranged to spell out “86 47”:
Based on this, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina — the venue of the sassy beach stroll — secured an indictment against Comey for two federal felonies: threatening the President of the United States in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 871 and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce in violation of Title 18, United States Code, 875(c). In both counts, the government asserts that “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of intent to do harm.” That is, of course, a preposterous lie.
Let’s look at what the government would have to prove to convict Comey of these offenses, using cases from the Fourth Circuit, which governs this district. To prove a threat against the President in violation of Section 871, the prosecution must offer “(1) the proof of "a true threat" and (2) that the threat is made "knowingly and willfully."“ United States v. Lockhart, 382 F.3d 447, 449-450 (4th Cir. 2004). To prove a threat in interstate commerce in violation of Section 875(c), the government must prove that “(1) that the defendant knowingly transmitted a communication in interstate or foreign commerce; (2) that the defendant subjectively intended the communication as a threat; and (3) that the content of the communication contained a "true threat" to kidnap or injure.” United States v. White, 810 F.3d 212, 220-21 (4th Cir. 2016). For purposes of both statutes, a “true threat” is a statement which an “ordinary, reasonable recipient who is familiar with the context in which the statement is made would interpret it as a serious expression of an intent to do harm.” White, 810 F.3d at 221.
Prosecutions for threats against the President played a substantial role in developing the First Amendment doctrine of “true threats,” which separates bluster and rhetoric from actual threats to do harm. In Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969), the United States Supreme Court took up the conviction of an 18-year-old man who said this during an anti-draft protest during Vietnam: "They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J. . . . . They are not going to make me kill my black brothers." The Court articulated the core of the “true threat” doctrine, noting that political rhetoric, hyperbole, and robust debate that does not convey an intent to do harm is protected by the First Amendment:
But whatever the "willfullness" requirement implies, the statute initially requires the Government to prove a true threat. We do not believe that the kind of political hyperbole indulged in by petitioner fits within that statutory term. For we must interpret the language Congress chose "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). The language [**1402] of the political arena, like the language used in labor disputes, see Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of America, 383 U.S. 53, 58 (1966), is often vituperative, abusive, and inexact. We agree with petitioner that his only offense here was "a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President." Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted otherwise. Watts, 394 U.S. at 708.
No minimally rationally person could possibly conclude, seeing James Comey’s beachside dad joke, that he was expressing a sincere intent to harm the President. Nobody could look at it and conclude that Comey intended to convey that message. In evaluating whether a threat is “true,” the trier of fact must consider the context. Here the context is seashells. The context is the former Director of the FBI, a lifetime member of law enforcement, who is a well-known critic of the President and a target of the President’s wrath, using a campy mechanism to express opposition to the President, using slang for “ditch” or “eject” or “get rid of.” No rational person could see that and say “the former director of the FBI is saying he’s going to kill the President"!”
I could now cite to you a legion of cases for that proposition, finding rhetoric far more concerning than this protected by the First Amendment, analyzing language and context to show this is protected. But it wouldn’t matter, would it? If you are a minimally rational person, you don’t need to see the precedent, and if you’re a cultist, no amount of precedent matters to you.
As a lawyer commenting on the Trump administration’s legal arguments, I face a challenge: how do I convey to non-lawyers, or even lawyers in different fields, the shameless fatuity of some of the Trump Justice Department’s arguments? Words fail. This case is overtly, obviously, on its face, ridiculous and premised on a foolish and unconstitutional theory. I know it as confidently that those of you who work with numbers know that 2 + 2 = 5 is not a plausible argument. I know it as confidently that those of you in the arts know that “John Wayne Gacy is the most respected American painter” is wrong.
Yet we live under a Department of Justice that will commit this travesty and argue it’s valid. Even now, members of Congress — nominally sworn to defend the Constitution — are defending it. And soon enough, some puerile throne-sniffer of the legal academy — some Wurman, some Barnett, some Turley — will emerge to argue that it’s plausible, so thoroughly has Trumpism corrupted us.
I believe it is unlikely the indictment will survive. You can’t attack a federal indictment by arguing that the government doesn’t have enough evidence, but you can challenge defects that appear on its face. Comey’s attorneys will attack the indictment as invalid on its face — that is, argue that on the face of the indictment, seashells spelling out “86 47” are protected by the First Amendment, without need to assess the strength of evidence. Moreover, I expect Comey will repeat his motion for selective prosecution, previously brought in the now-dismissed false statements case in Virginia. The extreme weakness and facial ludicrousness of this indictment will strengthen that motion. The assigned judge was appointed by a Republican but is not a lunatic.
But that’s not the point, is it? The point of the indictment is to demonstrate that the United States Department of Justice is wholly an instrument of Donald Trump’s senescent pique, no more independent of him than a boil on his ass. The point is to show that the administration can, and will, use the Department’s mechanisms to punish enemies. The point is to show that the Department can, and will, punish protected speech. The point is to show that the Department is staffed by committed fanatics willing to do anything, however unethical and unconstitutional, to promote Trump.
The point is to show that in the war between Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice, Trump has won. Now they’re on the field slitting the throats of the wounded and looting bodies.
The road back to credibility for the Department will be long and arduous. I do not expect it to recoup its presumption of regularity or respect within a generation. Trump has twisted it beyond recognition, as we also saw today in this humiliatingly buffoonish pleading in the East Wing case:
One remedy is to keep fighting, expel the craven Republicans (and some Democrats) supporting Trump, then expel Trump himself. The remedy is to make certain that nobody involved in this travesty is ever respected or trusted or accepted again. That means among others W. Ellis Boyle, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and Matthew R. Petracca, the assistant United States Attorney responsible for this jurisprudential prolapse. Never trust them again, and never trust or tolerate again anyone who treats them as acceptable.
Edited: I added the wrong file at the end of the post, fixed.
made a bunch of unilateral decisions about where tents would go directly affecting two other departments in response to external constraints, and redesigned internal tent layout on the fly in response to different external constraints, and... it all worked???
rethought several steps in the lost property process and goodness that works way better and is much less stressful
and then today has been about half and half "sleep" and "endless lost property paperwork". And Now: To Bed.
Customer: "Why wasn't the money taken off?"
Me: "That's the original receipt. The receipt for the return will show the refund."
Customer: *Waving about the original receipt.* "But why doesn't it show it on THIS one?"
Concrit welcome! Comments adored! Credit appreciated! Take and use as many icons as you like. If you want to know whose textures and brushes I use, take a look at my resource post.
The third Traveller bundle for this week, the Traveller Mercenaries Bundle, features soldier-for-hire supplements and adventures for the 2020 2nd Edition Traveller SF TTRPG game line from Mongoose Publishing.
(And do we in fact have to invoke Wollstoncraft even if she did publish a travel journal???)
Article tends to argue that it was partly in the cause of maintaining an aura of the feminine in spite of their masculine pursuit and partly in order to dissociate from the shadow of Wollstonecraft (which also loomed among suffragists, do admit).
Maybe.
And maybe they were invested in being Not Like Other Gurlzz and therefore not identifying with the Struggles of Their Sex.
Or maybe they were doing that thing whereby if a lady-person does something notable in one sphere, she had to balance that out in some way by not being an all-rounder, or doing careful respectability-maintenance, or whatever. (Translating Greek and being able to cook....)
Also, surely C19th British women explorers (wot no Isabelle Eberhardt?) were a very small group - not enough for a subset to be designated 'many'? Do they include e.g. missionaries or those women like Isabel Burton who followed their husbands?
Customer: *Holding up the offending coins.* "Hey! What gives?!"
I look at the coins, and about a second later, I realize my mistake.
Me: "Oh! I'm very sorry, sir! It's been a long day and—"
Customer: "—I don't care! I come here and expect the cashier to know how to count!"