Aw, too soon....

bystanders’ brains respond like stoners, saying “Whaaa?”

Funny - I never knew that they even had stores in the U.S. Now I do! But none near me.

It was like sage, but it wasn’t sage, if that makes any sense.

The Sirens of Titan - seriously one of the greatest stories ever told. Man in a hole. But with a pessimistic, zero-sum ending.

So... you can’t go home again?

Let’s be super honest, though: being a ghost-hunting horror novelist does not automatically disqualify you from holding a position on the federal bench. It’s really more of the “never having done the job in any capacity before” that kills it for you.

I’m not even so sure it should be turned off to pee or whatever. You’re on duty, the camera should be rolling. Like a dashcam - whenever an arrest or stop is made, that footage should be kept, and the rest can be reviewed (or not) as policy, but basically, the best system would be one where the entirety of an…

Plus, most of the car drivers there were just being out-and-out assholes. Serves them right for playing with a dangerous machine.

This. Exactly this.

Excellent! Thanks. I have a local liquor store that has some interesting whiskeys... may need to see if they can special order this.

I am 100% certain I can tell the difference between a white and red wine where each fall into the middle of the bell curve of what makes them that. There are probably varietals or methods of manufacture that would push me outside of the ability to do that, but for your average bottle, I am confident. Oh, also, I would…

Well, Beth would probably love this. Lane would probably hate it.

My favorite Windows license scam story:

Fair point, I have not had a really old tequila that has sat in oak for a while. But I would bet you good money that I could tell it wasn’t a single malt (as in, made from barley as the single grain). I can usually tell the difference between corn, rye, barley and other types of grain used in the mash, even when it’s…

Oh my God, I thought I was the only one.

Came to say the same thing, basically. I’ve always been a super picky eater, cannot abide the taste of hops, took a long time of force-drinking to learn to love coffee (and still load it with milk or cream, and prefer low-acid methods of brewing).

I always load some version of a boot manager - usually BootIt Bare Metal from Terabyte Unlimited. Not really an “app” per se, but I like to be able to fully control my disk partitioning and imaging.

Four main machines? That implies that you have yet others lurking as your non-main machines. I’ll bite: what do you do with your four main machines? (And, to be clear, I don’t consider my work-provided-and-maintained laptop to be one of “my machines.”)

Shhh! Don’t give them any big ideas.