A job I was at had a benefit allowance for recreational and outdoorsy gear. I was a bit surprised when they made a small point of changing the terms so that it no longer could be used to buy firearms. Lotta facepalm moments when people would talk about their “hobbies”. The 3-D printer guy made some great N-scale stuff though.
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I like that idea – I would love such a thing so I could get a better bicycle. Did they require pictures or other evidence of how the purchases were being used? I could see some interesting questions being raised from all the rope and carabiners. 
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Cool!
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All our offices are like this on my floor. Including the bosses. 
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Our offices are like that. Prior to the pandemic I would change my decorations to quarterly themes: an aquarium, a terrarium, an ant farm, a hamster house. I had it decorated like a snow globe when the pandemic hit, and haven’t changed it since.
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This absurd praise from Elon Musk from Richard Dawkins reminded me of something I heard at work about 6 months ago.
Two people were having a discussion about Musk. Their generally conclusion was very similar to this. As I recall, they decided “He gets a lot of bad press, but I believe he sincerely wants to help the world.”
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I mean, I believe he does. It’s just that he is an idiot who genuinely believes that enriching himself and then forcing onto the world his latest ideas about Mars colonies and free speech is helping.
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I heard half of a phone call:
“It’s a great time to be in America… You could say it saved democracy… This is what happens when you talk about transgenderism and all that other nonsense for five, six or seven years…”
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This morning, when news of Brian Thompson’s killing became news, one regularly loud person in the office was jubilant. To summarize:
“When millionaires know they can get gunned-down in the street, the world is entering into a period of healing.”
I should point out two things:
- He makes a huge amounts of money himself.
- He is also a very vocal Trump voter.
I will let you make of that what you will.
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Dude sounds like he could very well end up on the wrong side of history.
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Conceptually related:
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“Okay is it going to have the humidifier attachment thingie? Cuz we’re paying for that! I want you to call them back and make sure the humid winter air that we’re expecting actually happens. That new furnace is costing us a fortune! Okay. Love you too. Bye now.”
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Ruben Bolling is one thing I miss from TOP
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True, but you can still read it on GoComics at Tom the Dancing Bug. I’d have to check what URL I use at home, but I have it on an RSS feed so I don’t have to deal with the crappy GoComics interface.
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“Look at that! Why would you want to eat that!? It looks like an onion! Can you imagine eating onion pie?”
– A 50-year-old man upon seeing a picture of rhubarb for the first time
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Yeah, nobody would ever make onion pie…
That would be disgusting, and totally not what all of Germany does in the autumn…
Also, how does rhubarb look like onions? I have a feeling he would actually be disgusted with rhubarb pie if he tried it, though. It’s certainly a unique taste and if you have made it to your 50s staying so close-minded about food, you are probably not going to appreciate it.
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More for me. 
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A customer came into the waldenbooks where I was working, and seeing me restocking the magazines, he came over and asked me a question. He wanted to know if he could get a copy of a magazine from either the last month or the one before that. I replied with what I’d been told to say when such requests are made, and it was true.
We always immediately stripped off the covers of the old mags, and trashed the rest. We’d send back the covers to our returns facility, and get credit for them from the distributors. No money really changes hands. This was how the magazine business operated w/chain bookstores. Besides, we barely had room in back to stock extra copies of the current mags that sold well. I also apologized, and meant it, and suggested he contact the magazine’s publisher. Back issues can be acquired that way, if they still have them.
He was disappointed, and immediately went to a fellow employee and asked her the exact same question. She repeated word for bloody word what I’d just told him, and I had a quiet little chuckle as I continued hauling magazines around.
Dissatisfied with this result, he walked right past another girl who worked there, and approached our boss! I had the feeling he just didn’t trust us wimmens to know what we were talking about, so thought he’d better ask another Man this time.
I wore the mischievous crooked grin I inherited from my Grandpa as he asked our boss about the magazine. I had to stifle laughter and hide in the section as he heard the exact same words for the third time, and eventually left.
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A while back, by someone who was confronted about a mess they’d left in the lunch- and mailroom:
“Meh. You should just leave your shit too. The janitor gets paid to clean up stuff like that. It’s like, you know, their job!”
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If he’s just interested in reading it, as opposed to owning a copy for some nefarious purpose, I’d suggest the local library. Most keep at least a year’s worth on hand and may have access to eReader copies of older editions.
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