The alarm app I use allows for playlists to be used as the alarm, and I have a different one set for every day of the week. It’s not quite as effective at preventing me from tuning it out, but that’s balanced out by the fact that I have to solve puzzles and math problems to turn it off. Combined with an alarm clock that has a light that slowly turns on in a simulated sunrise and it’s pretty effective.

I used to have a TV which had a setting that would turn it on and go to a specific channel at a set time. I would set it to go to the history channel every morning because they would play random stuff from their archives in the morning, so it was impossible to get fully desensitized. One day I’d wake up to the history of candy, the next day it’d be the history of stealth aircraft, the next day it’d be the history of the klan (that was not the best way to start the day).

But things got more expensive when Biden was president, so if we put Trump in the white house prices will go back to where they were.

Also he’s gonna make China pay taxes instead of us.

And he’s gonna get rid of all them immigrants that are draining the economy with their… uh… crime and pet eating and stuff.

Back when I worked in an office I would put up badass president pics Fourth of July. Too lazy to find them, but stuff like Kennedy riding a robot unicorn on the moon, FDR in wheelchair themed power armor, Roosevelt gunning down big foot in a forest fire, etc.

At home, the only significant decorating I do is for Christmas. There’s enough misery out there, and I choose to embrace the joy and the appeal to the better side of our nature. So we have lights, fake candles, and so on, and we put up a tree that gets a new ornament or two every year which fills it with memories. And as a finishing touch we hang a banner declaring “All creatures will make merry under pain of death”

Needs more Clancy Brown.

Remember kids, if you like anything in a series, you must like everything in that series, or you aren’t a real fan.

Also, anyone who likes the parts of a series you dislike is an idiot that uncritically absorbs trash and doesn’t understand why the good parts are good.

And of course, the coolest thing you can do is reduce both sides of a discussion to a straw man and mock them to claim a dubious high ground for yourself.

More like the whimpering twenties.

Downside of being an ageless immortal: oldies stations all play that new crap and no one plays your favorite hits from the roaring twenties anymore. NPR’s still good though.

That’s why you start by printing more printers.

As I understand it, the Amish aren’t strictly forbidden from using electricity or technology so much as they aren’t allowed to include those things in the Amish way of life without approval. Different communities come to different conclusions about what should be allowed, but in general, if it’s a device they aren’t going to own, they tend to be a lot more permissive about it. I would imagine that most would have no problem with voting machines, since it’s basically something they would only interact with outside of their normal daily lives.

How inclined they are to vote, I have no idea. A quick googling shows plenty of talk about courting the Amish vote, but that has less to do with Amish views on the topic and more to do with the fact that they are warm bodies in a swing state.

That’s not fair. Liches are smart and competent, and had to earn their position through hard work and dedication.

Rockets are literally on fire.

Also a big red flag that he wanted them to identify the owner or a manager, because that’s not fucking ominous when a cop is abusing his power and no longer wants to settle for a refund.

Also pretty sure that creating a voter registration site that only appears to register voters in swing states (while gathering their data so you can follow up with only the ones you want to target) could also lead to criminal charges if the matter were to be pursued.

If I ever become the ruler of the world, I’m making a law that every month gets one major holiday, and that holiday shall be confined to that month.

That’s 13 major holidays, plus New Years (and Leap Day) since I’d also be forcing everyone to use a better calendar.

The movies that need remakes are the ones that had potential but just sucked (or at least, failed to deliver a fraction of what they could have been). Unfortunately, those are rarely huge hits that people will still recognize decades later. It’s the popular and successful movies that they want to remake.

The Dresden Files: A wizard working as a detective in Chicago. Fun, pulpy, and has an expanding world and scope as the series goes on. Often described as Harry Potter for adults.

Children of Time: Humans escaping a dying earth encounter a planet where a terraforming project accidentally created sapient spiders. Very thoughtful and creative. Explores the evolution of the spiders as a species and civilization and the ways they would be both similar and different from humans.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: OK, this is a hard one to describe in a blurb, but basically aliens invaded and turned earth into a massive reality show / video game. Our pantsless hero Carl and his cat Donut are among the survivors being whittled down level by level in an insane fantasy dungeon crawl. Has much better world building and character development than you would ever expect, is compelling while also being hilarious, and despite the very dark subject matter, it stays fun and avoids getting bogged down by misery. I highly recommend the audiobook version as it is absolutely first rate and adds so much more to the experience.

War of the Worlds: The adaptations have never done thr original justice. It’s a simple story, but very effective. And I just have a soft spot for really old classic sci-fi, what with the lumbering mechanical monstrocities and their heat rays assaulting pre-WWI military units.

Discworld is a strong recommendation from me as well, though Guards Guards is my preferred starting point

This reading order guide is quite good, though I’m pretty sure the note saying where the author said to start is wrong. IIRC, Pratchett’s recommendation was to start at Mort, skip Sourcery, and read through chronologically.

I also highly recommend the Orconomics trilogy. It’s clever, witty, satirical, and very, very Pratchettesque.

I expect it to be a buggy mess that has lots of potential and doesn’t deliver on half of what it seems like it should do. Then after a year or two it will finally be patched into being mostly stable and mods will have reached a point where it can mostly be turned into the game I actually want. However there will be a few creative decisions that I absolutely hate but which are so unnecessarily locked in that even mods can’t fix them, so I’ll have to just accept them as an irritant that I will do my best to ignore.

I’ve been going through the Powder Mage trilogy. It’s not going to be going on my top ten of all time or anything, but I’ve been enjoying it. Gunpowder based magic and a fantasy French revolution are pretty good foundations for a story.