I'm watching "Kids" again. Whatever. I'm bored.

Did you enjoy your first sexual experience?

If you live in the northern half of Europe, don't eat these. It's apparently a truly horrible death:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_virosa

Have you ever had a loaded gun pointed at you?

I'm sorry, but I'm tired of getting no respect.

I taught a couple of fairly high-level MI6 guys who was the actual inspiration for James Bond. I mean...these kids were important enough the actual king of one of those Nordic countries showed up at the airport and personally ferried them around in his airplane. They did not respect the Dutch, and I'm on their side with that.

But I did teach them who the real James Bond was. I just know shit. Sorry. I'm a hyperlexical autodidactic polymath. After fifty years, I know at least a bit about every goddamn thing. It's William Stephenson, if you care. He was a nerd, not a lady's man, but you did not want to be fascist in his presence. He had 007 clearance, but it's not as cool as you might think.

At one point, the Germans were getting way too accurate about sinking our supposedly civilian ships that had holds full of weapons. This was in the lend-lease days. So Bill tracked it to a stevedore in North Carolina. He only reported to Churchill and FDR, so he was in the oval office one day 'splainin to the president that a dockworker in North Carolina was selling us out. FDR of course flipped out and grabbed for the red phone. Bill told him not to worry. It had already been handled.

That's what real 007 meant back when this shit was established. It wasn't some fancy designation. It was more akin to you doing a favor for your friend who's stuck in a chair and can't do it himself.

But William Stephenson. Most people don't even know about him, but the dude was incredible. He's the origin of the Shawshank Redemption guy. He really did that. He buddied up with the german commander of a POW prison in WWI and stole his family portrait off his desk just as a 'fuck you' to let him know Bill had been playing the German the whole time.

He also helped invent television. Like I said, he was a nerd. When his country didn't need him, he invented shit. Scientist-type. I wish more people were aware that the scientist-type of personality is actually the most ferocious and indefatigable defender against fascism.

Ahh, I'm just re-hitting the classics here.

Mind your manners and pay your bills.

That can't guarantee a happy life. Nothing can. But play that way and you can avoid a whole lot of heartache.

Jay Kuo for the find:

Don't watch the stupid livestreamed execution. I assume my people are sharp enough not to add that data point to their digital soul.

And, honestly? There's nothing wrong with wanting to see violent death. It's a weird little itch normal people have to scratch to find out on a visceral level that, yeah, I didn't actually want to see this and now it's stuck in my mind. So if you want to...

Find Budd Dwyer. He's a minor Pennsylvania politician who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, called a press conference about it, and then blew the top of his head off with a giant handgun. It's OK to watch that. He wanted it to be seen, obviously. There's a lot of blood inside a human head. About a gallon drops out when you knock the top off a skull.

This was a significant event in my childhood. Half the kids in school saw it live.

Rob Reich:

"From 2001 to 2005, [Kimberly] Guilfoyle was married to Gavin Newsom..."

Think about this when the Dems try to run him. It's a pretty powerful indication of who the man is. He's on the same team as MAGA, he just runs a different playbook.

This guy's good, and one of the better scholars I read. He makes a lot of video which I dodge but normal people like learning from video shorts. So here are 5 about the racism behind a lot of traditional American Halloween-y scary things:

https://historycanthide.substack.com/p/history-cant-hide-halloween-episodes

I was just listening to a song with the line "I'm an alka-seltzer and you're a seagull". I'm starting to think that's local knowledge, and I have a global audience here. Does everyone know seagulls can't burp so you can kill 'em by tossing alka-seltzer tablets at one? Their stomachs burst. I never did it, but it was well known where I grew up. Seagulls are everywhere. Do you know you can kill a seagull with alka-seltzer?

#cooking

I'm poor, and get a fresh food box once a week with locally grown produce. It's actually a pretty awesome system, as it throws money at small scale local growers as well as feeding the poor. I like my blue state. Anyway.

I got another Asian cabbage. I really don't eat a lot of cabbage and I'm a single person living alone. Even if I adored cabbage, I couldn't eat an entire cabbage every week, which is what I tend to get this time of year. I do love kimchi, and wish I could make my own. I tried once and ended up with toxic waste.

Homemade kimchi has to be a real thing, but I don't know any Korean people to teach me. Figuring it out from the internet obviously failed. Anyone out there know how to actually make homemade kimchi that works?

I just found a piece of plastic on my floor. It's the grippy hand of an action figure, curled into that 2mm most-of-a-circle we all know that grabs a GI Joe gun.

there are no children in my life and unless they're damn quiet and shy, no children in my building.

And yet some kind of GI Joe toy piece turned up on my carpet.

Life throws up some random sometimes.

#microfiction

The witch did something perverted to the fabric of space-time and stepped out onto a rural mountainside in Slovenia fifty years ago. Once she'd entered the cave all the trappings of witchood appeared, and she and her forebears had been witching out of this cave for centuries. Of course she arrived in time for the teenage girl wanting a love charm. What's the point of traveling in time if you're going to be late anyway?

The young girl was extraordinarily beautiful, but weighed down by a heavy heart. There was no joy in her, not like the other girls. This one was a pragmatic, practical girl not prone to flights of fancy. In another generation the likes of her wouldn't believe in witchcraft at all. She's the last of an era. The witch was lost in these thoughts and only let out a half-hearted cackled for her, but the girl was distracted as well.

"What can I do for you, my dearie?"

"It's my future, ma'am. I worry about it in this isolated village. Look at me. Look at my beauty. I am so far superior to the other girls around here that I'm practically a different species and I fear I'll never find a husband worthy of me."

"But my girl! There is so much more to life than physical looks! Are you sure you are not focusing on simple superficial things at the expense of things that could bring you more joy?"

"No, madam. I am sorry. I am here to purchase a charmed future. I heard tell you accept oddly shaped rocks as payment, and I've spent all summer collecting them. Here they are." She dumped a satchel of pretty lake stones by the hearth. The witch took her time pretending to sort through them, muttering things along the lines of 'pretty!" or, 'this will do'.

"Well, my girl. Never let it be said I don't give value for money. You get what you pay for with me. Last chance--would you like to change your wish? No? OK. Abraca-pooftie! There you go, hon. You will marry a fantastically wealthy American businessman and will stay married while he ascends to the presidency. Your beauty will carry you all the way to being the First Lady of the United States of America. Will that do?"

"Oh yes, ma'am. That will do amazingly. Thank you ever so much."

The witch vanished all the stupid stones before departing. It's odd, she mused. You can give humans wonderful magic but they'll never believe it if you don't make them pay for it. They get very suspicious of gifts.

The Chinese government knows who I am.

Think it through--there's a lot of power in having individual dossiers of people. And information is cheap and easy. There's no way they don't already have a file on everybody in the world. Everybody online, at least.

The Chinese government knows who I am. That's weird as fuck, especially if you tunnel into it. Of course the US does as well--I'm an American. Thinking about it, I'd bet Russia. But where the hell does this go? Does Israel know who I am? Estonia's small, but highly technical. Do they keep a file on everyone in the world? How about Kazakhstan? Trinidad and/or Tobago? Tuvalu?

It's really weird to think the government of Tuvalu might know who I am, but I can't see a reason they wouldn't be compiling dossiers on the whole world like everyone else is. It's a rounding error away from free at this point, from the perspective of any national budget.

Jay Kuo for the find:

A blow job is perpetrated by one person who probably spent a grand total of five minutes learning their craft. A movie is dozens of professionals working to the best of their abilities.

You are focusing on the wrong thing.

"The Odyssey" is 3 hours on wikipedia and 2 hours when downloaded. Where did the other hour go?

This is pretty cool. Some asshole is selling things under my username!

https://theosintvault.io/omerta

#AlternateFridayMusic
#Liar

https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=eY7EPE9biO0

Two things that worry me over there.

1) What if the Arab world realizes we can't defend Israel and decides to wipe it out?

2) What if Putin sells half a dozen nukes to Iran?