For me, it depends on when all of our paperwork is in.
Generally, the W-2s from the employers don’t come in until the end of January, then I have to wait on my stock account. My wife had unemployment last year, and dividends from an oil field.
All of that has to be in before we can file.
Technically we were ready mid-February but got laid out by hospitalizations. I think we filed mid-March?
Spinal stenosis. I went to bed fine one night and woke up with my brain screaming that my back was broken. Not just that, but that I could feel the broken ends grinding against each other.
For the next 12 months, the pain was so intolerable, I was taking 10 vicodin a day just to function. 2 to get out of bed, 2 when I got to work, 2 at lunch time, 2 when I got home, and 2 to go to sleep.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/lumbar-spinal-stenosis
To be clear, I’ve had 2 heart attacks, open heart surgery, 6 kidney stones, and stage 2 colon cancer… I’d gladly choose any of that over spinal stenosis.
Long story short, the biggest differences between now and then are the coloring, printing, and paper.
Pencils and inks are still pencils and inks, but the color process was vastly different then because of the four color printing process.
You also had to take into account ink bleed because of the cheap paper being used.
As of 1983, comics could be printed in 124 colors, prior to that, the max was 63 colors.
https://www.wowcool.com/blogs/blog/cmy-ok-eclipse-comics-color-chart-1983
Last one I saw was “Who’s Holiday”, a drag production featuring Cindy Lou Who from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, all grown up and living in a trailer park.
“Unbelievable!”
It means whatever the asker wants it to.
Local news:
“The officer spotted a grey BMW going 87 MPH in a 40 MPH zone”
For our European friends:
87 MPH = 140 KPH
40 MPH = 64.4 KPH
Then you look at their OTHER comments…
You can see the comment in the modlog, apparently banned for trolling:
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=21316133
There’s a scene in Wings of Desire… but before I tell it to you, let me set the scene…
Wings of Desire is set and filmed in Berlin while it was still divided. Angels are silent observers, able to read the thoughts of its citizens.
One old man is fixated on a town square he was fond of, but has been demolished during the wall construction:
“I can’t find Potsdamer Platz. Here? This can’t be it. Potsdamer Platz is where the Café Josti used to be. In the afternoon I’d go there to chat and have a coffee and watch the crowd after I’d had my cigar at Löhse and Wolff, a famous tobacconist, right around here. So this can’t be Potsdamer Platz.”
As I get older and more landmarks slip away, this resonates even stronger.
“The Lotus Card-Room? What a great place that was… people had been going there, oh, almost a hundred years. And that bar! Brought around Cape Horn they say, such a marvelous place. Bought by a developer and torn down for a hotel that never got funded.”
(the bar survived)
There was one guy creating a bunch of AI porn communities, I ended up just blocking all of them.
Two come to mind, I’ll drop the heavy one first so if it bums you out, read the fun one next:
Married - Jack Gilbert - from the collection “Great Fires”
I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came
there was no way to be sure which were
hers and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
this long black hair tangled in the dirt.
The Country - Billy Collins - from the collection “Nine Horses”
I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice
might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.
Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe
behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,
the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time—
now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,
lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?
Simpsons did a variation with Mr. Burns…
“Zero-Zero-Zero Zero-Zero Zero-Zero-Zero-TWO!
DAMN YOU, ROOSEVELT!”
Normal post surgical stuff after, you know, getting gutted like a fish. 😉 Stage 2 colon cancer surgery.
Happens all the time… Back in the day if you had a chip with a failed math co-processor, you just sold it as a cheaper version without it. That kind of thing.
Sycophantic, but also “lawsuit avoidant”.
I was released from the hospital following surgery last month and I had a bleeding “event”. I use the word “event” because it sounds more festive.
Shortly after that, I went to the bathroom, the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
Just for fun, I thought I’d ask ChatGPT what it thought, telling it the nature of the surgery, the bleeding event, the non-bleeding event, and asking it “So… best of three?”
And it went HARD on “this is not a best of three scenario! Call 9-1-1! Do it now! You could pass out! Call 9-1-1!”
I did not call 9-1-1. The bleeding did not resume, I’m fine.
Was having a hard time finding frozen fish the other day, but it was because the store was in the process of putting out new freezers and they were waiting to stock until the freezers were ready.
Edit Almost forgot! Our clothes dryer died, and despite the fact that a) it’s less than a year old and b) it’s under warranty, Maytag is unable to supply the control board needed to repair it. Instead, they are replacing the entire dryer.
We have been trying to get it fixed since January.
It was a test, but if he was omniscient, he would have known the results without having to run it. 😉
Married 5 years vs. 15 years now.
Working the same job, though it looks like cheap labor in India + AI is going to end that this year. Eh, I’ll find a new gig.
Went from renting an apartment to buying a house.
This ^ I get it, the images we are getting back ARE stunning, but is there anything about this mission that demanded a manned spaceflight? Couldn’t we/didn’t we already do the same thing remotely with the other planets?
I’m glad we’re getting back to it, and I’m happy to see anything other “We’re sending mice up on the space shuttle… AGAIN!”
But even Artemis IV where they are planning a moon landing has been done.
Let me know when the first colony is formed, then I can get excited.