gordon

I made a queen but I started with some plans from Ana White and changed things as I saw fit, either because I had tools that allowed me to use better methods or I wanted a different look…

Here’s a crappy picture, it weighs like 300 pounds

My first email was Firstname_Lastname@aol.com. When aol became insufferable and a challenger appeared, I made Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com.

Gmail lets you add "."s anywhere and it’ll still work, so all my spammy or whatever things I sign up for are Firs.T.Nam.E.L.Astnam.E@gmail.com or some random variation. Makes it easy to delete all the junk.

Bro, I just spent the past two weeks in Vienna Austria and Budapest Hungary.

Vienna especially has a very good subway system that can get you nearly anywhere in the city.

There are ticket kiosks everywhere.

There are no turnstiles.

You just purchase a ticket and go on. You can get anything from a 1 ride pass to a monthly pass.

Nobody checks tickets.

There are also trams that run above ground all over the city. Same thing.

There are kiosks on the tram, but nobody checks your ticket. And you can get 1 ride or 1 month tickets and anything in-between.

Budapest is “eastern Europe” where people are definitely poorer in general, but even there, there was nothing like what I am used to seeing in NYC. No police everywhere, no crime, and also, they don’t check your transit tickets.

1. Generally, the issue of not being able to afford a ticket is an American phenomenon. Actual developed countries don’t have the problems with homelessness or poverty that we have in the US.

2. Generally, dishonesty is a cultural issue. I had a German guy stay with us in the US for a few months. One time we were discussing what would happen if - for example - one were to pass a car on the right in Germany, what would the fine be? He didn’t know, but not for the reason you’d expect. His reply was basically, “No, you must not do this, the car will move to the right to let you pass!”. He simply could not fathom someone cruising in the left lane in Germany. And after visiting Austria, I cannot either. Cars DO actually move over to the right the instant they have passed a car. The left lane is kept open, even in heavy traffic. Full stop. Same with paying subway fares. They pay the fares. It is not even comprehensible to NOT pay the fares. They give you every opportunity to do the proper thing. They trust that you will do the right thing since that is so engrained into the cultural identity. Also, only a very small percentage of crime that is committed is not out of a place of desperation. If you have a well paying job, a strong government safety net, and a culture of following laws, people just generally behave. There is no need to have police standing around “deterring” people from commiting crimes.

3. see above.

You can see her ribs in the left picture

The after is nice, but before was honestly amazing.

And we had a pretty great black president.

What if, and hear me out on this, you go and start posting a bunch of ai images of trump sucking Putin off. Just a thought.