I can almost guarantee this was some stupid marketing exec’s idea. Someone had to write the code that interprets that you’re watching an episode that someone else has available for streaming. Any software dev worth their salt would have seen this request and said “This is the dumbest fucking idea I have ever seen in my life” and they probably had to make it anyway because it pays the bills.

I mean, the point of the special is to find meaning in the holidays regardless of the rampant consumerism, but the impact of the message is dampened a bit by Hallmark putting out new charlie brown Christmas tree ornaments every year.

That said, it’s also okay not to have holiday spirit if you don’t find anything about this time of year meaningful. For many who aren’t practicing Christians, it’s a time to be with family because most companies tend to give days off anyway, but for those of us who have cut ties and don’t see the significance of decorating and whatnot, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the time off without feeling festive.

Can’t get that sweet sweet ad revenue if your content isn’t 100% in line with advertising expectations. God forbid there are any deviants on a site that positioned itself as weird and quirky for the first decade of its existence.

Almost as dumb as Nintendo patenting the concept of a sanity meter and then not fucking doing anything with it since Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.

Yeah, I don’t think there’s a restaurant on Alberta that doesn’t have at least a little of this aesthetic.

That said, Pine State is worth the asking price and I’ll kill on that hill.

https://www.zombo.com/

For younger generations. Lovingly remade in HTML5 because flash is dead.

They’re efficient at maximizing profits for shareholders, usually at the dire expense of literally everyone else.

In a short story, the monkey’s paw is an artifact that grants three wishes of the person who holds it, albeit in the worst way possible.

The story goes that a pensioner and his wife receive the paw from some guy who warns them that the paw twists the wishes, but they pay the warning no mind and wish for a sum of money. A finger on the paw curls, and a factory foreman shows up with the money explaining that their son has died of a horrific mutilating accident in the factory. The insurance policy pays the money out to the surviving members of the family.

The wife wishes that their son were alive again, another finger curls, and a few hours later they hear another knock at the door. The wife rushes to welcome their son, however, recalling the stranger’s warning and imagining how terrifying the mutilated body of their son might look, the father uses the last finger to wish the son dead and buried again. Incidentally, there doesn’t appear to be a negative on that wish apart from the horror that’s already been visited on them.

This is how most supermarkets (Walmart/Kroger/Target, etc.) in the U.S. look brand new - they’re effectively warehouses that sell product directly to customers. Smaller shops and boutiques have finished ceilings that hide the ductwork and such because they’re meant to be more flexible commercial/office space, but large stores like this do not, except for specialized locations like electronics, jewelery, or pharmacy, that can be gated off from the rest of the inside of the building for reduced operation and security.

Of course without committing a crime before and without saying anything else.

You will probably commit a crime or misdemeanor unknowingly on the way to the station. There is a reason you do not talk to the police, even if you think you’re completely innocent.

https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE?si=ppgOcO6ZcOVPC0oB

Funnily enough, I do feel like an adult, mostly because I’ve been aware enough for long enough that everyone else is making it up as they go, that I can sense when people are on their bullshit and navigate it pretty effectively.

Also I’m making a lot of decisions that will hopefully insulate me from the consequences of my inevitable failure, but I hold no delusions that the safety net will ever be perfect or even good, or that some arbitrary amount of austerity would have bought me a house at this point, so I don’t starve myself of the little pleasures in the moment - today is the rainy day. I use my PTO, I get a little treat every once in a while, and I make myself as comfortable as I can. My life satisfaction has increased drastically with that in mind.

Used to work in a painting hangar and guys would regularly pilfer supplies. For most people it was just touch up brushes or minijet cups for minor stuff at home, but some people would be stealing whole rolls of masking tape, suits and hoods, sandpaper, bottles of rubbing alcohol and acetone, etc.

I know at least one guy who confided in me that he made a mint stealing supplies and painting cars on the side. He said the only thing he paid for was paint. I think the only reason nobody ever got called out on it was because our work was so good we were a preferred painter for UAE and Qatar planes, so everyone in the C-Suite was making millions of dollars and paying jack shit to the workers, and I’m guessing they figured the shrinkage was an acceptable cost of doing business.

Among the bushes.

Steam Deck. I travel a lot and it’s become a constant comfort in cramped airplane seats and backwater hotel rooms all over the states.

These requirements are such horseshit. What’s the point of making everything look hyperrealistic at 4K if nobody can run the damn game without raiding NASA’s control room for hardware?

Seconding darkwood - one of the few that matches Amnesia in its ability to make you fear what you cannot, should not see. You pray to whatever gods you believe in that your light lasts and that thing that goes bump in the night does only that.

Hey everyone, look at the video essayist over here.

#FreeCivvie

Anytime people start talking about supply and demand, I can’t help but think of the lines from The Grapes of Wrath:

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains…

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

Amazing how in eight decades and some change, that sentiment has not budged an inch. The only real difference is, in addition to the food wasted and the dumpsters locked to keep out the homeless, they’re dumping shit like Funko Pops in the millions. All this plastic tat that’s literally killing the planet, that nobody in their right mind would want in a million years if the sickness of capitalism didn’t tell them it was precious.

Why does money ruin absolutely fucking everything?

Because nobody who gets a sufficiently large amount of it to stop worrying about their finances is ever satisfied with that amount of money.