Categories
It Happened to Me Slice of Life

Ready for Christmas and Life Day, we are!

Set up, our front porch is for Christmas, from a distant point of view.

Also set up it is, if closer you look, for Life Day!

Categories
Florida The Current Situation

Taiwan vs. Florida: A tale of two very different pandemic responses

At the time of writing:

Taiwan Florida
COVID-19 cases 716 1,058,074
Deaths 7 19,177
Recovered 574 672,375

Here’s the source for the Taiwan data, and here’s the source for Florida’s.

Recommended reading

Why are Florida’s numbers so bad compared to those of Taiwan, despite their having a similar population (and much greater density)? One of the big reasons is pictured below:

Some recent articles on the Governor’s deliberately ignorant response:

Categories
funny

Bad lifehack of the day

Photo: Ziploc bags of water in freezer. Caption: Tired of boiling water every time you make pasta? Boil a few gallons at the beginning of the week and freeze it for later!
Thanks to Ramon Grajo for the find!

Just reheat it in the microwave.

Categories
The Current Situation

*THE* Christmas lights setup of 2020

Photo: Light-up Santa “peeing” (by way of an arc of Christmas string lights) on the year 2020.
Tap to view at full size.
Categories
America The Current Situation

Twitter response of the day

When Ted Cruz tweeted that today’s Dems are the party of the rich, he was hoping that you wouldn’t look too deeply into his household’s sources of income:

Heidi Cruz did her masters in Europe and got her MBA at Harvard, and since 2011 has been the primary breadwinner of the family. This is in line with 40% of U.S. households, but might be concerning to social conservatives and other people who still live in the Bronze Age — in other words, Ted’s base.

Ted probably doesn’t think of his family as rich, since Heidi says she has to put in long hours to support her family, according to a 2018 article in Quartz. That’s because “rich” is a matter of perspective. Their guesstimated just-shy-of-half-a-million pre-tax a year doesn’t put him in the top 1%, so that means middle class, right?

As a managing director at Goldman Sachs, Heidi Cruz likely earns over $300,000 a year—without factoring in an additional bonus. As a senator, Ted Cruz earns an annual salary of $174,000 for his work as a public servant, placing him in the top 3% of American earners.

I will remind you that the U.S. median household income in 2019 was $68,703. I will also remind you that “U.S. median household income” means that if you lined up all the U.S. households in order, from poorest to richest, it’s the household in the dead center of the line.

Categories
Tampa Bay

Tampa’s messed-up intersections

Poster of Tampa’s very weird intersections.
Found via Reddit’s Tampa subreddit. Tap to view at full size.

I’ve lived here for almost 7 years (my anniversary will be in March), and I can say I’ve driven across most of the messed-up intersections on this poster. It’s almost as if Tampa’s roads were designed as a challenge by the designers of the Grand Theft Auto videogames rather than competent civil engineers.

(Source: /r/Tampa)

Categories
Internet Finds It Happened to Me

Thoughts upon seeing an ad for a “Saturn Devouring His Son” yoga mat

Tap to view at full size.

My thoughts, in order:

  1. That’s a bit gruesome to bring to yoga class.
  2. On second thought, if you wanted to give off a “Don’t mess with me” vibe at yoga class, this would be the way to do it.
  3. Does the headline mean that Saturn’s son was named Yoga Mat? That name doesn’t sound like classical Greek.
  4. “Yoga Mat” would be a good Star Wars character name. Definitely better than the one they gave Baby Yoda.
  5. I’m sure there’s a dude named Matthew in the hipster part of town who goes by “Yoga Matt”.

Here’s the link if you’d like to buy the mat.