It’s loosely based on the lies of grifters Ed and Lorraine Warren. I have a strong aversion to anything dealing with them.

To be fair, I watched The Conjuring before I knew about their connection and didn’t like it. It wasn’t my style and I can’t imagine the other films in that universe are either. And I don’t judge others for not caring that they were involved, especially since they’re both dead now.

My buddy searched for a specific horror movie for years that he only saw a piece of when he was a kid. I watched a bunch as a teen, then we were in the Navy together he hosted bad movie day where a bunch of us would get together and watch 3 or 4 depending on the length of the movies. Worst movie that week won. 90% or more were horror.

Those were good times. He introduced me to Troma, The Granny, a bunch of movies with evil toys, weird shit you can’t tell people you watched without them looking at you like you might be a murderer, Killer Klown and tomatoes, and nearly every off brand slasher the 80s had to offer. I’ve kept watching ever since.

And I have no idea if he found out what the movie was. He hadn’t by the time we stopped doing movie day.

I stand by the fact that it’s a bad movie and that I love it. And the majority of the sequels. And the Demonic Toys crossover movie.

If you don’t believe it’s a bad movie then all I have to say is that I support your right to feel that way.

Finally, a subject I know about! I have watched a lot of really bad movies over the years. Many of them included that particular trope.

Demonic Toys. Puppet Master (sort of). M3gan. Annabelle (I guess, I didn’t see this one on moral grounds). Dolls. One of the Krampus movies. If you’re willing to stretch your meaning of the word toy there’s also The Hug. The Goosebumps TV show had a puppet. Loads of others.

“They’re believers, Mr. Howard. Pentecostalist dispensationalists—they are saved, but they are surrounded by the unsaved, and they think their master is returning imminently, and anyone who isn’t saved by the time of his arrival is doomed. So they intend to save everyone whether or not they want to be saved…”

–Charles Stross, The Apocalypse Codex

I trailed off that quote because it’s a spoiler.

It’s an Eiffel Tower without the high five.

Not necessarily. Could be a stolen car. Balance of probabilities says you’re right and they know exactly who they’re looking for. Maybe they’re bad actors, maybe they’re trying not to have another Reddit “Mission Accomplished” moment, or maybe they’re incompetent.

But they saw him, they have a car, and presumably they caught him on body cam so they can compare his image to the image on the driver’s license the car is registered to. Maybe they’re taking those steps, but I doubt it. But it’s funny that they had descriptions of who they believe to be Luigi up pretty quickly but this remains a mystery man and they’re urging people not to go to the No Kings protest. A cynical person would say it’s a cop that did the shootings under orders to get rid of the one seat majority and quell the protest all in one blow.

Good thing I’m just a drunk and have never had thoughts like that.

ETA: they’ve released an identity. Cynics (definitely not harmless drunks like me) may have jumped the gun. But I’m sure that if they were here they would not apologize for what totally doesn’t look like a two birds with one stone issue.

Music project 6 (final) (actual final) (for real this time) (demo).wav

Cost of doing business, baby.

I feel like it is glowing orange something has gone terribly wrong.

ETA: I looked up some reasons it might glow orange. There are legitimate reasons. I thought it meant it was glowing while charging which is what the article makes it sound like. Maybe it got too hot and started glowing? Possible and probably unsafe or something wrong in the design. But I wouldn’t think that would be as bright as it seems like the article means.

However, if it’s releasing plasma and sodium vapor it could give a bright orange glow. So it’s possible that it charged up, fired, released plasma plus something that turned bright orange (there are a couple of other things, but I’m sticking with sodium in this example), then shot a lightning like ray when the plasma found a path to ground. Similar to how a Tesla coil in a plasma ball works but with something that turns orange (sodium vapor) instead of purple (xenon and neon or whatever).

But I could be misunderstanding.

He’ll help after exhausting all other options.

I can confirm this. I’ve graduated to just calling everything by its name brand at this point.

I did it but it took a lot of work. Step one is that I filled disputes on anything past due. I knocked several off that my ex had taken out in my name because it literally wasn’t me. Step two was a secured credit card. Step three was a “loan” where all I really did was pop money into an account that I got back (minus a small fee) at the end of the loan term. There are a few companies that do this. Then came letters and emails for anyone who showed even one late payment with a sob story about how I was trying to buy a house and only had that one spot on my record and could they please remove it. I got all of them removed eventually, but it did take multiple emails (not just disputes) but all you need is one yes. Once your score improves get a couple of cards that you use and pay off every month. Not too many, just one more than the secured one (which you can eventually flip). Once your credit starts going up, get higher limit cards with good perks and game their system. Then stop getting cards. It’ll crawl up.

I was cleaned up in just about 3 years from the high 400s-low 500s up to 800ish depending on the bureau.

Don’t take out any consumer loans (affirm, klarna, afterpay) because sometimes they report and they look bad even with a pristine payment history because historically the people getting them weren’t reliable enough for a real loan.

Alternatively you could wait 7 years. Most of it just disappears at that point.

The snip was the best money I ever spent. I wear condoms because I don’t want a disease, but one thing I ain’t worried about is getting someone pregnant.

It’s rough not being able to testes testily down the stairs.

I’m not so sure about number 3. He gets made fun of a lot. Well, he got made fun of a lot then everyone seemed to forget him. Even people with ridiculous accents made fun of his accent (of which I am one).

The people who believe him are obviously out there. But I’d like to think that most people realize that his show was (is? I don’t know) just Jerry Springer with fewer chairs being thrown and less honesty about what they’re there for.

On the other hand, I have no good explanation about why they think it would work at all without what you said. So maybe?

The building was on fire and it wasn’t my fault.

We were both terrible people. We were 19 when we got married and enjoyed playing house for a while. We instigated each other at every opportunity. She cheated, we decided to make it work. Then we found out she was pregnant. I told her if she has it and it’s not mine then I wasn’t interested in taking care of her and the kid. She chose to have it (I was mad at the time, but in hindsight and with a lot of therapy behind me I realize that’s not really why I was mad, but I still made the right decision) so I made good on that promise.

She would hit me almost daily. I was severely emotionally abusive. I’ve grown since then and so has she. We’re not friends exactly, but we do periodically email each other to say hello or laugh about the actual good times if something reminds one of us of the other. Because there were plenty of good times.

We were 19 and in love with the idea of being in love. We both came from broken families and fucked up situations. And I think if we met today instead of back then we would be really good friends.

I’ve got a buddy who does a variation of this. He’s got a little shack pretty close to town. He’ll work in the oil field for a few months, come hang out with everyone, and live a “normal” life. Then when he’s saved up enough he rolls out and lives in the woods with his dog hunting and fishing and growing veggies. We go by and check on his place every so often to make sure no one has broken in and it’s not rotting to the ground.

When he no longer has the money to stay in the woods he comes back. I say that, but he’s got the skills to feed himself out there. I think he gets bored after a year or two and wants to be around people for a while.

I asked him about retirement once and he’s got another shack right on a lake that’s been paid off since the 90s. His plan is to go there and fish and not come back.

Yep, depending on exactly what you’re doing there are a few ways. Unless you’re VERY well off or have a fleet of cars it’s almost never worth it.

Surety bonds are one way, and you’re talking about self insurance. Many states offer one or both, and the self insurance route can be anything between 10k and 127k depending on state law.

But I’m sure that guy is talking about some paperwork you can file to make other people pay when you rear end someone without a driver’s license.