At about that age, I enjoyed putting together dominos runs and knocking them down. I also liked wooden building blocks. Nowadays they have building made out of dense foam which probably hurt less when your baby brother knocks your tower onto your head.

I had a marble run at about 6. It was awesome.

Sidenote: shout-out the Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem, a Polish author.

Ooh, ooh! I’m in that law! I’m in the (to paraphrase) “competent and devoted to the goal but unempowered” group!

I remember asking my dad to cocoon me in blankets as a kid. It was wicked comfy.

Nowadays I’m in a hammock. It’s way more comfy on my hips than a mattress and it gives me that happy cuddled feeling.

Seconding that there is nothing in the dots. It’s just yellow and green dots.

Have you considered PT? I’ve been for my back and knees and it’s been great. They give you homework to help you strengthen the right muscles to make the pain to away. They also walk you through how to do those exercises and take feedback to make sure you don’t hurt yourself.

The trick is to not use numbers. Use a tchotchke placed in a prominent place on your desk. My password changes frequently. The previous tchotchke was a goat pin, then a cactus figurine, then a binder clip. I just need to picture my desk and I know what the thing is.

And my desk is so cluttered it’s not clear what the special object is. (You know what they say: cluttered desk, cluttered mind. Empty desk…)

I was taught it was about states rights, too. In Kentucky, they were less forceful about calling it the "war of northern aggression.

Did you get taught that some slaves liked being slaves because it meant all their needs were met and they didn’t have to worry about anything?

Huh. I don’t think national pride that was a factor in my disappointment. I was more sad because 9 is a better number than 8, and Pluto is just a cute little guy.

Mine sure isn’t. We were having funding problems before the pandemic.

Can also denote a difference in government styles: towns have a town council, cities have a mayor. Cities can be smaller than towns.

This depends on your region, naturally.

Psalm for the Wild-built. It was so sweet and gentle.

I have the red star (no laurels). It came attached to a really warm hat at a thrift store.

Mine is my first name in neat Gregg Shorthand, then squiggle squiggle.

It’s the date in the username. So dorky.

Pedialyte (electrolyte drink aimed at sick kids) comes in freezer tubes and they’re awesome when you’re over-hot and dehydrated.

Joke’s on them, I have a 15-year mortgage on my condo. (Lower interest rate than a 30-year mortgage, USA, ymmv)

From a “giving tech support” POV, nano is the best editor. Have you ever tried walking a non-techie through editing a config file on the command line, over the phone, no screen share? Nano is your friend. (I swear, this very expensive software I used to support got its sysadmins by picking whoever was absent the day the the client site figured out someone had to do it.)

That’s for the best.

(I’ll describe it in case you’re serious:

)

• edit fixed spoiler tags because I love y’all.
• edit2 omg why won’t it spoiler? will desktop help?
• edit3 thank goodness.