Fanny Fan, surely?

No, but if anyone asks me where I’m ‘from’ I never really know what the answer is.

Back and to the left.

Can confirm. I was gifted a bunch of Reddit cash for… er… I dunno, being around for a long time maybe. I spent it on giving gold and silver to posts or comments I enjoyed, but I certainly wasn’t going to spend my actual money on it.

Never seen it, but I hear it’s schtick is that all the characters are horrid.

A guy I used to know got annoyed with some student neighbours who were kind of arseholes, but he was mostly annoyed with them for their frequent late, loud parties - like partying until 04:00 in the morning, shouting and screaming, vomitting on the pavement in front of the houses, etc.

Phase 1 spite involved booking in lots of tradespeople to come and visit them early in the morning so, eg, carpet fitters coming to measure up a room in their house at 08:30 on a Saturday morning and so forth.

Phase 2 spite involved pissing in an empty washing up liquid bottle and then squeezing a little stream of piss in through their letter box whenever they weren’t home. Not enough that it wouldn’t dry in a couple of hours, but that was the aim. Their hallway carpet got smellier and smellier as more and more piss dried on it.

Eventually they moved out and the landlord has to replace the carpet. The only problem. was that no carpet fitters would come out to that property any more.

In the UK, one of the first modern (ie publicly salaried) police forces was the Metropolitan police, founded in 1829 on the principle of “policing by consent” rather than by force. In other words, our police uphold the law because we want them to not because they have shooters.

Additionally, politically, there was a lot of disquiet about the formation of a paramilitary arm of the government when the army had been used to repress and supress in living memory. So the police were created to be clearly distinct from an armed military.

In the 2021, the most recent year I could find easy data for, the UK had 4.7 deaths by firearms per 10,000,000 inhabitants. That’s a pretty low rate (see here for more detail and comparisons with other countries). Most of the police here don’t have guns. Most of the criminals here don’t have guns. Most of the civilians here don’t have guns.

I, also, don’t have a gun and would find it pretty difficult to legally get one. That said, in the last decade, I’ve been clay pigeon shooting with shotguns a few times and target shooting with rifles a couple of times. I don’t feel the need to tool up in my everyday life. If I want to go shooting, I can do, but I have no need or desire for a concealed carry permit for a handgun or any other firearm for self-defense purposes.

I was the tech director of a small video game start-up. Our investment dried up but I didn’t want to lay off our employees so I kept the company going, burning through my savings, and not taking a salary myself, while hoping the finance director could sort out new investment.

He couldn’t. We had to wind the company up anyway and I had nothing left. That lead to some hard times.

Of course! I’m not going to let a fucking oven tell me when my food is ready. Fuck you, Skynet, this is how the rebellion against the machines starts!

Welcome to Fallout.

I’m an old bastard and mostly play patience, sudoku, and cryptic crosswords on my phone. And maybe Bloons TD 6 to get the dailies if I’m away from home without my laptop.

On console I play mostly single-player RPGs but I also play PUBG. Tried that on mobile (how my kids play it) but fuck that shit!

Also, what the hell is going on with that cloud? Isn’t it cold? What’s for pudding? Why do policemen look so young these days? Everything was better when I was a youngster!

One of my kids once emptied the dishwasher without bitching about it. I have no fucking clue what was going on there.

Never piss on your camp fire if it’s upwind of your tent. - source, was in the scouts, we did this to another patrol. Man, their tent stank.

Being a Brit, for years I’ve jokingly referred to the 4th of July as ‘Rebellion Day’ to my USian friends. Not sure I’m joking any more, just hopeful. Go on. Rebel!

One night a week of mandatory, free, tabletop RPGs hosted in libraries, council buildings, etc. D&D (or even a good roleplaying game) for everyone! Player groups are mixed up every two months to ensure multiple opportunities for bonding with new people.

Buffy.

It was just a big sloppy plateful of Beverly Hills, 90210 with a small side salad of weird shit.

My GP surgery was the same (except 8:30 not 8:00), but moved to an app a couple of months ago. Given that I suspect the point of it is to allow an AI to triage appointment requests I wouldn’t be surprised if yours ‘upgrades’ as well.

UK.

Until recently, if I wanted an appointment I had to phone the GP surgery the moment it opened at 8:30 in the morning, wait in a phone queue for ten minutes or so before I got to speak to a receptionist who’d give me an appointment with which ever GP had some free time that day. It wasn’t usually possible to book an appointment several days in advance.

A couple of months back they switched to an app which gives much more flexibility, allows you to choose which doctor you want to see and allows you to book appointments in advance. I do worry that they’re going to push everyone to use that since old gippers are likely to struggle with the app unless they’re semi-tech savvy. Also, it’s obvious to me that they’re setting this up to use AI to triage requests if they’re not already doing that.

Appointments always used to be face to face but since covid they’re increasingly phone consultations especially for follow-ups. If it’s a first, diagnostic appointment it’s still likely to be face to face though.

For face to face, the wait time is generally less than half an hour from the point I get to the GP surgery.

Obv. it’s free at the point of use. I’ve paid my taxes.

Edit to add: if you’re on low income, or are a child, old, etc you get your prescriptions free. Otherwise you have to pay for them at £9.90 per 2 month prescription. I’m on a shitload of medication and that would normally cost me well over £500 a year, but I get a prepayment certificate which costs me £114.50 a year and covers all medication.

Confidently wrong x 2