There's a hospital very close to my house. Less than 2 minutes away.

Twice we've driven there (the person driving did not have the issue in question). Both times it turned out ok, but everyone at the hospital felt the need to lecture us that we "really should have called for an ambulance".

I said wow, you guys really want that $2,000 taxi fare for nothing.

There are definitely times when you should call for an ambulance. But it enrages me when you know it's only about the fucking money, but they give you the concerned sanctimony attitude.

If you don't have an emergency fund, I would put some or all of it into something like a money market account. It won't grow very much, but it's safe and is quick and easy to withdraw when needed.

Otherwise depends on your age and situation, but an index fund (S&P 500) is almost always the right choice. It's flexible, doesn't usually lock you in, and will generally do very well in the mid-to-long term. If we hit a recession you might get stuck holding the shares for several months to a few years. The last thing you want to do is panic sell in that situation.

If you have any debt, paying that down is a very smart move, especially if the debt is charging more interest than your investment can earn. Future you will thank you.

As much as I despise Scott Adams, I did think his thought experiment about a bored god blowing itself up to create the universe was kind of funny/clever. He probably stole it from some ancient mythos.

Datorade, because relentless 21st century advertising has put worms in my brain.

Thanks. 😊

The cat and the vamp are both nocturnal, so this works.

My old cat would be doing parkour on my face and the headboard all night.

Office Space minus the happy ending.

bow chicka bow bow

23 Data Miners and Me.

Space itself is 3-dimensional (or 4-d if you include time....and even higher dimensional orders if you want to get into deeper theories).

The reason almost all solar systems (including our own) are relatively flat, or disk-shaped, is because of the way solar systems are formed. Solar systems start as large clouds of gas and dust which coalesce into orbiting objects. The gas, dust, and objects "flatten out" as they spin around the central star because of the physics (conservation of angular momentum).

So even though the planets, asteroids, etc, in our solar system are all mostly moving along a relatively flat plane, the surrounding space is not 2-dimensional. Our planets also vary in how flat their orbits are. For example, Mercury's orbit has a tilt of about 7 degrees from flat.

Yup!

Yup. Be aware that if you do donate money you'll get bombarded with snail mail, email, texts, and phone calls for the rest of your days. I don't say this to discourage anyone from being charitable. Just be ready for that. Politicians are the most aggressive about it.

Years ago I went through a phase of reading his books one after the other. I devoured several of them and had a great time reading. Then I kind of hit a wall with it and haven't read him since. I still like him, and will read more at some point. But I sort of overdosed on it. I needed to branch out, read other writers, and take an extended hiatus from King. But it was fun to binge on it.

I loved the Dark Tower, but it's a slog. And he did one thing in that series that made me roll my eyes. But overall it's a masterpiece. I won't spoil the one dumb thing, but anyone who's read it probably knows what I'm talking about. (I'm not talking about the ending. Some people HATE the ending, but it made sense to me once I thought about it.)

His big hits are all big hits for a reason. Some book snobs look down on him, but if you like fantasy and horror, you can ignore the critics. He writes engaging stories in a well-honed style, not high falutin' literature.

Makes sense.

Ha! Yes, we have various fruity flavors of "licorice" in the US. In an attempt to avoid confusion we sometimes call it black licorice. We sometimes spell it properly, liquorice.

Licorice jelly beans and gum drops are somewhat popular.

Some iffy candidates:

• root beer
• black licorice
• grape

That's a bummer. I have noticed products like that will often vanish. Or drop dramatically in quality when they swap out quality ingredients for cheaper ones.

Thanks for the followup!

Profits are fine. Have you not been paying attention to skimplflation, CEO bonuses, etc? That's the min-max mindset I'm talking about here.