I was reading about some local policy changes intended to make running a small business easier and that got me thinking. I go to restaurants and ethnic food stores which are usually small businesses, and maybe some of the gas stations I use are small businesses too. However, everything else I buy comes from big-box stores or the internet. These have replaced a lot of small businesses, but how is it that there are any little shops left at all? Sometimes I walk into a corner store because I don't want to go all the way to the big box store or wait for delivery but the prices are so much higher (often by over a hundred percent) that I walk right out again unless I need something very urgently.

I'm not making a moral judgement here. I just don't know how the economics work out.

I recently ate a big lunch and I feel full (even too full) but I also feel hungry somehow. There's a lot of saliva in my mouth and I have the urge to go to the fridge, but if I do and look inside then the thought of eating any of the foods that I'm looking at feels unappealing. I leave without eating anything but then I feel the urge to go right back again.

This isn't unusual for me but I don't know why it happens. Maybe it's because I'm feeling anxious and the anxious part of me wants to eat to feel better even though my stomach is full? Or maybe I don't feel satisfied because I didn't eat the right nutrients?

Apparently the main problem was that the batter I made according to the instructions on the bag of pancake mix was way too viscous. A friend told me to add more water and showed me the consistency it's supposed to have. Now my pancakes are round and thin instead of being two-inch thick lumps. I still need to work on finding the right temperature. I used to burn the outsides without cooking the inside and I've gotten better but I think I still had the heat up just a little too high today.

He picked up a big stick in his mouth, spun around, and whacked my hand hard enough to leave a small bruise. I thought it was funny, but not so funny that it would make sense to share the story anywhere but here.

The fascinating thing here is that the government's lawyer, the one supposed to argue against this guy's return, appears to have sided against the government.

"Give us 24 hours to get him back, Reuveni said. "That was my recommendation to my client but that hasn't happened"

When I was a teenager, I thought people in their 20's were the most attractive. Now that I'm about 40, I still think people in their 20's are the most attractive. It's hard for me to believe that I might ever be attracted to someone past retirement age, even when I'm past retirement age myself, unless the person is like one of those celebrities who look way younger than they are.

This isn't something I can comfortably ask most older people I know, but there's one man who admits that he isn't and one woman who is. Which is more normal?

"Deleted" sounds so casual too, like God did it as part of some routine cleanup.

I live a bachelor lifestyle, so I have no food in here. Just alcohol. I hope the mouse figures that out and goes away. I should get some traps in case it doesn't. I hate killing animals but there's no practical alternative.

I was supposed to move my car last night but I forgot. The ticket is for $65 but I found a dollar on the ground near my car so I'm actually only out $64.

I set an alarm in my calendar so I won't forget next time.

It'll cost $9 each time. They're raising money for the mass transit system by charging specifically those people who don't use the mass transit system and that feels really unfair to me.

Archive link.

As recently as February, Mr. Walz said on a podcast that he had been in Hong Kong, then a British colony, “on June 4 when Tiananmen happened,” and decided to cross into mainland China to take up his teaching duties even though many people were urging him not to.

But it was not true. Mr. Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, indeed taught at a high school in China as part of a program sending American teachers abroad, but he did not actually travel to the country until August 1989.

Why bother making something like this up?

Pretty much every major shopping website has terrible search functionality.

I usually want something very specific, for example 60w dimmable e12 frosted warm led bulb. I have not found a single shopping website that won't show me results without many of these terms in the description. I don't want to see listings that say 40w and don't say 60w anywhere, and it isn't hard to filter them out!

Are these shopping websites bad on purpose? What's in it for them?