141 Comments

Thanks for sharing!

______________________

https://studyhelper.com/argumentative-essay-samples

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I'll try to remember to ask during the day, too, but should we plan a virtual Pi Day celebration?

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Wanna see Perseverance land on Mars?

https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1363929492138254340

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Cool - way better than the initial video/

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This is so cool. I've been waiting for the video.

I still love watching the SpaceX launches and first stage landing. Still amazes me that they land just about every one that takes off. I guess except for the one that just took off last weekend.

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Thank you to Scoots for bringing this important update to my news feed: https://twitter.com/THR/status/1363899546569478151?s=20

George Clooney and Smokehouse Pictures will produce a docuseries about a decades-long abuse scandal in the athletic department at Ohio State University

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I was supposed to have jury duty in November, but they didn't post any information online. I just received another jury duty summons for March, so I put an a disqualification request for having served in the past 12 months. We'll see if they count that!

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I usually have to call each day to see if I'm needed tomorrow. Is Alameda County all online? Fancy!

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Daft Punk disbands and retires

https://twitter.com/pitchfork/status/1363861462696001537

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Many late night dance parties with Daft Punk in my history. Thankfully, there are many artists that have taken the mantle of electro-psychadelic pop music, including Weval, Monolink, and a whole host of other talented musicians from Europe.

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They can't just record an album . . . one more time?

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Gruyere

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Raclette, the Swiss national dish, is delightful with Gruyere. Also the castle in Gruyere looks like it's straight out of a storybook

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I am sad to say I've never had this dish.

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Ohhhhhh, both raclette and tartiflette are must-have winter comfort. Indulge on the next chilly night!

https://www.davidlebovitz.com/tartiflette-recipe-potato-cheese-reblochon-bacon/

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I think I know what the next CGBHH needs to be...

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Had it in France with No 1 and his then GF. Was really good. We had that and fondue at the same time.

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That castle at Gruyere also houses the HR Geiger Museum (which I did not go check out when I visited Gruyere in 2009). HR Geiger is the guy who created the look of the Alien in the Aliens movie, so it's a weird juxtaposition for that to be housed in a medieval castle.

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It was closed when we visited the castle, but we could look in through the doors and they had a massive Alien themed dinner table right up front.

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As for the raclette, I had it a few times...twice at an outdoor festival setting where the warm cheese (and booze) really warms one up and was amazing and another time at a restaurant where I didn't enjoy as much (probably because it was a lot more expensive for less cheese than what I was expecting).

I don't know if it qualified as raclette but I also had a grilled cheese sandwich at a Paris Christmas market where they used the same raclette wheel mechanism to apply the melty goodness.

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I wonder how restaurants are going to handle raclette post pandemic. I seem to remember they put the whole contraption on the table and we turned the heater on and off and scraped off the melted cheese when we wanted some. They won't give each new table a new wheel of cheese.

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The same as they did pre-pandemic. Listen, as someone who lives in a 90% post pandemic world (we have to wear masks and use tracking apps on our phone) not a lot has changed - raclette is exactly the same as it was in January 2020.

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My wife used to be friends with a German woman whose husband is Swiss, and his raclette was a delight. His fondue was good but that might have been the moonshine he put in it.

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the lady friend has a table top raclette cooker and we gorged on raclette with fingerling potatoes and cornichon on NYE.

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The cheese scrape is so satisfying!

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it is, but the table top cooker is essentially 8 mini cast iron pans over an electric coil.

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arent you supposed to use Raclette cheese for Raclette? or is this just a suggested variation?

i had the impression that Raclette cheese melts a little bit easier

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I'm just saying you can make it with Gruyere and it is delicious. It's an alternate recipe for sure, but well worth trying

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Work and Such

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mildly interesting article from the Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2021/02/wfh-is-corroding-our-trust-in-each-other?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The premise is that working from home in the pandemic is reducing trust among workers, but I think the telling point is that it's the _partial_ return to working in person that's causing employees to show lower trust in their peers, as opposed to the predictable permanent lack of trust from middle managers.

I'm struck with my peers / team that everyone is working hard, where the prolonged absence shows up is that we don't have informal in-person opportunities for people to blow off steam or clear up misunderstandings and occasionally that results in pointless outbursts / friction (myself very much included).

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I've had a number of informal online social events with my work group. It helps a little, but it's still not the same as just walking the halls and running into people.

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We have done a bit of that, and its actually been a bit of a positive, because the group involved wasn't previously all in the same place, so attendance has been better, and events more frequent. It's not a one size fits all.

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That is interesting. I think my workplace is considerably more productive from home, and people are happier in general. I think it's been hard on the employees who have started here in the last year, as they have yet to meet anyone in person -- this includes nearly our entire executive team. But there's so much less petty grievance and bitching, which I find very welcome. I hope we never have to go back to the office full time, it's a time waster.

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I'm tired of working from home only insofar as the guest bedroom is losing its appeal. I don't miss working in a cube with one monitor I had to scavenge, no coffee to hand, etc etc.

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I just miss talking to people in the office. Shooting the shit. Of course before I moved out of Louisville it was just me and one other guy. The others in town didn't go into the office. Now most of us are all spread out and work from home anyways.

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This is why we're more productive, IMO. All that shooting the shit time really ate into productivity (and also breeds discontent -- people love to gripe with each other, when that opportunity is removed, they actually seem happier).

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The biggest problem was the group relied on side conversations for primary communication, which was a bad idea, and still does to a degree, and so there is an even greater occurrence of lack of awareness of issues that you only became aware of via these side conversations. Its forced a bit of a cultural change to break bad habits we are still adapting to.

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I guess when I'm at home I get distracted by youtube videos for the channels I'm following. So I guess I replaced talking with others with youtube.

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For sure. I can see the occasional need to deal with something, but its a rare exception.

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Draw an iceberg and see how it floats.

https://joshdata.me/iceberger.html

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Fun, but it can't seem to handle hollow objects.

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this is great. hours of fun!!

i sent it to everyone i know ...

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When I first clicked on the link a few hours ago I didn't realize you could draw an iceberg in the top picture. I was confused...

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it is surprisingly entertaining.

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Texas power problems

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DBD AV Club

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the lack of WB, WPB, WNB needs to be resolved here folks

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Started and finished Lupin. Found the dudebro dubbing a little jarring until someone recommended I turn it off and just use subtitles (did not even know this was possible) which improved things. Overall enjoyable, 13/19 WB.

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Ahahaha I watched it just with the English subtitles, but now I'm curious about dudebro dubbing...

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I love The Hustler hosted by Craig Ferguson. A little slow until the end of the episode, but the payoff is great.

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Probably will finish season 4 of The Expanse tonight, it has been a great season, mid season 3 of Halt and Catch Fire which has been quite excellent, and somewhat surprising.

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Both 17-18/19

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Binged al four episodes of Netflix's Crime Scene this weekend about the disappearance of Elisa Lam at the Hotel Cecil in downtown LA. 14/19 WPB. For the most part is was well done. Each episode tackles a different part of the mystery from the historical aspect of the hotel, the disappearance, the internet sleuths, potential suspects, and finally the most likely scenario based on all the evidence.

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Probably? Potentially? Possibly?

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I've got one more to go, so will reserve judgment until I've finished, but I find it kinda meh so far. That said, I hate LA, downtown especially, and think YouTubers, on-liners and "Web Sleuths" can be the scourge of the internet, so I might be a bit biased.

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the web sleuths are the worst

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yes

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I found myself watching a ton of British documentaries over the past year. It started with the very well-made BBC stuff to the more filler Channel 4/5 stuff. Most of these could be found on YouTube (before some of those got taken down) or thanks to people on Reddit.

Watching these historians in historical shows turned into checking out some of their appearances on UK comedy panel shows to just watching a lot of UK panel shows without any educational content.

I then found about the existence of this rather geeky quiz show inside some rather obscure UK museums called Quizeum. It's not popular enough to be really online, but they are available on the free streaming service Tubi.

Looking through what other free "documentary" shows/films are available on Tubi has opened my eye to the amount of utter crap alien/religion/conspiracy/Trump/all-of-the-above "documentaries" that are made and are apparently freely available. It may make some sense that Tubi is owned by Fox Corporation.

To be fair, I have yet to really watch these films. Something about a cover with Trump standing next to a generic alien has turned me off from checking them out. Only time will tell if I will regret this decision as I did at not paying $5 to attend an alien abduction seminar hosted by the UFO museum at Roswell, NM during the annual Alien Fest over a decade ago.

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A Map of Perfectly Tiny Things (Amazon, 9/19). Groundhogs Day meets WB teenage rom-com. Enough good moments to not be a complete waste of time, but it is an airplane movie if there ever was one.

Love, Wedding, Repeat (Netflix, 3/19). Groundhogs Day meets Wedding Crashers. High production value, horrible everything else.

Disney's Princess & The Frog (Netflix, 8/19). Well below average for Disney. Forgettable songs. Not sure I'm a fan of the message of a black girl who sets her sights low and struggles to get achieve her goals even with the help of a magical wish. However, Jim Cummings (Winnie the Pooh, Tigger) doing the voice of a Cajun firefly was really good.

The IT Crowd (Netflix, 15/19). Perfectly cromulent play-style multi-camera sitcom. Formulaic but still delightfully fun.

The Tick (Amazon, S1, 12/19). A comedy more than a superhero story. Not great, but there are some outrageously funny lines. Jackie Earle Haley is a treasure as "The Terror"

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I wouldn't say setting her sights low is accurate. The dream of owning a restaurant with her father is something she had from childhood. also one of the very best and most underrated Disney villians.

The Tick's best iterations: 1. the comic book 2. the early 90s cartoon. 3. The Tick TV (2001) 4. The Tick (Amazon)

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re: the IT Crowd - Chris O'Dowd is very funny, but Richard Ayoade is hilarious IMO. His relentless deadpan is very much my jam.

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I found myself binging Ayoade's Travel Man and Gadget Man shows about a month or so ago. I also attempted to watch the Crystal Maze show (it's like that Netflix Floor is Lava show) but after 1 episode, even Ayoade's dry sense of humor as the host could not keep me interested to watch people (UK celebs that I don't really recognize) doing stupid challenges that's also not dumb enough.

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I haven't tried Crystal Maze. These UK panel shows can be a mixed bag, even between episodes, so I tend to stick to Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You, which are pretty reliable.

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finally finished off the third season of Babylon Berlin after stalling halfway through when it was originally released. Perfectly delightful, although I did think the storylines around Lotte's personal life were weirdly unrelated - had a feel of "people just doing shit for maybe a plot point in a subsequent season," but what do I know.

I also binged Unit 42 on Netflix, which was a perfectly adequately police procedural even though a lot of plot points hinged on "hackers" who spend a lot of time typing rapidly with 85 windows of "code" running on their screens.

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Today in Covid

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it's almost as if reducing friction for your "end users" and centralizing information works

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Revolutionary concept!

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500,000

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upside down heart?

heart breaking ..

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The best room/housemate you ever had who wasn't your SO

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Best roommate: always fed me and had a pet dog <3

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I had a housemate from South Africa. He was trying to get on the Rugby team, going to the JC in Berkeley and was extremely young. One of the first times we interacted, he asked me how to write a check. I thought to myself, "oh gawd, I'm now going to be babysitter for this dude." Turns out, he ended being one of the most self reliant people I ever met. He came from an extremely conservative family, and eventually moved to Montana and attended college there to be a girl who was also very conservative. Talking to him after he moved, he was telling me how he hunted for all his food, dumpster dived to cash out ink cartridges and other items of value (apparently that was a thing back then), and lived on something like only $500/year in groceries. Funny thing was, he ended being one of the most eco friendly people I've ever known simply because he had old-school conservative values and prided himself on being self reliant.

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be WITH a girl I presume.

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Yes, pardon the typo. :)

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Oh, thought it was a trans thing.

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The best guy was my freshman roommate at Bowles, but really all the guys in the suite for the first couple years were good guys. Even though I wasn't sure at first!

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We had an art student from Vancouver live with us in Venice when he did his semester abroad at OTIS. He found the room on Craigslist. We immediately hit it off and he became a close friend. After moving back to Canada we stayed in touch over the years and he would come to visit once a year or so. Totally fit the mold of a kind, considerate and thoughtful Canadian. Not only did he come down to Blaine WA to help me when we were getting our boat ready to sail south, but without being asked, also helped throughout our wedding day and ended up being integral to the success of the event.

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HeyAlumniGo and i never shared the same house. i was in a separate apt upstairs w/ his actual SO.

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Yeah but either you guys were always downstairs or we were all upstairs so the 6 of us kinda all were roommates.

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The two of you are like Imax and TheScientist (or maybe they're like you, since they came later)

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my freshman college roommate and i at Clark Kerr would not otherwise have been friends. he was a very image oriented Asian guy from SoCal who wanted to be a doctor mostly for the money and status. he had a giant poster of Heather Locklear in our dorm room whereas i had Star Trek posters and maps of the universe.

on the other hand we are still good friends today.

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I just remember drilling holes behind the back seat so that the bass from his subwoofers would go into the passenger area.

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that subwoofer took up 75% of the trunk of that car.

did you ever get a ride when he had the nitrous hooked up?

possibly the only thing faster than a Tesla ...

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No. I did enjoy his Turbo MR2 though. Last emails I had with him he said he still has it but souped it up some.

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Three guys from Clark Kerr frosh year move into the family condo in Berkeley for soph year. All good fellows who went on to grad school/biz school and successful careers

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my college roomates were all fine. Nothing great, nothing crazy. That's the last time I shared space until the missus and I shacked up in grad school (but that was in 1995 so...)

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Elsewhere in college

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Sooners' holder/WR gets his orbital socket crushed by losing a fight in the men's bathroom. Hint to the kids at home: when picking a fight with a shorter guy, make sure he doesn't have nearly a decade of MMA training

https://www.si.com/college/oklahoma/football/report-oklahoma-football-player-seriously-injured-in-off-campus-bathroom-bar-brawl

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Don't pick a fight with a guy whose neck is thicker than yours. Also, those two dudes went to work like the Hardy Boys.

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Gonna be tough to catch the ball with no depth perception....

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“He was trying to de-escalate that situation,” Glass told The Daily. “But … he became the victim of this vicious assault you’ve seen.”

I've seen the video. He can't play victim when he and his friend struck first.

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Here’s the video. The friend struck first.

https://twitter.com/edsbs/status/1363923034596388870?s=21

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Also, the short guy was already bleeding, so clearly something had come before.

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Stef McClure promoted to Sonny Dykes new DB coach at SMU

https://footballscoop.com/news/sources-smu-promoting-from-within-to-fill-cornerbacks-job/

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FCS Tarleton State, which up until seven months ago was a Division II FB program, beat the crap out FBS-level New Mexico State 43-17

https://nmsuroundup.com/17304/sports/nm-state-football-demolished-by-tarleton-state-in-strange-season-opener/

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Cheese

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The thing that will always keep me from ever being vegan

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Yes, and chocolate milk.

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Fact...that and meat

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same, but also eggs

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mmmm cheesy scrambled eggs

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i remember the "cheese" commercial.

"when my 10 gallon hat is feeling 5 gallons flat

I hanker for a hunk o’ cheese!"

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I don't know this commercial, but the beginning of the quote makes me think of the song by The Proclaimers.

WHEN I WAKE UP, well I'm gonna be

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To the Tune of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", in a Scottish accent

(with apologies to DCT)

Whe' mah GET-UP

and-go hassg'dup'n WEEEHNT,

I hankerrrrrr frr'ah hunkheah CHEEEEEEEse

When ha'im DANCIN’

a hoedown and meah BOOTS

kinda slow doon or anytime Imweakinda KNEEEEEEEs

I den HANKEAH

fr' hunkslabslicechunKEAH

A snack errrr days a WINNNNEAH

An nah DUNNA

spoil me DINNEEEAH

A snack a day’s a WINNEAH

And yet nah dunna eveh spoil me DINNEAH!

...

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that is more than slightly reminiscent of posts / comments in the voice of DACOACHO on EDSBS back in the day

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We FINALLY got a good pizza place in our town of 175,000 people. I love having a place that serves mozzarella that actually tastes like mozzarella. It's the nephew of the Dom De Marco, who owns/operates the famous Di Fara pizzeria in Brooklyn. My wife took me out for a hike this weekend and then decided that eating nearly a whole pie in our car at 2 pm was a good idea. She was very very right.

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I'm for it, although it's best for all involved if I don't overindulge.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY?

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@Shocking@. Leaked texts show Cruz's family planned a last minute getaway to escape the freezing weather. Planned to stay at the Ritz and invited friends.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/02/sen-ted-cruzs-cancun-trip-wifes-leaked-texts-show-family-planned-to-stay-in-ritz-carlton.html

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so Twitter was full of jokes about people reviewing their group texts to try and figure out who'd rat them out if they experienced controversy - is that really a thing for most people? I know I'm Johnny No-mates about using group chats but I had assumed it was mostly people younger than me who made routine use of them.

I suppose the DBD is just a displaced group chat.

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I am younger than you but not by that much. I have (checks) six active group chats going right now - 5 on WeChat and 1 on WhatsApp

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I'm in event-specific group chats that normally peter out after the event. Oh wait, I'm in a WhatsApp group for the work shuttle I ride (that I haven't ridden since last March).

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Heh, I'm on group texts with various family members quite often.

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that's my one exception - a running chat with my wife and daughters, and one with my brother and the cousins in Scotland re: my parents and their various health debacles

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We are definitely a group chat. I sometimes don't respond to interesting topics here because the answers would be a little personal. Hard to know when to draw the line.

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I've never met any of you in person and I still sometimes wonder about posting certain things. And no, I won't tell you more than that.

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I've met a few folks via zoom, and that has sort of opened up some conversations. But, a certain amount of caution is a good thing. I don't think my instincts are well calibrated for social media interactions.

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I'm still not 100% convinced that SGBear is not just a personal information bot that exists solely to surveil the WFC community

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I want to see screenshots of the group texts

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They're around on twitter.

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Supreme Court allows release of Trump tax returns to NY prosecutor

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/22/politics/supreme-court-trump-taxes-vance/index.html

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PRO

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Everton beat Liverpool at Anfield for the first time since 1999. Great excitement!

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CAL

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GO BEARS!

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Base: Cal loses both games over the weekend to UOP. Looking to split the 4-game series today.

https://calbears.com/news/2021/2/21/baseball-bears-falter-in-stockton.aspx

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WTEN: #17 THE University of California beats #3 UC Los Angeles 4-3 on Saturday, beats UC Santa Barbara 6-1 on Sunday

https://calbears.com/news/2021/2/20/womens-tennis-no-17-cal-edges-no-3-ucla-4-3.aspx

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SB: Cal shut out by Sac State 0-3 on Saturday, then gets a come-from-behind win against St. Mary's College on Sunday

https://twitter.com/CalSB/status/1363621844310364160

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MWPolo: #1 Cal defeats #2 UC Los Angeles 16-15 in OT, but then gets smoked by #3 Stanfurd 10-17

https://twitter.com/CalWaterPolo/status/1363579732684496896

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WBB: Bears win their first game 15 games into a snake-bit season. Only scored 5 points in the first quarter, but they ground out the win. Props for the grit and fortitude to gut it out.

https://twitter.com/CalWBBall/status/1363627424525684736

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My initial reaction was if I had woken up in a parallel universe, then I realized that was the highlights and recaps from last year. Bears did beat Oregon State yesterday and it was more impressive because it came on the road.

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Son of a #*$&. I clipped right off of the Bear's website. I guess I clipped the wrong one. Let me replace it with this:

WGym: Cal scores fourth best score in program history to stay a perfect 4-0. Now the highest ranked team in the Pac-12.

https://calbears.com/news/2021/2/21/womens-gymnastics-cal-posts-fourth-best-score-in-program-history-to-win-at-osu.aspx

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