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Allie Reesor's avatar

5 minutes of my life I can't get back (*Detroit* because of the *culture*😂)

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Chicken ate my Ballot's avatar

Go ask Alice… but she won’t know

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Sandy Knauer's avatar

I am thinking this Alice story works fine for my back door practice. When I was still writing and weary from hitting brick walls, I decided the best way to reach sleepers was to slip in through the back door with entering fictional stories that delivered food for thought on important issues without the feeling of politics. This might easily be a back door entrance into P2025-denier and the average climate change denier home. I am excited. Can you do all 900 pages, please?

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JoannaJeannineJanet's avatar

Becca and I were maybe separated at birth.

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Michael's avatar

Rebecca, I think you need a Vegemite sammwhich. Really, did I say I hate my phone ... and airports. Thank you & yours

Everytime I start sending you like a fiver a homeless or vet or down out asks for help (always very respectfully,I might add), SO:

You are on the list!

Snfi hateu my phone.

Z8(estdon

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Michael's avatar

Again, I hate my phone. This thing has baild out 3 times in the last 2 sentences

Then I have to correct it's spelling ...and then it rewrites my thoughts.

Fine. Let's go back to smoke signals & carrier pigeons.

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Virgiebeach's avatar

Jeez, so frustrating these phones can be ! I Haz to purchase a *Smart* fone my ownself, and am dreading H hardcore ! :/ Himself and I both have ancient flip-style dumbfones, which can handle 4G but not 5G.; So for the sake of Telehealth and various other factors, one of us has to buy one of these contraptions and familiarize themselves with its behaviour. Eeek. Sorry you

such a tough time with your phone :/ How long have you had it?

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Michael's avatar

It all bluu up last September ( Do you remember? September?), when 6 weeks of emails DISAPPEARED, and I was trying to pay my truck insurance...GLORYOSKY. it's like now almost August of the next YEAR, so easy, even a caveman could do it.

Thanks for asking.

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Virgiebeach's avatar

Yikes, what a mess ! I pay most of our household Thangs -- Power bill, Water, Fone bill (my own, not Himself, for some reason) Pest control people, and such) via handy-dandy automated pay-by-phone systems that each of those utilities have. I even check my bank balances that way; & have only ever had a problem except on the rare occasions when Utilites Repair crews have hit a surprise underground and taken everybody offline, or the electric repair folks did something similar. Your struggles with your phone are examples of why both Himself & I have the dreads about "upgrading" our phones to the so-called * Smart* types. Late MIL, who lived with us for a number of years before she passed a year ago in May, was FOREVER muttering and cussing over hers. :/

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Michael's avatar

I have considered having 2 personal phones, all everyday accounts set up, back & forth, for the inevitable crash of one.

So much effort.

Talked to an ~80 year old lady in a Wal-Mart today, trying to find stuff.

We agreed: You don't own your phone, your phone owns you.

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Michael's avatar

So now you made me think about ' the before times'.

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Maybe's avatar

One problem California has is that we simply have lots and lots and lots of trees all over the place. Many are on sloping ground, which fires just love. And it's a big state, so fires have lots of choices about where to start and it can take time to find them. Climate change is definitely not helping. (So far it seems that the only thing the climate scientists got wrong was how fast the climate would change.)

PG&E is a terrible offender, a gouger, and something of a rip-off artist. This year they got an 11" increase approved. My January bill went up by about 111%. Oddly enough, we also got a new non-profit that was supposed to save us a few bucks on electricity. What was not expected was that PG&E got to separately charge us for delivery costs, which presumably had been rolled into our bills always. They sure pulled some big numbers out of their big, greedy asses.

This complaint is not about the actual workers. We've had some big fire and weather problems and they've done a remarkable job keeping the power on. (Did I mention it's a big state?)

PG&E and others need to be made non-profit. Currently shareholders are guaranteed about 10%, which is a pretty good return on a low-risk investment. Oddly, the guaranteed income tends to go up when inflation is high. And when it isn't so high. I don't think it ever comes down.

Corruption is built into our system, which is a system where our government is essentially run by big corporations and the rich. If we could get the special interest money out of our elections we'd have a better government in short order. But the people who could do that are the ones benefitting from it.

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Michael's avatar

DJT said: Sweep the forest. Or dumplings like that... problem solved. See? (ho'say, can U see?) &, build a wall!

.

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Five cent deposit's avatar

A fire wall

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beb's avatar

I found your article informative and helpful, as the checkbox on some other sites would say. I'll say it again, thoughtfully, thanks for the informative article.

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Michael's avatar

I do appreciate rationale expression

Like this. I can get way out

there, sometimes, but peoples like you are helpful.

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John the Retired Mailman's avatar

Great stuff! This was fun to read.

Bravo!

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Permanently Confused@68's avatar

Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca.... Tch tch tch.

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Marla's avatar

Exceptin’ Alice. This is a story about Alice.

Seriously, though…I had occasion to be in South Lake Tahoe (normally, I’m in LA). The best way to get there is to fly to Sacramento and drive to SLT. As we drove higher into the mountains, we began to see hundreds, thousands of pine trees that had been killed by the pine borer. What looked like acres of mountainside were covered by dry, dead trees. Perfect kindling. All it needs is a single lightning strike and, boom!

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Lawyers, Guns 'n' Money's avatar

"Remember Alice? This is a story about Alice…"

That song has become a tradition in the LG&M household—every Thanksgiving—for almost 20 years now.

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Maybe's avatar

Alice's Restaurant? Hysterical.

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theCryptofishist's avatar

I used to live in Chico. Bidwell Park is the largest civic park west of the Mississippi, or something like that. They filmed parts of Errol Flynn Robin Hood there.

Thanks, Shy.

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Permanently Confused@68's avatar

Yep. Beauty place with a pool of the damned Pit River in the middle of hip hot-as-hell college town. Asshole the 3rd would have removed all that but for the prevailing winds. We are 1.5 hours South. On a drive to the NF of the Yuba yestiddy, we saw the mushroom cloud of the Apocalypse over the mountains.

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RogationDays's avatar

Nice job! Also, I totally believe this about Trix

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ZorPern's avatar

Super.

& ... Nice ...

Alice. Remember Alice? This is a story about Alice…

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