Separate post: Mark Rober is having the best quarantine (also I'm expecting cadaverine in v4.0)

Hopefully the cortisone will work its magic, ND.

I came *this* close to bringing home a group of teens tonight. When my son is at tae kwon do I hang out at the local Panera and try to get work done. Tonight there was a group of 4 boys about my son's age sitting in one of the booths where they've removed the table for social distancing (the few people in the place were all 20+ feet apart and mostly masked except when eating). I happened to sit at the one place that has an outlet, so one of them came over to ask if he could use it to charge his phone. Something about the whole situation pinged my spidersense so I started eavesdropping on them. They are homeless and were trying to find someplace to spend the night out of the snow, but no one was agreeing because covid. The cousin of one works at that Panera and the mgr. let them stay inside in the warm but they couldn't stay at the cousin's again. When people went to dump their dishes, the kids were asking if they could have the leftovers. Each of them chatted with me a bit as they were re-charging their phones and they were super-nice.

Ultimately they did find someone who said they could stay over. I bought them a couple pizzas. When my son showed up he said hi to the first one I met and later told me he knows him vaguely from school - they are in the same grade and Mal was like "I don't know anything about him except he's nice."

So now I'm going to worry about these kids forever. And this is probably going to get worse as the economy gets worse.

Thank you for the Gud update, Volans. Wow. Those poor kids.

dcp, what a nightmare. I'm glad it worked out, but it's terrible you had to go through that.

Vortex, it is a good year to stay home and stay safe (and not aggravated).

Thanks for checking, Volans.

wow, Volans, those poor kids! Bad enough homeless, then during COVID, and it's snowing?? Yikes.

ND, that sounds painful (both the disc and the injection?)

Glad Gud is ok!

I'm supposed to bring my laptop to the apple store for a covered repair--complaints that the keys get "sticky" on this version of the MacBook. And indeed, my E key is not the same as all the other keys. Am a little nervous about how long they might need to keep it for though--I have it backed up and everything, but would like to have it back soonish?

I'm supposed to bring my laptop to the apple store for a covered repair--complaints that the keys get "sticky" on this version of the MacBook.

I did that a few months ago, and it was fixed very quickly! Like, I had it back in 5 days or less. I did backup all my data on it just to be sure, though.

Ooh, fingers crossed, Suela! I saw a post today that it's 9 days until Christmas and was like "that can't possibly be right" but it IS. WTF.

Fuck, i think i just saw a mouse. Thought I heard a rustling sound near the door, decided it was my imagination, then out of hte corner of my eye, I thought I saw a black streak go under the futon. fuck.

Peanut butter on snap traps, Vortex. It's the most humane way of disposing of them, it's almost always fast and painless, and the traps come a dozen to a pack and are cheap enough to just throw out with the trapee. My dad used poison, they'd die in the walls and stink for days. Glue traps are right out, and I won't have exterminators for less than actual rats. Also, if you can find and block where they're getting in, that would be good, and worth the exterminator appointment.

Plus with poison they sometimes go outside to die and get caught and eaten by the local wildlife first. So the hawk or fox or cat ends up getting poisoned, too. So I second the something that’s not poison recommendation.

I'm a bad citizen of earth when it comes to mice. If there's one mouse, there are two. Baby mice reach sexual maturity in a couple of months. Mice gestate in a matter of weeks. An adult female can have up to 10 litters a year. A little mouse problem quickly becomes a big mouse problem. If you can swing it, I would call an exterminator.