Happy Happy Birthday, Laura!
In best news, my MIL is going to be staying with SIL for now until she goes to her own home. My turn is up.
That makes this an extra happy birthday!
No. And yes. It's always sudden.
Tara ,'Storyteller'
Natter 78: I might need to watch some Buffy for inspiration
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Steph L. - Feb 22, 2026 10:13:56 am PST #11666 of 12321
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
Shir - Feb 22, 2026 10:14:05 am PST #11667 of 12321
"And that's why God Almighty gave us fire insurance and the public defender".
Happy birthday Laura!
JenP - Feb 22, 2026 11:56:41 am PST #11668 of 12321
Happy Birthday, Laura. All kinds of joy to you in the coming year.
-t - Feb 22, 2026 12:26:33 pm PST #11669 of 12321
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Happy birthday, Laura!
Laura - Feb 22, 2026 1:01:57 pm PST #11670 of 12321
Our wings are not tired.
Thank you everyone. Family came over and we are watching yesterday's hockey game before going back to the pool. The bunch of them went to the beach earlier, but I was relaxing on the balcony instead.
eta: we didn't tell MIL who won
aurelia - Feb 22, 2026 1:39:50 pm PST #11671 of 12321
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story. Tell me a story.
Happy birthday, Laura!
DavidS - Feb 22, 2026 2:32:36 pm PST #11672 of 12321
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Happy birthday, Laura!
I've had a surprisingly social weekend, but the good news is that Lazarus Data Recovery was able to retrieve 360 Gigabytes of music and film files which I need as research for an ongoing project.
Phew.
And now I can begin the process of reclaiming my Nerdhole, get a new desktop setup and stop using it as an overflow dump zone/storage space.
Calli - Feb 22, 2026 3:10:31 pm PST #11673 of 12321
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs
Happy birthday, Laura!
Three cheers for Lazarus! Also, excellent name for a company that recovers files from dead computers.
I just can’t with the Iran news. It seems like we’ve been beefing with them since the Carter administration.
DavidS - Feb 22, 2026 4:10:53 pm PST #11674 of 12321
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I just can’t with the Iran news. It seems like we’ve been beefing with them since the Carter administration.
From what I can glean from all the YouTube videos on the subject, this is going hand in hand with the diplomatic approach getting Iran to stop its nuclear program.
They are bringing a big stick to the negotiations and essentially saying, "Comply or we strike."
Unlike Desert Storm there's no massing of troops to go in on the ground. Trump's team wants to essentially do what they did in Venezuela which is take out the autocrat at the top, put in someone more compliant, and keep most of the current structure in place.
I don't think they can do that in Iran without taking out the Iran Revolutionary Guard, which is not going to comply with any diplomatic demands. Further, even though Khemeni sounds (even looks a bit like) Khomeni, he's mostly a figurehead instead of a deep thinking leader. So taking out Khemeni (who is 80) isn't like taking out Maduro.
That said, you don't just line up two air craft carriers off the coast for show. It's staging for the attack.
But it will probably be: attack and then push them back to the table. If they're defiant, attack harder. Back to the table, etc.
tl;dr: Trump wants a compliant Iran (no nukes, stop using proxies to attack Israel and other terrorist groups), but doesn't want to get stuck being responsible for running the country.
So it's a little like old school American colonialism, where we install a compliant puppet government. That said - it would probably still be good for the Iranian people to take out the current power structure.
Oh yeah, that's also part of the US plan: to do strikes and then support an uprising from below.
Anyway, something will probably happen within the next two weeks.
Steph L. - Feb 22, 2026 6:25:58 pm PST #11675 of 12321
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
Also, Mexico? Very fucked up right now. A friend of mine just spent a week's vacation in Puerto Vallarta, and was supposed to fly home today, but the airport is shut down and they're not getting out before Thursday.