calliope

This is correct, for me at least.

I don’t read the text out loud in my head. I can, but I’m able to understand and comprehend the intonation and text without “performing” it.

The photos having rust on them are because the authors are quite lazy and they need an image.

So they just look for copyright-free images of a rusty USB and they’re all set.

The 2022 World Cup was literally built by slaves. It has a way of keeping prices down.

I read the first seven stories of The End of the World As We Know It, the short story collection based on the world of Stephen King’s The Stand.

I realize I don’t like the varying quality of short story collections, so I won’t be reading much more of this one. I have other things to read and apparently my “bar” is too high.

I enjoyed the first four stories, but to me the quality started to drop significantly. Stories 4, 5, 6, and 7 all felt more like reading Stephen King short story contest entries instead of a book I paid for.

Many of the stories tactlessly insert references to The Stand’s time period, references to Stephen King, or intentional gross-out scenes. Story seven literally starts with the protagonist watching a VHS of Creepshow just to shoe-horn a Stephen King reference in there.

There are somewhat specific references to the 2020 pandemic (CDC says a vaccine in one week, running out of toilet paper as a joke) in a couple stories, which broke suspension of disbelief for me.

The antagonist of story 7 is a criminal so tough that the law just “ceased trying to rehabilitate him.” That is, when someone went missing from the town pre-flu, they assume it was this killer walking around town that the law just didn’t care about. In 1990.

I would have probably really enjoyed the top 12 stories but it’s hard to want to sift through the many other stories that to me seem to be included unnecessarily.

Oh my god it really does say that.

Not even quoting someone. Just blatant editorializing by ABC7 News’s Irene Cruz.

Don’t get your news from TV networks, ever.

The article just doesn’t care to tell you that the syringes were capped.

The Sun helpfully includes that important detail.

The influencer posted clips showing him creeping up on passersby and pretending to jab them with a capped syringe - just days before France’s massive Fête de la Musique street festival in June.

I went looking for the information because I was like “you can kill someone so easy that way, wtf?”

They were capped syringes for the “pranks,” but your point still stands.

What’s worse is that at the time, there were actually a lot of syringe stabbings in France according to this Sun article (it’s the Sun, sorry about that). I was curious so I looked up more articles.

I’m speculating, but maybe people don’t want to beat someone up if they don’t actually get hurt, fearing worse punishment.

I too was a huge NIN fan for a long time. I’ve even met the band!

It’s obvious to me that using the Nine Inch Nails name is a marketing tactic because it’s Tron. It’s “cooler” to have it be Nine Inch Nails because the previous soundtrack was Daft Punk.

Trent has lived in Los Angeles way too long.

This was an excellent explanation of the background, thank you!

You wouldn’t believe the number of people who think owning a phone and traveling to Nepal to climb Everest are the same thing.

Oh yeah there’s totally no difference between having a phone and going to Nepal to climb a mountain…

Genuinely: how fucking stupid are you?

A complex “aerodynamic” case

Hahaha that’s what I call my dick too.

I think this is the dumbest watch I’ve ever seen.