I spent 2 years cleaning houses. What I saw makes me never want to be rich. - "I searched for the stashes of empty wine bottles and peeked into medicine cabinets. I checked how many pills they'd taken in two weeks and learned which prescriptions had turned into recreations. I found pills for everything: pain, anxiety, sleeplessness, depression, impotence, allergies, high blood pressure, diabetes. There were other medications, too. My personal favorite: a topical testosterone cream. (I had to look that one up. It offsets a lack of libido in women. You apply the cream anywhere on your body except the genitals.)... One was the Porn House, for all the issues of Hustler in the nightstand and for the bottle of lube that sometimes sat in front of the alarm clock, illuminated by the red numbers. I had to change the sheets, of course, but I never picked any socks up off the floor. There was always something cooking in the crock pot; sometimes I'd walk in and the whole house smelled of caramelizing ham.The wife left notes addressed to "Cleaner" under a magnet on the fridge that said We're staying together for the cat. She slept in the spare bedroom.Next to the Porn House was the Sad House... After a while, I got used to the loneliness these houses held. I got used to Cigarette Lady, whose husband went out of town a lot. She kept cartons of cigarettes in a freezer in the garage. They were the long, skinny types; I don't remember the brand. A pantry off the kitchen had fat-free soups, crackers, and fat-free salad dressings. The refrigerator contained not much more than water and lettuce. A toilet in the upstairs bathroom off the kitchen always had crusted vomit under the rim... The bigger the house, the more they worked to afford it, the more prescription bottles they had. I started to see the fact that I couldn't afford to buy my daughter fancy electronics as a luxury. We went to the beach and looked for crabs under the rocks instead. We spent rainy Saturdays doing a 25-cent puzzle. I vowed never to have a house bigger than I could clean myself."
Facebook - "After going on stream with Kelsey Shannon, people have attempted to get into my Twitter, Facebook, and GMail. I have 2-factor on but wow these people are such crazies."
Comment (elsewhere): "Friendly reminder: there are THOUSANDS of leftists who hate-listen to podcasts/video content of people they disagree with, just to get names of fresh targets to dox/harass/hack.I've never seen this behavior from even the most strident right-winger/nationalist/"racist."We are up against an enemy who has pathological levels of hatred, who then accuse us of "hate" because they lack the self-awareness to understand how much they project."
Meme - "So my boyfriend and I have sex once a month, it's not like I don't like sex but I don't want our relationship to be centered around sex every time we meet. I love him very much so need to set standards for him to see value in me but deep down I crave sex everyday. Recently I've been seeing this guy, I don't love him, I don't see my future with him so I feel comfortable having sex with him everyday, I don't mind if he sees me as a whore I'm just using him to satisfy my urge."
Vizavi Restaurant Concord, ON L4K 2Y7 - Reviews - "I would like to explain (for the uninitiated) how the vast majority of Russian restaurants in Toronto function. Most are open for lunch and dinner and will have a menu from which you can order a meal. However, their primary source of business (and validation from the Russian community) is the "full-cover" option where the patrons order a number of seats paying a set fee (depending on the menu options and the time of day) per seat. With a full-cover, your table will be layered with dozens of dishes, with new ones added in a span of 4-6 hour. Most Russian restaurants have some live music in the evenings along with a dance floor. Although the full-cover option is available to smaller groups, it is usually utilized by larger parties. It is common for a larger group to book the entire restaurant for a wedding, a birthday party or a work function. To larger groups, the restaurant functions as a banquet hall. Most of these restaraunts serve alcohol but BYOB is a very popular option. I would recommend three basic rules you will need to follow in order to enjoy your full-cover experience: 1. There will always be more food on the table than you can enjoy at any point in time; 2. The best food usually comes later so don't over-eat earlier (see rule number 1); and 3. If there is music, don't be shy about doing a little dancing between courses (it helps burn calories). Most of the Russian restaurants offer similar dishes in their full-cover options. They are usually judged by the handful of dishes that is unique to a particular restaurant and by the quality/freshness of the food"
Man admits committing indecent act with 13-year-old girl in mall toilet - "After meeting a 13-year-old girl at a cosplay event, a 20-year-old man committed an indecent act on the minor at a mall toilet after tying her up and handcuffing her.Alaric Lim Qixian, who was a full-time national serviceman with the Singapore Civil Defence Force at the time, pleaded guilty on Monday (Sep 28) to one charge of committing an indecent act with a child... Lim met the victim at a cosplay event and began chatting on Instagram. Lim claimed he was a photographer and offered to conduct a private shoot for her, sending her a few examples of women in scanty clothing.The victim, who was 13, refused this offer but said she would be interested to take part in a private photoshoot involving "bondages and stuff", said the prosecutor.The victim later agreed to try a photoshoot but clarified that she was unwilling to be fully naked. Lim suggested tying a rope harness on her and offered to provide various props, before suggesting a "test run" at a toilet for the disabled in a shopping mall. They met at about 5.30pm on May 22 last year at Plaza Singapura, before going to a toilet for the disabled and spending about 15 minutes playing a mobile phone game.After this, Lim tied a rope harness over the victim's clothing. He then used a blindfold and handcuffs on her.He proceeded to molest her and the girl told him to stop. The victim felt "shocked and disgusted" by what he was doing to her, but did not shout for help as she was afraid he would harm her further.After about 15 minutes, Lim removed the blindfold, handcuffs and rope from the victim. The victim took a bus home and took a shower immediately, feeling "very disgusted"... Lim's lawyers said Lim was "not aroused by this act of cosplay activity", adding that his "intentions were not to take advantage of the victim but purely playing out what parties intended"."The accused has since learnt that there is a distinction between the cosplay mode of activity and (the) actual world," said Mr Richard Lim and Ms Lolita Andrew."
Election candidate arrested over Churchill speech - "A candidate in the European elections has been arrested after making a speech quoting from a book by Winston Churchill about Islam.Paul Weston, chairman of the far right Liberty GB party, was making the speech on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, Hampshire, on Saturday, when a member of the public complained to police and he was arrested.He had been reading from Churchill's book The River War, written in 1899 while he was a British army officer in Sudan... His arrest has led reignited the debate about freedom of speech, particularly given that Mr Weston was reading from a book by wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill."
Sauce please? ('I knew it! This isn't Wrestling' meme) : tipofmypenis - "It's Mio Kimijima Jav Code JUY-639Source video, unavoidable 15 second advert at start- javmost.com/JUY-639/"
The Boy Who Saved Batman - "it was with great excitement that he tuned in to the ABC premiere of Batman on January 12, 1966. Watching it, Uslan’s heart sank. Portrayed by Adam West, TV’s Batman was stilted, overly earnest, and almost buffoonish. Paired with his guileless sidekick, Robin, he wore tights and spoke in corny adages (“Crime never pays!”) while imparting good-citizen lessons about proper grammar and paying taxes. Even the bad guys were ham-handed jokes, nothing like the terrifying, unhinged criminal overlords of the comic. The fight scenes? Slapstick routines replete with full-screen flashes of onomatopoeic gibberish (“Pow! Crash! Boff!”).“Society was laughing at Batman—and that just killed me,” Uslan said in the 2013 documentary Legends of the Knight. To him, Batman was an orphan whose vigilantism was a civic and emotional reconciliation, not a campy pop-art punch line. There and then, teenage Uslan made his own Bruce Wayne–like vow: “I would restore Batman to his true and rightful identity as the Dark Knight, a creature of the night stalking criminals from the shadows...a master detective who survived and thrived more by his wits than by his fists.”He would do this by making his own Batman movie."
These maps show why internet is way more expensive in the US than Europe - "A Center for Public Integrity analysis of internet prices in five US cities and five comparable French cities found that prices in the US were as much as 3.5 times higher than those in France for similar service. The analysis shows that consumers in France have a choice between a far greater number of providers — seven on average — than those in the US, where most residents can get service from no more than two companies. The Center’s analysis echoes the findings of several studies on internet pricing disparities worldwide.By mapping the service areas of US providers, The Center for Public Integrity also found that telecommunications companies appear to carve up territory to avoid competing with more than one other provider... US broadband providers charge more for high-speed internet connections in four other US cities when compared with cities in France that had similar population densities, the Center found. In some cases, prices in the French cities are nearly half those in the US for speeds that are up to 10 times faster... American internet companies argue that they provide better service and that’s why they charge more. Most of the connections in the French cities the Center studied were sent over copper wires rather than cable or fiber. Unlike cable, which 96 percent of Americans have access to, speeds slow over copper the farther a customer is from the central office where the signal originates... But even accounting for the slower speeds, internet packages in France are still a better deal... Other studies have come to similar conclusions."
Do Democrats and Republicans Get Different Results? - "party control of government does not have any near-term impact across dozens of social and economic outcomes. But Jacob Grumbach finds that recent party control is associated with big changes in policy in some issue areas, sometimes producing real differences in directly-related outcomes like health insurance rates. Parties influence policy and some related outcomes, but perhaps not enough to declare one party better at improving well being."
So much for the liberal claim that Republicans are demonstrably worse at governing and get demonstrably worse results
Animated GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY
Man is indecisive about whether to put his arm over a woman. Passer-by nudges him into doing it and woman falls into first man's arm
Urban Dictionary: thousand cock stare - "When a woman has ridden to cock carousel for such a long time that she loses all ability to bond with a man. This shows in her eyes that have a unique kind of deadness, hollowness, and hardness to them. She's given up on love and is now cynically looking for a meal ticket."
Counterintuitive Trends in the Link Between Premarital Sex and Marital Stability - "For women marrying since the start of the new millennium:
Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce, but this only became true in recent years;
Women with 3-9 partners were less likely to divorce than women with 2 partners; and,
Women with 0-1 partners were the least likely to divorce."
Why Do Virgins Have the Happiest Marriages? - The Atlantic - "the lowest odds of marital happiness—about 13 percentage points lower than the one-partner women—belong to women who have had six to 10 sexual partners in their lives. For men, there’s still a dip in marital satisfaction after one partner, but it’s never as low as it gets for women... hese divorce-proof brides are an exclusive crew: By the 2010s, he writes, just 5 percent of new brides were virgins... Other studies’ findings have also supported the surprising durability of marriages between people who have only ever had sex with one another... Wolfinger says religiousness doesn’t explain the difference between the happy virgins and the less-happy everyone else. But it could be something more subtle: People who avoid sex before marriage might simply value marriage more highly, so they feel more satisfied by it"
Even if there's no causal link, the signalling value is still there
Harmful Effects of Early Sexual Activity and Multiple Sexual Partners Among Women: A Book of Charts
Does Sexual History Affect Marital Happiness? - "Previous research indeed suggests a complex story between premarital sex partners and marital quality. Psychologists Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley found that the study respondents who had sex with other people prior to marriage reported lower-quality unions compared to couples who slept just with each other. Multiple sex partners prior to marriage reduced marital quality for women, but not men. Along similar lines, sociologist Jay Teachman showed that premarital sex between future spouses didn’t make divorce more likely, but sex with other people did. A study from the 1980s reported similar findings... For a combined sample of men and women, spouses reporting only one lifetime sexual partner are 7% more likely to be happy than are those with other partners in their past. This is larger than the five-percentage-point difference associated with a four-year college degree, larger than the six-point difference that comes with attending religious services several times a month or more, and larger than the boost that comes with having an income above the national median. On the other hand, the one-partner difference is smaller than racial-ethnic disparities in marital happiness."