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Cake day: December 3rd, 2023

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  • I took the Bart in San Francisco every day for a decade, definitely saw some things. Saw a guy take a shit between the cars. Saw someone flip off the rails and kick someone in the head.

    The one I remember the most was during a busy morning commute, I had my headphones on and I see this older guy pushing through people to follow this younger woman. She kept moving up and down the train to get away from him. After seeing this a few times, I stepped in front of him and told him “I don’t know what’s going on, but she clearly doesn’t want to be near you, so you gotta leave her alone”. He snapped at me screaming that it was his daughter and I need to stay the fuck out of their family situation. Myself and a few others blocked him, and he got off at the next stop. When I asked the woman if she was okay, she said she had no relation to the guy and had never seen him. Scary stuff all around. Im assuming he was mentally ill and had some previous drama about losing his daughter, and something triggered in his brain when he saw that woman. I thought for sure I was gonna get stabbed that day, and if the train wasn’t so crowded I think things would’ve ended a lot differently.




  • I had a professor in college who would do 10 question pop quizzes from time to time. He would always have the answer key stapled to the front of the envelope as he passed them out. I have good spatial recognition and would always crack a joke to him when he got to me just so he’d pause for a second and I could memorize the pattern real quick. I’d fill out the answers in under 30 seconds and just pretend I took it.








  • There was a park near my house where often cops would sit to catch speeders. Driving past one day, I didn’t see a cop and I told my parents I was surprised by this. My folks told me that they were there, just undercover. I asked where, and they pointed to a woman walking a dog and they told me it was an undercover speed dog. For years I’d point out suspected speed dogs when we’d drive places. I am not a smart man.



  • I used to live in downtown Oakland, notoriously not the safest city. I was stumbling home from a night of drinking around 3am one morning, and this guy on a bike rolled up on me out of nowhere and he just goes “hey man, you scared of black people?” He was an older black man that appeared to be disheveled and possibly living on the street, and I legit just laughed and was like, no, I grew up in a city, and I live here, so no, not at all haha. And he just goes, “Alright. You have a good night.” and he rode off.

    Like 5 years later, I’m waiting for my bus one morning to go to work, and the exact same thing happens. Rolls up on a bike and asks me if I’m scared of black people. Again, I say no, kind of being like dude leave me alone not this again, and he replies “I know you’re not. I remember you. Have a great morning.” He shook my hand and rolled off, never saw him again. Just such an odd experience haha.



  • I made a Mastodon account during that blitz in '22. Yes, content wasn’t there yet, but honestly, it was the interface for me. It’s UI didn’t feel simplistic enough to me as someone just getting started with it.

    Lemmy may have faced a similar fate for me if it weren’t for the smooth interface of Sync to be honest. I know many on here are leaps and bounds beyond my tech proficiency, but so many folks are still in the stone ages writing their passwords on post-it notes etc so to think that they’d adopt something like Mastodon over Twitter or Lemmy over Reddit seems like the bigger counterparts will always win just on sign-up flow and instant gratification.





  • I had a wireless plug with remote that you could plug any electric device into and toggle the power on and off. One day, I took it into work and plugged my boss’ monitor into it. Every so often, I’d turn her monitor off for just a second or two and then turn it back on. Maybe once or twice a day to start, but then I’d do it a little more.

    This went on for weeks to when she finally reached out to IT to get a new monitor. Well, I was ready for that and had the IT guys already in on it. They told her they were out of working monitors and that the ones the company wanted them to use were backlogged. By now, most of the floor was aware of what was happening. She’d slap the monitor, curse, it was hard to keep a straight face.

    After a couple weeks of this, I had my friends in the mail room make up a dummy package from one of her clients and deliver it to her desk. Inside was just the remote. She opened it all confused, pressed the button and her monitor went off and we all lost it. She was so red in the face but took it really well and couldn’t believe she never thought to look under her desk lol.