Where is the Random Thread of Randomness stuff that doesn't belong in other threads thread?

Seriously though. Do your job or gtfo.

This summer I officially got Old. You get to...say, 32 and that's it. Mentally you're there for a long time. As you're approaching 50 you start to realize your body doesn't recover as quickly and hear yourself saying things you would've laughed at the "old person" for saying, but this summer...

I'm mowing the lawn. My base model store brand lawnmower that has served me loyally for well over a decade finally died a couple years ago. And it still technically ran, but the plastic housing the front wheels are attached to cracked badly enough that it wasn't practical to repair (on top of all the other wear and tear). So I bought the next level up of store brand from the other big box hardware store and loved it--for nearly a year. Then I hit a twig or something and the blade folded over like it was tinfoil. And I found out it had a proprietary blade mount--that even the store I bought it from didn't have replacement blades for. This spring the rubber tread just unrolled from one of the front wheels. A week or two ago the other front wheel just broke off. Even the engine is dogshit. It won't start unless I shout "YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT MOWER!" while trying to get the pull cord to engage properly.

I'm looking at it bitterly and thinking "Briggs and Stratton engine. Briggs and Stratton used to be the gold standard in lawnmower engines. What is this world coming to?" And that's when I realized I was Old.

How can a lawnmower you buy today be exponentially shittier than a lawnmower you bought 15 years ago? How did we go to the moon regularly in the early 1970s and now we have trouble reliably getting to near earth orbit? Why can't you buy a wind-up alarm clock at just about any store instead of having to go online for one--and every one you buy is shittier and breaks faster than the last one? Did we just somehow forget how to make a clock? Why did Briggs & Stratton, Disney, and Boeing go from being best in class to worthless garbage?

The axis tilts. The sun has move far enough south again that I need to close my south facing curtains in the afternoon to keep the house cool. (The sun has not yet moved far enough south that it still doesn't turn the place into an oven if you let it.)

It's so damn hot, everything is a bad choice.

You tube rabbit hole, when I was a kid I watched the last American hero with my dad, he watched it with me because he used to watch I spy with Robert Culp, which also stared the rapist Bill Cosby .

While looking at the Wikipedia article one of the writers of I spy was Harvey Bullock, whose name was later used in batman.

I tried to watch the first episode of I spy, but it's so fucking slow. I guess people had more patience in 1965.

The special 25th anniversary director's cut of "Titanic" is 20 seconds longer. The only change is a scene where Rose tries to get Jack up on the door but it keeps tipping and swamping.

Everyone remembers Bruce Lee but they always forget his twin brother, Brock.

"Digging for the Truth" is a fun series. Circa 2005 History Channel show that is in rotation on Story Television. They have a handsome, engaging, charismatic host that they've dressed up as a modern Indiana Jones (battered fedora, satchel, occasionally a jacket) and they do 1 hour episodes on mythical lost cities, etc. (Last night it was Atlantis, Pompei, lost city in the Amazon, and Easter Island.) The host travels around and talks to actual scientists and historians and does adventure bits that are educational and at least slightly linked to the premise (going into the underground of Naples to see the volcanic foundations the city was built on/with, helping carve a Moai on Easter Island, etc). They usually give you a pretty honest wrap-up--if the premise turns out to be false, they don't try to do a cheat ending, if a segment doesn't work they way they hoped it would the host explains the difficulties--"volcanoes are unpredictable and don't perform on cue," and you learn cool things along the way about navigation, building, and past cultures. Lastly, you can watch it in marathon/binge format and not get trapped; each episode is self-contained so you can go "oh, they're doing Atlantis next. That'll be cool but it's time for bed."

I'm pretty tired of being this neurotic mess of a human being, waking up at 1 or 2 am and just sitting around lamenting things. I guess being up and around is better than rolling around in bed all night having nightmares, but damn. Make it stop.

The least forgiving outfit is probably a "wife beater," tucked into bluejeans. If you wear this at least once a month, getting fat will never "sneak up" on you.

It isn't even a conscious thing, where you look at it and go "I'm getting fat," you just think "this looks terrible," I don't want to be seen in it. You need to realize this is because your belly has gotten big without you noticing it.