Depressing Comic Week just hits different. The name suits it well.

I’m at the stage of burnout where all my hobbies feel like extra jobs, or at the very least like chores.

I’m not an adventurous person. I haven’t been to a sex shop at home in decades so I don’t keep up with what’s available out there. But on vacation in Tokyo in 2023, I was at a four story sex shop in Akihabara. The top floor is exclusive to men, no women allowed up there. There are all sorts of fuck dolls and the more intense, expensive dude stuff up there.

Now, what I was not mentally prepared for was the glass display case. I don’t remember much about what else was in the case but the thing that caught my eye was what I can only call “The Device.”

The Device was a very inelegant metal machine that in any other context I would have assumed was some kind of kitchenware. But it had a nozzle on the end and it was incredibly obvious what The Device was there to do. This was not a nice machine, it was a tool with one purpose. I imagine it was incredibly good at that, too.

I was tight on cash for that trip and this thing was listed at 45,000 yen, which was about $375 at the time. I joked with my friends that it would be well worth it. It would have been difficult to get home due to size and I imagine heft. I would have taken The Device back to our rental house and let it suck the soul out of my body. I would have died on that trip and would have had no regrets.

I went back to the same store earlier this year and the glass case had other things in it, The Device nowhere to be found. Someone bought it, took it home, and was claimed by its power. The shelves of the top floors of that shop are now sleek looking plastic and silicon jerk machines that look very user friendly; exactly what you’d expect from a sex toy. But they are probably nothing compared to The Device.

When the power goes out and that fan stops, it’s the quietest thing you’ve ever imagined. It shouldn’t even be possible. I hate it.

The Karen I grew up around nails the “karen” archetype so perfectly that when people started using the name like that, I immediately understood what they were referring to. It was uncanny.

These years later, even my boomer family all know the reference and agree, regularly point it out to our Karen.

I got to make regular jokes about “being the new guy” and subtly shoot shade at the management team any chance I get.

I was in a very, very rough spot. Was mostly worth taking the offer. It sure beat wasting 13 years of obscure product knowledge at some new job for the less pay others were offering.

Rehired with all my previous tenure benefits with the added raise they would have given me had I been around when they gave out raises.

I was really confident. Then I lost a job to AI. Then they hired me back a few months later after realizing that replacing half the support team with an AI was not working out.

Big Money Salvia on Internet Comment Etiquette makes full on short films for his ad reads. They are pretty great.

I recently learned this is called the Grocer’s Apostrophe.

The clutch is a third pedal to the left of the brake which lets you disengage the engine and transmission so you can change the gear then let the pedal out, engaging the new gear.

With a clutch, the brake pedal is usually really narrow. So when you get into an automatic instincts will tell you to press the clutch and change gears but that pedal doesn’t exist and the wide brake pedal is there instead. Instead of changing gears, you slam the brake.

I know there’s a big joke about furries running the IT world but I know a huge number of them in aviation, too.

I’ve heard pretty mid songs that turned out to be incredible albums and I’ve heard amazing songs where it’s the only good track. But I always try to listen to an entire album in most cases. There’s so much good music out there, just under the surface.