Honestly, that part made me laugh harder. It's funny without it for sure. But the idea of these feckless birds who could have avoided all of that if they'd just taken the time to read the damn label makes it so much sillier.

On the other hand, it's a really bad idea to be locked into a single source for your raw materials. It sounds like Tran was trying to mitigate that risk in a fairly reasonable way. If he can buy and sell from other farmers, there's a buffer if the OG farm can't deliver. And he could also continue to use the OG farm as primary supplier, while selling off excess chilis to other producers.

All of this is why supply contracts and backup supply chain plans exist. Risk mitigation is normal. Like they said near the end of the article, businesses sometimes need to have an adult in the room.

There was a televised special about this guy, and it's wild from start to finish. He comes across as a weird mix of clever and dumb, charming and disgusting. Mostly the latter and the latter, but I have the benefit of knowing about him beforehand. His victims didn't.

If I remember correctly, it was his absurdist need to fake (and publicize!) his own death that led people in the US to him. He literally reached out to multiple news orgs in his home state to say that he was 100% dead, even though no one had asked. I guess the moral is that if you're going to dangle something that weird in front of reporters, expect them to follow up.

Two cats at once. I get the part of the bed not taken by the cats. I'm motivated to lie very still by the cats and the obvious repercussions for moving.

If that fails, the podcast Casefile - gruesome true crime stories recited by a very slow talking Australian fellow. It almost always puts me out. In bed or on planes.

Having guys make me mix tapes.

Anyway, this one really cute guy at college had an epic cassette collection and he was also artistically talented so he made custom covers/inserts for each one. The original tape is long gone, but somewhere I still have my favorite cassette cover that also includes the hand-printed play list.

He had other excellent skills, so I eventually married him.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

That's just what the cat is saying. I'm happy to see this bunny here.

Short and simplified version:

Virginia had a lot of land and it was a slave-holding state. But the western part was in the mountains, where it wasn't really feasible to have a plantation or conduct large scale trade. Waterways were the most efficient way to trade. By the time the Civil War rolled around, Virginia wanted to continue slavery, but the people in the mountains didn't really give a fuck. They were poor and didn't want to fight for the plantation owners.

Post war, WV continued their status quo as a poor mountain state with mineral resources but not much else. Virginia continued to flourish with its arable land, cities, military facilities, and ports.

Rose Acre Farms! There's some super weird stories linked to the founder, David Rust. Three of his employees were murdered/died under unusual circumstances in the 1970s and 80s. Theresa Osborne, Mike Reese, and Carrie Croucher. All unsolved. All involve small town weirdness and rumors.

Aside from the deaths, there was the scandal in the 80s where he left his wife because he "wanted more children and more chickens." He already had seven kids with his first wife, Lois. He found a much younger woman and had five or six more. Lois eventually divorced him and, along with her seven kids, took majority control over Rose Acre.

All Googleable, but here's a set of newspaper clippings.
https://imgur.com/a/BJuhyB9

I was on two flights earlier this year where the attendants weren't given seats for takeoff and landing. In the first case the attendant squatted and braced himself in the aisle next to the last row (where I was seated). I wasn't quite sure what was happening, but it was weird.

The next flight where this happened, the older attendant straight up told two passengers ticketed to seats in the last row to get the fuck off the plane and back into the terminal. She was pissed. I felt for the guys because they had boarding passes with seat assignments. Not their fault. (They were eventually seated elsewhere).

I was also assigned to that row so I asked her what was going on. She said that where an attendant seat isn't available they're supposed to reserve seats in the last row for staff. But they're overbooking all flights so aggressively that they're assigning those seats to customers.

I hope they get what they need. I'm a frequent traveler so I selfishly hope it doesn't come to disruptions, but I'm willing to live with sending angry emails to airlines.

I just wanted to comment that Bob Ross's name and image is controlled not by his estate, but by his former business partners. There are a couple of good articles out there, but the tl/dr is that they stole the business from him as he was dying.

https://flaglawgroup.com/a-not-so-happy-accident-bob-rosss-estate-planning-failures-leave-his-son-with-next-to-nothing-part-1/

It sounds like the painting being offered for sale was in private hands, but I hate to see a price point like that being set while the vast majority of his work is owned by the people who screwed him and his family.

I can't go to San Francisco without thinking about the nuclear wessels. My husband is legitimately worried that I'll start asking random strangers about them.

Actually - considering the amount of unsolicited (and invariably wrong) advice we got from SF locals who saw us looking at transit maps and butted in to offer some friendly assistance... I may just do that at the next visit.

"Are you looking for Fisherman's Warf?"
"No."
"It's just down that way!" \
~~"I think we're good! Thanks for the help!"~~
"Actually, we're looking for nuclear wessels. Do you know where I can find nuclear wessels?"

\ He's right to be worried.

I don't think that means what you think it means.