https://zzk273.github.io/LATENT/ #Humor #RoboAthlete #HackerNews #ngated
#KashPatel: an #incompetent, #unqualified, glory-seeking, boob, given an important job due to #cronyism, that is now #flailing and failing as the whole world watches. It would be a sad situation if it weren't so dangerous.
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#Trump Hit by Harsh Fox News Report Showing Kash Patel Imploding at #FBI | The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/200480/trump-hit-harsh-fox-news-report-showing-kash-patel-imploding-fbi
ZAPPED
Every day, the inflatable tubeman flailed in advertisements of “USED CARS,” and “HOT DEALS”.
“DREAM CARS!” read his sign. “HIGH END! CHEAP!”
Cars screamed past at horrifying speeds and he flailed until six o’clock when Wilf, the owner, would flick the big red switch at the tubeman’s base and watch his long orange body wilt.
One day the tubeman watched a woman pull into the dealership. She was grinning and pear shaped, with a floppy hat. She had ringlets of grey curls and thick cateye glasses and lots of red lipstick and she was absolutely radiant with joy.
“Wilfieeeeee,” she squealed, bouncing into the dealership.
Six o’clock came and went and Wilf didn’t come out to turn off the tubeman.
As the sales team left, and darkness crept over the parking lot, the tubeman’s flailing became imperceptibly panicked. Traffic thinned, and his wide eyes got wider. His inviting grin shifted to teeth gritting terror. Wilf always turned him off before sunset, and, as dusk rolled in, the tubeman thought the world was ending.
But as the stars came out, and bats flitted in the cool air the tubeman gazed in awe and wondered at the night, this cool, quiet, peaceful thing he’d never experienced before. He was struck.
Finally, Wilf and the woman strolled outside. She was holding his arm, and Wilf sauntered with a straight back.
“Tammy,” Wilf said.
“Yes?” Tammy had lipstick smeared all across her teeth.
“I know it’s silly,” he started. His grey moustache trembled. “We hardly know each other, but you make me feel young again.”
“Wilfie!” Tammy planted a huge, wet kiss right on Wilf’s lips. When she finally pulled away, the two panted, Wilf with a big smear of red across his mouth.
Tammy was breathless.
“I feel like I’m in my forties again! Or my twenties! Or high school! Quick,” she said. “Let’s screw in my car!”
The tubeman had no idea what ‘screw’ meant, but as the blue car began to rock and the windows fogged, he watched with equal parts horror, joy and amazement.
For the next couple weeks, Wilf came to work with a sparkle in his eye. He started wearing a tight red golf shirt and would pause at his reflection in the dealership door.
Things continued like this. Every day at lunch, Tammy came bouncing into the dealership, Wilf’s name operatic on her lips. She’d tip her hat at the tubeman flailing in the heat. She and
Wilf giggled, and kissed and screwed in Tammy’s car, always leaving the tubeman on, to whirl blissfully in the night air.
Then Wilf came to work with tension in his walk. When he glanced at his reflection in the dealership door, he glanced quickly, like he was touching something hot and didn’t want to burn his fingers. He tugged at his red golf shirt where it was tucked into his khakis.
At lunch when Tammy arrived, her gaze was downcast. She didn’t tip her hat at the tubeman, and she slouched into the dealership, hands clasped in front of her.
She left a few minutes later, wiping her eyes with the backs of her soft hands. Tammy wasn’t bouncing at all.
“Wait!” Wilf called, running after her. “Don’t worry, it was silly, I’ll return them.”
“Acupulco’s not the point,” Tammy called from her car. “I thought we were on the same page!”
She left.
Wilf hung his head and cried, fat tears marking his red golf shirt.
After that day, an urgency filled Wilf like a fan was blowing it in. His movements were calm, but inside, Wilf was flailing.
The boxes came on trucks and they were beige and unassuming and anonymous. But inside, they contained bright colours, tassels, grins. Wilf was buying dozens of tubepeople.
His employees gossiped and frowned, but he carried on, plugging them in and standing back as they unfurled into wriggling life. By the end of a month, Wilf had 23.
One night, after everyone left, Wilf came out and sat under his 23 tubepeople, swigging a bottle of rye.
“It makes sense,” he grimaced. “She wanted to screw in her car, and I wanted to have dinner and take her and her daughter to Acupulco.”
The tubepeople spun around him.
“Guess,” he said, hiccuping. “Guess I just thought at our age, we’d have something a little steadier.”
Night was falling, and the tubepeople’s twisting bodies cast long shadows on the pavement. Fireflies were starting to wink, and the day’s heat radiated against the night’s coolness.
Wilf rubbed his nose. “When I was seventeen years old, I was doing dishes. Our kitchen looked out on this big field of the people next door, covered in muck and chopped off corn stalks. There were a few clouds in the sky, but it wasn’t even raining, and I saw our neighbour, Tom, walking out across that field, and all the sudden, he got struck by lightning.”
Wilf took a long drink and burped through his nose.
“Bolt just hit him in the head, and his body went writhing around, like he was one of you. But I swear to god, maybe it was the electrical current making his muscles go funny, but he was smiling the whole time. Like this.”
Wilf looked up at the tubepeople, grinning.
The tubepeople grinned back.
“When I met Tammy, I felt like neighbour Tom. Like something great and magnificent had come out of nowhere and smote me, and all I could do was flail around and smile. But now that she’s left, I feel the same way– totally zapped.”
Wilf went to drink again, but found the bottle empty. He giggled, slumped back on the steps, and started to snore.
The tubepeople didn’t really understand Wilf’s point. Actually, they didn’t understand anything at all. But they enjoyed his company and the cool night air. And as Wilf drifted off into his drunken stupor, he did too, his broken heart easing in the grove of multicoloured flailing bodies.
#Cars #Fiction #flailing #JessiWood #multicoloured #olderAdults #relationships #story #tubepeople #ZackMason
"#Money is the problem. Not too little, but too much. Where there's #wealth, there's a natural #human desire to make more #wealth. Ever since #Firefox 1.0 in 2004, Firefox has never had to compete. It's been attached like a #mosquito to an #artery to the #Google #cash #firehose. #TheRegister noted it in 2007, and it made more the next year. We were dubious when Firefox turned #five."
"And as for that #money — remember back in 2018? That's when #Google dropped "Don't be evil" as its #motto."
"#Mozilla's #leadership is #directionless and #flailing because it's never had to do, or be, anything else. It's never needed to know how to make a #profit, because it never had to make a #profit. It's no wonder it has no real #direction or #vision or clue: it never needed them. It's role-playing being a #business."
"Like we said, don't #blame the #app. You're still #better off with Firefox or a fork such as #Waterfox. #Chrome even #snoops on you when in #incognito mode, and as we #warned you, Google removed the APIs #adblocker #extensions used. You still get better #adblocking in #Firefox."
#VicePresident #KamalaHarris Is #Sailing, #Trump Is #Flailing, and the #Right Is #Bailing. #Wow!
If the #Democrats accomplish what they need to this week in #Chicago, then yes: #America will be damn straight #ready for #President #KamalaHarris.
https://newrepublic.com/article/184984/harris-sailing-trump-flailing-right-bailing-wow
#DonaldTrump has no idea what his #campaign should be about beside #himself
As VicePresident #KamalaHarris surges in the #polls, #Trump is #furious and #flailing, creating a #downwardspiral for his #campaign.
Has #VicePresident #KamalaHarris finally #broken #DonaldTrump? He's #flailing, #glitching and #RunningScared
Kamala, what have you done to this already very #unstable #man? The 🧀 has somehow slid farther off his cracker.
So how long exactly is the kvetching period regarding a party thing that should never have gone down the way it did ? The whole sleazy leaked conference call / mass media clown car( really- how does that happen?)no class , no skills, no discretion, no discernment circus we usually expect from the #Flailing #Fascist #Felon party formerly known as the #GOP ?
#Dems seem to have carpe diemmed their way out of the sh*tshow in less than 48 hours. Is that real ? Hopefully yes.Look at the alternative