So, yeah, Gervais.

Except for the Bowie thing and one-line clips, I've never seen his work. But it's easy to admire the work of a comedian who uses all the material that's just lying on the stage, waiting to be used, at a cost only to celebrities whose Lebronian commitments to corporate pretense constrain sincere response.

I mean, it's a small thing, but still cool of him to do that. And great of Twitter/YouTube to make it available to those of us without time or tv sets.

Who is this un-amused personage?

Also, Amy's smirking disregard for Freud's genius puts her on the wrong side of this.

I've heard that gyms have an usual business model. The gym is able to stay open because 80% of those who buy memberships never use them.

At New Year's, gyms tend to be more crowded than usual as people make New Year's resolutions to get in shape. Most, however, quickly fall off the wagon.

On Reddit someone shared a rather interesting tale of an encounter he had at the gym, in a forum called "Am I The Asshole?" where members share their stories and ask this question.

My response to this story is "Unequivocally. You are the asshole to the tenth power."

I hope he drops his gym's heaviest dumbbell on his foot.

Soleimani's daughter couldn't resist tossing in a little Jew hatred, like croutons on salad.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-iran-khamenei/irans-leader-khamenei-weeps-at-generals-funeral-as-nation-grieves-idUSKBN1Z50IU

“America and Zionism should know that my father’s martyrdom will lead to awakening ... in the resistance front and bring about a dark day for them and flatten their homes,” Zeinab Soleimani, the commander’s daughter, told mourners.

Speaking of Reddit...

https://old.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/ejyahf/my_boyfriends_doctor_asked_as_to_not_share_his/

Btw, the OP's first language is not English, just so you know.
___________________________________________

Most of the post:

My boyfriend had looked around to get a vasectomy, before we met. He hadn't been in a relationship for a while and very focused on his career so I guess it was somewhat lower in priorities, but after we discussed stance on reproduction and he was met with a very solid affirming "no way, not now, not soon, not ever" he put more effort into it again.

And hurray! One of the doctors he had already looked up said YES. I was very excitied, able to accompany him on the first coucil (legally necessary in our country). Doctor is a nice, older guy, mid fifties, if I had to guess. Asks a few basic questions and is accepting. I mention towards the end that I will recommend him to a friend of mine who also struggles with being fertile. He gets serious and explicitly asks me to just refer him to people I personally know. I was surprised because I thought advertisement was good, especially since my boyfriends was obviously very satisfied and happy with the doctor.

​Turns out that he has legitametly received threats after he had done a vasectomy on a patient. Like, people disagree with him doing MEDICAL SERVICES TO ADULTS WHO ASK FOR THEM.

I tried to get out more from the receptionist, but he basically just said familiy of a patient had been upset and with their religious group tried to doxx (In the broadest sense of that word) him? I was dumbfounded. Not the patient himself having a complain but relatives of his tried to harm a practice of a completely nice, competent doctor because the disagree "morally" with sterilization.

Has any of you ever heard of that? It seems insane!...

(snip)

19 comments. One was:

Sadly we have seen family members do things like call up and try to cancel sterilization appointments and surgeries. They can go nuts. We have also seen a bunch of bc tampering incidents.

And...wow! Just MONTHS before it's on the market, finally?! (Some say 7 months.) Maybe.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/11/27/20983663/male-birth-control-injection-india

Well, OK, it looks as if it might be confined to India for a while. Or at least I think that's implied in the last paragraph.

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/11/20/male-birth-control-thats-injected-groin-could-available-six-months/

I thought BBC News in Pidgin was funny. Check this Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/BBCBweaking/

Who is this un-amused personage?

Yandex suggests her name is Lauren Graham https://bit.ly/2QQwddz Allegedly she was on the Gilmore Girls show but I don't care enough to look.

I'm stealing Lebronian.

Now let's see if people in the West will do this for Instagram clout:

https://mobile.twitter.com/sihamese/status/1213583409831989248

Soleimani's daughter couldn't resist tossing in a little Jew hatred, like croutons on salad.

Day ending in "Y".

My response to this story is "Unequivocally. You are the asshole to the tenth power."

Only the tenth power? when you look up the word "dick" in the dictionary, that guy's picture is featured.

Practical joke for snow country.

https://youtu.be/cJQdKR2V4-4

Those marks on his neck are inconsistent with the....

> Yandex suggests her name

I'd wanted to think she was a studio executive, grimacing at the fear of this week's revenues being diminished by a fat Brit's blunt impertinence toward the products about to be pimped. But no, she simply admires showbiz people for thinking highly of themselves, and doesn't like seeing their smugness vacated.

But she might have misidentified the source of her teeth-clenching resentment! It's a least possible that as she (briskly) ages out of the consciousness of casting directors, she regrets —in a pulsing psychological undercurrent— that her best-remembered line reading will be an echolalic bark of 'Fuck me, Santa!'

Tinseltown… I love this place.

The replies to these tweets are so infuriating.

https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1213597914767011842

> Has any of you ever heard
> of that? It seems insane!...

I'm sixty, moderate savings, okay income, modest ambition... And have been surprised by how many dates in middle age (and now approaching & matching my own seniority) are shocked and offended to learn I had a V during the Bush 41 years.

There are a LOT of people, shallow but earnest, who think everyone is supposed to move through life like a babypopping teenage firecracker with a dry fuse eternally, and as a moral imperative. It's not just socially-incompetent cat women or Catholics.

Hey Crid,

Consider this once you retire:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/100615/what-does-it-cost-retire-costa-rica.asp

Thanks... It's still a daydream, but as of last week the plan is a move back to Indiana.

♫ When I dream a-bout
the mooon-liiight on
the Waa-baaaashh..... ♬

WTF? I thought lots of guys got vasectomies after they had their 2 kids. I mean not everyone, but it is pretty common...

It is fairly common NicoleK. I'm intending to get one myself relatively soon. What is also common is batshit crazy relatives. I've got my fair share of those too.

My sister has a mother-in-law who blames her for 'stealing her baby away.' The man is 40 years old. He should be off on his own with his own family by now (and is). But mom doesn't want to hear of it. She wants him to move back in with her. She is a nut and there is no fixing it. I've got an uncle who thinks sicking his dogs on random people is funny. The man is a menace and I feel no sorrow if he ends up in jail. A lot of us suspect fetal alcohol syndrome but personally I don't care why. I just don't want to be around the nut. One of my cousin's mom called him up at 3AM to apologize for him being gay. One, not the right time. Two, he isn't gay. He has a wife and kids. Nothing wrong with being gay. He just isn't gay. Three, even if he way gay it isn't something she has to apologize over.

If you don't have any nutty relatives count your blessings. Or maybe you are the nutty relative. Whatever floats your boat.

NicoleK, IIRC, it's mainly married men who get it - and usually after having children, yes.

Some years ago - ten? - a single, childfree man had a vasectomy and it made the news! But maybe he WANTED it to make the news; I don't remember too well. He stressed the need to plan ahead in general if you want a happy life according to your specific standards.

Btw, Crid, there's an essay collection from 1980 called "Why Children?" (eds. Stephanie Dowrick & Sibyl Grundberg). The book is about the choice to have or not have children. Professor Karen Lindsey, born in 1944, wrote the most striking essay of all. I think she was the only writer in the book who got herself sterilized, a move that provoked horror and anger (in 1972) even from those hippie women "who'd supported the Weathermen." (She eventually started telling people like that to mind their own business and shut up.)

She said she'd first sensed the joys of being childfree at a very young age when she saw the new circus movie "The Greatest Show on Earth" and sensed that Betty Hutton's character wouldn't have been flying about freely on the trapeze in her glittering turquoise costume if she'd had a houseful of kids to feed. She also talks about being forced to change the diapers of the foster babies her parents took in while her brothers weren't because her mother said firmly that "it wasn't fair" to expect boys to change diapers. Some years later, Lindsey said, "it was no longer cute that I didn't want children" and her parents pushed her into therapy. Luckily for her, the therapist didn't agree with Lindsey's parents. When Lindsey looked for a doctor to have the operation, she had trouble because of the rule among doctors that the patient's age times the number of her children must equal 120 before she can be sterilized.

She is also the author of "Divorced, Beheaded, Survived," "Peaceful Dying: The Step-By-Step Guide to Preserving Your Dignity, Your Choice, and Your
Inner Peace at the End of Life," "Friends as Family," and is the co-author of "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book" and "Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book," and others.