Ready for your deep thoughts in the coming year 
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COMPLETELY agree.
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My second grandson decided he wanted to be born in 2025, last night, instead of his due date, 18Jan2026. So he’s a bit on the smaller side, 7 pounds 11.
Both he and my oldest daughter are fine and doing well. He doesn’t have a name yet - she and her hubby were still kicking around possibilities. I was home babysitting his big brother all day while my wife was at the hospital for the L&D, and spent the night with them so my SIL could take his big brother home for the night.
Big brother is also a December baby, but from 2023.
Good start to the New Year for us.
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Mazel Tov!
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Congrats to the parents and the grandparents!
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The day has come to officially retire my 2006 computer. I purchased it “used/refurbished” in 2009 or 2010. I wanted to see it make it 20 years (2026) and it did – kind of.
Over the years, I’ve replaced the power supply, the ram, the hard drive, the fans and the “power on” button. The CD-Rom died and I just left a hole where it was – I figured more air flow – more holes??
Enter the “Ship of Theseus” paradox – is it still the same computer with so many parts changed out??
(not to worry, I’m still keeping my rotary phone)
Any who, that is today’s project along with some general cleaning in my home office.
My “new to me” computer is also a “Used/Refurbished” computer I picked up for a great price (at newegg.com), as it didn’t have an operating system. I added Linux Mint (FREE) and have run both systems parallel.
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Congratulations!
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Linux rules! I’ve been running it since around 1994, when you had to download source code and compile it yourself. It was kind of an amusement at first, but it became my main OS soon afterwards. I do have a Windows computer, used only for printing out crossword puzzles, running MS Office when I need to, and TurboTax.
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Pre-weighted chicken parts or other stuff (grass-fed beef steaks, usually).
My local had pre-weighted chicken thighs at half price. Because all packages state a weight of 20 oz, and it’s damned hard to get 3 random thighs hit right at 20 oz, while all packages are at least 20 oz, some are considerably more massive than others. So I just kind of do a hefting “is this one, or that one, the heavier?” type of exercise.
The 3 that I recently brought home clocked in at 32, 31, and 29 oz vs the stated 20 oz (weights after pulling from packaging). So, besides the “half-price” deal (whatever that means in Inflation World), I also got 150% of the stated weight.
I’ve noticed similar with packaged “8 (or 10) ounce” singletons of grassfed beef filet, NY strip, and ribeye, but to a lesser extent (easier to control mass with cut parts, I guess).
Too bad there’re no consumer-accessible scales in Meats like there are in Produce. I’d be killin’ it, I tell ya!
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I installed WINE for a couple Windows applications I like. They run OK – not perfect, but good enough.
I wish I had switched to Linux years ago.
I got my first Unix account in 1984, and Linux was like meeting up with an old friend.
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I do remember writing in Apple Basic about that time. My high school had two Apple computers.
I also remember writing some batch files in DOS in the early 90’s. Some of the Linux terminal commands remind me of those DOS commands. I’m still have more to learn in Linux, but so far – so good.
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Hey! I just realized that by being born on the 31st evening, his earnings for the day were $440/hr (5 hours of 2025 = $2200 child tax credit).
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That’s a pretty fair hourly rate! If for the rest of his life he settles for nothing less, he’ll do fine. 
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Just browsing Marks and Spencer food hall at Victoria station in London and I spotted a whole section of Easter confectionery on sale! It’s only the 2nd of January!
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My daughter was also born on 12/31 though at 6:44am. At that time I was working in the finance world and everyone congratulated me for having her in time to get the tax deduction. My friends outside that world asked me why I couldn’t have waited for her to be the first born of the new year (no way).
Congratulations
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Also wondering if people who are very close (38+ weeks) might decide on induction before the 1st? I’ve heard of folks inducing for any number of not really medically necessary reasons.
The grandson was actually 6:44 p.m.
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Big box stores with online-only offerings but lousy search features.
I’ve been watching my older grandson a couple of days. One of his favorites is Pete The Cat. He’s probably got 30 books, both floppy and hardbound large, and 3 of the Pete plush toys. His grandma (the other one, not my wife) is a school teacher and I think gets stuff at discount.
So his newest plush toy, Pizza Party Pete, has been here and was inadvertently left on the floor. Big dog well understands that anything not on the floor is verboten, while squishy stuff on the floor is his chew toy territory.
Pizza Party Pete no longer has ears.
Searching the big box stores (eventually) got me the correct hits, but then I’d click on it and it’d be delivery-only. Clicking the button to search only physically inventoried items still got wrong hits. Not to mention that “Pete the cat” and “plush” with or without quotes hits, first, about 40 other types of stuffed cats.
Barnes & Noble to the rescue! They say they have this one in-store (which is smart, given they sell a lot of the Pete books), so I’ll get it after dropping him back home this evening, and pretend that I just “forgot” and left Pizza Party Pete here… (he’s unaware of Pete’s unfortunate recent amputations).
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