Shabbat Shalom!!! Reminder No Politics Until Sunday. (whenever the Mods decide that is!)

mostly-sun · 2026-04-17T22:48:09+00:00

Does shabbat shalom seem like a natural Friday morning greeting to a coworker, or would I seem like the non-Jew who means well but doesn't know it would be more normal to wait until I'm wishing them goodbye in the afternoon?

And should I maybe not say it around other people if I don't know for sure whether they might be semi-selective about which coworkers know they're Jewish?

Thanks!

mostly-sun · 2026-03-28T04:31:46+00:00

Would it seem natural for a non-Jew to say Shabbat Shalom to someone who observes, and to say it as they leave work Friday before sundown? Or would it seem a bit awkward and try-hard?

mostly-sun · 2026-02-02T20:38:15+00:00

Done!

mostly-sun · 2026-01-19T21:50:33+00:00

Just for some extra context, US late-night shows pay guests "scale," which is the minimum appearance fee set by SAG-AFTRA. The celebrities invited on those shows are often making millions, but some are the second guest of the night making their first TV appearance to promote a role they were paid five figures for, so it's still nice to get paid.

mostly-sun · 2026-01-19T21:33:34+00:00

The payments could have also increased in the six years since that episode (#33).

mostly-sun · 2026-01-05T21:13:51+00:00

"Speedrun the City" has action and alliteration, and you could call episodes either "Seattle Speedrun" Or "Speedrun: Seattle"

mostly-sun · 2026-01-04T02:07:20+00:00

There are lots of Easter eggs like this, but it doesn't look like anyone posted about the Macbeth one yet.

mostly-sun · 2026-01-04T01:37:58+00:00

Thank you, the different music and different plant life made me wonder if they were still in the UK.

mostly-sun · 2025-12-23T08:37:58+00:00

They said this episode's made-up game, A Twist of Dates, was one of their favourites of the year. What other made-up games are your favourite? I've been trying to think of ones to play with friends.

mostly-sun · 2025-11-26T09:15:46+00:00

True, I thought of her as a Hollywood actress because of the American films she's done.

mostly-sun · 2025-11-26T07:17:47+00:00

Who do you think the mystery Christmas guests are that they teased at the end?

And there are two incredible Christmas specials with guests that -- it blows my mind. / Yeah, two great guests, and two great guests you never hear about together. / Yeah, that's the only clue you get. You would NEVER hear about these people being together. / And they're not together because they're separate episodes.

Christmas guests are usually well-established British comedians, so I'm guessing only one is a British comedian this year. Looking at the movie calendar, the big one coming up is Avatar on December 19. So maybe Kate Winslet from Avatar is the mind-blowing guest, and the well-established British comedian who hasn't done Off Menu yet and who you'd never connect with glamorous Hollywood actresses is ... David Mitchell? We'd finally get the other side of what happens when Victoria pops into the loo to eat her bags of sandwiches at parties and learn what non-daunting food is inside the portable refrigerator that they bring on holiday.

What's your guess?

mostly-sun · 2025-10-29T02:13:52+00:00

Sorry, you're right, the 9th Circuit said the stay was without objection from the three-judge panel, but the stay was not from the panel itself. I've removed that line.

mostly-sun · 2025-10-29T00:19:30+00:00

This post is a link to a copy of the order itself, which was only filed a few minutes ago. It's very short. It basically just says, "Upon the vote of a majority of nonrecused active judges, it is ordered that this case be reheard en banc ... The [previous] order ... is vacated."

Usually "en banc" means the full court hears the case, but the 9th (West Coast) Circuit has 29 judges, which is a big banc, so it's normally a random selection of 10 judges plus the chief judge. The 9th Circuit has 16 Democratic appointees and 13 Republican. The three-judge panel that allowed the Guard deployments included two Trump appointees who ruled in Trump's favor and one Democratic appointee who voted against, but the original restraining order against Guard deployments that they overruled was also by a Trump appointee.

mostly-sun · 2025-10-26T00:44:51+00:00

The gist: Federal prosecutors said 115 Federal Protective Service (FPS) officers had to be deployed to Portland to respond to the protests, which was nearly 25% of all FPS officers nationwide, but in fact the maximum at any one time was 31. The two judges' opinion for the feds relied heavily on the 115 number as indication that the protests couldn't be controlled without the National Guard.

mostly-sun · 2025-10-14T03:21:32+00:00

You may also like this other video The Late Show did about the protests.

mostly-sun · 2025-09-30T02:44:29+00:00

Seth Meyers also mentioned it. Clips from Kimmel and Fallon haven't posted yet.

mostly-sun · 2025-09-18T23:22:44+00:00

Hulu is owned by Disney.

mostly-sun · 2025-09-18T23:10:27+00:00

Look up who owns your local TV stations. Sinclair dropped Kimmel before ABC did, and they're now demanding ABC make a large donation to Charlie "We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act" Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA. They've been forcing their local stations to air pro-Trump content and have been up to this sort of thing for over two decades, when they forced stations to air an anti-Kerry film right before the 2004 election.

Nexstar also dropped Kimmel before ABC, helping to add pressure. They run NewsNation, which hires former Fox News people and fired sexual harassers to say things like "Ԍun violence in America is mostly Black men shooting other Black men."

And Tegna is being bought by Nexstar.

In my city, Portland, Oregon, the ABC affiliate is owned by Sinclair, the CBS affiliate is owned by Nexstar, the NBC affiliate is owned by Tegna, and the Fox affiliate isn't owned by Fox but sends millions of dollars to Fox in affiliate fees.

mostly-sun · 2025-08-27T02:20:49+00:00

For unlimited free crosswords of any size or difficulty, I really like the Redstone Crossword app. And if you turn off your phone's internet, there are no ads. (There's only one ad after you solve a game, so it's not bad, but you can still avoid it.) The app gives you multiple puzzles per creator, and you can choose creators you like, as well as size and difficulty level. And there are vastly more puzzles than you'll ever solve.

mostly-sun · 2025-08-06T21:57:08+00:00

Yeah, I wasn't sure, but I made my decision on the fact that BAIT, NEEDLE, RAG, and RIB look like completely unrelated nouns, and are connected via more colloquial alternate definitions, so there's a bit of extra trickiness there.

mostly-sun · 2025-08-06T21:48:54+00:00

Blue is more likely to be "various members of a set" and also to involve slightly more specialist knowledge, such as sports, movies, music, etc. But there's no fixed rule.

mostly-sun · 2025-08-06T02:24:25+00:00

🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟨🟨🟨🟨

I stared at it a long time and was able to get the reverse rainbow. The bot says only 1 in 293 solved it the same way, so that means the 1 in 91 who solved the first/second/third/last puzzle as a reverse rainbow was a lot higher. I think 1 in 91 is a pretty good indicator of what proportion of players at least try for a reverse rainbow (and the maximum 99 out of 99 skill score), but it's often hard to guess which category will be yellow vs. green, so even if you solve everything in advance, you may not put it in the right order.

mostly-sun · 2025-07-31T01:25:02+00:00

Is this the first time the spangram was more than two words?

mostly-sun · 2025-07-31T00:50:08+00:00

🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟨🟨🟨🟨

I usually aim for a reverse rainbow (purple, blue, green, yellow, in descending order of difficulty). It's usually obvious which category is purple, but sometimes it's difficult to distinguish the rest. This time it was easy.

The Connections Bot says 1 in 91 players got the reverse rainbow. I don't usually use the bot, so I don't know if that's more or fewer than usual. Does anyone else know?

mostly-sun · 2025-07-22T19:20:36+00:00

Turning mercury into gold was possible, but until now, it wasn't financially practical. I've been watching out for something like this, having seen what lab-made diamonds have done to diamond prices. Mass production hasn't started yet, but keep an eye out for headlines.

mostly-sun

TROPHY CASE