Most job applications want three personal references. For a hermit, introvert, and largely friendless person like me, that's a challenge. I don't have many friends, and don't want to pester the few I have with phone calls from my potential employers.

Three names and numbers, eh?

I'd list my previous boss, but the forms say not to.

Should I list Leon, my friend forever? He's grumpy like me, and probably wouldn't answer the phone unless he recognized the number, but if an inquisitive caller got through, what would Leon say? "Doug's a great guy, we used to squirt mustard on parked cars' windshields, and then he vanished for thirty years and nobody knew whether he was alive or dead."

I'd list my sister, but sometimes the forms say not to include family. And anyway, like with Leon, I'm not sure what she'd say about me. "When he was a kid he thought he was a frog. And then he disappeared..."

"List three personal references" is another of society's many snubs and discriminations against people who aren't particularly personable, who aren't bubbly extroverts or heavily into "networking."

Three names and numbers, eh? Paladin Deception Services has reasonable prices.

Lego makes cool click-together bricks, and they've also made more than 4-billion ugly people-shaped thumb-size dolls, the company says.

And that is nuts. How can a toy be so successful when it's not even fun or cute?

Nathan Vass is a Seattle bus driver, usually on the #7 line that goes through the city's most diverse neighborhoods. When he's not driving a bus, he's also a filmmaker, photographer, and blogger. He's a good writer, telling interesting stories about the people he's met and things that have happened while driving the bus.

The Lines That Make Us is a collection of articles from his blog, and it's a worthwhile read. I checked it out from the library, and liked it enough to buy it. Unlike me, Nathan always tries to be positive, outgoing, and helpful, but I like him anyway.

The layout of the book is a mistake, though. Each of Nathan's short articles are preceded by a two-page photo, taken by Nathan the photographer, and printed in kinda grainy black-and-white. After each photo, the next page is entirely a huge-print pullquote from the article that follows.

All the pages of photos and pullquotes leave only about 120 of the book's 214 pages for the text. I'm a fan of Nathan's writing, but not of his photography and pullquotery. More writing, less filler, please.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• "These are not detention centers, these are prisons": Hunger strike highlights poor conditions at NWDC

• New York Times writers complain to Tines about the paper's ongoing anti-trans newsbeat

• NY Times responds by publishing defense of JK Rowling and says it "will not tolerate" journalists who protest

• For sale to a good home: An ultra-rare 1970s Muni streetcar

• Climate change could cause mass exodus of tropical plankton

• Amazonian mammals threatened by climate change

• Outcry as scientists are sanctioned for climate protest

• It's 60 degrees in February. This is what climate change looks like

• Un-named cop ducks lawsuit by protester left disabled after being shot with "less-lethal" munition

• NYPD adds $121-million in settlements to its $11.2-billion tab

• Officer often fed information to Proud Boys leader

• Rankin County deputies accused of torture, waterboarding

• Off the air, Fox News stars blasted the election fraud claims they peddled

• Marjorie Taylor Greene believes wind farms are killing whales

• AI-generated plagiarism and shit-writing is on the rise

• Good riddance to bad rubbish

Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going

• Click

• Click

• Click

Clicks ahoy

• A virus crippled U.S. cities 150 years ago. It didn't infect humans.

• The villains, rogues, and heroes behind New York's place names

• Remembering two porn pioneers

• Supermarkets are having a fire sale on data about you

• Microsoft's Bing AI is now threatening users who provoke it

• "My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I badly want to stand still a while."

• Coffee pot trucks

♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫

• Almost Cut My Hair — Crosby Stills & Nash

• Dear God — XTB

• Flight of the Bumble Bee — Al Hirt

• Ireland — Paul McCartney

• Space Cowboy — Steve Miller Band

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

• Roger Bobo

• Tom Luddy

• Marianne Mantell

• Tim McCarver

• Raquel Welch

2/17/2023
Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, LiarTownUSA, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Captain Hampockets, John the Basket, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.