Umpitunnaa-unnelissa

First thing the sales guy did after I laid down the rules was turn to Sean and go, "What's your number?" And Sean said. "Oh, no, you negotiate with Gayle."

So, strike one for the sales guy. Could not divide and conquer us by implying THE MAN would not surprised at what I laid down.

Sales guy then had to confer with his manager and left us at his desk for several minutes. I have a vague recollection (this was 16 years ago) of Sean and I amusing ourselves doing bits about the other people there to look at cars. I am sure we did not give off the stressed or nervous energy they were hoping for.

Guy comes back. His first offer is fifty dollars a month more than I told him we could pay. I looked at him and said "I gave you our upper limit."

"Well, but what's another 50 bucks a month?"

"Something I can't afford."

He didn't know what to do with my open and unashamed admittal that I had a budget because my money was finite.

He went back to talk to the manager again.

It took two more rounds of "I told you what I can afford" before he finally came back 20 bucks under what I'd stated as my max.

this is an interesting bot. see the screenshot above for about seven posts all sent at 12:27pm on the 24th (the black zone had two other 12:27pm posts but my gpu unloaded them while i was taking the screenshot). from the targets it seems it may be the latest iteration of the cockslinger botnet. it's outputting high volumes of keywordslop posts with a repeating series of topics: "staring at the ceiling", "injustice", "hot_take" (underscored), "this or that", "hustle culture", "take a moment", "the news" etc.

its generating what it considers leftistbait, either to pass bot detection or farm engagement (none of the posts have any engagement lol), and then seems to be piecemeal-reblogging posts with actual comments on targeted blogs, seemingly manually

it's particulrly interested in the account @/wallyblack1925-offical, who is not involved in this, theyre just an innocent lestat fanblog. this bot is reblogging them constantly, probably from a feedback loop of reblogging automatically from the for you page

another interesting loop it has is reading for the subject of a post and then reblogging with a faux-relevant comment with the subject slotted in.

im not sure what the point of running bots like this on tumblr is, unless it's cockslinger again, i think their motivations are defined at least to themselves. but i see this kind of botnet running on tumblr a lot, dead internet type bots, and im curious about their goals. could just be training/testing i guess

The wound is backstory. The structure they built on top , the habits, the walls, the jokes they make to change the subject, the way they leave before they can be left, that's character. So don't show me the wound. Show me the architecture.

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.