Sounds like you’ve been afflicted with management a time or two in your past.

Why is this not top comment?

My mistake. Please carry on.

Now that you mention it, I wouldn’t mind living in that environment.

Beautiful. Love hard, and run free, you magnificent renegades.

And some blackberry, too! We could have blackberry mojitos made with bamboo muddlers.

Ah, yes, Amsterdam, the Italy of Northern Europe.

Not only did they fail to offer that, but also, the crust was unstuffed.

I don’t know. When I’m forced to go to Paris on my mandatory annual vacation, I keep a framed photo of my boss and coworkers on the nightstand to stare at wistfully while wondering what I’m missing out on. I also have a gaming app called “Sim Accounting” so I can have fun pretending to fill out forms and spreadsheets so I don’t get bored. Looking out of the hotel window, I feel kinda bad for the poor Parisians. They don’t know the pride of having a neatly manicured lawn under the close scrutiny of an HOA or the excitement of maintaining, insuring, registering, and driving a large 8-seat SUV. When I think of all the fun I’ve had navigating traffic on the highway and downtown on the way to the office, I feel a little pang of regret that these French people might never know that joy. I wonder if we did the right thing. Maybe if we had stayed longer in Europe at the end of the war, we could have helped them remodel their cities with proper highways, suburbs, and strip malls. Nonetheless, the past is the past. I’m here for nearly two weeks. At least it will teach me to appreciate home more, if nothing else.

That’s really frustrating in a way that speaks to my own personal experience. I once went to a sushi restaurant, and their mac 'n cheese was not very good. They didn’t even have ketchup.

How obscene. Imagine being forced to see tits when you’re just trying to post the N-word.

Are we talking about Twitter or Truth Social? Its so hard to keep track these days.

DOGE Plan to Push AI Across the US Federal Government is Wildly Dangerous.

Fixed that for you.

Don’t be sorry. That’s what it is.

The Dog in the Corn: A Private Detective Story

The rain tapped the windows like a thousand tiny fingers, begging for mercy. The city was still—silent, save for the occasional distant scream of tires on wet pavement. It was the kind of night that clung to your bones, a reminder of the seedy underbelly lurking just out of view.

My name’s Sam Donovan. Private detective. The kind of guy who doesn’t ask too many questions when the cash is right. I’ve seen it all: cheating husbands, missing persons, stolen goods, and the occasional moral quandary. But nothing, nothing could’ve prepared me for what came knocking at my office door one dreary evening.

She walked in, just as the clock struck midnight.

Her name was Betty Winters. A name that tasted like trouble. She had legs for days, eyes that could melt a man’s resolve, and lips painted like blood in a dark alley. She was the kind of dame who had a cause, and it wasn’t long before I realized her cause was going to be the end of me.

“Mr. Donovan,” she said, her voice soft as silk, but there was something sharp underneath, like the edge of a blade. “I need your help.”

I leaned back in my chair, eyeing her from beneath the brim of my fedora. “You’re gonna have to be more specific, doll.”

She slipped a manila envelope across the desk. I opened it, expecting the usual fare—a stack of photos, a briefcase full of cash, a hastily scribbled note. Instead, there was a single photograph—grainy, but enough to make my stomach churn. A corndog, sizzling in hot oil, the golden crust crisp and perfect. But something was off. I squinted, zoomed in. The meat inside wasn’t right. It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen on a stick before.

“What is this?” I asked, my gut already twisting.

“That’s what we need to know,” Betty said, her eyes gleaming with that kind of fiery passion only a woman like her could muster. “We’ve been tracking animal cruelty in the corndog supply chain, Mr. Donovan. Something’s going on, and we need you to find out what.”

“Animal cruelty, huh? You got my attention, but why me?”

She smiled, a thin, dangerous smile. “Because you’re the best at finding things people don’t want found.”

I’d been around long enough to know when to take a case and when to turn it down, but something about Betty—something about the way she looked at me—made me hesitate. I reached for my cigarette, lit it slowly, then nodded. “Alright, Betty. I’m in. But I need to know everything. No secrets.”

Her eyes flickered, but she kept her cool. “I’ll tell you everything. Just… don’t go digging too deep, Sam. Some things are better left alone.”

It should’ve been my first warning.

The next few days were a blur of shadowy figures and smoke-filled rooms. I trailed the corndog trucks from the factories to the street vendors. I dug into the suppliers, the middlemen, and the workers who made the greasy, golden treats that the city devoured without a second thought.

The deeper I went, the weirder it got. There were whispers—shifty looks from the people who ran the meatpacking plants, workers who wouldn’t speak unless they had a few drinks in them. I started to piece it together, and the puzzle didn’t sit right. Something was wrong. They were hiding something. And it wasn’t just the usual corporate greed.

I had one lead left, one final stop before the truth came crashing down. It was the biggest corndog factory in town, the one that had been around since before my father had left me with nothing but a couple of bad memories and a scar on my heart.

But Betty had other plans. She found me, or maybe I let her. Either way, she showed up at my door that night, dressed to kill.

“I told you to stay away,” she said, stepping into my office like she owned it. And in some ways, maybe she did. She had a way of owning everything in her vicinity, even the air I breathed.

I stood, straightened my tie. “What are you hiding, Betty?”

She smiled again, that wicked, knowing smile. “What do you think I’m hiding, Sam?”

I pointed at the photo on my desk—the corndog with the meat that didn’t belong. “This. What’s in that meat?”

Her expression faltered for a split second, but only I noticed. Then she stepped closer, her perfume filling the air like smoke. “You’re too smart for your own good, Sam,” she whispered.

That’s when the truth hit me like a freight train.

I wasn’t chasing a corporate conspiracy. I wasn’t dealing with some evil conglomerate trying to make a quick buck off animal cruelty. No. It was worse. Much worse.

I’d been chasing the meat in the corndogs. And it wasn’t cow, or pig, or anything else I’d seen in a butcher’s shop.

It was dog.

I froze. “You’re behind this, aren’t you?”

Betty didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

“I told you to stay away,” she said again, her voice soft and almost… tender. “But you wouldn’t listen. You never do.”

I stumbled back, my head spinning. “Why… why would you do this?”

She sighed, almost regretful. “Because, Sam… I’m the heir to the corndog empire. My father built it from the ground up. And when he passed, I took over. I couldn’t let the business fall apart. The world doesn’t want to buy hot dogs anymore. They want something different. Something more exotic. Dog meat is cheap. It’s… efficient.”

“You’re insane,” I muttered.

She smirked. “You’re one of the last few people in the world who still care about ethics. You think people would stop eating corndogs if they knew the truth? They wouldn’t. Nobody cares, Sam. And nobody will care about you, either.”

I wasn’t afraid of her, but I was damn sure afraid of what I had uncovered. “So, what now? You have me in your pocket, and you’re going to make me part of the whole mess?”

She stepped closer, placing a hand on my chest. “No, Sam. You’re too valuable to throw away. I think you’ll come around eventually. You always do.”

I could feel the weight of her words settle over me like a vice, slowly squeezing the life out of my resolve.

It wasn’t long before I gave up my office, and took a seat at the table, playing Betty’s game. I should’ve been disgusted, should’ve walked away. But when you’re staring down the barrel of something this big, you don’t walk away. You play your cards and hope you don’t get burned.

The city would never know the truth behind its beloved corndogs. Not as long as Betty had control.

And me? I became just another cog in the machine. But that’s the thing about life—sometimes, the truth is darker than any of us can handle.

And sometimes, the dog in the corn is the least of your worries.

$100 bucks says this is pure projection, and that those people caught him leaking hydraulic fluid.

Yeah, it needs more JPEG.

Thanks for adding perspective on this. I agree that it’s a much more diverse situation than just giant lizards running around. To add to this, I think it’s also likely that other theroppds were also warm-blooded in addition to T. Rex.

Oh, you’re no fun anymore.

In all seriousness, thanks for bringing up that concept. On the surface, we generally group animals into endotherms and exotherms, but the reality is much more diverse, as you pointed out. Certain species of Tuna do make it into the category of endotherm because they generate enough heat internally to make a significant difference, however their body temperature is still largely variable depending on the surrounding environment making them also poikilotherms. Whereas mammals and birds are generally endotherms and homeotherms. I’m skipping over the concepts of hibernation and torpor in our bear and hummingbird friends, respectively, because that’s a whole other can of worms. In conclusion, I believe T. Rex, and many other dinosaurs, were both endotherms and homeotherms.

You’re not spreading misinformation. You stated your thesis based on your assumptions. You tested it, and then shared your results. I really appreciate that.