I’ve owned a fair few Fisher Space Pens throughout the years. It’s an interesting bit of space memorabilia that’s functional and affordable. It’s an impressive bit of engineering.

As a space nerd, I love the pen. As a pen guy…. There’s better options. The cartridge just doesn’t write as smooth as I like, nor is it a really bold, saturated line. For daily actual writing use, I use a Lamy Safari rollerball or a Pilot B2P.

After it gets dark, they refill it with lighter fluid. Every morning they light it fresh with a big ‘ole Zippo.

Some works will outright lie about it. For example, the TV show and movie Fargo specifically tell you it’s a true story, and even that names have been changed but ‘the rest has been told exactly as it happened’.

To me that’s weird. It doesn’t really add to the end result in my opinion, but would breed distrust when people discovered it was wholly fictional.

Still, even with things that are meant to be accurate portrayal of an event, it’s always good to check the facts. Hollywood just can’t help but fiddle with reality to tell a more interesting story, even when it doesn’t need it.

“Oi, cunt!”

Neat, I didn’t know that was a thing that they offered. Sounds like a good idea to keep people safe from stupid mistakes.

Yep. Years ago I interviewed someone for a radio program here in the Netherlands. This was a forest ranger, on the topic of people foraging for mushrooms. It was the hip thing to do at the time.

He explained how wildly dangerous it is for average people to do. Especially when looking up things online.

He showed me two images that looked basically identical. He explained to me that one mushroom was edible and delicious. And that it could be found in the forests in the United States. The other, identical looking mushroom can be found in European forests. That one liquifies your internal organs and causes you to shit yourself to an agonising death.

He explained that each year a handful of people die from eating it. Because they looked up a guide online, and failed to understand that there’s regional differences between edible and deadly mushrooms. And by the time they got medical attention, there was nothing that could be done.

I’m not a fan of mushrooms anyway, but I’d certainly never be dumb enough to go pick some myself. That shit’ll get you killed.

That’s pretty much what I’m assuming for an actual answer.

Though I’ve certainly read about people who spent ungodly amounts to save pets, even old ones or street dogs. Bless them for it, for sure.

Seriously though… I’m all for giving animals excellent care. But is that actually a thing people do? Give their hamster an MRI? That’s a very expensive procedure for humans with good insurance, so I’d assume it to be rather unaffordable when applied to pets like this.

I could see it for say, a beloved dog who’s got years of life left. But hamsters kick the bucket if you breathe in their general direction.

Yeah, we stick out like a sore thumb just about everywhere. And we’re easy to spot from a mile away by the typical Dutch stuff we tend to bring along.

The Dutch certainly like to travel just about anywhere. No matter where you go, no matter how obscure or remote, chances are there’s a Dutch tourist to be found - and likely another Dutch person who’s set up a little restaurant to sell typical Dutch food to said tourist.

I do hope my countrymen behaved themselves :D I’m always mortified to see the phrase ‘Dutch tourists…’ in the news.

As a Dutch guy, that’s actually something we always need to be aware of when visiting other countries :D

The average height for a Dutch male is 183,8 centimeters or 6 feet and a bit for you Americans. Even when visiting neighbouring countries like Belgium, they’re already 5 centimeters shorter on average. Spain? 7 centimeters shorter. Italians: 9 centimeters shorter.

If I was to visit say, Guatamala on vacation, I’d be 20 centimeters taller than the average male. Heck, a Dutch teen girl would tower over them by about 13 centimeters.

Basically, we always stand out. So you at least try not to be loud and overly intimidating to the locals. Thankfully, most people just think it’s really cool to meet a friendly giant though :D

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This is a pretty common response to national trauma like this. The US had a million ‘we’re gonna kick their ass’-songs post-9/11. Most weren’t exactly subtle about it either.

Calling out other artists like Dua Lipa though… I’d probably avoid that as a musician. You never know who you’ll end up sharing a podium with down the line.