At least the rainbow one will continue to work, without monthly payments, until it runs out of ink.

Possibly chosen? My brother was born on the 1st of the month because my mom had a planned C-section and they gave her a window and let her pick the date. She picked something easy to remember. Although this may be less common because it's no longer mandatory to have a c-section just because your previous birth was via c-section, afaik.

There are limits in many places, sometimes in response to that time the artist Prince changed his name to a symbol, in some cases all special characters are banned too, so good luck to anyone with a non-English name. But outside of that? In most states you could probably name your kid Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, much worse names have happened.

I think there's been a couple of times where states have tried to stop individuals who have tried to name their kid Adolph Hitler or just some racist slogan, but I don't remember how those went, it was a genuine legal question if those names could be blocked.

Name changes, however, are a different thing - often requiring a judge to approve them, they can be rejected simply due to the misfortune of being a trans person in Texas, for example. Unless it's a name change due to marriage, those are significantly easier for some reason.

I grew up in Florida and knew people who knew people that had pet raccoons. And this was consistently what I heard third hand about pet raccoons.

Sometimes taxis wouldn't pick up certain people because of how they look

Unfortunately, at least in the US, Uber is just as bad. I've got a friend who's blind and has a service dog - Uber drivers legally can't decline a ride because he's got a service dog, but very frequently they'd pull up, see the dog, and cancel the ride. Taxis are more likely to know and follow the law.

Stuff is built differently in places where hurricanes are common. Building standards are more strict, especially after Andrew, and adverse weather is a consideration when things are built (for instance, chain link fences are incredibly common rather than wood fences). Same with the landscaping - branches break, trees completely falling is rare because generally sturdier trees with deeper roots are chosen, and are planted well away from the house. A lot of power lines are buried - it's more resilient to bad weather (even the afternoon thunderstorms in Florida can occasionally be just as nasty as the thunderstorms that caused so much damage at your place) and long term it's cheaper than replacing the power lines every summer. And you kinda get used to being without power for a few hours (or even a few days to a week) after really bad hurricanes or thunderstorms. I've done homework by kerosene lamp more than once as a kid, and I'm in my 30s. My family played a lot of board games during the long power outages. Eventually my family, and a lot of others, invested in a generator, they're fairly common now. My dad had a chainsaw and mostly dealt with the fallen trees himself.

But I've never learned how to tow a car out out the ditch, but many of my friends here in Minnesota do know how - different places require different skill sets. Learning how to deal with a furnace and radiator has been interesting.

Also, in hindsight, a direct eyewall hit or worse of a category 3+ hurricane is so pants shittingly terrifying that nobody sane continues living there after experiencing one.

Gubbins is a fun word game, it's a one time purchase and apparently part of the profits go to charity due to Hank Green investing in it in a creative way.

Somewhat unrelated (mostly relevant because of the "yeah that technically counts as micromobility" thing), but my favorite genre of headline is "Man arrested for DUI on Motorized Cooler". I was thinking of Australia man, but I found out it's happened to New York man too.

I've never had the opportunity to go to Playalinda, but I do really miss Paradise Beach before the tourists found out about it.

Jesse "the Body" Ventura. Let's go full Senior Citizens Wrestling League with this.

FUCK YOU.

• Minneapolis resident