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Having some PTO is of course necessary for those unexpected life events, but for the most part I would just prefer it if I was paid a bit more. I have my PTO and sick time hours maxed out, and now have to take a day off every pay period or else I just lose out on those free hours. On the flip side, I also work with a lady who never has PTO hours stored in her "bank"...as she uses them all up every week for some kind of "fun activity", and always complains that we aren't given more time off from work...yet she hasn't worked a full 80 hours in a pay period since she joined the company. That behavior will hurt her if she ever really needs to take an extended leave of absence from work, and doesn't have the hours to do so. (she also doesn't contribute anything to retirement as she is one of those people with a "have fun now" and/or FOMO mentality)

My recommendation is that you track down the actual Ian Fleming works. Fleming was with the Office of Naval Intelligence during WWII, and this brought him into constant contact with folks from the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. He used this to inform his writing, such that the MI division Bond works for is a blend of these two organizations. For example, the original "Moonraker" novel involves Bond reading through a series of mind-numbing reports when M summons him. Yes, I say "original novel" as the Fleming - era movies, "Doctor No" through "License to Kill" as well as both versions of "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace", take considerable liberties with the source material. How considerable? Many of the films are literally just the original work in name only. Fleming himself regarded "The Spy Who Loved Me" as a failed experiment (sexually explicit content, told from the perspective of the Bond girl, inexcusably verbose even for a Bond novel, et cetra) and put it in the legal paperwork that the book couldn't be adapted in a direct fashion. But "Moonraker", "Diamonds Are Forever", and about a dozen others have no such excuse. Going back to "Moonraker", Bond is initially asked to accompany M to Blades, a popular high-class gambling house where M sits on the board of directors. There is suspicion that Sir Hugo Drax, a prominent businessman who is essentially financing the nation's space program out of his own pocket, might be cheating at cards, a mortal sin for one's standing in British high society. M wants Bond to suss out of this is indeed happening, and when Bond confirms that Drax and his partner are cheating at bridge it's the first clue that Drax literally isn't who he claims to be... so when the British official in charge of on-site security for the Moonraker project is killed, M has Bond himself take over the position so he can investigate what's really going on. "Diamonds Are Forever"? An American organized crime syndicate known as the Spangled Mob has created a pipeline that allows them to steal diamonds from mines in British colonies, wash them in Western Europe, and then smuggle them to the United States. Bond is to take the place of a captured courier in order to figure out where the pipeline ends so that Interpol can coordinate with the appropriate authorities. But when the Pinkertons get involved, Bond is egged on further than what his orders specified, and that means trouble. "From A View To A Kill"? Bond has to figure out who killed a NATO motorcycle courier and how they even knew to intercept the man. "Quantum of Solace"? As punishment for boorish behavior during an official government dinner, Bond is forced to sit through a long-winded morality tale as told by a government official. And so forth. Bond isn't always fighting against SPECTRE or other global-level threats. Sometimes he's being sent to take out organized crime syndicates. Sometimes he's sent to unmask a foreign spy. Sometimes he's not even the main character in his own stories. But that just made him feel *real*, like someone who existed in real life.

Might I suggest that you gave up watching at precisely the wrong time? The Daniel Craig films (except for the latest one) were quite a departure for James Bond. They were a reboot of the character. And it did change a lot of what you are complaining about. While, yes, he has his liaisons (especially when he's not on duty) he doesn't have to jump into bed with every pretty face he sees. And there actually seemed to be a plot-based reason (There was one notable exception in Skyfall that departs from this rule, and it was widely criticized.). why a spy would get into such a situation. The first (with Vesper) was because he was actually in love with her. That should say something about this reboot. The fight scenes were well choreographed with real martial arts techniques of the systems that are more functional than others. They also look really cool. The gadgets aren't nearly so future-tech. As far as I could tell, all the gadgets actually exist. The character also goes through a lot of development throughout the films, especially since they are written as an origin story + a trilogy (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, & Spectre). If you choose to watch them, be sure to get the 2006 version of Casino Royale. The 1967 version was supposed to be a parody. I have not seen No Time to Die because it seemed like it was going woke. I don't know this because I never saw it. But the trailers and commentaries made it seem like it. But, whatever. They're just movies. If you don't go see it, I'm sure you'll be able to live a perfectly happy, healthy life.

Everyone misunderstands this verse. The horse's name was A Horse With No Name.

Yes, for sure. I saw it from someone else who shared it and was pointing out that the pollsters tried to be misleading but still came away with the fact that the majority of religious people are not okay with alternative pronouns.

Thanks @Emmanuel Goldstein, this is very interesting, I haven't looked at much apocryphal literature before.

This is somewhat uplifting. 75% of members are not comfortable with alternative pronouns. https://www.axios.com/2023/06/08/survey-religion-race-shape-divide-pronoun-usage

This doesn't seem to align with the fact that a huge portion of previous commuters are now working remotely with NO commute. The economy has not had a boom because of it. We've gone into a recession. The reason public transportation will not work for the US is that there are too many people going in completely different directions. We all have completely different schedules. And there are more demands on our time. If we go back to the time before remote work, we had people who could get to work earlier and stay later precisely because they didn't spend so much time commuting. Because of that extra time, productivity goes up. You want us to spend more time commuting and less time working? And you believe this will boost the conomy? No, Tesla did not achieve it. In fact, he didn't achieve even a 10th of the things he's rumored to have achieved. This isn't to say that he was a failure. He actually achieved phenomenal things. And it was about his ability to think outside the box that allowed him to achieve as much as he did. And with that much outside the box thinking, he was bound to have a lot of ideas that didn't pan out. But there was so much mystique about him that people thought he was super-human, almost a mystic. So, myths and legends were spread about all of his failures being successful that it began to be difficult to separate his real successes from his dreams (my kind word for his failures). STORY TIME: I happened to be an engineer on a particular project in (edited location) that was very hush-hush. After ensuring our non-disclosure status, they began a slide-show of artist's renderings, etc. 10 seconds into it, I said, "You're designing a Tesla tower?" (This is not the secret part of it. It was the overall technology that was the secret part). Client: A what tower? Me: A Tesla Tower. You know, Nikola Tesla? Client: What's a Tesla tower? Me: It's that (pointing to the screen). I went further to describe what it functionally did. Apparently the project managers were quite distinct from the technical team who developed the technology. They had no idea what I was talking about. As we concluded, they explained what role this tower would be playing in the overall system. I thought their plan was quite ambitious. I pointed to several weaknesses in the design. And several hurdles we'd have to overcome in order for it to be functional. They were happy to find that they found an engineering company with someone who would understand the project. Several other companies failed. After the meeting, my boss came to me and asked if this was something that was real or if it was science fiction. I told him that as far as I know it is just science fiction because there were some assumptions that Tesla made about electricity that were not known at the time. But in recent decades we've found that many of his assumptions were just wishful thinking on his part. That's why he was not able to make it work. And no one has ever been able to make it work and still be energy efficient. But I admitted that maybe their team might have come up with a way to put real theoretical backing to these pie-in-the-sky assumptions. But if they have, it is not widely known. I'd love to be a part of this just to see if they can make it work. They took my comments back to their technical team. They made several changes. Then they found out that the changes almost doubled construction costs (not including real estate). I left the company after we completed our initial design scope. I left the junior engineer to deal with follow-up questions. After I left the company, they asked me back as a contractor to do a couple of change orders. Apparently the jr engineer didn't fully understand everything about our part of the design. They also added another scope item which no one at the company was qualified to do. They built it. They ran it. I have no idea what the resulting data was. But they received no more money from investors. They went bankrupt. That kinda hints at how successful it was.

I'm an absolute sucker for realism, but I'm very willing to suspend quite a bit of disbelief in order to enjoy a show. To a point, any way. Meaning, if you can create an internally consistent universe that is totally implausible, I'll go with you. But once you start having FBI agents exercising poor trigger discipline, or character behavior that is based on nothing, I'm out. In the zombie genre, I found the world's only zombie musical, and enjoyed the crap out of it. The songs and dance routines did justice to the individual characters. Then I found a British-produced zombie show where the story happened in America, and their concept of Americans with guns was just so totally Greta Thunbergish, I couldn't finish watching it. Even though the plot and special effects were far superior.

Why not domestic violence leave, too? "HR? Yeah, my wife and I have a serious fight planned for the first week of July..."

Or,

I suppose we'll have to use #54 for this:

Just when did you become an old man?

Nope. Ralphie had one job: make the gigantic arc reactor really small. One job.

Back off, Obadiah. Give Ralphie a break.

So, the singer was a zombie! That would explain why during the entire ride throughout the desert he never bothered to give the horse a freaking name!

Wireless cell phone charging, huh?

Here's what I know about it.