I lied on Monday when I said I was gone for the week. Here I am! But I’m sleepy as hell and I’ve been dealing with stupid all week. (Small rant after links.)

A suspect was arrested for the California wildfires.

California prisoners are being used to fight wildfires.

A bunch of people died at a funeral.

NYC votes to put a cap on the number of ride share drivers.

Beer.

588 uncounted votes were discovered in Ohio.

A “very clean, thoroughbred, white girl” was arrested (totes drunk obvs).

Perseid meteor shower is this weekend. If you want to take decent photos of the meteor shower, here are some tips from NASA.

And speaking of space this astronaut says he saw an alien-like creature once.

Super gonorrhea is running wild through Aussie.

Middle children may be endangered as more parents opt to only have 2 kids.

Google Maps now renders a globe. Take that, flat-earthers.

And WebDom links wouldn’t be complete without a product you need. In this case, 60lbs of cheese, which gives further credence to the idea that Amazon sells everything.

As for the stupid…

State Farm has been our car insurance company since my husband and I got married, and we’ve been very happy until two months ago. They had some technical issue in June, and State Farm is shitty at communicating, so we find out a month ago that our car insurance is about to be canceled for non-payment because the June payment never showed up. I call in a panic, reconnect our autopay, which worked flawlessly for 5 years, and pay the bill. Well, last week I just got another cancellation notice because the July payment never showed up because they fucked up the bank account connection.

Between that and the fact that our insurance has been $50/mo higher than they said after my husband bought a car in May, I got really pissed and started shopping around for new car insurance.

In an unexpected turn of events, the GEICO tagline actually proved to be true. 15 minutes DID save us 15% or more on car insurance. In fact, it saved us 57% on our premiums, and our deductibles are 60% lower.

Their app works perfectly (complaints about the dumb bot aside). Their customer service (who I had to contact about a typo on the insurance card) was swift and easy to reach through the app. And, while I’ve only been a customer for about 16hrs, I am already happier than I have been with any of the other insurance companies I’ve been with since I got my license.

And speaking about my license, I had to renew my license, and because of the RealID bullshit, it’s worse than ever. I already gave them my social security card, birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc., when I got the damned thing. I had to show up with all of that, plus my electric bill, my paystub, and my car registration.

But because New York is stupid, my car registration does not count as proof of NY residency, but my paystub, which totally could’ve been faked in Microsoft Word, does count a proof of residency. (WTF?)

Since I live in the middle of nowhere I only had to wait 2hrs at the DMV, vs. the long waits seen elsewhere around the country.