If its for older kids (8-12 and able to read reasonably well) you could check out the Warriors, Survivors, and Seekers series by “Erin Hunter”. This is not an actual author, but a group that churns out tons of books from the standpoint of cats, dogs, and bears.

My kids adored the Warriors books (fantasy stories where all the characters are cats) and they are still into fan fiction as mid-teens. My wife and I read the first one with them when they were around 5-6 years old and it was so awful we refused to ever read another with them again. I think my oldest learned to read about that time just so she could keep reading them after that. At this point I think they own 20-30 of these books and enjoyed them immensely.

This week my kids both started reading Journey to the West, which is a set of 16th century Chinese novels written by Wu Cheng’en. I don’t think it is quite what you’re asking for, but I gather that a significant portion of it revolves around Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. I think they bought this Kindle version for $4. Apparently the Monkey King is the character in the recent game Black Myth: Wukong, which has made the book popular again.

I once had to post a position that was specifically made for my employee, but my recruiter was awesome. I told her there was no possibility I would pick anyone else, so she suggested I make the requirements hyper specific. So, I met with my employee and we worked up a list of 10-20 things that she had done in her career and put them all in as requirements to qualify.

I received no other “qualified” applicants, so I only had to interview the one. My next meeting with her I said, “this is your official interview, do you have any questions for me?” She said “no” and I congratulated her on being selected for the role.

Same. I have a fence that’s barely still standing now that I removed the ivy. I’ve been pulling it and spraying it for several years now. I know I’ll never win, but I’m doing my best to keep it in check. The most painful part is when I go to garden centers and see it for sale. It makes me want to cry.

This didn’t make sense to my American brain until I realized it was Boris Johnson, so this is a joke for people in advanced nations where medicine is a basic service.

That would be my response, but a lot of people can be guilt tripped into coming in to work anyway.

I used to work for a call center that had an automated call out system, so you didn’t have to talk to anyone or give a specific excuse. However, at some point management instituted a policy requiring supervisors to call their employees to “check in on their wellbeing.” I don’t even have to be cynical to know the real purpose because I was in the meetings where they talked about it as a tactic to reduce absenteeism.

Wish listed! Also bought Be a Rock, I look forward to being a rock later tonight, it sounds fantastic!

I can definitely ID 2 mosses: long moss and short moss.

RFK Jr. probably took the rest.

I meant moving to another country permanently, not traveling, but good to know that the US system can reach out and punish me if I have the audacity to travel out of network. :(

To some degree you can get use Glassdoor with the help of the element zapper from ublock origin. What you can circumvent is pretty limited, but you can at least get a bit of information without jumping through all their hoops.

What that said, I would not put a ton of trust in the reviews section. As people have mentioned, companies can get bad reviews removed, but also most happy employees aren’t taking the time to go submit a review. I use it more to see salary ranges for job titles, both generally and at specific companies. Even that is subject to how honest users are about their title and salary, but employees have much less access to that kind of info compared to employers, so I have to take what I can get.

Another vote for the cake.

In my experience, most men wearing business casual dress very poorly. I typically see ill-fitting khakis, boxy shoes, and a polo shirt (frequently a polyester golf shirt). Companies that have moved to casual dress (jeans) have done the world a favor by letting these poor guys wear jeans and sneakers (still the polos though…).

It’s helpful to know that if I ever leave the US, I’ll have better healthcare. I don’t even need to spend any time researching that aspect.

I have the opposite problem. I have a dead PS3 and a bunch of games that I can’t play anymore because Sony refuses to offer backwards compatibility. I would love to be able to play those games on my PS4 or PC, but so far I haven’t been able to get an emulator working for that.

How is Railroad Tycoon not included in the sale? Luckily, I already have Railroad Tycoon 2, so I’m good on that one. I might pick up Station to Station though.

That’s a reason I can support. Maybe they could just wear nice wool caps.

However, the ministry spokesman said a fake fur version would have to satisfy “safety and durability considerations” and that “no alternative has met all those criteria to date”.

Why do they need to be durable if they keep buying new ones? Don’t they have enough existing durable hats to reuse at this point? And I’m having a hard time imaging what is unsafe about faux fur hats.

I think the way to play this is to place a ruinously large bet on the candidate you hate most. That way, if they win, you’ll at least have a large payout as a consolation prize.

I used to travel quite a bit for work and I would collect state themed magnets for my kids each time I visited a new state. Most airports have magnets for sale in the gift shops that are shaped like the state with some various references to the state. I visited Chicago multiple times, but I could never get an Illinois magnet because apparently Chicago overrides any acknowledgement that it is part of a larger entity…there is only Chicago.