Jesse F Ballenger

@jfballenger.bsky.social

1056 Followers 3303 Following

History of medicine, health humanities, bioethics, critical dementia studies. Self, Senility and Alzheimer's in Modern America. http://bit.ly/3fVOrrU. Chilephile 🇨🇱, climate, cycling, Philly, board games, music, & sundry

Still life of an academics desk, with several empty mugs, dishes, books, journals, papers, pens and many other things crowding out a computer screen.
A meme featuring an image from "A Charlie Brown Christmas." It is Snoopy sitting on his doghouse reading a newspaper while munching on a bone. His bowl is filled with a stack of bones higher than Charlie Brown, who stands next to it with a concerned look on his face. The caption read "It's not Christmas until I see Snoopy eating 37 human femurs."
Two Japanese maple trees with bright eed and orange autumn leaves.
Picture of an open urban plaza with green grass and some empty benches. A large tree has a Puerto Rican flag painted on it.
A man with a black jacket holds up a large sign in front of his face and chest. The sign says Kinks Not Kings and features a large photo of Tim Curry in drag from the film Rocky Horror Picture Show, and an unflattering photo Donald Trump with his hair mussed, covered by a red circle/slash.
Colorful cards from the game Onirim spread out on the table mid-play.
Screenshot showing email Inbox with 45,331 messages.
BG Stats Jan 2025 Plays: 49 H-index: 4 Games: 12 New: 3 Players: 4 Locations: 1 Hours: 31 Days: 25 Bebop: 12 Fromage: 11 Sky Team: 11 Azul: Queen's Garden: 4 Onirim (Second Edition): 3 Muse: 2 Arkham Horror: The Card Game: 1 Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition: 1 Wavelength: 1 17 designers: Alan Stone: 8% Alex Hague: 8% Ben Rosset: 8% Elizabeth Hargrave: 8% Jamey Stegmaier: 8%.
Iconic photo of Chilean-Mexican pop diva Mon Laferte in a black dress with white poca dots and blue satin gloves against a backdrop of red roses.
Picture of the trio of classic supervillians from the Batman TV show - the Joker, the Riddler, and the Penguin looking on in pensive expectation.
Fortune from a fortune cookie reading "A schedule defends from chaos and whim."
Picture of my home office with two half-height white ikea bookshelves in the foreground, with dozens of books precariously stacked in front and on top of them, and two floor-to-ceiling shelves in the background.
BG Stats 2024 Plays: 401 H-index: 10 Games: 77 New: 35 Players: 30 Locations: 7 Hours: 593 Days: 214 Azul: Queen's Garden: 36 Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition: 31 Tranquility: The Ascent: 21 Tether: 18 Copenhagen: 13 Mind Space: 13 Numbsters: 13 Seasons of Rice: 12 Wingspan: 12 95 designers: Matt Leacock: 5% Julio E. Nazario: 3% Michael Kiesling: 3% Vlaada Chvátil: 3% Alan Stone: 2%.
The board game Pollen on the table in mid-play. Brightly colored flower cards, glass insect tokens, and brightly colored insect meeples.
A black pugnosed dog wearing an elf costume.
Tortoise shell cat lying in a sundrenched window platform.
Album cover of "It's a Holiday Soul Party" by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
A tortoise shell cat sitting contentedly in the lid of a board game box.
Screenshot showing every day of PAXunplugged completely sold out.
Meme in the Drake disgust/approve form, but with Elon Musk. The disgust panel reacts to a traditional cooked turkey; the accept panel is a turkey shaved into the shape of a cybertruck.
A white labrador mix lying drowsily in the sun in front of a bookshelf.
Screenshot of a sleep score from a health app showing - sleep score 82, good. Better than 91% of users in your age group.
Three yellow cocktails.
Selfie of a happy middle-aged couple with I Voted stickers.
Screenshot of 2020 district level election results showing 94.46% for Biden, 4.2% for Trump.
3 x 3 grid of board game cover art with Play count: 3: Azul: Queen's Garden; 4: Burn the Fort; 2: Galaxy Trucker; 1: Mind Space; 1: Seasons of Rice; 2: Tranquility: The Ascent; 2: Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition; 1: Welcome To...; 1: Wingspan.
View of the board game Burn the Fort on the table set up for play.
A virtual certificate with text "Celebrating 10M users on Bluesky, #2,517,887, Jesse F Ballenger ‪@jfballenger.bsky.social‬, joined on Dec 15, 2023"
Screenshot of these lyrics from Springsteen's "Souls of the Departed:" Now Raphael Rodriguez was just seven years old Shot down in a schoolyard by some East Compton Cholos His mamma cried "My beautiful boy is dead" In the hills the self-made men just sighed and shook their heads This is a prayer for the souls of the departed Those who've gone and left their babies brokenhearted Young lives over before they got started This is a prayer for the souls of the departed Tonight as I tuck my own son in bed All I can think of is what if it would've been him instead I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down Right here on my own piece of dirty ground Now I ply my trade in the land of king dollar Where you get paid and your silence passes as honor And all the hatred and dirty little lies Been written off the books and into decent men's eyes
Incomplete 4 x 3 geid showing 10 boaed gamw covers: BG Stats 4 x 4. Play count: 5: Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition; 4: Wingspan; 2: Buraco; 2: Galaxy Trucker; 2: Mind Space; 1: Pandemic; 1: Star Wars: Rebellion; 12: Tether; 3: Trickdraw; 3: Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition;
Screen shot of weather ap showing 84 degrees in PHILLY
Picture of 15 board game box covers in an incomplete 4 x 4 grid, with number of plays indicated. The games are: Play count: 8: Azul: Queen's Garden; 1: Buraco; 1: Camel Up (Second Edition); 3: Championland: Wrestling; 1: Guesswork; 1: Moving Pictures: Marked for Mystery; 1: Orléans: Invasion; 2: Pizza Pizza Yum Yum; 1: Sail; 2: SCOUT; 1: Spyfall; 1: Star Wars: Rebellion; 1: Viticulture Essential Edition; 2: Wingspan; 1: Wolves;
Cover of an old paperback edition of The Baseball Life of Willie Mays by Lee Greene, featuring a large color photograph of Willie Mays at bat.
Heidi Li Feldman @heidilifeldman@mastodon.social Noticing various people on here reporting they feel stressed, unwell, etc. We’ve entered the thick of the election season here in the US. This one is going to be a doozy — highest stakes; desperate, crazed folks supporting a desperate criminal running for President; those of us who support US constitutional democracy have been fighting for years and know we have years of fighting to come. Pace yourselves, friends.
Box for the board game Wolves by Connor Alexander, featuring faux woodcuts of two Wolves with rex eyes baring their teeth menacingly at each other.
Tiled image of 14 board game covers in an incomplete 4 x 4 grid. Top row: Azul Queen's Garden, Azul Summer Pavilion, Championland Wrestling, Cortica. Second row: Couture, Guesswork, The Last Lighthouse, Mind Space Third row: Numbsters, Pandemic Fall of Rome, The Royal Limted, Viticulture Tuscany. Fourth row: Wingspan, Wolves
A bottle of bourbon, vermouth, angostura bitters and three filled rocks glasses.
This is a remarkable graph. You might have heard that "EV sales are slumping", "people are starting to avoid EVs", etc. That's not what's happening. What's happening is "Tesla is cratering so hard that it's skewing the aggregate market data." Or, put differently, "Tesla is failing harder than the entire rest of the market is succeeding, combined."
Sceeenshot os a text message that reads: "Gemini 9:00 AM. Hi, I'm Gemini in Google Messages. Chat with me to draft messages, brainstorm ideas, plan events or simply have a fun conversation." Mark as read
Screen shot of Google search beginning with "how to turn off google" showing several suggestions related to turning off googled ai search overview.
Image of the board game Pandemic: Fall of Rome, which is a map of the Roman Empire with different colored cubes representing barbarian tribes and meeple representing Roman legions.
3x3 graphic of the following board game covers preceded by the play count: 1: Azul: Queen's Garden; 8: Copenhagen; 1: Daybreak; 2: Deep Sea Adventure; 1: The Grizzled; 4: The Last Lighthouse; 4: Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage “Game.”; 2: Numbsters; 1: Orléans: Invasion.
Screenshot of inbox folder indicating 36,043 unread messages.
Wide angle view of Lake Erie with rocks in foreground and great expanse of blue sky.
A bright red t-shirt, red plaid shirt, and deep green courderoy pants folded on a bed.
Board games Stats 4 x 4 image Play count: 1: 7 Wonders Duel; 12: Azul; 3: Azul: Queen's Garden; 3: Azul: Summer Pavilion; 1: Blood on the Clocktower; 1: Daybreak; 1: Men at Work; 3: Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage “Game.”; 3: MLEM: Space Agency; 10: Numbsters; 2: Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition; 1: Wingspan;
A white labrador mix dog tearing a stuffed toy to pieces.
Photo of a white labrador dog wearing a red and black plaid bow tie.
10 foil and plastic containers of various cookies stacked on a shelf.
Pan of lemon bars with cracks from not baking properly, slathered in gooey sigar glaze. But pan is half eaten.
Pan of lemon bars with cracks drom not baking properly, slathered in gooey sigar glaze