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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: September 26th, 2023

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  • Digging my Mirage. Low-key cheap, simple display that integrates well w/ phone, and 40+ MPG.

    Also easy to paddle shift into “oh fuck” mode, which burns more gas but gets me out of some hairy situations when AC is running.

    Would prefer a hybrid, but this is the car the numbers worked out on in a sane way. I tried hypermiling in a Prius 1G (99, I think) on both a KY parkway and I24, and it sorta worked but was a huge PITA as well. Context, US 41 thru Evansville, Parkway, 24. Not terrible for the time at all, but a bit stressful here and there.



  • With ya. I smoke an odd brand that’s hard to get, in a state that (rightfully) taxes the shit out of them.

    Still costs me an even C-note every two weeks, same as always. Have I cut back, probably. But mostly because I’ve started to face my own bullshit instead of expecting smoking to fix it for me.

    I straight up enjoy my Kamel Reds, and while I don’t want to model that to the next generation, I’m the better part of thirty pack-years in.

    I can either take the risk, or downright break all the other mental health progress I’ve made. Since I have a wife and some folks I care deeply about in my life, imma go with the mental health.

    For unrelated reasons, I once was an unmitigated SOB in any interaction. On the rare chances I’ve been in hospital, I’ve been miserable.

    Right or wrong, I prefer to communicate with people rather than attack them, and quitting now would not help that.

    RJR can have my money, they won’t get the next genration’s money. We have dispensaries, video gaming, and casinos on every corner in my state. My choice of vice could be far worse, and I’m kind of grateful that I settled on smokes, and not gambling.








  • That source is garbage.

    Seems to be based on what amounts to a single “does not currently appear that the procedure itself killed him” statement from MGH, which is generally respected.

    I will wait for the actual journal article that (I sincerely hope) is yet to come.

    Five years, and an additional two months following consent from a highly experimental and unique procedure that he appears to have given informed consent for because he would otherwise have died sooner beats the hell out of five years without the two months.

    I could make a hell of a lot of amends in sixty days, knowing it was all I had, that I’ve had trouble making in four plus decades…. Which would make the end exponentially more peaceful and pleasant.

    Anything that gives me that much time is a net positive. Not going to bother with some of the usual surgical recovery stuff if I am fully informed at that point but… Don’t want to die wishing I had had time to make that one phone call or txt that I didn’t quite get to make because we don’t get to choose the moment.

    Ten yrs from now hewill be a hero for undergoing the procedure that leads to real progress.



  • Respect for staying and staying strong. That devolution has been rapid and concerning.

    You sticking around encourages every person (disclosed or otherwise) in any of those groups to stay, and eventually force that SOB running your state out.

    My partner is a huge Disney fan, and I see behind the magic and respect everything they do to hide the actual mechanics of it all. It pains us that we can’t get on a WN flight to MCO because we refuse to spend money (that we are aware of) in states behaving that way generally.

    We miss Nashville, too, as well as a place between Nashville and Orlando that sells stuff people failed to “claim” for cheap.

    But I’m not buying gas in GA or FL, much less anything else, in the current environment.

    Miami once was a haven and a melting pot, and I personally welcome everyone to this country. But… current state of affairs.

    I couldn’t do it, we are both straight and a conventional married couple (mosly, aside from things that are no one’s biz). We fled a Midwest state because, among other things, we got tired of defending that WE wore masks/used hand sanitizer over a period of years.

    Fuck those people, we are not hurting them by vexing cautious. Turns out (it seems, per current research) we were right.

    The diesel bros are slowly feeling the long term results.


  • I carry a bunch of pride for all of my favorite places I’ve lived in (I was easily bored in my early 20s), but…

    Jersey?

    Kidding, ofc, friend.

    Lived up and down the east coast along the way, including places whose current inhabitants I would not want to publicly associate myself with.

    South Central PA wasn’t per se “appealing,” but it was home for many years so I get it. Neither good nor bad, just home, but easily judged.

    I still smile a lil when I happen to cross US 30 and notice it, so I get it. Feels like I “could” make that turn and be “home”

    OC, MD was “the” vacation dest growing up so…. I have very little affinity for Jersey. A few years working for a guy who was proudly “from JC” (sorta) and a giant dick didn’t help my perspective, to be honest.



  • I work for a company that is “all in” on AI. And offshoring. But AI is unlikely to provide second or third level support for complex and poorly documented software that operates at the intersection of legislation and rule making.

    Add to that, customers who are licensed in their field but cannot comprehend that software implementation of paper forms requires the same inputs generally, much less explain their objective…

    Also, the implementations I’ve been presented with as a consumer have been hot garbage.

    The front line folks who exist primarily so customers can yell at someone might be in trouble. But companies who put their people in that position are shit anyway.