
tokamak
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Everything posted by tokamak
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Just got back from our 4-day trip to SoCal. We did 2 days at Disney and 2 roaming around LA. Thanks to everyone here for all the suggestions. Traffic is no fucking joke. Took us well over two hours to get from Santa Monica to Anaheim (40ish miles) on Thursday at 2:00 pm. I dunno about you, but that ain't rush hour time in my mind. You can pretty much count on a least an hour to get anywhere. We did the California Science Center on day. It was fine, but nothing special yet. Pretty much every large city has a science museum about like this. That being said, I used the word yet because they are building a new building to house whichever one of the space shuttles they ended up with. That seems like it's going to be dope as fuck when it's done. I walked across the street to the USC campus to buy a t-shirt (I collect college t-shirts). Got (good-natured) shit from 3 different people while there for my Longhorns hat. Grand Central Market was awesome. Felt a lot more authentic than your typical modern-day food hall. We rode Angels Flight afterwards, which I thought was super cool. My young kids couldn't have cared less. The next day we did the Warner Bros studio tour, which was neat. I don't think you need the VIP tours they offer and whatnot, we just did the basic one and got the gist of it. Afterwards we had some great pastries and Cuban sandwiches at Porto's. After that we went up to the Griffith Observatory and saw a very, very well done planetarium show and enjoyed the views for a bit. Out in Anaheim, we had dinner one night at the Packing District and that's a good option. There are several breweries up and down the street it's on as well. In the morning, Okayama Kobo is a must for pastries, IMO.
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Just got back from two days at Disneyland/California Adventure with my 10- and 8-year-old kids. First trip to Disney anything since I was a little kid. Usually I'm a big planning guy for trips, but this kind of came up last minute, and TBH the Disney planning cottage industry is pretty overwhelming. I read through the last couple of pages on this thread for tips and it helped a lot, special thanks to @mdmost in particular. He also linked a website a couple pages back that we used a lot. Here's a long list of thoughts from a first-time (as an adult) visitor: For kids around mine's ages, I would say the ideal would be 2 days in Disneyland and 1 day in CA. We had 1 and 1. We got to pretty much all the big stuff in DLR, but there was a ton of smaller stuff we didn't get to, and we didn't get to re-ride some bigger stuff we wanted to. We covered pretty much all of CA, although to be fair, the water ride and Guardians of the Galaxy, which are two of the bigger rides, were closed the day we were there. First off, you already know this, but Disney knows how to get in your pockets. Big time. The trade-off is that pretty much everything is first class. For the most part, they're giving you good value for your money. I don't think you can go into it looking to penny pinch. It costs what it costs and you gotta just chalk up all that money to greasing the wheels of your fun vacation. To be more specific, I think the Lightning Lane stuff is worth the money. The general strategy, as espoused by mdmost and the website he posted, seems to be to run to the most popular ride (Space Mountain in DLR, Radiator Springs in CA) as soon as you can and knock it out while simultaneously getting your Lightning Lane working. From there you can just keep working the LL and fill in with shorter lines. If you do it right, you'll pretty much just be going from ride-to-ride for as long as you want. Even if you don't do the LL, the app is essential. It shows all the current wait times for all the rides, you can order food, etc, etc. We were on it all day. I had to bring an external phone charger battery pack. To that point, Disney is very good at keeping the lines moving. They aren't fucking around. 60 minutes of a moving line is way better than 60 minutes standing still. And of course the queues typically have excellent theming and shade. Overall, we preferred Disneyland to CA. My 10-year-old said DLR felt "magical" in a way that CA doesn't. DLR has a fun, 1950's, old-school feel to it. In contrast, CA just feels like another amusement park. Granted, it's a very well done one because it's Disney. My personal opinion is that CA needs a few more rides. Like I said, we knocked it out in a day, no sweat, although Guardians and the water ride were closed. Some of the theming is super well done (Cars and San Fransokyo), but they have to fill all those buildings up with something, and it's just more gift shops and food places. I found myself thinking "instead of a park with 30 gift shops, how about a park with 20 gift shops and a couple more rides?" That said, Incredicoaster is great. One of the better roller coasters I've ridden. Just the right amount of intensity for young kids. The two shooting gallery rides were pretty cool (Web Slingers and the Toy Story one). Radiator Springs is fun, and was obviously the most popular ride, but I felt like the "roller coaster" portion of it was too short. Avengers Land feels like an afterthought compared to the rest of CA. Not much to do over there. I'm not big into that stuff anyway. Don't sleep on the forest playground thing in CA. It's very peaceful over there. Great spot for mom and dad to chill while the kids run around on their own. My kids could have stayed there all day. As for Disneyland, it has all the classics that you remember as a kid. Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain, the submarines, the cars that kids can drive, Pirates, and on and on. It feels very nostalgic if you've been there is a kid, but on the flip side it's all well maintained, not shabby, and good to go. Very, very different vibe from a modern amusement park. As for newer stuff, the Indiana Jones thing is cool and unique. It definitely throws you around quite a bit. Rise of the Resistance is probably the coolest and most unique amusement park ride I've ever been on. They did a great job with that. My wife and I both agreed that it was the highlight of both parks for us. Star Tours (the old school motion simulator that's been there for years) made both me and my wife motion sick as hell. The kids loved it of course. After that, we didn't attempt the Millenium Falcon ride, which I understand is also some sort of motion simulator. I got fucking drenched on Tiana's Bayou (front seat). So much so that I had to run back to the hotel and change clothes so I didn't freeze my ass off after sunset. Overall, the food in both parks is very meh. I don't remember anything memorable. Maybe a dessert or treat somewhere. We found the food outside at Downtown Disney to be a little better, but nothing special. I'll post some general Southern California-related thoughts in the LA thread.
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"Let's turn our airline into a facsimile of United/Delta/AA, except without international routes, business class, or a global alliance membership". What a big brain move. Pure genius. Honestly - and no offense to anyone present - the more time goes by, the more I think that business school must be easy as fuck. Pay us $150k, color in this coloring book for two years, and you too can run Southwest Airlines some day!
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Dallas Cowboys 2024 Season Thread -- Jerrah the Asshat Rides Again
tokamak replied to Patrick Bateman's topic in Football
Javonte Williams has 3.6 ypc on 356 carries since his injury. -
that nose is pure nightmare fuel
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
tokamak replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
No one sees like Gaston. Nails his threes like Gaston. Cheers awkwardly and fucks up his knees like Gaston.- 2951 replies
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
tokamak replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
No one’s fine like Gaston. Kicks on line like Gaston. No one sends Sideshow Bob to the pine like Gaston. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
tokamak replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I've been wondering if the NFL's devaluation of running backs has made its way all the way down to the high school level. In this day and age there are probably some blue chip CB recruits that would have been 5-star running backs 10 years ago. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
tokamak replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
No...one..kicks like Gaston. Follows six like Gaston. No one enchubbens our Surly dicks like Gaston.- 2951 replies
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Several of the teams in the 25-32 range need a tackle. I think one or more of them have been talking mad shit to anyone that will listen in the hopes that Banks will fall to them.
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That’s an awesome 40 time for him. Cha-ching
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I've realized that I'm an internet Luddite. Surly and a little Reddit are the only "social media" that I use or care about. I typically only watch YouTube if I have a specific purpose in mind. I don't want to listen to your fucking podcast. I just want to read interesting shit on the internet. Read being the key word. You know, blogs. I realize that market is dying, or has all moved to Substack or something, but I want suggestions if you have them. Bonus points if it has an RSS feed, because I'm a dinosaur that still thinks that RSS is cool. Here's a list of things I currently read on a daily basis. If you know some more stuff along these lines, post 'em here and I'll check it out. The Athletic (various teams/sports) Fangraphs - maybe the best no bullshit, read-interesting-stuff website left on the internet (if you like baseball, at least). My $60 annual membership is money well spent IMO MLB Trade Rumors ArsTechnica - Great for tech/science stuff Engadget - Not as good as Ars, but still has interesting stuff from time to time Stereogum - New music recs Texas Tribune - Free Texas news Houston Landing - Free Houston news Tedium.co - Just found this one the other day. Basically just one guy blogging about weird, interesting tech-y things. Bill Simmons used to be a big player in this niche until a few years ago. Grantland was pretty much exactly what I want. The early Ringer was good too, but it's pivoted to about 90% podcast content which is not what I'm looking for.
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MVNO Cellular Service providers
tokamak replied to BurntOrange&White's topic in Can You Help Me With This?
My FiL was a big wig on the mobile network hardware side for his entire career (not with the providers, with a key vendor for them). He told me a year or two ago that T-Mobile is actually ahead of AT&T and Verizon right now. They acquired a lot of primo spectrum in the Sprint deal, I think. I've been using Mint (T-Mobile) for a couple years. Before that I tried Visible (Verizon). Mint has been better for me - I'm inside the loop in Houston. Like someone said upthread, you'll struggle in a big crowd (sporting event, etc) with an MVNO, but other than that I've never had any complaints. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
tokamak replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
If we do land him, I hereby declare 2026 The Atkinson Cycle. That guy has a hell of a motor. -
22. Golden 24. Banks fell out: Collins (previously #50)
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Doesn’t matter, had sex Joined today and immediately made this post? Welcome to Surly, Duane
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What I learned today is that Sark is reading the board. Hi Steve! Lose the weird blazers buddy!
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I think near Disney. We’re going to hit it for a day or two. My kids like normal kid stuff. They’ll hike. The oldest loves the beach. They can do adventurous foods. The observatory looks like it would be a big hit. Houston
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Not to mention the passive-aggressive tone of the original Facebook post is kinda weird.
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Just my personal opinion, but prices are pretty reasonable right now and I think it's a good time to lock in long-term. I actually just broke my old contract and signed a new 3-year deal a couple weeks ago. I really doubt I'm going to be regretting it a couple years from now. Not calling you out, and TBH I've never actually seen good data on it, but personally I've never bought into the belief that it makes much difference what time of year you switch. You're going to pay for 12 months' worth of electricity, no matter how long your contract is or when it stop/starts. I don't buy that the REPs haven't figured that out and priced it in.
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Well we just lost to those scumbags Dallas after outplaying them for most of the game. I want to die.
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I just impulse bought the season pass bc I don’t have shit to watch tonight. I’m all in now. LFG Dynamo
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