bonnieblue

The energy vampire chairman was excellent casting. I love that actress.

How could they cancel the first unapologetically gay Disney character like that? What a bummer.

Echoing the Granada rec. gorgeous colonial town. Stay at the Tribal Hotel, awesome little boutique started by a former 80s NYC club/restaurant guy (I want to say maybe involved with acme or Indochine). There was one great restaurant I’ll have to think on, but most other food was not awesome. Numu looks good though I would also hit up San Juan del Sur for some surfing. Great swells, warm water, fun town, bad food from what I recall. Maderas Village was fun if that’s still around.

Well that was fucking intense

Tacky - O

Fantastic finale and a phenomenal show. I was a little unsure about this season a few episodes in, but I think they tied it all together really well.

Yep we bought our dream home (NW Hills) at a phenomenal interest rate in 2021. Not at the peak of the market but I’m doubtful we’ll be able to sell for that price again for a few years with the rate increases. We have a 3 month old, so we’re likely planning an escape by the time she’s school aged unless the crazy ramps up exponentially in which case we will just cut our losses and move up the timeline. We’ve been looking at CT, Chicago (north shore burbs), Seattle and Boulder, but they all would be pretty $$$ and probably quite the adjustment on weather. The direction of the state is so depressing.

I mean, I completely agree, but the state is probably only going to continue to make the Robinhood issue worse and I don’t see the teacher vacancy issue getting better either (due to lack of funds for raises and overall climate). Between the TEA fuckery and the fun surprises that I’m sure the next leg session has in store for us, I feel like 5 years from now we will have classes of 40-50(via online teachers), our democratically elected school board ousted and replaced with Patriot mobile crazies, our book shelves bare, SPED completely defunded, the arts cancelled due to lack of funds and wokeness. I’m sure LGBT teachers/students/ parents ousted or muzzled for being too “woke”, and at some point LGBT parents won’t be allowed to pick up their kids because it could be upsetting to the other students. I hope I’m just catastrophizing and AISD keeps humming along despite the challenges as I’m a huge fan of the new facilities, community involvement and magnet programs they’ve established. Talk me off the ledge!

Also highly recommend the Rachel Maddow: Ultra podcast that digs into this. History rhymes indeed.

So assuming AISD, EISD, RRISD etc get ground into paste over the next few years, what are the remaining good educational options in the Austin area (apart from the already-competitive St. Andrews and St. Stephens) that aren’t religious and/or some sort of corporate chain with opaque motives and locations in shopping centers?

Yep, my absolute favorite regional bank lender got wrapped up in all of this and I really hope they weather the storm. Everything from the counsel they hire to the draw process to communication is just top notch. Dealing with some of the TBTF on the other hand…

Somewhat amusingly, the non-bank lenders I work with would typically steer borrowers into using Signature Bank as their cash management bank.

Ugh terrible. Lamar did have a crazy samurai sword incident like 15ish years ago, but the only casualty was an ear

yeppp, and she’s not the first one

Although cost, time, support etc. are significant factors, I would assume the main thing that birthrate hinges on is the combination of 1) access to birth control and 2) opportunity/education for women. A lot (but of course, not all) of women hate pregnancy (myself included) and don’t want their lives to consist of nothing beyond having/raising children. 0-2 can be doable to have well-balanced lives, but once you get into the 3+ range, the woman is likely going to need to sacrifice a lot of her life to make this happen. My grandmother was a super cool lady - combat nurse and avid sailor. She had 8 children, but didn’t have access to birth control or many options outside of wife/mother after the war ended. She would have much preferred living in the world today and only having 0-1 children.

No! Is that near Deep Woods?

Ugh, the hackberrys that we were on schedule to remove are looking strong as hell, while all of our poor cedar elms are disintegrating around us.

I loved this change from the game as it hits on the thing that always affects me the most in post-apocalyptic entertainment: what’s the point of surviving just to survive? The fact that the embodiment of the survivalist/prepper type is the character to fully-realize this lesson and grow accordingly was absolutely brilliant and lovely.

What an absolutely gorgeous episode. Loved all of the Linda Ronstadt as well.

Ultra was fantastic, great recommendation. We really are just repeating history to an extent every 100 or so years

Damn… Chu absolutely trounced Small for AISD Trustee. Biggest win margin of all the board seats. Given the sign distribution, I never would have expected that.

This was one of the most frustrating things I’ve read lately. “Swing” voters are morons. Candidate X stands for all of my favorite positions, which is why I’m going to vote for Y!

Loved it. Gorgeous and horrifying. Many deviations from the book, but I think it gave a fresh adaptive take (in lieu of a scene for scene remake of the prior films). My only minor complaint would be the removal of his visit back to town/school, but the director definitely had a particular vision which I think he achieved well.

You’re not going to be able to move most people who get all frothy over abortion or LGBT rights issues. They are each too convenient of a crutch for people with low moral character. Pregnancy will never affect any women past a certain age or any man, and LGTB items won’t affect 90% of the population (in a direct manner at least), so these are “sins” of which a large portion of people will never be “guilty”. As long as these are considered abhorrent, it provides ample cover for their own moral shortcomings. It’s always the people who cheated on multiple spouses/defrauded someone/ sexually assaulted someone etc. that seem to get the most worked up about these issues. Hmmm, wonder why?

Gracias. That’s what I’ve been thinking