wild_turkey

This has become an even bigger mess. I ended up contacting Resdoor in Fort Worth, which seems to a be a reputable local door supplier. They only sell doors, no installation, so they referred me to a local contractor. I called the contractor who came out and took measurements, then gave me a quote for $10k that I thought was fair. I agreed to pay him $5k up front, he ordered the doors, and then I would pay the remaining $5k once the work was finished. The doors got delivered to my house and he came out to do the install, then he said he couldn't because the doors were the wrong size. He said he gave Resdoor the correct measurements and he suggested the mistake was on their end. I felt like that should be a simple fix and that he could straighten it out with Resdoor and get the doors reordered correctly. I got busy for a couple weeks, then the holidays, then I hadn't heard anything from him so I checked back in. He kept saying he needed to come to my house to do something, which I assumed was to repeat the measurements. It took a couple more weeks to arrange a meeting date. When he showed up he wanted to see the doors and take pictures of them, which he said was because he now needs to sell the doors on Facebook marketplace. What the fuck. He said Resdoor won't accept a return or replace the doors which obviously indicates the mistake was on his end and not theirs, even though he won't admit that to me directly. He also says "his company" doesn't have the money to reorder doors until these doors are sold. I have no faith in him selling custom sized doors on Facebook. I have no experience on Facebook, but using my wife's account and searching the marketplace, I can't even find the doors listed on there and it's been ~2 weeks. I called Resdoor to get their version of the situation but the salesperson who sold him the doors is now on leave until March. Just my luck. They are looking into the situation for me, but it doesn't sound promising. I've tried to play nice with the contractor to give this a chance to be resolved amicably (ideally that would mean the work eventually gets done correctly for the original agreed upon price). We're at the point where I need him to either pay for new doors out of his own personal finances or refund my money. I think the likelihood of either happening is less than 50%, which I guess that leaves me with the option of trying to sue him to get a refund, which sounds like a huge pain in the ass and hardly worth the time.

Having played the game a little bit now, I appreciate certain elements of the show that are a direct reflection of the game: -Walking across a plank to cross between buildings -Needing Ellie to crawl through a small space to unlock a door from the other side -Trying to go a certain direction only to have the path blocked and needing to find an alternate route Agree that it seems stupid to go through downtown Kansas City, but maybe that was their least bad option at the time. It’s implied that it wasn’t their first choice. It could also be directly from the game (I haven’t played that far) so maybe they are trying to stick to that part of the story. I appreciated Joel explaining that gas isn’t very good after 20 years, so at least the writers acknowledge what is often a plot hole in these types of dystopian future stories.

Otherwise known as 8 pm since this is a University of Texas message board.

I spur of the moment went there for drinks last night. We had to go by that Wells Fargo atm and we had time to kill before a dinner reservation at Clay Pigeon. Saw that Goat and Vine was open so we went inside and had drinks at the bar. Nice ambience, good service, decent cocktails. Food menu looked promising but we weren’t there for that. Main concern is that they supply their own wine and I feel like it could be the wine bar equivalent of a brewpub, which isn’t necessarily great. I also agree they’ll be gone by Labor Day, based on that location’s track record.

Please tell me you aren’t serious. You think the Pentagon asked China to lower the balloon to make it easier for us to shoot down and China agreed to do that?

You seem quite certain the balloon provides nothing of value to China. Then why was it used? Why send a balloon into U.S. airspace and risk worsening diplomatic relations if they didn’t at least hope to learn something from it? Do you really believe this was just an accident and that China had no bad intentions in all of this?

That was kind of the point of my question. Why do so many people assume the purpose of the balloon was surveillance? It seems to me they have adequate surveillance that goes far beyond whatever a balloon can provide, therefore, the balloon must have a different purpose altogether.

Maybe a stupid question and my apologies if this has been covered, but if the balloon doesn’t give China any information that they didn’t already have from satellites, then why did they send it over our airspace? They had to have some goal for doing this. Perhaps they weren’t trying to get aerial photography at all, because I agree that probably already have this. Perhaps they just wanted to do a test run to see how far a balloon with a payload could travel over our country? It just seems a little naive to say “They already have satellites photos so this balloon is pointless and not worth worrying about.”

Season 1 was okay. Season 2 sucked. None of the characters are likable which kills any motivation I have to watch and root for them. Both parents sucked and were miserable to each other and their kids. The plot was also dumb.

Maybe he made biodiesel, I dunno. I wonder about little details like that but as long as the story is told well, I can let it slide.

What a great win!

I wanted to watch this but I don’t have Paramount+ or Showtime, so the only other option is to buy it for $20. Not sure it’s worth it, having read multiple posters in this thread say they hated it or didn’t end up finishing it. It’s annoying to not be able to pay $6 to rent it.

That was my interpretation after rewatching the episode. My guess is about 1-2 weeks passed between Bill and Frank dying and Joel and Ellie showing up.

Work cancelled due to ice, I have a PS4 collecting dust, and The Last of Us game can be downloaded for $20. This should be fun.

I thought the same thing at the time, but then I started to wonder if this wasn’t somewhat symbolic of how the average person plays video games - charge out into the action and start shooting, take a hit but not actually die. Even if that’s not the case, the rest of the episode was so perfect that I give it a pass. Same with the “10 miles west of Boston” caption and the fact that gasoline is somehow still useful after 20 years. Those types of details would bug me in a poorly written show like TWD or Yellowstone, but this show has earned some acceptance of the little things.

Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” is an incredible song that can tear a person up inside. I remember it from Arrival but it’s also been in other movies. He is also responsible for a lot of the music in The Leftovers.

Imagine if you went into Whataburger and they were all like “Oh hey, we don’t have any burgers today but we did make beef bourguignon and there’s a wine pairing, would that be okay?”

Imagine if a year ago someone told you there would be a zombie show based on a video game, that in episode 3 would take a detour from the main story to casually blindside viewers with an incredibly powerful love story starring gay Ron Swanson. And that it would be a masterpiece.

Wow. That was a phenomenal television episode.

I agree with your last sentence, but someone can park a Honda Civic crooked and the adjacent spots are still usable. For a full-sized truck (or large SUV for that matter), if it’s slightly crooked or off-center, the adjacent spot is often screwed. Wouldn’t be that big of a deal if people would have enough self awareness to park farther away where there are more empty spots, but lots of people refuse to do that. Also, when it comes to an F-250 or larger, the average parking space isn’t large enough to accommodate them, no matter how good the driver parks.

My first vehicle was a Chevy S-10, then I later had a 2009 Silverado Crew Cab that I bought newish and got rid of a few years later. I’ve driven 4Runners ever since then and pretty happy with that switch. I kinda hated that Silverado because the turning radius was shit, it was a pain in the ass to park, it had terrible acceleration, and it didn’t fit in the garage of either of the 2 houses I lived in at that time. Whatever small usefulness the bed gave me a handful of times a year was not worth it. Was happy to get rid of it. My biggest frustration with current truck owners is that many trucks are too damned big for average parking spots in the city, but instead of parking at the far end of the lot, people park their trucks in the closest available spot even when it doesn’t fit, which crams the adjacent spots or makes them practically unusable. If you choose to drive a massive vehicle, then accept the longer walk and don’t be an inconsiderate dick over parking. Granted, that could also be said about Suburbans, Escalades, Excursions, and other large SUVs. For whatever reason, they seem to do it to a lesser degree, or maybe I have a bias affecting my observations. The societal arguments against truck ownership would obviously be fuel economy and safety. Fuel economy is an equally valid criticism of many other cars including my 4Runner (which I drive ~25 miles/week). That will hopefully become less of a concern if people, including truck owners, transition to EVs over the next 10-20 years. I know some people have specific needs for their truck in which an EV is not realistic based on today’s technology and infrastructure, but many truck owners would do equally fine in an electric truck. Safety seems like an obvious problem for trucks and SUVs getting progressively bigger. They may be more safe for the occupants but less safe for whatever they run into. We should ideally be incentivizing more small cars for climate purposes, but it seems like small cars become relatively less safe the more they share the road with larger trucks. I disagree that trucks are a status symbol for most people because 95% of people are neither impressed nor offended by a person driving a truck. It’s a fairly benign and commonplace decision. It likely makes a statement for some men who want to project maximum masculinity to their peers, and I think a lot of us know at least a few people for who this is true, even if it isn’t true of the average truck owner.

That poster watches Yellowstone, which is a shit fucking show, in the same genre in which Lonesome Dove was already done.

I watched this over the weekend and was somewhat disappointed. Great acting, beautifully shot with great scenery, and some dark humor at times. The plot was pretty one dimensional and felt entirely pointless. One absurdly depressing character dragging others down into his despair. I was waiting for redemption that never came. If there’s a deeper message, I missed it.

Enjoyed episode 2. The show seems really well done so far. I had never heard of ophiocordyceps until now. Pretty interesting stuff. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/parasitic-fungus-evolve-to-control-humans

Never got around go playing the games but I liked the pilot episode.