wild_turkey

I wish they would have some basic physical conditioning requirements for teams they select. Not everyone needs to be a super athlete, but it kinda sucks watching Sheri struggle and Akbar criticize her, especially when his body habitus prevents him from doing certain roadblocks.

Ophthalmologist here with a little info about allergy eye drops… Avoid anything with a redness reliever. This includes Opcon-A, Naphcon-A, anything with naphazoline in it, and generally most Visine and Clear Eyes products. The redness reliever component will help with redness short term but it can cause more long term redness, poor control of symptoms, and generally has lower tolerability. Even if you feel like it helps, there are probably better options for you. I recommend OTC Pataday Extra Strength 0.7% once daily. It is slightly more expensive but it is a superior medicine that both treats active symptoms and helps prevent future symptoms. You can get a 2-pack on Amazon for $24. The next best OTC option is probably Zaditor (generic = ketotifen). It works fairly well and is less expensive, but it lasts about 8 hours and requires 2-3 times daily dosing. Honestly, just pay the extra for the Pataday and save yourself the anguish. If you’re doing Pataday and still having problems, there are other treatments. A simple home remedy is to apply cool compresses or to keep a bottle of artificial tears (Refresh, Systane) in the refrigerator and use the cold eye drops. There are also lid wipes from OCuSoft (get the green allergy ones on Amazon) that may help. If you’re doing all of that and still suffering, it’s probably time to visit your ophthalmologist or optometrist. They can sometimes prescribe eye drops (antihistamines, steroids, or other immune mediators) that can help more than OTC treatments, although most people do just fine with a combination of the things listed above. Hope that helps.

Well it’s easy to say that posting from a computer in Texas, but once you’re on the beach in Tulum and you’ve had a couple of margaritas with more on they way and you are surrounded by hot ass in g-string bikinis, your priorities tend to shift. I say this as someone who has both been to the Tulum ruins as an excursion from PdC, and as someone who has stayed in Tulum itself and never left the beach.

Here’s a few pics from the weekend for anyone interested.

I ski what I feel like skiing that particular day. I personally prefer moguls and trees but the snow isn’t particularly ideal for that right now.

Same reason people track how far or fast they run or ride a bike, how many laps they swim, record their golf score, or bowling score, or pretty much any sport or exercise activity with trackable metrics. It’s fun and makes them happy? The Telluride app has a built in leaderboard for the season, month, week, and day. Pretty cool to see how much some people get out there. But I’ll get off your lawn now.

Spent the past 2 days skiing Telluride. They had a decent base so most runs were open but no fresh snow in the past ~1 week so it was mostly just groomers. Still fun though. Normally go with a group but due to different life circumstances it was just my wife and myself this time. She learned to ski about 10 years ago as an adult and struggled big time those first few outings, but since then she’s become a very competent skier and can easily do blues, most groomed blacks, and moderate moguls. I planned to take it fairly easy skiing with her but she kicked ass and we knocked out 41 runs and 45,449 vertical feet in 2 days. Mix in occasional stops at Bon Vivant for food and drinks and it made for an excellent ski weekend. Telluride now has ski tracking built into their app which can also generate a 3D map at the end of the day. I thought that was pretty cool compared to 3rd party apps I had always used before. Also, for anyone familiar with Telluride, we got to do a dinner at Alpino Vino which was a great experience. They take you up in a snowcat, 14 people total, and you get a 4-course prix fixe Italian meal with wine pairing. Not cheap and not something we will do often, but a fun and memorable evening for anyone who likes that type of thing.

Peak GOT was about as good as television gets. Unfortunately it declined in later seasons, but there really hasn’t been a similar pop culture appointment TV show since.

That’s pretty much how I felt. I didn’t need 3 different versions with 3 different rape severity levels.

Gasoline has a pretty limited shelf life, maybe 2-3 years max? In this show, they were using some gas vehicles (motorcycle with sidecar for instance) for the first 1-2 years, but definitely not by year 20. Electric vehicles with solar panels probably offer more longevity in a post-apocalyptic world but even those would eventually fail if no one is able to service them and replace batteries.

I tend to disagree. The pandemic might leave 7,000,000 people behind, but I would think secondary deaths and a decrease in birth rate would cause the population to quickly decline further. World governments would be obliterated and the population density would be incredibly low. Think of what your current living situation would be like if your 1,000 closest neighbors died off. Entire blocks, subdivisions, apartment buildings would be empty. Fire, police, medical services fall apart. Utilities break down. That lends itself to violence and it quickly becomes a hostile dog eat dog world.

Wife had a bad experience at one of those sites. She was not sick but took a test on Dec 24 because family requested it prior to Christmas. Rapid test negative within 10 minutes. She didn’t give a second thought to the PCR test. They texted her on Jan 1 (8 days later) with the PCR result which was positive. A lot of good that does after 8 days. So then she spends time calling/texting everyone she came in contact to let them know she exposed them. And then, on Jan 10 (17 days after her test) she gets another text from the same place with a new PCR result that was actually negative. Same collection date and time on the reports but 2 different PCR results which is entirely unhelpful. You cannot contact them to ask questions. I also went to one and got a negative rapid test. My PCR test could not be accessed because of a website error so I’ll never know. My observation when getting the test is that they were disorganized and overwhelmed by people, and the people providing the tests hand you the swab and say “Rub this in your nose” and they walk off without watching you do it or providing any details, which almost certainly creates a high rate of false negatives due to people not swabbing properly. Completely incompetent and broken system. Don’t recommend getting tested there unless you absolutely have to.

The Prophet storyline was also the weakest for me. I didn’t feel like the childhood version of Tyler had justifiable reasons for walking away from his mother and hating the prior world, but I guess he was just a highly confused child in a broken world, and reading Station Eleven made a different impression on him combined with the events that unfolded at the airport. Whatever I didn’t like about his story was completely overshadowed for me by the Kirsten and Jeevan story, which I thought was incredibly powerful from beginning to end.

I so badly wanted her to follow him down the right fork in the road.

Except that’s “what is right” is basically just whatever suits Holden’s own selfish emotions at that particular point in time. I get tired of the suggestion that he is an enlightened and benevolent leader in a universe of otherwise selfish and confused people. What is right would’ve been to kill Marco and end a war that was killing thousands of other people. He passed that up because of Naomi, ignoring the fact that doing so created significant danger for his crew who he is also responsible for. Perhaps that would be slightly more sympathetic as the viewer of a fictional TV show if they hadn’t spent the past 2 seasons making Naomi and Holden so insufferable.

I also have a small problem with shows that repeatedly put main characters in certain death situations and then they miraculously live. This episode did that with Draper, Amos, and Drummer. Not that I wanted any of those particular characters to die, but at some point the show needs to be a little more ruthless and not always give tidy and happy endings. It’s like watching The Walking Dead.

I’m still having a hard time getting over the fact that Holden intentionally gave Marco a free pass when he was basically dead, all because he didn’t want Filip to die and make things weird between him and Naomi. So therefore, everyone that died in the final battle could’ve possibly lived, which is Holden’s fault. And then in the finale, Amos asks if they are actually going to try to kill Marco this time, who btw still had Filip on his ship, and Holden says yes. WTF changed in 2 episodes? And somehow we are supposed to root for Holden as the main protagonist here? I wanted him and Naomi to die.

Agreed. I thought the interweaving Year 20 with the pandemic outbreak year was excellent, and they would probably lose that if they do a second season. Although I suppose they could use flashbacks to fill in some gap years, but we also wouldn’t get the 2 great moments when Kirsten reunites with Jeevan and when Clark realized who she was. I hope they leave it as is. I thought the show was excellent, one of the best things I’ve watched in a while. Great cinematography, acting, music, and very suspenseful writing packed with real human characters. My only 2 nitpicks about the plot in the finale: 1. I thought Tyler’s forgiveness was a little too easy for someone who essentially kidnapped a bunch of kids. 2. Miranda calling up the airplane pilot felt forced and completely unnecessary. Her character was critical to the entire story without some last minute twist where she saved the airport.

DETOUR: Vaccinate or Ventilate In Vaccinate, teams must get a COVID vaccine and then wait 15 minutes to monitor for side effects before receiving their next clue. In Ventilate, one team member will be required to intubate their partner, then after having their work checked by a pulmonologist, they will be allowed to extubate their partner and receive their next clue.

I started to wonder if some of the teams would not survive the COVID hiatus and that is clearly the case. Not very surprising for Caro and Ray because they were newly dating long distance and already had some drama. I’m curious about the other 3 dropouts though, especially Anthony and Spencer who seem like they would make it back. Reddit lists these reasons, fwiw… Caro and Ray - split up (shocker) Connie and Sam - new baby at home Anthony and Spencer - one of them is injured? Isaiah and Taylor - no info I’m looking forward to figuring out who the replacements will be. I thought from Phil’s teaser that it would be prior TAR contestants, but it could also simply be the 2 eliminated teams from this season. I personally think teams from a previous season would be more interesting than seeing 2 fairly weak teams get reinstated.

Binged the first 9 episodes over the weekend. Didn’t know anything about it going in but I really love everything about this show. Very strong The Leftovers vibes, which is a top 3 show for me. When Kirsten was on her poison trip through the past, I half expected her younger self to make her sing Homeward Bound to get back. Kidding, but it really reminded me of that. I don’t know Mackenzie Davis but I think she is great for this role. For me at least, her facial expressions and mannerisms convey a very real mixture of emotions.

Saw this last night. I enjoyed it but I really need to watch it again once it is streaming with subtitles. Fairly hard to understand a lot of the speech, and if I didn't already know the story, I would've been pretty lost. Very well done though. Denzel and McDormand killed it.

Holden is a selfish dumbass prick. He had a chance to kill Marco Inaros, destroy the lead ship of the Free Navy, and possibly end the war. He threw that away because of Naomi and her terrorist son and feelings. Every person that Marco kills moving forward will have their blood on Holden’s hands. Amos should’ve spaced him.

This show suffers from the problem of a present-day ranch in Wyoming not having enough actual conflict to carry a TV drama for multiple seasons. There's only so much stuff you can make up that seems somewhat plausible and somewhat interesting, and they've burned through that content in earlier seasons. Sheridan has tried to create a western version of The Sopranos but every new antagonist or threat against the ranch has become a recycled version of a previous problem, and the fighting within the family is beyond tired. There is also an extreme lack of consistency between the various plots they have created. The biggest stories this season were: -Market Equities taking over part of the ranch (essentially a repeat of the Jenkins threat and Beck Brothers threat) -Jamie being caught between his murdering father and John/Beth -Kayce breaking off from the family and then having an existential crisis -Piper protesting various things -Beth doing stupid Beth shit -Jimmy leaving for Texas and being torn between 2 women The only 2 stories that were consistently part of each episode were the Beth and Jimmy plots, which were also the most boring and frustrating. People eventually get tired of watching a bitchy woman act bitchy, and very few people cared about Jimmy in the first place, at least not enough for his Texas trip to maintain the show. The other plots about actual Yellowstone Ranch shit would get attention for 1 episode and then get ignored for 1-2 episodes. Perhaps that's because they are such weak plots in the first place and there wasn't much to say on a weekly basis, but it's hard to build interest when the show is skipping around all the time.

We went last April and stayed at Ma'xanab which we thought was great. It had a good location on the beach and was walkable to a lot of other nearby hotels, beach clubs, and restaurants. Thinking about a return trip this spring. We had dinner at Arca which we both loved and Kitchen Table which we thought was good but not great. Also had late night drinks at a place called Meze that we really liked.