wild_turkey

You might go ahead and tell Zuckerberg to shut down Insta. There definitely is not a market for watching hot girls in their 20s doing hot girl things, especially considering some people in their 20s have student loans. Really a dumb app idea when you think about it that way.

Cool story bro time… Wife and I were in Cinque Terre in 2011 for several nights. We stayed in a 3 room B&B in the Monterosso old town, owned by a guy named Francesco, where his Italian mother cooked breakfast each day. Great little place. Anyways, one day we set out on the hike towards Vernazza. We had breakfast in Monterosso, then a stop in Vernazza for wine and focaccia. Sat by the water and sunbathed on that outcropping. Then we headed on towards Corniglia. The trail from Vernazza to Corniglia was noticeably less crowded. There were still a few people but not many. Eventually someone who spoke English told us it was technically closed. Oops. Oh well, it was important for us to keep hiking because I had been informed of a secret nude beach along this stretch. Wife was skeptical but she was wined up so the world was our oyster. We eventually saw a rock on the ground the size of a baseball that said “Spiaggia” written in sharpie with an arrow pointing down towards the water. At this point the water was ~100 feet below us on a steep coastline. We of course trusted the magic rock and veered off on a tiny side path. It snaked down and at one point required us to crawl under a thorn bush tunnel thing. I slid on the rocks and scraped my hands. Worth it if we could only find the damn nude beach. We dumped out onto a wider gravel path closer to the water. I realized our chances of returning to the original trail were slim and we had no phone service. My wife would possibly kill me once her buzz wore off. Luckily I had 3 more bottles of wine in my backpack to buy me some time. A naked man walked down the path. No shoes or bag or anything. Just naked. “Ciao.” “Ciao.” Okay, so should we follow him or go the opposite way? While debating our options and somewhat regretting our choices, a group of 4 people came down the path. One of them said “Have y’all seen the beach?” I responded “Y’all? Who says y’all in Italy? Where are y’all from?” Turns out they were Texans, from Austin, 3 of them UT grads. So that made 5 UT grads walking down the same gravel path in Cinque Terre, looking for the same secret nude beach. We collectively decided to follow in the direction of the naked guy and we acquired a Canadian couple along the way. Well we find the beach and it was a picturesque stone beach with choppy water. There were 3 naked Italian men but no one else was there. The stones made a cool crackling sound as the waves kicked them up and dropped them back down. I swam a bit. The Canadian guy tried to swim and almost drowned but didn’t. The ladies went topless. We drank all the wine. Life was perfect for an afternoon. Eventually it was time to leave and we all headed towards Corniglia. According to the Canadian couple, the gravel path led to an abandoned train tunnel that could take you straight into town. Great, so no scaling up the cliffs to the hiking trail. Problem was that the train tunnel was dark and the Canadian couple had passed through the first time with a flashlight that was now dead. Turns out I had an iPhone 4? that was the only light source in our group of 8 people. So we all set out through the tunnel using my iPhone (I think it was just the screen light before flashlight mode was available) as our guide. It was about 3/4 mile long if I had to guess. About half way through, the phone died. So now it was pitch dark and you couldn’t see light at either end. We kept walking with one hand against the wall, feeling along the ground and holding each other’s backs to keep from falling. Then we heard a train coming. We thought this tunnel was abandoned?! The earth around us started shaking and we could see a light approaching. We all flattened ourselves against the wall and waited to get crushed. The train flew past in an adjacent tunnel that had some openings into our tunnel so we could see through. Whew, we avoided death. We made our way to the end of the tunnel through the dark. We said our goodbyes and the wife and I hopped a train to Riomaggiore (the trails were closed) where we had some bruschetta and wine at Pie de Ma. That’s a can’t miss place if you’re ever there. Stunning views of the Mediterranean. Later that year, flooding and mudslides destroyed parts of Cinque Terre, especially Vernazza. The towns recovered but the trails were forever changed. We returned in 2017 and spent 4 days in Monterosso, which is one of the best places on Earth to laze the day away, drinking wine and limoncello, eating gelato and trofie al pesto. Just typing this is making me want to book a flight. Maybe I’ll surprise her in the morning. But the trails to the beach are permanently closed from the floods and the abandoned train tunnel was apparently blocked off. We searched it out on our last trip and it was a no-go. Hopefully one day that will be accessible again.

We live in a world where a medical face mask is divisive. If we get rid of everything that a portion of the population objects to, we wouldn’t have much left.

With all due respect to your daughter who you are rightfully proud of, there are many elements to this debate that go beyond simply the feelings of the current student body, hence the need for a multicultural and multidisciplinary committee to analyze the situation and publish a formal report. If you discredit the outcome of the report on the basis of your daughter’s feelings and the feelings of her friends, then you are discrediting the integrity and validity of the committee, and by extension, The University of Texas who chose them. In which case, what was the point of having the committee? What is the point of ever attempting to solve a complex social problem in this very reasonable manner?

Hell yeah!

Let's go Oregon!

Anyone been to the stockyards to check out the Yellowstone set? Can you actually see the set or is it fenced off?

I’m having a hard time processing SB 8. Can someone explain all of this to me like I’m 5? Just to recap my very limited understanding, which is probably flawed: pre-1973 - Abortion illegal in Texas 1973 Roe v. Wade - It is unconstitutional to have a total ban on abortion. Women have the right to choose in the first trimester but restrictions can be made for the second trimester. 1973-present - Conservative states implement measures to make abortion more difficult, i.e. needing an ultrasound first, but never anything that directly violates Roe v. Wade. 2021 SB 8 - Private citizens deputized to sue any person who has an abortion or anyone who aids and abets an abortion after 6 weeks. This can happen an unlimited number of times to the tune of $10k a pop. Time will tell if these lawsuits will be successful, but the threat of extreme legal repercussions will likely be a deterrent to anyone performing an abortion moving forward. What I don’t understand is this… 1. How can the State of Texas allow (encourage?) anyone to sue someone else for an action that is already protected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision? It’s like saying “Alright, we agree that Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional, so we’re not going to pass a law to authorize segregation per se, but we’re going to pass a law to allow random people to sue anyone involved with black people attending a white school.” I don’t understand the basis for being able to sue someone for something that isn’t illegal in the first place. 2. If this can be done to effectively eliminate Roe v. Wade, then can’t it be used for any state to invalidate almost any SCOTUS decision the state disagrees with? What’s the power of the SCOTUS then? 3. What stops states from using this tactic to pass other absurd laws to target groups of people or prohibit activities they don’t agree with? Conservative states could do the same thing to prohibit gay marriage or eliminate healthcare for transgender people. Liberal states could allow citizens to sue each other for having a handgun. Chaos ensues? 4. Is there any legal precedent to deputizing private citizens to sue each other for the sake of enforcing a “law”, however sensible or irrational that law may be? 5. Is there any legal precedent to allowing one person to sue another person for an action that did not directly harm the plaintiff? Sorry for the long post and for asking questions that have likely been hashed out somewhere in this thread. I’ve been trying to read and understand this but my pea brain is failing me on this topic and I need help.

Been watching it. Not great, not terrible. Nicole Kidman’s Russian accent is distracting. Most of the other characters seem pretty cliche. The premise has me thinking “That’s it?” so far, but I’ll see how the rest of the plot unfolds.

Headed back in December. It will be our 4th trip since Covid started. The curfew is going away but they are implementing a health pass to take its place. Fine by me.

I’ll do you a favor and message you if it gets better so you don’t have to keep checking this thread.

By your own admission, you quit watching as of 9/4. In your art analogy, you are now the guy standing outside a museum telling everyone else who goes in and out that the art inside sucks, even though you haven’t seen all of the art in the museum. You will keep proclaiming the museum is full of shitty art, hoping people will agree with you, despite the fact that the museum keeps adding new exhibits that you have no intention of viewing. It sounds like a miserable way to spend your time. If you hate this show so much, why not move onto something you actually enjoy? Isn’t life better when you focus on things you like instead of things you don’t like? I’m sure there’s an FBoy Island thread somewhere.

Ted Lasso season 1 was one of the greatest seasons of comedy television ever. Unique premise, unique characters, and anchored by Ted’s eternal optimism at a time when the world desperately needed something to be happy about. That’s an incredibly high bar to replicate in subsequent seasons. Season 2 is still very good in my opinion, even if it falls short of season 1. It has plenty of funny moments and I look forward to watching it more than any other active show on TV right now. That doesn’t make me a Ted Lasso fanboy who is blind to its flaws. It just makes me someone who likes to laugh for about 30 minutes a week. There are about 3 posters here who seem insistent on convincing everyone else that Ted Lasso season 2 sucks. I guess y’all are very binary people - it would either be the same as season 1 or it would suck. There couldn’t possibly be an in between. It’s fine to express your opinions but y’all keep repeating the same shit as if you’re expecting to convince the rest of us to agree with your negativity.

Based on the book by Sally Rooney. I read the book on a whim, which is a very quick and easy read. Then stumbled across the series on Hulu by accident. It’s only 1 season, 12 episodes, about 25-30 min each. I thought it was really well done. It’s a romance story with a serious tone, not your average romcom cliches. The characters are well written and the lead actors (Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal) were both excellent in their roles. Plenty of sex and they weren’t shy about filming those scenes. I didn’t see it mentioned here so wanted to recommend it or curious others’ reactions if you have already seen it.

I have a standard LiftMaster garage door opener with no smart features built in. I would like to add smart capabilities so I can access it from my phone, open it remotely if someone else needs to get in, and most importantly, set a schedule to auto-close it in the evening to avoid the rare occasions where we forget to close it and it stays open all night long. From what I can tell, this can be accomplished doing a retrofit which requires a new wall control and a gateway/bridge. I think these are the 2 specific products I would need for my setup: https://www.amazon.com/Liftmaster-Security-Control-Upgrades-Previous/dp/B00B8BFG0O https://www.amazon.com/LiftMaster-MYQ-819LMB-Home-Bridge/dp/B075RQVSY7 Does anyone have experience doing this? Anything else I should be aware of before ordering and installing it?

This thread is a good reminder of why I don’t enter CR very often. As someone who doesn’t identify with either political party, it amazes me how much adults will absolve their own party/candidates of any wrongdoing and vehemently attack the other side for all the evils in the world. Can’t we just agree that both sides of the political aisle, including 2 R presidents and 2 D presidents, have fucked up Afghanistan for the past ~20 years? Bush - Invaded in response to 9/11, hung around to what, build a democracy in the Middle East? Obama - Killed Bin Laden, hung around to what, continue building that democracy? Trump - Freed some Taliban prisoners, hung around because leaving in his first term was political suicide, although that was a moot point. Biden - Initiated a withdrawal that most people agree is needed, but handled it in a way that appears to be mostly chaos, resulting in American and Afghan deaths, and poorly communicating with our ally countries that makes the U.S. look like a bunch of selfish and incompetent jackasses. From where I’m sitting, it looks terribly managed by all of the above actors. Biden’s current failures are partly due to the 3 guys that came before him and partly due to his own leadership. Quit trying to separate them. I also get the sense that some Republicans want the Afghanistan withdrawal to be a bloody affair just to point the finger at Biden. Much like a year ago I got the sense that some Democrats wanted Covid to be worse to point the finger at Trump. It’s pretty shitty to want the world to be a worse place because you didn’t vote for the guy in the White House.

I went to the rooftop bar at Wicked Butcher over the weekend. Service was a little slow so I just ordered drinks from the bar, but otherwise I liked it. Nice atmosphere and there was a decent breeze so it wasn’t hot, although it was ~11 pm.

This show is great every week. I'm struggling to understand how anyone could not thoroughly enjoy it. "Jamie Tartt is a muppet, and I hope he dies of the incurable condition of being a little bitch."

It doesn’t matter that much. I walked into my Walgreens and they gave me a paper asking if I’m immunocompromised. It’s pretty loosely defined and I checked YES and got the shot. They don’t care what your condition is or what meds you take. They only care that you check YES on their paper.

Got my 3rd Moderna shot today from a nearby Walgreens. My 2nd dose was late January. I’m technically immunocompromised due to an autoimmune condition and due to the immunosuppressant I take for it, although it’s not nearly as bad as having cancer or an organ transplant. I’m also a physician and see ~140 people a week, many of whom are elderly and many of whom are undoubtedly unvaccinated, so I figured it was a good time to get the 3rd shot and hopefully reduce my chances of getting or spreading Delta. There were 4 other people there, all getting their first shot. It made me somewhat happy to see there is still a small trickle of people choosing the vaccine. I wonder if part of the September 20 date for boosters was chosen to allow unvaccinated people ~1 month to finally get 1st and 2nd doses before there is a new rush of already vaccinated people getting 3rd doses.

I thought Lenovo was loaded with Chinese spyware or something like that. I’m surprised anyone in the U.S. would buy one.

Did you give them your original vaccine card so they could write the 3rd dose below the other 2 doses? Did they say anything about the fact that you were already vaccinated? I'm interested in doing this. Seems like an official recommendation could be given at any time, but then I wonder if it will be chaos all over again trying to get an appointment.

I liked the show overall and don’t take it too seriously. The ending was fine but it was more about the build-up for me. If I wanted to nitpick, it would be odd details like this: -Shane’s suite had a queen bed. -The Mossbachers went on a family vacation to an expensive resort, stayed in a fancy suite with a kitchen, but the suite only had 1 bedroom and their game plan was apparently for their teenage daughter and friend to share a sleeper sofa and their teenage son to sleep where exactly? -The White Lotus (Four Seasons) is totally cool with people sleeping overnight on the beach and has zero security. -The Four Seasons Maui has shitty pool and beach furniture, like something I would expect at a Galveston condo. Unless the film crew brought that in, which I’m not sure why they would intentionally make it look less swanky. -The guests arrived by boat to a hotel in Maui. I guess it’s a fictional location, but those same guests left by plane. -Olivia sleeps with a bra on. But none of that stuff truly bothers me with this type of show. Well, maybe the last one.

I expect that it will be endemic for a long time. I’m wondering how likely it is that a new variant eventually comes along that is more transmissible than Delta, including infecting vaccinated people at a higher rate, and that the end point is for this future variant to rapidly burn through the world’s entire population (regardless of vax status) and we finally achieve herd immunity through that wave? Would that be such a bad thing to hope for, if you knew it would occur in such a way that vaccines and other therapeutics could limit the worldwide mortality? Otherwise, I’m growing increasingly concerned that in 2030 we are still going to be arguing about masks and vaccines, avoiding mass events like concerts and sports, limiting school attendance, canceling vacations at the last minute, working from home, etc. That’s a pretty shitty future if 2021-life is our status quo for the next 5-10 years.

Really enjoyed the show. Armand was the most entertaining character and I’m sad to see him be the one who was killed. I’m slightly confused why his body was being loaded on a plane back to the U.S., although I guess we were never explicitly told that’s where the plane is headed. Quinn was my favorite character and his transformation was perfect. Sad to see Rachel accept Shane back so easily. I guess she made a Faustian bargain after all and it means all characters minus Quinn returned to their former selves.