wild_turkey

I think we'll either win or lose in 2 overtimes.

I bought the Paperwhite last week for $160. Price is now $110 for Black Friday. I figured something like that might happen but I needed it as a birthday gift for the wife and I also figured I could collect the price difference later. Spoke to Amazon on the phone today and they won’t credit me the difference because apparently they don’t have any kind of price guarantee. They said I can order another one at the new price and send the first one back. I told them that’s stupid and it wastes time and money on shipping, not to mention the environmental impact of new packaging and the delivery truck. They know and don’t care. So I ordered the same one again. Only problem is they don’t have it in stock until December 2, and even though it’s a Prime item and I’m a Prime member, that apparently doesn’t mean shit anymore because 2 day delivery isn’t guaranteed. I’m instead given a 4 day delivery window. Fucking Amazon.

I do. That’s dumb as hell to always gang up on the weakest team and guarantee advancement of strongest teams. Good luck with that at the end. Will and James are the masterminds behind the alliances. I guess their strategy is to maximize the chances of their own survival until the final leg and then hope they get more lucky or outsmart the other 2 teams. This strategy also maximizes the chances of the other 2 strongest teams surviving, so it really only makes sense if they lacked confidence in their ability to reach the final leg on their own accord. Otherwise they are just making the competition tougher on themselves down the home stretch. Or they are just some combination of petty and stupid, which is the only explanation for targeting the Nerds followed by the Blondes. I’m torn between the Beards and NFL. I liked the Beards more up until this leg, but now I’m leaning more towards NFL due to them unknowingly landing outside the alliance and wanting to see the new alliance fail.

Who is the “they” you are referring to?

In fairness, those types of stupid comparisons go both ways and they are equally stupid in both directions. There are people who compare COVID to a much bigger chronic health problem like heart disease or cancer and use the relative numbers to argue that COVID isn’t that bad. Or that compare it to flu and say “it’s just the flu” which shows they have no idea how bad influenza actually is on an annual basis. Then there are people who compare COVID to something like war casualties and they act like COVID is the end of the human race because it has already killed more Americans than WW1, Vietnam, the Korean War, and the American Revolution combined. It’s like saying you could take all the plastic bottles from the ocean and stretch them to the moon and back. WTF is even the point of saying that? We know there’s a shitload of plastic in the ocean just like we know that COVID has killed a lot of people and lots of people also die in wars and from being fat and old and unhealthy and everything else you can think of. Quit making stupid arbitrary comparisons.

As soon as they said the murder weapon was missing, I had a bad feeling one of the parents would discover it in the kid’s possession. Absolutely stupid of him to keep it though. I’m wondering if Hugh Grant intentionally takes the fall at this point.

You’re taking a family skiing. Spoiler alert... it’s expensive.

Blondes are my favorite because they are easy on the eyes and they seem like genuinely happy people who are just trying to have fun. Even in the 3 straight legs that they were staring down elimination, they never lost their cool. I liked NFLers until they stole the cab from Hung and Chee. DeAngelo had no clue about that challenge and they managed to come in first on that leg. I wouldn’t mind if they get eliminated at this point.. Will and James annoy me. They created the alliance and they have definitely benefited from it, but eventually teams have to start looking out for themselves and I think Will and James will struggle when they lose the outside help. My preference in order would be Blondes, Beards, Hung/Chee, NFL, Siblings, Boyfriends. My prediction is Beards, Hung/Chee, NFL, Boyfriends, Siblings, Blondes.

Ignoring the fact that sentence #1 is factually untrue and contradicts the legislation at destination, consider the improbability of fulling this apparent requirement: * All popular PCR testing sites only provide window of multiple days to receive results e.g. "3 to 4 days" (CVS, Walgreens) "Approximately 7 days" (Quest) * Test results received on 19th is too early. Test results received on 21st is too late (flight will have departed) * The notice of this time-sensitive information being sent out on the evening of the 20th Idiocy. ——————— Do you mean December 21 or November 21? Did you make this post the day it was all going down? If you meant December 21 then I think you still have plenty of options. I say this because I had to go through the same thing going to St. Barth in July, and probably looking at the same situation to go back to St. Barth in 2 weeks (unless travel shuts down). I can give you some suggestions if you still need them.

I want the vaccine as soon as I can get it. I’m a physician but not a front line worker. Mainly private practice, operate at a couple of surgery centers, occasionally see patients in a hospital. I’m not sure where that puts me in line. Everyone seems to agree that healthcare workers are first, but that should obviously be subdivided into type of healthcare worker where frontline docs, nurses, and support staff will get it ahead of people like myself. That makes complete sense but when my “group” is given the opportunity, I will be ready to go. My motivations are twofold: 1. I work directly with elderly patients and my biggest fear from the start has been getting sick and unknowingly transmitting it to a high risk person. I do my best to socially distance and be responsible, but I’ve certainly let my guard down at various points, and I’d like the vaccine to increase protection for everyone I come in contact with. 2. Like everyone else, I want life to return to normal as soon as possible. The only way I see that happening is with a successful vaccine and I want to do my part and also be an example to friends and family, kind of like wearing an “I Voted” sticker. In fact, I wish they would get marketing campaigns to create “I’m Vaccinated” pins or wristbands or something that could be a source of pride for people to demonstrate that they did their part to help the world out.

I just started season 1. Wife already watched seasons 1-3 but she wanted to rewatch together. I like it so far. Will check back in when I either finish season 4 or bail early.

Telluride is a badass town but if COVID is bad enough to close ski lifts then I’m assuming restaurants are also closed or perhaps Colorado is simply on lockdown. I would hope lodging and lift ticket expenses get rolled over to the following year.

My wife reads books on her phone a lot. It’s an iPhone 12 with phone dimensions 5.78” x 2.82”, actual screen size is slightly smaller. I was thinking of getting her a Kindle to make reading more comfortable for her but then I saw the Kindle dimensions are 6.56” x 4.56” which doesn’t seem that much bigger. Would those of you that have a Kindle care to comment? Is the difference noticeable or marginal? Does the paperwhite screen make it worth it? Not so much concerned about cost because they are cheap, just don’t want to buy a pointless extra device that requires its own charger and eventually ends up in a drawer.

That’s pretty close to me. My neighborhood association was strongly opposed to the hotel idea, although I’m not really sure why. Concerns about noise or riff-raff I suppose? I’m just kinda surprised that anyone would pay $200/night to stay in a 160 sqft shipping container with a queen size bed. I’m curious what level of occupancy they’ll be able to attract.

We booked Telluride in early February. We already put down a non-refundable deposit on the house but most of it is not due until late January. Also bought lift tickets given that they are on a limited basis this year. I give it a 30% chance of happening based on the current Covid trends.

It seems like somewhere around 2014-2015 it went from being 20% helmet usage to 95% helmet usage. Definitely recommend a helmet.

I don’t know how feasible the 2024 goal is, but I like knowing that a plan to return to the moon is in the works, even if the timeframe is aggressive and we fall short of that by a few years. I would also like to believe that manned missions to Mars will occur in my lifetime. I would be disappointed if the current plans for the moon get scrapped. Regardless of who occupies the White House last year, or next year, or 10 years from now, it seems highly inefficient for each new political administration to abruptly cancel plans made under the previous administration. If there is the feeling that research efforts need to be focused on other things, then great, but let’s find new funding to support that without cannibalizing existing projects.

I’m still enjoying it. Agreed that Grace is a little less likely now that they’ve implicated her in episode 3.

According to the 60 Minutes segment, very smart people are working to solve all of these hurdles. For instance, they mentioned that the USVI does not have dry ice production of their own so the plan is to import dry ice from Puerto Rico. They also made it sound like there will be a coordinated plan to ensure that people actually return for their second dose. I want to believe this is going to work, because there honestly isn’t much left to hope for at this point.

Trick play!

That’s been a small concern of mine. It seems a little too predictable of a twist so I’m hoping it plays out differently.

This thread belongs on the travel board. It gets no traffic here and most skiing involves travel. We booked a house in Telluride for early February. Looking forward to it as always.

Just finished watching The Expanse and finally started The Boys season 2. I noticed right away that the interiors of the Vought HQ skyscraper and the United Nations HQ skyscraper (in The Expanse) are identical. It makes sense given that they are both Amazon shows, but the building is fairly recognizable so it stands out from one show to the next. After a bit of googling, the actual building is Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto and it’s been in multiple shows and movies. Maybe some of you already knew that.

I binged this over the past 2 months. It was an enjoyable watch and I'm looking forward to season 5, but I also don't think it's quite the masterpiece that most of you consider it to be. I understand why it draws comparisons to Game of Thrones, but GoT was in a different league IMO, at least until it fell apart in the later seasons. Just a lot more depth in GoT, much higher production quality, better acting across the board, etc. Minority opinion it would seem, but I overall like The Expanse or I wouldn't have gone through 4 seasons so quickly. Season 4 was easily the weakest season for me so maybe that's why I'm a little underwhelmed at the moment. I was never a huge fan of Miller and I generally get annoyed when shows reincarnate dead characters, so to have the entire plot of season 4 based on Holden following Miller's every whim was an ongoing frustration for me. Holden/Miller got them into a huge clusterfuck and then got them out of the same clusterfuck, albeit with a bunch of people dying along the way, and that's somehow a win? Also got a bit bored with the election drama on Earth and I'd like to see Bobbie more involved in something meaningful. According to those of you who read the books, season 4 was based on a weaker book, so hopefully things take off again in season 5.

Watched the first 2 episodes and really like it so far. Reminds me of Big Little Lies but more sinister.