wild_turkey

I’m really enjoying this so far. AppleTV does good work.

You need the kind of woman that can convincingly fake an orgasm with you?

Everyone seems to be struggling a bit today. Maybe the heat, the wind, and the tragedy.

I’m sure you’ll be fine. We had a similar forecast in February and it ended up being perfect beach weather.

That’s over 2 years between seasons. Fucking HBO and their terrible leadership.

When do we get season 2?

This entire season was weird but I don’t ever remember the last 2 legs being combined into a 90 minute episode. Especially after having 90 minutes per leg all season long, to suddenly cut that time in half made both legs feel extremely short and rushed. It’s like TAR just wanted it to be over. Also weird to spend the entire race in Central and South America, then suddenly teleport everyone to cold ass Philly. They could’ve at least ended it on U.S. soil in either the USVI or Puerto Rico. The final leg challenges were pretty lame, and it was a rare instance where they didn’t have a memory challenge involving all of the previous legs.

I don’t like Vinny and Amber so I’m a little biased, but that was a really odd proposal. Two people that don’t appear to like or respect each other, their interviews always seem to be them trying to convince themselves they are actually a good fit, and then bam, marriage proposal. I give it 3 years. And watching them fail at making cocktails, I would never let either one give me anesthesia.

I have one kid. With the money saved on raising a second or third kid, I can pay someone to wipe my old ass so my one kid doesn’t have to. She can just enjoy being my daughter as I wither away. Assuming I live that long. Otherwise her inheritance will be better.

A patient of mine, roughly mid-70s gentleman, said he is going to France for D-Day to accompany a friend who is a WW2 vet. The friend is 103 years old and was there during D-Day, so they are going to tour and there are some memorials and such. He said there is a group of vets that gets to do this every year and their trip is sponsored and entirely paid for by American Airlines. Each vet gets to take one friend or family member to help them with travel needs. They have an entire flight from the U.S. to Paris dedicated to this group of guys, and they stay 9 days and have all transportation, hotels, meals, tours, etc. paid for by AA. I think that's pretty damn cool for everyone involved and kuddos to AA for doing it.

Bowie House has a solid bar with an upscale crowd and drink list. Thompson’s downtown for more of a cocktail bar, although I haven’t been since the remodel. Atlas over on South Main has kind of moody vibe and good drinks. If you want something more low key or a dive, there’s Ye Old Bull and Bush or Showdown. But for most types, my go-to would be the bar in the new Bowie House hotel.

Watched episode 1 and thought it was good. Read the book a few years ago but I forgot most of the details.

I just got an email from Tesla to finance a new Model Y from 0.99% APR. No idea if it’s available on other models. Why are you replacing your Model 3?

Perhaps this has been discussed, but the internet in general is a much worse place to navigate. Almost every webpage now requires you to acknowledge cookies, but the popups are sometimes slow to load and it delays your ability to start using the site. I think as a global society we should all come to an understanding that cookies are implied by being on the internet. And then once you get beyond the cookies, almost any website that sells stuff will try to get you to sign up for their emails to save 10% or whatever, so that's another popup to click through before you can use the page, even if you are already an established customer on the email list. It's ridiculous.

Thanks for the input. I guess I’m wondering if CR is still a worthwhile destination if we’re not going there for the sake of fishing, ziplining, or other adventure activities? Is is a good place to simply relax? I’m reluctant to stay at the properties you mentioned because we have an aversion to large resorts and an anaphylactic reaction to all-inclusive. We’d much prefer a smaller boutique hotel that has nice rooms and grounds, and it appears there are some of those in that area.

Interstellar is my favorite movie and gets better with each viewing. We watched it again tonight, the first time since our daughter was born, and it hits quite a bit harder. I think the story and the themes of Interstellar elevate it above the other Nolan films. I personally love Inception as well as most of his other films, but Interstellar explores a decaying Earth due to humanity’s poor choices, the love of a parent for their children, the love of an adult for their partner, humanity’s will to survive, space and relativity, personal sacrifice for the common good, human selfishness, and loneliness. The amount of ideas that are packed into this movie, not to mention the physics, special effects, and score, make it near perfect for me.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I like Danny and Angie, but the way they got eliminated leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth and reflects poorly on TAR production. I’ve been watching this show for about 20 years and can’t ever remember a team being penalized for a camera crew getting lost. Post-race interviews say they waited for 90 minutes and the crew never showed up so they were eventually assigned a new crew. That’s completely ridiculous. Even if we say that Angie committed a driving error, that should at most warrant a 15 minute penalty. The crew should know the location of the next detour and know to meet them there. Interviews also suggest that TAR production was meeting at the pit stop to figure out how to handle it, then decided to eliminate them. It’s like watching a football game end on a terrible call. Hopefully TAR makes changes so this is never again a factor. This was otherwise a fairly boring leg. Cleaning up sargassum seemed like the obvious choice in the detour but only the pilots chose that and it paid off big.

double post

Wife and I are wanting to take our 18-month old somewhere in late July or late August and are considering CR. We've never been before. We already have adult luxury vacations to Ibiza/Mallorca and St. Barth this year, so this would hopefully just be an easy family getaway. We've also considered places like San Diego or Riviera Maya, but we thought CR might give us a chance to dip our toes into a new country for us. I realize lots of people go there to fish or do adventure excursions, but we aren't looking for that. We want a good hotel, preferrably with a good pool and close to a decent beach. That gives the kid some stuff to do and we can mostly relax. It seems somewhere near Tamarindo would fit the bill. Someone I follow on IG just did a similar trip to Cala Luna Hotel which looks nice. I've read the rave reviews about Tulemar on here but it's a longer drive and it looks a little bit dated or possibly timeshare-ish in the photos. Maybe the internet doesn't do it justice, but I think the 3 hour drive from SJO would not be ideal. At that distance, we would probably lean towards Nayara Springs, or just pick a different destination altogether. Any suggestions or reasons why this trip might be a bad idea for our situation? Is the rainy season going to be too much of a factor? Thanks.

I definitely agree with the bolded part. I personally can't drive a stick, but if I applied for TAR, the first thing I would do is rent a stick shift and force myself to drive it for a month or longer. I also don't understand how some people can be so incredibly out of shape physically on this show. That said, there have been countless teams and contestants that struggle with the above, but very few reach the level of verbal abuse than Vinny inflicts on Amber. She says this is a test run for marriage. I think it's pretty obvious how that marriage would go. Any time Vinny perceives that Amber as done something less than perfect for the sake of their family, he would tear her apart. I'm willing to excuse a lot of her shortcomings at this point. Your brain can't function well when your partner is in your head, constantly criticizing you. You spend more time thinking about their criticism and replaying those failures or discussions in your mind, and it's hard to do simple things like remember where you parked a car. She wasn't strong to begin with, but he's fucked her up.

I had looked it up. I usually like to know more about the cast members so I found this site that gives a pretty good breakdown, including IG info for everyone: https://thedirect.com/article/the-amazing-race-2024-cast-contestants-season-36-photos On their IG pages, they both appeared to be aspiring influencers, Vinny moreso than Amber. He had posts and videos about getting out of student loan debt, becoming an entrepreneur, flexing his arms in scrubs in ridiculous poses, and generally looking like a narcissistic asshat. Their accounts both still featured each other, and called themselves The Dream Team, so I interpreted that as them being together. When I was watching this episode last night, I looked at their IG again mid-episode and saw lots of fresh comments from TAR fans, telling Amber to leave his ass. People basically started comment bombing all of their old posts on both accounts, saying what an asshole Vinny is. I just looked again and both accounts are now private, which is...quite funny. Aspiring influencers now have private accounts. Probably in damage control mode, or perhaps the breakup is happening as we speak.

I see their relationship quite the opposite. Vinny is a condescending asshole who constantly puts her down. She definitely has her insecurities and weaknesses, but he preys on those and tears her apart, then offers some half-assed encouragement like "you can do it babe" when it's already too late. She can't drive a stick, which I think is a fair criticism, but half the people in the history of TAR have lacked this skill. Her navigation skills seem adequate. There are definitely teams that are worse, and it doesn't seem like poor navigation has hurt Amber and Vinny at any point so far. Even other "good" teams have struggled with navigation, but they don't destroy each other over it. As far as completing challenges, Amber has mostly been fine and it's very difficult to do anything well when your partner is constantly telling you how stupid and shitty you are. Imagine spending a day with your spouse, having to assemble things, navigate a foreign city, perform music routines, and your wife spends the entire day calling you pathetic, slow, and stupid, all on television for the world to see. How can anyone be expected to do well in those circumstances? She should leave his ass. I don't even particularly like Amber, but I think Vinny is a narcissistic piece of shit. If they split up, I would fully expect him to find another insecure and emotionally vulnerable partner and treat her like shit.

I absolutely love living in a place where our government can’t protect us from harmful chemicals released by publicly traded companies into our water supply, but they can protect us from internet porn. I feel super safe knowing they have my best interests at heart and that our children will grow up healthy. Yay America!

I would like to know this information. I fly primarily on AA 4-6x a year, some domestic, some Europe, some Caribbean, some Mexico. I would love Flagship Lounge access.

I checked their IG to see if they’re even still together. They are and they both look insufferable.