SimonBolivar

American history with a focus on civil religion as it pertains to presidential funerals and memory. Really exciting and groundbreaking stuff 😂

Updated rankings having finished Dark Tower 1 & 2, Salem's Lot, Billy Summers, Misery, and 11/22/63 in the last couple of years. 1.) IT 2.) The Institute 3.) 11/22/63 4.) Joyland 5.) The Outsider 6.) Finder's Keepers 7.) Needful Things 8.) Salem's Lot 9.) Misery 10.) Mr Mercedes 11.) 1922 12.) End of Watch 13.) Dart Tower I: The Gunslinger 14.) Billy Summers 15.) Revival 16.) Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three 17.) Elevation Rankings of course set to change daily based upon mood. about 10% done with The Shining, need to finish The Stand and Fairy Tale at some point but not sure when I'll get back to them. I'm not going back to Dark Tower until I've read a lot more of his earlier works.

I do this twice a year or so anyway. It's really easy to do and its middle-aged white man "fun" to clean it out.

Am I the only one who has pretty much cut off all social media outside of niche message boards/discords? I just can't stand Facebook/Instagram/etc and haven't been on those in years. However, I'm 100% addicted to Surly type boards.

God, Arby's 5 for $5 was glorious.

Yeah, this isn't news, and this is SOP for American Christianity to remake religion to match our nationalist ideals and vice versa.

My 2019 root canal tooth is infected and will have to be seen by a specialist which of course is closed all next week. That's the way this bullshit always goes. Here's to hoping that penicillin and ibuprofen get me to January comfortably. At least my dentist did get me in on short notice today for xrays and a script before they closed for Christmas which was really cool of them.

Great.

Google says there's a Cajun place in Manor.

Enjoying it so far and just enjoying some literature before getting back into the thesis work in January.

We did KC last year in late June for a game and that weekend was about food, drink, WW1 Museum, CBK Hall of Fame, and some sports gambling. I'm sure there can be a similar type schedule in Minneapolis for a weekend?

The schedule is out and its terrible for Texans wanting to get away in the summer. June 15 @ Colorado is cool but the weather in Austin usually isn't abysmal then. Minnesota on June 22 is decent but still in June and Minneapolis is just a "sure, fine" location. Or is it better as a destination @Al_4_ISU? July/August are truly worst case right now with games in Austin and Dallas (Frisco) only right now with a trip to Nashville way out on August 24th when all my traveling buddies will have started teaching/coaching by then. Maybe with our terrible season we won't host in the Leagues Cup this year and instead go somewhere cool like Portland or Mexico City. Austin FC

Alright, come on a summer trip to one of Montreal, NYCFC/NYRB, Vancouver, Seattle, Toronto, Portland, Philly, or New England

If enough people think, "well I don't like that ruling that limits democracy so I'm voting for the dictator" then we get what we deserve.

Why are we assuming that him being off the ballot would cause him to lose the Colorado primary? I could see a groundswell of deplorables furiously memorizing how to spell Donald in line during their primary in the spring.

Hey you can become president with a degree from Texas State...and a few rigged elections and an assassinated president. But the path is there and Step 1 is almost accomplished!

Meh

Yeah almost all the olds that I deal with here at my CU are living off of Social Security. There aren't many pensions outside of teachers in Texas and they just failed saving along the way. One couple is particularly bad, He is in his 80s and has had terminal cancer for a couple of years, and she is in her 70s and makes the 45-minute drive into the CU every 3rd of the month to collect what they can which is $1600 for him and $400 for her as she was a stay-at-home mom for most of their lives. They live in a tool shed that has power & water that they pay $400/m to rent to own and should have it paid off in a year or two. They also rent the land that it sits on for $300/month. During freezes and heat waves they are at the mercy of their electric heater/portable AC as obviously a tool shed was not designed to be lived in and has zero insulation. They exhausted their ODP (the extra tax on the poor) this month by the 7th and won't get another dime until January 3rd. These people are barely surviving with SSA deposits and would certainly be dead in a month without it. As far as the state supporting people like that outside of SSA, we've reported their wellbeing to adult protective services a few times and the case workers noticed that they don't have a real home, the place is crawling with pests of all types, and pretty much just shrugs their shoulders and says, "they're alive" and moves on.

The "poisoning the blood of this country" needs to be on every TikTok and YouTube video for GenZers to see from now until the election.

It isn't like Texas A&M - Texarkana is unaccredited. I'm not in STEM, but I would assume that plenty of good graduate schools would be plenty happy with a 3.8 GPA in ME when looking at his application, if he chooses that direction.

2.33 undergrad and 4.0 grad worked fine for me....other than ending up on Surly of course.

Yes

No way man, this case has some serious legs in the country right now. It's getting a ton of play/conversation.