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Brisketexan

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Posts posted by Brisketexan

  1. 2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    The Cybertruck has a strong chance to sink Tesla. You can’t come back from doing something uncool, its really hard. Elon will be fine because he has enough money to build a fleet of aircraft carriers (literally). 

    .....which he would waste on trying to build the flying aircraft carriers from the Marvel movies....and he would call them "X-Cyber Carriers," and demand that his engineers make them "extremely hardcore."

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  2. 15 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

    Hot damn that thing is ugly.

    Seriously.  The fact that he decided to make something inspired by any number of shitty network TV sci-fi series of the 70s is....something.

    As for me, if I wanted to go down that rabbit hole of obsession with old-school bad sci-fi, and I had billions....I'd have just been on the hunt for a gal who looks like Erin Grey from back in they day:

    s-l1200.webp

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  3. 14 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

    I don't know your son's motivation for not getting the shot, but does it not fall into this category?

    I mean....quite plainly, no, it does not.  The math for him:

    1) he already has some bar to serious illness due to previous vaccination.

    2) add to that natural antibodies he has due to previous infection.

    3) add to that the fact that he is in a very low-risk group when it comes to COVID (he's young, healthy, in great physical shape).

    4) add to that the fact that he's in the group that is most likely to suffer myocarditis due to vaccination (young males).

    COLLECTIVELY, those factors support a decision not to get the new shot.  That said, he's a grown-ass adult, the choice is his.  If he wants to get it when he comes home for Christmas, that'd be fine with me too.

    17 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

    My kids - now 10, 12, 14 - never had the shot.  They've all had Covid.  Two asymptomatic, the other had a cough.

    I don't believe in any wild ass conspiracy theories.  But I also believe "we don't know everything" and won't for years.  So as long as Covid is a nothingburger for me and them, our current approach is "do nothing."  

    Yeah....you don't know whether a particular COVID infection will be a "nothingburger" or not until you get it.  I know some folks who have had COVID multiple times (2-3 times).  One of their cases was mild.  Another case was an ass-kicking.

    That said, the biggest risk factor to the population at large was that it was a NOVEL virus.  We had ZERO protection against it.  Today, an estimated 97% of the population has antibodies due to either vaccination or infection or both.  Your kids have such protection.  Thus, their likelihood of COVID causing serious illness or death are much reduced from when it was novel.  The balancing of risks is yours to make.  But as you say "we don't know everything," an honest evaluation ALSO must include what we DO know.  That last part is what so many of the deniers skip right the fuck over.  We DO know that it fucking killed a lot of people.  It was a serious, deadly illness, particularly when it was novel and nobody had any protection.  That's not fake news - I was helping institutions deal with the stacks of bodies in real-time in the early months of the pandemic.  So, put the fact of "COVID isn't a joke and fucking kills people" in the hopper as well.

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  4. 1 minute ago, Samson's Wig said:

    My kids have Canadian citizenship through their mom and can attend any school in Canada with resident tuition.  They still subsidize their schools up there, and compared to U.S. public universities they are very affordable.  I'll never say it to the kids lest I lead them in the other direction, but that's what I'm holding out hope for.

    We discussed it plenty on here at the time, but daughter went to McGill, and we have good friends with kids at U of Toronto and UBC -- all three are GREAT schools, in quality locations.  If you can get resident tuition, and get in (all three are competitive)....shit, it would be a no-brainer to me.  McGill was still a bargain for us at non-resident tuition, although I understand that's popped up pretty significantly in just the last few years.

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  5. 1 minute ago, South Austin said:

    I've heard that Arkansas is phasing out reciprocal tuition.  With all the nonresidents attending and taking advantage of that program, I'm guessing they've been losing a significant amount of out-of-state tuition dollars.  

    Was just talking about the Arkansas approach with someone the other day.  I think it's been a brilliant move on their part (yeah...Arkansas, at the forefront of strategic thinking....that's how bad shit is these days).  They have succeeded in keeping some of those smart kids they recruited, who are staying in Arkansas and contributing to the Arkansas economy.  That's an economic boon to the state as a whole.

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  6. 1 minute ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

    She's got a track friend at Arizona that is enjoying her experience, so I'm encouraging her to look there. 

    Remember that if y'all wanna look at Arizona, we've got a family member who's a dep't chair there, long time Tucson residents.  Would be happy to make the connection, they're great folks.

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  7. 2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    It’s really fun to talk about economic and fiscal policy but let’s remember that a wildly influential voice of a major political party is openly creating Kremlin propaganda. 

    Cause that’s really the only thing that matters now, we are at a “should we be brownshirts or nah” level of choice and anyone who countenances or even winks at Tucker needs to be off the table regardless of their tax policy. 

    This.  I'd love to talk tax policy, how roads should be funded, new port initiatives, all kinds of good old fashioned policy wonk stuff.

    That is all on the back burner while we deal with "the entire GQP is a fucking 5th column in our country that wants to overthrow the Republic and join the Authoritarian Club."  That's it.  That's the only issue that matters.

    It's like the classic order of triage for pilots on an aircraft in crisis.  First, you aviate (fly the goddamned plane and keep it from crashing).  THEN, you navigate.  THEN you communicate.  Right now....our sole task as Americans is "aviate."  Just keep the damned plane from crashing.  Once we do that, then we can figure out where we want to fly to.

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  8. Just now, Samson's Wig said:

    We're still a few years away, but my son asked to go tour Harvard last time we were in Boston, and he fell in love.   One of us is going to be really disappointed in a few years.

    Odd way to tell us that you can't contribute enough money to Harvard to construct a building with your name on it, but okay.

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  9. 5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    I see it as somewhat like the "you can't time the market" crowd.  They don't seem to realize that "buy and hold" is timing the market, just in an incredibly basic way.  It's still a choice, and not necessarily the best choice.

    No, I don't want to get into an investing discussion.

    So....you're NOT interested in becoming an independent Scentsy consultant, paving the way to your future of wealth and being your own boss?

    Your loss.

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  10. 10 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Is there any known correlation between "long covid" and severity of covid disease?

    I don't think they know yet.

    What people -- especially including the anti-vax, COVID-denier, "it's just a cold" crowd -- need to grasp is the foundational truth: COVID is a novel, serious illness that indeed kills people.  The "novel" thing is really, really important.  It means that we are on the front-end of learning about it still.  We don't get the benefit of studying it for a decade or two, and THEN it pops up in the population.  It arrived as a novel virus, and we have had to learn about it in real-time as it was killing literally millions of people.

    So, what is "long COVID?"  Depends on the definition.  It's not necessarily people "still suffering from COVID" years after they got it.  It generally includes people like me: I contracted COVID in early February, was acutely ill for 4-5 days....and then had a bad lingering cough for nearly TWO MONTHS.  I don't have it anymore.  I'm fully recovered and fine.  But I had long, lingering symptoms.  Some have symptoms for longer.  And they're worse.  Others have one or two mild but weird symptoms that last for a long time (changed sense of taste).  We are still learning and gathering data -- the disease has been in the population at large for less than 4 years now.  That's nothing in terms of gathering, refining, and understanding data.

    That also means that we have to make many decisions in the absence of complete data.  Which, spoiler alert, is how MOST crisis situations are handled.  Go to war.  Go to trial.  There is a need to take decisive action quickly, otherwise all is lost.  So, you have to make decisions based on incomplete data.  If you're applying solid reasoning, you often get it pretty close to right.  Sometimes, some missing data shows up later, and it turns out you were dead wrong.  But "take no action, and wait for complete data" is a fool's option.  There is no perfect path, no "fully informed" path, because we don't even have the information necessary to make one "fully informed," and we probably won't have such information for another 20 years or so.

    Based on what we know, there are certain sub-populations that have a slightly higher risk of certain negative outcomes from certain COVID vaccines.  We also know that COVID is still a serious illness that carries significant long-term health implications (up to and including death) for tens of thousands of people right here in the USA, still.  So, we should continue to seek vaccines and treatments that will limit those implications.  Make balanced and reasoned decisions.  For example, my 53 yr old overweight ass will likely get the new shot targeting new variants, so that I have less of a chance of getting sick and if I do, the illness is less severe.  My 20 yr old son, who has both already been vaccinated with the first two shots, as well as had COVID, will likely not get the new shot.

    By next year, we might even have a different type of vaccine that doesn't have the myocarditis risk factor.  So maybe he will want the shot then.  

    People pointing out "but we just don't know everything yet about the disease or the vaccines!" to support their approach of "so....do nothing" are being illogical and unreasonable.  But then, that's our brand these days.

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  11. 30 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

    the fiesta on 35 and 39th has black pudding.  

     

    we'll be in scotland for the first time ever next august.  going to be in annandale and edinburgh, maybe glasgow.  we'll have all four kids with us (13, 11, 10, 7). i've got a pretty good list going for edinburgh from this thread- it seems like glasgow might not be the best use of time?

    Fiesta is the only place I've found black pudding in Austin.  I may have to make a run there this weekend.

    Glasgow is a cool town, but all-in-all, it's not the top tourist destination in Scotland for a reason.  It's a cool city, there's some stuff to see and do, but Edinburgh has much more in terms of "tourist shit your family will want to see."  Glasgow isn't a bad base of operations for trips to the western islands, Loch Lomond, that sort of thing, and there's definitely a good 1-2 days of stuff to see in Glasgow if you want.  Hell, we own a home there now, but I wouldn't put it as the MUST SEE place in Scotland.  Just a cool town with its own vibe, and honestly, that vibe is kind of best for students and young professionals: it's still quite affordable, cool and affordable nightlife in the West End and Finnieston, laid back parks and such for the older crowd to just "be."

  12. 10 hours ago, NWBuck said:

    I thought this was interesting... SIAP

    The male loneliness epidemic and how it affects fathers

     

    Yeah.....there's some "yes and no" to that.

    My dad's generation never touched a diaper.  They never cooked a meal, unless it was a weekend and they manned the grill.  Today's generation of dads....even the pretty piss-poor dads have changed a diaper, have made a dinner (maybe boxed mac and cheese and hamburger meat, but they still made dinner).

    The "blame it on pop culture, because they show dads as doofuses" trope is bullshit in my eyes.  For every goofy dad who doesn't have a clue on some TV show, there are 10 more portrayals where dad is normal, coaches the soccer team, is protective of his family, what have you.

    But as to the first point...yes, I think there's something to it.  Not necessarily the single-thought conclusion of "our worth is in what we can provide to our families," but that we learn as dads and get support from a network of other men in institutions, and those institutions are collapsing.  That said...I (and I would think most men on this board) are of a generation and ethos where a great deal of our self-worth and identity comes from "what we can provide to our families."  Most of my peers share my (perhaps unhealthy) approach to life of "my needs come last, the needs of every other member of my family come ahead of mine."  If things are dire, we give our coat to the family for warmth, we skip the meal so they can eat, etc.  Because that's what we're supposed to do.  That's what a man does.  Not saying it's wrong, but it does carry with it the baggage of "I ALWAYS put myself last, and don't tend enough to my own well-being, especially my mental well-being."

    I actually found this bit pretty interesting:

    Quote

    What’s more, men in today’s society may view deep relationships as not masculine, thus further isolating themselves.

    I think that's an issue.  In something of a reflexive response to the "softening" of the male image (visualize the "Obamacare pajama boy ad" that we all made fun of), there's a social counter-push back to hyper-masculinity.  Don't be a pussy, be an alpha!  Andrew Tate bullshit, that kind of crap.  That impulse defines male friendships not as one of actual meaningful friendship and support, but more as "fellow warriors, standing beside you as you slay dragons and conquer pussy."  And while standing up to bad shit and chasing girls both have their place in life, to define that as manhood to the exclusion of everything else is toxic as shit.  As you get older, you realize that just from the kicks to the nuts that reality would deliver.  One of my oldest and best friends is a crotchety, conservative Texan of German stock.  He's not a softie by any means.  But a few years ago, as we were parting after some drinks, he hugged me and told me he loved me.  He then explained "I'm telling all my friends that I love them nowadays, because I do, and because we need to hear it."  He ain't wrong.

    Shit, maybe all of this comes back to balance.  You can be a man....and change a diaper.  You can have genuine and loving relationships with your male friends....and that doesn't make you less of a man.  You can love hot ass....and still treat women with dignity and respect.  None of these are incompatible with their counterpart.  Men need friends, men need to be good dads.  Those things are at their best when they are balanced.

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  13. 8 hours ago, ERhine said:


    At least if this was my wife’s SUV, you don’t understand how key fobs work at all. You can still lock the car by pushing the door handle even if the key is in her purse on the other side of the vehicle. The fob doesn’t have to be beside the door handle you use to lock the vehicle.

    Oh, I get it.  THAT approach is hindered by the standard process of "we get where we're going, park the car, I get out....and then my wife lingers inside the car for another 10 fucking minutes putting her shoes back on, rearranging her purse, returning a text to her friend, applying some lip balm, rearranging the change in the cupholder, etc."  So, I can't lock the door like that...because she's still in the car.  I've gotten out of the car, closed the door, and have slowly started the walk to our destination (store, soccer match, wherever).  If I had a fob, I could lock the door from a distance, or at least from outside.

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  14. Once an Armenian stiffed me for $150 worth of work and I'm talkin 1980s money. But the same guy also set me up with gigs with two other people who did pay me.
    One of them was an odd dude that acted like an early DeSantis minus the electoral drive. He and I were eating lunch in a town where he used to live, and he said he saw an old friend across the restaurant. I asked him if he wanted to say hi. "No, I live in ___ now, I have new friends in ___."
    The other was a Dutch CEO of a tech company who was no-nonsense but in spite of that he offered me a job. Like a damn fool I turned him down.
    Oh, and the Armenian guy had grown up in Jordan and carried a knife in his briefcase.
    No personal experience with Azerbaijanis.

    My daughter had a suitemate in Gothenburg who was Azeri. Said she was a real bitch. So, extrapolating from our sample of one…
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  15. Find me a conservative that decries the MAGA movement, acknowledges climate change and election results, supports uncensored education, doesn't want to make purchasing a gun even easier, realizes that forcing women to give birth isn't sustainable, isn't demonizing the LGTBQ community, and doesn't parrot the word woke like they get paid by the mention, and you'd have my attention.
    But that hypothetical candidate just got primaried 80/20, and one of their constituents is parked down their street with guns and a half-assed manifesto.

    This post SHOULD be satire.
    Instead, it’s rock-solid truth.
    Sigh.
  16. 8 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

    We're home to the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia.  I like the food.  That's all I got.

    Glendale.  Some good Armenian grub in that hood.  I really like their string cheese.

    When we visited Armenia (random as hell, long story), my daughter ended up talking to a gal at a park, trying to use the little bit of Armenian she had just learned.  The girl explained that she lived some of the time in Armenia, but most of the time in the US, where she was born.  My daughter said "I bet I can tell you where you were born."  "Ok, guess."  "Glendale."  "How'd you know that?"  "Ummm, aren't pretty much all Armenians in the US in Glendale?"  Gal says "yeah...I guess you're right."

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  17. 44 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

    My plan is to vote in the Republican primary for reasons discussed by YGifs. What I'm wondering is if I'm going to actually go through with it because it presupposes that there will be a choice between a moderate candidate and a far-right candidate. It's much more likely to be far-right versus farther right. 

    For example, if it was Abbott versus Huffines in a primary, I wouldn't vote for either of those guys.

    DING DING DING.  There aren't any "good" Republicans on any Texas primary ballots any longer.  Don't get me wrong, there are Republicans who I am rooting for in the current GQP Civil War (doesn't matter, they don't have a chance, team "crazy MAGA" will win)....but I don't actually like them, and don't want to vote for any of them.  I refuse to be an accomplice in the ass-fucking of Texas, and selecting the 10-inch rape stick instead of the 3-foot rape stick is doing just that.  My selection is "fuck you, stop ass-fucking Texas."

    34 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

    What if we're Stalinists?

    I'm not European. I don't plan on being European, so who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists - that still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car.

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  18. 1 hour ago, Red Five said:

    "Reports of people being injured from the vaccine."

    I read some reports of millions dying from Covid. And how a million plus more would have died without vaccines. But hey....

    These people are as if there was some type of moron called an "anti-seatbelter" (I actually knew a couple of such morons back in the day, when seatbelt laws were being passed).  "Seatbelts actually kill people!  My uncle's best friend died when his car went off a bridge and fell into the Dingleberry River, and he drowned because he was trapped inside!  Everyone knows that you're actually safer if you're thrown clear of a wreck anyway.  I read a story about a gal who burned to death because she was belted in and her car caught on fire!  No way you'll find me putting on one of those Death Cinches!"

    The problem being that YES, you can find a negative outcome anecdote for, well, pretty much EVERYTHING.  So, YES....someone has surely died BECAUSE they had a belt on.  And YES, someone has surely died from pretty much EVERY medical treatment (you can die from a damned aspirin).  But they refuse to accept the other side of the ledger: for every one person harmed by a seatbelt, 100 are saved from death or serious injury.  Mathematically, you are much better off wearing a seatbelt than not.

    Same with the COVID vaccine.  A novel virus is now killing at a much lower rate because the entire population is now positive for antibodies (through either vaccination or infection).  The vaccine unquestionably saved lives in the near term.  And I'm positive that many people have had a negative reaction to it, some serious.  But...MATH.  These positions are for people who are really, really, really bad at math.

    Shocks me not that Travis Tritt is one of them.

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  19. 1 minute ago, YGIFS said:

    It's curious that 35% of the nation's voting population is socially conservative, fiscally liberal...but less than 5% of them self-identify as that.  

    It's also curious that we live in an open-primary state where a couple hundred thousand Democrats could easily pull GOP ballots to vote for the lesser of two insane primary candidates, and still vote straight ticket Democrat (and even if the GOP candidate wins, at least it'd be the non-batshit MAGA asshat), and completely change the political landscape in Texas forever.  But they choose to Rock the Vote or Turn out the Blue or whatever childish effort y'all have up your sleeves in the 2024/26 cycle.  Not saying it's your responsibility to rescue the Republican Party from itself, but a few hundred thousand of you could easily save the Republic of Texas if you could manage the Herculean effort of grabbing a different colored piece of paper in March.  I know, I know...you gotta weigh in on that congressional race that your side has zero fucking chance of winning in a general.  So keep at it.  Maybe get some block-walking in while you're at it.  Really shake things up.  Keep the stupids at home by defeating them before their candidate of choice makes it out of a primary.  Our system is just sitting there waiting to be exploited.  But yeah, some bumper stickers and a free concert should do it.

    Depends.

    Who's playing at the concert?

    Because if it's that Susanna Hoffs - Belinda Carlisle - Sheena Easton combo gig I've been pulling for.....IN.

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  20. 35 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

    Ugh, as a Palmetto State Armory customer, I'm aware of their politics and don't really mind them but hosting somebody under felony indictment really seems gross. 

    Also check out Jamin McCallum's super terrible gun safety and handling on display in this video. @Brisketexan what would your father done if he had seen you do this? I know what mine would have done. 

     

    Sigh.  You mean the pointing of the gun at.....everyone on the left side of that room?  Sure, my dad would be livid.

    But, when you realize that none of that matters, because "guns" are no longer "dangerous firearms, to be treated with appropriate caution, safety, and respect for their lethality," and are instead now talismans of a psychotic cult that waves them around as a symbol of the wielder's power and willingness to hurt people, that conduct makes perfect sense.

    Guns are not tools that are treated with the proper respect.  They are symbols flaunted by a cult.

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