Jump to content

phdhorn

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    6434
  • Joined

Everything posted by phdhorn

  1. That's not the only thing on Elsa that's ridiculously deep.
  2. Wife and I pretty much said this as, but it's like as much a startling revelation as the sun coming up. I'll lay off my piling on of criticism (though it deserves it) to just say the last episode was Dancing With Wolves - The Chick Remake. I mean even to the point where ol' Gigalo Sam was yelling on his horse as he was riding away about Yellow Hair being his wife and he loves her blah blah, right down to the almost exact same music. Hope Costner got some royalties from that scene. Otherwise the series continues to decline. All wife could muster after the last one was, "Well, the scenery's still pretty." Agreed. I now have it on in the background as I'm doing stuff on the computer, phone, etc. Retitile it to "Shit on a Stick - 1883." Coulda would shoulda up the wazoo - this thing started out great and has lapsed into dogshit. But hey, pretty cinematography!
  3. No prob. Don't want to give the impression though that you shouldn't keep hunting/surfing now... you might find dealers wanting to give away older tech cars, even if new, anticipating the uptick in inventory with newer chips, etc. At worst, you'll get so ingrained into the market and prices that you'll have a good command over pulling the trigger when it's time. You might even drop a line or two via email to dealers asking about a particular car and see their response (right now I doubt that they'd pester you for a sale, being a total seller's market). Good luck!
  4. Sales guy when you say you'll give him $500 over invoice but that's it: Put directly, this is one of the worst times probably in history to buy a car. People are paying on average $1,200 over invoice and that's for cheaper cars. More expensive ones are $5,000 sometimes. And that doesn't even include the suckers who pay $10,000 over invoice. If you can wait maybe till summer or after the market might normalize as chip shortages catch up. If not, at least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your gross overpayment was not out of your ignorance but out of the market conditions. From Kelley Blue Book: https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/buy-car-chip-shortage/ The only silver lining is that if your used car is in good shape they might give you a lot more for it, but trade-ins are always negotiated elements to help the sale, not really in exchange of your car's real value.
  5. Putin's waiting for Valentine's Day to be over to attack because he's really a romantic at heart.
  6. My vote El Dorado. Campier, better tongue-in-cheek humor, two hot chicks (not just one) at the same time - Michelle Carey and Charlene Holt. Every performance a winner. Rio Bravo insists on itself too much. Plus Duke has 10 more years, looks more grizzled and true to character. Mitchum? Anything with Duke and Mitchum = awesome.
  7. True, but Ukraine's corruption goes back to the early 90's, well before Manafort got on. The train to the dump was already chugging and he stepped on. But he's like .01% of Ukraine's blame problems - just like Lil' Joe took advantage of the corruption there in more recent years.
  8. Oh, and today I read that now 20 naval war vessels, not just 6, are in the Black Sea. Probably just drag racing each other for fun. Yeah, that's it.
  9. Re: Ray's post tl;didread: Ukraine is a shitshow. No film at 11 because it's obvious. Ray knows his stuff, no doubt, but this is pretty much what I've always said after 2014 when I got interested in this and started reading about it. Ukraine has adopted more poorly to post-1989 freedom than any of the major former SSR's (or pseudo-SSR's) that I've read. I'd like to find out more about why they have so badly screwed themselves - perhaps it's the oligarchical culture as Ray defines, perhaps it's such a mixed bag of identities that there is no real self-identity, or perhaps they just don't know how to do democratic elections, the "Russian system" being burned into their culture, I don't know. But it seems that the Poroshenko's and the Zelensky's (Kuchma was a crook in the 90's, and of course the Yushchenko affair, followed by the Yanukovych presidency, which mysteriously flip-flopped more to the Russian side of things, which of course was right after Tymoshenko's Prime Ministership (and subsequent conviction of fraud and corruption, with a 7-year jail sentence, 3 years served). I mean, this government history makes Xi Jiping and the Chicom Boys look like amateurs in comparison!). The Ukraine situation existed long before Manafort or 2014; it had been bad (though not as much so) through the 1990's and into the 2000's. They just either suck, are corrupt, or can't get out of their own way. Ray or 956, do you think Germany is hedging so much not only because of the gas issues, but because Ukraine is such a stinking mess, and has been?
  10. My wife went today and they were out of several things that they normally aren't. Additionally, in my own shopping in the last 2-3 weeks, there has been at least 2-3 that I've come back missing three or four things myself. They are NOT pulling through and we're NOT alright!!!!!
  11. Yes. Called for. Flip flop from last week. Then, the air aloft was warm but the air at the surface was cold so we got freezing rain. Now, air aloft is cold but air at the surface is warm so it's just harmless sleet. Nothing is going to freeze. Don'worrybouddit.
  12. Maybe Ukraine's strategy is that Russia comes in so fast from the south, east, and north that they overrun and wipe out each other and Ukraine emerges victorious. The only other thing I know is that I have a boat and bike trip scheduled through a few Danube countries this summer and if Russia makes that difficult for me I'll personally go over to Moscow and kick Putin's ass. Book it.
  13. I hope tunes can be found for 153 guitars, a drummer, bassist, and keys player.
  14. This here is what I've been paying attention to, and reading about, this week never mind the Ukranian stuff. From what I can gather, Beijing still wants to pursue the "frog in a pot" strategy - that is through a series of economic and non-combative military pressures, they'd prefer to piece by piece squeeze Taiwan until they simply acquiesce quietly. However, not sure that strategy is as front-burner with the troubles in Hong Kong illustrating that strategy's problem. Most of the intelligence indicators appear to say that despite this "golden opportunity" for Xi with the "distraction" of Russia for the West, various factors don't make this a good bet and that Beijing is in no hurry to prosecute a war. Plus Taiwan has a much more formidable and technically-savvy military, especially a highly-trained and crack Air Force, so it would be a lot more difficult to achieve some sort of clear victory. I have reasonable faith that it's just not a good idea and Xi/company know it. Still, with the recent alliances between China and Russia, especially the 30-year gas deal and new Russo-Chinese pipeline, clearly bolster the ties between the two, and as long as their mutual interests don't conflict (and right now they don't), it's a worrisome alliance.
  15. Well, only Dante's 4th Level of Hell dive, coulda been worse. Wow that's not much consolation.
  16. China: "Oops, we dropped 200 megatons of bombs on Taiwan when we met to go to Laos. Our bad! But those Magellan GPS devices aren't what they used to be, so it's not just our fault!"
  17. With all the naval traffic in the Black Sea now, I don't think this is going to be a waltz over the border and back. I think it's going to be a complete takeover of the country. At least that's what my Magic 8 Ball told me just now. Meanwhile, when that happens I'm keeping an eye on China because something feels a little uneasy about that, too.
  18. Trying to make a valiant come back now to only have a fairly shitty day instead of a completely shitty one. Or could dead cat back into the depths of Hades.
  19. Makes perfect sense. Russia is about to invade Ukraine, and Putin didn't want to catch Macron's "French surrender at all costs" germ.
  20. Well, there's the last weapon left - but of course no one wants to ever resort to using it - it's just too terrible to even think about. Time to put ROC on Double-SECRET probation!
  21. This section of the thread need pictures. Yes, sure, who wouldn't?
×
×
  • Create New...