Ghost of LL

No--fuck that. It's not the minority party's job to help the majority party govern. Johnson is a perfect speaker for the Democrats to campaign against. He's heinous and despicable, but he's also incompetent. Apart from somehow getting Hakeem Jeffries as speaker, Johnson is the best the Democrats can do.

I'm sorry--are you under the impression that I'm in the fucking dugout? There was never anything any of us could do about it. But we can still talk about the umpires fucking up an obvious fucking call for five minutes.

That is exactly why the rule exists. Goddamn MLB has had some shitty umpiring to start the season.

The fucking umpire signaled infield fly. And why wouldn't you? Because it's a fucking infield fly.

I'm watching without volume, but what the fuck was that?

How is that not an infield fly?

A couple hundred thousand ballistic missiles and drones.

Imagine—a place so bad the people in Westlake look over and say “they’re a bunch of assholes out there.”

Another dark-haired gay man from out of town? I mean, not that there’s a pattern or anything.

Yeah, I almost made the same joke. But then I actually watched the ad. And yeah--I'm not cracking any joke about that. I mean, Jesus--that punchline.

Well, it's almost playoff time., so that checks out.

I think he's suggesting that we're on track to get four rate cuts before November, which would be fan-fucking-tastic.

On the upside, he rarely shows up for oral arguments, and SCOTX decisions frequently have the notation "Devine, J., did not participate in the decision."

Well, I know that I'm known for my controversial positions around here. So what's the harm in throwing down another hot take?

I'd fuck her, not gonna lie.

I will never understand this presumption that men have that women should be expected to behave "well" to other women. Men can be assholes to other men; why should we not expect the same of women? And don't underestimate the role of the general human presumption that "what's worked for me must be what's good for you." We see it in everything from the trivial (I had a good meal at this restaurant, so you definitely need to go there) to the meaningful (I breastfed, therefore you should breastfeed). At its root, it reflects a basic lack of empathy and appreciation for the fact that people facing different circumstances may have different needs. And it's just a weird thing that we expect women to have more empathy than we expect from men. TL;DR: Both men and women suck.

That's all correct, and thank you for clarifying. There are some differences on the vehicles that may be worth pointing out, though much of the variation is between parks and not between operators. In the Maasai Mara (Kenya), the vehicles are all open sided. In the Serengeti (Tanzania), there weren't any open-sided vehicles that I saw. They are all Toyota Land Cruisers that have been modified with a pop-top that allows you to stand up and photograph. Now, among the operators, there are some differences among the vehicles. The Four Seasons operates its own vehicles that are kitted out with refrigerators and charging stations. I mean, not that you have a good cell signal. But it's nice to be able to charge your phone for the camera functionality. And having a refrigerator in the truck is obviously a nice thing. But your underlying point is right--the Four Seasons truck is going to be right next to any other operator looking at the same leopard. That is a really great shot of the cheetah. We didn't get to see one of those. But we did see a rhino in the Maasai Mara. And then when we went down to Victoria Falls, there is a small preserve along the Zambezi with a small herd of rhinos. And that's wild. Those rhinos are guarded 24/7 by armed rangers. I mean--those rangers are standing right there with AK-47s within thirty yards of the rhinos. And the rhinos are just chilling. It's the only place along any game drive where we got out of the truck to view an animal. The rangers don't let the vehicles get very close to the rhinos, so you get out and walk up to them. And you can get . . . well, probably a lot closer than you really should get to something as big and heavily armored as a rhino. That was pretty damned cool.

Two caveats with that: 1) If you see the Great Migration crossing the Mara River, then you're going to have a line of vehicles. That is the prime wildlife spectacle in all of Africa--seeing the wildebeest trying to get across that river and dodging the dozens of crocodiles. But when we went (June) the Great Migration was still down in the Serengeti. So up at the Maasai Mara, things were still a little low-key. The most vehicles we saw grouped around one thing was when we spotted a leopard. Leopards are fucking hard to spot. So when you spy one in a tree, you're going to have some vehicular traffic around it. But even then, there were only four trucks (including our own) around the tree with the leopard in it. Alarmingly, there was also a leopard in the tall grass on the ground that we never fucking saw. That was unnerving. 2) The situation you describe with hiring drivers and lodges separately is consistent with your mid-range lodges. But for your high-end lodges like @millhouse is talking about (e.g., the Angama properties), the driver is directly employed by the lodge and is assigned to you when you arrive. The game drives are all included in the price at the Angama properties (and other high-end lodges), and the drivers will just take you out whenever you want to go. So that's a bit of a different experience than what you're describing. And if you want to go that high-end route, you can cut out the travel agent entirely. Because Angama will arrange all of your internal flights and everything if you want them to.

No shit. If you grew up in central Dallas in the early 90s as I did, this freeway is luxurious. I'm not going to hear any complaints about that road from someone who didn't have to go 0 to 70 in the span of 70 yards, close your eyes, and pray there wasn't someone in the right lane preventing you from merging in before the entrance lane ended in a concrete barrier. It was like automotive Russian roulette. That was livin', my friends.

Hopefully more like two.

That was Mrs.LL's complaint. She wanted more busting for her Ghostbusters dollar. I disagree. I was in it for the nostalgia. The merchandising call-back was fantastic. And then you had Ackroyd and Murray basically loving every minute they were on camera. That was great fun. Throw in the Ghostbusters Labs, Inc., and I was down with all the shit leading up to the (admittedly very short) climactic battle.

I have a similar deal this Summer. The boy has a weeklong program at BU, so I need to fly up to pick him up on Saturday. They get released around 1:00. My current plan is to have him Uber over to the hotel. I just got a room at the Hilton at Logan, because we have an early flight Sunday morning. And then the Red Sox have a 4:00 game. Then go over to Legal's for dinner. I know. It's a chain. But I've always had good experiences there. And I can get a lobster and the boy can get a steak--the variety of the menu is a bit of a selling point. @Captain Ron--I'm definitely open to suggestions (particularly on the restaurant point). And any updates for 2024 are greatly appreciated.

I just saw a still of that dashcam video on Twitter without looking at the headline or anything. And it's absolutely amazing to me how I could tell in an instant that the wreck was on North Central Expressway. Seriously--is there any more distinctive highway in America (speaking here of the highway itself and not any surrounding buildings/landmarks)?

The boy was 13 and the girl was 11. The sweet spot would be to go when the oldest is 12. That's when there are a lot of cut-offs on price. Kids 12 and under stay at a reduced rate at a lot of the lodges.

I cannot recommend Angama Mara highly enough. We were there for five days, at the end of which Mrs.LL and LLDaughter both cried when we had to leave. The location is amazing, but the staff are really unparalleled. You can see from the website that the location is up on the top of the 1,000-foot bluff overlooking the Mara game preserve. The pictures on the website don't oversell it. If anything, they undersell it. From both your tent (which really is only technically a tent because it has canvas walls, but it feels like a room) and from the common areas, you can look down through binoculars and see all of the animals down on the floor of the valley. It takes about 40 minutes to drive from the Lodge down to the floor of the valley, during which you'll see plenty of zebras and baboons and, as you get close to the valley floor, a bunch of giraffes. And once you're down there, you'll see everything from hippos to lions to leopards to buffalo. At that time of year, you may be there for the tail end of the great migration crossing the Mara River (we caught it in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania). I can't really describe the sheer number of wildebeest. And if you can catch them crossing that river, which is crocodile infested--I can't imagine how cool that would be. But really, what made the Angama Mara special was the service and people. As soon as you arrive, they assign you a driver, a butler, and a room attendant. All three were just fascinating people and took good care of us. The second day, LLDaughter got sick--a combination of fatigue from the flight and the high altitude (the Maasai Mara is at 6,000 feet and the Lodge is 1,000 feet above that). So she and Mrs.LL stayed in the room that day and just watched the animals through binoculars. Except for the baboons who ran across the balcony deck periodically--they got an up-close view of those fuckers. Anyway, they didn't go to breakfast. When LLDaughter fell asleep for a nap, Mrs.LL went out of the tent to walk to the common tent to grab some lunch, and there was our room attendant just sitting on a bench outside with a menu. No telling how long he had been waiting. He just decided that they might get hungry at some point and he wanted to be available. All this is going to cost you. Plan on $1,000 per person per day. Now, that does include all your food, drink, and wildlife fun. And you can get plenty of drinks--they'll email you ahead of time to ask what booze you would like in the room and what drinks you want in the minifridge. But still . . . that's pricey. Gratuities are not included. We flew Qatar business class in the QSuites. I can't recommend that more. And the fare for Qatar in QSuites was the same as BA wanted for Economy. So that was a no-brainier.