“We can sort of win the battle, but we’re going to lose the war. Because in the long run, they’re still going to be able to do what they want to do, which is arrest people and hold them for long periods of time,”
You know, because fascism. Warrantless searches, denial of the right to trial, deporting random brown people to random countries just to appease the cruelest intentions of their cult leader.
Jesus fucking christ go vote.
Have a friend, and we have a complicated relationship. Making friends as an adult is hard, but then life shit happens and even the friends you do end up making can be assholes.
I had just gotten out of a divorce, and wanted to throw a big halloween costume party. Told everyone months beforehand, with plenty of reminders and groupchats, spent over $1000 on decorations, couple hundred on snacks, alcohol, weed I’d have stocked. It was going to be a rager. Well, a bunch of people cancel, because my house is like a 40 min drive, but my best friend at the time, he was, for some reason, not giving me a definite answer. Like, I figure even if nobody else shows up, my buddy and I could still hang. But come the day of the party, he tells me he’s not coming, and it’s just so he can maybe find something better to do closer. And I’m just… So upset. Cancel the whole party via an on-line thing, and just sit there feeling fucking awful.
Shit messed me up so bad, it’s like 5 years later, and some of the decorations I put up for that party are still up. I obviously haven’t even tried to host anything since.
anyway. like, a couple months after that fiasco, my buddies brand new girlfriend texts me, asking me to come to his birthday party. She was putting a bunch of work into it, making it a scavenger hunt thing for him and his friends. I told her immediately, “nope!” Not coming. She asked once or twice more and got the same answer.
But in the end, I was still nicer, because at least I gave a clear answer right away.
Dang, I want to upgrade my TV for christmas, and was thinking of a nice 65" OLED Samsung, as the “hospitality” TVs of the same size with OLED are like twice the price. I don’t have open WIFI, I use a computer and just the TV as a display, I thought I’d be OK. But I have a soundbar as well, so it’ll be listening to me regardless? Jesus fucking christ. The future we’ve built is terrible.
No, I mean, the “radio announcer” and thus the “news reporter” voice was modeled after the Ohio accent, because it was seen as a non-accent. You’re right that we have one, it’s just so incredibly bland, that it comes across as not one at all.
Here’s an article that goes into further detail
Vizetelly, who established a school for announcers at CBS, was concerned with maintaining the “purity” of American English. In his mind, the Midwest was the place to be—and Ohio in particular.
Vizetelly and other educators felt that broadcasters could evoke trustworthiness and objectivity by imitating the speech of the “heartland.” Eventually, when radio announcers and TV journalists began sounding like they were from the Midwest, the “broadcaster’s dialect” became understood as normal.
well, I mean, it’s a lack of any specific American accent. They don’t sound like they’re from the Appalachia, West/East coast, or Boston, or the south etc. etc. A lot of American television news reporters came from Columbus, Ohio back-in-the-day because we just don’t have a regional dialect.
I mean if I had a magic gun that, when fired, put a bullet into the brain of every trump supporter, I’d empty the clip.
So… yeah, I’d use the death note.
plus on billionaires. hoarding ill-gotten capital while buying politicians to ensure you remain at the top is violence. Dismantling institutions for the poor, crafting an america with income inequality at it’s worse since the great depression, 70,000 americans die every year due to lack of access to health care. That is violence, perpetrated against us all, by republicans, and by corporate capitalists. They let you rot and melingure in poverty, dying in shame for having nothing, that’s akin to torture. A swift death via death note is almost too kind for them.
The “News Reporter Voice” is actually an Ohio accent. Or rather, the distinct lack of an accent. Add in proper enunciation while projecting calm authority, and BAM! that Ohio non-accent turns into the News Reporter Voice.
hanging chads… shudder
that looks like a great movie, but mine was in Black and White… god it really is seared into my brain
Yeah, I thought I had a good relationship with my landlord, because I’m a great tenant that fixes all my own shit and never bothers them for anything. During the height of COVID, I lost my business, and I asked him if he had any spare work I could do to try to earn some money (didn’t even ask for leniency on rent!) and he never even replied to me.
I was like, “OK, I’m gonna have you fix all the shit now, I’m no longer doin’ squat.”
found the landlord!
There’s three of them that did it for me.
Chucky. Cuz duh, my dad let me watch it when I was far too young, and I had nightmares for weeks.
Return to Oz. The Wizard of Oz sequel that featured a desolate Oz filled with nightmare creatures, and a witch that stole your fucking face.
Some random movie that my older brother and his friends were watching. I came in just in time to see a scene, depicting a female led band on an outdoor stage. A man was brutally beaten in the audience, and the crowd set him on fire. He was desperately rolling around, trying to extinguish the flames, and almost did it, but then the woman lead singer of the band took a swig from a liquor bottle, and spit it out on him. The flames engulfed him, and now he lay motionless. The fear I felt was half from the agony of someone burning alive, and half from the wretched cruelty of the crowd and the lead singer. The mob mentality where nobody helped him, and not just didn’t help him, but made it worse. Fucking horrifying. My first glance into the mind of psychopathy.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, VOTE!!
These polls are meaningless, please, for the love of god, fucking VOTE
If they were better people, they would. Just another example of how slumlords are terrible people. Rich enough to own multiple houses yet can’t share a sliver of wealth during the one time of year it’s needed most? bah! humbug!
Yeah I’ve never heard of it either, I guess I just kinda assumed a landlord with a great tenant would show their appreciation in some way, and the best way I could think of, is like a “half-off rent for Christmas” sort of thing.
Anyway, if I ever become a landlord, that’s what I’m doing.
When asked whether the investigation was political payback, Blanche said: “We don’t do political paybacks,” and claimed the probe had begun years before Trump reentered office. The attorney general couldn’t offer a good explanation, however, for why he and the FBI director had bothered to give an official press conference for charges related to a declassified drug.
Can’t imagine why they’d made a big spectacle out of laying blame to a black woman democrat right before an election. It’s just such a big fucking mystery 🤔
I’ve often thought of, instead of buying my first home, to wait, save, and buy one of those homes that’s been split up into two nice apartments? Then live in one, while renting out the other. I don’t think I’d want to do Air BnB though… Rather just find a nice tenant that won’t eff the place up, be the landlord I always wanted (free rent for December plus they get all the extra sweets I bake).
I was actually surprised, all the places I’ve rented, none gave discount during December. I figured it would be a thing people did, like Christmas bonuses at work.
The only time I ever had an Air BnB host try to make me do laundry and shit, it was a Realtor friend I knew, and she let my (ex)wife and I visit the house for a few days. She didn’t give us a discount or anything, but it was in-line with how much the other beach houses were renting for.
Anyway, she had this whole list of tasks we had to do before we left, and it was like do laundry, the dishes, change the sheets on the bed, vacuum, among other things… Yeah I’m a clean person, I always get back the full deposit on any rental I’ve ever had. I just did my usual of washing the dishes I used (I do that immediately after using them anyway) and tidying up anything we moved, and that was it. I remember her being upset we didn’t do all the chores and there was (gasp!) some sand from the beach on the floor of the beach house… I was just like… I don’t care.
Never had another Air BnB even ask. nothing but good reviews.
My problem is that I want kids.
Except, I know it’s stupid. The insurmountable student loan debt that’s currently a yoke around my neck is half of what it would cost to raise my ideal two children to just 18 years old. Climate change is going to destroy our way of life in the next 30 years, I’d be bringing them into a world on the brink of collapse. Society will break down when famine/disease start going unchecked, this is what I want them to experience? All so, what? I can have a little buddy that looks up to me and thinks I’m great for a few years? All so I can get my little kodak moments in between miserable days filled with screaming, crying, no sleep, stress, financial hardship, troubled marriage, and no sex?
And here I am, suffering from major chronic depression/anxiety… Would I even be a good steward of these children? I know I’d like to think of myself as just a baby away from switching into “Dad mode,” but would it be enough? Would I be waking up early to get my kids breakfast and lunch together, or would I fall deep into depression and get up at 2PM like I’ve been doing? Will I even have the energy enough to play with my kids after work? What about building that tree-house, and doing school projects? What about after-school sports and parties and everything else? I am barely holding myself together, am I really going to be able to switch my whole personality like a light switch into becoming the kind of Dad these kids would need?
I would be trapping myself into a job I hate forever, just to have these children, which would also make retirement a fever dream.
So why the hell do I still want them? I just wish my head and my heart could be on the same page for this, and they are just not.
A lot of people who are super self-reliant grew up in households where their needs weren’t met, so they learned from a very young age that anything that they wanted they had to do themselves. It’s usually a trauma response.