I buy gift cards for the discounts. Usually you can get a gift card from anywhere between 3% and 20% off. Over the last 5 years, this has saved me $1000s on house renovations alone.

What a lifetime this man has experienced.

Coincidentally, this very week, I accidentally texted my neighbor a vulgar comment about TSA patting down my balls that was meant for the Mrs.

Unsend did not work 🙄😙🤮

I got a little taste of what Truman must’ve felt like when he realized everyone got to watch his awkward years.

New for Sid Meier AI Incarnate’s Civilization 24: Play as infamous 7-time (and counting) President Donald Trump!

Personality: Aggression Score: Varies per round +30 diplomacy points to players following the government: autocracy, monarchy, fascism, corporate kleptocracy +30 points to players following the government: theocracy and the same religion -30 diplomacy to players with settlements within 6 tiles of him -30 to players following the government: Philosophy, Freedom, Digital Democracy +30 points to war mongers and players who have killed other players -20 points if the player total score is less than 40% his score +20 for gifts of gold per turn that are at least 10% of his current gold per turn +10 points for military parades -100 points for denouncements but +120 points if player attempts to declare friendship after denouncement ends

Theme: Make America Great Again! and Again. and Again… and Again… +10 Religion points per city -10 Happiness to cities with population > 5 -8 Science +4 Food to all cities with <5 population that are not within 6 tiles of another player’s borders +1 Gold per city but -3 Gold to cities that are within 6 tiles of another player’s borders

Apostles automatically gain the “fervent believer” trait +4 religion points -1 science points +1 climate damage +5 health for each opponent unit defeated within 1 tile Can convert into a militia or engineer unit for 10 turns

Unique Wonder: Southern White House +75 gold for each player spy or diplomat that occupies this wonder; player’s spy/diplomat gains two levels of insight and spies operate at +5 in the city that contains this wonder Must be built near a lake and ocean tile

Unique Building: Golf Course +1 Happiness but only for 1 of every 10 city population (min = 1) +1 Culture points +3 Religion points +1 climate damage Must be built on: marsh, rainforest, beach, archaeological site, natural wonder or national park

Unique Building: Frac Well (Replaces Windmill) +4 Production +5 Gold +10 climate damage +3 Energy -3 Appeal Can only be built by engineers Can be built on opponents territory, when constructed in this manner -4 happiness to the player where this building resides

Unique Victory Condition: Art of the Steal Can only be won if 3 players or more exist All players are under the following governments: corporate kleptocracy, fascism, anarchy

Unable to win the following victory conditions:

• Diplomacy
• Science
• Culture
• Religious

Well, considering I live in a mountain community that celebrates those activities, I will! Thanks!

Well I don’t live in NJ/NY so I’d map it out.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/vr7jaMhtuywupgAP8?g_st=i

Funnyish story though, this no bikes thing has happened to me thrice on my bicycle adventures.

• In Norfolk, VA I went straight instead of making a right and promptly landed on 64, with no way to go backwards, I hopped a fence and landed in an industrial park with a decent coffee shop, remapped my route and then gave it another go.
• In trying to flee hurricane Irene on a particularly long road trip, I ended up having to cross the St John’s river bridge because the ferries by that time of night were closed and I had to get into Newport News to stay at my friend’s for the night. It was a shitty situation all around. I feel it was the closest to death I have ever been in my life and I have had a few doozies. I do not recommend ever ever doing this and will never do it again, ever.
• Recently from El Escorial to Madrid with limited cell service, I landed myself on M-503 for a stretch. While this kind of road with broad shoulders in the US permits bikes, they do not in Spain. I was able to pull off onto a finca road and then eventually a greenway, but not before crossing a beautiful large rust colored bridge (with a decent shoulder).

I’ve been long distance biking for 20 years now and have had some excellent adventures, so fortunately these kind of wrong turn experiences have been few and far between.

There is a really great documentary on PBS right now about a group of kids who crossed the entire US on bike for charity in the early 80s, I highly recommend it. https://www.pbs.org/video/once-in-a-lifetime-qtroq8/

That I’m actually for, let the people who use these roads pay for them. All the while, I’ll be laughing at them as I bike on through.

It’s an MMORPG, we’re all the main characters.

Life will uh find a way.

• Metal band
• Trouble with the law
• Pro Wrestler
• pornstar
• lung cancer

Dude burned bright.

Diamond Dust’s real life is much more interesting.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’d prefer not to win a Darwin Award.

I’m more a visual person, so let me show you some graphs: Famine rates are down: https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Famine-death-rate-since-1860s-revised_850.png

We can do so much more with our computing resources - Note, logarithmic scale: https://www.singularity.com/images/charts/MicroprocessorClockSpeed.jpg

Poverty is down: https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2545610/Screen_Shot_2014-12-12_at_10.34.38_AM.0.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100

Billions of people live in a democracy, before 1850 almost none did: https://bigthink.com/the-present/democratic-rights/

Have y’all seen the pictures of chimney rock?

No thanks, I’ll take it without the butter.

Lime? Don’t see a lot of lime candy all by themselves.

Butter too. So many candies include butter, but it’s rarely hyped as the star flavor.

Big kid punches little kid “Stop” says little kid

Big kid punches other little kid “Stop” says other little kid

Big kid punches first little kid again and takes his lunch money “Stop” says little kids

Bunch of little kids band together “If you punch again we’re going to punch you back” (raises fists in intimidating stance)

Big kid grumbles and talks about running over all the little kids with his car…

——

NATO isn’t stupid. As a whole, they don’t want to invade Russia. They are there to deter future territorial land grabs and they want to maintain the status quo as it’s good for trade. Quality of life is pretty good or getting better on this side of the fence.

I get it, a whole bunch of kids around your house can be intimidating. They have access to the neighborhood road (Polish corridor). Your little brother started thinking they were cool.

The way this could have and should have gone about is more trade, more connectivity, more upward mobility. But your ruling class got all weird about that, can’t be having western ideals infect the population, they were losing power. And so Russia went the xenophobic path and now we are here.

All the rhetoric. All the hype. All the saber rattling. It’s a form of control, to keep the Russian population in support of this war. To keep them scared so that Putin and his ilk stay in power. It’s a very myopic way of seeing the world.

They’ve rattled so hard that walking away isn’t an option anymore. Too much treasure and blood lost. It would shake Russia to its core. The Russian Vietnam as it were, right on your doorstep.

I don’t know what the end game is here. NATO is not going to capitulate. Russian leadership are backing themselves into a corner.

Is this a yearly average? I don’t think we’re closer to nuclear war than we were during the Cuban missile crisis.

I mean if the Russian leadership wants to die over a piece of land (because they don’t already have enough?), then sure by all means.

Get a Dietician and physical trainer. Use this opportunity to get yourself into healthy shape and never look back. I did something years ago and had no clue just how bad I was actually feeling before the improvement. Both physically and mentally. We are not designed to sit at desks all day.

Do your feet crack sometimes? Consider testing for athletes foot.

Blood, STD and Cancer screenings, as many as they’ll give you. Hell, depending how old you are, maybe a colonoscopy.

Sleep study. MRI, ECG, EKG. Allergy test. Dermatology/mole screening.

IQ test, find out your best skills and then learn how to use them to your advantage.

DNA testing, if you really want to know some things you may be perceptive to…though personally i don’t know if I would want to know if Huntingtons is in my future.

And I replied to you, specifically, regarding sports not being a hack on our emotions.

I suppose this begs the question, do you burn couches when a movie takes an emotional turn?

I have no contribution to why certain people do so around sports, other than to say 20% of the population also believes that the earth is flat, that is to say, they’re morons.