oblong

In the mid 90's you could find them here for $2 at a smoke shop, $2.50 to $3 elsewhere. I used to deliver pizzas and had a few customers that would ask me to get some for them, I'd tell them $4 as we had a shop in our strip mall. I made $2 from that plus any pizza tip.

I like listening to people in the gas station bitch about the prices of gas while they are also buying a bunch of lottery scratch offs, red bulls, and smokes.

I went to a season ticketholder event a few weeks ago at the soundboard venue at Motor City Casino. 1000 people were there. Just from casually listening to others there's still a lot of people who don't get it. Some bitch that he wears a hoodie.

At the beginning of the clip Jost throws out a jab saying "Biden was horrified it was being swarmed by criminals and rapists",

Our first house in late 1997 was 7.5. It wasn't a large loan and obviously being young we always talked about moving into a bigger home, so we never refinanced as rates dropped into the 4s and 5s. The cost of a refi and the difference in monthly payment just wasn't worth it to me as I kept thinking we might move. Then the crash happened about 10 years later and we were underwater. 15 years later when we finally moved the new mortgage guy gave me crap because of my old rate and it bothered me. I still think I made the right decision. Why incur a few thousand in costs to save $75 a month if I think I'm going to be moving within a few years?

Bingo. Shrinkflation is real. The companies are taking the "inflation" issue and simply taking advantage of it. This whole idea of competition being a winner for the consumer is hogwash. For mortage rates... maybe it's because I'm related to a realtor who lives this stuff, but I blame social media in a way. I think everybody knows 6 people who do real estate. We are bombarded with ads to refinance, cash out, etc. I can't even pay my freaking mortage without first navigating things telling me how much equity I have, etc. Yes it sucks for people who bought on a low rate and now can't move because they are higher... but what are we supposed to do?

Because the prices are prominently displayed on every corner. It's like the weather, it's casual conversation pieces with strangers as you pass them by in the store.

I can't edit my comment for some reason but I wanted to add that it's interesting Stu Roosa died so young, relatively speaking. He's rare among that era of astronauts to not live a long life, other than those who died from accidents, like Apollo 1 fire, and plane crashes/car accidents. When Alan Shepard got command of an Apollo mission after being denied flying privileges for ear issues, it was a unique situation because usually a crew is based on being a backup crew on a prior mission. Shepard asked for the 2 smartest guys in the program. It was a wise choice as he was busy being a manager for 6 years and despite his legend had only 15 minutes of space flight, so it was 3 rookies going up after the near tragedy of Apollo 13. Any problems on 14 would have halted the lunar missiions immediately and those Saturn V rockets would have been put to other uses.

and getting that from the manager tells me that he and Scott Harris, and Greenberg, feel like a team and have long term plans to work together.

and to show the difference between the two candidates.... Biden didn't have a press conference blaming the Fed and experts for "wanting to hurt him"

You can thank Stu Roosa. He used to fight forest fires as a smokejumper (Yes, they jump into it) and later became a test pilot and was selected by NASA. He was the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 14. That position stayed in the command module circling the moon while the other two lucky bastards got to go land and walk on the moon. That position has the morbid responsibility of having to fly back to Earth alone in case of any tragedies. Anyway, because of his work with the forestry he took up the seeds as part of his personal kit, it wasn't a NASA program or experiment but something he did on his own. If not for the Nixon budget cuts to the program he probably would have commanded an Apollo 20 mission and been the last man to walk on the moon for now. I took this photo of his grave at Arlington in 2009.

people's perception of the "economy" will be based on gas prices, interest rates, and the stock market.

People that act like uneven weather is something new, or a Michigan thing. It's not. For as long as I can remember we had warm days sometimes in February and cold/snow in April and May. My wife has a framed cutout from a newspaper story she was in from like 1977 where the headline is "Cold day in June" and she's bundled up in a snowsuit because it was freezing temps. yes the overall trend is a thing but the day to day fluctuations are not.

Still with the nickname for Ron.

First woman to win a Republican primary.

I share that concern but I am hopeful the Dobbs effect can offset it. I also am of the belief that the BLM and defund the police protests did some damage to Biden.

The value in fixing it is less than the value of grievance politics. I’ve always been in favor of raising retirement age but now that I am 50… screw that. 62 here I come. I just checked my payout and my wife’s payout. I love the argument that “well your taxes are rally 13.5% because of the employer half. As if they would give that to us.

The limit in 2024 is $168K. The most a person can pay in SS taxes is $10,453.

I think a post Trump GOP does take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the crazy lot. Haley is banking on picking up the pieces when it shatters.

What about Biden and his administration is bad that is on a level that Trump is and was? Biden isn’t talking about tearing down democracy. He’s not talking about imprisoning opponents.

Id like to think I was looking at it when they snapped it. I get notified every time it flies over and run out to look if it’s not cloudy. that images was repositioned from its original on nasas site. The version I saw had lower michigan in the upper right.

Does anybody else start to cough, or want to cough, when they see someone in movies up close smoking or doing something ilke putting out a butt in an ashtray? It gets me every time.

So now they are treating their embryo persons with the same love they treat real kids who get shot in schools. Expendable for political purposes.

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.... it's so bad.