PNW_Doug

Man, they are really panicking.

If you're out bike touring, KOAs almost always have spots set aside for cyclists to camp. Both KOAs and state parks are really useful for showers and clothes washing. Was genuinely surprised how many state parks had both when I toured across the U.S.

If you're in Washington state, the state parks are legally required to find room for you to camp if you rolll up on a bike and they're otherwise full.

Yeah, this hits home all right. I'm Gen-X, and while I always got by OK on a very low income even here in Seattle, it was entirely due to have a very modest lifestyle and the sheer luck of that rarest of Seattle unicorns, reasonable rent.

The stars aligned, and over the course of only a few years I've suddenly moved into a very comfortable 6 figure salary, and oh holy jebus words cannot express how much stress just…evaporates…when you've got enough to cover all expenses and easily sock away some money too.

Of course, that was promptly replaced by a new stress, the realization that I might just possibly thread the needle and end up with a comfortable retirement—not rich mind you, just not in penury—but I now had to save, save, save, save, save.

Work affords me access to both a 403B and a 457B, which has helped immensely in my quest to get savings built up appropriate for my age bracket, but all that anxiety is back now that I've got a retirement fund that was on track, but now the orange twitiot is doing his damndest to wreck our economy, likely for good. I'm just waiting to watch everything I've invested go up in smoke. It's nerve-wracking, but hey, at least I'm Gen-X and know exactly what it's like to live with existential dread. After a childhood fearing nuclear holocaust at any moment, this new anxiety is practically a cakewalk!

Oh, who am I kidding? It still sucks.
Fuck.

I don’t know if Pente is being published by anyone any longer, but it’s a similar modern game that had its moment back in the 70s and early 80s. The board and pieces would be trivial to reproduce.

It’s a lot of fun with surprisingly complex strategies arising from very simple rules.

I'd much rather drive the Miata. There's a reason that when I was forced to purchase a car after almost 20 years without one, I opted for a Miini Cooper. Sure, they're cute, but I was ecstatic to look it up and find it was only about an inch larger than my first car, a 1983 Renault Alliance MT.

Small cars rule.

That man has dementia.

A clean poop? That runny mess looks more like she was marking her territory.

"…some of which they argue are undermining democratic norms."

That there is known as a "load-bearing clause," and Newsweek should know better than to put it under such heavy strain. The entire article is likely to collapse—much like the media's collective spine—if it gives way.

Oh dear God, I am so so so very tired of saying "What a fucking moron," every goddam time I see a headline with his name in it.

I was over it four years ago and it feels like some cruel joke that I'm saying it again day after day.

The first time I played Super Mario on the N64 I can still recall how it made me slightly dizzy, which delighted me. That effect only lasted a short while, but it was a lot of fun to feel that disoriented by a video game, if but briefly.

As a native Floridian this breaks my heart. In my own view immigrants have an even greater claim to being American than I do They chose us, this nation created of immigrants. My family may have been here since the late 1600s, but I'm still only American by accident of birth.

There's a reason I now live on the opposite corner of the continent.

This not-stop drama and incompetence bullshit is just so damn tiring. It really makes you appreciate even more how Democratic administrations just Get Shit Done™ compared to their fumbling Republican counterparts.

Holy hell but do I miss government just working.