This is why I had such a casual attitude about 7 young Israeli soldiers killed by an IED the other day. Normally, I’d be sad at the loss of seven young lives, all around my son’s age, but these people are enthusiastic murderers of innocent civilians, including women and children. I can’t feel badly about them being taken out of the murder game.
Go back before smoking sections, and it was the Wild West. Smoking was the default environment. Non-smokers were expected to remove themselves if they were bothered by it.
At the grocery store there would be a line of gumball machines for kids, right alongside a cigarette machine.
My high school had a smoking courtyard, right across from the cafeteria. We called it The Pit. Teachers smoked in the Teachers Lounge. It was famous for having a cloud of smoke pour out whenever the door opened.
I remember being in a doctor’s office as a kid, and having the doctor light up during the exam!
In many families, both parents would smoke in the car with the windows rolled up, and kids in the backseat, with no car seats or seat belts.
Nobody asked permission to smoke after a meal, they’d just light up, even if others were still eating. I remember my Dad getting offended when I asked him not to light his pipe at the dinner table while I was still eating.
People smoked at every table in any restaurant.
In offices, people smoked at their desks, until offices started having smoking rooms, and eventually chased them outside. Today I see workplaces where smoking isn’t allowed anywhere on the premises.
I worked in record stores starting in 1977, and there was always a standup ashtray at the intersections of aisles, filled with sand. At the end of the night, while the manager was counting the till, one of the clean up jobs was taking a sieve to each ashtray, and sifting out the cigarette butts. Every store I worked in had ashtrays, until I became a store manager, and banned smoking in my stores.
Almost EVERYBODY smoked in the 60s and 70s, except me.
This probably made him laugh.
Exactly. It’s not young vs old, black vs white, left vs right, etc. The ONLY enemy are the WEALTHY, and we will never have peace in this nation and this world until we force the Sociopathic Oligarchs and the Transnational Corporations to serve our people, our nation, and the world, and not just themselves.
I can’t believe nobody has said Coco. I dare anyone to get through the end without at least a tear or two.
I knew a guy who said “I’ve had kidney stones, and I’ve been shot, and the kidney stones hurt worse.”
Underrated, but terrific epic.
I liked the basic premise that the East Coast of America would be controlled by the Nazis, and the West Coast by the Japanese, with the middle being a No-Man’s Land, controlled by factions of American rebels.
At least, that’s how I remember it. The size of America would make it difficult to fully control from coast to coast.
It might be dangerous to say here, but I always thought it was a mediocre movie.
Get a bidet, and it makes it easier to put a day or two between showers.
Good suggestions. They actually like to get me little guitar stuff, or music books, I just have to steer it to them, so I put it all into an Amazon list. This year, I’m going to direct them to Stillwater, and give Amazon less business.
There are a bunch of Muslim variations, and all of them would love to wipe the rest of them off the planet.
And everybody hates Iran.
I do that most evenings. Around 5 pm, I sit on my porch and play my guitar, watching the pond across from my house, and listening to the birds sing.
Sitting in a rocker on a front porch, playing guitar on a warm summer evening, is one of Life’s greatest, and most perfect, pleasures.
That’s even worse.
If you already have a good computer, that much money could outfit an entire home music recording studio with decent gear, especially if you buy good used gear, which is easily available:
A couple of good super-budget guitars from Harley Benton (a Strat clone and a Les Paul clone), for about $300 (new).
A good Yamaha acoustic guitar, $100.
A bass, $75.
An interface, to get the music into the computer, $50.
A basic MIDI controller, $30.
A good electronic keyboard with weighted keys, $100.
Microphone, $75.
Headphones, $50.
Electronic drum machine, $50, or use the pads on the MIDI controller, or voices on the keyboard.
DAW - Reaper is free, and works great.
That’s approximately what I spent on my studio, and everything works great, and sounds terrific…
That’s a good thing. You don’t remember guys walking down the street, or getting on the subway, carrying a boom box on their shoulder, loudly blasting distorted music you don’t care to hear.
Now they just pump it directly into their ears. Let them destroy their own hearing, not everyone else’s. They make Bluetooth speakers if you need to broadcast your music to a group.
When I was young, I had a bucket list of all the fun gadgets I wanted - a camera, a video camera, a nice stereo system, a portable stereo system, a car stereo, lots of records, a TV, a VCR, a computer, etc. Making a Christmas list was easy, even if I knew I would never get 99% of it.
Now I get asked what I want for Christmas, and I have no idea what to say. My phone includes nearly everything I’ve ever wanted, including stuff I never thought of. Give me my phone, my guitar, a sandwich, and a bottle of water, and I’m pretty much set for life.
I think it’s fascinating that the powder knows how to work only on those over 35 years old. That’s some fine engineering work.
Use piss.
I used to eat out of boredom, and I gained a lot of weight. Then I took up the guitar during Covid. Now when I get bored, and tempted to eat something, I pick up the guitar and start playing. Soon I forget that I was bored, and forget about eating. I’ve lost 85 pounds, and I’m still losing.