SSOTT

[Arcades]

Originally Posted by Lups

Jesus we are old.

Yesterday we had a poker night, a first for six months. Since none of us can play poker, what we did was to drink a few bottles of whiskey in my livingroom while we complained about our kids.

It is 10 am. My liver is screaming at me. I'm never doing this again. It is clear that nearing 40 means that although I have a ton more to say about my horrible kids as they also had about theirs, none of us can handle alcohol anymore. The spouses did however enjoy their traditional morning texting session where they discussed the states of our hangovers.

Now that I've written this, I'll go back to my bed and keep dying. The next time we try this I'll just find this post and remember this feeling and stay at home, preferably alone.

I only got drunk/extremely close 3 times. After the 3rd time I pretty much kept it in my mind to never get drunk again because the next day felt awful.

Learned to know my limit and when to stop. Never get drunk, then realize you had to board an airplane the next day. I enjoyed it since it was my cousin, whom I see as a sister, but oh my god the next day was just freaken awful jeebus. The airplane ride sucked even more.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Arcades

The airplane ride sucked even more.

Oh yeah, flying hungover is the WORST ... especially if it's a long flight and you decide to tie it on as soon as you hit 30k: it's awesome for like 3 hours, then you sleep then you wake up hungover and there's still 4 hours left ... that pasty-mouth mental math realization is one of the easylife's greatest practical jokes.

But the best is a few martinis before a 2-4 hour flight if you're sitting up front and get the take-off Heineken - you watch a few movies, jam to some tunes ... good times ...

One time like 20 years ago my GF, now wife, and I went to Jamaica on Air Jamaica's first month of service (hey, we were 20, there are no risks at 20 ). There was like 4 other people on the flight and after like an hour we were all up running around drinking champagne right out of the bottles and the flight crew had us up in the cockpit I remember seeing Jamaica from the navigator's seat!

I'm pretty sure that flight checked off every FAA no-no.

[minn19]

Shit, I just got back from a weekend hockey tournament with my daughters team. Hockey parents can put back the booze. Needles to say even after having my last drink on Saturday night around 1000, I am still tired as hell today. Man I've gotten old...........

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by minn19

Hockey parents can put back the booze.

Well, to be fair, if you're a hockey parent it's medicinal.

[Joekerr]

Originally Posted by minn19

I have ignored my Dad on the subject except once he said Trump showed us that Covid was no big deal. When I asked him if Marine One was going to pick us up on our front lawn and take us to a hospital to receive the best 24/7 care in the world plus experimental/cutting edge drugs/treatments...........he didn’t respond and hasn’t brought up anything Trumpy since.

I'm just getting caught up here, haven't visited the SSOTT in a month or two I'm guessing.

It's funny, I was neither for or against Trump to a degree, there were some things he did that I didn't mind, and some things he did that I didn't like. But overall, I had more or less a neutral view of him, except I found him to be fascinating entertainment given he wasn't my president.

That was not true for my dad and my brother though. My brother is in the military and loves Trump more or less. My dad HATES trump. And so my brother would often needle my dad about trump just for fun...and my dad would try to keep his cool and try to respond in a Christ like manner although he was hard pressed to do so.

As a more or less neutral person observing this, I found it to be great fun too and would chip in with arguments for both sides to keep the fires stoked...basically just support whoever I thought was losing at the moment.

But for Father's Day last year, I got my Dad a Trump mug with a bunch of Trumpism's on it about the best dad ever, really, everyone knows it, etc, but I had the mug delivered to me and ripped off all the shipping info, opened it up, inserted a lovely note that I typed up pretending to be my brother, and then slapped my brother's mailing address as the shipper and mailed it off to my Dad as though it came from my brother, just to watch the fireworks ensue!

Naturally, I did not tell my brother about this either, so he was sitting there with kind of a poleaxed expression when my Dad mentioned his "gift" and how he wasn't overly appreciative of it. It took them only a minute or two to figure out who the guilty party was. But well worth the $40 or so I paid for the mug and all the shipping. Now my Dad is keeping the mug because of the joke behind it...he was originally thinking about throwing it out lol.

[GrussGott]

In tech news, the Parler CEO was fired:

[Arcades]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

In tech news, the Parler CEO was fired:

Well, considering the asshat got his company basically removed from the internet. I THINK it was deserved.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Arcades

Well, considering the asshat got his company basically removed from the internet. I THINK it was deserved.

It was likely his Kara Swisher Sway interview that got him fired - she just let him talk and talk and ... man, I've never heard a guy just keep digging and digging ... like he'd never spoke to a normal, non-bubble person in his life.

He basically said, "So, do we let dudes use our platform to show kitten axe murders? Sure, but kitten murderers should get airtime too because what they have to say is important."

It could also be that he married a Russian FSB agent who's potentially his handler. Here's a great thread:

In a related story, the owner of OAN, Robert Herring Sr, met and married his Russian wife, Tonya, in Russia.

[TopJimmy]

I'm sorry but..."Muck-Hut"-Dinova?
I bet that got a lot of teasing on the playground in Moscow.


Arcades the asshat comment was priceless!

[GrussGott]

If you're nerdy this is pretty kickass

[minn19]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

If you're nerdy this is pretty kickass

Very cool and eerie! Seriously looks like some parts of the southwest US.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by minn19

Very cool and eerie! Seriously looks like some parts of the southwest US.

Exactly! And with headphones, the wind is similar, but kinda bizarre sounding ... like familiar but alien too. You can easily visualize hiking across the plain, grabbing a rock and chucking it, kicking through the sand, etc.

And a month or two ago Mars was SUPER bright in the sky, like a red light to the naked eye - then to see this video of the surface of that light is so crazy.

[GrussGott]

Hey so here's an odd social thing that can be weird/challenging to navigate ...

So my aunt & uncle have a smaller 2nd home (~1500 sq ft) on some property near a nice lake (not on it, near it). My aunt insists on calling it a "chalet" - like if you call it a house or cabin she'll say "chalet". So that's clearly a braggy thing ... but then there's other side ...

Let's say someone invites you to their "cabin" and you show up and it's a 6,000 sq ft ranch house on 100 acres - then you're kinda like "CABIN?? This is a fucking ranch dude."

Or the same with boats - if someone says, "he you should come out on our boat" and then you show up and it's a 150 foot schooner ... but the flip is true too

Someone says, "join us on our yacht" and then it's like a 40 foot catamaran ... not really a "yacht".

And then the same is true with colleges; if someone says "oh, I went to harvard" they sound braggy, but if they say "oh I went to school out east" and then you're "oh, which one?" and they're "harvard" then they seem like they were hiding it.

Anyway, it seems like with all that stuff there's clearly brag/humble-brag types ... and then people oblivious that not everyone has "a boat" meaning a 150 yacht ... then these weird gray areas where you're kinda damned if you do and damned if ya don't.

That's my thinker of the week.

[minn19]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Hey so here's an odd social thing that can be weird/challenging to navigate ...

So my aunt & uncle have a smaller 2nd home (~1500 sq ft) on some property near a nice lake (not on it, near it). My aunt insists on calling it a "chalet" - like if you call it a house or cabin she'll say "chalet". So that's clearly a braggy thing ... but then there's other side ...

Let's say someone invites you to their "cabin" and you show up and it's a 6,000 sq ft ranch house on 100 acres - then you're kinda like "CABIN?? This is a fucking ranch dude."

Or the same with boats - if someone says, "he you should come out on our boat" and then you show up and it's a 150 foot schooner ... but the flip is true too

Someone says, "join us on our yacht" and then it's like a 40 foot catamaran ... not really a "yacht".

And then the same is true with colleges; if someone says "oh, I went to harvard" they sound braggy, but if they say "oh I went to school out east" and then you're "oh, which one?" and they're "harvard" then they seem like they were hiding it.

Anyway, it seems like with all that stuff there's clearly brag/humble-brag types ... and then people oblivious that not everyone has "a boat" meaning a 150 yacht ... then these weird gray areas where you're kinda damned if you do and damned if ya don't.

That's my thinker of the week.

Hmm, what should I call my 21 foot Yamaha? Besides dinghy compared to the monstrosities you are talking about.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by minn19

Hmm, what should I call my 21 foot Yamaha? Besides dinghy compared to the monstrosities you are talking about.

It's a boat! See the problem starts happening around the 50s ... that's still clearly "boat" territory, but also starting to get fairly big so not out of the realm to aspirationally call it a "yacht" ... but once you get into the 60s/70s calling it a "boat" seems like a bashful-brag and calling it a yacht sounds uppity.

Granted these are all 1st world problems, but still problems.

Like the ever-popular "sports car" ... what's the bar for that? Is an F80 a sports car? Is a 911? Does have to be trackable? or even tracked or maybe even only legal on the track?

I've always favored any car that can legit be used for sport, incl amateur, for a decent duration, is a sports car ...

So, for example, a Model S isn't a sports car because there's no way you could wide-open that thing for a few hours, but an M5 you could so it's a sports car.

I mean, right?

[GrussGott]

Not sure how this original song comes through without good headphones, but with them ... holy shit, this chick is badass. This should be a Bond theme.

There are so many thieves in this business, and they multiply;
don't let them steal.
They'll try to take:

[Lups]

Originally Posted by Arcades

I only got drunk/extremely close 3 times. After the 3rd time I pretty much kept it in my mind to never get drunk again because the next day felt awful.

Learned to know my limit and when to stop. Never get drunk, then realize you had to board an airplane the next day. I enjoyed it since it was my cousin, whom I see as a sister, but oh my god the next day was just freaken awful jeebus. The airplane ride sucked even more.

Dude we are finns. It's not like we do social drinking, even while in the same room the only conversation topic is which playlist goes up next. Surprise surprise, they're all the same basically too. We sit, talk about our kids and stupid spouses making us do shit the day after our get together cuz they hate us all. Then when the clock hits three am, we start arguing about taxis, whether to take one or two. Then when finally someone remembers we do that too every time, we go sit in the taxis in silence.

There has been zero learning here. After we got too old to lie about going hunting, which we did for a decade while none of us is a licensed hunter or owns a gun, we moved up in the world and now we play poker. So basically twice or so in a year, we get blind drunk while in company in someone's livingroom.

Once we did buy a deck of cards so we could at least pretend we played something but that one has been lost for years too. We are the party animals.

[Arcades]

Originally Posted by Lups

Dude we are finns. It's not like we do social drinking, even while in the same room the only conversation topic is which players goes up next. Surprise surprise, they're all the same basically too. We sit, talk about our kids and stupid spouses making us do shit the day after our get together cuz they hate us all. Then when the clock hits three am, we start arguing about taxis, whether to take one or two. Then when finally someone remembers we do that too every time, we go sit in the taxis in silence.

There has been zero learning here. After we got too old to lie about going hunting, which we did for a decade while none of us is a licensed hunter or owns a gun, we moved up in the world and now we play poker. So basically twice or so in a year, we get blind drunk while in company in someone's livingroom.

Once we did buy a deck of cards so we could at least pretend we played something but that one has been lost for years too. We are the party animals.

Yeah... I don't know any Finns

My 2nd eldest cousin lives in Europe but that's about all I know. She says it's cheaper there~

[minn19]

Originally Posted by Lups

Dude we are finns. It's not like we do social drinking, even while in the same room the only conversation topic is which players goes up next. Surprise surprise, they're all the same basically too. We sit, talk about our kids and stupid spouses making us do shit the day after our get together cuz they hate us all. Then when the clock hits three am, we start arguing about taxis, whether to take one or two. Then when finally someone remembers we do that too every time, we go sit in the taxis in silence.

There has been zero learning here. After we got too old to lie about going hunting, which we did for a decade while none of us is a licensed hunter or owns a gun, we moved up in the world and now we play poker. So basically twice or so in a year, we get blind drunk while in company in someone's livingroom.

Once we did buy a deck of cards so we could at least pretend we played something but that one has been lost for years too. We are the party animals.

Poker is one of the biggest things I miss due to the Vid. I used to go play hold em tournaments twice a month at the local card club. It was the only thing aside from the occasional back road drive I’d do on my own. Don’t get me wrong as I obviously love my girls more than anything, but it was nice playing cards and bullshitting with random people a few hours a month.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by minn19

Poker is one of the biggest things I miss due to the Vid. I used to go play hold em tournaments twice a month at the local card club. It was the only thing aside from the occasional back road drive I’d do on my own. Don’t get me wrong as I obviously love my girls more than anything, but it was nice playing cards and bullshitting with random people a few hours a month.

It's a thing here for players groups to buy a testing machine (~3k I think) and then each test is $50, takes 15 min, so players show up, test, and then if they're negative they go in. Tell your club to step it up.

[minn19]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

It's a thing here for players groups to buy a testing machine (~3k I think) and then each test is $50, takes 15 min, so players show up, test, and then if they're negative they go in. Tell your club to step it up.

I haven’t been to either of the two in town for a year now. They very well might have these, but I don’t think I’d trust them/the results for various reasons.

[Arcades]

minn19

It's so rare to hear him oogle over a car. He tends to be very straight forward about his opinions.

When tax season ends, I will probably start talking to my Porsche dealership about the GT4.


Oh, my parents got their first vaccine shot last week. I wasn't freaking out over it but was nervous around people because of the location. I guess it was unfounded because for the most part, everyone there had their masks on without complaining. One lady did accidentally forget but when the store manager told her to, she immediately put it on and apologized for forgetting. Apparently, at least in Burbank the community is smart so they don't really, well not do it.