Yeah or as I always say, just because something gets you off, doesn’t mean it’s a good way to run a society or even a life.

I mean, sure. If we as a society believe that healthy and informed citizens make a better society, can we please work on that? Sure, a side effect is that I’ll probably get more healthy years and will work longer - we need that anyway since we can’t sustain the pyramid scheme our grandparents relied on.

To say this administration wants us healthy or educated is quite a stretch though.

I will work longer. In return I want a healthy environment, kids well educated, people who can’t work taken care of, and the resources I need to stay healthy and work.

Lip filler and a bottle of bleach?

It is funny to me, but I guess it makes sense. Conservative “beauty” is some standard look because they value conformity.

Progressive beauty is diverse because we value difference.

I dunno. I bought a Honda new twice. Once showed up on the city bus and negotiated them down to a nothing down & low monthly payment that I could manage for 5 years (I am an accountant and first built a spreadsheet with present value calculations to figure out my target price) car is built to last 20 at least, I paid it off easily enough, then someone ran a stop sign and absolutely smashed it to bits, I took the insurance money as a down payment and got a better car new, same low monthly, paid that off years ago and have been driving it since 2014. This was mostly possible because Honda did a zero or 1% loan both times. Used to buy beaters but this has been so much nicer, and it’s easier on cash flow. I hope I can keep this one for as long as I need a car (mostly use the electric bike now) because it has all the tech I want but none of the tech I don’t want. Like at this point if I won the lottery I still don’t know if I’d want a car of today.

New car at today’s prices, and what they are, I kind of agree with you but used cars at today’s prices seem just as bad of a deal. And it was not always like this. You used to be able to negotiate, they had too much inventory.

Why is she always standing in front of a fan? Does she carry around a wee box fan to blow back her hair?

That’s not even in town, New Tampa is technically part of the city but way north, past parts that are unincorporated and farther than Temple Terrace.

We bought our house a few years ago for nearly 300k, and I was so upset because I thought we were at the top of the bubble then. Like, there is no way a house is worth that, it’s insane. But now a smaller house on our road wants $600k (new coat of paint, as you say) a literal empty lot sold for more than our house cost, and they are building horrifying monstrosities like this, it’s so ugly!

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1808-W-Erna-Dr-Tampa-FL-33603/2052977072_zpid/

I am old enough to remember 2 crashes, one I bought my first house, a shithole but so cheap, and then the bank bailout crash. What goes up comes down, and it always begins with the ‘we will buy your house’ flyers in the mail and people saying real estate always goes up.

I live in Tampa. Houses around me are getting pulled down and replaced with 1-1.75M houses at a frightening pace. This has to be a bubble, nobody who works here could afford the rent or mortgage on that. Taxes alone on a 1.5M house would be 24,000 per year!

Today is a good day to die!

I got both together this year and will never do that again. 5 day headache. I have gotten them separately before no problem and will do that again but not both the same day.

I am from here, grew up without air conditioning, in fact even the school didn’t have it until 7th grade. The weather suits me fine, and there’s plenty good about it locally.

Honestly I can pinpoint the hour it went wrong, when Al Gore conceded, though he won. Barely. I always wish I’d landed in the other timeline.

It’s not a new thing exactly, I went to school with kids from NY and Michigan and NJ. What’s new is the ideological idiocy. I’m sure you are glad to be rid of them, but they weren’t doing as much damage up north. It’s like gerrymandering the nation.

I am registered as independent, and vote as progressive as I can.

Also WTF, until 2020, D held an edge in registration. It’s all those fucking conservative northerners who came down here during COVID. Two on my block, plus my boss are in this group. I’ve never been a “fuck off back to where you came from” person, but really, fuck off back to where you came from. May the alligators and hurricanes drive you back up north.

No. Boobs are luck or money. Ass is work, dedication, commitment.

It is. KimG was aging pretty well and in the before pic has good cosmetic work done. Then the pivot to the ghoulish look, it honestly all reminds me of a twilight zone episode.

Tom Russell wrote a song about this. It’s good.

https://youtu.be/WZ3Q4W9Y6kM

I’ve got 800 miles of open border

Right outside my door

There’s minute men in little pick up trucks

Who’ve declared their own damn war

Now the government wants to build

A barrier like old Berlin 8 feet tall

But if uncle Sam sends the illegals home

Who’s gonna build the wall?

(Chorus)

Who’s gonna build your wall boys?

Who’s gonna mow your lawn?

Who’s gonna cook your Mexican food

When your Mexican maid is gone?

Who’s gonna wax the floors tonight

Down at the local mall?

Who’s gonna wash your baby’s face?

Who’s gonna build your wall?

(end chorus)

Now I ain’t got no politics

So don’t lay that rap on me

Left wing, right wing, up wing, down wing

I see strip malls from sea to shining sea

It’s the fat cat white developer

Who’s created this whole damn squall

It’s a pyramid scheme of dirty jobs

And who’s gonna build your wall?

(chorus)

We’ve got fundamentalist Muslims

We’ve got fundamentalist Jews

We’ve got fundamentalist Christians

They’ll blow the whole thing up for you

But as I travel around this big old world

There’s one thing that I most fear

It’s a white man in a golf shirt

With a cell phone in his ear

(Chorus)

I know it’s not relevant to this, but wow she is turning into the same ghoulish blonde undead looking person as those who tread this path before her. She has aged 10 years in 1 year. The stress of all that lying is showing.

That headline. First I thought Iranians sunbathe and play with drones at the same time? Then had the unfortunate mental image of Trump sunbathing.

I dunno - why not Burning Man, or any alternative rock concert or any R&B concert, or scientists? I guess that’s your point, they are good at branding to their own. I can say with confidence that my kids’ ideas of a leftist are not “Reddit Moderator” because they think that site has been overrun by conservatives.

Yeah I was an anorexic teenager and while I didn’t just keep getting smaller, was maintaining at 99lbs, 5’9" for years. I weigh about 150 now and even though I literally feel so good physically, and understand that’s kinda unusual at my age, and have managed to at least keep my bone mass (it’s low, obviously, but not declining, made it through menopause with all of it, and that’s also unusual) and logically understand that:

1. This is considered smack dab perfect weight for my height and age.

2. Losing weight now would be kind of dumb and counterproductive.

I cannot shake the fear and dislike and anxiety over being this big. I don’t want to be 99lb, no way no how absolutely not. But at every single point between that and this I feel too fat. There is no weight that will look how I want, though, and again, I suspect this here is ideal because nothing hurts and I’m strong, though not fast. I know it’s my mind that is the problem, and not my body. But knowing it doesn’t make me not feel too big.

I think when the surgery is good, nobody notices it. Two women at my work had to get eyelid lifts for medical reasons, and both came out looking so much better and not at all “done”. Really nobody would ever think they had plastic surgery and even I forget then think wow that was great work.

That standard filler face though? I know the look it’s emulating and we cannot all look like that! I knew an old old lady who had been a Vogue fashion model in the 40s and 50s and she had that bone structure that ages so well, the high big cheekbones, eyebrows that had started out so high she had room for them to fall, I look at those overdone samey samey faces and it’s not going to work. I cannot take my wide round face and morph it into that with filler!

Sunscreen. Retin-A. Sleep and exercise. Those are the way to keep looking good as you are getting old. I can’t understand botox because if exercise keeps everything else healthy how is it bad for your face?