Flo Rida ruined meatspin for me.

I only know of this site because a friend submitted one he called “The Tempest”

The caveat is that “circumstances were right” meant a sizable down payment among other things. Without the down payment, a mortgage would have approximated rent at the time. I was at the end of a lease though, and the jump to renew in a craphole apartment was enough to tip the scales. Bills are approximately the same, thankfully. I did take a hit on convenience in location, but the house was a tremendous deal.

Same, mortgage rates were near record high when I purchased but the circumstances were otherwise right. Mortgage ended up being a little over half the cost of renting and won’t go up every damn year, and homes aren’t getting cheaper. Plus there’s the option to refinance in the future if rates drop enough.

ED’s “offended” page. IYKYK.

A real tour de force of systems theory.

It’s kind of a joke, but ask about how they arrange their sock drawer.

I miss Ted Sheckler and his many emporiums.

I was peripheral to it as a Ron and Fez fan. Good lord that place was awful. Rest in piss.

If that happens and the factory layoffs come, those nets are gonna be full

Kevin Spacey’s middle name is Spacey.

And that’s a rock fact.

The real Xmas movie is Eyes Wide Shut

“Drowned in the Caspian Sea.”

Steal his look at a reasonable price!

100% on the not forcing yourself on anything in a PhD. I was ABD and my heart wasn’t in it anymore. The whole thing was a disaster, committee was unreachable, department was no help, and by the time I was done, I hated myself for ever doing it. It was an exercise in completion. Absolutely be open to saying “this isn’t fun anymore.” There is zero problem with just getting a masters — in fact, I think you get the most value out of one because it’s a concentrated experience on what you want to do. There’s a stigma on “mastering out” but that’s crap. Know your limits and stop while you still love what you’re doing. I wish you the best in returning to school!

I don’t know if it’s “weirdly” relaxing given how chill it’s supposed to be, but Joe Pera Talks With You is perfect.

It’s not so much that they don’t give a damn, but that they can’t tell. I taught some basic English courses with a research component (most students in their first college semester), and I’d drag them to the library each semester for a boring day on how to generate topics, how to discern scholarly sources, then use databases like EBSCO or JSTOR to find articles to support arguments in the essays they’d be writing for the next couple years. Inevitably, I’d get back papers with so-and-so’s blog cited, PraegerU, Wikipedia, or Google’s own search results. Here’s where a lot of the problem lies: discerning sources, and knowing how to use syntax in searches, which is itself becoming irrelevant on Google etc. but NOT academic databases. So why take the time to give the “and” and “or” and “after: 1980” and “type: peer-reviewed” when you can just write a natural-language question into a search engine and get an answer right away that seems legit in the snippet? I’d argue the tech is the problem because it encourages a certain type of inquiry and quick answers that are plausible, but more often than not, lacking in any credibility.

US, had Verizon for $170/mo (2 lines) with a lot of extras on an “unlimited” plan they’re actively trying to kick people off of. Switched to Visible (aka different flavored Verizon) on a discount for $35 per line (normally $45) for up to two years, basically the same unlimited phone plan but no extras. The only benefit for the extras was locking in a price on subscription services until Verizon started monthly surcharges to keep up.

Second 2FAS, at least on iOS devices. I switched from Authy after Twilio got motherfucked the first time.

“Hand us your money and us MBAs promise it’ll eventually get somewhere safe” is not reassuring even before the lie.