This is like concealed carry class 101. The ONLY reason for pointing a weapon at someone is because you are about to shoot them with it. It’s a last resort. By the time you’ve drawn your weapon you had better have made up your mind that you’re going to kill the assailant because that’s the immediate next step. No warning shots. No last words. Draw. Aim. Fire.

It is not a “deterrent”. It’s the “I have no viable escape routes so deadly force is necessary.” option.

We already abandoned the laws of physics at flying reindeer but more importantly, it fits. F-35, not so much.

Edit: Apparently you can still order an updated print edition of the World Book Encyclopedia for the low price of $1,259.00.

🎶Santa Clause got shot down by an A-10. Dropping gifts at our house Christmas Eve. You can say there is no war on Christmas. But all the murdered reindeer disagree.🎶

Can I up vote this more than once? Quality print journalism is absolutely vital and it will die without the support of its readers.

Personally I like a happy medium. Our 2200 sqft house is plenty big for our family of five. Any bigger and I would have a hard time maintaining it by myself. Larger houses definitely require more effort to upkeep.

We like having a little room to spread out or entertain guests. I also love having my shop in the basement. That was something I really missed when I didn’t have it for a few years.

It’s a personal preference that really depends a lot on your lifestyle, hobbies, and what you can afford.

We still have a landline (technically VoIP) phone. There’s also a list of important phone numbers written on the fridge. Good for emergencies.

There are few things more nerve wracking than frantically trying to find your cell phone and the number for poison control after your kid just swallowed something they shouldn’t have.

NGL, at first I was kind of concerned that you had a “geyser” so close to your house until I realized it was probably another term for what my American brain calls a “water heater”.

Someone else suggested a water softener which would help a lot. Aside from that, does your geyser have a sacrificial anode? If so, when was the last time you replaced it?

Friendly reminder that Eddie Lampert effectively drowned Sears Holdings (Sears & Kmart) in the bath tub. He single-handedly wiped out two major retailers, hundreds of smaller ones, and tens of thousands of jobs in one of the most successful corporate raids ever executed.

What a greedy shit bag.

I refuse to celebrate the man’s death. That just doesn’t sit right with me.

However, I’ll climb on my soap box long enough to point out that first, an insurance business model is fundamentally incompatible with healthcare. It does not work on basically any level and the need for profit will always be in conflict with the need to provide high quality healthcare.

Second, this conflict between the need for profitability and providing healthcare means that most of the health insurance industry is built on a foundation of ethical compromises. For profit health insurance companies like UnitedHealth are just straight up immoral. Any business that has to give loyalty to shareholders at the expense of anyone’s life and health is immoral. Not to mention the incredible amount of work health insurance companies have done to effectively rig much of the American medical system for their own benefit.There are lots of corporations that do lots of bad things but I would classify for profit health insurance as a special kind of evil.

As much as they like to pretend they’re the good guys, the good guy doesn’t make it their sole mission to extract as much money as possible from their customers before they die while doing the bare minimum to keep them from dying.

Long way of saying, my condolences to the guys family. Having your husband/father/etc. assassinated in the street has to be awful. At the same time, screw UnitedHealth. They’re a bunch of worthless blood sucking vampires.

Imagine being the one who has to explain that Putin died when another person burst forth from his body like an alien.

🎶I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road. Searchin’ in the sun for another overload.🎶

Then there’s the small group that just throws everything into Excel

Interesting. Excel is certainly capable enough but I would think data set size limitations would be a frequent issue. Maybe not as frequent as I would have thought though.

Translation: “If you guys try to move away from the US Dollar, I’m going to tax the shit out of Americans. That’ll show you.”

Mickey Mousenomics courtesy of a “very stable genius”.

The US will do anything but socialism unless you’re a corporation or wealthy individual.

FTFY

Well you see son, when a man wants to rent an apartment, deliver pizza, chill with his step mom and/or step sister, interview a model, ride in a taxi, or go hiking in the woods, very very much…

He does make the best deals after all.

Yeah. This rings of tobacco companies trying to convince everyone that cigarettes are good for them.

I can’t relate to your question since that has not been my experience.

If I could only recommend one resource for learning about interacting with others, it would be Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

You don’t have to have money or a brimming social life to go on dates or have meaningful relationships. You do have to make some effort at building those relationships though. The book I mentioned will teach you a lot of the basics.