Everyone? How many people who are not petty assholes have a negative HOA story? A bad HOA is like bad plastic surgery: those are the only ones you notice.

No. Should they be as pervasive as they are with unbounded layers of beurocracy? Also no.

I think people might not understand how many assholes live around you that the HOA keeps in check. I didn’t until I joined the board. Sometimes you have to litigate, but sometimes you also just need a dedicated (and elected) group of people to go knock on the door and talk out a problem. It’s nicer to have this somewhat regulated (bank accounts, insurance, taxes, and yes even covenants for procedure if they are kept up to date) than to just knock on some doors and wing it.

If your HOA has an old lady measuring your grass and some dude using color swatches to check the paint on your mailbox, move. If your neighborhood has lights, clear sidewalks, fences and landscaping that are cared for, and no dog crap to step in, keep paying into it. They are doing a good job.

ITT: I don’t play chess. I don’t like chess. Friend play chess, he dumb, I am smart. I agree. You hear of Rubik’s cube?

Your skill at chess is indeed very good at predicting one thing: your chess rating. I have been playing every day for almost 2 years and I take lessons, but I started as an adult after finishing my PhD in actual rocket science and supervising a research lab in that area for 10 years. Consequently, I will never be as good as the 10 year olds playing with coaching since they were 6. I have met exactly one good player through my connections to that lab in 17 years. So here are some perspectives on chess if you played in high school or you “learned how to play in 30 mins and think it’s boring”:

1. It’s a game with layers. The first layer is knowing how the pieces move, the second layer is memorizing openings, and the third layer is some basic knowledge of tactics (I.e., forks, skewers, pins, removing the defense, etc etc) and THEN you learn the game. Most people never learn the game unless you went out of your way to do so.

2. For reason 1, “good at chess” is a hugely subjective statement. You knew a few people who can beat all your friends? Cool. I was that guy and it took me MONTHS to get to what the chess world calls “intermediate”: 1200-1400 ELO. Your friend is probably rated 700 to 750. You have probably never met more than a handful of good chess players in your life unless you were in a university club or better.

3. You do not have to be typically smart to be good at chess, but it doesn’t hurt. Top GMs are sometimes impressively smart or impressively… Uh… susceptible to misinformation cough Kramnik cough. But what they CAN do is master the shit out of board positions, visualization, and prediction.

Case in point, Hikaru Nakamura, arguably world #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WsEQuoOz-c&t=490

Or you can watch him play blindfolded chess against actual good players, or speedrun 1 minute games winning hundreds in a row while talking about his pineapple shirt. He’s alternatingly pretty entertaining and kind of annoying to listen to.

If you are that kind of smart, the visualization and memory kind, yeah you’re probably going to also be a good chess player. Otherwise, there’s not a lot of traceability that I’ve seen research on.

All that said, this thread is absolutely annoying to see the whole world show up and talk out of their asses about it.

/end rant

Having kids removed the need for alarms. The whole house is awake between 630 and 7 every day.

There comes a time when saying “no thanks” is a necessary political choice. Coke gave trump the commemorative inauguration bottle as usual and supports his diet Coke button reinstalled at the white house. By not starting to step back on some things, I’m buying less and less coke. Any time I can avoid coke without drinking the swill from PepsiCo, I do. But that time may also soon come to an end.

Yeah but that makes my coffee taste funny.

Vocab word of the day.

Yo, better safe than sorry.

Last international trip I took, my 1.5 y/o son got airsick and in trying to help him I got airsick myself. I threw up in the bag, but there was turbulence and no service, so I just put the bag next to my warm coffee between my legs until I could get a minute to throw it away. This was maybe 25 mins into a 4h flight.

Well… Turns out when those bags get completely wet they leak. :/.

I took exactly one pair of pants and one pair of shorts. So I realized after about 15 minutes the warm I was feeling was no longer just my coffee, but the puke juice I was sitting in. I really got to enjoy that for like 3 hours on the plane, customs, and baggage claim.

Lucky me I packed sweatpants for sleeping, so I was saved from rewearing on the way home. But man, bring extra pants. You just never know.

Makes sense. Wherever you are at any time, just try to be to the west of that if you can.

Dignity?

You have not provided anything, bro. You have literally no argument. And I’m not the asshole you have been replying to. You’ve got nothing because you have presented nothing.

The other guy looks like a dick, but this thread makes you look dumb.

Thanks! It’s probably the easiest meal we eat here. Nothing to it.

This is some primo dumbassery right here. Delicious, and stereotypically conservative: obliquely combative, willfully ignorant, or bless-your-heart special. Maybe even a nice mashup of the three…

About the easiest thing you can make tbf.

Yes and that’s how it should be. It shouldn’t even be conscious. I signal into and out of parking spaces, I signal every lane change, hell I signal for sharp corners sometimes.

It seems to me if you are choosing to signal or not, then the use of turn signals isn’t that heavily ingrained. Before I turn the wheel I’m instinctively touching the signal lever.

Keep up the good work!

Kewpie japanese mayo and kinder brand teriyaki sauce then topped with furikake. All off the shelf stuff.

Here’s another peek

We are certainly using them slower around here than we used to.

It’s a great day to be alive in my ass

We have to put words in your mouth because the ones you are letting slide out of there are not doing the job.

Yes, convicted felons should get to vote. Several states allow it. Some states don’t, and those are the problem. Once you serve your time (and pay any associated fines), your debt to society should be considered paid.

If you need an ID to vote, the government should supply that ID, otherwise it’s a poll tax. You’ve got money to pay for Internet and time to post dumb shit on the internet? Then you should have time to research this so randos like me dont have to explain it to you, and you should be willing to pay to post your opinions to us, right? You obviously have the means.

In the rest of the world, supplying identification is indeed not a problem, but the ID situation is decidedly less stupid everywhere else I’ve spent any time (western Europe vs US).

Your whole thread here is either intentionally ignorant, assholish, or my dude you gotta buy a good helmet and make sure you wear it. I’m going to go with assholish as a matter of generosity.