You talking about the old Italian tune-up? I’m all about it. I drive a WRX, and the majority of my trips are with my kids to and from where we walk to school. Tiny trips. So I feel inclined to really get on her when I have my occasional trips elsewhere. It’d be wrong not to.

It’s also a manual, and I know it wasn’t you (or maybe it was), but I don’t drive manual because it’s the best performance option. I know that flappy paddle gearbox, to steal a line from Clarkson, is a faster, more accurate shift than I ever could do, but it’s just fun driving stick. I just feel more connected to the road driving stick.

I got this car new in October '24, and it’s my goal to keep it forever, because I’m not sure how long for the world stick is in general. Or ICE engines. And that’s okay, it’ll be a relic.

It’s funny, because things I’ve watched recently have been pronouncing it YOUR-uh-nus, versus your-A-nus. Dunno when we made the change, but 25-30 years ago, it was butthole.

But jokes aside, I want to see something like the Parker Solar Probe, but out. Fastest thing ever created, by a large margin, and second place is the goddamn manhole cover. I’m assuming the science can’t exactly slingshot something straight out like that, wave to Voyager Uno and Voyager Dos, and see what’s happening.

I’m no scientist though, but let’s go.

Yeah, but I have to go to work, you know?

So time to spin the wheel!

Religion can be fine. It is and always has been the idiots who ruin shit, just like with everything. I have churches around me that help the community, are open to all sorts of people. So the leader of one of the largest churches finally doing what he can to denounce nonsense is a step in the right direction for sure.

Unfortunately, the idiots will most certainly be heard.

I tell people I’m from New Jersey. Always have. America has always been way, way too broad a term. I don’t feel any connection with people from Texas or California, certainly not any of the deep south. Shit, I barely feel a connection with people from Pennsylvania.

If they say “Huh, New Jersey?” I say I’m an hour from NYC, and then that usually keeps that discussion rolling in a nice way.

Without chiming, Lemmy dies!

You are not some people.

Although I guess you are a different some people!

Oh my mistake, you’re right. Was rushing a bit, haste makes waste and all that.

NYC is thrice as dense as Berlin, the densest city in Germany. Probably accounts for something.

Yeah, my wife works with homeless veterans. They run the gamut, from hard on your luck to absolutely insane. She had to call PD yesterday because one threatened suicide. She convinced another to speak to a therapist after she acted as a mediator for two hours between the vet and their landlord.

Some of these folks are just off the deep end. Some have very serious drug addictions. And some are fine. If people like my wife got to be part of the process for determining whether someone needed to be institutionalized, I feel like I could trust that process.

I’ve got one sitting on the doormat as we speak. Winter is over around here, and Bruce Willis is back to work at the ripe old age of 14 or 15, nobody knows.

The US’s issue in wars has consistently been “what next?” They are good at getting troops to battlegrounds and securing battlegrounds. They are logistically superior to everyone. The problem becomes the hanging around afterward. And it’s obvious we’re headed there again, considering the administration has all but stated they don’t know what the endgame is.

Thanks dude, came way too far to see someone else say this. Surprised it hasn’t been a NYPost article title already. It’s a rag, but they certainly can use clever wordplay in the titles.

Ha, we are all just trying to learn stuff, so I appreciate the opportunity to bestow what little knowledge I have.

I think you did a nice job. I thought you were another poster before so I had to come back and edit my post before I stole you some valor, as they say.

So the badge is sharpshooter for pew pew, rifle only. Pistol usually reserved for guys with rockers on their sleeves, but you see some others get it.

Top ribbon is a NAM, Navy Achievment Medal. And like you’d read a book, there’s a CAR (Combat Action Ribbon), a PUC (presidential unit citation), Good Cookie (three years no bad), then some campaign ribbons, I assume Iraq/Afghan, a MEU.

I’m not sure I’d phrase it as a celebration, but the media referring to this as a protest is disingenuous at best. The number of videos I’ve seen of dudes shooting guns at the embassy is enough for me to come to my own conclusions about this “protest.”

And if you’re going to shoot at a building filled with American appointed officials, guarded by Marine Security Guards, you’re probably going to die doing so.

Ideally, this all could have been avoided by not starting another war, but here we are.

He’s the US director of the FBI. He just shows up and they let him in. What’re they going to do say no? They just let him in, do the photo op, and that’s that. None of them are thinking about it. Half the dudes on the team probably don’t even know who he is. Hockey players are so insulated, that’s why the young guys always do the worst interviews, their entire life has been hockey, and that’s it.

You can’t wear cages in the NHL unless you have an injury.

Oddly enough Bruce was recently diagnosed with high blood pressure, so he takes a statin now. We thought he was just getting old and slowing down a bit, vet caught it, we’ve been doing meds, and he has returned to his old self again, with a touch of senility, a lot of meowing and nothing. But yeah, hopeful it’ll help avoid a stroke.