The New Coffee Room

@89th said in So let me get this straight…:

Anyone who falsifies data or lies to the public should be immediately fired.

I don’t disagree…

4.6 unemployment is actually pretty good. @taiwan_girl always pointed out that US unemployment was actually a little too low for solid growth…

@Doctor-Phibes said in Ben Shapiro's salvo in the internecine right wing pundit war:

@Horace said in Ben Shapiro's salvo in the internecine right wing pundit war:

It's a complicated social circle.

One thing they presumably all have in common is that they're raking in the cash.

Or am I just being cynical?

Only because they won… DW really put themselves out on a limb when they first started out. They were being demonetized and deplatformed. They were even being pressured politely by right-wing media to back off their stances. They nearly folded, but doubled down. I don Begrudge them their success.

She was fired for manipulating the crime data… I seem to recall that being a fairly important point a few months ago that people just denied or swept aside…

@Mik said in Did something new today…:

BMW? I thought you bought a Genesis?

Yeah, the Genesis is a temporary solution…

I’m feeling pretty comfortable in dealing with them for my BMW. Not because their pre-inspection was great, but because they make up for it on the backend where many dealers won’t.

@Axtremus said in Any Dark Beer Fans on here?:

I also like Founders Breakfast Stout.
Thanks for the reference to Kirkland's Vintage Ale. Will see if I can find it at the local Costco here.
Along the same line, if I feel like something more chocolaty, I may go for Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

I don’t know how to feel about Ax liking the same beers that I do… This may make me have to reconsider many things…

I was close to trading the car or returning, but I’ve had three different mechanics giving the car the thumbs up except for the 2 repairs, and considering the fact that They are covering the costs of the repairs (combined about half of the purchase price) and are covering my rental car? Okay, I’m good…

I was at Costco this afternoon and was picking up my Christmas Eve bottle of Chimay, and I noticed the Kirkland Vintage Ale… It’s an Imperial Stout from Deschutes (which I believe @mik is a fan of) aged for 9 months in bourbon barrels and coming in at a hefty 12% ABV. The 750ML bottle was $7.79 and is the perfect size for 2 people to share. So I bought a bottle to sample with Lucas.

I’ve had better Stouts. Founder’s Breakfast Stout stands out as a particular favorite, but those come in at twice the price and almost half the ABV. 2 snifters is just the right amount, giving a light warmth and for the price? A definite winner…

@89th said in Carol and Sarah are going to kill me for posting this:

@LuFins-Dad

@LuFins-Dad said in Carol and Sarah are going to kill me for posting this:

Know what’s even better than vinyl?

https://www.boesendorfer.com/en/pianos/disklavier-edition

Don't laugh at my ignorance, but yesterday I was in our Costco and there was a display of Yamaha pianos, with a vendor dude playing one. I stopped to listen and he had me sit down at a grand and show me how you can record what you play (no big deal, right?), but when he hit "play" to play my audio back, I looked down to see the actual keys moving as if it was ghost-89th playing it, precise action, timing, everything exactly as I had done. Maybe this has existed for a while, but that blew me away to see my ghost performance on the keys in front of me. And to your link...that would be really fun to see a piano play as if the ghost of Rachmaninoff was sitting there performing for you.

That’s the Disklavier, though what you saw was like 1080 resolution vs 4K. It does a lot more than that…

I sold a DCFIIIS to a guy that was an audiophile specifically for that reason.

Know what’s even better than vinyl?

https://www.boesendorfer.com/en/pianos/disklavier-edition

@Horace said in Rob Reiner dead???:

@LuFins-Dad said in Rob Reiner dead???:

You hear it all the time… He’s not the over the top buffoon in private. I’ll point back to Bill Maher and his dinner with Trump as just one example. It serves his interests to be over the top so he is.

It's just as simple an answer that he can act cordial one-on-one when it serves him to. Anyway the "reality" of a person is a nebulous and near meaningless concept, a story we tell ourselves. Whatever someone is, is what they do. Not in just certain situations, but in all situations, in aggregate. It's complicated.

I choose to believe that if he were truly that cartoonish and boorish of a person that he portrays, that he would have failed magnificently at life and would have been a footnote in history about the worst excesses of the 80s and 90s.

You hear it all the time… He’s not the over the top buffoon in private. I’ll point back to Bill Maher and his dinner with Trump as just one example. It serves his interests to be over the top so he is.

@Horace said in Rob Reiner dead???:

You'd also have to imagine, if it was a calculation, what sort of person he is and what kind of emotions he actually has, behind the calculated persona. Care to give that one a shot?

Sure. The kind of asshat that tries to sue a widow out of her house to expand his casino? The kind of asshat that routinely doesn’t pay contractors and defaults because on average he still winds up ahead even when he eventually pays off?

I disagree. I think it’s coldly calculated. It’s a persona that he puts on and takes off. He’s playing a role and playing it to perfection for good or ill.

Reminds me of Jerry Jones.

Wow. I was expecting that to be an AI fake. I guess not. Never underestimate Trump’s need to make everything about him.

Finally got the car back this morning, the warranty provider approved the repair at the dealership. That’s impressive, as the repair will cost 40% of the purchase price of the vehicle. I honestly wouldn’t have expected they would do so.

So I took it to the dealership, and they are telling me it can take up to two weeks…Ugh, And that’s taking it past the guaranteed return date. So there’s a very real chance that I might be exchanging/returning the car.

I’m thinking those new Lazy Boy office chairs they have at Costco. They seem to be well built, are quite comfortable, and look good at a great price. I could see these in all the offices at the Federal Reserve…