leh-nerd skin-erd

Spread it around, but be wise. We have discovered @Chef Jim and @SoCal Deek are old as F, so they'll just buy Metamucil and prune juice. My boy @transplantbillsfan will just do something level-headed, like buy those chunky pencil erasers (because he's old school) or pay down a debt that the Cancellor King Biden is going to forgive by executive decree and by uttering the following words "COME BEFORE ME, BOY, AND THOUST DEBT SHALL BE VANQUISHED". @BillStime has a curfew and mentioned once that he is an investor in Mallow Cup dollars--he calls it "the original crypto-currency", but where's he going with that? Magic Xray specs? He can't be trusted with that sort of power. @Over 29 years of fanhood has some game, this is true, he swipes at those on the right and those on the left...but one must wonder who shot his avatar? That was no accident and coincidentally, he lives in Maryland. No, the way I see it, it's down to you, @I am the egg man, @B-Man, and me. I'm the easy choice. I have nothing bad to say about Eggs (drinker) nor B-Man (also drinks), I just think we split up that stimuli fitty/fitty and see what it buys us.

I’ve been alive in excess of 21,000 days and this may be be the high water mark of my existence. I’ll take it.

I was somewhat sincere on the question about the use of your stimulus, but I recognize that folks have to do what's in their best interest in this and any other environment. In that regard, for every individual complaining about 'tax breaks for the wealthy', it's apparent that those folks are just following the same course of action that you did. Job 1 is take care of yourself and your family. It certainly would have been helpful for the greater good had you spread that around at local businesses, restaurants, or maybe at those tiki bars we hear all about on the HGTV. Maybe you could have had your hair set in corn rows and thrown the stylist a tip with some of it. That said, I get it. Pay down the debt with the windfall. I spoke with a man today who received his stimulus, didn't really need it as his income was not impacted by the lockdown, and he told me he was going to a local sports book to bet on a Yankee game. That's not my cup of tea, but I suppose if he enjoys it, he's frequenting a local establishment that provides jobs for people and everyone wins. On the student loan cancellation--which isn't a cancelation at all, it's just the govt repatriating the debt obligation to others, I'm perpetually surprised by the people who support such a scheme. I understand the '31 times blah blah blah' and 'average family blah blah blah', but that's simply the fine art of manipulating people into assuming victim status. Here's the deal on a local level--you made a choice to attend school XXX, to pursue a degree in XXX, at a cost of XXX. The choices included community college, night school while working during the day, considerations on commuting or attending school where room and board was required, and the time frame in which you completed your education. You've spoken passionately about your avocation, so surely you knew some of the benefits of your chosen profession. One would assume you knew of some of the limitations. You presumably feel validated in your profession, exchange your services for appropriate financial consideration, and are able to meet your debt obligations. Why is that someone else's burden to carry? This question is rhetorical of course, I have no idea if you followed a prudent course of action or not, but college debt does not simply appear on ones balance sheet. In most cases, it's a 22 year work in progress to obtain, and a multi-year marathon of misplaced priorities, entitlements, and poor decision making to sustain. I am convinced there has not been a weaker, more opportunistic class of educated beggars in the history of our country, and it troubles me. Given the numbers thrown around, we literally can see multiple generations of family members looking to relieve themself of the debt they tripped over themselves to incur by signing up at the soon to be announced Student Loan Soup Kitchen where the Nittany Lion victims go to the left, the Cal-Berkely to the right, and the SUNY NY shoots right up the middle. But sure, $10k off one's debt obligations is a great start for some, a real kick in the jimmy for those burdened with the debt. As for the vaccine, I'm a live and let live guy. I haven't witnessed widespread disturbances by the unmasked that you reference, but I most definitely acknowledge a simmering skepticism about virtually everything we are being told about masks, vaccines and death rates. I think it's highly inappropriate to suggest withholding stimulus checks simply because someone else has a #mybodymyrules set of values different than yours. It's supersized imo by the massive amount of money going to folks who simply do not need the stimulus to begin with, and that starts with public sector and federal employees. Glad you were not impacted financially by the crisis---and I hope that your next contract works the way you want it to go.

Sure, whatever you say of course, but what happens when the next crazed gunman comes in with the 5 clips, someone intervenes between clips 3 & 4 and only 6 souls are lost. The gun control crowd sits back and says...what? I’m personal anti-nuclear weaponry, hand held or mounted on a Jeep Gladiator/2016 Toyota Prius btw. What a sad day.

Good golly. You would support withholding of federal stimulus funds for your fellow citizens unless they acquiesce to compulsory vaccination, take a $1400 designed to “stimulate” the economy and use it for self-serving purposes, and are a supporter of the student loan debt soup kitchen as well? Was your income affected at all by the lockdown? I have friends here in NY who work in govt— the lockdown was really an unexpected windfall for them. Salary continued unabated, but with the shutdown, the money they saved not having to commute was substantial. As for the student loan program, how do you feel it should be addressed? How much debt of those victimized by higher education should be “tackled” and who should be saddled with the debt?

I'm not certain how we hash out this whole name issue and make everyone happy. On the one hand, for far too long, the tyranny of last name first, first name last has victimized so, so many of us. You're in class, they go through Abramson, Billings, Carter, etc, if you're surname-challenged--by the time they get to you, all the good jokes are taken, all the mispronunciations laughed at, and you're basically an afterthought...a perpetual outlier. Is that fair? Has no one stopped to think what damage that can do to the psyche of a child? On the other hand, the pressure to be first on the list--first in roll call, first to raise your hand, sitting there, knowing with every fiber of your *&^%ing being that once it starts, it's game on. Hell, just think of all the junk mail an A person gets. Not a damn thing you can do about it. It's inevitable. Certainly it must be overwhelming at times. That said--and I'm just working through how I feel about this Florida thing, it seems to me that the very fabric of our democracy should not be imperiled by the administrative decision to list candidates by first name first. Am I alone here? I mean, it's not foolproof---what if every candidate has the same name? That could be confusing. What if the preferred name is actually a nickname? Let's say a guy like our own @Gene Frenkle decides to run for office--he's a solid middle of the packer alphabetically any way you slice it--what if he goes by "Ace"? Is he the number #1 seed and quite frenkly, if he identifies as Ace shouldn't he be? Maybe it's just me, but I think voters should be able to hash this all out at the ballot box. Sure, they would need some time to get comfortable with the format but I have faith in our collective strength as a nation. I don't know anything about this Rodriguez fellow, and whether or not his parents had the foresight to give him an alphabetically entitled first name when he was born. I'd think not, but you never know and as you've not at all arbitrarily suggested, he's 'crooked'. This is a hot button issue for you, So, and while we frequently disagree, on this one I feel your pain. I've never shared this before, but while many here know me as leh-nerd skin-erd...my real name is Arturo Ziebgniewicz. #imattertoo

I got nothing. 🤓

You misunderstood, and now I have to correct the record. I was treated like family, accepted from the get go. I was actually quite lucky beyond any reasonable expectation. I have wonderful in-laws—in those early days my father in law dedicated 18 months of his life to helping my wife and I remodel our first home, and when I say ‘helped’ I actually mean “he remodeled our first home”. I can’t actually recall when the kisses started, probably after we moved away and didn’t see them as much, certainly by the time our children came. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say early on I was just a kid dating his daughter, hanging around his house and it was what it was. As the father of a daughter myself, I understand that. Anywho, if we meet at a future wedding, I’d be surprised if ya gave me the lean in, but I suppose it’s possible. Saluté! Brad Pitt probably plays me in the movie. That’s all I was saying. I’m German, in part, and I rarely contemplate world domination any more.

I was going to take issue with @Niagara Bill and the whole stereotype of Italian men at weddings grabbing everyone by the face and giving them the old double kiss but thought—why bother. This isn’t about a random wedding. I don’t speak for every Italian family, but in the one I married into, the kisses are for close family members (my father in law kisses my cheek every time I see him, though in the early days of our relationship nearly 40 years ago not so much🤣). It’s not some wild double cheek Thunderdome for every man, woman and child that might work with your youngest daughter’s friend from accounting, or the young lady from HR who you take a shine to. On top of that, he’s been a fixture in NYS govt for a couple decades. He’s had every sexual harrasment training under the sun, with deep dives into violating personal space, professional behavior, the power dynamic at play and microagressions by the score. That’s all before he #metoo’d it up.

Ain’t been blowing like that around a democrat since the Lewinsky days!

Good clean American fun.

Maybe the voice sounds different in your head this time, but you’ve typed the same thing twice. That’s still on you. You’re like a petri dish of crazy today. Gold, indeed. 🤣

It seems likely that if that was what I meant I could have grouped those word a together. What I meant is what I said...but how you chose to interpret words that said nothing of the sort speaks volumes about the way you really see things.

A mainstream publication offered an op Ed about whiteness being a pandemic. Men = toxic has been the rage for quite some time. This ugliness is mainstream and it’s a damn shame. Still, most of us go about our daily lives never slugging it out in the streets with our neighbors. Let’s work together, isolate the crazies, recognizing that when 8 people are murdered but only 6 are worth mentioning, it’s an ugly day in America. I never said my idiot didn’t lose, but certainly have said that your idiot is president even though he thinks Harris is president. Then again I’m not afraid of myself as you suggested yesterday, though sometime I do find myself unapproachable.

In fairness I said the same thing about teams after a what by most accounts was a pretty successful flag football career at a small to medium sized SUNY school in the early 80s. Time to man up—I was wrong, probably in part because I was a second string linebacker on a team that went 6-4. I never even got any looks.

The genius of Donald Trump was that he hid in plain sight for all those years, working deals with other business owners, government, local municipalities, unions and the like. He played the long game, under the radar, an enigma, all the while a spy—a Putin puppet positioned precariously close to the pinnacle of power. Or, so says Tibsy.

You sound like a conspiracy theory guy. People afraid of themselves. Trump made business deals. Boring and a tad kooky. You can lock the whole thing down right now: Tell me how he conspired to pull it all off so deliciously and exquisitely that they just...couldn’t...get..him (after 4 years, tens of millions of dollars, selective media leaks, anonymous sourcing that went nowhere and KGB-esque powers. Put it to bed right now. Surely there are charges pending for Trump conspiring with Russia filed somewhere, yes? This is pure dimwittery my friend.

What a fascinating take. The old “Trump worked with PUTIN, subverted the totally fair, open and honest (in 2020) election process and did so in such a deft and clandestine way as to hide it from a group of 14 highly skilled investigators with unlimited resources and unfettered investigator power...” yet the toxic fantasy exists within the Trump crowd? Your new name is Tibsy Newman.

Classic Transpy. The nation’s independently interdependent weathermen just inadvertently heard, reported and confirmed something that never actually occurred and suggested it came to then anonymously. “I CHECKED GUYS—THEY SAID THEY JUST MISUNDERHEARD WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN. THEY SEEM NICE THOUGH!”

Sounds potentially like trouble in the boudoir. Though with the young kids and sexting these days who knows. It’s no-ones business.

I was going to with Ray Donovan but not everyone has Showtime. Everyone has seen a Matt Damon movie, or at least his appearance on Will and Grace. Disclaimer: I have have not seen the movie where he bought a zoo. That seemed far-fetched to me. That’s all I was saying. I just used more words.

WEO...I think if you are naive enough to think that a professional sports team has never employed fixers to establish relationships with shady lawyers to concoct stories about high profile football players in a very public contract dispute suggesting sexual misconduct with a comely masseuse in an effort to destroy the player, his reputation, trade value and availability at game time, well I’m guessing you’ve never seen a Matt Damon movie. Know this: Life imitates art. Not always, but sometimes. Consider. Oh, and masseuse...it’s hard to spell.

Unfortunately, they don’t suck at it, they’re extremely adept at it. They know with reasonable certainty that a falsely reported story has very little fallout, and that the best way to shape the narrative is the “anonymous source”. Another poster on the board would often scoff at the mere suggestion that anonymous sourcing could be problematic, citing cases just like this: “Multiple sources reported the same thing (thus it’s gotta be true....right??)”. It happened with Russia, Ukraine, the election and the fact is people don’t care of they’re manipulated by the press so long as they get what they need. It was always funny to hear them complain about Trump lies, while getting fed bull#### from iron clad sources like the WaPo, and celebrating the election of honest Joe Biden.

It’s difficult for me to determine intent as I am not you. Here I thought you were intending to be prickish for no reason after being civil previously. So, your question is “Do you think anyone can give you an exact date on when this can end and we would return to normal?”?

Your first question was aggressive and condescending, and asked me a closed ended question about my intellect. I addressed that as I saw fit, and that you perceived it as a dodge reveals you might not understand what a dodge actually entails. Your second attempt was a closed ended question about the timing of presidential proclamations of a return to normalcy. So, while some of the words are similar, the questions are different. I simply wondered why the question changed.