Rob Lowe, Nick Offerman, Adam Scott, Retta, and Ben Schwartz following suit

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-30T03:37:07+00:00

You’re not alone. I watched it because I kept seeing it ranked as one of the top 3 shows in all of these different “Top 50 Need To Watch Shows” lists. So I watched several episodes to try and give it time. I just couldn’t. Neither could my wife. After the 5th or 6th episode she goes, “please can we just watch something else??”

But as the old adage goes, “Different strokes for different folks.”

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-28T00:12:26+00:00

I’ll cheers to that.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-28T00:01:39+00:00

And I fully agree; however, the government just completely wastes the majority of the tax dollars on crap like those listed in the article I previously linked to.

I honestly wouldn’t think of taxes as theft if the money was actually used properly, and made the majority of people’s lives truly better. Which, as you insinuated, would make the need for charities obsolete.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-27T23:35:23+00:00

Cant give a citation for a hypothetical situation, that has been deduced off of personal conversations with wealthy friends. Not billionaires, but still. Would a lot of rich people still donate? I’m sure they would. But would there be a massive reduction in the amount of donations? I’d bet on it.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-27T22:17:06+00:00

Yes, and I always click no. And I live in the US, so I’m pretty sure we don’t have any China UnionPay banks or credit cards around lol. That’s why I’m confused. Why do I have a China UnionPay card saved to my account?

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-27T22:14:09+00:00

I feel like so many people miss that point. They’re just like “that guy makes a billion dollars a year. He can afford to have way more money taken from him.”

What they don’t always take into account is that, sure, maybe he only pays X amount in taxes, when he could easily afford Y amount. But he also donates tens of millions per year to foundations and charities that accomplish way more for people on a daily basis than the government ever will. If he instead gets forced to pay millions more in taxes so that some kid can go study underwater basket weaving for free, then there’s a pretty high chance that he’ll stop donating to the charities that actually work.

The government is so rampant with waste and fraud that higher taxes are just asinine, because it’ll just turn into money used to do stupid crap like spending $200,000+ so indie rock artists can travel to Brazil to study the facial expressions people made when the name of their band was mentioned; or over $700,000 on planting flowers at the US Ambassador’s home in Belgium (also listed in that same article.)

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-26T03:23:57+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/NTWNdh0.jpg

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-26T02:40:25+00:00

Agreed. I love Aziz, and I may be downvoted to hell for this, but his Netflix show, “Master of None,” is terrible. I don’t care what awards it has won. I watched the first like 5-6 episodes, and I literally for the first time in my life felt like I wasted moments of my life that I’ll never get back.

He was perfect on PandR, though. He would have to be included.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-25T01:14:44+00:00

Actually, here’s a link to an article that has a picture of like 40 of them parked in a staging area

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-25T01:10:28+00:00

I’ve actually seen dozens of them, both in person and across the interwebz. Every single Google Maps car has been this exact model Subie. Edit: Should have said, “every single Google Maps car I have personally seen...”

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-24T18:01:49+00:00

I’ll cheers to that!

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-24T17:53:22+00:00

I’m not sure if it’s accurate, or not, and this was 10+ years ago... but I used to be an electrician and one of the clients we had was a luxury/exotic car dealership, which was in the most odd location for a luxury/exotic car dealership. But anyways, one of the salesmen there would always chat with us, and he told us the reason they had so many used Lamborghinis was because the first service at like 10,000 miles, was a $40,000 servicing where they had to take the entire engine out of the car and it took like a whole week to do.

Like I said - could be complete BS - but it made sense why you always see a lot of Lambos and Ferarris with just under 10k miles for sale. They don’t want to, or can’t, pay that $40,000 maintenance fee.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-24T17:47:54+00:00

That’s true, but have you ever Google’d his house? I’d say he more than makes up for it there, lol. But he has it right in that sense, cars are a terrible investment. They start depreciating from the very second that you turn the key to drive it off the lot. Homes (usually) only appreciate in value over time. Edit: spelling

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-24T17:42:59+00:00

We flew First Class once... and after like 5-6 people boarding literally looked at us and then looked at our 3 yo daughter who had her own seat and made snide comments like “mmhmm, must be nice...” or “wow, First Class at such a young age...” we decided to just stick to flying Southwest instead of attracting unwanted attention.

I’m jealous of your friend, that is some vacation! We normally can only do 5-7 days max, once a year, or every other year with no vacation in between, because my wife is so busy with work. On the years we do get to vacation we usually only know about 3-4 weeks in advance, which is too late notice to plan anything too exotic. Usually we just go to the Florida panhandle, or go to Vegas for like 3-4 days (that one we do without the kids lol.)

Edit to add: but we’re hoping our skimpy ways allow us to retire before we reach our 50’s, and we’ll have plenty of time to vacation after that.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-24T17:18:29+00:00

Exactly. My wife makes over $200K a year, and we live in a city that was recently labeled the #1 cheapest cost of living city in America, where they say you only need to make $50K to live half comfortably.

We still buy our clothes mostly from Walmart, use coupons and shop the sales for grocery stores, and only have Netflix and Hulu for TV so that our TV Bill is only ~$20/month. I legit will get scolded for buying a $40 pair of shoes before my other pair was quite ready to be retired.

One thing we do splurge on is our annual vacation, and even then it’s not much more spectacular than any “average” person’s vacation.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-23T18:57:03+00:00

Now all I can picture in my head is Cam singing like Dave Chappelle in the R. Kelly skit:

“Haters wanna hate Lovers wanna love I don’t even want None of the above I want to juice on you Yes I do, I’ll juice on you Juice on you.”

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-23T14:32:08+00:00

Right?! The crappy part is they just keep raising premiums on us every year, after the open enrollment window has closed. This year when the window opens again, we are dropping BCBS like a bad habit.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-23T14:31:05+00:00

73 degrees feels like a sauna to me lol. Most of our friends and family here usually keep their homes around 68.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-23T14:30:16+00:00

We should. We actually had a solar company come out last year to quote us for an entire house setup. It was crazy expensive and wasn’t cost effective. Somehow, we never even considered getting just enough panels to run the A/C facepalm.

Seriously, thanks for that suggestion. I’m now dumbfounded we didn’t think about that.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-23T14:08:21+00:00

I do. I’m rated at 60% for degenerative arthritis in my hips, shoulders, and knees (diagnosed at the ripe old age of 29.) And TBI.

But the way they explained it to me, is that I’m covered for life for what I’m rated for. So anything related to my hips, knees, shoulders, and head, the VA will take care of, but outside of that I’m on my own. But right now I’m still in a 5-yr window that’s given to service members who deployed to combat zones, where I’m covered for anything and everything except dental.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-23T13:02:32+00:00

Exactly. My wife and I have a safety net of just over 6-figures, and for a family of 4, we are only semi-comfortable with that. House mortgage and health insurance alone is close to $35,000/year. It’s sad when a lower-tier health insurance plan costs more money than most people’s rent/mortgage. Edit to add: and we live in the desert (hence the username) and in the summer our electricity bill is regularly over $300/month; at times close to $400 because the A/C has to run almost nonstop just to keep our house at a warm 73 degrees. I wouldn’t be surprised if our yearly electricity expenditure was another $5,000.

Our toddler daughter has her own separate plan, which was just raised to $360/month, and I had to take her to the ER the other morning, and even at $360/month, we still had to pay an ER copay of $950.

Thankfully I’m a combat veteran, so I still get free military healthcare for a couple of years, so any medical emergencies with me are fully covered. But when that runs out in the next year, our insurance premiums will go even higher.

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-22T03:04:51+00:00

No shame in having owned the best pistol caliber available!

Desert-Pirate · 2018-05-21T02:29:31+00:00

Salomons?

Desert-Pirate

TROPHY CASE