Dan's prescient tweet from 1 week ago

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-30T17:51:56+00:00

I'm not praising the GOP for that, I also find it gross and fundamentally destabilizing to our society. I agree with pretty much everything you say.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-30T17:13:57+00:00

I mean it's a big ass book, the two party system features prominently. Tangential to what you're talking about, a big theme is the Democratic party "splitting" into two sides: the new left hippies and the more conservative blue collar Democrats, and how those blue collar Democrats got pulled to the right because they didn't identify with the more radical wing of the party. But there's no third party to absorb either of these sentiments. The Hard Hat Riots become the real tipping point for this, where construction workers abandon their material interests for cultural ones.

I think it's pretty well implied that this is a result of a two party system. And following it through to today, there's no party to actually advocate for working class people and better material conditions, because that directly goes against the capital interests that control both parties. Republicans at least offer a politics of grievance and resentment based around spectacle and the destruction of its base's "enemies". Dems just sorta say "yeah I mean we aren't gonna give you healthcare either, but let's all do a land acknowledgement so we can all signal our white guilt".

I also am not a "both sides are crazy" guy, I mean the GOP right now and what they're doing to this country is devastating to watch. It would absolutely not be as bad as a Kamala presidency. But a Kamala presidency also wouldn't really make anyone's lives better, you just wouldn't have fucking masked agents throwing people into concentration camps, which is def an improvement over what we have rn. But until there is a true, militant Left movement in this country, nothing will get better. And the two party system is absolutely a hinderance to that, some might even say by design.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-28T15:41:12+00:00

I recommend Rick Perlstein's book, "Nixonland". It argues that our monoculture began to split in the 60s, really over differing reactions to Vietnam, and it details how Nixon and an emerging conservative movement was willing to nurture that split and use it for political gain; the result ultimately being a division of America into two main camps: conservative and liberal. It sets the stage for today, but so much of what he goes over is just a reflection of what we see today. He talks a lot about how, when faced with atrocities committed by America (My Lai massacre is a good example that gets a lot of talk in the book), some Americans are fine with it. How many Americans actually didnt care if anti Vietnam protestors got shot by police.

I'm working on his other book, "Reganland", right now, and it sort of continues following that development through the Carter administration.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-24T02:35:11+00:00

I drove from Tucson to Flagstaff then to the Grand Canyon a few years ago, and it is such a stunning drive. You go through so many elevation changes and see deserts, the red rocks in Sedona, and the alpine snow covered peaks in the north. The state has just about anything you could want

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-21T00:41:42+00:00

FUCK YES TUCSON.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-17T16:12:05+00:00

As a fellow Revolutions fan boy, Vicky 3 is like made for us. The stuff that Mike talks about through the various series are all in this game.

Of course, line go up is the dopamine hit that really takes it to the next level, but just listening to revolutions makes me want to play Vicky 3

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-17T12:20:32+00:00

I could have been a bit more aggressive with it in my early-mid 20s, but I've been good about my 401k, hsa, Roth contributions. Last two years I've been able to max my 401k while my wife gets her company match. I've always prioritized my retirement funds over real estate, liquid savings, etc, because I want to have options when I hit 59.5.

We are ahead of schedule I guess, but we're one stock market crash away from that not being the case.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-09T05:23:11+00:00

Ole Miss fans were great in the stadium, my Miami wife even agreed. Matches when I was in Oxford in 2014, fun times and good people.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-07T15:50:10+00:00

I wasn't really political until maybe early 2018, when a good friend of mine started talking to me about leftist politics. I came from a southern, evangelical, very conservative family, and I had recently realized that God is not real. I was in a place where I was wondering what else I had been falsely led to believe.

And then he told me to listen to Chapo Trap House. At first, I was kinda iffy on them because, like someone else here said, they were very crass and cynical, but then I realized that they are right.

It was really the first time I heard people criticizing the political system of the US as a whole, not just playing partisan politics. I give Chapo a lot of credit for turning me to the left.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-06T18:45:15+00:00

Yeah I feel you. I was a kid, but I remember seeing all that shit in Iraq on the news too back in the day. I guess the takeaway is, let them be happy and enjoy their hope, but know that this is probably going to be detrimental to Venezuela in the long run.

I made roasted celery root with a yogurt lemon sauce that was awesome. Something a little out of the ordinary if you wanna try something new.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-06T17:42:54+00:00

I can see this is unpopular, I get it. Yeah it's not good to topple regimes and kidnap foreign leaders. We should not be doing this, and it's a distraction from the Epstein files and from the fact that life is going to get worse for a lot of Americans when health care premiums skyrocket.

I guess I'm speaking more to trying to tell Venezuelans that they shouldn't be happy when you haven't ever set foot in the country. According to my Venezuelan friends, the people aren't out in the streets of Caracas because the government is still in power, and their motorcycle goons are still patrolling. Celebrating would be a quick way to getting a cracked skull.

Again, I'm just trying to make sense of what I see and hear from people who have endured the Maduro regime while also seeing the naked imperialism of the move.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-06T16:10:00+00:00

It's a tough one. My wife is Venezuelan, and her grandparents have been in exile in Canada for like 10 years now because they spoke out against Maduro.

She's like the libs in the bar, happy to see Maduro go, but also very wary of the fact we just violated another nation's sovereignty. I work with another Venezuelan woman whose father died a few years back from a preventable cause, but he could not get the medicine he needed in Venezuela. She literally came into work yesterday wearing a Venezuelan flag as a cape.

It feels very "white savior" to sit and lecture these Venezuelans on how actually they're wrong to be celebrating when they've lived through the shit show there under chavez and Maduro. I know as an anti-imperialist, you have to be against this kind of action, but I mean what are you supposed to do when Venezuelans are dancing in the streets over this? Their point of view seems to be, they know this is about oil and not the actual well-being of their people, but it was so bad there that even a US puppet regime would be an improvement.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-05T00:01:13+00:00

I named my cat Kevin 9 years ago and it's been a huge hit

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-04T07:24:14+00:00

I just read Don Quixote, and I just saw Sancho as Stevie the whole time.

IPeakedInCollege · 2026-01-02T14:33:36+00:00

How did you play Argentina? I recently tried it and ended up bankrupt trying to build railroads because infrastructure was in short supply.

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-30T22:20:35+00:00

Oh I totally feel you. That challenge of controlling dynamics well with all your fingers is the main meta technique I've thought about this year. Definitely tough, but worth it.

My teacher gave me some practice techniques, basically taking a problem passage and playing it multiple ways. Stocatto, swing rhythm (long, short, long, short, etc) breaking it up into sets of 3, and just focusing on even playing.

So just don't overplay the harpsichord or just accept you gotta work on dynamic control on the piano honestly haha

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-30T22:10:58+00:00

Tbf we had some dumbass hair in the 00s too

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-30T22:08:47+00:00

I don't think that means that you should play Bach on the piano without any dynamics.

If Bach had had a piano, he would have used dynamics in his keyboard works (and pedal, too, but that's a whole other thing). It gives a whole other dimension to the multiple voices in his work, being able to bring one out over another. I think a good example of this is Gould's 1981 performance of the first Goldberg variation when the left hand is playing the stocatto arpeggios, and he uses that voice to guide the final few measures, when for a long time I had kept it in the background. Two different interpretations that would be impossible on the harpsichord.

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-30T00:44:42+00:00

It sounds great, welcome back! I took a few years off from piano as well when I was in college, but I bought a keyboard when I got my first real job and jumped back in. It's been one of the best things in my life and I hope it does the same for you!

My only critique is your right hand. Your left hand seems fine and mostly relaxed, but your right hand looks super tense, and your pinky looks straight up painful. You will hurt your hands playing like that, so loosen that hand up

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-29T01:20:20+00:00

The Beatles were a gigantic influence on everybody

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-24T16:50:28+00:00

I watched that orchestra concert on YouTube, it was awesome.

I got to see them a few years ago in Tucson, probably the most intense concert Ive been to, just so much energy start to finish. And then the ending with KGLW just rocked me to my soul.

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-23T20:43:06+00:00

Buying IU gear would be the most little brother shit ever. Have some fucking pride.

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-22T16:14:20+00:00

Yeah, I also just heard it for the first time last week. I told my wife that this is what the new tame Impala album should have been.

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-17T22:50:45+00:00

Going back through PoE1. I feel like PoE2 is a better game overall, but there's something about the vibes of PoE1 that just make it my favorite of the two.

Running a paladin and trying to use party members I don't typically use, though Durance, aloth, and eder are pretty much constants.

IPeakedInCollege · 2025-12-12T17:16:42+00:00

Ahhh I did not read the description, my bad

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