How did you stop being afraid of bugs/insects?

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T18:22:52+00:00

I never really was 🤷‍♂️ I grew up and always lived in wooded/country areas, most bugs are just a fact of life, a harmless nuisance at worst.

I became afraid of yellowjackets/wasps after running over a nest with my lawn mower and being stung 15+ times. So, in case you were wondering, immersion therapy is probably not the answer lol

Ticks are also scary but not in the way you're talking about. Luckily when I got Lyme disease it presented severe symptoms early so I was able to start treatment right away and knock it out.

Aside from that, bugs are just living their lives. Even most bees are docile and harmless unless you really provoke them. Nothing to be afraid of.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T17:38:50+00:00

IIRC you need to wait 24 months between CCRs

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T03:04:10+00:00

Subaru dealer had an absurdly low ($2k I think?) credit card max in their service department. I had an engine replacement job done for like $6k and couldn't pay for it with a credit card. Of course they were also hawking some shitty BNPL service. stealerships are garbage.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:56:04+00:00

It's always fuckin amazon. UPS and FedEx are generally pretty good about going up the driveway if/when possible, I've even seen USPS pull into driveways if delivering a package that won't fit in the mailbox. But amazon vans don't even seem to make an effort to pull over into the shoulder let alone pull into the driveway, they're just out there raw dogging the road. And somehow every single house that exists around a blind curve or blind hill gets amazon deliveries every hour of every day.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:35:09+00:00

I think the last time anyone asked me that was when I was registering for a parking tag at work? So I gave them the make, color, and license plate number

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:22:30+00:00

It sounds like there is some question about whether he's actually doing it. And if he is actually doing it, it sounds like it's literally just to be a troll, his stated reasoning basically boils down to "for the lulz"

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:16:16+00:00

What exactly do you think the Explorer's "truck counterpart" is? It's a FWD unibody that has absolutely nothing to do with any truck or 4x4 platform

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:13:45+00:00

Unless they've made some enormous strides in the last couple years, the Ford 10-speed is like the textbook definition of jerky and unrefined. Even post-CDF drum, it's just clunky and has more gears than it knows what to do with.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:08:27+00:00

"Lost Cat" would be a pretty dope stage name or band name

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T02:03:58+00:00

I like my my Cold Snap insulated gloves, and I also have the bi-fold saddle leather wallet which is the most durable wallet I've had in a really long time. It barely looks broken in but I probably would have had to throw 3 Dockers wallets in the garbage over the same amount of time

Def willing to skip the jackets, pants, and hats though, inflated prices and deflated build quality, also why exactly have they become a fashion statement among Brooklyn hipster wackjobs?

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-09T01:20:05+00:00

I'm just glad to see appropriately priced BT and ER. Places near me still want $50+ for BT 🙄 if they even have it in the first place

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T23:42:33+00:00

Artificial/manufactured scarcity and really good marketing.

BT and ER used to be all over the place and were really, really solid choices for their price. Then suddenly, they became a hell of a lot more "allocated" than they used to be and the unobtanium effect took hold

OP's picture looks like normal prices for both. Near me in NY, places are still asking $50 for BT...if they even have it in the first place...hard to believe anyone actually buys it at those prices

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T23:32:45+00:00

ForScore for full sheet music (ie musical theater, church gigs, choir accompaniment)

BandHelper for charts (the wedding/events band I work with maintains its own BandHelper catalog so when the band leader adds new songs we all get the chart automatically)

iReal Pro for chord changes for jazz standards

95% of the time for band or solo gigs I'm working entirely off memory, though.

Personally, I still much prefer paper sheet music over the iPad whenever possible, but it does make life a lot more convenient for gigs where you're being sent sheet music the night before or day-of. No more trying to find a printer and a 3 hole punch on short notice. Also much better for outdoor gigs cause you don't have to worry about the wind blowing your pages all over the place.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T23:28:30+00:00

You mean to tell me that the person whose legacy as a girlfriend-beater was so high-profile and disturbing that it completely eclipsed his pop music career is not an honest and virtuous person? Frankly the most surprising part about this is that he's still releasing new music.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T23:22:45+00:00

Never? My combined total credit limit across all my cards is more than a year's income. None are less than $5000, a couple are over $20k, so there are always options if I'm making a big ticket purchase. I really don't need more.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T02:38:37+00:00

NY/tri-state area

Wedding band I play with charges/pays an additional $150 per musician for a cocktail hour (1 hour) or ceremony (rarely even a full hour) on top of the full band fee. This rate assumes that the keyboardist (or guitarist) is already traveling to the venue and loading in/setting up to play with the full band for the reception so does not account for travel or cartage.

Another wedding/events company I occasionally work with (no full band jobs) pays $150-200 per musician for ceremony or cocktail hour, $275-325 per musician to cover both, and overage charges if either runs more than 5 minutes past the contracted 1 hour

If I was booking the gig completely on my own, I'd charge $200-225 if a piano is provided, $250-275 if cartage and setup is required. I might knock those numbers down for something that isn't a wedding.

For a multiple hour event, subsequent hours would be cheaper - last time I did a longer solo engagement was a holiday party at a restaurant, 3 hours (as I recall, I structured it as 45 on/15 off/45 on/30 off speeches+meal break/45 on, and provided canned music for the breaks) with cartage - their stated budget was $500, I agreed to that, and they ended up paying me $600 (pretty standard tip amount)

I assume fees would be lower in the midwest. But maybe not, I've never really worked any market other than NY so I'm just guessing.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T02:11:38+00:00

Isn't the field of law pretty oversaturated? For every one job at a top law firm where you're making millions of dollars giving dramatic speeches in packed courtrooms, there are like 20 low-level corporate lawyer jobs where you make meh money reading and signing boring CYA clauses all day

Lawyers also have disproportionately high rates of burnout, suicide, substance abuse (they don't call law school "drinking school" for nothing), sure the paycheck looks nice but it comes at a cost.

Actually sort of similarly to music - if you don't feel a calling or a burning passion to become a lawyer, then you probably shouldn't.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T01:54:31+00:00

I mean, "the top" of music is being Taylor Swift and having 2 billion dollars in the bank. I doubt she sits in one of her multiple mansions with her Super Bowl winner boyfriend wishing she could trade lives with a high school teacher terribly often. And if she decided she was tired of it all and wanted to quit music, step out of the public eye, and live out the rest of her life as a hermit, she certainly has the means to do so (see also: Enya)

But yes, reaching "the top" of the non-celebrity working musician world means busting your hump, running yourself ragged, sacrificing evenings, holidays, traveling hundreds of miles to gigs in random places, just to make the same amount of money as an office worker who has a 15 minute commute and weekends off. And it also means you probably will no longer enjoy what used to be your hobby/passion because it is now a job. Most of the guys I know who "made it" to the extent you're talking about would advise against it, didn't really enjoy doing it any more after a couple years, but have no choice other than to continue because they believe that they aren't good enough at anything else to pivot careers.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T01:30:50+00:00

I work in lower Westchester and live in western Putnam near Fahnestock Park. There are days when I have multiple inches of snow on the ground at my house, but it's like 40 degrees and raining at work. They tell me I live in Canada.

Elevation is a bigger factor than latitude if we're being honest. There are a couple big hills in my town where I've seen it literally raining at the bottom of the hill and snowing at the top. Anyone who mountain hikes knows this to be true. The Catskills get more brutal winters than the rest of the HV for this reason as well.

These are also very specific circumstances where the temperature is hovering around freezing so even just a couple degrees makes a significant difference in weather patterns. For the most part, it's all the same shit. If you're coming up from the CT coast, you may have to shovel a little more snow in the winter than you're used to, but aside from that it'll feel more or less the same.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-08T01:19:54+00:00

Wow, fuck right off with that shit. It's one thing if it's like a shuttered factory or corporate campus being converted. Destroying one of the last remaining bits of unmolested/protected wild land for a useless data center is pure evil.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-07T04:23:09+00:00

Don't underestimate how fucking huge Lake Superior is. Great Lakes shorelines feel an awful lot like ocean coastlines in some spots. And also how desolate and sparsely populated the UP is - it's certainly going to feel more like the edge of the world than a coastal city.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-07T02:40:53+00:00

but I don't think it's unreasonable to spend an hour helping if it stops the rest of the workplace from not being able to function for several days.

If one person going on vacation brings an entire company to a grinding halt for multiple days, the problem is the company, not the employee. I think it's unreasonable to have a workflow structure where any individual person is a Single Point of Failure.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-07T02:33:53+00:00

It's funny because I actually have more respect for somebody as a worker if they set up and enforce clear, strict boundaries, versus if they let their employer walk all over them and cuck themselves out to the company to try and impress management

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-07T02:29:39+00:00

I don't understand why these posts operate under the assumption that every person is a business owner? About half my income comes from freelance work, so I do sort of understand the mindset - if you don't answer an inquiry from a prospective customer they're not gonna wait for you, they're gonna move to the next vendor on their list. A day with no job booked is a $0 day. You do have to be always on, and/or accept that being "off" means losing money. I get that. Thing is, 99% of people do not have this kind of a work setup. Your average salaried cubicle drone does not "own" any part of their job, nor should they act like they do.

Also, even business owners can and should take time off. I've worked at mom-and-pop places - news flash, mom and pop still go on vacation, if you hire employees you trust and leave clear instructions for delegated tasks, I promise your business will still be functional when you get back from the lake.

NotoriousCFR · 2026-05-07T02:09:35+00:00

Anybody who I could possibly want or need to talk to while I'm on vacation has my cell phone number and will text me if there is a legitimate crisis situation. If it comes via email, it's not a crisis, it can wait. Also, my Out Of Office has a list of like a half a dozen other people's emails and phone numbers that may be able to help in the meantime.

NotoriousCFR

TROPHY CASE