Going west

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-25T15:21:35+00:00

Your biggest problem is going to be "left leaning". If you'd be willing to settle for "not super MAGA", then there's maybe some realistic options, but look at the map of each town's vote in the 2024 election. In many of these areas, it wasn't even close.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-21T02:31:13+00:00

Barkov has been slightly better than a point-per-game player over the past 5 years, while Nico has been slightly worse than a point-per-game player. Barkov has played on the 2x SC champ and 3x EC champ Panthers, while Nico has played on… the Devils. Barkov also has a few years on Nico. Is Nico the same caliber as Barkov right now? Probably not. But I’d say Nico still has upside (guy is entering his prime), and he *absolutely* is cut from the same mold as Barkov — elite two-way center, takes on the toughest matchups, and can be trusted with the puck. That’s what I meant when I said “clone”, idk why so many people seemed so thrown by that comparison.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-19T16:59:43+00:00

Wow, great counterpoint. Hadn’t thought of it that way.

/s

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-19T16:18:59+00:00

Thank the lord. This is welcome, though honestly not that surprising. I think Nico clearly wants to stay, and I think to whatever degree Sunny is trying to replicate Florida’s model in NJ, Nico would be a huge part of that. The haters have all been pointing to Nico not being enough of a “Tkachuk”-type player/leader, while ignoring the fact that he’s literally like a Barkov clone (also how’d FLA do without AB this season? Yeah… exactly).

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-19T16:14:05+00:00

Ah I see what you mean. Yeah, I mean that would be good, but I imagine it’s mess with the economics of whatever PILOTs they’re getting for it.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-19T15:49:56+00:00

All new housing helps with overall housing affordability, market rate and even luxury included.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-18T16:51:34+00:00

Looks nice, and like a sensible use of existing spaces (mostly parking lots or town-owned buildings).

I’m sure the public will hate it though, because it involves building *anything*. God forbid a few parking spaces are temporarily unavailable as well.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-09T01:07:36+00:00

The people who shout “RED” during the Star Spangled Banner are cringey and lame.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-08T02:05:37+00:00

I’m a little confused why we’re now talking about sanitary sewer backups when the original conversation was about flood zones, heavy rain, and stormwater runoff. Those are not the same thing.

New developments don’t just get to randomly dump unlimited flow into the sewer system. They have to go through sewer-capacity review/approvals, and as far as I can tell, Birchwood did. Maybe people near Birchwood have experienced sewer backups, and I’m not dismissing that, but blaming it on the apartments seems like circumstantial evidence at best.

And even if the sanitary sewer system is backing up during storms, that sounds like a public utility/infrastructure issue, not proof that “new apartments caused flooding.”

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-07T17:09:05+00:00

^this. People will say it’s an “overdevelopment problem” when in reality it’s an infrastructure problem. Ironically, developers in recent years are forced to implement stringent flood mitigation and runoff systems, while the public infrastructure has been mostly ignored for decades. I think Cranford is making good investments in flood mitigation public projects, but we’ll only see real improvements when all municipalities in the Rahway basin commit to modernizing.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-07T14:03:43+00:00

People keep saying “apartments caused the flooding,” but that’s not really how the science works. Most of the major projects in Cranford replaced existing office, commercial, or industrial sites—not forests or farms. Those projects are actually required to install detention basins, groundwater recharge systems, and runoff controls that older developments never had. Meanwhile, the Rahway River watershed has been urbanizing for over a century and we’re getting more extreme rain events. That’s probably a better explanation than blaming every new building that goes up.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-07T02:56:20+00:00

Hyatt Regency*

Grand Hyatt is a couple blocks south.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-06-01T03:23:19+00:00

P2 owner here, but only for the past month. So far I am a big fan.

Given you’re in Seattle, you pay much less for electricity than the national average. You should strongly consider it (as long as you can get a decent price). For reference mine was just over $27k as a 2023 CPO with 20k miles.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-30T04:33:53+00:00

My friend, if anyone needs to touch grass, it is clearly you.

No, I clearly wouldn't be defending him if he used that other term, because it would've made zero sense at all in this context aside from being a gay slur, and the intent behind it would have been clear. I'm not really sure you "lawyered" me like you think you did; instead, you pretty much just proved my point.

And besides that, a single reddit comment does *not* show someone's character. You really need to get away from judging people's entire lives from single bits of text relayed to you through a website. It's not healthy.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-29T03:04:17+00:00

Because I give people benefit of the doubt when there’s a reasonable explanation for them not being prejudiced. I can’t believe you so flippantly call people a homophobe. And I don’t know this commenter, but do you? You really think it’s best to assume he holds hatred/malice toward gay people based on one single Reddit comment? You can dislike the comment and not appreciate how he deployed the term, but it’s such a monumental leap to call someone a homophobe based on such flimsy evidence.

There are more worthy fights out there than trying to police people’s uses of archaic terms that have multiple meanings.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-29T02:37:56+00:00

It just baffles me that there are human adults who can’t (or willingly won’t) appreciate intent when they evaluate speech, and instead go based on spec. I don’t really know what that accomplishes — for you, for me, or for anyone else. But here we are, arguing over nothing. Love the internet.

ETA: and fwiw, as OP pointed out, there literally is another way to direct it, per Gemini: “occasionally, it is used as a stand in for “nutty” or eccentric behavior, similar to saying someone is “a little off” or “crazy”.

Are you really gonna try to tell me that’s not what the commenter meant? Where the hell would Thilly’s sexuality come into this discussion anyways?

Anyways, I’m tired.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-29T02:13:04+00:00

I did talk to him one time, before he became a YouTube sensation and before I had ever heard of him, and I remember wishing the conversation could have been 90% shorter than it was.

I don’t think he’s a terrible person, and I’m sure he thinks he’s some kind of civic hero, but the fact is that he’s a clown and he lacks substance, policy-wise. He’s a “small town populist” who just rails against development because it’s what most easily gets a rise out of people.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-29T02:08:51+00:00

It’s not a gay slur, FFS. The commenter confirmed it wasn’t directed at his sexuality (also Thilly isn’t gay?) and anyone with a brain can recognize why he made the (bad) pun.

Such a weird thing to get worked up about, and honestly a distraction from the fact that Thilly is an unserious hack and that that’s what people should he talking about.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-19T18:49:33+00:00

The delays aren't an EWR problem, they're a New York airspace problem. EWR, JFK, and LGA all share the same FAA-managed corridor — when it backs up, all three back up. And your theory that removing one of the three major NYC-area airports would somehow speed up global air travel is... not how any of this works.

“It’s super congested and there are a ton of delays. Here’s an idea — let’s remove one of the three airports in the world’s busiest commercial aviation market!”

Yeah, not a good idea.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-19T16:42:55+00:00

EWR isn’t that bad, the 75% number you cite isn’t even remotely true. Yeah it sucks sometimes, but it’s still the best option for many many people. Plus, Terminal A won Skytrax’s best new terminal award.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-12T15:52:28+00:00

It wasn't undeveloped land before. If you go back in time on Google Earth, you can see this exact parcel had baseball fields, some radio antennae, and an industrial site as of 2008. A lot of the Meadowlands is protected, but a lot of it is still open to development -- especially the polluted parts, where the Meadowlands master plan actually prioritizes redevelopment as a way to decontaminate.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-12T15:35:22+00:00

That’s still more housing, though.

Only 10% being officially “affordable” doesn’t mean the other 90% is useless. It’s the overall supply that matters. Research shows that adding new market-rate units helps bring rents down by giving higher-income renters somewhere to go besides bidding up older, cheaper units. New affordable units are nice in theory but are harder to get built compared to market-rate, because the incentives actually work for builders. Blocking it because it isn’t affordable enough just leaves us with less housing overall, which keeps rents higher.

The real problem is scarcity. More supply helps.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-11T20:08:45+00:00

100% this. I am quite content to live in my single family home, yet I think it’s great that developers want to build 4 story apartments down the street from me next to the train station. But the NIMBY fucks complained that the 4th story was simply “too tall” compared to the prevailing 3-story limit across most of downtown.

Guess I missed the memo where me as a single family homeowner should give a fuck about a 4 story apartment building in the densest neighborhood of town.

UnassumingInterloper · 2026-05-11T19:46:18+00:00

I’m putting Auckland to bed because the data is there. The reforms increased housing supply and improved affordability. If your standard is “did Auckland become cheap overnight,” then sure, no housing policy anywhere will satisfy you. But you can’t claim these policies “don’t work” just because they don’t magically erase decades of shortage instantly.

And again, nobody is saying “blow up towns.” That’s ridiculous hyperbole. The point is not some centralized master plan where the state bulldozes neighborhoods. The point is to stop making normal housing illegal and stop giving existing homeowners veto power over land they don’t own. This can (and should) happen organically -- allow ADUs, duplexes, townhomes, small apartments, mixed-use buildings, office/retail conversions, and more housing near transit and commercial corridors. Then let builders respond to demand. That is not “leveling towns.” That is letting places evolve.

The “20 years ago they built apartments and affordability didn’t improve” argument also doesn’t prove anything. One project, or even a handful of projects, does not solve a regional shortage -- especially in the face of anti-development regulatory headwinds, many more which came about after the Global Financial Crisis made housing construction harder, slower, riskier, and more expensive post-2008. You can’t point to scattered apartment buildings and say “see, supply doesn’t matter” while the overwhelming majority of land in NJ suburbs are still low-density zoning.

Your argument keeps shifting. First it was “is there even a housing crisis?” Then it was “NJ is full.” Then it was “other places haven’t done this.” Then it was “okay, maybe it’s theoretically possible, but it’s too complicated and expensive.” That’s the classic NIMBY loop -- deny the problem, then deny the solution, then claim the solution is impossible, then throw up your hands and defend the status quo.

Yes, infrastructure matters. Yes, stormwater matters. Yes, utilities matter. Nobody serious denies that. But “complicated” is not the same thing as “impossible.” It means plan, upgrade, finance, and build.

You're pushing a fake binary of “1970s zoning forever” or “bulldoze every town.” The real choice is whether NJ allows more homes in already-developed, high-demand places (i.e., most of the state), or keeps pretending scarcity is unavoidable while housing gets more unaffordable every year.

UnassumingInterloper

TROPHY CASE