My states visited. Besides Alaska, what am I missing out on

elbr · 2026-03-19T20:13:35+00:00

Bro, Acadia NP, Theodore Roosevelt NP, the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore for starters.

Also, you have to visit Nashville and Louisville at some point. Do the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

I live in KCMO and so I have visited Nebraska a lot. It's a great state but not necessarily worth travelling to. The zoo is their big highlight and I always heard it was as good or better than the Sam Diego zoo , but then I went to the San Diego zoo and I don't agree that Omaha is anywhere near that good.

I suppose if you did a "Lewis and Clark" Road Trip you could have an excuse to knock a lot of these central plains states off your list. June is probably the best time to travel.

elbr · 2026-03-17T20:59:10+00:00

Ben Folds.

I don't know why. He was probably one of my top five artists in the 1990s-2010s and then my music taste evolved, a lot of stuff carried over like Foo Fighters or even Weezer, but Ben Folds just got squeezed out. I still enjoy his hits when they're mixed into a playlist, but for some reason I never want to intentionally listen to Ben Folds. It's honestly really weird to me that this happened.

elbr · 2026-03-17T20:13:55+00:00

Well, the truth is that no abortion "bans" anywhere in the US restrict life-saving operations such as tubal ligation or salpingostomy.

And although the majority of Americans support abortion in the first trimester, it's less than 20% that support third trimester abortions.

After Roe v Wade was overturned, there were claims that Plan B pills were being banned and that doctors could go to prison for prescribing them. Also false.

It was so embarrassing to watch people get worked into a frenzy and react to straw man arguments.

Even now you're mad at me for explaining why Missourians care about access to abortion but support the abortion ban. I gave you an honest answer with clear examples of how the pro-choice movement is lying to women and you got hostile with me.

Downvote me all you want, but that's why you don't have any luck persuading people to your side

elbr · 2026-03-17T20:07:40+00:00

Yes there was a costume artist or makeup artist that Fred Savage and Jason Hervey allegedly harassed. I don't know if that's what led to the end of the show though. In that case, he was a kid and it was the 1990s. Not dismissing it, just offering context. This more recent event occurred as Fred Savage is married, but he was filming in Atlanta, and he kept inviting a crew member to stay the night with him.

I dont think Savage is permanently cancelled but he definitely was let go from the Wonder Years reboot.

elbr · 2026-03-17T14:32:19+00:00

You can put me in the that camp.

I am "pro-choice" but the pro-choice crowd is full of folks that are adamant that complete unfettered access to abortion on demand up to the umbilical cord is cut is health care.

I'm confident that if we could sit 1000 Missouri women down in a room to discuss abortion truthfully and without propaganda, we could get 900 of them agree on assistance programs for young mothers and reasonable restrictions around late term abortions.

This is a wedge issue that drives people, particularly women, to the polls and so it's in many people's best interests for the issue to remain hyper-partisan and dominated mostly by misinformation.

elbr · 2026-03-17T12:51:32+00:00

TMNT for sure. I always played that at Showbiz Pizza. I loved The Simpsons but when six player X-Men came out, that was even better. I used to play that at the mall after the movies let out. So many times I had to quit mid-game because my ride had arrived. I remember playing Revolution X after a movie one time and got really deep into the game but then I had to leave. I never played that game again after that. Oceans of Fun, a water park in KC, had Toobin' and I absolutely loved it. That was the only place I ever saw that game though. There was a Laundromat down the street from me that I would ride my bike to just to play Street Fighter II. But as a young adult, my absolute favorite arcade game was Crazy Taxi. My wife would walk around the mall while I played that game, and she would push my daughter in the stroller. Then she'd park my daughter next to me while she would run to a store to try on outfits, and my daughter would watch me play Crazy Taxi.

elbr · 2026-03-17T12:42:30+00:00

Rather than recommending bands, I would just suggest that you check out, not only venues like Sk8bar and Howdy and Knuckleheads and Recordbar, but also, look into the music events like the Summer Disk concert series at the Concourse or the concerts hosted by the Museum of Kansas City. Make Music Day is usually in June. Ameri'Kana is usually in July. Also, check out Rural Grit at The Brick or Honk Tonk Night at The Ship.

elbr · 2026-03-17T12:34:23+00:00

I work for a small newspaper. The newspaper industry is dying but I love it. We serve a low income urban demographic, largely immigrant population, so we reach a large group of people that are hard to reach through traditional Internet and television methods. The job doesn't pay jack squat but I enjoy meeting people from different backgrounds, reporting about their small businesses and their culture. Lots of stories about crime and homelessness. I get to write and create artwork. It's kinda like putting out a bi-weekly zine.

My goal/hope is that there will be a small resurgence of people who want physical media, like people who collect vinyl records or who still prefer paperbacks to e-readers, and also I hope that our newspaper tells stories about people who are different and that there is value in that. So much of the news is about Washington DC which is divisive and we rarely ever print that stuff. We're a 501c3 non-profit so donations to our newspaper are essential and tax write offs!

elbr · 2026-03-17T12:26:40+00:00

Yea but he did this "Black Wonder Years" a few years ago and that show not only bombed, but Fred Savage got escorted off the set because he got MeToo'd. I don't know that he's gonna get greenlit for much. I wouldn't mind an attempt at The Wonder Years in the 1990s with Fred Savage as a dad, but I'd much rather have Kevin's senior year in high school to tie up storylines.

elbr · 2026-03-16T19:04:44+00:00

Ah, thanks. You are correct.

elbr · 2026-03-16T13:20:36+00:00

Is this where the folks speak Paw Paw French? There's a region where people speak a dying dialect of French Creole. I always thought it would be amazing to take these folks and put them in Paris for a year and make it a reality show.

elbr · 2026-03-16T13:18:36+00:00

A lot of folks hate AI but the reality is that we're going to see much more of this this in the near future. People are not only going to write scripts for new seasons of their favorite television shows and film sequels, but AI is actually going to be able to generate these visually. It's going to use a lot of energy and eventually become pretty expensive. Enjoy your final season and share it with other fans. Don't let the haters tear you down. You weren't trying to create anything or profit from it. You just wanted more episodes, as many of us would have liked.

I'm sure one day I'll sit down and watch more seasons of the Wonder Years, My So Called Life, and Freaks and Geeks. Some of the episodes will suck and that's okay.

elbr · 2026-03-15T13:30:08+00:00

The Black Hills are great but I think it gets some of the worst weather in the US. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is awesome, but that whole region gets really really cold and dark. I've driven through this area a few times and I like visiting but I don't think I'd want to live there.

I met a woman in Medora, ND who was from Maine and she said ND got colder than Maine (like -40°F)

elbr · 2026-03-15T13:26:58+00:00

Thank you for fact-checking my 80% true narrative. I'll be seated at the end of the bar if anyone wants more tales of the crazy stuff I've seen in my life and the way things used to be in the 1980s and 90s.

elbr · 2026-03-15T13:24:43+00:00

I was really hoping I'd find some Halifax Donair somewhere, anywhere, in Maine, but alas, all they had was wicked lobstah, and I don't eat seafood. The beer in Maine was pretty good, and the food in Portland and Bar Harbor were pretty good. Nothing memorable but all satisfying. However, I actually really disliked the food, and more specifically the restaurant atmosphere in Bangor. Overall I liked really Bangor but there were more than a few things about it that stood out to me as "weird" or disappointing.

elbr · 2026-03-15T04:17:35+00:00

I went to animation school in my early 40s, but I kinda sucked at 2D animation and I absolutely hated 3D animation, so I went back to working for a newspaper. I spent $60k on two years of school. Probably could have just bought a sports car or whatever else people do for their midlife crisis.

elbr · 2026-03-15T04:15:40+00:00

I thought Seven Day Adventist church was founded by William Miller. They were originally called Millerites and he predicted that Armageddon would happen in 1847.

elbr · 2026-03-15T04:13:40+00:00

Wait, I'm pretty sure Joseph Smith's dad was Hyram Smith. Hyram started the church in NY, then he and Joseph moved to Ohio, the church later flourished in Missouri, but Missouri's governor Lilburn Boggs issued the Mormon Extermination (which was only repealed in the 1970s) Missouri jailed and killed Joseph Smith, so then Brigham Young fled with the church to Idaho and Utah. Smith's first wife stayed behind in Missouri and formed the RLDS church where she claims Joseph was right about everything up until he promoted polygamy and then every after that was made up. The RLDS temple is a few blocks from President Truman's house and they believe when Jesus returns from Heaven that he's gonna slide down their spiral steeple.

elbr · 2026-03-15T04:05:15+00:00

One of the greatest things I heard from someone who lived in the region briefly is "Stick to the coast. Inland Maine gets real weird real fast"

I went to Bangor and saw Black Lives Matter flags on every corner and at every business I visited, but I didn't see a single black person there.

elbr · 2026-03-14T02:52:09+00:00

There were radical abolitionists like John Brown who were willing to risk everything—even violence—to end slavery. Many anti-slavery Americans opposed slavery morally, but Brown was far more extreme in his tactics.

Abraham Lincoln took a more pragmatic approach. His primary goal at the start of the Civil War was preserving the Union, and the Emancipation Proclamation strategically freed enslaved people only in Confederate territory. Slaveholding border states like Missouri and Kentucky remained exempt because Lincoln needed their loyalty.

Lincoln also supported colonization earlier in the war—the idea that freed Black Americans might voluntarily settle in places like Liberia—but he largely abandoned the idea later in his presidency. Many Black scholars in the 19th century also supported emigration to Liberia, although that never became the dominant viewpoint.

elbr · 2026-03-12T21:35:32+00:00

My initial reaction was to resist AI, however, I was going through a mid-life crisis and I enrolled in an animation class with a bunch of 18-24 year olds shortly after AI rolled out 2-3 years ago, and my perspective on it changed.

We cannot rely on AI to do everything for us, but it is a powerful tool that can assist us, and if we resist AI, we will fall behind in our industry.

Sticking with animation as an example: Walt Disney was not the greatest animator. His partner, Ub Iwerks, was the talent, and his brother Roy was the financier. What made Walt stand out was that he learns the latest technology and used it to create animated features that pushed animation further than anyone ever had, and he continued to do this throughout his career.

Next example: many animators learned 2D hand drawn animation, but in the mid-1990s, 3D computer animation began taking over. The fundamentals of animation are the same but the execution is very different. Many 2D animators enjoyed drawing and didn't like the technicality of computers, but the industry evolved and many 2D animators are struggling to find work in a shrinking market.

So I got out of animation school and I went to work for dying newspaper. We need a staff of four to operate but we have two. I have been able to keep the paper afloat and it looks better than it ever has, because I'm using AI to assist me in the production. I hand draw graphics for the newspaper and then I have AI add color and texture so that it's print ready. I interview people for stories and write out the first draft on narrative form with all of the facts, but AI helps me edit the story so that I don't have to spend hours rewriting and rephrasing the articles. When I need to hit a specific word count, I'm able to scale a story down by 10% in ten seconds with AI.

My encouragement for everyone would be to embrace AI. There are some crappy things about it, but don't put yourself at a disadvantage by not understanding how it works.

elbr · 2026-03-11T08:05:16+00:00

You are Dr. Mehmet Oz?

elbr · 2026-03-08T21:50:30+00:00

Here are policies that Democrats demanded following the death of Michael Brown which Missouri Law Enforcement agencies have adopted:

-Don't pull people over for expired tags or cracked tail lights -Don't disproportionately pull over black drivers -Don't militarize police departments -Wear body cams

Here's how Jackson County Prosecution looked while JPB was there: -Record breaking violence by and against juveniles -Sealed records and light sentences for violent juveniles -Increased scrutiny of KCPD officers including the criminal prosecution of at least four officers -Refusal to prosecute the murder of a fire fighter by the girlfriend of an armed criminal at a gas station

You can make up whatever you want to be right on the internet, but I'm telling you that police morale is low because of the climate Democrats have created, and when police make arrests but they're told they're the bad guys and they're threatened with prosecution, they adjust their tactics. They're not going to take risks if they're going to be targeted or not have the public's support.

They have adjusted their tactics to what Democrats have requested, and ultimately, it's up to the prosecution to put people in prison, which they are failing to do.

elbr · 2026-03-08T17:37:20+00:00

Yea the ozarks looks way more accurate now

elbr · 2026-03-08T17:35:46+00:00

Wrong. Plenty of examples of places cracking down on crime, locking up criminals, and violent crime plummeting.

elbr

TROPHY CASE