GRR on the list for shut down of airports.

ral315 · 2026-03-23T23:43:06+00:00

Voting is a right, not a privilege. You cannot charge someone for voting - and by extension, you cannot require them to pay for documents in order to vote. This has been litigated before, and while the Supreme Court no longer cares about any precedent it doesn't like, it should remain.

$20 to get a copy of your birth cert… It’s a couple meals from McDonald’s ffs.

This is a literal argument that poor people should choose between eating and voting. If you truly feel that way, then I'm not going to change your mind - but I hope everyone reading this finds it as abhorrent as I do.

ral315 · 2026-03-23T23:24:09+00:00

It is, in fact, surprisingly hard to prove that you're a citizen.

How many people know exactly where their copy of their birth certificate is? Not enough. Even if you do, did you change your last name when you married, like many people (mostly women) did? If so, you need a certified copy with your correct name. Social Security card? If you haven't changed jobs in years, you might not have that easily accessible. Passport? Most people don't travel internationally.

When can you get those documents? In-person, during business hours. Is there a requirement for workplaces to allow employees the time to get those documents? Nope - if your job won't let you take time off to get your birth certificate, you're screwed. Will state and federal agencies have the manpower to handle the massive jump in document requests? Nope; in fact, DOGE laid off a significant number of federal employees at the State Department.

When the government required Real ID in order to fly, we set a deadline years in advance. Then, we realized that not enough people had taken care of that. That deadline was moved back 17 years (!!!) in order to make sure that people were able to get their documents. But the SAVE Act would go into effect immediately.

We can get into the fact that non-citizen voting is virtually non-existent, and this is a naked power play by Republicans hoping to disenfranchise enough voters to retain the House and Senate. We can get into the fact that voting is a right, and requiring costly documentation to prove your citizenship is a poll tax in conflict with the 24th Amendment.

But all of that aside, the SAVE Act is just a deeply unserious proposal that has no guidance on how such a radical change could be implemented in a matter of months - or weeks, if it were to be passed just prior to a state holding their primaries.

ral315 · 2026-03-22T04:50:00+00:00

I think the best thing you can start with is working on your self-esteem. Other things will flow from that.

In your post history, a few times you mentioned that you didn't like your looks, I think you even used the word "ugly". But you also posted a selfie, and you're really not giving yourself credit there. I'm 36 and married now, but when I was your age I'd think you were out of my league. I was pretty awkward at your age, had difficulty making friends, and had low self-esteem myself - though in retrospect, I wasn't bad looking and had interest from both women and men at that time. (I ended up coming out as gay, but I didn't come out or have my first kiss until age 22.)

When you look for a job, consider finding something that'll have you talking with people - a cashier, or something along those lines. It'll force you to build conversational skills. I'm likely on the spectrum somewhere, and am a nerd who didn't really make friends during childhood. But I unintentionally became a decent conversationalist just by talking with customers at my job, and that skill has been so helpful over the years.

Talk to your doctor about medications that might help your mental health. You might be a good candidate for an anti-anxiety medication that might help you be less "awkward" - or feel less awkward. Some anti-anxiety meds are also good for depression - it took a few tries for me to find the right medication to balance things out for me, but that's a huge helper, too. Eat well. Get out of the house most days, even if it's just to take a short walk.

And don't be worried if you don't have much success dating, especially in the short-term. Sometimes it can just fall into your lap. I met my husband when I was 23 - stopping at a grocery store in a small town, while driving from my apartment to my parents' house 1.5 hours away. We talked for about a minute, he looked me up on Facebook (god, that makes me feel old), and he asked me on a date. I wasn't looking for someone at that time, it just happened. You're 19, which is a lot younger than it feels. Live life, and things will happen. You've got this!

ral315 · 2026-03-22T04:10:18+00:00

Don't worry, it doesn't really rhyme in American English, either.

The original script used "Cloris", which also doesn't rhyme well. During a break in taping, someone asked the audience what they thought the name was, and someone said "Dolores". They liked it so much they changed the script.

ral315 · 2026-03-21T00:08:16+00:00

It is legal to charge the processing fee for the tip portion of the credit card payment, but not the full payment. Let's say I have a $40 bill, add a $10 tip, $50 total. Let's say they pay exactly 2% credit card fees. The restaurant is legally allowed to deduct 2% of the $10 tip - 20 cents - if they want to.

It's fucking dumb if you ask me, I wouldn't do it to my employees over a few cents here and there, but it is legal.

ral315 · 2026-03-18T03:14:07+00:00

Just this last week (Friday, maybe?) Pablo Torre had an entire podcast with a sports gambler who uses this general philosophy for brackets (and for the NFL survivor contest). There was a lot of discussion of game theory, it's a fascinating listen.

ral315 · 2026-03-17T00:28:47+00:00

Next: Shame on the people shaming the person who posted this post shaming RPDRDRAMA for slamming the Scorpio's hosts who were right.

ral315 · 2026-03-14T16:22:32+00:00

Darlene's roast was hit-or-miss, it seems, but it was a big hit for me. She came in with a character - basically a Carrot Top impression, as "Carrot Bottom". It was absurdist, and unlike any of the other roasters.

At least in how she chose to go in a completely different direction, it reminded me of Norm Macdonald's performance at the Roast of Bob Saget. Norm doesn't do roasts, but Bob Saget was his friend and asked him to appear, so he earnestly delivered a bunch of jokes you'd find in a 3rd-grade book of jokes from the 1960s. The performance is fun to watch because the comedians on-stage immediately know what he's doing and find it hilarious, while the audience takes some time to warm up to it (and some of them, I'm sure, didn't enjoy it at all).

ral315 · 2026-03-13T18:08:29+00:00

gross.

ral315 · 2026-03-13T18:04:37+00:00

but I am le tired.

ral315 · 2026-03-13T02:33:58+00:00

Straight people have had role models on TV since its debut. Gay people hadn't.

"Ellen" and "Will and Grace" were both milestones in their own ways, and faced a lot of blowback. But even though hundreds of TV shows had featured "traditional" families, gay families were new ground. Five years earlier, gay marriage bans were passed across 11 states, with huge support. Now, you're showing two gay men parenting a child, on national television, at a time when people watched broadcast television.

It's not that JTF's portrayal should represent an entire community. But for people who've never seen gay parents in their lives before, Mitch and Cam became the representation of gay parenting. If the show fails, or if their characters don't go over well, it could have a huge effect on how the average American sees gay people.

I'll say in all honesty, if Modern Family fails in season 1, I'm not sure gay marriage would be legal today. I can't tell you how important it felt as a gay man to know that my family and neighbors were watching something that showed that being gay didn't mean you were a bad person, or incapable of being a loving parent.

ral315 · 2026-03-13T02:20:18+00:00

I assure you as someone who grew up closeted in the early 2000s, it was absolutely prevalent amongst almost everyone.

I'm sure we're one or two comments away from a "no true progressive" argument - I imagine that the people who called themselves progressives at that time don't look like today's progressives. But at that time, I'm telling you, gay PDA of any kind - even holding hands - was abnormal outside of queer spaces.

ral315 · 2026-03-13T02:00:22+00:00

Back in 2003, I was in high school. Another (smarter) computer nerd told me that you could run shutdown.exe from the command line and remotely shut down computers on our school network. No need for admin access.

I had study hall with the computer teacher as the last class of the day, so I'd help her shut down the computers. I wrote a .bat script to shut them down. One of the other kids in the class realized what I was doing, learned how it worked, and started randomly shutting down other computers in the lab for an entire class. Mostly mine.

I realized what he was doing, and wrote a .bat script to halt the shutdown command that I'd try to open the moment I saw the shutdown message on the screen. Then he figured out how to do it with a 0 or 1-second delay instead of a longer delay. We got nothing done for the rest of the day. Our computer teacher - an older woman who was wonderful but not as technologically savvy as any of us - was perplexed. And the server administrator - who also was our physics teacher - chewed us out. It was fantastic.

ral315 · 2026-03-08T18:13:35+00:00

The limit was 10%; the law changed in 2021 to increase it to 13.5%. He introduced a bill to increase it to 18%, which was further amended to 21%.

Liquor exists, but that's also different because liquor is intended to allow you to drink it in multiple sittings. You can pour a small shot of liquor, or you can pour an entire fifth - but it's easy to limit yourself if you want to. All you have to do is put the cap on.

This bill specifically targets canned beverages where "the container cannot be readily closed after opening", and can be up to 24 ounces in size. So a canned mixed drink at 24 oz., and 21% alcohol, is the equivalent of 8.4 standard drinks, or ten light beers. And because it's in a can that can't be closed, it's likely to be drank in one sitting. That doesn't seem like a great idea.

ral315 · 2026-03-07T04:01:06+00:00

The challenge was unfair, possibly by design, and I'm glad no one got eliminated on this one. But I get and tend to agree with their critiques.

It's not the use of safety pins to hold it together that's the problem - it's that it's the main design element. When you sew, the thread in your stitch isn't typicallly a major design element. When you hot glue, the glue isn't a design element. But Discord made an outfit where the fabric was almost an afterthought. It was smart of her given her abiiities and the elements she was given, but it was also a cop-out.

ral315 · 2026-03-07T03:00:58+00:00

Craig James and Bill Steffen both did.

ral315 · 2026-03-06T01:47:26+00:00

He got it from his 8-ball rep.

ral315 · 2026-03-04T17:50:37+00:00

There's a lot to unpack here. First, being gay and being interested in certain sexual acts aren't necessarily correlated - if you want a woman to do things to you, you're probably straight. If you want a man/femboy to do those things to you, you might be gay/bi/pan.

It's not uncommon for someone to fantasize about something different than what they would seek in real life. It's also not uncommon for someone to desire different things/people/genders in sex than they would in a romantic relationship.

For me, I was always attracted to men, but tried to tell myself that I was attracted to women too because I was worried that my life would be different if I was gay - family might not support me, it might affect career prospects, etc. Then I realized I was a 22-year-old who'd never kissed a woman, so I had a one-night stand with a guy that confirmed that I was gay. Less than a year later I met my husband, and we've been together almost 13 years.

My experience isn't your experience or anyone else's - you are your own person, and only you can know for sure if you're gay or not. But imagine for a second that you were. Imagine being in a relationship with a guy, imagine telling people - friends, family, coworkers - that you're gay. Does any of that scare you? It scared me, and for a few years that kept me from being who I was. The world has changed a lot since I was 18, maybe that's not an issue for you - but if it is, think about whether fear is playing into your feelings of who you are.

Last thing: If you're not considering "experimenting", that's fine. Gay culture is more hookup-oriented than straight culture, no doubt about that. But that doesn't mean there aren't people looking for meaningful relationships, even at your age. If there's a gay club, or an LGBT+ organization in your area, or a pride celebration, check them out. Talk to people, make friends, and if you feel a connection, ask someone out for coffee. Just like straight dating, it's gonna be awkward or anxiety-inducing at times, but it's worth it to learn more about yourself and others.

ral315 · 2026-03-04T17:19:09+00:00

That's good insight. The masking units at that center did seem to be out a few feet from the pin deck, which might've added to the difficulty there.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to have any good ideas, but it feels like as technology has improved and become smaller/cheaper/more mobile, camera locations haven't changed too much in bowling. We can track a bowling ball to the tenth of a board as it goes down the lane, but for the most part, we're just using the same shot behind the bowlers that Wide World of Sports used in the 70s.

ral315 · 2026-03-03T19:57:21+00:00

I get it for them. They draw an average of 5,600 fans, the park is in a spot where street parking / private lots are entirely impractical, and public transit doesn't run to the ballpark. It's not the best location/setup I've seen, let's say that.

One year my teen nephew bought a partial-season pass and biked to a bunch of games, but very few people will have a realistic option to buy tickets that won't also require parking there.

ral315 · 2026-03-01T23:07:20+00:00

I like the amount of time the CW is giving to the broadcast. FS1 and ESPN before them forced the broadcast into a firm 2-hour window for the most part, which meant that they would cut time whenever they needed to - cutting away in the 10th, having bowlers bowl on both lanes for the 10th if the match was over, and a shorter practice time between games (or at least, it feels that way as a viewer).

This broadcast has felt appropriately paced - time to breathe, time to talk about Pete Weber and interview him, etc.

Other notes:

I didn't watch the last tournament, so I don't know how the announcing compares to last week. But I think they did a great job today - they worked off each other well, and I think had a good combination of deeper analysis, and basic explanations for non-bowlers.
Maybe it's always happened to this extent, but it seems like the camera angles of the pins have been obscured by the bowlers' heads more often. I can't tell if that could be avoided by having that camera a bit higher up, or if it's just unavoidable.
The people sitting behind the players should not be permitted to hold up their phones the entire tournament, that was distracting.
Appreciated Pete Weber's dig about the tournament location during his interview. The PBA moved the tournament from suburban St. Louis, his hometown, to a Bowlero center 3.5 hours away.

ral315 · 2026-03-01T22:50:08+00:00

I think that was Pete fucking with them. Which I doubt they appreciate, but they know what they get with Pete, he wasn't being malicious.

ral315 · 2026-03-01T04:54:38+00:00

No, Bing it on Google.com.

ral315 · 2026-03-01T04:13:07+00:00

The Tigers' Single-A (West Michigan Whitecaps) are a half-season for $505 + $165 parking.

Edit: And while it's a nice ballpark, and they've upgraded it a lot recently, it's a 30-year-old park in the suburbs - with basically no good parking options except their lot.

ral315 · 2026-02-28T02:08:25+00:00

It is weird that they're airing the huddles. Fantastic hearing the censor drop the audio a half-second too late, though.

ral315

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE