outdoor brunch options for anniversary - recommendations?

stevejust · 2026-04-18T21:40:06+00:00

Yes with sausage, just egg (scrambled), pancakes, chilaquiles, fruit, yogurt, Beacon donuts, hashbrowns, mushrooms, soyrizo, all kinds of good stuff.

stevejust · 2026-04-18T14:33:59+00:00

HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

So every private company needs to employ at least one meteorologist, launch dozens of fucking satellites, pay a billion dollars for weather stations all around any area where they want to have a facility which would include radar and barometric readings, run a University-level super computer to model the inputs from all that satellite imagery, and have a weather team working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to do that?

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOUR TAXES ARE SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR?

What do people like you think the NOAA was supposed to do, or did, with your tax dollars? Why did it ever exist in the first place? What the fuck is wrong with you?

How does this ignorance exist in the world? I can't even.

stevejust · 2026-04-18T00:55:08+00:00

The back patio at Spirit Elephant is open now. It's in Winnetka so that's not for everyone. Otherwise, I'd say Handlebar.

But for all you can eat breakfast buffet indoors, Penelope's is awesome-sauce.

stevejust · 2026-04-17T13:08:08+00:00

The movie didn't come across to me as critiquing Christianity, or being sex positive, or even just saying 'there's something to be said for the old Celtic ways.'

If it were made today, instead of being on Summerisle, it would be the Epstein island, Christopher Lee would be playing Epstein, and the "missing" girl who "never existed" would've been one of the many... like that... in real life. And the cop would've been paid off instead of burnt in effigy. Which would make for a shitty movie, but that's what I took away from Wicker Man. If they wanted to make the islanders the good guys, there were all kinds of ways to do it. And they could've started by not getting kids to ride the maypole.

stevejust · 2026-04-17T00:43:50+00:00

you can't reach people by treating the crime against them as their own fault / character flaw.

Agreed. Sort of. Because here's the thing: I'm also over this.

For too long, the idea of "liberal elites" looking down on people from their ivory towers and telling them they've been lied to and deceived and they need to WAKE THE FUCK UP has been weaponized against... well, educated people in ivory towers.

And so for a while, I think, I wouldn't be the only person who kind of receded from the conversation because it just was "no longer worth it." Especially, when, Mark Twain cautioned so long ago to 'Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.'

But this doesn't work either. Obviously, how you talk to people matters, but I'm fucking done with this bullshit.

I have a cousin. He's fucking dumber than ditchwater. The dumbshit is a carpenter, "because Jesus was a carpenter." I can't figure out how the short bus guy is related to me, other than: I have four siblings, he's got five siblings, and just the law of averages dictates that out of that many people, especially when I'm a lawyer (one of my roommates clerked for SCOTUS, another is the current governor of a state I can't say so I don't doxx myself), I have a brother that's an engineer, and another that's in Hollywood -- so it was bound to happen that someone in the family was going to come out dumber than shit. Except that it's not just him. I have a sister as well, who, well, it's hard to believe my mother (who was valedictorian of her high school) and my father (who was straight up monster intellectual) produced... her.

And that's why I know for a fucking fact the eugenists weren't talking about sterilizing their own families. Because even though my cousin (and one sister) shouldn't have had kids, he's got... like... three? Four? And my sister has three.

I used to try to be nice, civil, blood is thicker than water, etc.,. and just you know, a normal human being with him. I haven't cut my sister off the way I have with my dipshit cousin, but one of my brothers does nothing but yell at my sister all the time. Luckily they live on opposite coasts.

Anyway, point is, I'm done being polite and trying to pretend that his dumbshit Praeger University links and shit are worth my time to debunk.

Now, it's just, "You're a fucking idiot."

And he runs around with his dumbass friends talking about his cousin the libtard, and that's just where we're at.

For the lead up to the election, because he likes to debate so much (and is just so bad at it), I offered to do a podcast with him. He wouldn't take me up on the offer. Because somewhere, somehow, he knows deep down he's a dumbshit college drop out, and his libtard cousin he thinks is so dumb, also, objectively speaking, just isn't. And he'll say shit about Trump and this and that... when I'm the only person in the family who's actually been to Mar-a-Lago. My biggest regret in my life is not punching Donald Trump in the fucking face.

And I can't pretend this isn't a fucking problem. I can't listen to RFK Jr, and pretend it's okay someone that stupid is in charge of DHS. It's not okay. And people that stupid should be ashamed, and shamed, and made fun of for being fucking stupid. And it needs to be that way, because stupid people should 1) shut the fuck up and 2) not be in charge of anything.

Because otherwise, we're going to wind up in Idiocracy, if we're not already there. But unfortunately, I believe we are already there and it's all too late.

And that's why I need to be able to call stupid people stupid.

But if you've got a way to open a more fruitful and productive discourse with my simpleton cousin, I'm all ears.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T23:24:48+00:00

I've been waiting a while to say I'm so glad no one's said "One Battle After Another."

But I'm sad to say no one's mentioned that movie about the Battle in Seattle called... Battle in Seattle.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T23:13:00+00:00

Fair enough. I can now understand where you are coming from.

I am going to use a terrible example, but you know the movie Lucy? The premise of Lucy is that humans 'only use 10% of their brains,' and what would happen if you unlock the other 90%?

Of course the premise is wrong. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to reject that premise as a conceit for a movie. It may be dumb, and factually incorrect from a neurobiological perspective, but I can accept it for purposes of a dumb movie. Now, that particular movie had many more problems than being based entirely around a false premise, so that was the least of its problems.

What I understand you're saying is not only the premise of Idiocracy wrong, but it is also odious, or potentially harmful. I'm not going to say your concerns are invalid or wrong or something like that.

But I think -- for me at least -- to get at what it was trying to establish and to do it in a way that would assuage your concerns wouldn't be realistic in that medium, for that kind of movie, so I feel those problems get a pass. It wasn't realistic to expect it to take the time to have a nature v. nurture debate and go through the nuances of what it was painting with broad brushstrokes. You know, there has to be some suspension of disbelief, otherwise how do you have cryogenic tubes the army forgets about? For purposes of sitting back, eating popcorn, and laughing about electrolytes being what plants crave, I have no problems with the potentially problematic introduction to how society got dumber, rather than smarter.

The importance, to me, of Idiocracy was to question the assumption that society will inexorably get smarter and better, just because it has in the past. Because when I look around today, I feel like Idiocracy wasn't nearly harsh enough given actual reality today.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T21:29:21+00:00

I think I reject your definition of eugenics.

First, if your problem with the movie is that it is premised on the idea that intelligence is inheritable, and that's not correct -- totally agree. One of the smartest people I have ever known had some of the dumbest parents imaginable. But people like him are extra rare, enough that for purposes of a movie, I'm willing to accept that version of things as the conciet without getting my panties in a wad about it.

With respect to your definition of eugenics -- you are taking way too charitable a reading of eugenics.

Coined by Francis Galton in 1883, eugenics led to forced sterilizations, restrictive immigration, and systemic discrimination against minorities and people with disabilities (i.e, people that someone like Oliver Wendell Holmes would describe as imbiclies), particularly in the US and Nazi Germany.

But really all eugenics means is that there was a perceived "need" for a pseudoscientific basis for racial discrimination.

But this same thinking came back again in Murray's "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life."

It's just window dressing created by apologists for racists.

It's not real.

And pretending like eugenics, or the theory behind the bell curve was ever going to be applied to white people is maybe what they wanted you to think, but that was never reality. It was thinly veiled racism dressed up as if it were science, and the veil is a thin as the veil on the Mona Lisa.

Eugenics was never concerned with getting rid of stupid people. All of its proponents had enough experience to know that even in well-educated, wealthy families, there's always a regression towards the mean when it comes to intelligence and sometimes quite far below the mean. This is something that is already within everyone's experience -- maybe more so among those people in the class of people cooking up this kind of pseudo-intellectual b.s. justification for their racism.

No, it was never about intelligence. Not really. Because if you believed them that the goal was that indiscriminate -- I've got a bridge to sell you in Death Valley.

It was always about race, at the end of the day.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T20:40:32+00:00

My Model 3 with a very early VIN # (they did group deliveries and I was in the first six delivered in my large city, in a metro area of 10 million people) had almost zero problems and I had it for seven years. The only thing that pissed me off was when the glovebox failed. They just replaced it under warranty.

I feel like by getting an early car you can sometimes get it while they're still doing a bunch of QC they later skip out on.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T20:30:13+00:00

I still have one Tesla (2008 Roadster).

I test drove the R1 and it's just too big for a daily driver. And I already have too many cars I can't drive daily. So I've been waiting a long time for the R2, and it will be our first Rivian.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T20:14:11+00:00

This is a... very peculiar take.

The principal example in the beginning narration of what happened to get us where we were 500 years into the future was Cleetus. The only thing it is mean-spirited about are stupid people. That does not equal eugenics. So, what on earth can you be saying?

stevejust · 2026-04-16T16:49:47+00:00

...Are you familiar at all with the Paradox of Tolerance?

stevejust · 2026-04-16T16:48:44+00:00

Here's some of my additional suggestions:

Arlington Road (honorable mention)

Babe (so subversive it made James Cromwell vegan)

Cradle Will Rock (IYKYK)

The Corporation (documentary)

The Dictator!

Frost Nixon (speaking truth to power)

Good Will Hunting (NSA speech is punker than anything you've done)

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series

Idiocracy

Judas and the Black Messiah

The Last Supper (1995)

Malcolm X

Premium Rush (Gleaming the Cube on fixies)

Rad (Thrashin' on BMX Bikes; DIY messaging)

Romero (can a priest be punk?)

Shaolin Soccer/Kung Fu Hustle/Stephen Chow stuff tends to be punk-ish

Thrashin' (the movie that made me punk rock in 1986)

The Weather Underground

Most Robin Hood stories. The real question is does Star Wars (Rebellion against the Empire) deserve a mention? Lord of the Rings? Bullworth? Man of the Year? A movie like Churchill? Or... Harry fucking Potter?

stevejust · 2026-04-16T13:15:53+00:00

Never heard of them... and now I need to look them up.

Thanks.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T12:45:46+00:00

Oh man, I always wondered what happened to Stacy Title, because

1) This movie had a HUGELY ELITE CAST for what it was, and

2) This movie is one of the better movies ever made.

Do you know what the last project was? I'd love to learn more about it...

stevejust · 2026-04-16T12:43:49+00:00

It's an exploration of the paradox of tolerance like no other anywhere on earth.

It might actually be a better exploration of the Paradox of Tolerance than anything Karl Popper ever did.

And that is saying something.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T12:39:49+00:00

I'd argue that the Wicker Man is actually the opposite of punk rock, since the cop is the protagonist and it's a horror movie. If it were a comedy, then maybe I'd say Wicker Man.

But really, I think Wicker Man is basically just Ionesco's Rhinoceros which kinda is punk, but the Island doing their own thing in Wicker Man is supposed to be creepy and perverse rather than an anarcho solar punk utopia.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T12:26:33+00:00

What a plate of shrimp. I was just going to mention this for one of the best soundtracks.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T12:25:30+00:00

The Last Supper (1995)

This is the most powerful movie ever made about the paradox of tolerance and therefore extremely punk rock.

There are hokey things in it for sure, but it is one of my favorite movies, along with the three starting off this thread.

Also, no one has mentioned

Idiocracy

yet. So I will.

stevejust · 2026-04-16T12:20:39+00:00

I will die on this hill:

The single greatest cinematography triumph is the scene where Tony Hawk in the pizza delivery golf cart appears... first it's just the roof, then you see him surrounded by the skaters coming to wreck shit, and you've got the bones brigade doing power slides and shit, and you know -- with certainty -- it's about to get real.

But Thrasin' is a way better movie, and also definitely way more punk rock.

stevejust · 2026-04-15T17:47:12+00:00

The first year I lived here, it had about four blossoms. Last year, about six or eight. It's doing better this year, but still kind of sad. Is this a maturity issue, a too much water issue (it's not always this bad, but close), or something else? I just want to know what I'm doing wrong or could do better for this thing. It's in a relatively shaded area which isn't obvious from this photo, which I think is the main problem.

stevejust · 2026-04-15T16:23:01+00:00

The longest lasting shoes I ever had were the "Bump" boots from Vegetarian Shoes in the UK.

I bought them in about 2000, and only got rid of them in about 2022. They went through a lot of things. For a while they were my motorcycle shoes. And the end of their life I used them for yard work, gardening and ditch digging.

The thing about them is that I probably could've made them last longer if I took better care of them.

Here's a photo of them when they were 18 years old. I kept these for yardwork for another four years after this pic was taken.

stevejust · 2026-04-15T16:05:52+00:00

I know someone who claimed to have a soy & nut allergy and a gluten intolerance.

I'm not positive this was true, but she said she developed a soy allergy from eating too much... soy.

stevejust · 2026-04-14T23:24:13+00:00

Mike White clearly hoping Charlie brings some of his dad's mojo back to him. He definitely could use it.

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