It depends on what I’m doing

If I’m going somewhere out of easy driving distance and hoping maybe some friends will come along, I’ll start floating the idea about a year out, start making more solid plans about 6 months out. Give people time to get passports, save up for plane tickets, etc.

If it’s an overnight to a long weekend with just me and my wife, maybe a couple weeks, we could probably do day-of sometimes but we gotta make sure someone can watch our dog.

Not exactly the same thing, but my wife and I saw Logan at a drive in theater when it came out

Towards the end when he’s all fucked up and near death, the audio started doing all kinds of weird shit, cutting in and out, getting fuzzy and distorted, etc.

We thought it was a pretty cool effect to show the sort of state he was in and we were all about it.

Then we heard some crystal clear audio coming from the cars next to us, turns out it was just my car’s battery dying from running the radio.

Still think it was a cool effect, would watch it again that way if it were an option.

I’ve since picked up a battery powered radio for future drive-ins (we try to go at least once a year)

You could chant primary colors at kindergarteners online line for a maximum of 20 hours per week, or in person for a maximum of 10 hours per week

That may work for you, and if it does I’m happy for you, but for me, as much as I want more time for myself and my hobbies, one thing I want even more is to not ever spend any amount of time doing anything even remotely like that.

I also have no real interest in working abroad even if I didn’t think that job sounded horrible. A week or two of vacation, sure, but by the end of week 2, I’m ready to go home, and that’s really the point here, I want to be able to just stay home, and only leave when it’s to do something I want to do.

The problem is that the one thing I want to do that I’m not already doing is “not work”

I don’t have any grand plans to take up new hobbies or anything in my retirement (though I’m sure I’ll continue collecting hobbies just as I always have) I just want to be able to do them on my own schedule

Every time I see one of those “employees must wash hands” signs, I think about getting some custom made “and everyone else should too” signs made up to start posting below them in public bathrooms everywhere I go.

I am so ready to hop on the PHEV or even full electric bandwagon.

I do have 2 major hurdles though.

First is there aren’t a lot of vehicles out there, at an affordable price point for me that quite fit my needs. I’ve pretty much dialed in that a midsized SUV or small pickup truck is just right for me. There’s some exciting options coming down the pipeline, but none that are out there have quite hit the sweet spot for me yet. (I am champing at the bit for Ford to release a PHEV AWD maverick with a midgate to make up for that short bed. That’s basically my ideal vehicle, I’d also be stoked for Toyota to do a plug in 4runner, my current car is a 4runner and I like it a lot, if either of those happen before I’m ready for my next car theres a good chance that’s what I’m getting)

Second is charging, I live in a townhome with no garage or driveway, so if I want to charge at home I’m pretty much stuck running about a 30ft extension cord across my front lawn and sidewalk. That’s less than ideal, and my HOA hasn’t exactly been friendly to others in my neighborhood who have gone electric who have done that. I can probably work around that though, the way my schedule works, unless I go in for overtime I usually don’t work more than 3 days in a row, so if battery-only range gets a little better for PHEVs (which hopefully they will by the time I’m able to budget for a new car in a few years) I can probably do most of my commuting on one charge and find an hour or two on my days off to go somewhere with a fast charger.

In the meantime, I just try to get my wife to do as much of the driving as possible when we’re both off since she has a prius, our schedules don’t always align, but when they do I only drive if we need my bigger car for something.

It’s a long way off, but we also fantasize about the possibilities of self-driving cars someday when all of the problems are worked out. Since we have different schedules (she works a regular 9-5, I work 3pm-3am on a 2-2-3 schedule,) we could have one self driving car for most of our commuting and errands, it could take her to work, come home and take me to work, pick her up and take her home, and pick me up at the end of my shift, and go charge itself in-between.

It of course varries from one school or area to another, and from different age groups.

I ended up going to 4 proms, my own junior and senior proms, the senior prom my junior year because a girl asked me, and then I ended up dating a girl at another high school after I graduated and ended up going to her senior prom (in case anyone’s getting skeeved at that, we were both 18 at the time we started dating, just a few months difference between us, I just barely made the cutoff to be part of the previous grade and she just missed it)

That last prom was the only one where I was actually dating my date, the other 3 we just went as friends, although I did have a pretty big crush on the girl I took to both of my own proms but could never quite work up the nerve to ask her out.

There were never any elaborate promposals or anything, that was just starting around that time and hadn’t quite caught on yet, my sister a couple years behind me did it, nothing too elaborate I think she gave her friend a cake and balloons.

The promposal thing is mostly just that it’s silly and fun, and nowadays I guess it probably makes for a funny tiktok.

Prom was not a particularly big deal in my area, if I had to attach any particular significance to it, it’s just that it’s kind of your first “adult” formal event that you’re attending for your own sake, not because you’re going to a cousins wedding, not something like your first communion or bar mitzvah or whatever when you’re still very much a kid. You get to dress up, you get a fancy meal, you rent a limo, maybe you go to a cool post-prom party and you’re going to be out till the wee hours of the morning mostly left to your own devices. It’s fun for its own sake, and the kind of event most teens don’t really get to experience very often.

Part of the problem is not having the money or space for an extra vehicle.

I drive an SUV, I don’t particularly like driving an SUV, I get a lot of use out of having a larger vehicle, I’m an avid DIYer who makes frequent trips to the hardware store to pick up lumber and such, I have a lot of outdoor hobbies and usually end up being the one who drives so I’m carrying gear for several people, I don’t exactly go off roading, but those hobbies sometimes take me on some poorly maintained, deeply rutted, muddy roads and 4wd has gotten me out of some jams, I occasionally drive onto the beach to go fishing, usually find myself towing a small trailer a couple times a year, and I’m an essential employee that lives in an area that gets snow with a weird schedule that usually has me commuting before the snow plows have gotten through everywhere.

But even though I probably get more actual use out of an SUV than most people, most often I’m still only driving about 20 miles or less a day, on paved roads, in weather that doesn’t require anything more than working headlights, wipers, and tires that aren’t totally bald.

If I had the budget and parking space I’d probably have the cheapest base model EV I could find for most of my commuting and small errands and save the SUV for my days off and when it snows. That’s not the case though.

I was in Montreal for the eclipse, I’m sure it was a very busy tourist weekend and they were ready for the influx of us English speakers coming to town, but I didn’t have any issues anywhere.

It was probably my favorite city I’ve ever visited. Everything we ate was amazing, even when we just stopped into some random hole in the wall Chinese takeout place for a quick bite.

Public transit blew anything I’ve ever experienced in the states clean out of the water. I was also kind of in awe at how bikeable the city was.

There’s not many cities I’ve visited that I’m itching to go back to, but I’m definitely planning to go back sometime.

To be fair, you didn’t say it had to be a modern technological invention, just that it impacted the modern world

A large part of the “magic” with human relationships is that out of all of the 8 billion some people in the world, those who are close to you have chosen to spend time with you. For all of our flaws, they see your true nature and value you for it, and choose to have you as part of their lives.

With an AI, that may not be a thing.

If they’re programmed to like you, they’re at best a toy and at worst a slave. There’s no freedom for them to choose or not to choose to be with you. You’re getting an imitation of a relationship. It could be a convincing imitation, with built-in arguments and other idiosyncrasies, but to me every time I hit one of those, it would just be a stark reminder that it’s not the real thing and it’s just programmed to behave that way.

If they’re not programmed to like you and are free to form or not form connections with humans, there’s no guarantee you’d have any more luck wooing an AI than you would a human.

Children are a big part of romantic relationships for a lot of people but by no means all

Many people are happily in committed childfree relationships, other people cannot or should not have children for a great number of reasons but still want and need romantic relationships, and there are still other cases where children put unnecessary strain on otherwise happy relationships.

I think there’s a great number of reasons that AI should not be considered a replacement for human relationships, romantic or otherwise, but reproduction isn’t one of them.

Even if AI could otherwise replace a romantic partner, and if children are something you desire in a relationship, there’s still options like adopting, IVF, and surrogacy

And if we want to get a bit weird and sci-fi about it, that’s without considering the sorts of unknown scientific developments that may come further down the line. Who knows what form AI may take at some point in the future? We may end up with AIs inhabiting some sort of replicant body that’s compatible with human reproduction, or perhaps even entirely new forms of life and intelligence in a sort of melding of man and machine.

A lot of those are features of some government jobs, but not necessarily government jobs in general

they do not pay commensurate to similar jobs in non-gov positions.

No, but they do make up for it at least somewhat in benefits, which sounds like something OP is interested in, and since they’re looking for a less stressful job, they probably have also come to terms with the fact that the pay would likely be lower

you must conduct mandatory quarterly drug tests to ensure you are in compliance to federal drug laws.

That varies on the nature of the job and the agency you work for. Like I said, I work in 911 dispatch, so I’m subject to a lot of federal regulations and such, including about drug use, but the only time I got drug tested was when I was hired, the only circumstance I’m subject to testing is if they have reason to think I’m intoxicated on the job. (The test when I was hired was a hair test, fun fact, at least at the place that did our testing, their policy is if you shave your head like I do, the next place they take a sample from is your armpit, I was expecting them to take it from my beard, but they wanted pit hair)

you must submit fingerprint and/or DNA samples

I did get fingerprinted, that is true. No DNA samples though. Not exactly unique to government jobs though, a lot of private sector childcare and healthcare employees, casino workers, bank employees, and security companies, just to name a few, require fingerprinting.

you must disclose many financial, foreign family, or unusual hobbies, so they can legally deny you things such as certain rights in case you are in a job that requires security clearances or NDAs.

Don’t recall that ever coming up in my hiring process, and I handle a lot of privileged info. Not exactly a security clearance or NDA, but lots of personal info and such that I can’t talk about outside of work.

it’s difficult to promote to higher pay positions unless you grease the right hands and network the right people or simply be lucky right-place-right-time, you will simply stagnate in your place for a long time (or just simply be furloughed).

The same can be said about a whole lot of private sector jobs as well. Networking is a big deal. This also depends on the exact agency/department you work for, a lot of agencies do like to promote internally to fill openings and new positions when possible. At my work it’s pretty rare to see someone totally new brought in to fill most of our positions we get people being promoted and moved around a fair bit when there’s an opening, and most of my chain of command up to the director of my department started out as dispatchers and worked their way up through various supervisory roles, deputy directors, etc. Some positions are of course more of a dead end than others, there’s only so many places you can move up to from courthouse clerk, but it can also be pretty easy to transfer to a different department, I’ve had a fair amount of coworkers move from the communications division (which dispatch is a part of) to logistics, IT, emergency planning, the coroners office, there have been cases where underperforming dispatchers have been found other jobs in the county, etc. And not everyone cares about promotion, I’m happy to keep answering 911 calls for the next 20 or so years, and I suspect that OP maybe doesn’t care too much about long term career prospects since it sounds like= they’re basically just looking for something to hold them over until retirement.

if the gov shuts down, you don’t get paid.

If a private company shuts down, you don’t get paid and you have to go looking for a new job because it’s probably not going to open back up in a few days or weeks after the assholes in charge get their heads out of their asses.

If you have a government job, pensions are still very much a thing. Something like 1/3 of jobs are in the public sector and the majority of them offer a pension, and they’re pretty rare but there are still some private sector jobs offering pensions as well, though I wouldn’t hold my breath trying to get one of those.

It takes a whole lot of people to keep the local, state, and federal governments running, pull up your county job listings sometimes, they’re probably hiring for a few different jobs at any given time, some require very specific skills, training, or education, others are going to be basic janitorial work, office clerks, etc. and everything in between that pretty much anyone could manage, and everything in between, and almost all of them will qualify for a pension plan.

Source- am 911 dispatcher, vested in my pension, still another 15-20ish years before I can collect on it

Hurricane season lasts from roughly June through November. The worst of it normally comes between August and October, so late summer and we’ll into the fall.

There’s no such thing as bad weather only inappropriate gear.

The problem is, in the summer, “appropriate gear” means an air conditioned house.

I buy some roadmaps probably every 10 years or so to make sure mine are up to date and not too beat up, I keep them in my car and do use them occasionally. I usually have 3 maps, a local maps of my nearest city and surrounding area, one of my state, and then one of the surrounding region.

I also tend to pick up free maps wherever I can, lots of state parks and such, tourist maps, etc. but I’m not buying them so not exactly relevant.

I also tend to pick up free maps from AAA since I’m a member whenever I’m going on a road trip, I’m paying for the membership so I guess in a sense I’m buying them, but also not really

I’m not from this instance, so probably not totally relevant to this poll, that said

NO, I’m not a tankie.

I think, however, it’s worth considering that a lot of people that could be considered tankies probably wouldn’t apply the term to themselves, and that could skew the results of your poll. First of all, tankie is sort of a pejorative term, and many wouldn’t want to apply it to themselves for that reason alone. Secondly a lot of people just may not consider themselves to be a tankie, and genuinely do not recognize their own tankieness.

I don’t think I’m the guy to come up with a definitive checklist of what does or does not make someone a tankie, but for the sake of getting the conversation going (and feel free to disagree with me here, I welcome the discussion) I think two of the biggest hallmarks of being a tankie are

1. Communism- not all communists are tankies, but all tankies at least claim to subscribe to some sort of communist ideology.

2. Authoritarianism- tankies either are authoritarians themselves, or are willing to support or overlook authoritarians as long as they see them as being in some way opposed to “the west”/capitalism/etc.

I think the authoritarianism aspect is going to trip some people up trying to answer this truthfully. A lot of authoritarians probably wouldn’t consider themselves authoritarians, most people like to think they’re standing for freedom, justice, liberty, equality, etc. even if their actual actions tell another story. Don’t get me wrong, there are people out there who are openly authoritarian and proud of it, but a lot of authoritarians are a little brainwashed to the point they’ve lost sight of what they’re actually supporting (take a look at the MAGA crowd, they think they’re about free speech and anti-censorship but want to keep books they don’t like out of libraries, they think they’re about small government but want to regulate what kind of medical care you can get, they think they stand for law and order but also proudly proclaim that they are all domestic terrorists and have a convicted felon as their poster boy)

And politics are messy, full of moral grey areas and times where you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, make uncomfortable alliances, difficult choices, and kick some cans further down the road to deal with later while you tackle the current crisis. It’s not always easy or feasible to draw a crisp line in the sand and say “we will not ally with/support/turn a blind eye to these authoritarian regimes,” sometimes you have to play a little bit of the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” game if you want to actually make any progress against that enemy, or you may have to prioritize and deal with something else before you deal with them. There is a whole lot of grey area to explore about when, why, how, how long, and how much you can support or ignore them before you’re advancing their cause as much or more than your own.

I think there’s probably some tankies who have been taken for a ride on the propaganda wagon and don’t truly realize how authoritarian they are, and there’s others who have justified it, thinking that they’re only going to be/support authoritarians temporarily to achieve a specific goal and will pivot away from that later, but have gone too far or keep moving the goalposts.

Couple last thoughts from me.

There can always be bad actors who are falsely claiming to be (or not to be) tankies for their own purposes. Not really much you can do about that.

Personally, a lot of the criticism I’ve seen about tankies here has been directed towards the mods and admins, not necessarily the rank average users.

That’s kind of the point of this thread though isn’t it? Weird food pairings that sound crazy but actually work if you’re brave enough to try them

Elsewhere in this thread you’ll find a lot of sweet/salty/savory pairings, one that’s particularly relevant is adding chocolate to chili. Lots of chili will end up getting served with some shredded cheese, or some sour cream (sour cream is kind of next door to cheese when you think about it) so not too far off from a Mexican hot chocolate without the meat.

Cheese is dairy, and there’s no shortage of milk and chocolate creations, like hot chocolate itself

Cheese can go with sweet things just fine, plenty of great fruit and cheese pairings, cheese and honey, etc. (if you haven’t tried it, some warm apple pie with some sharp cheddar cheese on it is great, also sounds crazy to some people but if you ever do a cheese fondue odds are you’re going to be dipping apple slices into cheese)

You’re probably even familiar with a couple pairings of chocolate and other cheeses, things like chocolate chips in cannoli, chocolate cheesecake

The zest has a very concentrated flavor, but not really any acidity.

However, ook into “super juice” it had a moment in fancy cocktail circles somewhat recently as a way to get more citrus juice from less fruit and also a product that will last longer in the fridge without the taste degrading.

Basically you peel your citrus, mix the peels with some powdered citric and malic acid (the ratio of acids depends on which citrus, I think lemon juice gets straight citric, lime and orange get a mix) and let them sit for a while, the acid pulls some of the oils and such out of the peels making “oleo citrate”, then you blend the oleo citrate and peels with water and strain out the solids and you’re left with something that is nearly identical to actual juice (and you could, of course, mix in the actual juice from the fruits as well)

I feel like there is probably something there you could work with to punch up your juice a bit. Maybe if you’re able to separate out the oleo citrate you could use that as sort of a citrus extract. Or if you just want more acidity and don’t need the flavor enhanced you could just add a bit of acid to the juice.