[Ryan]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 We have entire TV shows and "news" programs hinging on it.

When I was in New Zealand I caught a few episodes of their version of Cops and it's almost adorable.

In one, the cops pulled over a pair of tourists who were such terrible drivers that the cops confiscated their rental car and made them finish their trip by bus. Apparently they'd done it all: drive on the wrong side of the road, ignore traffic lights, sudden inappropriate stops, made turns across multiple lanes.

[psmith2.0]

I truly want to go to New Zealand and Australia some day (Sweden too). I'll try to pay attention to the driving rules.

I think when all this settles down(?) and goes away(??) I'll go visit someplace far, far away for a week or so.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Ryan Apparently they'd done it all: drive on the wrong side of the road...

You mean the correct side of the road.

When I rise to power, I'm going to raise up a vast coalition from the 163 countries that drive on the right and we're going to conquer the 76 left-side countries and convert them, then leave. It will be the first great war that actually accomplishes something.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Frank777 You mean the correct side of the road. When I rise to power, I'm going to raise up a vast coalition from the 163 countries that are right hand drive and we're going to conquer the 76 left-side countries and convert them, then leave. It will be the first great war that actually accomplishes something.

Better start collecting JDM cars so you have something to drive.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by PB PM Better start collecting JDM cars so you have something to drive.

Good catch. I phrased that incorrectly. Corrected.

[Frank777]

I think this snowstorm might be the one of the biggest since our "call out the army" event in 1999.

Schools are being closed for a second day, and it's going to take 72 hours to fully recover.

[Matsu]

I worked/studied right in the middle of that. I remember snow banks around the hospital network piled 6 ft up - or higher. There wasn't anywhere to put the snow. They were trucking it to Downsview Airforce base IIRC, and they brought in these mobile snow-melters to work the lanes around UofT, Queen's Park, and the Hospitals. It was nuts, but it was over 100cm of snow. In areas where buildings and streets are tightly packed, especially where there is only street-side parking, there just isn't anywhere to push the snow. Some people shat on Lastman for it, but I always thought it was the right call.

[psmith2.0]

I can't even imagine something like that. 11-18" is the most snow I've ever seen/dealt with in real life.

The cool thing about the 1996 blizzard, with us in Northern Virginia, is that these big trucks were out all night, tons of them, all over the place (I could see the highway from our apartment) and I was amazed at how functional everything was the next day. The major highways and surface streets (and most neighborhoods?) were totally drivable. You had to be slow and careful, but nobody was "snowed in". Life went on. They actually came down into our complex and pushed a lot of it out of the way. Once you dug your own car out, you were pretty set to go.

We kept talking about how that amount of snow would bring Chattanooga to a standstill for at least 2-3 solid days, maybe longer. We just don't have those big salt/sand truck brigades here because it's only needed about once a decade, if that.

Up there, just below Washington, DC, they're ready for this stuff and they know how to act. It's almost like it never happened. Stores and restaurants were open, if schools closed it was only for about one day, I was back at work the following day (once I shoveled our cars out...there's a pic of me standing next to my old maroon Saturn, pointing to the snow up to the door handle). I'll never forget the awesome cast/"glow" all that white snow reflected into our bedroom that night. All the yellowish street lights in our apartment complex hit the snow, making outside, even at midnight, eerily "bright", and then that bounced up to our second-story corner bedroom (two sets of windows). You could almost read a magazine in the room with no lights on, it was so "bright"/illuminated and had this freaky "glow". I'll remember that look forever.

I remember stopping at Taco Bell that next day, going through the drive-thru with about 3-4 feet of snow piled up on either side of me...someone (management, a private company hired for the job) had come in there and cleared the parking lot/drive-thru lanes. For a Taco Bell!

They weren't messing around.

I was like "shit, I wouldn't get a taco back home for a week!"

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 I can't even imagine something like that. 11-18" is the most snow I've ever seen/dealt with in real life.

laughs in coloradan

[kscherer]

Way back when I lived in Phoenix, I remember one winter when it dropped 1/8th of an inch of snow at 3 o'clock in the morning. The mayor, ever watchful over the people, closed the schools and other government offices in order to insure the safety of the minions.

By 7am the temperature had come up, the snow was gone, and those of us who weren't born with a silver spoon in our mouths were .

If you don't grow up dealing with snow, even a little bit of it can shut you down.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by Ryan laughs in coloradan

I know...I'm a lightweight.

Thing is - because of the preparation, equipment, culture/what folks are used to, etc. - 30" in Boston probably causes less disruption and freak-out than 3" here. I truly believe that.

We just do not handle snow - or even the news of possible snow - like rational humans. If you ever want to see a bunch of people acting completely crazy and unhinged, find your way to Chattanooga, TN two days before a predicted 1-4" "snow event". You'll be like "what is wrong with these goofballs?! It's a dusting of snow, not a 60-mile asteroid."

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by Ryan laughs in coloradan

[PB PM]

40-50cm (17-20”) is the most we have received in one day. More cumulatively of course. Then again most of our snow is the heavy wet stuff that falls right around freezing. We lucked out this winter and all our snow was the light fluffy stuff people inland typically get.

[drewprops]

This one really bothers me. Larry Miller started out on the wrong path. He joined a gang by meeting its membership requirement of murdering someone. He got drunk and shot the first person he met. He was rehabilitated and went on to have a career as an executive at Nike, running the Jordan account. He recently released a memoir where he revealed his earlier sin and it caught the children of the murdered man flat footed. I mean, I'm glad that he found redemption. If we don't believe that people can be rehabilitated then we're all lost. It just seems like he could have done more to find the family over the years. Writing the book may have helped exorcise some the guilt he carried, but it opened the murder up again for the kids, now adults. Maybe it was unavoidable. He says that he hired a private investigator to find those grown children but was unsuccessful.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/s...nike-book.html

...

[psmith2.0]

**Business/Dickwit News**

Vishal Garg is stepping back into his role as CEO of Better one month after firing 900 employees over Zoom

I'm sure he's all better now!

He spent his time off reflecting on his leadership and working with an executive coach, an internal memo shows.

See? Like it never happened.

An executive coach...what 45-year-olds turn to to teach them how not to behave like like a complete graceless cunt and stage 6 social retardation sufferer.

"As you know, Better's CEO Vishal Garg has been taking a break from his full-time duties to reflect on his leadership, reconnect with the values that make Better great and work closely with an executive coach," Better's board told staff in an internal memo, according to The Daily Beast, which first reported the news. "We are confident in Vishal and in the changes he is committed to making to provide the type of leadership, focus and vision that Better needs at this pivotal time."

What a bunch of meaningless, corporate-speak horseshit.

He and his "executive coach" probably sat around drinking beer for a month, discussing which of the fired 900 employees had the nicest ass.

Mark my words: before 2022 ends, this fool will be in the news again. And not for anything good/positive. Just watch...

[kscherer]

Paul, you should know better. Modern, internet/social-media twattery has a very short attention span. This mess has already been forgotten by the Tik-Tokker types that called it to attention in the first place. He disappeared for a couple minutes and the entire thing was forgotten about.

If you're hoping this sort of nonsense will be "punished" you've got some screws loose. I mean, it's not like he called someone a socially unacceptable word. His only sin was ruthlessly terminating 900 people who needed their jobs to feed their hungry kids. And that's just not barbaric enough to draw attention from the look-at-me types.

[psmith2.0]

Yeah, but he could step in it in such a way that brings him back to the front pages again.

He might build a Robert E. Lee statue on his front yard or something.

Don't really care if he's "punished" or not, I just think it's funny how a month spent with an "executive coach" seems to do the trick, and be fix for this doof. How much soul-searching and mending of ways can a person truly do in four weeks? It's just CYA PR boilerplate, all that jibber-jabber from the company.

[drewprops]

M&M's iconic characters — six different colored "lentils," each with their own personality — have gotten a modern makeover for a "more dynamic, progressive world," Mars said Thursday. The redesign is focused on creating a sense of belonging and community, as well as spotlighting the character's "personalities, rather than their gender."

I mean, good for more representation, but this seems like silly corporate pretentiousness because it's candy. "Every little thing"? If it helps somebody then that's good.


...

[psmith2.0]

[Brad]

Please tell me this is a joke. Did I miss April Fool's Day already?

Those anthropomorphized chunks of highly processed chocolate are about the farthest thing from lentils in every way.

[psmith2.0]

I think every day is April Fool's at this point. Nobody seems to wait for April 1 anymore. It's a 365-day thing.

[drewprops]

It's really interesting. More than a few members here at AN helped set me on a path toward being more open to different ideas; less apt to have kneejerk reactions that didn't at least consider shifting my point of view.

My gut reaction is that this seems performative.

But the criticisms Mars is addressing with these changes are all real conversations happening out there in communities that focus on issues of gender, race, sex, neuro diversity, etc. Yes, some of those communities may be small, but they're culturally influential.

It's certainly difficult to identify with aspects of our changing modern culture.


...

[709]

The God of Sex and Drums and Rock 'N Roll has his boy back - RIP Mr. Loaf.

[psmith2.0]

Aww, man. My parents had “Bat Out of Hell” (I think everyone did, looking at the sales) and I’d sit and look at that cover for ages. Great album. I loved it as a kid and I still listen to it in Apple Music when I’m in a certain kinda mood. He had a great voice and it fit those songs perfectly.

Nice Meat Load story/memory...

Mom and Dad told me that he was going to be on Saturday Night Live and that I could stay up and watch it that night. They also told me Christopher Lee was the host. Our ABC affiliate played "Dr. Shock's Shock Theatre" on Saturday nights, with some local guy dressed as a vampire (undertaker?) and with a bat puppet sidekick, Dingbat. I think a lot of cities had this sort of thing? But they'd play all those British Hammer horror films, so I was, even at 7-9, well aware of Christopher Lee...I'd seen him as Dracula about 6,000 times, along with Peter Cushing and others. In fact, during my first viewing of Star Wars, when Tarkin appears on screen I'm like "hey, it's Frankenstein!" . Anyway, I spent all day being excited...Dracula and a singer whose album I was always listening to/looking at. And I was getting to stay up about 40 hours past my bedtime!

When Lee announced the musical act, I remember him doing it in a funny way and pretending to botch Meat Loaf's name ("Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to Meat Loaf..." and then correcting himself). As a kid I thought it was a hoot. And then he sang "All Revved Up with No Place to Go", one of my favorites from that album.

It was an awesome night to this youngster...up late, watching a "grown-up" show like Saturday Night Live with two people I knew/liked...Christopher Lee and Meat Loaf.

Anyway...I haven't thought about that in forever.

[kscherer]

The red M&M, who has shown bully tendencies in the past, will be more kind to his co-characters.

Time to bully that red bastard. I'm eating those last from now on so he can watch his friends get crunched!

And I'll be getting the generic brand from Trader Joe's from now on. They're just as good, and I don't have to worry that my candy may not have passed the PC test.

[psmith2.0]

And now Louie Anderson has died from cancer, at 68. Rough couple of weeks for comedians.

[drewprops]

What a week, indeed.

I did a movie once, starring Meatloaf, Randy Travis, and Kevin Sorbo (who tapped out and was replaced by Patrick Swayze). I'll share that story later when I'm not swipe texting from a phone.


...

[psmith2.0]

Was it a truck-driving movie? Black Dog? The three main leads in that movie haven't fared well.

Is Brenda Strong as lovely (and soul-wrecking hot) in person as she seems to be on the screen?

[drewprops]

Yep. I probably posted about it here way back when, knowing how old this place is...

...and I was on second unit (stunts) so we didn't encounter the main cast with any frequency.


...

[psmith2.0]

**NFT/WTF News**

A student who accidentally became a millionaire with a cult following after selling his expressionless selfies as NFTs says he feels confused

You should be, pal. So are most of us.

It’s a new world. I can only imagine how utterly fucking stupid it’ll be 25-50 years after I kick off.