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Damor

Certifiably Surly
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About Damor

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  1. This day I issue a final fatwa on Baylor and all of its sanctimonious, hypocritical, rape-enabling, teammate-murdering, cat-torturing, worm-eating, unread-Bible-thumping, Dr. Pepper-sipping, shiplap-peddling, christofascist douchebaggery.
  2. I just wanted to pop in and say, "Fuck you, Baylor. Just relax and enjoy it." Now back to your regularly scheduled Fuck Baylor.
  3. Well, I'm here to answer @Brew and @fattyflattie's questions, then. My older one just started at Wasted State Western Colorado University.
  4. Not sure if I should ask this in the old 529 thread or maybe start a new one, but I've never seen much discussion on actually using 529 plans when the time comes. So, stupid questions incoming. Scenario: -- Boy is starting college this fall. We have just about the right amount to cover 4 years tuition/reimbursable living expenses. -- He enrolled in a 5yr combo undergrad and MBA program. I hope he loves it and sticks with it, but okay if he changes his mind. We can make that fifth year happen from other sources if need be. -- Because the last couple of years were crappy for his 529, we've been pumping some extra into it to get it to where we wanted it. -- Younger brother is in the wings (3 years out) but due to the extra time and some better breaks, his 529 is looking just fine unless he picks somewhere ridiculous. I had always just assumed that when he started, we'd stop contributing to the 529 and shift that monthly investment partially to spending money for him and other long term stuff. But if he does this 5 year degree plan, I started thinking we'd keep contributing. I don't think that it's going to necessarily grow that much over the next few years, but it seems that gives a little more tax-free growth and would then cover his fifth year. Since we're in Texas, we don't get any further tax benefits, whereas I'd seen some other sites recommend to keep contributing while your kid is in college primarily for the state income tax break if available. So now I'm thinking we'll just keep contributing for the next year or two and then re-evaluate. I figure by that point it will become more clear if he sticks with his 5y program or if he wants to do some other kind of grad school, so that will give him some extra flexibility. If he decides to just do a 4 year degree we'll roll anything left into a Roth for him or start saving for future grandkids. If it takes him 5y to get his undergrad degree we're not pissed at him and he doesn't feel bad. If he decides to drop out and become a ski bum/whitewater guide we'll take the penalty and buy ourselves something cool and lord it over him. Anybody have any experience in this regard or thoughts? I am a financial idoit and not good with teh monies.
  5. @Hate If they're using the endorectal coil I'd recommend you show up still drinking in the waiting room.
  6. @SmokeyTheBear, gonna need a trip report on that. I had a nice itinerary including Skye put together pre-Covid.
  7. It is our most modestly priced submersible.
  8. Username checks out. The priest does not say.
  9. Agree that ATPH, The Road, NCFOM are all suitable entry points, and that is by no means a slight to any of them. Although I haven't reread the Border Trilogy in a while, I recall feeling that The Crossing in parts could match BM and Suttree for fever-dream opacity. So if you decide to start with the whole trilogy, you might feel (as I did) that you got into the deep end pretty quickly after ATPH. Cities of the Plain then brings it back to a more ATPH level IMO.
  10. The Road was my intro to McCarthy, and absolutely devastated me. I'll deign to repeat my post from The Road thread: "I, too, read it as a relatively new dad when my sons were 2yo and about 9mos. It messed me up for a good three months. It's the greatest book I may never read more than once. That said, I now have two first printing copies put away which they will receive when they are fathers themselves. I wrote them a little something on the flyleaf when they were little, and will add to it before they receive them. But I'll tell them to wait a few years before reading it. The concluding paragraph may be one of the most beautiful ever written: Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. It comes to mind every time I'm fortunate enough to fish with my boys in a cold stream in Colorado." Shortly after that post my wife treated me to a stupidly expensive custom fly rod for an anniversary gift, and I chose this for the inscription:
  11. @Biff Tannen I'm not going to go fanboy jihad on you, but I think any serious reading of McCarthy does not see his work as a celebration of violence. It does, however, force us to understand, admit, and confront the capacity we all have for cruelty and to do evil. I suppose the best movie comparison I could make to his work is Unforgiven, which I'd guess owes a great deal to Blood Meridian. I personally needed McCarthy to present evil to me as Judge Holden rather than a cartoonish "Satan." But then again, I've been called a psychopath because I feel like I need to read Blood Meridian about once a year.
  12. "A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it." The two authors who I think have had the deepest influence on my life and thinking are McCarthy and CS Lewis. Lewis helped me to understand good, and I never really grasped evil until I read McCarthy.
  13. Sometimes, there's a post... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a post. And I'm talkin' about the Duck here. Sometimes, there's a post, well, it's the post for its time and place. It fits right in there. And that's this post. By the Duck, from del Muerto. Sometimes, there's a post.
  14. I have Sun Kil Moon tickets for tomorrow night in Austin that I can't use. Anybody interested just let me know.
  15. I hate that this thread exists. I love all of you fuckers posting in it.
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