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UpperWestside

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by UpperWestside

  1. Thanks for sharing that. I can understand the thought process behind what you quoted. I do believe this film resonates better with some folks than others, but that’s all film I guess. I am glad it is helping some folks out and giving them something to watch that touches them emotionally.
  2. Mills doing what he does. What a shot.
  3. The Boomers do not have a reliable option on offense. It’s great to play such good defense, but it doesn’t matter when you completely dry up on the other end. Giddey has got to develop his perimeter game A LOT. No real news there though. I would take the US by 15-20, perhaps more, depending upon the rotation Kerr decides to use in the semi-final if it is Serbia. Still gotta take out these Cariocas and friends, but I see no way this team loses when they are all focused.
  4. The Boomers have a competitive roster, especially so with the international version of Mills showing up again in the 1st half. They lack bigs, but can pressure on the perimeter. I think that overall they are a tougher out for the US than Serbia if they win.
  5. It’s just complete garbage and the best part is also using some state-backed “Sinophobia” statements when you say that their medals should be taken away and that they never should have competed in the first place. I think China has an amazing history and is very culturally rich and interesting. I have always found Chinese people here to be really polite, second only to Japanese and Koreans I cross paths with. I still want these medals taken away and given to the rightful winners.
  6. Yep. In my experience, they typically are low achievers who desperately want to be the smart one in the room for once in their lives. What finally told me that I could not help my friend a few days ago was the final text I received from him. I told him that he had no actual evidence of any of these conspiracies and that this was crazy town. He responded by saying my views on these conspiracies were draconian and some other garbled stuff that made no sense to anyone with a functioning brain. He was gaslighting me for telling the truth. That was the point it hit me I cannot help him.
  7. Some people here come across like Puritanical starter kits who have zero clue of the things their kids already have seen. If you honest to God think your child has not already been exposed to this level of gore, violence and language in their friend group, well, some of y’all are not as in tune with your kids as you believe. This is not 1975. The things I heard 9 and 10 year olds discuss in my brief time teaching was crazy to me to hear. I did not have a clue about how much they knew about the world. When I was that age I just cared about playing sports and that was about it. Totally different world now due to technology. Kids are so intelligent and have learned so much more about the world and what is in it than any of us could have ever dreamed of at that age. This movie would not register much other than confusion on some of the sexual innuendo comments, but the violence would not scare the average child in America in 2024. I don’t like that people become numb to this at a younger age now, but that’s another discussion. It’s cool that you went to see it with them now though. Just such a humorous movie. Will probably watch it a 3rd time to try and catch every reference I missed so far.
  8. I would have no issue if my brother let his kids see this movie once they reach that age. Several of you really have no idea how much smarter children are now and how little this movie would effect them in any way other than getting some one liners they’d repeat to their friends. Kids in 2024 are so much smarter and have a better understanding of the world around them because of all the access they have to technology. Some of you sound like the people railing against explicit lyrics in music 30 or 40 years ago.
  9. Kids see all of this stuff and hear about it from their friends. This is the Information Age and children are so incredibly proficient with technology that they will have already heard far worse than anything in this movie. If parents only knew what kids talk about in their friend groups when the parents are not around. I discovered this in the brief time I taught. Their conversations and knowledge about the world around them blow away what I knew at the same age.
  10. I have read the responses here and tried to take some time to think at length about this. I believe that in this instance, even though this is a friend of 20 plus years that it is best to just completely cut him off. Most of the time I listen to people and attempt to help folks through life’s troubles, but I do not believe I can help my friend with the mental state he is in and how far down the rabbit hole he is with all of these conspiracies. I blocked his number and I feel okay in doing that because I am not the one that’ll get through to him. I am going to still read more from the links provided here upthread to better understand the mind of folks who fall prey to this stuff. Thank you for the advice y’all have offered. I do appreciate that.
  11. Had a woman last night at work in town for the night from upstate New York waiting for their cruise to Bermuda today. Told her she should take her two daughters to see this movie before they leave for their cruise. The youngest daughter was nine and she says “She tells me she never says cuss words, but I know better. She can handle seeing this movie.” My kind of parent!
  12. Do you remember when I said it that it was because the Phillies have fewer injury concerns? Do you also remember that since you spouted off with one of your customary ridiculous proclamations that the Yankees have played mostly sub-.500 baseball? Do you remember that part as well? Of course you don’t Your ability to selectively remember things rivals one other poster on this board.
  13. That will be the enduring image from these Olympics and it happened 15,000 km from Paris. Tahiti is an awesome place and Teahupoo is one of the most fierce waves in the world and likely the heaviest. So glad that something great like this has come out of the surfing competition.
  14. He is. He has in the past cited the Tuskegee Experiment and during COVID only got his vaccination once DISD said you will lose your job. I am sure studies have been done that you might be far more familiar with than I am.
  15. That video is incredible. I believe he has only done two like that because of the two nutjobs his audience asked him to debunk. Everything else is teaching people about science, which is cool.
  16. Haha no. He went to a small HBCU, Jarvis Christian.
  17. I have not been around him in probably a decade now, but we have regularly talked about sports, life and whatnot. This is a really recent thing, within the last three weeks or so. I did stop taking his calls. I do a fairly good job insulating myself from crazy people. Well as well as you can doing the job that I do, but I digress. I guess just being confronted with it on a personal level like this was really surprising. Not that these people exist, but rather how easily he speaks about this like it’s true.
  18. So for the Houston people this might be a field day because is a life-long resident of Dallas. Married for 30 years or so. Three kids and a grandchild now. He teaches and coaches. He is extremely responsible with his family and is a present father and husband. The conspiracy stuff is insane and I told him as much. I was direct about it, but tried not to personally insult him. He believes in an alien race of some kind, with Billy Carson banging the drum on the Anunnaki conspiracy being the main one. I put him on a call with a friend that he knows who is probably my closest friend. My non-conspiracy minded friend listened and refuted every conspiracy. Everytime you ask where he gets this from he says it’s “documented.” I told him a clown making things up out of whole cloth is not documentation. He also does what a lot of conspiracy addled people do and say “THEY” when they have no idea who to blame. It is always “THEY don’t want you to know.” I wish someone would take people like Billy Carson and shoot them directly into an active volcano for the harm they do to people.
  19. 6G, but THEY don’t want you to know that.
  20. So this is a bit of a difficult one. It’s not difficult to refute the conspiracy theories he throws my direction, but it’s that he thinks everything is a conspiracy. Last night it was a message on “strange formations and caverns” where I grew up. Geologists have given scientific explanations for their formation and the evidence backs that up. This is the biggest problem. This moron and like-minded morons. The debunking is done by an actual professor in this video. Billy Carson is so incredibly stupid and that he appeared on Rogan’s podcast only underlines this. I mean just a complete lack of intellect. How anyone hears him talk and says “That guy makes perfect sense!” is beyond me. My friend is all in on this guy, evidence to the contrary be darned. I have been friends with this guy for 20 plus years. I guess I should have seen some warning signs for being a conspiracy nut, but I never looked into it until he started sending me links to Facebook posts about Carson. I told him to delete his Facebook and just get off social media because nothing he was listening to was real. It was just a con man making money off of willing rubes, of which he had become one. I do not want to just leave this alone because we live in a world now where so many of our fellow citizens get sucked into these rabbit holes of never ending conspiracies. What have any of you done with friends in a similar circumstance? Any help would be greatly appreciated here as I am watching my friend slowly sink into this alternate reality that does not exist. Kinda sad to watch.
  21. I recently posted about the site I read and also subscribe to called Defector. The woman that wrote this, Kelsey McKinney, is one of the writers/co-owners of the site. She’s also a published author (2nd book due out next February), has a wildly successful podcast called Normal Gossip and is a graduate of The University of Texas. She is one of my favorite reads on Defector. I would highly suggest thinking about a subscription. https://defector.com/a-list-of-words-that-do-not-appear-in-hillbilly-elegy-so-stop-asking
  22. It was a fun movie. I never get the negativity surrounding a movie. Anytime I see a movie and maybe I didn’t enjoy it as much as someone else I preface it with the comment that “Just because it did not connect with me does not mean it isn’t a good movie.” Not every movie is made for everyone. This is a good one though. I enjoyed Powell’s character in this.
  23. I just got in from a late showing. Saw it in a Dolby theatre and wow was this movie awesome! Whatever you are expecting going in this movie will surpass it. I will be going back to see this again in a few days. So much fun in just two hours. I will not spoil a thing for anyone who has not seen it yet. This is definitely a movie to watch when the theatre is full. This was a fun movie start to finish. Hard to overstate how cool it is seeing Reynolds and Jackman together in this one! The cameos that came out of nowhere were something I think everyone here will like as well. GO SEE THIS MOVIE and don’t wait to see it at home. If you have kids take them too. If they are at least 12 years old then this movie will be how they talk when the adults aren’t around.
  24. He can’t count to potato much less read.
  25. This was a really cool movie. Great action and the story exceeded anything I might have expected going in. Definitely a movie worth seeing in a theatre. I will watch this one again.
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