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Brisketexan

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Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. Not sure where to put this. But had to write it down. Here seems as good a place as any. Work took me to S. Texas the last couple of days, and while I was down there (and especially on the drive), a whole lot of family history – both old, and ongoing – washed the hell over me. Hard, like "pounding me into the sand till I come up wet and sputtering." My family roots in S. Texas are deep as hell, from before Texas was just Texas. My daughter and I spent much of this past Sunday with my dad, recording stories and looking over family history, photos, and documents. Looking at a particular document my dad pulled out of an old box, I realized that I had family here when it was “Coahuila y Tejas” (also reminding me that my Texan family history and Mexican family history overlap like hell). GGGG uncle was big in the Mexican gov’t, had to work with Santa Anna to get shit done (and was one of the first Mexican officials to support deposing him). True to family form, he died penniless. My parents both grew up in S. Texas, and met and married there. We'd visit the area often when I was a kid. So being down there hit me hard with a “holy shit, this is where I’m from” reminder – sledgehammer hard. What got to me most was the drive. I stayed the night in Beeville. Beeville, where my mother, poor as hell having just fled an abusive family situation in NOLA with her mother, landed in 1950 or so. At one point, they bought a mangy old horse, which she rode to school, as other kids did back in those days. I remember as a child going to visit family in S. Texas, and seeing the landscape of brush and thorns out my car window, broken up by spring wildflowers, took me right back. My parents’ lives in S. Texas weren’t easy, and often weren’t happy. Life was fucking hard there. I'm sure it still is for plenty of folks. But it was where their lives were lived, nonetheless. It helped make them who they became. And it’s where they met and ended up together. So the place became part of my life. The scenery rolling by as I drove home had childhood memories unrolling in my mind, like a highlight reel. Mesquite thorns in my heel, fishing in the bays, sitting on a shaded patio while the adults smoked and drank and I eavesdropped, the smell of the summer dust, and the voices of people long-dead. I saw lots of oilpatch activity around Karnes City. My family was oilpatch. I know those people. Those people raised me. I don’t know what will come of the Texas oilpatch, long-term, but there’s no denying that it’s part of our identity. I remembered visions of dirty boots, rough hands, the smell of hot vinyl car seats and dust as I tagged along with my grandfather to read meters. Instead of plugging in my phone’s playlist in the car, I did something I like to do on long drives – hit “scan” on the radio, and see what’s up. Lots of Spanish language radio. Plenty of religious radio. A mix of pop, hip-hop, the usual. And plenty of country. Including a station playing classics. The very stuff we listened to in my dad’s old Lincoln as we drove down there during the heat of summer to see family. I let some of the music take me back, as it can do. I just rode the wave. I remembered my mother’s laugh in the front seat of the car as my dad cracked some sort of joke. My mom died almost three years ago. Fucking hell I miss her. Lost reception of that station. Scanned over to another station, playing a mix of country, old, new, Americana. Caught a song that sounded Robert Earl Keen-ish (but wasn’t). But it got me in an REK mood. So I popped that playlist on from my phone. Goddamn I love me some REK. Played some songs I love – songs most fans know well. But then I went down the rabbit hole, and played some deep cuts. Played a couple from the Live Album. Got to “If I Were King.” I started to sing along. But I choked up, and couldn’t go on. I just listened, as fat tears rolled down my face, I couldn’t stop ‘em from coming. It’s the song I sang over and over to my infant daughter as a lullaby. I’d hum the fiddle parts, and sing the words as she looked up at me and smiled, refusing to go to sleep as she was so wont to do (she was our lousy sleeper baby). I’d sing it again. And again. Till her eyes got heavy, and finally closed. Then I’d walk the floor with her a little more, just humming the tune softly till I knew she was out. Tomorrow, we put that girl on a plane to London, where she is moving to find work, and hopefully start to find her way in life. She graduated college in May, and since then, has been a bit lost. She’s been working here, making money, and trying to figure out what’s next. She wants to do something that utilizes her multi-language skills, and London has such jobs in spades. She was eligible for a two-year blanket visa, so she activated it as of last week, and will be there tomorrow. Maybe it’s where she’ll live and make her life. Maybe not. She’s not keen on Texas, and for her skillset, I doubt Texas is in her future; I probably don't want it to be, for her. It struck me that our family has been in Texas for over 200 years, and away she goes, away our family goes, maybe never to return. Until recently, that had never occurred to me – that our family’s run in Texas may be coming to a close. Such is the way of the world. I spent the drive with ghosts riding shotgun, listening to echoes, and pondering history. Texas has been so formative to me. I’m a child of its dirt, its people, its food, its flaws….all of it. But my girl's getting on a plane, and from now on, maybe Texas is just a place she comes back and visits. That hit me fucking hard. That Texas is going to be in the rearview mirror. It’s just a piece of dirt. But goddammit, it’s my heart. It’s so much of my heart. And it always fucking will be. And so will she.
  2. Actually, it's a fucking BRILLIANT idea.....so long as you're on the front half of the scheme. Lots of people have made LOTS of money in Ponzi schemes. They are great at making a good number of folks rich. Now, staying in the Ponzi scheme until the music stops and it all falls down? THAT'S a bad idea. But no worries. All you have to know is the exact moment the music will stop. Easy peasy. "Investing" in bitcoin should be about like investing in a restaurant: do it because you think it's interesting and fun, do it on the bet that maybe, long term, it DOES turn out to be brilliant, and you make lots of money. But don't invest anything you aren't prepared to lose completely, because there is a much higher probability of that happening than if you invested in Coca Cola or Microsoft or somesuch.
  3. No....see...the thing is, THIS time, the billionaire oligarchs TOTALLY have our interest in mind!
  4. Yes, value is subjective...but that doesn't mean that it's not an intrinsic value just the same. AESTHETICS is a basis for value. Diamonds and gold are pretty. Old paintings are pretty. Do their values get skewed beyond their basic inherent value? Sure. There are plenty of paintings out there that are "prettier" than a Van Gogh. But Van Gogh paintings generally ARE pretty, and powerful...and scarce...and tied to a story and history, which is its own aesthetic value. For the same reason that a movie featuring Brad Pitt's pretty face will do better than a movie featuring Brisketexan's plain face: pretty is more valuable than ugly. It's the bolded for me. I hear and read all the arguments about the value of Bitcoin. And I concede that there is always some minimal baseline value any item that a large enough group of people agree is a store of value (if a million people believed that Stanley Nickels had value, so that they traded in Stanley Nickels, then they would have some value). But the real pitch for Bitcoin etc. always comes back to "buy now, better get in on it now!" And as to watching its value soar again, the argument of "the subject of our Ponzi scheme is still shooting up in value!" doesn't make it not a Ponzi scheme. What it makes it is a SUCCESSFUL Ponzi scheme. Look, do I wish that I had gotten in on Bitcoin early, and could then dump my holdings today for a kabillion dollars? Fuck yes I do, because I'm greedy and like money. But I'd have said the same thing about any number of other Ponzi schemes over time as well. Would have loved to be one of the early Bernie Madoff investors, getting a big return on my money. Wouldn't have changed the fact that it was a Ponzi scheme. If your point is "I'm in on it, and think I can time it right to make some money here," then so be it. It's morally ambiguous, but then so is capitalism in general. Just don't try to sell me on the idea that it's more than it is: something you buy hoping it goes up in value and you make money, NOT something that has any other intrinsic value.
  5. Looks like the engine fell off. Who knew Boeing had a Russian manufacturing division?
  6. Wolf brand chili? We got us a fuckin' Rockefeller over here. Buying cans of stuff with meat in it and such. This was how to roll for frozen burritos: OR...raid that stash of 200 leftover Taco Bell taco sauce packets.
  7. It goes plenty far. It is indisputable that Israel is purposefully targeting civilians and civilian resources/structures. Numerous high-ranking Israeli officials have said so, plainly. The problem is that idea goes a lot fucking farther than any sane person would want it to. What you say about Hamas is functionally entirely correct. The worst elements of Palestinian society and government have been allowed to control major actions and the fate of a region. That is bad. But you need to open your eyes to the fact that the worst elements of Israeli society and government are in control in Israel right now as well, and are acting accordingly. Israel was wronged on October 7th. It had the right, and even the obligation, to act in self-defense. That does not give Israel carte blanche to level fucking cities and kill civilians indiscriminately. In the fight against evil, it is very tempting to become that which you claim to hate. Israel is giving in to that temptation. It is a bad, bad look. And if you don't trust where I'm coming from, read my other posts in this thread: I remain fucking sick and tired of the blanket pro-Palestinian posters and messaging around here. There is a sizable plurality of Palestinians who have longed for a war of extermination against Israel. Well, they've gotten what they wanted. The fucking idiots.
  8. Umm...there are rabbis in Israel right now calling for the extermination of every Palestinian in Gaza. Like, one literally saying "kill everyone in Gaza, including babies." So....I wouldn't go buying that white hat for Israel just yet.
  9. And they sink FAST - they are heavy as shit. About 1,000 pounds heavier than similar vehicles. Comparables are a bit over 4,000 lbs, the Model X is over 5,000 lbs. Having your shift function -- really, ANY actual driving function on a touchscreen (as opposed to limiting it to stuff like your audio, AC, and other accessory uses), when every single human knows that touch screens can be "iffy" (how many times have you pressed the wrong number when entering your phone's passcode?) is a stupid design move. Do other manufacturers have that? Because if so, that's also dumb.
  10. Barry Corbin's best performance.
  11. A whole lot of this. And back in the day, I kept plenty of "emergency drunk food I don't have to drive anywhere for" in the freezer. CHEAP shit. Like crappy frozen pizzas, 59 cent frozen burritos, that sort of stuff. I could turn on the oven or microwave and have any of those 1) for no more than a coupla bucks, and 2) faster than Doordash could get me food. Again, even my son -- who is well in his poor drinking student days -- thinks it's dumbassery.
  12. Yep. Oyster crabs. They're not uncommon. Hell, them being still alive tells you that's a fresh damned oyster. Just toss em to the side, and enjoy your oyster. Or, I dunno, eat the crab too. It's probably tasty.
  13. You know what this means? That's right. The GOP must be MORE VIGILANT THAN EVER AGAINST THE INFLITRATION OF THEIR RANKS BY OBVIOUS DRAG QUEENS!
  14. Huh? The higher-end parochials (The Jesuit schools, Episcopal School of Dallas, etc.) have incredibly strong academic reputations for a reason. Among them being decades/centuries of experience with genuine academic rigor and the like. Unlike Southwestern Hill Country Freedom Eagle Jesus Gun Liberty Academy, founded 2017. FTR, I went to a Jesuit school, and my parents' reasoning was damned well the academic quality, not the fact that we had a theology curriculum. And also FTR, I don't believe that we should divert any public dollars to private schools. Public schools are a community resource, necessary for both individual and the common good, AND free from the requirement/indoctrination into any faith tradition (I have high praise for Jesuit, but let's not kid ourselves, they damn well tried to make a good Catholic outta me. In terms of church membership, they failed).
  15. https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/bo-michael-dresner-sentencing/269-17fad9be-ddb4-4304-b956-fb3ba7bb7344 410 year sentence for former sergeant at arms of the Hays County GOP for kiddie sex crimes. Goddamned drag queens.
  16. Man, that is standard for the youths these day. My boy drove Doordash for a while when he was home last summer, and the number of dumbass late-night Taco Bell and such orders -- $7 worth of food. $20+ in delivery fees. Dumbass just paid nearly $30 for a coupla crunchwraps.
  17. I mean.....when in the blue fuck did just blatant lying become the cool thing? "THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT THIS THING, SO THEY AREN'T REPORTING IT!".....side-by-side with multiple "mainstream media" reports of said thing. It's fucking psychotic and evil. If you want to know whether you are on the right or wrong side of any issue, you should probably take into account which "side" is telling repeated and shameless lies on the level of "up is down, black is white," etc.
  18. Correct. Act 1: "He's my king, my God, he will save me! Mostly by being a dick to other people!" Act 2: "Why is the leopard eating MY face?" It's a short play. We all know how it goes. Except, apparently the dumbasses who for some reason think that a face-eating leopard will refrain from eating their faces for....reasons. Idiots.
  19. Daughter snapped this pic this morning: What is that? Some dude on his Rascal-ish scooter.....in a primary traffic lane. Is there a sidewalk in that area? Yes. Is there even a bike lane? Also yes. Does Boomer give a fuck? NO. He'll just hold up an entire lane of traffic using his Rascal as if it was a freaking car, except it goes about 5 mph.
  20. WTF? They couldn't break the glass on it even using a Hallagan tool (it has a metal spike - it's exactly what you would expect to use)? WTF are those windows made out of, and why? I read that they are now double-paned glass, which isn't unheard of....but again, they should be breakable with the right tool. Shit, I'd have brought a handgun down with me, put it up against the glass, and fired. Just a weird f'n story.
  21. Yella mustard IS real mustard. Cuz freedom eagles flag guns liberty bell George-motherfuckin'-Washington 'murica. Goddammit.
  22. Objection. My personal habits, and lack of major achievements, dictate that I am a slob, not an eccentric.
  23. Well, kinda yes, kinda no. The SCOTUS has suggested that it be limited to a multiple of economic damages, but in cases where nominal damages are found, the other factors (like repeated egregious conduct, for example) can be in the driver's seat when it comes to setting the amount.
  24. Yeah, my daughter noted yesterday in a discussion on family genetics that our French ancestry (remember, my mom was a coonass) was specifically Parisian. La-de-da. I am quite fancy. Of course, last night, going through a bunch of stuff, I found out that a GGG uncle of mine was big-shit in Mexico back in the day. He was born in Texas in the early 1800s (that's right, "Coahuila y Tejas" was the state back then). Ended up being Mexico's ambassador to France trying to talk them out of their Maximilian bullshit (didn't work, obviously). And lots of other notable offices. But, to confirm that he was indeed a member of our family, he "died penniless." Yep, the bloodline checks out.
  25. This is our concern, dude. And the downside of that victory is too fucking horrific for anyone to get a decent night's sleep between now and election day.
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