lol, good answer. i revisited a few of them over the last year, and i have to agree.

they aren’t movies in the sense that there’s a story being told by a storyteller.

its more like a punchy mix of hollywood stars, complex set pieces with stunts, exotic locales and impossible ticking clock scenarios. its like this big expensive thing that happens on a screen, and a month later you have forgotten the story because the story was probably inserted after, in post.

and the focus on tom cruise every fucking time is ludicrous. like of course he’s the marquee star, but they make everything about him being the most important and dazzling human in a franchise supposedly about invisible secret agents.

with each iteration, it feels like the franchise is some signed-in-blood scientology quid pro quo vanity project where tom cruise plays out his fantasies of being the most actiony and heroic action hero imaginable in an ensemble cast of the latest high tier hollywood talent.

is it worth it, imo? mostly no but occasionally i laugh at the layered surreality of whatever the fuck it is.

for me practicality trumps all. comfort, capacity, resilience to weather, use and time.

i bought one of those Chrome Industries messenger bags back in like 2009 when i went back to school and became a pedestrian. i noticed one that a particularly outdoorsy cycling prof had and let me try on.

the thing is a beast. the strap is so wide, sturdy and padded. rapidly adjustable for when im in layers, want it loose for casual strolling, or pulled tight to my body for a quick frogger sprint across 4 lanes. its my main travel bag, daily work carry, and a great hiking bag.

they are not cheap, but i bought mine when i was crazy broke (the purchase represented like 1/3 of my semester’s budget) and never regretted it for a second. years later when my sibling was in grad school and asked me about backpacks, i bought them one and it blew their mind for comfort and utility.

its my only bag and i would still wear it every day even if my crush told me i looked like a total loser with it.

i don’t though. i look so cool with it on, i could seduce anyone. even you… the person reading this.
👁️👅👁️

i think they used to be all made in USA, but when i check their website I can’t find any info about current manufacturing anymore, so… probably yikes. and its like 17 years since i bought mine, so there’s probably totally legit alternatives now.

so sad, germany and spain were fashy pals a century ago.

now spain has betrayed the german commitment to reactionary snivelry.

not op, not following the case, but I think cases like this more or less expose how cops can’t investigate shit when the suspects are rich and don’t confess.

seems like some kind of known-to-the-suspect inside job and the local cops can’t put anybody in the box to force a confession. without federal resources to do an actual investigation, seems like the whole thing is stalled until somebody tells on themselves.

Art of the Deal

as though fleeing from the draft is what the tracking/disabling switch would be used for.

we all know it’s for

• political enemies
• minorities
• individuals the billionaire wants to harm for personal reasons

truly, a Wundercar.

the location definitely feels like an interchangeable indistinct suburb. though i do think purina corporate is based around there. literally the only thing i saw that was place based.

make sure to have a softball but insightful question for them, something like, “what do you like most about working for this company/org?”

it also doesn’t hurt to learn what you can about the organization by looking them up online. easily found public info is good because it’s usually something they want known widely. what they do, where they operate, how long they’ve been around. if you can shoehorn something you learned into an answer, it looks really good. “what made you apply for this job?” “i noticed you all did XYZ in [place] and would like to be part of something like that.” use your judgement tho lol. otherwise the knowledge about the org can be helpful in framing your interview answers.

i find that cheering loudly during helps me make.

i keep seeing that phrase “exit ramp” which speaks to the ameroidal car brain. kinda makes me chuckle every time. looking for the exit ramp of the war highway, the cashier at the war buffet, the curb cut at this war drive thru.

anyway, i know im not treading any new ground here, but i legit don’t see any avenue to deescalation. every effort has been made to exploit every cheap shot that could be taken from sinking unarmed ships in a wargame in a neutral country’s waters, to blanketing the capital in toxic sludge. they opened this shit bombing a school full of girls and previously executed strikes on diplomatic missions.

there’s no tactical or strategic reason for the iranian government to come to any table, even one brokered by a neutral third party because no nation could guarantee the US wouldn’t use it as an opportunity to make another strike. hell, it seems likely the US would.

literally, if i was in charge of the US, the only move i could see at this point as maybe working is surrendering elements of the US regime leadership and command structure, turning them over to some neutral state for trial. like basically a complete capitulation with some firm of public justice against the perpetrators offered.

because even if the US made some broad public withdrawal of forces from the region, that could mean the US was preparing to go nuclear from subs.

anyway, just saying, i think the us has no cards to play here to deescalate anything and the epstein coalition is just going to have to get used to there being no end in sight.

the only unknown is how this will all be marketed to those of us inside the core to make it all seem OK, normal, and not a big deal after weeks turn to months of bodies coming home and reports/videos of attacks leaking through the screen. and, if the analysis about stockpiles is true, the attacks on the US and its regional allies will continue to be more and more successful.

yeah, but where else can you get a happy meal with a toy that might have a tie in to something you saw on a screen?

the food gave me heart disease, diabetes & diarrhea, but i can clutch the plastic robot milkshake as i lay dying in agony.

that’s the magic of america.

reporting for work at the Q factory

seems like a weird move to say god is protecting your troops just as they start coming home in boxes stuffed into amazon delivery vans.

the war is but a discrete moment in time, the blink of an eye, that can and will stretch to a timeless eternity in the void.

thank you for your attention in this matter.

no they aren’t. i would have received by Hezbollah activation code if that were true.

bit idea for someone still on the apps: make all of your profile pictures be of you reading a book and list in the bio that you’re just here to read and not interested in being chatted up.

be curt when messaged. maintain commitment to the bit.

oh please, this weekday drunk is gonna put his car into a goddamn bridge abutment the minute he stops rating a driver.

gonna need to see some kind of source for that claim, because the chap 12 bankruptcies have been steadily climbing for decades with the average farm operator age rising well into the 60s, healthcare costs spiking, lack of mental healthcare infrastructure in rural communities with rashes of suicides/“accidents”, but all of this pretty much exploded under the tarrif whiplash alongside the forced disappearance of seasonal labor.

and though the rural petite bourg is maga’s mythmaking bread and butter, it’s a statistical minority that can be safely ignored and allowed to wallow in crisis after crisis as huge capital formations (bill gates, the Mormon church) snap up all the economically distressed prime ag land for their own completely normal agendas.

not saying it isn’t happening or even that exploiters don’t deserve what they get, but theres a much larger context at work driving farm bankruptcies than any single recent policy tweak.

also, the cap is not about land value nor is it a “bailout”, but rather the limit of debt a farm enterprise can have and be allowed to fundamentally restructure/reorganize without creditors being able to swoop in and seize the land or equipment. under chapter 12, if one meets the requirements, the creditors have to accept a structured payment plan which allows the farm operator to restructure the business and even the type of agriculture operation completely. the birth of chapter 12 was during the farm aid crisis of the 1980s when rural banks were starting to fold because they were mass foreclosing on farms faster than they could sell them and recoup their debts. the goal was to slow everything the hell down during a sudden crisis and at least keep farms in some kind production.

the last adjustment of the debt cap was 2019, which went from 4.4 m to 10 m, and tied the cap to inflation.

i have heard there were implied promises to issue direct payments from tarrif revenues (whatever those numbers actually are), but i haven’t seen anything I’d believe there. some real “check’s in the mail” type shit.

it would be smart, but the price tag would be very high and very public.

haha nice. 👑

there was a moment in the last 5-6 years where remote work opportunities reshuffled the calculus and brought families into small, struggling villages to take care of elderly family and live slower, but apparently the commercial real estate cartel of highly developed regions has been pulling its strings to get the peons back on the roads and clamoring to get back into their previously designated corrals.