All excellent staircase responses. I may have a chance to use one or more of them, given the way things are going.

Thanks bob_124!

The Jerk Store will never get old.


The main point of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, IIRC, is to couch requests in terms of how they will benefit the person you're trying to persuade, so you're on to something here.

Some solid stuff. Surprise but you’re life is so much more fascinating when you get out on public transport or just out and about. Particularly when you’re inebriated/high.

Thanks Da_Nit!

The idea that the phrase "May you live in interesting times" is a curse in China was traced back to a speech from a 1930's British diplomat. No actual--you know--Chinese people have verified it as being legit, but I think the idea still holds water.

Speaking of going out: I've been thinking about volunteering as a poll worker. Usually the old folks handle that; but they shouldn't, this time around.

I'm leaning against the idea ATM: getting screamed at all day long along with greatly increasing my chances of catching the 'rona is not my cup of tea; however, serving my country during one of its greater moments of peril also has its appeal. At this point it's probably a 4 outer as to whether I take up the mantle.

I registered online with the county I live in to help out with the election for the same reasons. Haven't heard anything, it's been a couple weeks (the website said someone would contact me in 24 to 48 hours).

Hope your experience goes better.

I think you guys volunteering to help at a polling station is a great way to show your civic duty. Maybe if I can I’ll do the same. Totally agree mostly olds that do this and they may be reluctant to get out there this year.

Let us know if either of you get the gig. I'm shifting a little closer towards applying, though I ought to get a Nevada License for it. I've been putting that off for two years, now. It looks like my nearby AAA office might do licenses, but is it for members only, or for the general public? I suppose that I could google that.

Las Vegas; 2001: I didn't have a TV, no cell phone yet, and my land phone line had recently been shut off. I got on the bus to go to work at the mall bookstore around 9 AM PDT (noon Eastern time.)

I had a meth habit back then--been off it for 14 years now--I was out of gack and horribly down. On the bleary dismal bus ride, I thought I heard some crazy people talking about flying planes into the Pentagon and the White House, nothing terribly out of the ordinary for the bus...I ignored them.

When I arrived at the mall, it was closed "due to recent events." The Sears portion was still open, and people were wandering around the aisles, looking like zombies. I gravitated over to the TV section, and it was there that I finally grasped what had happened.

I called my boss on the payphone and he invited me over for a day of drinking, smoking weed and a numbed sort of mourning that I feel again at a low level nowadays as the pandemic continues to rip through this country.

Re: the election thing. Since I hadn't heard anything, I went over to the county next door to see if I could help them.

Somebody took my name, phone, and email. Specifically told them to pass along that I didn't actually live in their county, just across the way, but if I could help, I would.

Two or three days later, got an email asking for my address, "because I can't find you in county X's voter rolls." Replied that I'd specifically mentioned that I don't live there when dropping off my contact info, and let me know if I can help them out.

That was last week, they went dark on me. JFC, I'm not going to beg these idiots to volunteer my time.

----------------

Re Sept. 11. At that time, I worked in downtown Denver. Always was an early arriver. About 4 of us in the office when someone gets an IM from Tony that a plane hit the WTC, the world is ending.

Tony's always been a bit of a type A guy, so at first we thought he's overreacting. Then, we couldn't get to any news websites, the internet was flooded. People began arriving and filling us in.

We rigged up a monitor with a makeshift antenna and, like you, just watched in horror as events unfolded. By late-morning-ish, downtown Denver was being evacuated.

Our local transit company did an admirable job getting buses up and running to handle the huge volume of people coming all at once. Probably had to wait an hour or so until our place in line got to an empty bus.

Once back in suburbia, gave somebody I worked with a ride up to their house in the foothills along the way.

Along the way up, we got behind a flatbed semi with a strange looking container on its trailer, which was surrounded by state patrol cars. Think of a car's oil filter, only giant.

Found out later that was spent nuclear fuel they were trucking to wherever they take such things. Since nobody knew what was going on or might be attacked next, the driver was directed to get to the next secure facility--which happened to be the old Rocky Flats weapons place. It was in the process of being cleaned and dismantled at the time, but enough security for the needed purpose, I guess.

Sorry for the derails.

Not a derail. I was hoping to read more stories. If anyone else has a 9/11 memory, post it. I know Nevada was fighting against most of the nation's nuke waste going to Yucca Mountain at the time, and I think they were winning at that point.

Shame about the county election board, there. I'm guessing that they only have to team up for a few weeks once a year or so, so the lines of communication probably aren't highly developed.

And that doesn't bode well for what's probably in store for us in November.

I came home from an all-night PLO game a little after 7:30AM central. I was all hyped up and didn't feel like sleeping--thought maybe I'd do some yard work while it was still cool. I couldn't decide whether to make some coffee or not. So I turned on the TV to catch a weather report and everything was sorta haywire -- they were switching to the national feed instead of the local weather.

I just sat there the whole day and watched until midnite, at least. People came over and would stay a while and then leave. One or two ex-girlfriends, an ex-wife, some guys from the pool hall I hadn't seen for years, neighbors. I kept making pot after pot of coffee. Right about sundown I realized I should eat something, so I made breakfast for everybody -- waffles and bacon and migas. Some people ate, some didn't. Somebody washed all the dishes, I noticed later.

The thing I remember now was that nobody really talked -- we all just watched the tv.

I was in bed when it happened (Aussie time).

Wife got a call from her mum and she told me a plane had crashed into a building. I thought it was just an accident so went to sleep.

Weird world I woke up to the next day.

I came home from school and I think my mom had already switched on the TV. I remember the caption under the footage: "America under attack".

PLO in 2001? Good God, that must've been a juicy game.

Like you--I think--a lot of people went into a fugue state and lost track of time for a few days or weeks. Not having a TV helped me get away from it from time to time, but I made up for that by reading the Review-Journal and the Sun newspapers cover to cover every day. At least I think the Sun was still around at the time. I would read an article, instantly forget what I read, then read it again, so I always had a paper open in the weeks following the event.

In the weeks and months afterward, the rest of the world was with us in a sort of harmony I'd never seen before in my life, and haven't seen since. And if we'd had a plan, a good plan, we really could've done something tremendously good.

Instead, we let fear and greed convince everyone to fight the evildoers in the Middle East!

...wrong evildoers. Nice destabilization though.

Hai AF. We can always blame the Brits for drawing arbitrary border lines all across the Middle East and South Asia after they gave up their colonies. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

Also, we're creeping up on politarding, and that's my fault. Sorry! I'll do better.

I am always down to blame the Brits! What're the tables like at RR right meow? Six handed and dividers?

Two hour session at Red Rock today. It felt good to be back. I can tell that I've absorbed a fair amount of new poker info after a few hundred hours of study and several thousand online hands. I'm integrating ranges and hand reading into my real-time play better than I have before, and that's a nice start.

I'm looking forward to heading back on Tuesday. I want to play 4 hours then, then 6 hours on Thursday, then 8 hours each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's the goal in any case.

Red Rock Station: 2 hours

+$30

Eight handed, so comfy. I kept hitting the plexiglass, but I'm sure that enough cuts and scrapes and dirty looks will train me not to before long.

Haha scary AF how bad America screwed up world sympathy. I guess we used it to exploit the world as that’s how Merica is gonna roll.

Politarding here is a waste as I think most hold the same opinions. Nothing wrong with that though.

Ha just saw a Trump ad on SNF for Trump. It’s like something made up by the Onion but it’s actually a genuine true ad that Trumps campaign put out, WTF. America is ****ed.

Yeah politarding has been the death knell of a lot of otherwise pleasant threads, so let's not. But speaking of football, some of you probably know that I'm a Pats fan (seeing as how I grew up in New England.)

I didn't want to see Brady trip over his dick today or any day. I wish nothing but the best for him after the two decades of legendary service he rendered for my favorite team. But seeing his sour expression when they lost today, I couldn't help but think: hey, welcome to being on what looks like a mediocre team there Tom.

Ha nothing makes me more happy than a losing Brady. Sorry I’m from Buffalo. The Pats make the Astros looks like saints.

I sat down and did some numbers on the early 90's Bills once. The AFC had 14 teams back then, so let's handicap an excellent team--as the Bills were--in those circumstances, and give them say a 20% chance of winning the AFC conference in any given year (the average chance being around 7%), and then a 50% chance of going on to win the Super Bowl in the same year.

Given those numbers, the chances of the Bills losing four Super Bowls in a row, then, would be (0.20^4)*(0.50^4)*100 or 0.01%.

That's 1:10000.

The Bucs are better than mediocre, at least offensively where they're loaded with talent.

As good as Brady has been for two freaking decades, I always thought that he needed more Belichick than the other way around. This season should give us a few answers.

9999:1

If anyone is interested, and they have iheart radio, there's a great interview of TB12 on the podcast Armchair expert. I've only been able to listen to half of it so far.