Digitalprimate

Yeah for sure, avoid big groups of British English speaking dudes for sure (and some of my best friends are English and they would agree!)

Fair enough!

It’s still possible, in my opinion, to visit as a “tourist” (I live in Haarlem now, so technically I’m a tourist when I go) and avoid all the trashy stuff. You can seek out the cool little neighborhoods like the Jordaan or de Pijp.

Digitalprimate

Oh simply be polite and most of all have a sense of your surroundings/situational awareness, i.e., don’t get in the way. You probably want to spend as little time in the main “downtown” area (roughly central station to the Rokin) as possible.

Although everyone under 80 years old speak near-native English (I exaggerate), you’ll endear yourself by learning to say good morning, good evening, thanks, and please in Dutch and to start conversations by asking “Is English ok?” in Dutch.

Basically just don’t be a jerk and the native Amsterdamers will happily take your holiday money.

Well, it’s more like we don’t want them to come here.

I will sound like a shrill, but I love everything they make. Even though the City Pack Pro X-Pac became, accidentally and relative to initial cost, the single most expensive bag I own due to my stupid brother.

I live in Europe, and you have to pay big taxes on any imports by mail. So I asked my brother if I could mail to him and he’d mail it to me, like in the old days (20 years ago or so). Sure, he says no problem, when do you need it? I say not in a hurry but leaving for a trip in like three weeks, so if it made it here by then that would be nice.

Two weeks later he texts me saying I owe him USD 120 for shipping. I said WTF? He sent it express, like an idiot. The bag costs about USD 239. So, ok fine it least I’ll have it for my trip.

Nope. Three weeks later I call the UPS center. They got my bag, all right, but I owe EUR 135 in taxes and duties. My brother - who used to know how to do these things, insured it for USD 400 and wrote on the item description “brand new back pack.” That fuckwad (whom I love, but damn bro, you grew up stupid sometimes).

Anyway even at that price it’s worth it, and it too has all the features you mention above + in X-Pac + with a contrasting interior color. I may have gone to their flag ship “store” (a tiny, tiny little store front) in SF and fanboy’ed for an hour or so before buying a small inside bag. And I may or may not have ordered two of their computer peripheral storage bags, one for me and one as a bribe/tribute to our head of IT…

Anyway, ahem. It’s the ultimate combo between a carry on bag and an (largish) urban commuter bag. /Shrill, and if anyone from Aer is reading this, a discount code maybe?

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I think you’re confusing the poor FBI guy reading our conversation ;)

Generics are required to be as efficacious as name brand in the US.

Let me introduce you to the way the FDA actually works.

Lots of stuff is easy to DIY if you have some work space. Furniture, fish tanks, thermonuclear warheads. Learning to sew is valuable, not because you should make your own clothes -fuck that- but because you can mend the stitching on your current clothes.

One of those things is not like the other…

Quality knives do not have to be super expensive. The trick is to maintain them. Honing of course, and unless you are a super enthusiastic home cook, a proper sharpening by a pro on Japanese wet stone twice a year is all it takes. That’s like at most USD 20 in most places, probably less. Even mid range knives are fine, so long as you keep them sharp.

And you don’t need a lot. In theory a good chefs knife and a good paring knife will do. In practice, you also want a bread knife and filleting knife, but you can start small.

arc’teryx for life.

“If you saw someone stealing food, no you didn’t.”

Totally agree about Obama’s well intentioned but ultimately disastrous attempt to reach across the aisle. He had two miraculous years to change it all, and blew it on trying to reconcile two utterly incompatible views of what America should be. Noble, but in the end foolish.

If you are right, it won’t really matter who takes the blame. Part of me thinks you are right, but the better part of me is still fighting.

Long story short, I don’t know that I consider Biden a pragmatic alternative at this point.

I get you, and you’re not wrong with the rest of what you wrote. The R’s have had a coherent game plan since Nixon and executed on it well enough (and had enough lucky accidents) to engineer exactly this kind of election.

The choice is whether or not the US continues as a representative democracy. This time it’s no hyperbole; it’s a truly binary decision for the future. And I’m afraid unless the D’s grow a real backbone, every election for the foreseeable future is going to be a response to an existential threat.

But the R’s cannot win. On this we can all agree.

I forgave his sins and allowed myself to miss him. The magpies in my back garden agreed with this.

Me either but as a CIS Het dude, I may be unlikely to notice it. Can anyone tell me more? Serious question, want to be part of the solution here.

This is the way. Would add Whiskeytown/Ryan Adams. Maybe a tiny bit of Wilco?

Weirdly enough I dreamt someone did this right in front of me last night. My subconscious is odd.

Gave you and upvote to get you back off zero and agree with your general sentiment.

But - the elections since Trump took the ROC convention have all been different - we must get rid of all the R’s we can no matter what at the local, state and national level as soon as possible now that the have proven to be an existential threat to democracy itself.

Just a minor but important point: being neurodivergent is not a “mental health disorder.”

I do agree it plays a role in boys becoming incels, but it’s not in the same category as depression or anxiety disorders.

Edit for the replies I got: I strongly believe our society needs to stop looking at neurodivergent people as somehow “wrong” or “messed up.” Your brain is your brain just like your skin color is your skin color, and no should be discriminated against for either. In this case, it really is society that needs change, not the individual. It’s uncomfortable or even traumatic for the individual because of how other people react to them, not because of who they fundamentally are. Having to Face all the time, being forced into far too stimulating situations, having very few people understand your needs while at the same time foisting their expectations on you is exhausting. And it shouldn’t have to be this way.