Cy Young, contract demands, potential collusion a trade, a signing, a surgery, a new title, a sketchy explanation, Trump, a train wreck, a billionaire's bogus image and -- jinkies! -- my glasses.
I like my glasses. I like how I look in them. I have worn them since I was 10. They are part of me. But also, I don't find the idea of putting lenses in your eyes the least bit appealing. And I find the notion of hiding that you need glasses incredibly vain (though my decision to keep wearing glasses is also vain in a way). And I have no desire to undergo unnecessary surgery that I suspect my insurance doesn't cover.
But let's say this outright: people associate wearing glasses with being a brainy nerd. That is an image I like to project. I take pride in that image. It's me.
I saw an article once that said people looking at pictures of women with and without glasses thought the faces without glasses were more attractive and those with glasses were more intelligent.
I was my high school valedictorian and never considered myself attractive so glasses it was! I like being perceived as smarter than I actually am. 🙂
I started wearing glasses at 10 and contacts at 11 and have never considered it to be even slightly inconvenient. I don’t have sensitive eyes, I don’t care about touching my eyeballs twice a day, so just don’t feel the need to change it over 2 decades into the routine.
Lemme tell ya, I've been around. Started wearing glasses for near-sightedness in middle school, got contacts in college and then after about 15 years as a working stiff used FSA money to get LASIK surgery. Each of those steps was progressively life-changing.
My LASIK surgeon did tell me that at some point, I'd probably need reading glasses. That hasn't been the case, but what I did find out was that my eyes gradually regressed -- so that about six years ago I realized I was having trouble seeing distances clearly, especially when it got dark. After I nearly drove off the road one night, I got my eyes examined and my suspicions were confirmed. Was going to get re-fitted for contacts when I realized looking through the focusing mask (whatever that thing is called) that when I could see distances perfectly, my close-up vision was blurry. So that's kept me from going back for more LASIK.
The result: I'm fine with no correction 85% of the time, but will wear my "new" glasses whenever I'm going to concerts, sporting events or driving. I don't know what that says about my intelligence, however.
Nothing vain about my contact wearing. I actually got them as a 12-year old to help with baseball. With contacts, I have a full field of vision, with my glasses there is a blurry edge around my entire field easy decision.
LASIK surgery: my mother-in-law offered to pay for LASIK surgery as a birthday gift. I went to the consultation and was told that, instead of the basic surgery where you might be down for a day or 2 and then back to the pre-glasses life, my corneas were thin and I would have to have a different surgery that required several weeks of post-op treatment, including putting special drops in my eyes several times a day and doing what amounted to physical therapy for my eyes. I decided to stick with the glasses.
I tried contacts once and wore them for a week before I tired of them. I hated putting them in so much and I didn't like the way they felt. I like my glasses. They are part of who I am.
I wear contacts. I am afraid of botched laser surgery ruining my eyesight, despite the fact that my sister is an optometrist and had the procedure with no issues. This is because we had a friend whose brother went for laser surgery -- years ago -- and it was botched. He couldn't read any longer, couldn't drive, etc. He had to leave his job and draw disability and insurance and whatever other free money he could. He was on TV talking about the risks and effects of botched laser surgeries.
And it was all a fraud. He just didn't want to work. His laser surgery was fine. He had other eye issues and tried to blame them all on the laser surgery. Yet here I am, ruined, confined to a life of contact lenses. Thanks Obama.
Same. In the back of my mind I just worry something goes wrong.
I've worn glasses since 2nd grade and contacts since high school. I don't remember a time when I didn't wake up and have the world blurry. At this point with WFH I really only wear contacts if I'm driving and need to wear sunglasses.
On the other hand, everyone I know who has had lasik swears it was the best decision they ever made. Maybe I'll do it next year.
Two years ago I had cataract surgery on both eyes. I had been wearing glasses since I was a year and a half old. I considered glasses as a part of my identity, also like putting on a shirt in the morning for over 50 years. I did not feel like I had the discipline to put contacts on every day and my eye doctors told me my astigmatism was so bad that Lasik was not an option.
The cataracts though, they would only worsen so in the middle of a pandemic was no better time to have what was elective surgery.
I wore a patch for about six hours after the surgeries (done two weeks apart, that was not a good time because my new and old eyes were so far off) and the clarity from the onset was amazing. There is a regime of eye drops for a couple of weeks after, but it's not bad.
Having to not need glasses to drive, watch television or just go about my day was an incredible life change. I still need them to read. The only side effect is that I have to wear sunglasses in bright sunlight. Getting cool sunglasses off the rack is quite a perk.
I do not miss having to reach for and find glasses to see what time it is on the clock radio in the morning.
My mom underwent the same procedures and processes. She hasn't said anything about not needing glasses for most things, but she does have pairs of reading glasses all over the house since she really, really needs them to read. She even has a pair in our house since she is bound to forget them.
Nothing you can do about reading glasses. Most people will start needing them when they get into their 40s. I was lucky that it has really just started the past couple years. I have a pair at work, one next to a chair I read in, and one on my nightstand. I should probably put a pair in my car. The place I used to go for early voting had terrible lighting, and I always struggled to read the form you fill out before the actual vote. If the lighting is good, I don't necessarily need them.
I am sooooo waiting for my cataracts to get to the point where I can have this surgery with the lens implants. I've worn glasses since I was 9 and also have an astigmatism that ruled out LASIK. I've done contacts from time to time, but they don't make contacts that you can sleep in for people with astigmatism. Like you, I would love to be able to wake up in the morning and see without reaching for my glasses. And be able to fall asleep watching something that I could immediately open my eyes and see if something got interesting. The only downside I can come up with is that I would REALLY need to finally learn how to put on eye makeup.
I generally think there is no downside to my decision to just keep wearing glasses, but honestly, off the rack sunglasses might actually be the one thing.
I have a small face apparently (shopping for KN95 masks I had to find a place that had child sizes to fit me!) so my glasses are narrow enough that over-the-glasses sunglasses work for me at least 90% of the time. So I have a few pair of those I got when they were on sale at Meijer last summer.
I went and got some OTG safety goggles with a smoke/gray color and they're as good for driving during the day as they are when mowing the lawn. Dorky as heck and I love them.
It seems like many of us glasses-wearing folk are in the same mental boat. I've had my glasses since I was 12 years old. When I got them, I thought I went from "geek" to "cool." I'll note that my first pair were Biden-like aviators, which were way cooler back then. Contacts for me were not an option at the time -- my eyes were really sensitive and they only had hard glass contacts back then. My sister had also done a number on her eyes by forgetting to take them out one evening and scratched up her eyes miserably. I have one friend who got LASIKs and really liked it. I would like to be able to see something while swimming or when I get up in the morning or while doing other important things while not wearing glasses (I'll leave that without further description), but also have a paranoia about laser surgery on my eyes. Maybe one day, but I'm not there yet.
Most are probably not, but if he draws just 5% across the board, it's an easy victory for the Democrats. If he draws Perot numbers, it's a blood bath. Again, rooting for injuries.
His hardcore supporters literally attempted a violent overthrow of our government because he told them to. If he tells them the Republican Party rigged the primary against him, they will absolutely support him in a third party bid or stay home.
The way I see it, there are three possible outcomes once his name gets on the primary ballot:
1 - He wins the nomination and drags down their ticket everywhere, like he did in the last three cycles.
2 - He doesn't win the nomination and torpedoes their nominee out of spite.
3 - He doesn't win the nomination and gracefully endorses the winner.
Republicans are desperately hoping for 3. Which seems really unlikely to me.
He's narcissistic enough that I wouldn't be surprised if he ran as an independent, leading to the Dem candidate winning 45+ states. I doubt that it would lead to the creation of a true third party for more than that cycle, but he could definitely fuck over the Republican Party. Rooting for injuries.
The Trump as third-party candidate outcome is 100% happening if he's not the GOP nominee or rendered unable to run by some other means, legal or health or whatever. The Republican Party has got to know this, and I wouldn't like to be staring down this Sophie's Choice situation. They can't win with him, and they can't win without him.
OK, fair enough. I don't remember it either. But if we thought it was funny when he ran in 2016, we probably thought it was funny when he ran in 2000 too.
I remember hoping Trump would keep doing well in the primaries in 2016 because I really feared a Ted Cruz presidency, and was enjoying someone finally putting Cruz in his smarmy-ass place during debates and speeches. I was hoping maybe Trump would bring Cruz down enough that another candidate would eventually take over, and I was cathartically enjoying seeing Cruz finally have to squirm against a bigger bully than him who didn't take his shit. I knew Trump would be a horrible president, but thought there was no way in hell he'd win the GOP primary, let alone the presidency, so I was enjoying his take-downs of Cruz.
Then the candidate field started thinning out and I was becoming more and more flabbergasted that, in an already terrible field of candidates, literal trolls Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were the top 2 choices of Republicans. But, I still thought there was no way Trump could win a general election, so I continued to enjoy his sliming of Cruz.
Now I've found myself starting to feel those same feelings a little bit, but with Ron DeSanctimonious replacing Cruz. I would love to see DeSanctimonious get continually humiliated in the manner Cruz was, but I have to stop and remember that another Trump presidency would be devastating and I should probably not celebrate anything that could open up a crack for Trump to slip through back to the the oval office.
It does kind of feel like Trump has finally lost a lot of the wind at his sails and his jabs at DeSanctimonious don't seem to be landing with quite the same effectiveness, so like is often stated, the hope is that Trump loses support but still has enough to split the GOP.
I was the opposite in 2016. I never enjoyed watching the GOP primary debates, like my liberal friends, because it was "funny" to see Trump take down the other slimy nominees. I was always more concerned that he'd win. Once he started racking up wins, I was really confused by all the media coverage and the people who seemed excited for a showdown with Hillary, who I was surprised to see now being promoted as a very popular candidate.
When it all went down I was depressed, and then angry, and then I accepted it. This country is packed full of morons and crazy people who will vote for horrible people for reasons that are either beyond my comprehension or simply come down to wanting lower taxes.
I'm worried that everyone is making the same mistake again but I do think that the so-called "moderate" swing voters are done with Trump so maybe I'm worrying too much.
Yup, I never root for the awful but so-called weaker opposition candidate to win their primary. Because sometimes you will end up with truly horrible candidates winning it all. As someone who has maintained being an Independent so that I can vote in Republican primaries in my red state, I'm very likely going to vote for the least evil contender.
Pretty sure Trump has been thinking about it for a long time, way before the 2016 nonsense. In RATM’s video for “Sleep Now In The Fire” there’s a guy in the crowd holding a Trump For President sign. And this was in 2000.
I hate needing glasses, but I’m sticking for two reasons: old lady dry eyes, and I would end up needing readers at some point after LASIK. I’ve also noticed that people with contacts can only bear them for so many hours in a day before they switch back to glasses. Eye surgery does seem pretty scary; it’s some pretty high-value bodily real estate. I’m saving surgery for cataracts or detached retinas or something else that isn’t elective.
I’ll make a FANTASTIC curmudgeon some day, I can feel it.
IIRC this is the first time we’ve had unanimous winners of both CYA since McLain and Gibson in 1968.
Not that I am advocating for him, but the fan in me that grew up in the 70s and 80s would have been shocked that Kyle Wright finished a very distant 10th.
...
I had great eyesight until my mid 40s. Wore readers for a couple of years and now am in progressive lenses. Zero chance I ever wear contacts or have mere vision correction lasic. Cataracts run in my family so there’s a decent chance of future surgery. Yick.
It also makes me a little bit humble to think about what the - may I live that long - 2052 version of me will think about the silliness of my current views.
“The key trend is helping to pay for ballparks...by allowing the team to support the project in part by allowing it to develop adjacent real estate.”
Nice of governments to "allow[] the team to support the project," the project being building a new stadium for the team. "Orwellian" is an overused adjective, but this newspeak really fits.
I have worn (and broken/lost) glasses since I was roughly 10, and while my sight has improved over the years, they are still necessary. About 10 years or so ago, my wife (no, not her, the other one) was diagnosed with cataracts. As part of the surgery, they put in new lenses that gave her normal vision.
So now my other wife (yeah, her) is in the same boat, and looking forward to getting the same benefit from the surgery. Me, I'm sitting here rooting for cataracts.
Dollar store readers FTW. The fam begs me to shop at a place like Warby Parker but I take my glasses on and off so frequently and stick them in so many different pockets or hang them from shirt fronts that they’re constantly broken or lost. And yet, I have still not spent as much as I would have buying a single pair at Warby Parker.
I am not letting anyone point a laser at my eyes unless it means the difference between seeing and not seeing.
I have a hard time getting eye drops in my eyes. It’s physically challenging to the point where contacts, while nice, seem pretty impossible for me to adjust to.
Also I need people to think I’m smart.
Hearing parts of Trump’s speech and he sounds incredibly old. All that speaking he’s been doing for years is really aging his voice. He sounds petulant and whiny and two years removed from power, he just sounds lame. I really think the party is happy to keep his platform and dump him; isn’t that what DeSantis and his canny wife are for?
I'm bald like Craig, and I have a goatee because I kind of look like a thumb otherwise, and my default is wearing glasses. I wear daily disposable contacts when I play golf, mostly because I tend to sweat profusely and contacts allow me to avoid the problem of sweat dripping onto my lenses. I used to wear contacts every day, and I can't remember when I stopped; it was probably around the time I started telecommuting in 2010.
I'm nearsighted, but my prescription isn't that strong, and it's kind of weird, actually. My glasses are a progressive prescription, great for distance but I sometimes take them off to read, especially my phone. I tried progressive contacts but didn't like them much, and so I wear distance only, which means my arm isn't long enough to read my phone when I'm wearing contacts.
If we don't want Donald Trump to be president again, is it OK to speak to Republicans on their own terms? Like, if Joe Biden has taught us one thing, it's that 80 may not be the time of life when anyone is most suited to be president.
Ask a Republican sports fan, how would they feel if Tony La Russa or Mike Hargrove returned to manage their team? Or for a football fan, how about Jimmy Johnson or Tom Coughlin? None of those men are yet 80. But Trump will be, in the middle of the next term.
Of course, the flaw here is that President Biden is still planning to run again, which would take him up to, er, 86. I haven't yet known any 86 year olds that I would leave in charge of a high school, let alone a country, but maybe that's just me.
Mitch McConnell will be 84 when his current term ends, so I'm not sure that talking age would be a winning strategy, as it seems they only believe that Democrats age poorly.
An American Politboro for a new century? Given the number of people my parents' age that I "supervise" (anyone out there feeling good about your management skills re: parents off the job site? same here) at work, I have to wonder if the olds keep appearing on ballots because their generation is the last one to be able to afford to run for/stay in office. Now, as to why they keep winning elections... the floor is open for your remarks and observations, please.
I'm not sure that 2022 is the time for this specific argument from a sports fan's perspective what with Dusty Baker having won his first WS ring ... and is a couple of months older than the Human Rain Delay, Mike Hargrove.
I like my glasses. I like how I look in them. I have worn them since I was 10. They are part of me. But also, I don't find the idea of putting lenses in your eyes the least bit appealing. And I find the notion of hiding that you need glasses incredibly vain (though my decision to keep wearing glasses is also vain in a way). And I have no desire to undergo unnecessary surgery that I suspect my insurance doesn't cover.
But let's say this outright: people associate wearing glasses with being a brainy nerd. That is an image I like to project. I take pride in that image. It's me.
Ha, basically yes to all of this!
I saw an article once that said people looking at pictures of women with and without glasses thought the faces without glasses were more attractive and those with glasses were more intelligent.
I was my high school valedictorian and never considered myself attractive so glasses it was! I like being perceived as smarter than I actually am. 🙂
I started wearing glasses at 10 and contacts at 11 and have never considered it to be even slightly inconvenient. I don’t have sensitive eyes, I don’t care about touching my eyeballs twice a day, so just don’t feel the need to change it over 2 decades into the routine.
Lemme tell ya, I've been around. Started wearing glasses for near-sightedness in middle school, got contacts in college and then after about 15 years as a working stiff used FSA money to get LASIK surgery. Each of those steps was progressively life-changing.
My LASIK surgeon did tell me that at some point, I'd probably need reading glasses. That hasn't been the case, but what I did find out was that my eyes gradually regressed -- so that about six years ago I realized I was having trouble seeing distances clearly, especially when it got dark. After I nearly drove off the road one night, I got my eyes examined and my suspicions were confirmed. Was going to get re-fitted for contacts when I realized looking through the focusing mask (whatever that thing is called) that when I could see distances perfectly, my close-up vision was blurry. So that's kept me from going back for more LASIK.
The result: I'm fine with no correction 85% of the time, but will wear my "new" glasses whenever I'm going to concerts, sporting events or driving. I don't know what that says about my intelligence, however.
Nothing vain about my contact wearing. I actually got them as a 12-year old to help with baseball. With contacts, I have a full field of vision, with my glasses there is a blurry edge around my entire field easy decision.
LASIK surgery: my mother-in-law offered to pay for LASIK surgery as a birthday gift. I went to the consultation and was told that, instead of the basic surgery where you might be down for a day or 2 and then back to the pre-glasses life, my corneas were thin and I would have to have a different surgery that required several weeks of post-op treatment, including putting special drops in my eyes several times a day and doing what amounted to physical therapy for my eyes. I decided to stick with the glasses.
I tried contacts once and wore them for a week before I tired of them. I hated putting them in so much and I didn't like the way they felt. I like my glasses. They are part of who I am.
Lad I sit next to at work swears by laser surgery. I’m terrified of anything touching my eyes.
I wear contacts. I am afraid of botched laser surgery ruining my eyesight, despite the fact that my sister is an optometrist and had the procedure with no issues. This is because we had a friend whose brother went for laser surgery -- years ago -- and it was botched. He couldn't read any longer, couldn't drive, etc. He had to leave his job and draw disability and insurance and whatever other free money he could. He was on TV talking about the risks and effects of botched laser surgeries.
And it was all a fraud. He just didn't want to work. His laser surgery was fine. He had other eye issues and tried to blame them all on the laser surgery. Yet here I am, ruined, confined to a life of contact lenses. Thanks Obama.
Same. In the back of my mind I just worry something goes wrong.
I've worn glasses since 2nd grade and contacts since high school. I don't remember a time when I didn't wake up and have the world blurry. At this point with WFH I really only wear contacts if I'm driving and need to wear sunglasses.
On the other hand, everyone I know who has had lasik swears it was the best decision they ever made. Maybe I'll do it next year.
I got lasik in 2017. It was very uncomfortable (not necessarily painful), but it was still the best thing I've ever done.
Two years ago I had cataract surgery on both eyes. I had been wearing glasses since I was a year and a half old. I considered glasses as a part of my identity, also like putting on a shirt in the morning for over 50 years. I did not feel like I had the discipline to put contacts on every day and my eye doctors told me my astigmatism was so bad that Lasik was not an option.
The cataracts though, they would only worsen so in the middle of a pandemic was no better time to have what was elective surgery.
I wore a patch for about six hours after the surgeries (done two weeks apart, that was not a good time because my new and old eyes were so far off) and the clarity from the onset was amazing. There is a regime of eye drops for a couple of weeks after, but it's not bad.
Having to not need glasses to drive, watch television or just go about my day was an incredible life change. I still need them to read. The only side effect is that I have to wear sunglasses in bright sunlight. Getting cool sunglasses off the rack is quite a perk.
I do not miss having to reach for and find glasses to see what time it is on the clock radio in the morning.
My mom underwent the same procedures and processes. She hasn't said anything about not needing glasses for most things, but she does have pairs of reading glasses all over the house since she really, really needs them to read. She even has a pair in our house since she is bound to forget them.
Fact. I have a couple of pairs in my house, one at work and in the car.
Nothing you can do about reading glasses. Most people will start needing them when they get into their 40s. I was lucky that it has really just started the past couple years. I have a pair at work, one next to a chair I read in, and one on my nightstand. I should probably put a pair in my car. The place I used to go for early voting had terrible lighting, and I always struggled to read the form you fill out before the actual vote. If the lighting is good, I don't necessarily need them.
I am sooooo waiting for my cataracts to get to the point where I can have this surgery with the lens implants. I've worn glasses since I was 9 and also have an astigmatism that ruled out LASIK. I've done contacts from time to time, but they don't make contacts that you can sleep in for people with astigmatism. Like you, I would love to be able to wake up in the morning and see without reaching for my glasses. And be able to fall asleep watching something that I could immediately open my eyes and see if something got interesting. The only downside I can come up with is that I would REALLY need to finally learn how to put on eye makeup.
I generally think there is no downside to my decision to just keep wearing glasses, but honestly, off the rack sunglasses might actually be the one thing.
I have about 10 pairs all over the place now.
I have a small face apparently (shopping for KN95 masks I had to find a place that had child sizes to fit me!) so my glasses are narrow enough that over-the-glasses sunglasses work for me at least 90% of the time. So I have a few pair of those I got when they were on sale at Meijer last summer.
I went and got some OTG safety goggles with a smoke/gray color and they're as good for driving during the day as they are when mowing the lawn. Dorky as heck and I love them.
It seems like many of us glasses-wearing folk are in the same mental boat. I've had my glasses since I was 12 years old. When I got them, I thought I went from "geek" to "cool." I'll note that my first pair were Biden-like aviators, which were way cooler back then. Contacts for me were not an option at the time -- my eyes were really sensitive and they only had hard glass contacts back then. My sister had also done a number on her eyes by forgetting to take them out one evening and scratched up her eyes miserably. I have one friend who got LASIKs and really liked it. I would like to be able to see something while swimming or when I get up in the morning or while doing other important things while not wearing glasses (I'll leave that without further description), but also have a paranoia about laser surgery on my eyes. Maybe one day, but I'm not there yet.
Remember the first time Trump said that he was running for president and we all thought that was hilarious?
Y’all already have a Trump party. Why would you need a second one?
I often wonder if Obama hadn’t roasted Trump at the White House Press Corp dinner if Trump still would have run for president....
I don't think Trumpers are so stupid as to tank a DeSantis, Noem, etc., but I would LOVE to see it.
Most are probably not, but if he draws just 5% across the board, it's an easy victory for the Democrats. If he draws Perot numbers, it's a blood bath. Again, rooting for injuries.
His hardcore supporters literally attempted a violent overthrow of our government because he told them to. If he tells them the Republican Party rigged the primary against him, they will absolutely support him in a third party bid or stay home.
The way I see it, there are three possible outcomes once his name gets on the primary ballot:
1 - He wins the nomination and drags down their ticket everywhere, like he did in the last three cycles.
2 - He doesn't win the nomination and torpedoes their nominee out of spite.
3 - He doesn't win the nomination and gracefully endorses the winner.
Republicans are desperately hoping for 3. Which seems really unlikely to me.
2a: he runs as an independent
2b: he continuously badmouths the nominee
2b is probably the best case scenario for Republicans.
I don't think he sits it out; he's a 3rd party candidate if he doesn't get the GOP nominee. Out of ego and out of spite.
…and out of a hope that being a Presidential candidate would somehow keep him from being criminally indicted.
He's narcissistic enough that I wouldn't be surprised if he ran as an independent, leading to the Dem candidate winning 45+ states. I doubt that it would lead to the creation of a true third party for more than that cycle, but he could definitely fuck over the Republican Party. Rooting for injuries.
Best case scenario is it’s moot because he’s in prison.
Are there laws against running while imprisoned. Because if not, doubt that would stop him.
The Trump as third-party candidate outcome is 100% happening if he's not the GOP nominee or rendered unable to run by some other means, legal or health or whatever. The Republican Party has got to know this, and I wouldn't like to be staring down this Sophie's Choice situation. They can't win with him, and they can't win without him.
I thought he was talking about it in the 80s.
OK, fair enough. I don't remember it either. But if we thought it was funny when he ran in 2016, we probably thought it was funny when he ran in 2000 too.
I remember hoping Trump would keep doing well in the primaries in 2016 because I really feared a Ted Cruz presidency, and was enjoying someone finally putting Cruz in his smarmy-ass place during debates and speeches. I was hoping maybe Trump would bring Cruz down enough that another candidate would eventually take over, and I was cathartically enjoying seeing Cruz finally have to squirm against a bigger bully than him who didn't take his shit. I knew Trump would be a horrible president, but thought there was no way in hell he'd win the GOP primary, let alone the presidency, so I was enjoying his take-downs of Cruz.
Then the candidate field started thinning out and I was becoming more and more flabbergasted that, in an already terrible field of candidates, literal trolls Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were the top 2 choices of Republicans. But, I still thought there was no way Trump could win a general election, so I continued to enjoy his sliming of Cruz.
Now I've found myself starting to feel those same feelings a little bit, but with Ron DeSanctimonious replacing Cruz. I would love to see DeSanctimonious get continually humiliated in the manner Cruz was, but I have to stop and remember that another Trump presidency would be devastating and I should probably not celebrate anything that could open up a crack for Trump to slip through back to the the oval office.
It does kind of feel like Trump has finally lost a lot of the wind at his sails and his jabs at DeSanctimonious don't seem to be landing with quite the same effectiveness, so like is often stated, the hope is that Trump loses support but still has enough to split the GOP.
I was the opposite in 2016. I never enjoyed watching the GOP primary debates, like my liberal friends, because it was "funny" to see Trump take down the other slimy nominees. I was always more concerned that he'd win. Once he started racking up wins, I was really confused by all the media coverage and the people who seemed excited for a showdown with Hillary, who I was surprised to see now being promoted as a very popular candidate.
When it all went down I was depressed, and then angry, and then I accepted it. This country is packed full of morons and crazy people who will vote for horrible people for reasons that are either beyond my comprehension or simply come down to wanting lower taxes.
I'm worried that everyone is making the same mistake again but I do think that the so-called "moderate" swing voters are done with Trump so maybe I'm worrying too much.
Now, if only the DNC had a decent candidate....
Yup, I never root for the awful but so-called weaker opposition candidate to win their primary. Because sometimes you will end up with truly horrible candidates winning it all. As someone who has maintained being an Independent so that I can vote in Republican primaries in my red state, I'm very likely going to vote for the least evil contender.
Pretty sure Trump has been thinking about it for a long time, way before the 2016 nonsense. In RATM’s video for “Sleep Now In The Fire” there’s a guy in the crowd holding a Trump For President sign. And this was in 2000.
I hate needing glasses, but I’m sticking for two reasons: old lady dry eyes, and I would end up needing readers at some point after LASIK. I’ve also noticed that people with contacts can only bear them for so many hours in a day before they switch back to glasses. Eye surgery does seem pretty scary; it’s some pretty high-value bodily real estate. I’m saving surgery for cataracts or detached retinas or something else that isn’t elective.
I’ll make a FANTASTIC curmudgeon some day, I can feel it.
IIRC this is the first time we’ve had unanimous winners of both CYA since McLain and Gibson in 1968.
Not that I am advocating for him, but the fan in me that grew up in the 70s and 80s would have been shocked that Kyle Wright finished a very distant 10th.
...
I had great eyesight until my mid 40s. Wore readers for a couple of years and now am in progressive lenses. Zero chance I ever wear contacts or have mere vision correction lasic. Cataracts run in my family so there’s a decent chance of future surgery. Yick.
Could you imagine telling someone in like 1991 that Aaron Nola had an 11-13 record, 3.25 ERA, and finished fourth?
It also makes me a little bit humble to think about what the - may I live that long - 2052 version of me will think about the silliness of my current views.
“The key trend is helping to pay for ballparks...by allowing the team to support the project in part by allowing it to develop adjacent real estate.”
Nice of governments to "allow[] the team to support the project," the project being building a new stadium for the team. "Orwellian" is an overused adjective, but this newspeak really fits.
I have worn (and broken/lost) glasses since I was roughly 10, and while my sight has improved over the years, they are still necessary. About 10 years or so ago, my wife (no, not her, the other one) was diagnosed with cataracts. As part of the surgery, they put in new lenses that gave her normal vision.
So now my other wife (yeah, her) is in the same boat, and looking forward to getting the same benefit from the surgery. Me, I'm sitting here rooting for cataracts.
Dollar store readers FTW. The fam begs me to shop at a place like Warby Parker but I take my glasses on and off so frequently and stick them in so many different pockets or hang them from shirt fronts that they’re constantly broken or lost. And yet, I have still not spent as much as I would have buying a single pair at Warby Parker.
I am not letting anyone point a laser at my eyes unless it means the difference between seeing and not seeing.
That was me from about 44 to 48. Since then, the vision has gone further downhill.
Or we could talk about the rest of my physique using the old line: I have a furniture problem; my chest has fallen into my drawers.
Amazon has 6 pairs for $13. Buy 'em by the box and have a set in every room.
I feel old using readers, older when I keep losing them.
I have a hard time getting eye drops in my eyes. It’s physically challenging to the point where contacts, while nice, seem pretty impossible for me to adjust to.
Also I need people to think I’m smart.
Hearing parts of Trump’s speech and he sounds incredibly old. All that speaking he’s been doing for years is really aging his voice. He sounds petulant and whiny and two years removed from power, he just sounds lame. I really think the party is happy to keep his platform and dump him; isn’t that what DeSantis and his canny wife are for?
I'm bald like Craig, and I have a goatee because I kind of look like a thumb otherwise, and my default is wearing glasses. I wear daily disposable contacts when I play golf, mostly because I tend to sweat profusely and contacts allow me to avoid the problem of sweat dripping onto my lenses. I used to wear contacts every day, and I can't remember when I stopped; it was probably around the time I started telecommuting in 2010.
I'm nearsighted, but my prescription isn't that strong, and it's kind of weird, actually. My glasses are a progressive prescription, great for distance but I sometimes take them off to read, especially my phone. I tried progressive contacts but didn't like them much, and so I wear distance only, which means my arm isn't long enough to read my phone when I'm wearing contacts.
I guess I'm a hot mess.
Fixed
If we don't want Donald Trump to be president again, is it OK to speak to Republicans on their own terms? Like, if Joe Biden has taught us one thing, it's that 80 may not be the time of life when anyone is most suited to be president.
Ask a Republican sports fan, how would they feel if Tony La Russa or Mike Hargrove returned to manage their team? Or for a football fan, how about Jimmy Johnson or Tom Coughlin? None of those men are yet 80. But Trump will be, in the middle of the next term.
Of course, the flaw here is that President Biden is still planning to run again, which would take him up to, er, 86. I haven't yet known any 86 year olds that I would leave in charge of a high school, let alone a country, but maybe that's just me.
Mitch McConnell will be 84 when his current term ends, so I'm not sure that talking age would be a winning strategy, as it seems they only believe that Democrats age poorly.
Yes. Chuck Grassley was just reelected for another six year term, he's 89.
An American Politboro for a new century? Given the number of people my parents' age that I "supervise" (anyone out there feeling good about your management skills re: parents off the job site? same here) at work, I have to wonder if the olds keep appearing on ballots because their generation is the last one to be able to afford to run for/stay in office. Now, as to why they keep winning elections... the floor is open for your remarks and observations, please.
Well that is Iowa. They are different there.
I'm not sure that 2022 is the time for this specific argument from a sports fan's perspective what with Dusty Baker having won his first WS ring ... and is a couple of months older than the Human Rain Delay, Mike Hargrove.