BSR

Recessions are a long time in the making. Some investors started sounding alarms about the economy way back in 2003, 5 long years before the Sep 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Dimon argues that recession is likely because "the consumer is in good shape. But the extra money that they got during COVID, trillions of dollars, that's kind of running out… It runs out this year. The government has a huge deficit which will affect the markets." Some disagree with Dimon because they don't see the government debt as that dire and are confident that the Fed can manage a soft landing.

Did we see the same movie??

Re: the ads, what happened to all the humor, creativity, and innovation we used to see in Super Bowl ads? I can't believe companies forked over $7 million(!) a pop to show that boring, forgettable dreck. Until the Chiefs' final drive, in which Mahomes showed how a master gets it done, I thought the quality of play was fairly mediocre, like both teams were simultaneously choking. But that nail-biter overtime redeemed the previous 4 quarters. There was a beautiful sense of inevitability in that final drive: the Chiefs feeling a sense of destiny whereas the 49ers a sense of doom. I understand the need for the padding, helmets, and all, but the NFL really needs to figure put how to showcase this kind of *ahem* talent ...

Since I don't follow the NFL any more, I chose to root for San Francisco just 'cuz I think Brock Purdy is cute. If I were a bona fide 49ers fan, I'd be devastated. How the f*ck do you miss an extra point?! That never happens! Or so I thought. Google says it happens more often than most people think, teams miss 5.35% of extra point opportunities. Nonetheless, I doubt die-hard Niners fans are in a particularly forgiving mood. But who knows? KC played it safe, going for the much easier field goal to get into overtime. If SF made that extra point & KC had to go for a touchdown, they might have done it. I would never underestimate Patrick Mahomes. PS: the ads this year sucked.

If you're looking for a shining example of a mediocre man competing in women's sports, here's one for you: the 1619th-ranked male college (D3) sprinter transitioned and now ranks 3rd in the women's 200 meters.

I think the original recipe used rabbit (hunters shoot rabbit, not chicken). We Americans just switched in chicken because because chicken is cheap and available everywhere in the US whereas rabbit quite the opposite. In pretty much any chicken recipe, you can sub in rabbit and get a far richer, yummier dish. Sorry, Bugs.

I saw Charo here in Las Vegas ~12 years ago (comps). Her show was surprisingly entertaining because, while she's not a great singer, she pours so much into the performance that her show is a ton of fun, even if the vocals aren't great. She hired a crew of flamenco dancers, who were fantastic and fantastically sexy, plus she performed a few pieces of classical guitar (she studied with the legend of Spanish guitar, Andrés Segovia). I'm not going to fly cross-country to see her, but if you're in Queens or close by, I would actually recommend going. Glad to hear Charo is still alive & kicking.

Yikes, Purdy does kinda sorta look like Lee Harvey Oswald, albeit a younger and one billion times cuter version.

My only advice is to extend your trip a bit to a final destination on the Pacific coast. It doesn't matter where -- LA, Santa Barbara, San Diego, whatever tickles your fancy -- so that you get the full "from sea to shining sea" experience. When I drove from Boston to Las Vegas, I made it a point to have lunch at a clam shack on Boston Harbor a few days before heading out. When I got to LV, I remember thinking it would have been cool to continue on to LA because 1) I always wanted to see the iconic Santa Monica Pier and 2) it would have given me the feeling of truly driving cross-country. But since Las Vegas was my final destination, the 10 additional hours to LA (round-trip) would have been silly. For your sake (and for all of us), I hope that Dick's Cabaret in Phoenix reopens by the time you make your trip, even though chances are awfully slim.

I have that cilantro-tastes-like soap gene. It's no big whoop, just means that I can never go to any Mexican restaurant because every dish is drowning in the stuff. I can't imagine having a similar aversion to onions because everybody adds onions in everything. I have one weird aversion: I hate -- with vehement passion -- heated-up pie. Every restaurant is obsessed with heating up pie if it's served a la mode. I used to ask places to simply not heat it, but apparently the restaurant industry's 1st commandment is Thou Shalt Always Heat Up Pie because it always comes out piping hot no matter how clearly I ask them not to. Oooh, you have a microwave, congratuf*ckinglations! Here's a recipe that's gotta be your worst nightmare because it calls for 4 pounds(!) of onions. Since I loooooove onions, especially when slow-cooked and caramelized, I can't wait to try it.

I wanted to like this movie, but it was just awful. A script that sounded like it was written by high school students, clunky delivery of the jokes, bend-over-backward political correctness ... yeah, definitely Hallmark Channel Sh*t of the Week except with a gay couple. The movie could have redeemed itself with some really hot sex scenes, but the sex was barely PG-13. It's too bad because it's a great premise, could have made for a super-cute rom com.

People form their opinions on the health of the economy based on their personal financial situation. No government report will change that. No matter how much you scream "the economy is GREAT!!", if a person's rent & groceries have increased 25% but his salary only 8%, he's gonna have a dim view of the economy. Personal bankruptcies surged 18% in 2023, car insurance increased 19%, credit card debt hit an all-time high, and the percentage carrying a balance is up to 47% (39% in 2021). Go ahead & sis-boom-bah about the economy all you like, but don't expect the guy with a maxed out credit card & a $1200 car insurance payment due to agree with you.

There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. Counted as 47,000 jobs "created" last quarter were simply striking autoworkers and actors returning to work. In other words, some very creative accounting is producing these sunshine & rainbows jobs reports. While reports keep saying the economy is great, most Americans keep thinking it's lousy. A recent Pew poll shows only 28% of Americans think the economy is good or excellent while 72% think it's fair or poor. Low (official) unemployment and lower inflation are the biggest factors cited by those who think the economy is good/excellent whereas high inflation and high cost of living most worry the other 72%. The percentage who think the economy will be worse a year from now is 33%, down from 46% last April. While those numbers arent awful, there is a clear disconnect between what government says about the health of the economy vs. what Americans are actually experiencing.

Some trivia about Jannik: yes, he grew up speaking German at home because his parents are Austrian. I assumed he learned Italian in school, but as you point out, he grew up in a German-speaking region of Italy (his hometown is only ~3 miles from the Austrian border). At 13yo when he went to live & train at Riccardo Piatti's tennis academy, he knew only the basics of Italian, couldn't speak it. He lived in the home of one of the coaches who spoke German, but when the coach was out, which was often, Jannik had no one to talk to because the wife & kids didn't speak a word. Until Jannik learned to speak Italian, he eased his loneliness by speaking German with the family dog. Lucky for him the dog was fluent.

My favorite comment: "I just unlocked my front door because of this." 🤣

Now if I could bring this all back to San Francisco (finally!) ... since I last visited this thread, I saw a very interesting interview: an old-school, traditional Catholic who was arguably San Francisco’s number 1 fan. Who'da thunk it? In late 60s when he got married and 70s when he was raising his 6 children, he saw San Francisco as a place where nobody cared if you were black or white, straight or gay, PhD or high school dropout; all people cared about was whether or not you were a good person. As a devout Catholic, he wanted to teach his 6 kids that one value above all else, and he saw San Francisco as the best place in the world to do it. SF's number one fan has since left the city, as have his 6 kids. He's sick over what San Francisco has become: the out-of-control crime (forget statistics because thefts less than $950 don't count), the homelessness, the needles & feces in the streets. I loved San Francisco too, although I've only spent a total of 2 weeks there, the last visit a while back. But it was a different city then. Contrary to what @SouthOfTheBorder argues, I'm rooting for San Francisco. I want San Francisco to return to what it was: a beautiful place that stood as a shining example of the best that cities have to offer. Nothing against rural Mississippi, but as a gay man, I know it's not the place for me. I would love to live in the San Francisco of 1985 or 2010, but in its current state, I would no sooner move to San Francisco than I would to rural Mississippi.

In your post right before this one, you criticize cherrypicking data, but then you point out that Arkansas has the highest violent crime rate. Hmm, since that just didn't sound right, I did a bit of digging. As it turns out, the methods of collecting crime statistics vary widely, which means the accuracy or at least the comprehensiveness of crime statistics varies widely from state to state. It sounds like Arkansas tops the list not because it's a crime-ridden hellhole, but because its crime data collection is simply more accurate. Of the 5 states with the lowest crime rates, the first thing that jumps out is that the first 4 states lack a major urban center, magnets for narcotrafficking. New York is obviously a big exception, but NYC also has an exemplary police department. When crime dropped precipitously in the 1990s and stayed low in the aughts, NYC real estate values (and therefore NYC property taxes, which make up ~60% of the city's revenue) skyrocketed because the world's ultrarich felt safe enough to buy. Excellent policing costs, yet NYC leaders are happy to pay the price because they know the city's financial survival depends on it. In other words, NYC is more the exception, not the rule, for big cities. Just look at nearby Philly's violent crime stats -- eek! In contrast, Tennessee has Memphis and all its problems, Louisiana has New Orleans. I'll skip Alabama because to be honest, I didn't feel like researching it. Anchorage is a relatively small city, but it has a big percentage of the state's population and also has a very serious drug trafficking problem. In conclusion, you criticize cherrypicked data and narratives, and then you present 2 lists of cherrypicked data and narratives.

My first memory was the nightly ritual of our nanny tucking my brother & me in to bed. Well, not a bed really, like all Filipino tiny tykes, our "bed" was just a mat on the floor. I also remember a few conversations at 3-4yo word for word in English, but that's impossible because I didn't know a word of English until I started kindergarten. I must have subconsciously translated them because I forgot how to speak Tagalog.

FedEx also reported a decline in year-over-year package volume, down 2% in its fiscal Q2, the biggest decline being last June with 9%. Given that Americans shop online more & more, these declines are a bad sign.

Shh! Don't say that!! You'll spoil @SouthOfTheBorder's virtue-signaling and inflated sense of moral superiority.

You can respond to an aggressor without stooping to nasty disrespect. All your years at the finest Swiss finishing schools apparently wasted ... pity.

I'll try to avoid saying it on this forum.

That's lovely. You should consider treating your fellow forum members with the same respect. I will never forget when you told me that I should weigh in only if the subject is the Philippines or Filipinos but otherwise STFU. That was the most disrespectful thing anyone on this forum has ever said to me. Beyond just providers, it would be nice if you showed such grace and dignity to everyone, for example, even people who disagree with you or whose politics you dislike. But hey, if you choose to extend such grace and dignity only to those who can help you get an orgasm, I guess the rest of us will just have to accept your decision. For what it's worth, I never haggle with providers either. But if a provider quotes me $250, I'm not going to tell him that most providers in the area charge $300. Nor do I care if he's a recent migrant, what taxes he's paying (or not), or what government assistance he's receiving (or not). I figured the lower rate in Denver was a response to an influx of providers. If more supply but the same demand means I pay a bit less, great! Enjoy it while it lasts.

Also, we're talking about $250 vs. the going rate of $300. If you offer a starving man a tin of cat food to fist him, then yes, that's dehumanizing. But let's not get too dramatic about a $50 difference. I bought really cute Santa gift wrap for 75% off once at an after-Christmas sale. Call Amnesty International!

If the provider is happy with $250, then that's all that matters. If he's happy with that amount, then how the heck is it "dehumanizing"?