Colinism

@BottyMcBotter69 @PunishedGramsci I used to work fixing cars boats and rvs for living I was far more mentally and emotionally satisfied doing that. I work in a cubicle because it pays more and had better benefits once I started a family.

@PunishedGramsci yeah no this movie is slop the naive bullshit at the end where they pretend being a construction worker is easier is just white dipshit fantasy land. only entitled cunts could believe that shit

The movie couldn't spell out any more clearly that these jobs are entirely ephemeral, soul crushing, and unstable. The entire thrust of the second and third act is mass layoffs based entirely on vibes, the characters psychosis is entirely due to this precarious position.

@GamingAndPandas It's not just that office work is bad. I think it is but it's more about finding what's right for you and if you find no meaning in your work you need to find something else or accept it.

"AAAAAAAAAH GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT WITH A STABLE INCOME I'M LITERALLY IN HELL SAVE ME KURT COBAIN'S GHOST AAAAAAAH!" Why was Gen X like this?

@bwags Yeah knocking out 6-12 page papers at the last minute was pretty routine stuff.

I wrote a 28 page paper in one day in my final week of college. These people are not Built To Last

@steppedenizen Yeah it feels like an old city with out the craziness of a lot of the French quarter. Just enough people to feel like a living city but not enough that it feels crowded all the time. Plus it has rebuilt well since I first went there in 2007, when it was pretty dead.

@Colinismblog I’m personally very bullish on the warehouse district. The French quarter is fun. But it possesses a lot of obstacles to raising a family there. One could raise a family in the CBD but it’s just like any other cityscape. Warehouse district is “dense urban” circa turn 20th century

Which neighborhood has the best energy? -Garden District -Warehouse District -French Quarter -Marigny/Bywater

I used to need tools for a living and was a DeWalt guy. Now I have DeWalt, Metabo, Bosch and Ryobi. Ryobi make pretty good tools at cheap prices and they also make tons of oddball tools. I don't use them for my core tools but they are great for oddballs and less used stuff.

@scotchscotchzz I have some Ryobi tools. I also have Bosch Makita, DeWalt, and Metabo. Ryobi is great for oddball or less used tools (like my drain snake). Also they work better then you would think most of the time.

I witnessed a man at Home Depot go down a dark path. This choice will lead to a broken home, a promiscuous wife, gay children, and unfinished projects while drinking seltzers. If you don’t take your tools seriously you don’t take your life seriously.

@kenmasta06 @shagbark_hick They honestly are nice just rude. They will help you out when you need it but will not have many pleasantries. Basically deep down nice superficially jerks. It's the Yankee Way.

@shagbark_hick People in MA are not nice. Nobody who has ever lived here will ever tell you that the people here are nice. They are extremely rude hence the term Masshole.

It is very funny, I hear many people saying bad things about Massachusetts, but honestly MA is much better than Upstate NY in many ways. NY is #2-highest overall tax burden in USA. MA is #21-highest. The Cato Institute ranks NY at #50, or dead last, in overall personal freedom. It ranks MA at #26. People in MA are friendlier overall. The scenery in rural Western MA is fantastic. The cost of real estate is comparable in rural areas (slightly higher in MA but fairly reasonable IMO). And in many towns in deep rural Western MA, the local authorities can have a surprisingly laissez-faire mentality about property owner rights. I know of at least a few towns where the codes enforcement is extremely lax or bordering on nonexistent, where quite a lot of shenanigans are tolerated. You really just have to avoid the rich liberal areas and you'll find people are not really that rulesy. Moreover, MA people tend to be pretty educated and I find that they are 10x more social than Upstate NY people. We just visited some friends in rural W. MA and even at the local dump, everybody's just chilling out and socializing. There's a big crew of young men that get together at the local pub weekly without fail. Unheard of where we live in NY. MA's rural parts also seem WAY younger than NY's. Quite common to run into friendly, well-read folks in their 30's out in the hill towns -- and once you get away from the bigger cities and college towns, they do not tend to be uniformly liberal or woke. Usually more "independent". In other words, NY is so bad for so many things that someone from Upstate NY would put themselves way ahead by moving to MA. And I find that while MA real estate is pricier than NY's, you can get cheaper real estate overall in MA than in VT or NH. There are a lot of "sleeper" options in that state, and none of them are *that* far from some really excellent amenities and communities.

@shagbark_hick I have family in western mass it is beautiful we also vacationed on a lake there a lot as kids. Western mass is very different then the rest of the state. Still go that way to visit several times a year.

@NMPK47 @DarrigoMelanie The defense by the IRS is controlled by the attorney general and the DOJ appointed by the president. The judge in the case has signaled this is a conflict so they are trying to do a settlement before the judge rules he can't sue an organization he effectively controls.

No, he is NOT "stealing $10B from taxpayers and covering up his tax crimes." The potential settlement option to waive audits of Trump, his family and businesses came from lawyers who represent the IRS - NOT Trump’s personal lawyers! Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS alleges the agency failed to protect his records from tax return leaks by IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn who provided Trump's tax information to The New York Times in 2019. In October 2023, Littlejohn pleaded guilty and in January 2024 was sentenced to the maximum of 5 years in prison. That the @nytimes has allowed this GARBAGE post tells the world everything we need to know about its definition of "All the News that's Fit to Print."

Trump is suing the IRS, which he oversees, for $10 billion. Both sides want to settle to avoid going to court. Aside from money, one of the settlement terms is to drop all audits of himself and his family. He’s stealing $10B from taxpayers and covering up his tax crimes. You get that, right? nytimes.com/2026/05/12/bus…

@shagbark_hick So in the northeast things tend to be close enough to one another that if the population declines about and property values decline enough some one else will move in and try to revive it. But in the end some towns will likely end up as 2nd homes only or disappear

What is the future of high-median-age counties in the rural Northeast? What will life be like for those of us who stay in 10, 20, 30 years' time? Is it guaranteed that everything will empty out? Will some areas fare better than others? What is your forecast?

@shagbark_hick As a kid I wanted to live in northern Maine. Lived in Washington cnty a couple years and thought I would go back but never did. Now I think a village in the northern kingdom of VT would be ideal. But my altenative would be a small ocean side city like New London and live urban.

I'm not even kidding, at this point I really think that "extremophilia" is the only answer for the Northeast. Either extreme northern NH or the straight-up ghetto of Camden NJ. There is nothing else. The in-between is all compromised. Like really -- flip a coin.

@CarGuyDad I know some one who has a sprinter van set up like this and that's exactly how he uses it.

Perfect vehicle if you have to drive your kid to a sport tournament 200 miles away and then wait four hours in between the two games they’re playing, and then drive back.

@Mike_M_Klotz They seem oddly popular here in CT but Acura seems to sell well here in general.

I didn’t realize Acura actually built any ZDX…

@shagbark_hick Living on boats are one of the few ways out of this and even that gets harder see Florida anchoring bans.

The trouble with "exiting the system" is that it's getting hard to do it. Even if you own property outright, property taxes keep rising. Even if you have meaningful savings, inflation doesn't stop. Unless you're hoarding gold and living in the Unorganized Borough of Alaska, you've got to keep "playing the game," particularly if you ALSO wish to maintain anything resembling a modern standard of living. There are a few other viable paths to "exiting the system," but they basically all involve accepting a very austere standard of living, living in a very tiny house, owning very little land, odd things like having no car, etc. The limitations begin mounting very quickly, and they result in living an extremely eccentric life that most would refuse to live. Why do you think I am always preaching frugality and tolerance for a lower living standard as if it were some kind of superpower? The simplest way for a working-class man to exit the system is to accept a Spartan standard of living, on a tiny lot, in a very small and rough old cabin. All the better if the cabin is in a low-property-tax jurisdiction, and is bicycling distance from required amenities. Such a life is so deliriously cheap that the vicissitudes of the wider economy are almost a kind of joke.

This is a bad take. In low cost areas of the country yep the math works. In high cost areas it just doesn't. Also a lot of un realistic assumptions it seems. I see nothing for transportation and nothing for things like medical bills and home repairs.

@TheICHpodcast There is nothing in there for transportation. Also medical insurance is gonna whack that cost structure alot. Never mind copays. Then you get into house repairs and maintenance.

George Kamel explains $100,000/year is enough to raise 4 kids in a high-cost-of-living area👀 “Let’s say a high-cost-of-living area… $100,000. Because if you do the math on that, you’re talking $6,000 a month probably coming in, maybe $5,000 if you’re in high-tax California. And you have a reasonable mortgage that’s $2,000 a month. You’ve got $3,000 a month to play with to cover food, utilities, insurance, a little bit of fun money...”

@Empty_America I live in New England and have 3 kids and made less then that ( inflation adjusted) for quite a while it was possible but very stressful. Got to start adding in things like super high utility bills and medical copays to really see the full picture.

I feel that a homeschooling family that was location flexible could gain infinite views by doing something like moving to Santa Barbara, living on 75K of annual spending, and documenting it all.

@Mike_M_Klotz I would say grand Cherokee mostly because it's the devil I know.

Used car faceoff: 2017 Touareg 3.6 vr6 vs 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.6 v6 Which one do you choose and why….

@c38160102 @shagbark_hick NJ is the worst of all worlds when it comes to taxes

I moved to the sticks in New Hampshire from the NAZI fascist state of New Jersey and my stress level has reduced to a much more manageable level. Love it actually. The property taxes are high yes but not as high as New Jersey. I had a 2 bedroom home in NJ on .3 acres. The property taxes was 10k or so. I have 5.2 acres home here, in the boonies with a 4 bedroom mansion compared to what I had in NJ and they are less than 5k right now.

I am willing to revisit "The New Hampshire Question." Though I've sidelined NH for a long time owing to its egregiously high property taxes and wildly high real estate prices, I am lately willing to concede that there might be something to the NH hype. This is because there does appear to be a culture there that is flourishing in some way; the people in NH are overwhelmingly not demoralized. Their state is functional; cynicism about the state of affairs in NH does not, from my view over here in NYS, appear to be warranted. These are the kinds of thoughts I think as I pay my outlandishly high NYS taxes, filled out Kafkaesque paperwork to buy a firearm in NYS this year, and live in constant fear that the property tax assessor will jack up our rates again to fund their pork-barrel school district (which is losing students rapidly and going broke). And if a man should be in love in the American Northeast, what are his real options? It may really be that he can either grit his teeth and accept a dismal state of affairs, in NY, or MA, or CT, or RI, or VT, or even ME -- or that he can go to New Hampshire. (Unless he is a liquor store owner hoping to move his business there, of course) I'm not saying that I am imminently going to move over there, but I am willing to admit that perhaps I've been too hard on NH.