I do this all the time. I’m in the US and I like to smoke cigarettes when I drink. Can’t smoke inside so I just find an outdoor area, usually near a smoker’s post, and just start drinking. No hotel staff have ever mentioned it to me in the dozen-or-so times I’ve done it. I usually stay out pretty late too. Around midnight. Disclaimers: IANAL and I’m sure I could be ticketed or even arrested depending on the state if an officer saw me doing this.

Read the last paragraph on page 3. Things are not getting worse. Your perception of the world around you is cynical as a by product of our evolution and saturation of news/media.

There is a fallacy named after this I’m pretty sure too! The bottom of page 3 of this paper gives a brief explanation as to why humans believe things are getting worse when they aren’t.

The clutch in my wife’s car started slipping on Christmas day. We had to limp it home and switch to my car which is an '89 Honda Prelude. My wife doesn’t like my car but at least it gets around for now. First world problem.

My wife and I were offered to live in her father’s rental house for free as long as she was in college. We were very excited to move in and pulled up to the house a week after our wedding. We opened the door and it was a disaster zone. It looked like someone had left all their belongings but trashed the place before leaving. Overturned couches, clothing everywhere, and ROACHES… oh god, SO MANY ROACHES! I walked into the living room and picked up a discarded baby sock in the middle of the room and at least three roaches fell as I picked it up and scattered. Every single item in the house was the same.

After throwing everything in the house away, we had to bug bomb the house a dozen times to finally have some semblance of a home without roaches everywhere. We would still see them at night after turning on a light in a dark room for at least 4 months. Had to keep all food locked away until we stopped randomly seeing them.

My experience with modern automatics is that they are dogshit and constantly changing gears at times that I don’t need it to. Just a bit of a hill? Pull it out of overdrive. Very slightly accelerate on the highway? Put it in 2nd gear! Even really nice vehicles like the Toyota 4Runner have absolutely terrible auto transmissions. Just ruins the experience for me.

Nice find!

Bought a belt and wallet from hanksbelts.com and they have aged very well! They come with a 100 year warranty so I’m sure if anything does happen I’ll be covered, though I doubt they ever get destroyed in my lifetime.

I think that I hear the argument against capitalism the most from people who reference unskilled labor. Sure, the person working in a warehouse is getting screwed wage-wise because the company is greedy and they doesn’t have a unique skill set. But the guy in the office that is maintaining a proprietary piece of software has the leverage to demand a higher wage. I think when it comes down to it, capitalism is just another version of the economic “game”. I prefer this game to socialism (or really any other economic philosophy) as I know how to work the current system better. Don’t want to get screwed in your career? Specialize! I understand a lot of people don’t want to hear this as it puts the impetus on us instead of the rich, but that’s how the system works (for now). I will always be on-board with people wanting to better themselves and their situation (especially at the expense of the rich) but getting something for nothing just isn’t realistic without massive mobilization of the lowest wage earners. Not to mention the hurdles in our government.