4 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

This is a really, really good pick.

6 hours ago, ixcuincle said:

Does anyone have one those counter top air fryers and which ones would you recommend? 

We use it a lot. $99.00 on Amazon.

COSORI Air Fryer TurboBlaze 6.0-Quart Compact Airfryer that Roast, Bake, Proof, 9 Functions, 5 Speeds,

5 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

I'd buy a cheap one to start. Otherwise you spend $100+ on something you may or may not ever use again. 

 

 

We went this route.

We wore it out after a few years and replaced it with a nicer model.

5 hours ago, bcl05 said:

 

Raw or already smoked/cooked ham?  I've done a ton of smoking, can reliably nail shoulder/brisket/etc, and lots of good whole hogs.  For some reason, hams are tricky.  If it is already smoked, you really just want to rewarm it.  Very light smoke, add a nice homemade glaze, not much time needed.  Cooking from raw, I'd do a dry brine/cure overnight and then gently smoke up to 150-160.  Will be slice-able and tender/juicy, not pullable.   Not enough intramuscular fat/collagen to take up to typical pork shoulder temps.  

I've never done raw ham.

5 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

@Skinsfan1311 (or anyone else)

 

I've got a big ass ham to smoke for Easter.  It's 17 pounds, bone in.  

 

I've had a lot of success smoking various meats, a lot of pork shoulders but also some turkeys and ribs.  Haven't smoked a ham before, I'm assuming you'd smoke it just like you would a pork shoulder, but I have seen a bunch of conflicting information on YouTube and when people are smoking hams they're usually smoking spiral sliced.  This cut ain't that.

 

So any insight would be appreciated. 

I use a spiral sliced ham.  Since it's already cooked, and I use a lot of brown sugar, the idea is to add more smoke while gently reheating the ham.

In a nutshell, I mix a couple tablespoons of rub, with a couple cups of brown sugar.   I coat the ham with yellow mustard, then spread the rub mixture onto the ham, taking care to work some into the spiral.    I keep the smoker between 200 & 225, because of all of the brown sugar and we're just reheating the ham, and adding a little more smoke flavor, not cooking it. 

 After a couple of hours, I take the ham out, put it into some heavy foil, spritz it with OJ, add some more rub, put it back on the smoker and take it up to an internal temp of 135. 

I let it rest for at least 30 minutes, pull it out of the foil, (reserving the juices to pour over the slices), and serve.  

Hope this helps!

10 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

We were jealous of the people who had grandma and grandpa daycare to help out.  And its been awhile. 

 

My wife worked part-time when we had Kindergarten and 3rd grade ages.  It annoyed me since her income went to day care and it only lasted a month.  It wasn't even daycare,  just an afterschool program. She worked for 6 weeks and it wasn't worth her to keep working.

AMEN!

My parents lived out of state, so that was never an option.

I've never gotten the whole grandpa/grandma daycare thing.  It's one thig to help out on occasion but to do something like that all the time??   Nope! 

We had 'em young, raised 'em right and sacrificed enough raising our own kids.  I'll be damned if I'm going to raise grandkids! 😁

3 hours ago, Ball Security said:

You can find estimates all over the place.

https://www.lendingtree.com/debt-consolidation/raising-a-child-study/
 

Heaven forbid the child has any ongoing medical needs. Between premiums and out of pocket expenses, we easily spend $10-$12k a year on healthcare alone. 
 

The link I have says $3200 for food, that sounds reasonable, but on the low side. 
 

And that’s for parents who are fortunate to live in an area where the schools are passable and don’t have to use private schools.

 

I agree with your main overall points in that thread, but wanted to point out that you were really underestimating child care costs. 

 

 

That $15K that @TheGreatBuzz quoted might cover daycare expenses.

I thought it was expensive when we were raising our boys, but it's gotten insanely expensive.

I don't see how young parents afford can afford it.  That said...if you waited until you could afford kids, you'd never have them!

Thank God we're empty-nesters now.

Just now, Dan T. said:

 

Following this team for the last 20 years there are NEVER enough beer breaks. 

.....or enough beer.....

14 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

 

No. We're black plan I think? But we also go to alot of games outside our plan. I think last year we spent about $15k total. 

 

Add: Have you seen my view?

NICE!   

16 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

 

True. But I also spend on orioles tickets what it cost to raise a kid per year. Yes I'm above median but I also spend way above median. The point wasn't that I'm doing great on so little. The point was that money is there for a lot of people, they just suck at being responsible. 

 

 

Well with some overly broad but probably not far off generalizations, I'd bet 90% of the people at a Trump rally are actually doing just fine or better financially. Outside of them, I'd say 50% of general people ****ing have plenty of money but are just greedy or have crappy priorities. Then another 20%? really could just use some budgeting education. Now subtract the people that actually ARE in rough spots but don't have time to complain.

 

Some rough math and that's what, 80% of society either isn't struggling or at least shouldn't be.

Add: also, this conversation came from people comparing themselves to 4 years ago. 

Great points....and I agree with a lot of your post...especially the "suck at being responsible" statement.

That said...if you spend on O's tickets what it costs to raise a kid per year.........do you have the Diamond Plan at Camden yards?  😉

21 hours ago, Dan T. said:

 

Joey Slye's kickoffs resulted in a touchback 88.9% of the time in 2023. And of the 11.1% (8 kicks) that weren't touchbacks, I'm pretty sure all but one were onside kick attempts or squibs. Overall, the entire league had a grand total of 3 kickoff returns for TDs in 2023.

 

Kickoffs became a perfect time to go get another beer out of the fridge.

 

 

So...the 15-25 commercials during each quarter aren't enough time to make a beer run? 🤔

4 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

 

Without knowing the history of the bridge, the old planner in me thinks it probably had some structural issues to begin with if it collapsed the way it did. Probably means that the entire bridge will need a thorough safety review and EIRs will need to be done to mitigate what building a new bridge will do to the waters.

 

Edit..just looked. That bridge was approaching 50 years old. So I suspect repairs were already needed. Although they did do major projects on it as late as 1999. 

 

It also took 5 years to build back in 1972. I'd doubt it will take half of that now. But that's just an uniformed guess.

.....and one of the alternate routes is the Harbor tunnel that was completed in '57

9 minutes ago, tshile said:

I imagine the port can’t reopen until the bridge is removed from the water… so… gonna be a while a while…

 

then they have to build a new bridge

 

 

Agreed.

The economic toll is going to be very high...

Our son crosses this bridge almost every day as do a few of our friends.   Thankfully it happened when there was very little traffic.  The tragedy that would've unfolded had this happened during rush hour would've been astronomical.

The port of Baltimore is one of the largest ports in the country and all of the shipping in and out is at total standstill and ship traffic is already backed up.  If you live around here, traffic already sucks and folks will have to use one of the two harbor tunnels, one of which has been around since the late 50's.  That or cut through Baltimore city.  **** that....

I love Indian movies.  They tend to be visually stunning, over the top and just plain fun.    I just watched Baahubali: The Beginning    

On deck is Baahubali The Conclusion.      You can catch them on Netflix

On 3/22/2024 at 10:49 AM, Califan007 The Constipated said:

Ok, final verdict: the original Road House was an incredibly stupid movie lol...

 

Maybe if I first watched it when I was 15 I'd have loved it. But as an adult, it's dumb as ****. It went downhill from my last edit...holy hell, did it ever. I think I broke a record for the number of times I said "ffs." Nobody should care if there's a remake of this movie.

 

What I liked:

 

- Swayze's Dalton was pretty enjoyable to watch for the first 30 minutes.

 

- A number of lesser characters did a good job acting (Red, the dude who rented the room to Dalton, a few others)

 

- There were a number of memorable and quotable lines throughout the movie.

 

- Sam Elliot's always clutch, no matter what movie he's in.

 

 

What made it suck:

 

- There was a fist fight about every 9 minutes lol...and NONE of them were riveting, exciting, or exhilarating. None were choreographed especially well. After like the fourth fight, it was almost boring to see yet another fight about to break out. They actually had one of the bad guys do a ****ing back flip onto the stage during one fight!! lol...I busted out laughing at that one, and not in a good way. And I didn't see anything about Dalton during these fights that was especially brutal or bad-ass or...well, anything. He didn't really do anything that set him apart as the best of the best or anything like that. Well, except for the throat thing lol...which was pretty dumb imo. And on that thought...

 

- The movie had Dalton literally rip a guy's throat out lol!!...I busted out laughing and said out loud "He did NOT just rip that guy's throat out...no way" and the watched it again. I mean, I'm all for suspending disbelief, but it's pretty much impossible to rip someone's throat out...that comes across as a teenage boy's fantasy about fights, and much of this movie is firmly anchored in teenage boy fantasies.

 

- The movie could have removed the doctor character completely and it would have improved the movie tremendously...she added zero to the storyline. Nothing, nada...just a contrived love story because conventional movie wisdom says the good looking protagonist must have a love interest. Would have preferred they replaced her scenes with more scenes of Sam Elliot's character.

 

- Logic just got flushed down the toilet early, and it never came back lol...biggest example: after the main villain dude calls Dalton and tells him to pick which person dies, the doc or Dalton's friend, shortly after he hangs up on Dalton his friend comes into the bar bloody and beaten. So what does the movie have Dalton do? He says "I have to find the doc"...um, hello? Call her, you stupid ****!! lol...wouldn't it make far more sense to quickly call where she works and tell her about the threat to her life instead of trying to "find" her?

 

But, oh, it gets worse lol...once he does find her, does he tell her that the villain dude threatened to kill her? Noooooo.....instead he says "Pack your things, we're out of here." Then--THEN--instead of maybe now telling her that her life is in danger and that's why they need to leave, Dalton just grabs her and starts forcing her to leave lol. THEN, instead of (again) telling her that someone threatened to kill her, he only says "The man is crazy." That's it. I mean, just ****ing tell her the villain dude said he's gonna kill her!! I dunno, maybe she'd leave with you, then? lol...Jeebus.

 

- Speaking of which, why did Wade (I think that was his name) go to the bar after being beat up? Did they drop him off at the bar after beating him up? Plus, I thought Wade left town already. As well as, the villain dude just threatened to kill Wade...and Dalton, instead of keeping him close by and safe, tells Wade to stay at the empty bar...alone...and have a beer lol. Dude had been ****ed up badly by your enemies who said they may kill him...might be a good idea to take him with you when you're going to the hospital to find the doctor you're dating. Wade even wanted to go with him!! But no..."stay here and have a beer." A convenient way to move the plot along. I'm sorry, that's just lazy writing.

 

- Seemed pretty much like the only reason any females were in the movie was to be eye candy. Yes, there was the waitress who more or less disappeared completely 30 minutes into the movie, and of course the doctor...but the overwhelming majority of the women in the movie didn't even have lines. After awhile, it felt as if this was just the director casting whatever woman he found attractive and shot scenes where they had to take off their tops. If I were 15 I probably wouldn't have cared lol...yay, boobies. But as a grown-ass adult it just came across as if these women really wanted to be in a movie and the director took advantage of that. It took me out of the movie.

 

- I'm sorry, but Jeff Healey didn't need to be featured so much...or at all.

 

- Everyone had a knife, nobody had a gun. Well, almost nobody...throatless dude had a gun that--for some reason--he decided not to use immediately after taking it out of his ankle holster. But during those first 97 fight scenes I kept thinking "You mean to tell me NONE of these guys carries a gun? Is this town in Vermont or something?"

 

- Speaking of which (again lol), why the **** didn't they just kill Dalton? Could have picked him off easily at any time during the movie. Instead the villain dude blows up a business, blows up a house, destroys another business, then threatens to kill either Dalton's friend or Dalton's girlfriend--then follows through and kills his friend. They won't kill Dalton, but they'll kill his friend? WT actual F? I felt like Scott from Austin Powers telling Dr. Evil "I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow Dalton's brains out!" lol...or maybe more like Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad: "Excuse me, fellas, but if a mosquito is buzzing around you, you don't go gunning for the mosquito's friend."

 

 

I'm halfway tempted to watch the remake, but something tells me it won't be any better. I will say again, the first 30 minutes almost had me sold on it turning out to be a better than expected film. Didn't work out that way, though.

 

 

The original Road House is so good, because it is so bad!

1 hour ago, woodpecker said:

Well crap. We decided to “upgrade“ to the club level this year, so that’s definitely concerning to hear. Was hoping to get away from long lines and dirty bathrooms. Guess it’s going to be a one year stay if that’s the case. 

I'm sure that the conditions will be much better with the new ownership in place.

16 hours ago, Howie411 said:

 

 

I almost rather the Club level still be a ghost town.  Its almost as bad as the LL concourse now.    Its so crowded,  the smell of weed and smoke watfs through it.  The bathroom are disgusting and dirty and have long lines now.  (used to be constantly cleaned and no lines).  And the Gold Lounge lines are long!

 

I only ended up renewing 1 of my seats in the Club Level (front row)  curious if they sold the second one.   But I still get my free parking, which helps offset the cost.  (Club Level seats are starting to go back up in price)

That sucks, but was to be expected when they dropped the prices. The best seats in the house are the 200's under cover on the home side, IHMO, of course...  

17 hours ago, Twelfth man said:

@Skinsfan1311 I thought "back row" 200 seats can have seats with poor views (either columns that might block part of the field or overhang that prevents seeing ball above a certain height or poor incline from row to row makes it more likely that people in front of you could block part of the view for the people behind them). Is any of that true, and if so, how do you know which seats are "fine" and which seats "should be avoided"?

Those horrific seats do exist. They are located the on the visitors side.  If memory serves, just avoid any seats past row 12 on the visitors side. 

There are no obstructed views from the 200's on the home side so you're guaranteed a great view from seats in any of those sections. Here's a pic from our seats.

14 hours ago, Twelfth man said:

 

 

@Skinsfan1311 Do most season ticket holders just attend a couple of games a season and sell tickets to the 6 to 7 remaining home games to recoup the cost of their season tickets? Would like people's perspectives regarding this question as I'm just trying to understand a seeming "paradox" of a sold out lower bowl comprised mostly of season ticket holders and the fact that more often than not, it looks as if the visiting team is the home team in Greater Landover.

I can't answer for other STH's, but we don't do that and it appears that most of our section doesn't either as it's packed with Skins fans and most of them are the same faces.

 We sit on the home side. 

On 3/1/2024 at 12:48 PM, EmirOfShmo said:

Ha! So I'm not the only one ...

 

 

That's shame.  

Years ago, before they turned into soggy flavorless grease bombs, the food was pretty good.   

3 hours ago, just654 said:

 

 

Were you guys just looking or really wanted to move? If you really wanted to move reach out to the team. I really believe they held back a ton of seats

No. 

We love our seats and sit with another couple who we're good friends with.  The only way we would move is if they could move with us, (which we did once), and similar seats, (last row, 200's, undercover on the Skins side), closer to the 50.     They do have a pair on the aisle, next to our friend that I would consider, because we would still be sitting next to them, but on the aisle.    

Watched Dune again, to get psyched for Dune 2.

I rarely go to theaters, but I may join the unwashed masses and head to the theater for Dune 2.

Just for ****s & grins, I looked.   There are no seats available in my section....or most of the 200's on the Skins side, except in the end-zone corner in 238

Yes.

I'm not very good, but I enjoy playing.

19 hours ago, philibusters said:

Last four books I have read over the last four or so months

1.  The American Cultural Revolution by Chris Rufo:  I have not completed this book, about half way through.  I am enjoying it so far, but its reinforcing my existing tastes.  Rufo is a conservative pundit who is best known for his attacks on CRT.   This book basically traces CRT and DEI to the New Left of the 1960's and 1970's.  While I am a Democrat, I never liked the social justice/woke niche of the party and this book is kind of reinforcing that dislike.  Would recommend if you are conservative or you a Democrat and don'tt like the social justice/woke niche of the Democrat party.  By contrast if that is your thing I would definitely not recommend this book as it will likely leave you frustrated and annoyed.

2.  Love and Hate in Jamestown:  I live in Yorktown/Newport News Virginia which is close to Jamestown and I have been to the James Settlement Museum a couple times. I enjoy asking the educators at the Jamestown Settlement Museum lots of questions and I like the museum so I wanted to read a book on the history of Jamestown and this book hit the spot right.  This is my first book I read on this topic and I don't know how perceptive the author is, but I was really impressed by John Smith (at least the authority's portrayal of him).  I enjoyed the book.  Would recommend if you like American history, but by no means a must read.

3.   Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power: I read a couple biographies on Thomas Jefferson before but wanted to read this one by John Meachum just because it got a lot of buzz.  I picked it up when I visited Monticello last year along with the book below (the Hemmings of Monticello).  It was a solid enough history book but to be honest I was a little disappointed.  Meachum gets so much buzz as a great writer I think my expectations were too high.  Definitely a decent book for history lovers, and not a difficult read, but also by no means a must read.

4.   The Hemmings of Monticello:  I came to this book apprehensive, a bit nervous the author would have too much of a social justice analysis for my taste based on the book's subject matter (as noted in my review of American Cultural Revolution that is not my thing), but was pleasantly surprised.  The author, Annette Gordon-Reed's analysis struck me as very balanced.  She absolutely explained everything in the context of the time and did not try to impose today's moral world on people who lived over 200 years ago.   I thought she had good reads on both the Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson.  In general, she struck me as very perceptive and I read a decent amount of history so that is something I appreciate.   She also provided just the right amount of context about the culture and society that the characters were operating.     I would definitely recommend this book.

To get off topic, just a tad.

I lived in Norfolk & Va Beach as a kid and still have family there.

We'll be down in VA Beach visiting in a couple of weeks and will be staying in Williamsburg for a couple of nights before we get home.  The plan is to visit Jamestown on one of those days.   We enjoy history.  Are there any "can't miss" attractions in Jamestown that you can recommend?  That, and a good restaurant for lunch?    You can DM me so we don't hijack the thread, if you don't mind.

And to keep in OT....still on my Tim Dorsey kick and am reading "Orange Crush"

Another Tim Dorsey story.......Orange Crush