I’ve found International venues far, far more reasonable than US. We saw Duran Duran a few years back and it was ~$200 for OK seats in a major city. My other half works internationally, and picked up seats to see them on one of her work trips for only €53. Since then we’ve vicariously eyed shows overseas only to note we could fly there and back, get a hotel, and have seats for cheaper than decent seats at a US venue.

I can assure you that first-run sales and presales ticket costs are still outrageous. We’ve been to quite a few concerts over the last several years and even if you play the “sign up early and get the presale code and wait in the queue online as soon as you can” game the tickets for any popular band will not be below 3 digits for a seat from which you can see the band without binoculars, some venues won’t have any sub-$100 tickets at all. Best thing to do is see small-but-good bands at smaller venues if you can find it, those tickets are usually way more affordable. We’ve seen some older bands this way and it’s worth it.

The legalized double-dipping resale scalping provided by the likes of ticketmaster absolutely send prices sky high and out of reach for the majority of people.

The Army has been fine with some criminal record workarounds for a while now. Pot use shouldn’t even be on the radar.

Maybe unless you have brown skin and are from a different country.

Yeah, I get what it is. But I’m wondering who the culprit is that really opened the door for it.

How are 40 year olds going to bolster recruitment? Like they’re gonna be more “fit” than younger people?

Gotta love everything being “stock-market-ized”. Where did it start at the consumer level? I wanna say solidly with entertainment industry. The one that simultaneously sells tickets to events and also operates the resale business. Sell a shitload of tickets to scalpers, then people have to pay extra to buy the “market” price for the ticket. Uber and Lyft certainly had to contribute with their “surge” pricing methods. PC parts were a big one with the shortages of everything from GPUs to HDDs over the last decade plus, but those didn’t affect the general public.

The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.

– George Orwell

Iran: he’s making shit up again. We didn’t offer anything.

Maybe. I was referring to actual militia, not military. Indoctrinated into Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and the like.

Most anything, home made, not from a box or frozen, just do a good job. People are not used to well prepared home cooked food.

However, these always work well:

Sous vide salmon, pan seared, with asparagus and hollandaise.

Beef Bourguignon.

Shrimp Étouffée.

Pan seared, oven finished steak or loin of some sort. Pork loin works well. Home made skin-on mashed potato and pan roasted bacon parmesan brussels sprouts.

All of these are relatively easy to make, and if done well, go over fantastic.

Want to really wow them? Bake a cheesecake for dessert, especially with a fruit topping.

Probably militia kids. Whole family is indoctrinated.

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

This old adage comes to mind.

YES. But a big chunk of people have been sheltered from that fact.

That’s why we have people: wanting civil war, because they’ve never had to personally suffer the loss, privations, and terror of a real war. Are anti-vax, because they haven’t had plagues of smallpox, the flu, or polio kill their kids, friends, and relatives. Pro-authoritarian, because they’ve never lived under a series of shitty power grifters and a corruption-based economy where absolutely nobody does well except the richest. Anti-social programs, because they’ve never faced homelessness or a disability.

There are so many things that people have had the luxury of avoiding that they’ve forgotten how shitty the world is. Spoiled children, they are.

Yeah, be aware it’s low hanging fruit. Make sure it’s not bread and circuses.

What a surprise.

Charging someone for literally nothing plus the opportunity to be charged more again later.

The airports should shut down. Whatever fuckery actually happens may be entirely different.

Force consumers into US made, AI-laden, crappy hardware full of backdoors for the regime.

Except now we have ICE in the airports.
Winning?