ih8music

Yeah, St Elsewhere was probably the first drama that I fell in love with. I remember being really pissed off when they shut it down. Ecumena HMO, right? Assholes. But yeah, that snow globe ending. Awesome.

Gotcha. So you're saying it's impossible to raise a family and own a house in many areas of the country and be considered middle class, regardless of your actual lifestyle. Cool.

Irdb, where do you think the upper limit for "middle class" income lies?

It's like that old line about obscenity. I can't define it but I know it when I see it.

Well, the tangible political reason for this discussion is the contrast between Obama's proposed tax increase on households making over $250K/yr and the Romney/Ryan desire to cut the top tax rate. But yeah, this particular discussion is silly since both candidates define middle class as households making under $250K/yr. And as has been belabored here already, depending on where you live and what your life situation is that level can sound reasonable or absolutely ridiculous.

I've had (and loved) that 2003 Pittsburgh show for a while now, but this Eugene/McDonald Theater show is awesome! Thanks for the heads-up, bigtime! yeah, but hearing all the various fuzz/blip/bloop effects up front is kinda cool, too...

Not a current favorite unfortunately, but the early years of the Goo Goo Dolls were a lot of fun. Johnny and Robby split songwriting & singing duties and that made for a few fun albums and some really enjoyable songs. Then "Name" made it big and they kept hacking away at that formula for the next decade+. I don't think Robby sings or writes much of anything for them anymore.

Which is why it was absurd for Ann Romney to try to paint the picture of them starting out poor and living in (his/her?) parents' basement. While I don't claim that she was lying, I suspect Mitt had quite a trust fund at the ready... and certainly his father was a very wealthy man himself. They may have chosen to live a spartan lifestyle for a few months/years, but it certainly wasn't a situation forced upon them. Correct - I don't think Obama was ever truly poor, but everything I've read is that he was raised in a very modest middle class upbringing. Short of the couple of years in wh

There are many areas of the country (SF Bay Area & Orange County, CA to name two) where a household 200-250K/yr wouldn't be enough to make you "rich" by most people's standards. It's enough to afford a nice (but not extravagant) house in a nice (but not extravagant) neighborhood, a couple of cars, being able to put your kids into private school if you want/need to, able to go on the occasional vacation & put money away for retirement. Yes, a very nice & comfortable lifestyle by any standard -- what I would consider the goal of a middle class lifestyle -- but certainly not living

I'm sure there are many; not everyone here is an old-timer. I know I became a big Wilco fan and joined VC probably a year or so before I had the opportunity to catch them live. I imagine there are a lot of people turned on to Wilco by performances on Youtube, who become fans of the band's new/old material by checking out all that's been posted there. That's pretty much how I became a fan, each new song/video I came across appealed to me for different reasons. At that time, I often had no idea which "era" of Wilco the particular song was from, but that also made me want to get all the albu

As an aside, I think we need to use acronyms for all prominent politicians. PBO, VPJB, SSHRC, PCMR, VPCPR, FPBC, FPIGWB, etc. Makes it all simpler, no?

I don't think GWB ever cheated on his wife, so there's that.

I would mostly agree with this. Whether you're talking about Kennedy, Clinton, Roosevelt, etc-- many of our past "great" presidents weren't exactly the most moral of men. But they were good leaders with good ideas. That's what's important. While I wouldn't enjoy voting for someone who's an asshole, if I think they're best suited for the job, I probably would. that said, Mitt is a complete ass for politicizing the death of an ambassador.

Thanks, all. To those of you recommending AMEX Blue, is it accepted everywhere? I thought AMEX (and Diner's Club & Discover) were hard to use at a lot of common places (grocery stores, etc.).

I haven't heard him say anything that would appeal to that group, no. But then again I'm an old white democrat-leaning dude so what do I know.

"Monday" on Morning Joe just now.

The credit card we use most frequently was recently sold to a new bank and we've had a few bad experiences with the new bank's customer support, so we're in the market for a new one. Anyone here particularly happy with theirs? Looking for a card with no annual fee (or a very small one i.e. And obviously good (or at least not shitty) customer support would be nice. There seem to be a bazillion options, so just trying to narrow the list in case anyone feels particularly strongly about theirs.

Yeah, the Jerusalem vote I can understand a lot more than the God vote. Both were tactical errors in how they came across, but I can see the reasoning behind excluding Jerusalem-as-capital-of-Israel from the initial platform, as well as the reasoning for wanting to add it afterward. It may be pandering to the American Jewish population at the expense of the Palestinians, but that's hardly new news. The God vote was just a flat-out failure all around.

Yeah that god vote was pretty terrible and embarrassing. A major tactical error getting themselves into that position in the first place. Most democrats believe in god, they just dont think religion should be the basis of public policy. It would have been fairly simple to have that stated in the platform from the get go.

Mormonism. The gift that keeps on giving. :

But it does say the Republican party is 89% white, which sounds about right.

It probably hit me the hardest when I realized that a lot of professional head coaches are younger than me. But yeah, being older than the president or veep will be an unfortunate milestone.

Honestly, my life and economic situation is much better now than it was 4 yrs ago. Aside from the fact that I'm making a decent amount more money now than I was in 2008 (as a self employed geek these past 4+ years), I have the safety net from the ACA which ensures that I can't be denied from health insurance due to pre-existing conditions if I ever have to get a "real" job. I know not everyone is better off now than they were in 2008, but I'm curious to hear. Also, for the old farts here - are you better off now vs. 2000? I'm not, but then again I was riding the tech bubble at the time an

Agree. The only thing worse than "hipsters" are people continually whining about "hipsters" and how they dress, what they listen to, etc. It's ironic how they're complaining about the very same type of snobbery they're demonstrating with their own words. Just relax and let people enjoy what they enjoy. Or let them pretend to enjoy what they think is popular/cool/whatever with their social group... it's not the first time this has happened and it's not the end of the world.

Beach Boys @ Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, CA, summer of '85 or '86. I had a cousin visiting from the U.P. (Michigan) for the summer and his whole visit was about doing California-y things. A Beach Boys concert seemed perfect (even though they were phoning it in, even I as a ~15yr old could see that). IIRC, my second concert was seeing The Monkees on one of their reunion tours, so I had primo taste in music back then.