This is the place I bought those items from. Thanks to Perplexity Pro! "The store you're thinking of is likely Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS). EMS is a high-end sports and outdoor goods retailer that has been around since the 1960s and is still operating today. Known for quality winter gear such...

These are the kinds of stories I find a lot more interesting these days than the general rate of inflation. There's this phenomenon that's starting to be named "luxury poverty" to describe a sort of inversion of the historical norm; now poor people can now afford the latest iPhone and a n...

dualstow wrote: ↑Fri Nov 21, 2025 1:11 pm Consumer Discretionary, anyway

Whether you call it Consumer Discretionary or luxury .. we can agree on the other end of calling them non-essential purchases?

You can live, as many in the world do, without them?

These are the kinds of stories I find a lot more interesting these days than the general rate of inflation. There's this phenomenon that's starting to be named "luxury poverty" to describe a sort of inversion of the historical norm; now poor people can now afford the latest iPhone and a n...

dualstow wrote: ↑Tue Nov 18, 2025 6:03 am Nor, yep

Thanks!

Fixed.

dualstow wrote: ↑Tue Nov 18, 2025 6:16 am Seems like a bunch of websites are down due to Cloudflare maintenance.

It ended up being a good time for be to stay up late watching a movie with consequently getting up later, thereby missing most of the outage.

dualstow wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 12:43 pm

ochotona wrote: ↑Sat Nov 15, 2025 7:56 am Good idea to completely ditch the stocks at these times... trendfollowing works for this.

I would never fully abandon stocks. Never.

Nor would I. Has greatly rewarded me for many years.

There are a lot of basketball fans who still worship Kobe Bryant. After what he did I had no use for him. Great basketball player but terrible person. His actions regarding that woman is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear his name. The other thing I forgot to mention is that only one th...

dualstow wrote: ↑Sat Nov 08, 2025 6:39 pm Well, if I had to chose between Kobe and Cosby marrying my daughter, I’d choose Kobe.

I'd tell her to stay unmarried!

I know that Kobe was on trial for rape and he definitely cheated, but I didn’t think it was a guilty verdict. Was it? I’ll have to look that up. On Saturday Night Live they had a guy playing him, saying, “I hate this!” Maya Rudolph, playing his wife, said, “You know what I hate? Going to my husband...

Well, that’s a fair question. Just thinking out loud here: I grew up with Bill Cosby, but I didn’t find most of his content funny in the first place. (I know he was immensely popular). Maybe just ‘Fat Albert.’ Didn’t like his stand-up or other shows, although I guess I Spy wasn’t supposed to be tha...

I'm for humor but it has to be genuinely funny. Totally agree, Vinny. I was between my friends and a stranger, and the stranger was laughing so much at the beginning that I had to wonder if it was forced. He was then “dry” for a while. But, I had wet eyes from laughing quietly. It was a real and su...

You’re right. I think this was my first stand-up experience in person, with a big name. I’ve been to smaller comedy clubs in the past. My dream show would be Ricky Gervais, but he and CK aren’t that different. Have seen most of Dave Chappelle’s Netflix specials. Amazing. Not to mention his older sh...

Don’t be shy, Vinny. Vinny privately told me that he gave the kid 2 candy corns, a tootsie roll, and one of those mini kitkat bars, which constitutes 0.083% of the candy he’d prepared for the neighborhood. Had he known that this was going to be the sole bell-ringer, Vinny would have upped that to t...

Jack Jones wrote: ↑Wed Nov 05, 2025 5:35 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 05, 2025 3:41 pm It was him who was the who showed up at my house on October 31, 1984, the only time anyone has come to my house for Halloween.

You made that big of an impression? What kind of candy did you give him?

NO memory of that!

Here is your Halloween story that I just read in my newspaper today. https://recorder.com/2025/10/30/halloween-home-decorations-turners-falls/ The male grew up in the house next to me. A few days after I bought my house in April 30, 1982 I drove into my garage and this 10 year old kid who I'd never ...

Xan wrote: ↑Mon Nov 03, 2025 8:20 am

dualstow wrote: ↑Mon Nov 03, 2025 5:53 amStudies show that .99738 of Vinny’s posts have very specific dates and statistics in them.

But... the extra game in 1978 was on October 2, not October 1.

It was a "very specific date", albeit off by one day, going by memory...

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year?? Almost no kids this year... :-\ It was a much quieter night on our block this year than most even though the weather was fine.. (It was Nov 1 that was rowdy, with noisy teens and the pumpkin theft from our steps). A friend of mi...

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year?? Almost no kids this year... :-\ I'm in a rural area. My property is 0.39 acres. I bought my house April 30, 1982. In all that time the only activity I ever had was the kid next door coming by on October 31, 1984. In this area th...

You’re cracking me up. O0 I suppose there’s no chance of me finishing the book before you do. It’s short, anyway. I got a copy of Slow Horses book 5 in the mail today and switched to that. I’ll use my new-found techniques on it. Finished the book. Give it a B+. Different than the two books I used i...

You’re cracking me up. O0 I suppose there’s no chance of me finishing the book before you do. It’s short, anyway. I got a copy of Slow Horses book 5 in the mail today and switched to that. I’ll use my new-found techniques on it. Your response served as a reminder to open that book NOW! I've done EN...

I have heard of wealthy people buying a painting from crooks to rescue it. I think most buyers wouldn’t touch these items with a ten foot pole, but who knows. Maybe a Russian oligarch? O0 A Saudi prince? In this case there is no "most". There are only a select (relative) few in the world ...

I find it doubtful that they are unsalable. Not easily salable? At any rate, I don’t expect the thieves have a lot of respect for the pieces as a whole. That only happens in movies. However, are there not always private collectors who don't care that that they are stolen and are willing to pay big ...

The one by Kam Knight. This has no context so means nothing to me. The speed-reading book. Now it does and valuable to me! Thanks! I am now going to look at it. I "purchased" it on May 21, 2021! Probably got it free via all the free Kindle books I'd get every day from a daily free Kindle ...

The one by Kam Knight. This has no context so means nothing to me. The speed-reading book. Now it does and valuable to me! Thanks! I am now going to look at it. I "purchased" it on May 21, 2021! Probably got it free via all the free Kindle books I'd get every day from a daily free Kindle ...