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Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Posts 39,181 to 39,200 of 96,532

NEStalgia

@NotTelevision You've got the nail on the head pretty much. It's not just about the urban poor though. They're now gentrifying what used to be blue and gray collar middle class suburbs into dividing lines. You're either the 6 figure upwardly mobile household, or you can't really exist, and steamrolling what used to be the way of life and necessities into "lifestyle amenities and services" for the upscale replacement population that's thrilled to have more "affordability" at only $1M for their mansion with a triple garage that fits the Land Rover and the Porche Cayanne rather than $1.5M for their apartment where they came from. It feels like the Trail of Tears & Spanish Inquisition for the 21st century. It's kind of either rich or poor, with less and less of a middle. What used to be the normal average way of life is gone, and you're either "upper middle" to the point that you're indistinguishable from the fairly wealthy beyond "only" having a Lexus instead of a Land Rover, or you're "lower middle" where you're only distinguishable from the poor by how much you pay in taxes and how stressed you are.

I personally despise cars. I can't wait until the very last human operated car is melted to slag. You know I'm very very very very not a fan of the Chinese government, but that's the only place I 100% agree with them (two, the old one child policy was IMO one of their bright spots as well, despite knowing the economic future crisis it built), is their push to eliminate human controlled cars with their new urban plans. In that, they're ahead of the world, I think.

NEStalgia

Zuljaras

I have secretly made a pendant for my beloved as s surprise for tomorrow.

Untitled
Untitled

The darker frog is me (of course) and the lighter frog is she.

This time I used coloured jewellery polymer clay

ThanosReXXX

@NEStalgia Climbing snow mountains? Where the HECK do you live anyway?

And traffic lights that make you wait 7 minutes? No such thing here, my friend. And no cars parked in the street either. You can park them alongside the sidewalk, in the designated places, where you'll pay your parking money, but park them in the street AND obstruct traffic... well, suffice to say that you'd wish that you had simply put money in the meter instead, because that's gonna cost you almost a week in groceries...

By the way: I don't take tons of heavy groceries on my bike. I just have a backpack and a big shopping bag, that get filled 2 times a week on average, so it isn't all that heavy. And some weeks I don't shop for groceries at all, if I already have everything I need to cook my month's worth of meals and portionalize it to put it in the freezer. Once that baby's full, I'm set for the rest of the month...

So, I'm living the luxury lifestyle, huh? Man, my mood is improving by the minute, and just this morning,
I was feeling quite down and longing for Friday, but I'm okay again now. Thanks for the cheer up...

@NotTelevision And one important thing I forgot to mention, and which also wasn't mentioned in the video: the C9 also scores VERY high on displaying and upscaling the signal of retro consoles and neo-retro consoles such as the NES and SNES Mini, so that's another reason for why it's on my list. That and the insanely low latency, making it THE perfect gaming TV.

There's a couple of people on here, mainly in the Xbox thread, who actually already own a C9, and they too are very enthusiastic about it.

EDIT:

Here's a couple of interviews, so you can compare findings:
https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/c9-oled
https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/lg-c9-oled
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/lg-oled65c9pua-review/
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/lg-c9-oled-oled55c9-oled65c...

Mind you, they're all very positive, which should already tell you enough, but it's still good to have information from various sources, in order to make a cross-reference of findings/information. That's basically my standard way of handling things like these, especially for purchases bigger than a 1000 bucks...

Edited on by ThanosReXXX

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

ThanosReXXX

@Zuljaras "The darker frog is me"

Who would have ever thought that you WEREN'T the one with the red lipstick...

But, erm.... why frogs?

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

Zuljaras

@ThanosReXXX We like frogs because it reminds us of our first day spent together. The mating "song" of the frogs by the river was something we laughed and liked that day and we remembered. Nearly 13 years ago … damn time flies

Edited on by Zuljaras

NEStalgia

@ThanosReXXX Meters are for pure urban areas. Residential streets are fair game. No designated street parking, but only one car gets by so you have to wait for one side or the other. Back in the 30s through 70s when they built this stuff it wasn't an issue. Most houses had one family car. MAYBE 2. They were in the driveway. Flash forward to today and people have 4+ cars at the house. The driveway fits 1, maybe 2. The streets are lined with cars. So you inch forward. Wait. Inch forward. Wait. Or be the aggressive d**k that doesn't wait and forces the other side to keep waiting. Like everyone else seems to be. Didn't used to be a problem because not many cards were coming down the road at once. But then they built up traffic lights and convenience stores and gas stations along the adjoining main road. So everyone cuts through the neighborhood to bypass traffic lights. It's a stream of cars now.

Lights didn't used to be 7 minutes. It's 7 if you get stuck at the light twice (EG, it lets 3 cars through, you're number 8 in line....you're going to be there 7-10 minutes. They used to be 2 min or so. And there were less of them. And they allowed turning on red so it didn't back up as much. But as the main road became ever more congested as they build up the area (and they're not even half finished yet! HUGE development projects going up along it further down. Traffic will increase further still!) But recently they've installed what appears to be "smart" traffic flow controls that monitors the traffic density and changes the lights accordingly, with priority given to the major road. So they solved the delays of the major road that connects to an even more major road for the people passing through the area, and instead back up the local roads endlessly to allow the main road to not gridlock as much. That's their solution to the congestion their over-development created. Force the locals to wait indefinitely to do anything at all so the transients passing through don't have to deal with gridlock (as much (during non-peak hours)) With a billion dollar traffic monitoring system contract to their brother's wife's frends' uncle's father in law's nephew's signal equipment company. What do a few thousand locals matter? Tens of thousands of transients are passing through daily! THINK OF THE TAX REVENUE!!

Well you're only cooking for one, so you have a lot less groceries than most people. If you were even cooking for two that would DOUBLE your shopping requirements right there. And saving money requires buying in bigger portions to store, etc. Good luck buying a week's worth of groceries for 2 let alone families of 4, etc in a backpack. Or buying something like a ham and roasting pan and stuffing it in your backpack. Or a bag of flour, sugar, milk, eggs, etc for doing any kind of baking, etc. etc.

Oh yeah, you're living luxury by far. That lifestyle, an apartment of decent size, in a good part of town, with local access to quality things in walkable distance, etc? You're looking at $1500-3000/mo just in rent alone here, excluding utilities, food, transportation, etc. And that's not close to California pricing. Add an extra 40% minimum over there. Similar money could buy you a modest house on a decent piece of land, of course, which is a lot less luxury in the sense you have to maintain it and it holds value to get back rather than just throwing money down a rent hole forever, but then you'd have to deal with all that traffic.... You're "the rich people" here At least the "upwardly mobile millennials." See you're aging backward too!

NEStalgia

NotTelevision

@Tyranexx Ohh. At first I was under the impression that were living right beside the tracks 😄. Half a mile isn’t bad.

Being stuck driving around an unfamiliar city can certainly be stressful even with GPS sometimes. In addition to traffic and road construction complications like you mentioned. Remember Houston and Atlanta in particular being terrible, especially during rush hour.

Getting stocked up is certainly more incentivized with certain supermarket chains nowadays. Every time I visit my parents house i see huge boxes of stuff they bought at either Walmart or Cosco 😂. With that kind of shopping I guess you wouldn’t need to leave the house that often anyway.

Target and Best Buy being an hour drive makes sense. I’ve only seen those in the larger towns or cities I’ve visited. Did you have a Game Stop in your town? Ours closed over 5 years ago along with some other chain stores. Dollar General is still going strong though 🤠.

@NEStalgia Its certainly become harder to maintain the middle class lifestyle in the US, unless you put everything on the credit card. It’s really unfortunate seeing that.

Rationally I agree with you on all cars going away, but emotionally I’m split. I’ll admit in having some romanticized ideals of having the car and going on the road trip or doing something fun with it. I guess thats been tied into sentiments about American idealism and “freedom” running from the Henry Ford to FDR to Kerouac to Springsteen. It’s pretty much in the blood for most people in the US.

Although the majority of the time you are stuck in gridlock or at the busy intersection. They don’t show that in the commercials 😂.

@ThanosReXXX Sounds like a winner to me. I’m checking out the verified customer reviews and it’s all positive.

NotTelevision

NEStalgia

@Tyranexx Walmart, Target, Best Buy etc are all 45 minutes way even in a premium urbanized area. They build the shopping districts per region now so the entire surrounding region is supposed to descend upon one single place every weekend. And then they can't figure out how Amazon is annihilating all retail. All we have is CVS, every 3 intersections it's another CVS where you can buy minimal selection at maximum price 24 hours a day! Other than food, it's the only store we have less than half an hour out. But we have like 10 of them, so no matter what you need, you can buy a generic version for just %60 above market price!

@NotTelevision What I want to figure out is how all these people got credit limits that high to put their whole lives on it to begin with?

I was reading some very good analysis of the retail apocalypse, ironically, done by a British firm. They distilled that it's not actually the younger generation that's changing dynamics etc. etc as we are repeatedly told. It's economics. if you split the population in economic thirds, the bottom third is the poorest they've ever been, and for the first time ever, >100% of their income goes into essentials (food, shelter.) Zero discretionary income. Negative non-discretionary income. The "middle" third, has less discretionary income than ever. A shoestring budget. Healthcare, housing, food costs have absorbed most of it, leaving very little for spending on anything else.

On the other hand you have the top third. Their discretionary income has not just doubled, but seen a 150% increase over the past 10 years, and is on track to reach 200%. Higher and higher earning, higher and higher investment returns, with static expenses and no end in sight. The luxury markets are booming like no tomorrow. That's the reality of the retail apocolypse, and the American economy in general. Regular retail is shrinking not because "milennials have changing tastes" but because the only people buying anything are the wealthy buying luxury, while everyone else treads water and moves downward. That is not going to end well in the not so distant future.

The romanticized ideal of the car died a long time ago. Companies sell it, but it doesn't exist. When that started, things were very different. The population was only 1/4 the current size, there was generally one car per household, and only the male population really drove and commuted to work, more or less, while the kids walked to school/buses and had minimal to no activities other than other kids in the neighborhood. People weren't going very many places very often other than bigger family outings, and only half of the adult population of a population 1/4 the size of present actually commuted to work. And there was MORE transportation, not less, as street cars, trolleys, and various other light rail were still in service before Firestone and friends ripped them out. Of course it was freedom! Imagine eliminating 6/8ths of the cars from the roads completely? The moment the trolleys came out, women started working en masse, kids started having activities, and the population expanded, the idea of the car became obsolete. It's a relic of the malt shop era doomed to permanent gridlock. The fact that we still have them is equal parts depressing and enraging. I mean even in the 50's they didn't think we'd still be using them today! At least ones that didn't fly!

NEStalgia

ThanosReXXX

@NEStalgia $1500 and up? Ha! Paying around €600 here now, net rent, without gas, water and such. But most essential things combined, it still doesn't amount to a €1000.

As for the grocery hauling: I thought you were talking about yourself, so I was comparing our individual situations, not mine vs a family of four or more...

Still, my backpack can easily fit 30 kilos of stuff, so it's not a miniature one...

On a side note: as I've said before, you're not really advertising the States to me. Suppose if I do ever want to return, I'd better get a good idea of where I should be going, in order to not get some kind of system shock of how bad things are, compared to here...

@NotTelevision Yeah, it sure is. And the model before that, the C8 was pretty much the same for its time, and they've only improved upon that one. It's just that it isn't exactly economically priced for most people, but at least you're definitely getting your money's worth. If you want to hear of some hands on experience, you could ask BlueOcean in the Xbox thread. normally, I'd tag someone to call them over here, but I do believe he put me on his ignore list, due to some silly discussion we once had, quite a while back. But he's okay...

I do believe he also figured out the best settings for gaming, so that's something to keep in mind, in case you decide to buy this TV.

And if I remember correctly, @Joeynator3000 was also planning on buying one, or maybe he already has it by now, in which case he too might be persuaded to tell you about his personal experiences so far.

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

Joeynator3000

Got it last week, yeah I like it. Still messing around with the settings for Switch games, it seems mixed with how games look...like Super Mario Odyssey is somewhat, pixelly? While Smash Ultimate looks nearly perfect for me, same goes with Mario Maker 2, and I imagine retro games look fine. I haven't messed with the SNES Classic or anything yet, too lazy. lol

Also sadly the Switch's surround sound doesn't play nice with HDMI-ARC, so I still gotta stick with my hdmi splitter setup.

My Monster Hunter Rise Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzirEG5duST1bEJi0-9kUORu5SRfvuTLr

Discord server: https://discord.gg/fGUnxcK
Keep it PG-13-ish.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Joeynator3000

NEStalgia

@ThanosReXXX $600 USD a month here gets you something in the 'hood with bars on the windows for your protection and the sound of gunshots at 2:00AM with some H needles on the ground outside your door in the morning and the smell of urine. You do NOT go outside if it's dark. The plus is there might be trains nearby. The negative is you probably don't want to ride on those trains alone..... and you don't want to be waiting in the station....

From what I'm understanding, you want the frigid midwest or the South. Not Florida. Probably not Texas. Cali's not going to be in your price point unless you like the hood. It's worse than here. Best to avoid the coasts wholesale unless by "sales and marketing" you mean "global brand manager for Chase Bank."

Unless by sales and marketing you mean dealing meth. Or political "favors." In which case, welcome to the land of boundless opportunity!

Edited on by NEStalgia

NEStalgia

Haruki_NLI

@ThanosReXXX Now come on, you KNOW for a fact I don't mess with other humans. The way I dress and act I may as well be a Time Lord.

I can still do empathy, just in weird ways. Normally if a difficult subject comes up I work out what to say a few moments later when it's not helpful.

But also, people understand that.

Now Playing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Crash Bandicoot 4

Now Streaming: Sonic Lost World, Just Cause 3

NLI Discord: https://bit.ly/2IoFIvj

Twitch: https://bit.ly/2wcA7E4

ThanosReXXX

@Joeynator3000 So, what are you using all those four HDMI ports for, then?
The first thing I'd connect, after my set top box, would be my HDMI splitter and all my consoles. That's one of the main reasons I'd be buying one, after all...

Did you also manage to find a good gaming chair already?

@NEStalgia And what exactly is the romanticized ideal of the car? Freedom? Fast travel? From what you've told me, those things aren't valid anymore in your neck of the woods, so I can imagine. Over here, it's the same in the city, what with all the "you'll pay everywhere you go here" rules, and some cities even go out of their way to remove car access to certain parts of the city, so it's bike and pedestrian only (or tram/street car & bus), but outside of the cities and for travel from home to work, it's still quite ideal.

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

Joeynator3000

@ThanosReXXX First one is my Switch (it's outputting to TV and soundbar at the same time), second is for my sound bar, third one is my ultra bluray. Fourth one would be where I put the SNES Classic if I ever bother with that, lol

My Monster Hunter Rise Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzirEG5duST1bEJi0-9kUORu5SRfvuTLr

Discord server: https://discord.gg/fGUnxcK
Keep it PG-13-ish.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Joeynator3000

gcunit

Poor Reggie

You guys had me at blood and semen.

What better way to celebrate than firing something out of the pipe?

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

My Nintendo: gcunit | Nintendo Network ID: gcunit

ThanosReXXX

@Joeynator3000 Aha, I didn't think the soundbar came with an HDMI input. Is that an LG soundbar or what? Probably didn't come with the TV, or did it? Either way, I've got 3 ports now, so I'm already used to using a splitter.

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

Joeynator3000

@ThanosReXXX It's Vizio, it has HDMI input and one for ARC.

My Monster Hunter Rise Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzirEG5duST1bEJi0-9kUORu5SRfvuTLr

Discord server: https://discord.gg/fGUnxcK
Keep it PG-13-ish.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Joeynator3000

ThanosReXXX

@Knuckles-Fajita So, kind of like sim-pathy, then?

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

ThanosReXXX

@Joeynator3000 Is that either/or? Or does it need both? I do believe the C9 does have an ARC port. It's eARC, if I remember correctly.

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

Joeynator3000

@ThanosReXXX ...I dunno, but it works with the bluray, so whatever. lol

My Monster Hunter Rise Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzirEG5duST1bEJi0-9kUORu5SRfvuTLr

Discord server: https://discord.gg/fGUnxcK
Keep it PG-13-ish.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Joeynator3000

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