This thread is fully of funny stories about the SS. I thought the car would be more lowkey than it has turned out to be. To most, though, it does look like a cheapo family car, but car people know what it is and are interested in it when they notice exactly what it is.

The most memorable experience is I’d parked (as I always do) far away from everyone when going to a Walmart. When I return to my car, there’s a woman in an SUV taking pictures of my car with her phone. A lot of pictures. She saw me coming and drove away so I didn’t get to talk to her.

The other was someone who walked up to me in a parking lot asking about the car. “What is that, one of them cars from Australia, right?”

I said, “Yeah, it’s a Holden with a Chevy badge. Sold in limited numbers in the US as the SS.”

“What’s that got, like a V6 with 250 horsepower or so?”

I said, “No, it’s got the V8 LS3 Corvette engine with 415HP in it. It’s basically a four door ‘Vette.”

His mouth dropped open when he heard the HP numbers….

You don’t really need to train 6-7 times a week like I do to see significant gains. I am doing that because I am willing to make the tradeoff.

And that tradeoff is that I work out twice as hard for maybe 25% more gains. If that math doesn’t work for you, you can cut your time and energy expended in half and forego only 25% of progress. My partner doesn’t work out nearly as often/hard as I do but she is still seeing large improvements.

As said, it’s a tradeoff. I am willing to expend a lot more effort in this case to see relatively not as much progress because I have the time and the interest (and the ability). But it’s not necessary to make substantial progress.

One of the things I like about living in Florida is that when you stick your hand in a dark mailbox, you never know what’s going to run away, scurry around, or possibly bite you. The possibilities are endless!

I’m liking the show Bunheads better than I thought I would.

Unlike Amy Sherman-Palladino’s other show, Gilmore Girls, it tells more of a story and it’s not just a bunch of people chatting and whip-cracking witty quips until the quip whip quits. And of course, Emma Dumont, which is the best I’ve seen since Carrie Coon addicted me to The Leftovers. But once I got used to the very stage-play-like nature of the show it’s turned out to be a fun watch. Treats the lives of teenage girls respectfully and with humor, but is not just about them (was lensed when Emma D. was maybe 17-18) and has some sense of setting that Gilmore Girls for me just lacked.

I’m not sure I’d recommend it. It’s not to everyone’s taste. But it’s better than most other shows and it makes me laugh sometimes. The gag about a coupon for renting the Intrepid was particularly funny. And as I mentioned previously, Kelly Richards is also really good.

I think the party line from women has to be that all woman-uninitiated contact in public is harassment because women get so very much undesired contact.

As I’ve gotten slimmer, fitter and richer, though, I notice I get more contact initiated from women in public, especially if I am not with my partner. I don’t consider it harassment though it mostly doesn’t interest me either way. I have extremely low social capacity, though my social skills are pretty good these days.

Today at Morton’s (a local grocery store) for instance, a woman in my age range noticed me looking at pies in the case and said, “That one, that one right there is good.” She pointed at a chocolate mousse pie. Everything about her body language and approach told me she wanted me to talk to her more. I just wanted to get my dessert and go home, which I did (without being rude).

Branching off from that, it is definitely true that most feminist dating “advice” is absolute worthless garbage. If you listen to and follow any of that, good luck getting any dates ever. You don’t need to go full PUA but one of the reasons the PUA community is hated (apart from their raging misogyny) is because much of their basic advice works. Feminists like Amanda Marcotte see it as undesirable, geeky guys leveling up undeservedly, but it’s really just learning to be social and to read cues better. (I think this is most of the reason it’s hated, the Marcotte reasons, not the misogyny. To “feminists” like Marcotte, the mere existence of geeky, undesirable guys is misogyny.)

Posting this because women are often told they should not lift weights. That’s terrible advice; you should get you some weights, heavy ones, and lift them fuckers.

Ladies,

If you want to look better naked, lift weights.
If you want to have better posture, lift weights.
If you want to feel better in everything you do, lift weights.

Basically, lift weights.

Enough of doing just the mindless cardio.

— Rachel Bock (@RachelBock9) February 23, 2019

The first ten on today’s playlist:

A New Americanism. Why a Nation Needs a National Story.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve increasingly parted ways from the left and from feminism — not because I’ve abandoned those principles or those ideals but because they have abandoned me.

There’s only so much denial of science, of history, and embrace of conspiracy-mongering and wishful thinking that one can take before saying, “No more of this.” These same reasons are why I moved away from the Right many years ago (in my teens), so I am definitely not moving rightward again by any means as they have not improved.

It’s merely that the left has gotten worse, and is worsening at a quickening pace.

The problem is that I believe that the world has changed enough that no one has any cohesive program of thought to comprehend and contextualize the enormous alterations we’ve already experienced and the yet-larger ones to come. I don’t have it, and I think about it all the time, nearly every waking hour. Pundits certainly have nothing. The left has less than nothing.

We need new minds, new voices (in the Jaynesian sense), new conceptions, a derivation of an autochthonous quintessence and an unconditional revision of the certain. Despite that nearly no one cares what I think, I am working on this. As you all know, I’d rather be right than applauded.

Here’s to our new minds. I’m trying to build one. It’s no easy task.

american liberal feminism is a fucking death cult pic.twitter.com/4ufrbidobo

— Eleanor Robertson (@marrowing) February 23, 2019

Alas, it is true. Neoliberalism-infected, patriarchal apologist and good for absolutely nothing, except to help a few more well-off white women “lean in.”