There is no cat. Only Zuul.

Rigby, MoMo, Sauron, Tiger, Doug. I miss all of you.

We prefer you call him The Great Pumpkin, thank you.

I concur with all of your statements, to include the one concerning the realization of being a cog in the machine.

I have several errands to run, and would love to continue the discussion when I return, if you’re amenable, of course.

You have a great points, though your scenario is a bit too simple.

It’s not that we’re so fat and lethargic that we can’t be bothered to get off the sofa long enough to effect meaningful change. It’s that “the media” is gargantuan and goes far beyond the synthesized news cycles and reports. The OG social media outlets like churches, work culture, family structure, regional Identities, and every other socialized structure you can think of manifests itself into these ideals that have been pummeled into our head since the first time we stood up in preschool and recited the pledge of allegiance.

Making it more complicated is that our real concerns like, paying our bills, feeding our families, getting Timmy to soccer practice, protecting our kids, being a good employee so we don’t lose our job, being a good dad, being a good son, keeping our relationships healthy, etc., etc. is condensed into an infantesimally small amount of time. When you finally get to stop you’ve only got the bandwidth for bullet points. It’s not laziness, it’s exhaustion. It’s not lack of self-reflection, it’s overclocking. We have an entire backbone population that’s absolutely exhausted and still feeling like failures because somehow the American dream is feeling like a greasy, over-hustled nightmare that we’re constantly struggling to live up to.

This cycle does lend itself to your headlines of gun violence, gladiator arena us v. them politics, and on, and on. The system with which we now live is a constant grinder that no longer leaves time for, nor praises individualism and ideas. It’s a finely tuned revenue machine built on an overhauled slavery model that instead praises corporatism, classism, ruling parties, and residual monthly income… with a smiley face of nationalistic exceptionalism posted on the packaging.

Apologies for being so long winded, but some sympathy for the devil might be in order. We’re largely not a bad people. Most of us are kind, optimistic, and try very hard to change the things we see out of place. The problem is we’re becoming more and more just white noise in the background. A sort of spectre of idealisms past.

The avocado toast is fan-fuckin-tastic here.

Oh yeah, the Thompson is an icon for sure.

I knew an old infantryman from the Korean War that used the M3 during his service. He was stunned we still used them.

Interestingly, the M3 that replaced the Tommy gun was “retired” from service officially in '92. That said, a unit that I served in still issued them to our track drivers at least up to '01 when I got out. They were rugged, reasonably quick and made for a good compact defense weapon to keep in the M557.

I bought bidets for the house during the COVID toilet paper lunacy and it’s likely the best personal hygiene investment I’ve ever made. I still get upset when I have to poop somewhere that doesn’t have a bidet.

I’m not a believer in any purposeful and vengeful diety/dieties, but should I be wrong, I do hope the sadistic fucks that perpetrated this bullshit on other people found some kind of hell to rot in for eternity. Anyone that continues to defends this behavior can fucking join them.

“You can always tell a Milford man.”

Egads!

Hol’up. They don’t want that?

Now we carry “leadership” around in APC’s with a smiley face to keep them insulated from the people they hurt.

You forgot the “/s” bro

Here’s some money. Go see a Star War.