"Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago" is gonna get thrown around a lot this cycle and somehow it's gonna be about the price of gas and eggs, and not how we ran out of space in the morgues and had to stack bodies like firewood in vans in central park
Trump didn't just screw up the economy. He let many thousands die bc he couldn't be bothered abt their safety. Never was there any doubt that COVID could be extremely dangerous. On Jan. 1 2020, reading a news report abt the new disease in China, I realized we could face a world pandemic in months.
In early April 2020 I got a hot tip that a corner store about a mile from me had toilet paper - kept behind the counter, you had to know to ask for it. Went there and paid $3/roll and felt like I won the lottery bsky.app/profile/blak...
As somebody who grew up dirt poor and often went without, thus leading me to have best-stocked pantry west of the Mississippi at all times, remember telling my husband, 'I was born for this moment'
(And, yes, knowing how extremely lucky we were to have the space, and funds, to keep extras on hand)
I only found the stores completely out once when I went to buy and I found some 2 days later, I never ran out but the possibility of running out freaked me out and now I keep a minimum 2 week supply at all times.
OMG, yes, the great toilet paper drought of 2020.
A few weeks before the lockdowns I told my teammates at work to consider getting a bit more groceries because the disease being reported seemed like the real thing. They mocked me for it, and a few weeks later I was smug as hell wiping with real TP.
If you run out of food in the middle of the night, it usually isn't a big deal.
If you run out of toilet paper in the middle of the night, however...
Drinkable water is the only other (non-medical) thing, that I can think of, that will have such an immediate impact on your quality of life.
It seemed pretty obvious to me at the time what was coming.
But in the end it was the people who made fun of me who were wiping their asses with their hands. Reality usually wins out over denial, and I enjoyed my last laugh.
Jan. 14 2020 we bought a 6 month supply of TP, in line w/ what I said abt how obvious the looming pandemic was. We'd been vacationing in Italy, flew back to US on 1/13 and saw in Newark...ZERO precautions being taken (in contrast to what we saw in Europe). Decided then the US was in for disaster.
I got sick in Feb 2020, not covid, but I knew Covid was in the news so I got paranoid about TP and paper towels. So I ordered a bunch on Amazon - but I messed up and accidentally ordered 2x as much as I meant cuz i was sick/a bit out of it. It was a great mistake! We were covered for like 2 months
In 2020, I couldn't find paper towels in the stores, so I ordered a big box of the industrial kind. A nuisance to use, because instead of a roll, you get one of those packages of individuals sheets that go in a dispenser. I still haven't used them up!
Haha the same! Lucky to have the space to store them, but damn without a dispenser are those trifold kind annoying. Probably only like into my 2nd or 3rd of 12 stacks.
I actually gave half of mine away, and still they're taking forever to use up. When I realized how big the box was, I almost sent it back, but it was so cheap it didn't seem worth the trouble.
I was lucky to buy some for home and shop before this all went down. Then an employee started to give it to his buds. Somehow I became an asshole when I said he needed to stop giving it away and maybe replace it.
I'm vaccinated for the lung shredder virus and I make like 25% more at the same company. But Microsoft took the HDMI passthrough out of Xbox, so there's give and take.
tears of the kingdom represents our economic stagnation. miyamoto-san could not even make a new engine for it to run on, because joe biden wouldn't let him! we're stuck with the same overworld map and it's not okay
the generals, these big tough guys, come up to me with tears in their eyes and they say "mr president, it's so bad now. they dont even have the FIFA license anymore. they call it 'FC24' now and the menus are all glitchy" We're going to bring FIFA back and we're doing it very strongly
Studios where they let accountants make creative decisions have had a lot of major flops lately but there's been a glut of really greater games from smaller studios
I'd half agree with them. 2022 and to a lesser degree 2021 had a dearth of good games, probably from pandemic delays in 2020. But then 2023 was pretty epic.
The main thing is that PS5 releases have been lame and XSX lamer. If you're not held to (one of) those platforms I think things are better.
