u/Fordfanatic2025

Which is to make rewatching the show pointless. Pretty much every season was ramping up the tension of Homelander going full scorched earth, teasing it over, and over, and over, and it just never happens.

I've said it before, but IMO the white house fight should have been like episode 5. The boys try to take Homelander out, he gives that speech to the country, and they fail. He goes full scorched earth from there for a few episodes after realizing virtually no-one is gonna respect him as a god.

That would have been cool. Instead we got a fight in a room. It just makes all the other seasons feel pointless because they're about building to an event that never comes.

SPOILERS FOR BREAKING BAD

But it would have been like if the entire series of breaking bad was teasing Walt's demise, and Hank finding out. Only for the show to end with Hank and Walt as unsuspecting best friends, and seeing Walt retire on a beach. It would have ruined all of the setup from previous seasons.

Because how else was he able to buy an entire, massive abandoned hotel, and barely make a dent as far as we can tell, in the amount of money he has.

I think my car needs a serptaine belt replaced. There's a really good Larry H. Miller Ford dealership near me in the Sandy area I might take it to. But a third party mechanic would probably be cheaper.

I just wanna find talented professionals in the Riverton area or close to it who will be able to handle maintaince like that.

So I basically only have one real friend. We've known each other since the 4th grade. But in recent years, I've felt more and more distant from him because our lives are so different.

My family is middle class, experienced a lot of job loss, living on the edge of a financial cliff, going to school relying on the reduced lunches program getting bullied because I had holes in my clothes. My friend is the exact opposite, rich dentist family, his mom has spent conservatively 300 grand just on beauty padgeant stuff, got a new civic because his dad felt bad my friend broke his arm playing football. My dad wouldn't even let me buy our 2009 Kia Rio, just to illustrate the difference.

I just am struggling like hell to relate to him more and more as time goes on due to how different our lives are. But furthermore, I just don't feel represented and valued honestly.

Every time we get together, he's almost always the one who initiates asking if I'm available to hang out. But like clockwork, he's late every single time. I don't mean 5 minutes late, I mean hours late. I set aside my Saturdays for him and he does this over and over. I'll give today as an example. He asked if I could hang out, I said yes. Me, him, and a friend of a friend were making plans to get together at 6:30.

My friend literally says "I forgot, I'm doing to a rodeo with my sister at 6:15, but I'll show up when I can". My other friend, or friend or a friend I should say needs to ride the train from his place to mine. Because the trains shut off well before midnight, he's saying he probably needs to head back around 9 or 10.

My buddy says he won't be able to meet until 8 when the plan was 6:30. If he says 8, it's gonna be 9:15. I at this point suggest scheduling for another day because we won't have much time. I feel like the asshole because of it.

He does this over, and over, 9 times out of 10 when we meet up he does this. I'm getting tired of it. I feel like I bend over backwards over, and over, with everyone in my life, and never feel loved or respected in return.

It has me wondering after all these years if I should just cut ties. Find friends in adulthood who I can actually relate to, and who actually respect me. I'm a huge car enthusiast, so maybe finding friends through that hobby or something. I'm just tired of getting rolled over, but the prospect of cutting off the only friend I have, a childhood friend, is daunting as well.

Let me start this by saying I'm neither pro nor anti natalist. Hence why I'm publishing this here. I don't believe wanting or not wanting kids is inherently evil, or selfish, or makes you a terrible person. I believe everyone wants their own thing in life and it's being able to pursue and fulfill said desires that brings people happiness rather than completely one specific action for all of humanity. Some people struggle with this idea and adopt the world view that everyone needs to live like them and make the same choices to be "truly" happy, and I don't agree with that.

My frustration with natalism is it's a very hate driven community who's approach to what they perceive to be an issue is just to make life worse for everyone. I don't mean the Natalists who try to push for low cost housing to make life more affordable for all, and trying to increase the birth rate by making life more affordable and enjoyable, that I can agree with.

I mean the types of people who are like "What if we took women's rights away? What if we made it impossible for single people to get jobs to taxed 80% of their income? What if we brought back arranged marriages? This is so many of the posts in that community these days.

Those sorts of people I can't stand. It's like, life is already hard, that's why people aren't having kids. Yet your solution is make life even harder for people because you're not right in the head, and you believe that will make people want more kids, making life worse.

The irony is most of the natalist thread is childless and single people as well. They did a poll, something like 80% of the people in that community didn't even have kids. Only like 5% had 2 kids or more. So most of the people in that community don't have kids.

It's kinda sad because they're always calling childless people depressed and worthless. That feels like a projection of how they see themselves. A bunch of biter people who are single and childless who hate people who are single and childless.

I'd have more respect for the community if their focus was actually trying to be a force for good, and not a force for evil. They don't see themselves that way, they're pretty delusional. But if 90% if your discussions devolve into why we should take someone's freedoms away, or why you hate hundreds of millions of people just because they think differently than you, then you aren't the good guy.

I know players can do this in their own custom lobbies, but I wish it was something we could do with official daily races. Like racing daily race C at le mans was the funniest I've ever had in an online race. But it would be even cooler if somehow you had hypercar and GT3 in the same race.

Getting it to work and figuring out the details would be kinda a nightmare, but it's a fun idea.

Let's just say the rebellion was successful, and he was able to take over the facility and end the games, just as a fun thought experiment. How do you believe the VIP's would have reacted?

Part of me almost wonders even if the game would have ended there and they escaped somehow, if the VIPs would have Gi-hun and the other players taken out as revenge and as a delayed form of "elimination" from the games. Because they know their identities, and have essentially unlimited resources to hunt them down.

I wonder if the VIPs would have done that, or if they would have been like "Ok, that was really different and entertaining, well played, we'll let you live".

My best friend's mom is the kind of person who's detached from reality, has no social awareness, and can't seem to internalize what others say, and I don't know how to respond at this point. It was annoying and mild at first when she kept asking my mom to come to these beauty padgeants with her, she's rich, so spending 5k a trip multiple times a year is no big deal to her, and she's kinda the vapid arm candy trophy wife personality. The kind of person who got married at 18, her husband is rich, has spent most of her life not having to worry about anything. She's asked my mom 15-20 times easily to come to a beauty padgeant with her. My mom has no money, time, or desire to do that, and be around those kinds of events and people, and has said as such over and over. But my best friend's mom can't take the hint, she brings it up every time pretty much.

That by itself isn't that bad. Where I get really pissed is when you take that refusal to accept no for an answer, and lack of social intelligence, and apply it to recent life events.

My dad just died, a month ago after being bed bound on hospice for 6 months. It's a long story, we all had a complicated relationship with him, but cared about him. The emotions surrounding his death come and go, but are still really raw at times. My mom was married to him for 39 years.

My best friend's sister died two days before my dad, she was married with 8 kids. Not 2-3 weeks after my dad died, my friends mom is saying my mom should reach out to her brother in-law, and see about dating him. She's suggested this not one, but twice at this point.

I get she has good intentions, she doesn't want my mom to be alone or feel left out. She's also not mentally right, and never has been, so that's why I'm trying to be more reasonable. But I feel like I'm gonna snap at her if she keeps bringing this up.

I don't know what to do. I can't cut her off, I can't call her out in a polite way because she's too dense to take the hint, but I don't want to snap either.

We went out to visit Klamath Falls and Medford recently visiting from the salt lake area, a smaller town on the southern outskirts of salt lake specifically. The area was beautiful, but maybe slightly too small and rural for our needs. The trees and mountain views really reminded me of the neighborhood we live in.

We're just thinking of moving somewhere that kinda finds an in-between ground in Oregon between the vibes of Medford and Salt Lake. Like if Salt Lake is too urban, and Medford is too rural, what are some good in-between states?

Added bonus if they're good for disabled individuals which my brother is, and solid cities with decent varied career opportunities. Sorry if these are a lot of bits of criteria lol.

We'd probably be looking at homes in the 800ish grand range.

So my mom when she drives that maverick has a frequent habit of putting it in drive while she's still moving backwards at 1-2 mph. I keep asking her not to, but she keeps doing it. I've heard the e-cvt has smart features built in to protect it where it won't shift in a way that could be potentially damaging to the transmission. So I was just wondering if the truck protects itself against scenarios like switching to drive while moving in reverse in a way that won't hurt the transmission.

I've had a few good races. But this race I just ran was probably my favorite race of all time. So I started in 12th, and I make my way up to mid pack after a few laps, and start battling for the lead. It gets to the point where it's just one car and I in contention for the win, maybe 3rd can catch us if we really screw up but he's about 10 seconds back heading into the night.

This guy and I are just going back and forth, duking it out. Throughout the night we're within a few seconds of each other. He pits one lap ahead of me. When he comes out of the pits, he's about 28 seconds behind. I go to pit, but come in too hot, and hit the wall. I almost quit because I was that sure my race was over.

I come out of the pits and he's about 7 seconds ahead. It stays in that 5-7 second range until he makes a mistake. He accidentally cuts across the final turn, and gets reset. I pass him and take like a 5 second lead with about 2-3 laps to go that grows to around 8 seconds.

But then I realized, in my haste to exit the pits quickly, I didn't take enough fuel! There's two laps to go, and I have about 1.6 laps of range left. So I start to panic, and I put the car in 4,5,6 fuel saving mode, and he starts gaining. So then I start tweaking my settings going down the straights, going to 1 or 2 to get some decent low end acceleration, but switching to 5 or 6 once I'm at 160-170 to improve fuel economy. All while he's closing in the final lap.

He closes to about 4-5 seconds, and I cross the line with 2% fuel left. Insane.

My father passed away on Wednesday. He was on hospice for about 6 months effectively paralyzed, and we believe he had a stroke last weekend, and passed a few days later. He passed the day after my disabled brother's 25th birthday. We did this like big group hug with my siblings around him, and he passed about 30 seconds later.

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He and my disabled brother always had a special relationship. My dad would sing to him, play ball with him, and do silly things like mimicking treating his hand as a wind up toy and flailing it around, which my brother found hilarious.

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I'll add my brother is severely disabled, he functions at the level of an infant, can't speak, take care of himself, etc. He does get excited, but most of the time, it requires something to stimulate him. Music he likes, or watching a show on TV, someone playing with him, or seeing something like a toy or balloons. In most quiet environments, he'll kinda just sit there covering his face on the couch.

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When the team came to collect my dad, it was a very somber environment. No music, the TV was off, he didn't have any toys, the team was dressed in professional attire so nothing there to catch his attention. But my brother was so happy for some reason. I mean he was laughing and smiling non stop, clapping, basically jumping in his chair. Really excited to the point where I thought about trying to calm him down for a moment.

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A thought has occurred to me since, and hasn't left my mind. It could be just a coincidence, but I have the feeling that my dad was in the room. Like he was interacting and playing with my brother like he would before he got sick, like he used to, and that's why my brother was so excited. It was a lot like the interactions my dad and brother used to have where my brother was having the time of his life, yet there was nothing there I could see.

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I'll add this isn't the first time this happened, well over 10 years ago, we were visiting my grandma's house, and my brother kept staring at a blank corner of the room. I had the idea to grab an old photo my grandma had of my grandpa when he was younger, and my brother kept touching it, and looking back in the corner of the room.

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I'm someone who's struggled with faith, laying it all out there. I'd say the best way to describe it is I'm someone who simultaneously really struggles to believe because of the things going on in the world, and what my family has gone through. But I also desperately want to believe that there's some force that will make things right, that might sound a little weird. I've struggled, but I've had moments like this where even if I can't prove it, I feel like something is there.

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I'm just curious if any of you have had similar experiences.

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So my father passed away on wednesday, he was on hospice for about 6 months, but had a stroke over the weekend. He passed away shortly after.

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For some context, my brother turned 25 the day before my dad died, although he's 25, he functions at the level of an infant, can't talk, take care of himself, etc. He and my dad had a special relationship. He couldn't do it when he was sick, but my dad would frequently do things like sing to my brother, or watch movies with him, or he'd do this thing where he'd mimic treating his hand as a wind up toy and flinging it around to make my brother laugh, things like that. Just doing a lot of things to connect with my brother and bond with him.

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Now my brother does get stimulated by a lot of things, but it almost always has to be something, a song he likes, something on the TV, a toy, someone coming over and interacting with him, etc. When we have visitors, he can get a little vocal and animated, but it's pretty mild compared to when something actually catches his attention. Usually he's just chilling in the chair not moving much or making much noise. When my dad was sick in the hospital bed, a lot of the time my brother would just be curled up behind him covering his face while laying on the couch.

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But when the team came to pick up his body, my brother was super excited to the point where I was trying to calm him down. Jumping around in his chair, laughing, clapping, etc. But there was nothing to stimulate him. There was no music, the TV was off, no toys, the people who came in were dressed in somber attire so I don't see anything about their clothing that would set him off and evoke a response.

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But I had a thought, and I can't shake it. Of course it's not definitive proof, but it was a lot like when my dad used to play with my brother, how he used to make him laugh. It was almost like my dad was in the room interacting with my brother, and making him laugh again. Like I could almost feel his spirit in the room.

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I know this isn't some super documented experience, and it could just be nothing, but I thought I'd share my experience.

So my dad died this week. He was on hospice for about 6 months, and was about the same in terms of his health until this weekend when he had a stroke. He passed a few days after.

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For some context, I have a severely disabled brother. He turned 25 a day before my dad passed. Although he's an adult, he functions at the level of an infant, he can't speak, nor take care of himself. He and my dad always had a pretty special relationship. My dad would sing to him, and do other things like mimicking his hand as a wind up toy, and my brother would get excited and love it as my dad played and interacted with him.

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For additional context, my brother will get excited about a lot of things, but it usually has to be something specific. Music, a movie, a toy, someone interacting and playing with him. Beyond that, he's pretty mellow. There are exceptions, but a lot of the time, when we have visitors, he might make a little bit of sound, but he tends to be pretty calm.

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I know it's probably a coincidence, but when the team came to collect my dad's body and load it up. There was nothing in theory to excite my brother, it was a very somber environment that normally wouldn't have stimulated him. Yet for some reason, he was acting really giddy, vocal, and playful, often like he did when my dad interacted with him. For some reason, and maybe it's just my mind trying to cope, but I just kept envisioning my dad in the corner, no longer sick, interacting and playing with my brother like he used to, and I can't get the thought out of my head.

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I'll add my brother who was very mild in terms of personality these last few months, is like laughing and in a good mood a lot more, almost like if my dad was there, they're interacting a lot more than when my dad was sick.

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I just don't know if any of you have had similar experiences like that surrounding dead family members. Like feeling their presence around, and if you think there's anything to that.

I've posted here before and I just wanna say thank you to everyone in this community for your kindness. I've struggled in recent years to an extreme degree to connect with other people and have things in common. When I come here, I genuinely feel like we can connect and relate to one another.

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He was 69, and passed away this morning. 7 months ago he was driving, walking, feeding and going to the bathroom by himself. Then he fell, and we don't know if that's what triggered it, or if it was just a case of the preexisting health issues he had catching up to him, or both, but that started his downward spiral. He started needing a walker to walk short distances, and a wheelchair for longer distances,and needed help bathing and using the bathroom.

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We scheduled a doctor's appointment almost immediately. From what they told us, the fall itself didn't cause any issues, but rather, was the result of the issues he was having. The way they explained it, the nerve pathway sending signals from his brain to the rest of his body was pinched, so they needed to perform a surgery by making an incision in the spinal area near his neck. This was in December.

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After the surgery, they noted they weren't getting any noticable signs of nerve activity in those areas, which was concerning. They didn't tell us this for two months, but during the surgery, he also had excessive bleeding they didn't control very well that led to bruising around his spine. Following the surgery, he never walked again on his own. Needed a catheter, had to be fed etc.

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He stayed like that for about 6 months, essentially paralyzed in a bed with weak, limited muscle movement, but still of relatively sound mind. But last weekend, he took a really sharp drop off mentally, we think he had a stroke. He went from being able to have coherent thoughts and conversations to not being able to say anything beyond a few words, and struggling to understand. He'd say things like "I want" and then he'd pause, and say Um a lot while trying to think, and then ask for us to open the window. He also started to hallucinate which was really hard. It was like my grandma all over again, the glazed confusion in his eyes that when you saw it, it felt like someone was ripping your heart out.

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The worst was at night when it was dark, he'd keep saying "Help me" over and over, I mean dozens of times a night. You'd go over to him asking what he wanted help with, and he could never tell you. It was soul crushing because I wanted to ease his fears, but I couldn't, I couldn't help him. I just feel incredibly guilty, it's like my dementia ridden grandma all over again where I'd visit her in her retirement home multiple times a week, just trying to make her happy, and I couldn't. I just feel like I did everything I could, and at the same time, I didn't do enough. I feel sad and numb, yet relieved because he's not in pain anymore. I feel in some ways cheated because our relationship at times wasn't the best, and he was often in a bad mood due to the stress of his job. I remember all the times I thought "He's almost retired, hopefully once he retires, he mellows out and we have some good years together" and it didn't happen.

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I just feel so many things and nothing at the same time.

I mean like traditional theistic depictions of the afterlife where it's all about being loyal to God, being religious, that's all that matters,and what determines your fate are inherently unfair. Any afterlife that relies on the idea of believers being rewarded, and non-believers being punished, this applies to.

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I'll say those in my social circle and I haven't had the hardest lives ever, of course, but we certainly haven't had it easy either. In my 30 years of life, I've dealt with health issues, having incredibly severe depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts throughout extended periods of my life, helping to take care of my severely disabled brother who functions at the level of an infant from the day he was born essentially, putting my life and desires on hold to care for him. Being a caretaker for my mom when she was ill following a botched surgery, caring for my father on hospice who's effectively paralyzed, and visiting my dementia ridden grandma in the nursing home ever week while the rest of my over 100 extended family members ignored her.

We've been through job losses, and financial struggles as well, most of my life we've been on the financial edge.

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I'm frequently drained because my entire life has felt like managing one crisis after another. As a result of these things, a lifetime of mental health, seeing my brother and other disabled individuals suffering, losing my dad and my grandma to their illness while they were still alive, watching them die twice essentially. It's all gotten me to this headspace where I can no longer believe in a loving God. I quite literally can't accept that there's a god who cares about us, and loves my family. As a result, I don't believe in a God at all, I don't see the point in believing in a God if I don't find them loving or merciful. I'll add I spent 30 years wanting to love God, going to church, graduating from a religious college. I wanted so deeply to feel like God cared about me, and it never came. So many prayers where I got no answer, meanwhile someone prayed to find their keys and it happens.

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Getting to the claim I presented in the title, I feel like that if the afterlife is designed like a lot of mainstream religions claim it's designed, it builds on the unfairness of life. Because it means that I, someone who no longer believes in a God as a result of all the hardships we've been through, am going to be punished. But people like my extended family who've all had pretty great lives, good careers, happy marriages and family lives, money, good health, etc who praise God, and say how good God is, they get eternal paradise because they're religious and praise God.

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Hell is full of loving parents who lost faith in God because their child died of cancer, but a serial killer repents and goes to heaven. There will never be justice in that sort of system, if that's how it works, and you encounter people all the time who claim that's how it works.

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I just feel like if this is how it works, it's like a restaurant where all that matters is us being thankful to the chief at the end of our dining experience, the chief of course being God, and dining experience being life. But that completely ignores the fact that some diners were served 5 star meals, and others were served crap sandwiches. It's just not logical to expect those diners to be equally thankful given the dining experience they received.

I asked this question over a year ago, but we didn't have a ton of data on '25 mavericks and beyond at the time. Now that we have more miles on the 2025s, are we still seeing common CV boot issues? Or does it seem like the redesigned CV boots resolved the issues 22-24 owners were having?