u/twoscoopsxd

We've got a good thing, it's a good thing wHEN YOU'RE WITH MEEEEEEEEEEEE

I'd always been a small fan of The '59 Sound and Handwritten. Never dove into the songwriting or anything like that. Over the last year I've been diving into all their albums. I really like how different they all are from each other. Different vibes each time. The only one that didn't feel as inspired but was still great to me is American Slang. Love the recent album.

I came into this as a huge Springsteen fan to start. I didn't know Brian was from Jersey. So all the references caught me off guard. The song with the title very similar to the song on Born To Run and has "No Surrender my Bobby Jean"(two Springsteen songs back to back on Born In The USA). The "sheets soaking wet" reference to I'm On Fire. The "broken heroes reference." Upon first listen I thought I was just hearing things. But I love that whole album and it's appreciation for old American movies and music(love the random Bob Segar ref in Great Expectations).

As someone who loves old heartland dad rock and emo/pop punk. This band just puts both worlds together perfectly. My Spotify top artists of 2025 were Bruce Springsteen and Taking Back Sunday.

The songwriting is just so personal and grand. It's like he can make every situation about a small interaction or feeling feel like this big cinematic experience. Michigan 1975 is haunting. The ending of High Lonesome "when our boots they hit the ground it made a high and lonesome sound", that line alone just encapsulates a feeling. Countless example of this. All while being incredibly catchy.

I have seen quite a few comments on this sub saying Earth Pushed Back is their one great album. How they never followed up. Maybe it's me and because I discovered Have Mercy by listening to their second album first. I heard Inch By Inch somewhere, loved it. Got the whole album of A Place Of Our Own, loved it. Went back and listened to the debut and loved it too. I think their first two albums are equally as great

Standouts on A Place Of Our Own would be The Place You Love, Spacecrafts, and Inch By Inch. But I love it.

I've been one meal a day for a few years now and while the health benefits have been great. The money and time I save is better.

I'm not stopping to prepare three meals in a day. I was out with some friends and we were staying in a hotel for a few days. I forgot how the regular person has to stop and eat a meal multiple times a day. When eating out, it adds up. I would just get one big meal in the day while they had to pay for breakfast, pay a tip, pay for lunch, pay a tip, pay for dinner, pay a tip.

I cook most of my meals myself but in my off days I eat out and I'll combine stuff. I'll get a ramen bowl from a local spot and a filet mignon and a salad from longhorn and I have my big cheat meal of the week. Beats going out to eat and stopping several times.

On my lunch break at work I'm not trying to eat fast in that half hour. I'm just relaxing. I don't have to get off and get cooking right away because I already ate my big meal in the morning. Never realize how much time is spent preparing food and doing dishes

This whole album is so much fun. Haters of Neon era pop punk hate fun. Put on that Cobra Starship album and jam

And what is your regular BP now?

In the ER I clocked 275/175 at the peak. Felt fine though.

My regular BP now is 110/65

Don't get me wrong. Grocery prices are much higher than they were. Everything is crazy expensive. But these people's shopping complaints and then you see their receipt or what they bought and it reminds me of that "what am I doing wrong with my budget" meme and everything is normal except they spend 800 dollars on candles

When I grocery shop I get protein like chicken or beef, usually in bulk and put it in my deep freezer. Then I get a bag of potatoes for a few dollars, bag of onions for a few dollars, bag of rice for a few dollars, big bags of frozen vegetables like broccoli or green beans, some eggs, and I'm set.(This is just a generic list. Things can be swapped. Maybe I'll get a head of lettuce or a bundle of green onions. Just depends on my recipe plan for the week)

People buy tons of pre packaged or pre cooked things. Or something they will only use to make one dish and then let the food item go bad. You have to shop with things in mind. If you're gonna buy kale because you saw a cool kale recipe, you need to keep it mind what you're going to do with the rest of the kale. Or people will fill their cart with 7 dollar bags of chips and things like that and complain.

Yes. Grocery prices are high. But you are not good at shopping.

Edit: People seem to be focusing on the deep freezer mention. I've only owned a deep freezer for a few months. Before that I just bought enough meat for the week. Still significantly cheaper. If you are down to your last 20 dollars and are intentional. You can get enough groceries to survive the week

Love this album. Love all the Bruce Springsteen references on this album (on this song alone. "No Surrender my Bobby Jean" and the title feels like a reference to the song on Born To Run). Love all the love and references to old American music and media on this album.

It's the perfect merge of Heartland Rock and pop punk

This whole album still means a lot to me

Pop-punk adjacent. But if Mayday Parade can be considered pop punk then I don't see any Lydia isn't. Love this album with all my heart

Love this EP

I totally understand pursuing lifestyle changes first and attempting to handle it that way. In fact, you should. But I'm talking about the "my blood pressure is 190/125. What lifestyle changes can I make to lower this? I don't want medicine."

​

My first thought when I see that is get off Reddit and go to the ER right away. I think a part of it is how high blood pressure is a silent killer that people think it's something they can put off. You feel no pain and can do your regular activities so you think it's not urgent. When your kidneys and your heart are subtly going through irreparable damage and you don't even know it.

​

But I just don't get the avoidance of medicine. I know some people have negative experiences and it can take trial to find the right medicines for you, but it's just worth it. Some people can have a perfect diet and work out every day and still need blood pressure meds. It's just genetics. For me it runs in my family. My dad's on BP meds, I'm on BP meds. My grandmother is on BP meds. It's the family curse. Take your medicine and get better.

​

This is NOT geared toward the "My BP is 140/88" kind of posts. I see lots of posts on here of people who are consistently 180/120+ and are wary about getting on medicine. For the people like that, what's the issue?

A couple weeks ago I went to a concert in the city. I live about 40 minutes away and always Uber to events in the city. I was waiting for my Uber to pick me up and I got a call and heard "this call is being recorded" and that it's Uber. The driver just kept asking me to tell him the address. I said "you're the driver" and he just kept asking me. I literally have my address entered as the destination of where we were going so I was a bit confused and put off by it. My first thought was that it was some kind of scammer. I could hardly hear him anyway because I was standing outside of a crowded concert venue so I hung up. I messaged him in the app and asked if that was him and he said yes. I asked him what he needed and then he just said he was stopping for gas and would be on the way.

​

The ride went fine. He took me and my friend home but I just was weirded out by him calling to ask when it's literally on the GPS he was using to take me home.

Edit: To clarify he was asking for my home address

A lot of the Supernatural community think John Winchester is a bad person, bad father, most evil character on the show etc. I totally get where people are coming from with that but I also see a large section that assume the writers themselves aren't aware of this. Or that he wasn't written to be this way exactly.

​

To me, John is a complicated character and was written with intention. I've seen people claim that the show tries to justify it reinforce that he "did what he had to do" or "he did the best he could in his situation". When literally the only people who say this are Sam and Dean. Sam is far more critical of John but Dean especially WOULD make justifications for his father. His father is his idol and Dean mimics a lot of his personality and traits. Dean is a far better person than John but he's for sure a functioning alcoholic, puts the burden of the world on himself, and can be abusive to Sam at times(he has literally beaten Sam bloody or physically attacked him on multiple occasions). We've seen that when he was put in a domestic situation that he ends up similar to his father in time and slaps Ben in the face.

​

Even Sam eventually came around to believe that his father did the best he could. But be still didn't let him slide in the way Dean did. But they WOULD think this way. They are the kids who grew up under him. Literally every other character who talks about John has had some major falling out with him. Even Bobby himself said the last time he saw John was chasing him from his house with a gun. Every other character just said "great hunter, but we had a falling out"

​

Even Dean in season 3 during that whole "daddy's blunt little instrument" scene admitted that John was obsessed and put too much on him instead of protecting his family. And how he never left Sam unlike John. Agent Hendrickson explained how John was weird for training Sam and Dean like little soldiers and "no doubt touched you in a bad place."

​

I feel like the show definitely is aware of how John is. It would be unrealistic and out of character for Dean to just up and say "John was very abusive to us, right, Sammy? I'm going to stop my drinking and womanizing now." Even in the later season Sam talks Dean down by telling him how he has always protected him from their Dad. I just think it can come across as justification because Sam and Dean are the main characters so we get their perspectives on their father the most. Even the fan servicey episode where he comes back for a day, they made it a point to say be djd and said a lot of messed up things. And I do believe that if he would have came back lived for more seasons he would have fallen back into his old ways. Even with Mary. The show even made a point that John was the type to up and leave when things got rough in their marriage before he even was aware monsters existed. This is just how he is in relationships. And he is written that way intentionally

I ask this because I saw an interaction on one of the subreddits for BP where people were saying how keeping sodium at 1500 was "nearly impossible"

​

For me, that's the simplest part. I bake a bunch of chicken or some kind of lean protein, don't use much sodium, freeze it all, and then take out slowly and eat it for my meals. I'll have some rice or potatoes I air fry, eggs, big portion of fruits and vegetables, drink water only, and I'm all set. Sometimes I end the day and I've only eaten like maybe 700 miligrams of sodium.

​

I could see it being an issue if you have a big reliance on pre packaged food. Honestly, with how salty everything is in our products, it makes me understand more and more why so many people have high blood pressure. I find the other stuff way more difficult than sodium restriction. I'll take sodium restriction over getting up and hitting the treadmill for an hour 6 days a week to keep my BP low. I'd take salt restriction over all the medicines

I myself am a Christian and feel I have a pretty good grasp on things. My only issue was purity culture. I totally understand controlling yourself, not sleeping around, dating with intention, saving yourself for marriage etc

​

But growing up in the church there was this odd purity culture. Everything was separated all the time. A man hanging out alone with another woman was seen as scandalous. I remember a friend of mine was going through something(personal, not going to share it). I'm a man, she's a woman. We went to one of the unused rooms at Church to talk about it. I was just doing regular platonic friend things. "It'll be okay" "God is with you" I gave her a hug. Some people walked by the room and saw it and it became a whole thing. "She should confide with a sister in the church"

​

But to me. She's just a friend. Also with sermons and lessons growing up. It made it seem like they assume everyone is just so incredibly horny all the time. A single glance at a woman and it ruins everything. And I totally get being pure and looking at women respectfully and not full of lust. But any time there was a lesson or a men's group and purity was a topic I would just internally roll my eyes. Maybe I am just a special case but I don't just walk around on the prowl and and full of lust all the time. I have things to do.

​

I am the youngest boy and also the only boy in my family. I have only older sisters and I have always had a good relationship with them. There was no arguing or picking on each other. So I spent a lot of childhood hanging out with my sisters and their friends. There would be a sleepover and I'd just be there. A lot of memories of being in the backseat of a car stuffed with women. I had/have my friend group of the bros but I just grew up mingling with women a lot. Most of my friends to this day are women. I'd be at a church men's event and they'd talk about the dangers of lust and I can never relate. I'm a human straight male so and I'm in a relationship with a woman so obviously I feel those things but it's just never a burden to me. I'm just very used to and accustomed to women. There were situations where people questioned a man having a female friend over and sleeping over and it was this whole thing and I'm just thinking "Do you guys not go outside?" Even outside of childhood/teen years. As an adult I've had several female friends sleep over my house and walk around in pajamas at night and nothing has ever happened.

​

I just feel like the way the church can handle these things encourages this division and unfamiliarity. Like if you instill this culture on people it's going to make it worse.

​

Obviously, there are people with serious struggles with sex and porn addictions and I totally sympathize there. This post isn't about those people. There were just situations in church where I felt like them making it a thing was putting the idea in peoples beads. Like I came into this situation with a completely unhorny mind and you guys took it there.

My mother is vegetarian and picky so I definitely understand and am very mindful. When I'm looking at places for the family to go I will see if there are good options for her but I will also prioritize something for everyone. I'm also understanding of allergies and other restrictions. But my mom will not limit options, if the family wants Longhorn Steakhouse, she'll order baked potatoes and vegetables because this if for the group. She's not going to insist that our grandma visiting from out of state and my uncles and aunts eat at her favorite place.

​

I'm talking about people who will go on vacation somewhere else with a group and instead of eating at local places, they insist everyone goes to Chick Fil A or McDonald's or something(I don't mind if they alone decide to eat there. It's when they try to impose those on the group or guilt the group) The people who when deciding what to order out as a group want that same meal from Applebee's all the time. Also the majority of restaurants sell a burger and chicken tenders of some sort(the typical meal of the picky types) so usually the restaurant they don't want still has an option for them.

​

Also the people who when the group is ordering pizza, they will insist that a plain cheese pizza is ordered for them(then almost always they will eat a couple of the plain slices that was ordered for them and then go on and start eating other slices that aren't plain)

Also want to clarify. This is no hate toward picky eaters. You eat how you want

This is not one of those "I hate when they spin the iPad around at every transaction" "why am I tipping for any order I picked up" posts. That is annoying but I'm talking about just where we are as a whole. It feels like the expectation is "don't go out if you can't afford a 30 percent up charge on every transaction you'll ever make." Which is crazy in this economy. And I am a good tipper, it's not an issue for me. I even tip well if the service was bad. I don't go out much but the last time I tipped 22 percent.

​

And I don't like the way the system puts the customer and the server against each other instead of the source of the issue. Making servers direct their anger at a customer instead of the business paying them pennies. And making the customer angry at the server for being pushy about tips when we just accept this system where the individual customer is responsible for the server's salary.

​

It used to just feel like tipping 12 percent was okay and if you had a really good time and a really good server you'd tip more. No big deal. Now every time I go out I feel like if I'm not tipping at least 25 percent it is a mortal sin. And what's with tipping a delivery BEFORE it arrives? Tipping used to feel like it was something based on the quality of service you got but now it feels like a highly pressured thing. Being asked to tip before a service or a delivery is a perfect example of this.

​

​