Shipwrecked & Comatose

There is a YouTube channel I occasionally like to watch called The Financial Diet .  It's a channel that gives real world financial advice for young people that doesn't include finger-wagging (she won't tell you to stop buying lattes and avocado toast) and also understands the realities of the state of the US economy and the world.  It's host, Chelsea Fagan, is quite a bit younger than I am, and her channel is geared toward a younger crowd, but I guess I like her because she confirms some of my own biases, or at least makes me feel less bad about some of my own financial missteps. She never finished college and went through a time in her life where she mismanaged her money, but she pulled herself out of her hole with research and hard work (but she will acknowledge the privileges that helped her get to where she is) and seems quite successful now. One day she covered the topic of the hype in the skincare industry.  What should we spend our money on and what shouldn'...

Opening with the funniest PSA on YouTube  Sometimes you have to remind yourself that when you start your day with a bad Wordle, Quordle, and Octordle that it isn’t an indication of how the rest of your day will go. *** Coolest Dream Ever (Courtesy of Ambien): Kevin and I are at a party and he says he wants to leave. I suddenly become lucid and tell him, "This is a dream. You are already home.  All you need to do is wake up."  Then I realize that doesn't make sense because I am the one dreaming and not him.  I tell him, "This is my dream and I want to sleep some more. You're staying at this party until I have had enough sleep."  So I slept and kept dreaming about the party.  *** Why do social media fashion and housekeeping influencers say that steaming clothes is less of a pain than ironing?  I have come to the conclusion it isn’t.  I find it harder to hoist a steamer up and down in the air than it is to run an iron horizontally against a flat sur...

What is the simplest way to explain the difference between a liberal and a conservative?  I have heard all kinds of explanations: Liberals want to regulate corporations and conservatives want to regulate people. Liberals believe nobody working an honest 9-5 job should have to struggle to pay living expenses while a conservative believes if you struggle to pay living expenses, you are not working hard enough or living beyond your means.  A conservative believes in hierarchy while a liberal believes in egalitarianism. The most amusing difference I ever heard referred to conservative and liberal patriotism: Liberals love the United States. Conservatives love America. Ask most liberals what they love about their country and they are likely to give some concrete answers.  They will say they love the natural beauty of the land.  They will say they love the idea that we are all held accountable for our actions through the rule of law and the justice system.  They will ...