The frustrating thing was that the police had him on a list. They KNEW the history. But half the time they still rolled up ready for war. It was a banner day when he was woken up at 3 in the morning only by two normal officers knocking on the door to let him know it happened again.
For sure! One of the reasons they're such an amazing band is that they were able to innovate and adapt over a long career without losing their core style. They grew with their audience instead of apart from it.
My opinion is based on my own music preference (I'm a sucker for power pop) but there's no denying R.E.M. stayed at the top of their game far longer than most bands even stay together.
Patrick Tomlinson was swatted over 40 times in 2023 alone. It took WAY too many times before the police would simply knock on his door and ask him if everything was okay. You'd think after the 4th or 5th time they might figure it out.
Accelerate was a lot of fun, but for me the last album that was stellar front to back was Life's Rich Pageant. It was joyous, raucous, and they hit their signature sound head on. Every track sparkled (even the Superman cover that Michael hated).
I just don't have the energy for people. I don't admit it to friends and family, but I enjoyed lockdown because I had zero social obligations. Unfortunately, I also lost a LOT of the coming mechanisms I've developed over my lifetime that allowed me to deal with people.
These days a single 2-3 hour social obligation in a weekend gives me anxiety. I enjoy hanging out with a few friends at a time (and my friends are very low maintenance) but even then after a few hours I need a week or two to recover.
My dad drives a base model Kia - no automatic locks, so no keyfob. Kia's "fix" was to send him "The Club" with instructions to use it to lock the driving wheel every time he parks.
When he told me the story it was structured like a joke, with the punchline being "guess what their solution is?" before pulling The Club from behind his back and handing it to me. He couldn't stop laughing.
I'll repair last chance socks and stockpile (clean) last chance underwear for long trips. Throw them out as the trip goes instead of stashing dirty laundry in your bag.
I lucked into having dinner with him once and he is every bit as genuine, smart, thoughtful, caring, and funny as you could hope. Kevin's the real deal.
I have a Keychron K10 I got as an Amazon Warehouse deal. It was cheap enough (but not under 50, sorry) and is an enjoyable budget mechanical keyboard. Decent keys and features for the money. Based on that I'd recommend Keychron.
Our bidet doesn't have an air dryer, so we did have to upgrade our paper from the cheap 1-ply stuff that turned to pulp on contact with any moisture. That said, we go through way less paper post-bidet.
"I'm a rich white guy - it never occurred to me that anyone actually has to FOLLOW these laws!"