YTA

You sound exactly like my son. I'm assuming that if your parents didn't make you do things you don't like you'd spend all day looking at memes and YouTube videos. The irony is that in 20 years your kids will probably be saying the same thing. Your dads not making you do things like camping to be mean. He's doing it because some day he's going to be dead and all you'll have are your memories.

YTA

You're 31? Seriously?

It really comes down to your definition of "Gateway Drug". Sure, if you smoke a joint you're not automatically going to start shooting smack but on the other hand it's pretty safe to say that everyone who is shooting up heroin smoked weed before they got into harder drugs.

Cannabis sort of is a gateway drug. Sure, not everyone who smokes weed will do other drugs but on the other hand pretty much everyone who does harder rugs smokes or smoked weed.

So dad could've just said "The glare is distracting don't have it on for long"

In your dads defense he probably did think it was illegal. How would he know if his dad told it to him too? Hell, I'm almost 50 and the only reason I know it's not actually illegal is because of the internet.

Every country sucks. It's just funny that everyone dumps on America while pretending their country doesn't have stinky poop too. If you took all the terrible things America has ever done and compared to that of pretty much any other nation on earth and it would be like comparing a pamphlet to an encyclopedia.

Serious Answer: We really don't give a shit.

Americans have never really cared about what other people think of us. That's one of the things that makes America America. On a personal note though: I find it utterly fascinating that other countries, especially European countries, act like their shit doesn't stink. They have centuries of awful behavior that they just pretend never happened.

One could argue it's the other way around. I mean, no dog is picking up my poop in front of the whole world.

"So....you hear about Pluto"?

G vs E

I've never forgotten what must be one of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV: everyone, throughout the episode, making a big deal of the criminal mastermind Manny Lewis who's been wanted for years and then the two cops calling in how they finally busted the most notorious criminal in the demon world Manny Lewis. And when they show the back seat of their squad care it's Emanuel "Webster" Lewis tied and gagged just sitting there.

Seriously, this show was too ahead of it's time.

My wife and I would lay in bed and watch it back when I was still in the Army. We still have fond memories of the show and sometimes stream it on Prime.

My experience with this, as a parent, is that in order for this to work teachers and administration really have to figure that shit out. It can't be done half-ass and that's pretty much what's happened in the past and what continues to happen. When the pandemic first started my kid went from being an A student to a D and C student. He as constantly missing assignments because he was in fourth grade and his teacher did a piss poor job explaining how and where to submit assignments. He would be in front of his screen for about 15 minutes while the teacher explained something and then have "free time" for an hour. Then in the middle of the school year they went back to in-class learning with masks and social distancing rules in place (plus parents could opt to let their kids keep going virtually) and his grades went back to A's and B's.

Say what you want but distance/virtual learning will never be as good as in-class learning; especially for younger students. The only way to make distance learning as good as in-class instruction is to spend a shit load of money designing your curriculum from the ground up.

Because we have to learn to deal with it. It is never going to go away

So many people seem to not understand this. We can't put this Genie back in the bottle now that it's out. The real irony is that the people who downvote you for thinking this way are the same people who, consciously or subconsciously, don't actually want it to end. It gives them an excuse to be dicks to other people.

When an NPC runs up to you in a RPG and gives you a quest. Since it's unavoidable it takes away your agency. And let's be perfectly bunt here: the quest is almost certainly one of the game designers "babies", which is why it's mandatory, but it's also probably going to suck. Luckily a lot of time the NPC in question is confined to a specific area so you can usually avoid them.

If they hear me leave my room at night if mom isn't home, SIL will loudly complain that there must be a rat walking around even though it's clearly me.

This is the part that freaked me out the most. This often something a woman in the movies will say when she suspects someone is "peeping" on her. Considering her actions it seems like SIL is almost setting up the OP so he seems like the "rat" and she's an innocent victim.

Honestly the only person in this house who isn't the AH is OP. Sister and her wife need to get their own damn place like grownups, mom needs to listen to her kid and address his concerns and SIL needs to grow the hell up and put some clothes on. But really, it seems like she's enjoying the whole situation too much. She's exposing herself to a teenage boy and whether or not he likes it she pretends like he does and then acts like a victim of unwanted looks. She sounds psycho.

Keeping the political system 2-Parties is highly profitable and therefore they will always work together to freeze out any attempt to introduce a new party into the mix.

I'm going with the old standby: Halloween.

By todays standards it's fairly tame but the one thing that is completely unsettling to me is how everything is happening inside homes where, just on the other side of the door, children and families are out enjoying a night of trick-or-treat fun. There's something quite frightening about a girl having he throat slit while you can see little kids in costume outside the window.

When I was in Iraq I was awarded a medal from Australia. I wore it on my Class A's exactly three times. After the third time of someone asking me what the hell that was during an inspection I tossed in the bottom of my dresser drawer.

Days Gone

A friend of mine gifted me a PS4 a couple of weeks ago and I bought this game used. Unfortunately the PS4 is one of the first machines built so its fans rev up and sounds like a vacuum cleaner after about 10 minutes of play time. So I decided to get the game on Steam. Anyway, for a game in the played out "Zombie Apocalypse" genre it's pretty damn cool. The main character is fun and interesting, the setting is cool and unique and so far the story is compelling.

Television

Unfortunately the way we've used television people like to poo poo it or play down its importance but think about what television does: it allows you to communicate with words and images. As a communication medium it's the "Great Equalizer". Some could argue that writing is more important but that's only true if you can read. With television you an tell as tory and have images to show what's happening. And it's reached a point where it can broadcast nearly anywhere in the world live. When a major event happens anywhere in the world it's the television that gets turned on in a majority of homes around the globe.

Mitch McConnell

Do I really need to list a reason? Also, if possible, could I have Mitch and Tucker Carlson stand next to each other and do one of those Three Stooges type "double smacks" across both their faces?

Building a PC

The two hardest parts are figuring out what parts are compatible with each other and wiring the case to the motherboard. Luckily there's plenty of websites dedicated to helping with the first one and the second one is color coded and if you use a popular mobo you can probably find a YouTube video on how to do it.

Modern Family has solid writing and a top notch cast which is why it's good. But watch a show from the 70s or 80s that does this (which is pretty much every episode of Three's Company) and it gets old real fast.

Everyone sucks. Pro-mask people are self-righteous virtue signalers and anti-mask people are dumbasses. Pro-vax people are pretty much an extension of pro-mask folks with a nice dose of dismissive attitude thrown in for good measure (some people afraid of the vaccine have some valid concerns that are being ignored) and anti-vax people are maybe dumber than anti-mask folks.

Honestly I'm not sure the coronavirus should be stopped because I think it might be doing what nature intends and is thinning the herd.

I've tried casino gambling exactly twice. And both times I did video slots and both times I pretty much much lost all of my gambling money within 15 minutes. Like I'd put some money in the machine, pull the lever and lose. Every. Single Pull. Until I was out of cash. I never won a single penny either time.

I feel lucky though. Because if I had went up even a little during one of those gambling trips who can say whether or not I would have gotten hooked on the high a lot of gamblers feel? But since I basically flushed a couple hundred bucks down the drain within minutes I got totally turned off by the whole experience.