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[mare]

Thanks! It was a pretty low-key birthday this year. Read some, watched A Real Pain and caught up on Severance and The Pitt and then had Chinese food. It was nice.

I am slowly allowing myself to watch the news again, like you. Things have been so terrible that even without watching the news, I was hearing about it all anyway but then there was the added question of whether or not what I was hearing was real, so I found myself looking it up to check for accuracy. Kind of counterproduct ive. So, now I'm going to allow myself to watch our local news first thing in the morning because even if there was a zombie apocalypse happening the only thing they'd report is how it might affect the Bills season! I am dreading the voting on these cabinet picks. Especially RFK. If he gets in there, people are literally going to die. I'm pretty sure I'll be one of them. I saw an article where he said he didn't believe that diabetics really needed insulin. That all it would take is a change of eating habits and diet. He'd like to do away with it all and it would save Americans billions of dollars. Sure dude.... except that's false! Sure, some diabetics can get themselves off insulin with just eating healthy and exercise but some of us, that's not the case. I know this because despite eating healthy and exercising and losing weight etc...and always being controlled meaning my A1C is 5.98, when they tried to take me off insulin, even with the addition of Monjauro, it didn't work. He doesn't think it ever will. Let alone type 1 people. So yeah, I'm kind of worried about this guy and that these idiots will vote him through because they are scared of retaliation from Trump.

I have tried to rewatch old seasons of Survivor but for some reason, I can't really get into them. I don't know if it's because I've seen it already or what, but it doesn't work. I'm glad it is fun for you though. I'm telling you, you should check out The Traitors on Peacock. It's a stupid mindless reality show and it uses people from all those shows. This season, Boston Rob, Danielle, Crazy Carolyn and Jeremy are on it. The first season Ciri was on it. Most of the other contestants I don't know because they are from the E! shows like the Housewives or Shahs of Sunset, there's a bachelorette on this year as well as Bob from The Big Loser and random Zak Efron's brother lol Alan Cummings is the host and he's awesome! There's a UK version of the show that takes place in the same castle they use for the USA version but the thing I like about the UK one, is they aren't celebrities. I think I would like that better.

It's still snowy here. But it hasn't been bitter cold, thankfully. I'm glad it's gotten better for you!

I'm happy for the boys for getting to perform for the SNL concert. I don't think I'll watch it because it's going to be really long, but I'm sure someone will post their performance. It's always nice to have something to look forward to. For me it's Critics Choice Awards on Friday although, now Kieran's most likely in rehearsals for his play. I'm really hoping he'll still show up for these awards shows. I didn't really think about that until recently. 

[Carter-Orange]

Still no snow here, just the usual rain lol.

Sorry to hear that Trump is taking away people's medication and rights.  Is he actually doing anything good or is it all negative stuff?

I went to Manchester last week with my husband and daughter to see a k-pop group called Ateez.  They were amazing and put on such a good show, it was my first k-pop concert (apart from a day festival in Hyde Park last summer which had a k-pop group called Stray Kids in the line-up).  The last time I was at that venue was to see BSB over two years ago, who were even more amazing lol.  Makes me want the boys to release new music and go on tour again, even though I know the DNA tour lasted years.  I do love a good concert.

[mare]

I was just going to come on here and rant about Trump lol So your answer is No, Steph. He hasn't done one single good thing and I don't plan on that ever happening. So far, he's taken away all rights to trans people. They basically no longer exist within the United States. He's taking it so far that he's going to have prisoners relocated to prisons by the sex they were assigned at birth. He's fired everyone that had him persecuted. He's pulled us out of WHO and the Paris Peace accord. He's gutted USAID (these are the people in charge of humanitarian aid) and now he's dismantling the department of Education. He's basically signed into law that there are no more equal rights. Gotten rid of DEI hirings. They just voted RFK junior through to be in charge of health. He wants to relocate everyone from Gaza so the US can take over and build hotels or something. He gave Elon Musk pretty much permission to come in and look at everyone's private information. It's all very very bad. Oh yeah, and the whole Tariff thing with China, Canada and Mexico. I know I'm missing a ton of things, and he has only been in office for two weeks. Shit show. Phew! I needed to get that off my chest. 

Sounds like you had fun in Manchester. I bet those K pop kids put on a good show. I'm sure BSB will be popping up soon. I would imagine they'll be working on a new album soon enough followed by another marathon long tour. Did you watch the Grammy's? Seems like everyone was pleased with the outcome and the performances. As they were going through the list of performers and winners, I officially felt very old since I only knew maybe a handful of them. LOL My friends Dave and Gil did win one for Best Folk Album so yay for them. They are touring in Australia so weren't there. They are the ones that played at the Oscars a few years back.

I'm going to go attempt to write now, even though I am so angry about everything I want to just scream. I need to reply to some comments first. I have a person who comments after ever chapter I write, and I love that, but I feel like she never seems to quite grasp what's going on in the story. Have either of you ever encountered that? She's the sweetest person in the universe but then always based on what she says, which is usually her idea of solutions to the situations occurring in the story, it's clear that she didn't really follow what happened. I always end up trying to nudge her in the right direction, which is what I have to go do now.

[Carter-Orange]

Sounds like Trump is making big changes then. I wonder what his voters are thinking right now and if they are regretting it.  I bet a lot of them are.

Yeah, the k-pop group did put on a good show.  Just the feel good kind of concert I needed where everyone of all ages, colours, genders etc are all happily singing and dancing.  I love concerts.

I didn't watch the Grammys, but I happened to see just a bit of the news showing some woman with Kanye West who appeared naked.  Why on earth would she do that lol.  Publicity I suppose.  I have no idea who most of these singers are these days as I'm stuck in my 90s boyband bubble with a bit of k-pop thrown in and I'm happy enough with that lol

[RokofAges75]

I'm glad you had a nice, low-key birthday, Mare!  And glad you enjoyed your concert, Steph!  It's funny your mentioned K-pop and the Stray Kids because some of the girls in my class are obsessed with them!  I'd never heard of them until last week when they were telling me about them, so you just reminded me to look up some of their songs.  I get the appeal; they've got some fun, catchy stuff.  I was asking my girls about them and said, "Back in my day, most boybands had 5 members."  These Korean boybands are so big!

It was nice to see 4 out of 5 members of BSB together for their show in Saudi Arabia!  Kinda weird that Kevin is not with them again...  I'm hoping it's just because his team is in the Superbowl again, although I think that's a crappy excuse to back out of a gig, considering his team won the Superbowl the last two years.  But hopefully that's the reason and not something else.  It does seem like the group is working on something, so that's good.  I'm ready for new music and more concerts!

I also did not watch the Grammy's.  I am also stuck in my 90s boyband bubble and haven't cared about most modern music for years.  Every once in awhile, I'll fall in love with a new song or buy a new album (most recently Linkin Park), but mostly I just listen to the same old stuff over and over again LOL.

Currently still comfort-watching old seasons of Survivor.  I'm watching the Millennials vs. Gen X season this week.  It's not as good as Second Chance but still entertaining enough.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to rewatch Survivor, but I've actually rewatched quite a few of the old seasons over the years and enjoyed most of them.  I can't rewatch the super recent ones yet, but it's fun watching the older seasons where I don't remember some of the players and events.  I'll have to give The Traitors a try!

It's also The Pitt night!  I love this show so much and am glad it's getting good reviews and lots of views!  Hopefully it will win some awards and get picked up for another season.

Have you had any luck writing, Mare?  It's a good distraction but hard to do when you're upset.  I'm still writing this damn photo shoot chapter I've literally been working on all year (2025).  It's over 6000 words now, but I'm so slow.  Last weekend was not a very good writing weekend, and I haven't even attempted to write on weeknights, so I've only been writing for 15-20 minutes each morning.

I can relate to the commenter issue.  I very much appreciate Steph and her coherent comments on the events of each chapter because not everyone leaves comments like that LOL.  I'm not sure if there's a language barrier with my other regular commentor or if it's something else, but some of her comments leave me scratching my head.  She likes one of my original characters better than I do, though, so at least there's that.  I'm glad to get any comments at all, but I do miss the kind of feedback people gave here.  Thanks again, Steph, for keeping a piece of that alive for me!

[Carter-Orange]

Some of the k-pop groups do have loads of members, I wonder how they all get a chance to sing!

I've also seen posts with just four members of BSB and wondered where Kevin had got to.  I hope he's not planning on leaving again, or maybe he was just busy with something else.  I'm ready for new music too, it seems so long ago since we last got anything.

I've seen some of your reviews and she doesn't seem to say a lot, maybe it is a language thing.  Where I'm at in the story is reminding me of when Tim was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, and how I didn't know a thing about the illness at the time.  The site seems to be down at the moment, which is a shame as I'm quiet in work and was going to read some more.

I've started watching Grey's Anatomy (I know I'm about 20 years late lol) and really enjoying it so far.  It'll take forever to watch though as I'm watching with Tim and he doesn't like to binge watch stuff like I do.

[mare]

I had no idea that BSB were playing a random gig in Saudi Arabia but I'm sure Kevin wouldn't miss the Super Bowl for that. I'm pretty certain that football is to Kevin what BSB is to their fans. lol Speaking of which, it makes me a little sad that I didn't know about any of this until I saw Rose say something about them being active for two days on a twitter post, which means that BSB is no longer factored into my algorithm on Twitter anymore. Unless nobody is talking about them on there. Regardless, I doubt Kevin is thinking of calling it quits. Especially if this is the only time he's done that. If it becomes a habit, then I'd worry.

A language barrier might make sense for your comment. I give credit to anyone who reads these things not in their native language. It always baffles my mind how great everyone is at that except for Americans. My person is from the US, and I don't get a sense that it's a language barrier. I just think she tends to misinterpret things. A review is a review though. It's nice that I know I can always count on hearing from her one way or the other and I do have a few people who leave nice, detailed reviews. This story has less random people just popping in for one chapter and then I never hear from them again like the other ones did. I tend to have more regulars now, with only an occasional pop in. So maybe that means I'm finally getting a following. Just in time for the fandom to die. I do miss your reviews. Both of you. BSB people in general. I wish the fandom wasn't so all or nothing. I know my BSB friends that are twitter (with the exception of you and Tracy. I know you're not on there anymore Steph) Only ever interact with me if I mention BSB. It's a bummer.

I have noticed how huge those K pop groups are. I wonder why? Maybe it's because of the dancing. I wish I could get into any kind of music again. It just doesn't interest me. Not great when that used to be your life.

My writing is going okay. I feel like I'm finally at the part of the story that I find interesting. Less the gushy stuff and more the action, so I've been managing to get a chapter a week out. I still haven't gotten ahead of myself though. I'm not sure if that's going to happen.

I started watching Gray's Anatomy late too, Steph. I stuck with it for a while but then when they literally ran over George with a bus I stopped watching. lol I am loving The Pitt though. I am also really happy it's getting such great reviews, and I'd love for it to be in the conversation come next awards season. Everything I watch now updates on Thursdays. The Pitt, Severance, Elsbeth, Ghosts and The Traitors. Why always Thursday? The rest of the week...nothing . lol

Okay time to cross your fingers and send positive vibes to Kieran tonight. It's the Critics' Choice awards. The second of the big precursors leading up to the Oscars. Since he won the Golden Globe, more critics are pivoting and making him the favorite to win the Oscar. The more of these things he wins the better! I don't think he'll be at the ceremony though because of his Glengarry rehearsals. Which is a bummer and something I didn't think about for the rest of these things. But he's also in a Super Bowl ad. As a beluga whale for nerd wallet. He's living his best life. lol

[RokofAges75]

Mare, that's sad that BSB posts aren't showing up on your Twitter anymore.  Do you use the For You feed or Following? They should still show up on Following if you're still following them, but if you follow a lot of accounts, they may get lost in all the tweets.  Nick is the only one who really tweets individually anymore; the other guys use Instagram more.  But the group account's posts hint at something being in the works.

As for Kevin, he skipped out on another appearance last fall and never said why.  I can't remember what country it was in now, but it was a similar situation - a random, one-night show on the other side of the world in the middle of their break.  I figured it was because it was during high school football season, and he didn't want to miss Mason's Senior Night or something, but who knows.  Rose made a good point on Twitter last night, which was basically that it's better for Kevin to bow out of these random gigs on the other side of the world if he doesn't want to do them for whatever reason than be forced to do them and get burned out.  It sucks for the fans in those parts of the world to not get to see all five of them, but it would suck more for all of us if he left the group again.

I heard AO3 was down for maintenance earlier.  It's back up now, but it's been having a lot of issues lately.  Hopefully they resolved that during whatever they did to the site today.

My other regular also lives in the US, but I know that doesn't necessarily mean English is her first language.  Sometimes people do just interpret things differently from how the writer intends, which can be both frustrating and enlightening.  But, regardless, it's nice to know there are a few people who are reading and looking forward to my updates.  Mare, I'm glad you're developing a following; that is awesome!  I wish I could get into fanfic for other fandoms, but I'm not even interested in reading fanfic for fandoms I love, let alone ones I don't.  I don't know what it is about BSB, but they're the only ones I've ever read and written about consistently.  I don't even read much BSB fic anymore either, though.

That sucks that most of the old BSB crowd doesn't interact with you much anymore.  That's the hard part of online friendships that are based on one specific interest.  When you lose that common interest, it's easy to lose touch and run out of things to talk about.  I'm glad we have other common interests and things to talk about.  I'm still Facebook friends with a couple of my oldest online friends, both of whom moved on from the fandom like two decades ago.  At least one of them is a Trumper now, and a lot of the stuff she posts makes me cringe, but I can't quite bring myself to unfollow her because social media is literally the only connection I still have to her and that period of my life.

I gave Grey's Anatomy a try a few years ago and got through the first two seasons, mostly because I wanted to watch Jeffrey Dean Morgan's arc after seeing him play Negan on TWD.  I did like his arc, as ridiculous as it was, but I didn't feel compelled to keep watching after that.  Compared to ER, it was just too soapy and unrealistic to me, and I know it only got worse the longer it went on.  I love that The Pitt is on Thursdays because that was always ER night!  It makes my heart happy to have a Thursday night show to look forward to again.  Most of my weekly shows are on Sundays and Wednesdays.

I didn't watch the Critics Choice Awards tonight, but I saw your tweet that Kieran won.  Congrats to him again!  I also saw the video you shared of his beluga Super Bowl ad.  So cute and random!

[mare]

I mostly use the following side of Twitter but occasionally I do the for you. I don't even see tweets by Nick, and I do follow him. I still follow them all, I think. The only one I had stopped following was Brian way back when I found out he was full on MAGA. I just think ever since Musk took over my feed has been weird. I usually have to go seek out tweets of people I know I follow.

Maybe they are working on a new album or planning another fan event like the one they did in the Bahamas. Kevin might feel like they're selling out by playing those private parties. I can see him being morally opposed to that. But like you said, it's good he knows to bow out instead of getting burned out. Who knows he might be the band member who is in and then out then in then out. Duran Duran was like that for a bit, but no matter what, the core 4 always came back together.

I've noticed that about AO3 too. I wonder if they have too many stories going on and are overloading easier. If that's even a thing.

I could never write in another fandom either. I'd really have to be completely all in and hyper focused on it first. It amazes me how easily some of the Succession writers can just hop over to another fandom like that. One of my friends can just jump in and write a Bridgerton fic when that came back and now, they're all jumping to Severance. I would never be able to do that and would not be the slightest bit interested in reading those either. Even though I like Severance, the show is confusing enough to begin with. lol

Friendships in general are so hard, especially when you get older. Finding new friends or keeping old ones as interests wain or you move or quit your job is tough. I've been living here for going on 5 years now and I haven't made one single friend. I rely solely on my long distance and online friends which sometimes is great and sometimes not so much. It would be nice to be able to invite someone over to watch a movie or go out to dinner etc... Not that I can even go anywhere but still. Oh, and speaking of which. My sister took my car to work yesterday because it drives better in the snow and got into an accident. She's okay and so are the people in the other car, but my car was totaled! It could have been a lot worse. I don't drive anymore, and she has her own so there's not that kind of stress, but still. I was going to sell it this year. Now we'll see what happens.

They have to do something about the formatting of the Critics' Choice Awards. They actually not only announced both male and female supporting TV categories at the same time but then had them come up at the same time. It's like they weren't even allowed to have their own moment. They didn't do that for the movie side which seemed really rude, and you could tell how confused the actors were when they went up and got their awards. They had no idea who would speak first or how long they'd have. The speeches were SO boring. They desperately needed Kieran's chaotic energy.

[RokofAges75]

I have definitely noticed more right-wing posts by accounts I don't follow popping up on both Twitter and Facebook, which is super annoying.  I've been tempted to stop using those platforms, but Twitter is still where most of my online/BSB friends are, and FB is where most of my "real life" friends are, and I don't want to feel completely out of the loop.

Brian seems to have learned his lesson from 2020 and hasn't posted anything remotely political in a long time.  I know he probably did vote for Trump again, but as long as he's not posting MAGA crap like his wife used to, I can keep clinging to my belief that he's just conservative and not a full-on, card-carrying cult member.  I just keep wondering where the seemingly sane, decent Republicans are going to draw the line and turn against their fascist leader.  When is enough going to be enough?  If even just a few of them in Congress swallowed their pride or fear or whatever's holding them back and sided with Democrats, so much more could be done.  But I guess they're too afraid of ruining their political careers like the Liz Cheneys and Adam Kinzingers of the party who tried last time around.

There's been a rumor going around for over a year now that BSB's going to do a Millennium 2.0 tour, and now the rumor is that they're doing another Vegas residency at the new Sphere.  The Sphere thing sounds more likely than the Millennium part, but it would be cool if it was both.  Def Leppard did a residency in 2013 where they basically played two concerts in one:  the first setlist was a bunch of deep cuts, followed by an intermission, and then they played their whole Hysteria album in order for the second set.  I would LOVE to see BSB do something like that!  The deep cut thing is what we were all hoping their 30 for 30 concert in Cancun would be.  I hope the announcement is not another fan event like Cancun.  Whatever they're doing, it should be something the whole fandom can enjoy.  I know not everyone can make it to concerts, especially when they're in a different country, but at least a tour or residency offers multiple dates to accommodate more people than one big, expensive event.

I heard AO3 membership has been going up exponentially because fanfic.net is getting old and having a lot of issues too, so it definitely could be that the site is getting overloaded.  If that's the case, I'm concerned about what importing all these other dying archives is going to do to it.  Hopefully they have a plan in place to increase their servers or bandwidth or whatever they need to accommodate more users and data.

Yeah, I wish I was able to jump from fandom to fandom like that, too.  The only way I've been able to write for other fandoms are if I'm doing a crossover with BSB.  Apparently, I still need those boys in the story to be fully invested in it LOL.  Out of curiosity, I looked to see if there were any fanfics for The Pitt yet on AO3.  There are 15 so far! LOL  If I hadn't already done an ER crossover, I could see myself doing one with The Pitt.  But since it's only been 5 years since I finished the ER story, I'm not really itching to write another story like that yet.

You're so right about adult friendships.  It's much harder to make new friends as an adult, especially when you're not working or part of a club or church or something.  Pretty much all of the friends I actually hang out with in real life, aside from BSB trips, are people I work with.  I barely keep in touch with friends from high school and college anymore outside of Facebook.  Everyone just gets busy with their own lives, and it takes effort on both sides to stay in touch.  Being introverted makes it even harder.  I always wish I lived closer to people I know online.  But then, I have a few friends who started out as online friends who only live 2-3 hours away from me, and we still usually only see each other for BSB-related events LOL.

Oh no!  I'm so sorry about your sister's accident and your car.  I'm glad she wasn't hurt!  And that's good that she has her own car, but it sucks that yours was totaled.  I hope you get a nice insurance check.  When my car was totaled a couple years ago, I actually got way more than I was expecting from my insurance company, about 9 grand for a ten-year-old car that, according to Kelly Blue Book, was only worth $3-4k in trade-in value.  Apparently, it was worth more for its scrap metal and parts than it was as a fully functional car LOL.  So, in that respect, I guess it worked out all right for me in the long run, but I still wish it hadn't happened.  It's so stressful dealing with all that.  I was planning to keep driving my car for a few more years without a car payment and then give it to my nephew when he starts driving, but he's out of luck now.

That's really weird how the Critics Choice Awards were given out.  So, were the supporting actors not able to give a speech, or did they just take turns?  Hopefully they do it differently next year.

[mare]

I feel the same way about Twitter and FB and I use them the same way you do. I can talk incessantly about my fandoms on Twitter, but I use FB as a way to keep in touch with everyone else. only a few of you have made the move up to my FB friend's level. lol I haven't seen the political posts on FB as much as I have on Twitter including people I don't follow suddenly popping up for me. I went on my follower's page and noticed Elon and some of those people are following my account. I wonder if it's the same way it was on Myspace where the guy who invented it just friended everyone. I don't see myself leaving either platform and get almost a little anxious when people say they are. I've tried Threads and Bluesky, but I don't understand them.

Glad to hear Brian stopped with the MAGA posts. Did his wife as well? Is Baylee going on American Idol? I think that's something else I saw Rose mention. Can he even do that? Wasn't he signed with a record deal and has already toured the country etc... how is that going to be fair?

Oh, it would be nice if BSB decided on another residency. Sad it always has to be Vegas though. Some venues in NYC also do residencies. They should look into that as well. I agree with you about the whole destination thing. Cruises and vacations are extreme and do exclude a lot of people. It's usually the same people who are always excluded as well. That would be interesting if they did the entire Milennium album from start to finish. If they toured here, I'd pay to go see that.

AO3 was down last night and earlier this morning. Both times I went to answer reviews. I do hope they aren't taking on more than they should be. It would suck for me when I go to update after getting all the stupid HTML codes in there, once I click post it didn't work.

I get jealous that people can seem to jump from fandom to fandom so easily. Like my entire Succession twitter timeline is talking about nothing but Severance and while I do like the show, to me it's just alright, but nothing to get obsessed over. So, while they are all Severance this and Severance that, I'm still over there gushing about Kieran. I mean they will come back probably by Monday but since the last episode aired it's all about that. I'm impressed there's The Pitt fanfic. Did they manage to just focus on ships? Like how on earth? lol

Not working is what really slowed my friendship making down. My entire social life in PA depended on my teacher and music teacher friends.

We'll see what happens with my car. It's a 2016 Verano which isn't a popular car, so that might help me out and it didn't even have 50,000 miles on it because I hated to drive so it was only to and from work. It's been paid up for a while now. My sister takes it out and drives it to work for about a month before switching back to her car just so it doesn't die. It's not in bad condition and has a brand-new battery and a new tire. According to the blue book, it's worth about $5,000 so in my mind I was expecting to get that much or a little more. The good thing for me is I am not dealing with all the insurance crap because I wasn't the one in the accident so it's my sister who has to do the back and forth because I wasn't there. Still annoying.

The Supporting actors were able to give a speech but the first two had no idea what on earth to do. It was one of the guys from Shrinking and the girl was from Hacks and they literally just looked at each other for a second and started talking at the same exact time, which was hilarious, but then she stopped and let him go first and then she went but since all that confusion happened, she like said two words and the music started playing. Then they did the same thing for the supporting roles for drama as well. Since they saw what the two before them did, they were quicker to take turns but still, no other acting category did that. No one at all did. I mean I know they were probably wanting to save time, but it was classless. Do it for the limited series people if you want to do it to anyone. Hopefully they'll work that out. Last year I remembered them announcing them all in one bunch like that, but I think they at least got up one at a time and had their own moment. Awards season is winding down now. Just a few more to go. SAG will be next.

[Carter-Orange]

Sorry to hear about your car Mare, I hope the insurance claim isn't too much of a hassle for you and your sister.

I also know what you mean about making new friends when you get older and you're an introvert.  I've got the same few friends I've had for many years and I don't even get to see them that much these days even though we don't live far from each other.  I talk to people in work but I wouldn't call them friends lol, plus we're only in the office a couple of days a week and work from home the rest of the time.

I also don't really have an interest in reading other fandoms, it's just BSB for me and even then I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to.  I think I used to read a lot during work but these days work is busier so I don't have the chance so much.

[mare]

Still haven't heard about the car. It was towed to a new place since my insurance company doesn't work with the place it ended up initially. I should hear today if they think it's a complete loss or not.

It took a long time to feel like some of my coworkers were friends. I feel like that happens when you can actually go out to dinner with them and talk about other things with only work coming up occasionally. That was my gauge anyway. lol I've been hearing from a lot of my teacher friends lately with all the Trump crap happening. Many of them are very proactive and have been actually taking that step and calling their representative s but since PA is now mostly red, their calls are being ignored. Another one of my teacher friends who has since moved to Savannah Georgia is having the same problem. It sucks to live in the South right now. I don't know if I could've handled living in Nashville if Trump was in office.

[RokofAges75]

Ew, I didn't realize Elon was following everyone on Twitter now.  Creepy.  It does sound like MySpace Tom, but more sinister.  BlueSky is similar enough to Twitter that I don't mind it, but I only have a few friends there, and none of the Boys have moved there yet, so it's not a replacement for Twitter yet.  Maybe someday.  Threads finally has a Following option to filter your feed so it doesn't just show you random content from users you don't follow, so maybe I'll start using it more.

To be fair, Brian never really posted anything full-on MAGA.  His wife did, but she deleted most of her social media accounts or made them private after the backlash in 2020.  I still follow her on Instagram for the occasional Brian photo she posts, but she's never posted much political stuff there.  The worst of it was on FB.  I'm sure she's still as MAGA as ever, but she's learned to keep her ignorant thoughts to herself.  And apparently Baylee deleted his political posts after auditioning for American Idol.  I thought American Idol used to not allow professional recording artists to audition, but they must have changed the rules.  I haven't watched it in years, but apparently, a lot of the people who audition now have released music before; they're just not well-known or successful.  I liked it better when it was all amateurs.  I'll be curious to see how Baylee does.  I have mixed feelings on him auditioning, but at least he'll be able to get some real, hopefully unbiased feedback that will help him grow as an artist.  I think he needed to do something to step out of Brian's shadow and cut the cord from his Mom-ager if he's going to have a real career in music that doesn't just depend on BSB fans.  As much as I love Brian, I haven't bought any of Baylee's music because I'm not into country.  He doesn't have a bad voice, but he's nothing like Brian in his prime.

An NYC residency would be cool!  They probably stick with Vegas because it's convenient for at least 3/5 of them, especially Nick since he lives there.  But it's a short flight from LA for AJ and Kevin, too.  I saw some speculation that, with Nick's ongoing legal drama, a Vegas residency is a better choice than a new album and tour right now.  It keeps him close to home, and there's less risk of cancellations.  As much as I'm ready for new music, I'm still salty about so much of their Christmas album promo getting canceled.  They're probably better off waiting for the next album cycle until the cases are resolved.  I can't wait for that to be over and for Nick to be able to talk openly about what he's been through.  But, anyway, based on the clues they've been posting, it looks very likely that some kind of Millennium 2.0 thing is happening.  Someone posted a leaked link to a Millennium 2.0 double vinyl album that was supposedly listed on Amazon.  The speculation is that one of the discs will be the original album, possibly remastered, and the other will include some new remixes or recordings and unreleased tracks.  If that's true, at least that is something the whole fandom can enjoy, even if they can't make it to Vegas for a show.  And this is all still just rumor at this point.  They're apparently announcing or releasing something tomorrow morning at 8 EST, according to the little teaser video they posted tonight, so we should know more then!

I haven't watched Severance.  Is it related to Succession somehow?  From what I saw of The Pitt fics, the biggest ship so far is Dr. Robby and Dr. Collins, the pregnant doctor.  And there are already a few ER crossovers, of course.  I like the characters but not enough to want to write fanfic about them, unless it was in the context of a BSB crossover.  But some people can write fanfic about literally anything!

I hope you get more than $5000 back for your car!  Sounds like it was in good condition and will hopefully be worth a lot in parts.

I agree with everything you both said about friends and coworkers.  I'm sure working from home makes it even harder to make and stay friends with coworkers, Steph.  I'm lucky in that respect because working in a school feels a lot like going to school.  I eat lunch with the same group of people in the teacher's lounge every day, and I consider them all friends to some extent.  But even within that group, there are smaller groups of us that actually get together outside of school and in the summer to hang out.  Those are my true friends, not just my work friends.  It definitely helps to go out to dinner and have drinks and get to know people outside of work.

I'm glad you have a lot of teacher friends who are anti-Trump, Mare!  We are in the minority in my school because I live in a pretty red part of a blue state.  (Illinois is a blue island in a sea of red because of Chicago.)  I know who I can share my opinions openly with at work and who I should avoid political discussions with.  Thankfully, my two best friends from work are liberal - which is definitely part of the reason we've become good friends.  I'm sure it would suck to be a liberal living in the south.  I hate living among the ignorance that surrounds me, but at least I'm in a blue state that finally (FINALLY!) has a great governor.  Illinois has a bad track record with past governors being corrupt or completely incompetent.  I saw that Trump just pardoned our former governor, Blagojevich, which is interesting because he's a Democrat... but he was also on Celebrity Apprentice, so I guess they're buddies now.  Birds of a feather flock together!

In a bit of good news, I have a snow day tomorrow!  It's supposed to snow all day tomorrow and accumulate up to 7 inches, so they went ahead and called off school tonight, which I so appreciate.  I know 7 inches is nothing by Buffalo standards, but it's more than we've had all winter.

[Carter-Orange]

Yay for a snow day for you! We don't even get 7mm of snow, never mind 7 inches lol

I'm excited to hear what this BSB thing is going to be.  I'd love to hear unreleased songs even though I do have a lot of old unreleased songs already.  If it's a Las Vegas residency then hope everyone able to go has a great time.  I don't know if I'd ever to be able to go, but I can dream lol

Yes, it can be a bit lonely working from home part of the week, but I'm used to it now as done it since Covid times.  At least I can have my music playing while I work.  I do have Teams so can chat to people in work from home.