I mean, that's one of the downsides to home ownership. If it's not yard work, there's always some sort of maintenance that needs doing.

You can either put it off until it becomes an emergency, pay someone out the ass to do it, or you can find some way to force yourself to do it.

I say this as I'm taking a break from climbing in my attic to replace the AC condensate pump line that I've been putting off for 3 months, so I don't have to keep dumping 5 gallon buckets of water out twice a day. The quote to have a pro do it was $750

I usually let them go for me out of laziness, but I mute them for my family to spare them the exposure. I also regularly discuss the problems with the way things are advertised with my kids so that they won't get sucked in by them. Crazy world. Hard to avoid adverts in the U.S.

Then please give sick pay to EVERY job. My options while I'm sick? Go to work, or be homeless.

But if the virus doesn’t spread the medicine company can’t continue to sell sell sell!

🎵 SOLDIER ON WITH CODRAL SOLDIER ON SOLDIER ON! 🎶

Me: Oh, I don't have a personal driver. I need to focus on the road. I don't even put the radio on. Do you have ANY idea how many idiots are out there on the road looking at their phones, driving into oncoming traffic? You know they did a study and found that drivers who text and drive are actually 3x more dangerous than drunk drivers? It makes sense though. A drunk driver sees the road, but reacts late. A distracted driver isn't even looking. So I gotta watch the road at all times! I even carry a shotgun in the drivers seat just to shoot out their tires. Yeah! That wakes them the fuck up. Once you disable a tire, it's stupidly easy to perform a pitt manuever. Then when they spin out, you pull the driver out of their car at gunpoint, hogtie them with zipties. Load them into the back of your van, and then tickle their feet until they agree to never drive distracted again. Really hammer home the point that is why this is happening to them. Some people use a horn, I use a feather. It's so absurd that they never do it again.

Wait, I got off track. What were we talking about? Oh, right. You want me to start being a distracted driver on my way to work! You wait right here, I'll be right back with a shotgun, a few dozen zip ties, and a feather. Be right back!

There was a story a couple of years ago about corporations trying to get people to work unpaid hours while working from home. The logic, such as it was, went like this: if you live an hour’s commute away from work and you work an 8-hour day, then you’re actually spending 10 hours of your day dedicated to work because the travel time isn’t time you get to do whatever you want in. Therefore, since you’re used to work taking up 10 hours of your time, you should also spend 10 hours working while working from home.

It’s astonishing, really.

Somehow I'm not surprised that the music genre attributable to poor rural white folk is heavy on boot licking, especially considering how many voted for Trump.

I don't think it's propaganda. The music and the ads too are just trying to do a "fellow kids" move, and that's what they're seeing. Because that's what we've become.

It's like seeing a mirror and getting spooked by how disheveled the person in it looks.

How depressing.

Not by me! I work my 40 and the rest goes my family. I'm lucky I can get by with 40.

Met a vet doc that disparaged a vet that leaves at 5: "8-5 and then she's gone. Nobody wants to work any more"

Their breath smells of boot

That isn't even the message, the message is "our workers don't have lives because they are so dedicated".

Its not something to accept, but aspire to.

Old news.

🎵 You know we have more prescription drugs now

Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad

I can't watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases

Like: "Do you ever wake up tired in the mornings?"

Oh my god, I have this! Write this down. Whatever it is, I have it

Half the time I don't even know what the commercial is:

There's people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean

Like: "That is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that?

That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy." 🎶

As relevant as it was 20-years ago.

most upper middle class professionals I have met in my life do not have lives other than work. they take their 2-3 weeks off on expensive international vacations, but have no hobbies and their social life is just drinks with co-workers. Work is their religion, their family, and their entire identity. Your job is who you are and there can be no separation from it.

even if they do have a hobby it's only viewed as valuable in terms of productivity. like working out for more energy/health so you can be a more productive worker. or reading non-fiction to improve your work productivity/knowledge, etc.

they 'have it all' but yet they are deeply unfulfilled and unsatisfied with their lives and think more work and promotions is what is going to fill the hole.

i just went out with a woman this weekend who is a head pharma research scientist. asked her what she does in free time/hobbies and her response was "i don't have time for enjoying life." and she was really proud of this and started condescending to me because I actually enjoy life.

This isn't really what "normalizing" means... no one is "turning to commercials for life advice". OP is talking about commercials projecting an unhealthy impression of what normal looks like.