Blackmoor Vituperative

I have been looking at other places in earnest since early 2016, but have fantasized about it since the early 2000s. Places that have come and gone on my list of potential destinations are Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, the US Virgin Islands, and the Czech Republic (which I suppose is called Czechia now). Nowadays my short list is Nova Scotia (Canada), Portugal, and most recently Estonia. We’ve never actually been to Portugal or Estonia — by the time we became aware of those, our near-future travel plans had already been made (we plan trips at least a year ahead), and then travel ceased to be possible due to the pandemic.

Between the pandemic and the fact that we are far too comfortable in our current jobs (neither of which we could keep if we expatriated), I suspect we may have waited too long to leave. Which is … not sad, exactly. We are well off, and the problems of the USA are at arm’s-length for us. So it seems ungrateful to complain. But I wish we could leave. I don’t want to be here.

Panama is attractive due to its ease of immigration and favourable tax laws, but it’s too hot, too wet, and just as expensive as the USA. We are excluding it from consideration.

Areas of interest

• Boquete, Chiriqui

Pros for Panama

• Easy immigration
  • https://internationalliving.com/countries/panama/visa/
• No taxation of income from outside Panama
  • https://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/country-hub/panama/taxes-in-panama/

Cons for Panama

• Cost of living is very close to that of USA
  • https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Panama/United-States/Cost-of-living
• Homes in Boquete are expensive
  • https://www.casasolution.com/category/rentals/
• Too hot, too much rain.
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~19385/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Panam%C3%A1

More information

• You can’t really trust what International Living says. They don’t outright lie, but they exaggerate the good parts and gloss over the bad parts. Also, they are relentless spammers.
  • https://internationalliving.com/countries/panama/boquete/

Is good news even a thing anymore? Not “making the best of it” news. Not “people staving off doom for one more day” news. Not “here’s some trivia about some stranger’s personal life” news. Not “be thankful things aren’t even worse” news. Actual good news.

That would be nice.

The United States was founded on good intentions, which are continually foiled by 1) racism so entrenched that some people think it’s synonymous with being American, 2) ordinary people’s worship of the ultra-wealthy as our “royalty”, who are rich by divine right, 3) a cultural obsession with warfare, and 4) neo-Puritan hypocrisy of such an intensity that it would be difficult to exaggerate it — no matter how bad you think it is, it’s actually worse. One-third of the USA literally belongs to an apocalyptic death cult which extols lies, hatred, and death as the core of their “morality”.

After several years of consideration (seriously — I started looking into this a little over five years ago), I have decided to exclude Ecuador as a possible retirement destination. It has its appeals, and for the sake of the people who live there, I hope it always will, but for me, the disadvantages are more than I am willing to bear.

Areas of interest

• Cuenca, Olon, Manta
• What is life actually like?
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2019/05/05/retired-expats-in-ecuador-what-lifes-really-like-for-them/?sh=42a36d74150f

Pros for Ecuador

• Low cost of living (minimum budget for 2 adults at something close to $2,400 – $2,600 per month)
  • https://www.netcredit.com/blog/cost-comfortable-retirement-around-world/
  • https://mls-ecuador.com/en/real-estate/beach-houses-for-sale
  • https://vivatropical.com/ecuador/manta-ecuador/
• • Warm weather (too warm?)
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~18307/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Manta
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~19348/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Cuenca
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~18290/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Salinas
• • Beaches, mountains
• • No taxation of income from outside Ecuador
  • https://internationalliving.com/countries/ecuador/taxes/

Cons for Ecuador

• Spanish is the primary language
• Crime (mainly petty crime, like pickpockets) is a thing
  • https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Ecuador.html
• Taking anti-parasite medication every 6 months
  • https://storyteller.travel/antiparasite-amoeba-treatment/
  • https://melibeeglobal.com/blog/2015/07/real-talk-parasites-while-traveling-abroad/
• Lack of clean water
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Ecuador
  • https://storyteller.travel/how-to-drink-the-tap-water-in-cuenca-ecuador/

More information

• https://immiguides.com/immigration-guides/ecuador/
• https://www.ecuadorexplorer.com/html/about_ecuador/immigration-visas.html
• https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-ecuador/
• https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-ecuador/working

It is bad for people to be obeyed too readily. It is corrosive to good manners and a healthy relationship with those around them. When you resist someone with authority, you are looking out for the well being and sanity of that person.

Personally, I think we have too many punctuation symbols. Do we need commas, colons, and semicolons? Do we need three different kinds of dash? If you used a comma instead of a colon or a semicolon, or vice versa (as millions of people routinely do), would anyone be more or less confused about the meaning of the sentence?

My answer is: no, they would not; most people couldn’t tell you the proper usage of a colon vs. a semicolon — or an n-dash vs. an m-dash — if you paid them.

If you are like me (and I know I am), you buy juice mainly to mix it with alcohol. FUN FACT! Mr. & Mrs. T Spicy Bloody Bold & Mary Mix has 19 times as much juice as V8 Splash Berry Blend, and 8 times as much juice as Ocean Spray Cran-Blackberry.

• 95% – Mr. & Mrs. T Spicy Bloody Bold & Mary Mix
• 5% — V8 Splash Berry Blend
• 12% – Ocean Spray Cran-Blackberry

Et tu, Ocean Spray?

On the other hand, Mr & Mrs T Pina Colada Mix is literally just sugar water. “Natural and artificial flavors” comes after “titanium dioxide, potassium sorbate, sodium citrate” in the ingredients. Pineapple juice is not expensive (around $0.06 an ounce). Cream of coconut is not cheap, but it’s not that expensive (around $0.25 an ounce). Mr & Mrs T Pina Colada Mix costs about $0.10 an ounce.

Buying good rum or good vodka and then mixing it with sugar water is OFFENSIVE to me, on a deep and personal level.

The moral of this story is: READ THE LABEL. But if you want me to read them for you, here is what you should buy:

• Mr. & Mrs. T Spicy Bloody Bold & Mary Mix
• V8 Original 100% Vegetable Juice
• V8 Spicy Hot 100% Vegetable Juice
• Juicy Juice 100% Juice, Kiwi Strawberry
• Juicy Juice Mango Juice
• Juicy Juice 100% Strawberry Watermelon Juice
• Juicy Juice 100% Juice, Apple
• Juicy Juice 100% Juice, Tropical
• Juicy Juice 100% Orange Tangerine Juice
• Juicy Juice 100% Berry Juice
• Great Value 100% Lemon Juice
• Realemon 100% Lemon Juice
• Great Value Lime 100% Juice
• Realime 100% Lime Juice
• Libby’s 100% Pineapple Juice
• Great Value Orange 100% Juice
• Simply Orange Pulp Free Orange Juice
• Coco Lopez Real Cream of Coconut

Fun fact! You can make a Christmas ornament out of a $9 Revell Snap Tite Star Wars Tie Interceptor model (link to the model).

1. Assemble the model.
2. Get a generic metal Christmas ornament hook, and one of those extra-long propane lighters for fireplaces, tiki torches, etc.
3. Un-bend the small end of the Christmas ornament hook to make it straight.
4. Heat up the un-bent end of the Christmas ornament hook with the lighter until the metal glows.
5. Push the hot metal straight down into the round part of the Tie Interceptor, but not so far that it comes out of the bottom. There is actually a tiny little circle on top of the space ship to show you where to put the hook!
6. Wait a minute or so for the metal and melted plastic to cool.
7. Hang it on the tree.

It doesn’t light up or make noise, but it is approximately the same size as a Hallmark ornament, and WAY cheaper! It fits right in with our Hallmark Tie Fighter and Darth Vader Tie Fighter ornaments.

P.S. The windows of mine are fogged up because I used crazy glue when I assembled my Tie Interceptor, and the vapours from the cyanoacrylate fogged up the inside of the windows (you have probably seen a similar effect on “CSI” or “Death In Paradise”, where they use crazy glue to reveal fingerprints on things).

A lot of states have a very nearly 50/50 split between reasonable voters across the political spectrum, and Republican death cultists. Who wins an election in most of the USA boils down to a tiny fluctuation in the electorate. There are two significant consequences of this.

First, in places like Texas, where that tiny difference leans ever so slightly in the direction of far-right extremists and would-be fascists, you get state legislators calling for their state to secede (taking with them the nearly 50% of the populace who aren’t overtly delusional death cultists).

Second, in places like Virginia, where that tiny difference leans ever so slightly in the direction of people of good will across the political spectrum, the state is run by well-meaning people, but those people are continually struggling against the nearly 50% of the populace who are death cultists.

Don’t be too proud of the fact that your state veers ever so slightly away from the Republican death cult. In most of the USA, it wouldn’t take much more than a stiff breeze for that to change.

Trump is just a symptom; Republicans are the disease.