Pretty much why it's always been smoke being blown with how realtors for ages have been swearing up and down how "Greenville is going to be the next Williamsburg" and all that other nonsense when so many parts of the city are just a complete unnecessary science project to get to very simple point A-B places with how junk the public transit can be.

I hate to be so cynical but I just don't see much ever really changing despite how the state of public transit doesn't need to be so shit.

Damn talk about a hustle I'm surprised that much money was secured even factoring in across multiple levels of schools and all that.

Lotta great sounding stuff on paper and theoreticals whenever people want to make a case for this stuff in schools and go on about esports on a more serious level, but fact of the matter is generally a majority of esports orgs are insanely overvalued and often not even profitable. It's such a tiny fraction of people who go on to actually make anything out of it and generally they're not even the people playing the games.

Even some of the best people playing certain games can barely rake in conventionally good esports and sponsor money, fighting games in general are notorious for not being something that pays awful well even if you win some of the biggest tournaments. A lotta these guys get more from pushing out usual content creator flow or shill lifestyle brand wares.

Definitely worth a go reading this article for insight on this subject. This NYT article is also a good one as well.

No esports aren't going to up and die any time soon but people are getting straight up lied to if they're getting sold this grandiose sales pitch vision that if Little Timmy uses any free extracurricular time playing games during the school day that he'll go on to crush Korea's best at EVO and make mom and dad millionaires and develop all sorts of skills he wouldn't have acquired anywhere else in life.

I like Frankie, not to say they have what you couldn't get in any other place but I never had a bad meal there and I feel it's tough to find a consistently good place in the area.

Exactly, the PATH being a commuter rail first throws a lot of stuff for loops when it's not during that time.

It's not the most convenient and gets a bit annoying when you hit the bad hours and constantly have to anticipate and factor in that your en route time will account for waiting for 35+ mins for the PATH.

And that's not even factoring added time that can be attributed to PATH stations closed/skipped, lines closed, maintenance, accidents etc that can turn waits into a bigger hurdle.

Also if you got friends returning back to different parts of NYC from JC, nobody likes to have things be a science project of having that longer wait that can throw their entire trip for a loop because of how they weren't moving for 40 some odd minutes. Just because the PATH runs up near lines in Manhattan doesn't necessarily mean it is convenient for everyone's route back home when they already got other transfers to worry about.

I used to work deep in Bed Stuy and Ridgewood at off hours from Journal Square and the final leg with the PATH was always the biggest pain point in either direction with stuff because there wasn't really any backup plans in the event something went wrong.

I'm not gonna argue that the MTA is somehow immune to similar issues but when you're trying to get back to or leave Jersey City, your options are severely limited in the event something is taking too much time or went wrong; are you really saving much money when you're defaulting to the 50+ dollar cab ride back home when you just wanna get back across river?

I don't mean this as any disrespect for people's social lives but whenever these discussions on this sub often come up, I'm forever reminded of that one post from a few months back where a majority of people responding said how they pretty much only go into NYC for work things and light socializing(if at all), and it was pretty telling why so many people on here don't think it's that bad because they sparingly ever deal with the PATH when it is at its most inconvenient.

> Maplewood is both in heavy demand, and IMO overrated.

I immediately think of this line from a Chris Gethard special on NJ.

Sake of argument of a good handful of comparative pound for pound examples and associated tradeoffs, Jersey City can be cheaper with things but it's not that much cheaper than many situations in NYC. It doesn't take much to find some extremely lateral setups in Jersey City and parts of NYC.

If you're in a higher tax bracket where the squeeze of the tax man is a bit more noticeable with what you're taking home, than yeah "it's cheaper" but it's not like New Jersey is known for being some magical wonderland people seek out for low taxation.

If a concern is quiet and you have someone going to work in Financial District, then yeah I wouldn't say somewhere like Downtown Jersey City is that bad of ideas.

If there's any stuff I'd say be mindful of, if you have a friend group that is scattered all throughout NYC and you're in JC expect often being the one to be going out to meet up with people and factor in how the PATH can be a total clusterfuck during late hours and weekends. If you say money isn't really a concern, yeah knock yourself out with the more expensive uber rides home if you can find someone willingly to go into NJ but if you lead an active enough social life taking you over creation in NYC, it can get a little old and pricy after awhile.

The PATH on curfew was some extra fucky shit.

Not around the corner but I've gotten Quilmes and some other South American stuff at Total Wine in West Orange and it's one of the few places I can think of that has a pretty big, consistent selection.

Yeah it's just not the same and it's goofy as shit seeing very generic t shirts that are one use away from being threadbare still firmly 10-15 bucks.

I'm also with you Ebay, Mercari, Poshmark are pretty much where I've had the best of luck in recent while and it's infinitely easier to make deals when you see someone sitting with stuff for a long time and you can get it off their hands bundled into other stuff.

A lot of conventionally good standbys throughout the state completely tanked in quality when they generally were reliable even in rise of this sort of madness.

I went to Udelco a little while back and good grief what a sad shell of itself and the firmness over essentially holding out for a pushover sucker rather than sensible more than fair haggling after having enough to work with was just was so incredibly lame.

Barely even that long ago I could stretch $100 there with an absolute haul and a half.

Can't think of anything in NJ(not to say it doesn't exist) but I've definitely caught some super early kickoff sporting things in that hard closing early morning window at some supporter bars in NYC that I think had the technicalities of a social club licensing involved, but the enforcement of things I'm honestly not super sure how it goes.

I just find it comical for some people from a recent flashpan moment they were allegedly in arms over policing, "stay out of people's business", "don't talk to cops, know your rights", "boost and support people", mutual aid, all sorts of supportive language etc to I actually like pineapple on my slice of boot.

I'm with you, there's infinitely bigger fish to fry and any complaint of theoretical dollars lost on people fare hopping will always be small peanuts to endless amounts of money pissed with things like local beat cops crying how they need to play army man, military hardware and all, and the salaries for people playing with their phone and taking a nap in their squad car around Van Vorst Park.

I'm more of a Style Bean fan myself. God I miss Pat Byrne and the Station Dictator Ken at WFMU needs to get Prove It All Night back on the schedule, it's been far too long.

That's the thing, quality of education is likely going to take further blows as brain drain from prospective people who'd go into teaching check out greener pastures.

I know there's ton to wax poetic about when it comes to history of NJ's standing in education and all that but the way the state has gone in terms of opportunity and just the stark cost of living even regardless of how much teachers can get comparatively to elsewhere, it still makes it not exactly the most sexy thing to check out.

Especially if you're conventionally smart in a subject like math or sciences you can virtually go into anything else that values that ability and have a lot of it be worth your while.

A lot of the people I know in teaching atm are completely at the end of their rope ready to bail, or are grinning and bearing it because they grew up with money and the salary isn't entirely the biggest issue or in some cases they got a breadwinner partner making significantly more cash to offset things.

I doubt it is the case due to how finding and even hearing them is kinda tricky although wooded area could make it plausible, but Saw Whet Owls train whistle tooting is a startling unique thing to hear if you’re not familiar with it and near one.

Preach, the glazed over tablet generation just is getting beelined into being weird indoor bubble kids, hell more than half these kids don’t even say Trick or Treat at the door anymore and kinda just blankly stare there awkwardly.

I’m not knocking logistics stuff where Trunk or Treat or a communal party, parade thing makes a lot of sense, but I find it so weird how much has gotten sucked out of a lot of normal ordinary flow of Halloween and trick or treating. It genuinely seems like something that kids don’t even really care about.

Yeah liability is huge in that environment. Not to say everyone with a grievance with school is frivolous suit happy but there are very easy lines to cross that can have things implode.

Someone I know from college successfully sued their high school when they got a drug test forced on them on the suspicion of “they look high”. I think at the time there needed to be protocol to notify parents and some other stuff, and basically the teacher making the claim’s husband is a town cop who doubles as school safety officer and she more or less sicc’d him on the student to intimidate them to take a drug test with all sorts of threats for them refusing until they did just to leave the nurse’s office.

Family pretty much nailed the school.

Even the SAT over the years has gotten piss easier compared to past generations of it when you’d actually get nailed for incorrect answers and the “omit” option was a matter of score preservation.

I could almost half ass be convinced it was intentional to pad numbers and have more kids being eligible for schools that cost more, ultimately feeding the loan beast.

Hell it barely ever happened. I remember being in high school in the immediate post 9/11, we won’t hesitate to call the cops zero tolerance era and virtually every goon dopehead cretin shit heel was there for graduation.

Absolute worst they did to that crowd was give them all the same schedule with the checked out retiring teachers and older hardasses to effectively babysit them regardless of it working or not.

We effectively are due for brain drain and the quality of education tanking,yeah?

It’s wild because I remember going through undergrad with a program that could beeline you to teach in NJ and everyone talked about how it’s so hard to get teaching gig unless your some big shots relative, and now it just seems like something people don’t wanna touch with a ten foot pole.