If you buy a house next to a school so your kids don’t have to commute- they’ll just have to commute once they graduate unless you plan to buy a new house whenever they change schools. If you stay there, that means someone else with kids who are young enough for that school have to commute instead, long after your kids are gone. I wouldn’t want to live near a school either way. Higher incidents of theft, vandalism, property damage, the noise, traffic, but to each their own.

... home as well as vandalism, double parking, people parking in or using your drive way, poor street parking and the worries of damage or theft to your vehicle from strangers cars or students, even acccidentslly like a stray ball or a kid on a bike or scooter fallling into your parked car. The older the kids the higher the chances of crime in general, but living near a school is not advisable by me.

Plus there’s equipment preference. Even if you go to a chain gym, some locations have better equipment, some might not have the equipment you need for your routine at all, and then there’s the matter of waiting to get to use equipment wiping down, hunting weights, etc. there are also privacy concerns. Many people like to focus on a work out and not be bothered, but the rock is pretty good natured so he’s between a rock and a hard place of telling people to buzz off or shaking hands and giving advice, listening to bro stories and such- then the fact that he might not want his workout plan to be public or his weights or reps. It may sound funny but people judge on those things, people get self conscious, and people sometimes take it as a serious secret. Also- if you’re on AAS you don’t want to gear up around strangers, and your work out can help determine if you’re natural or not. So there’s that too.

Pretty much. For sure specifically is oversparyed paint removed from the old spray booths where ford cars were painted in a specific year range. The excess paint would coat surfaces around the booth and dry there. Over many thousands of cars and color changes the paint would form layers over older paint and build up. When removed these cups and chunks not only look neat, but carry some historical significance since there is a cultural and historical weight behind Ford and it’s plants. Polished to a shine and even shaped, people make jewelry and ornaments from it. It’s important to note however that dried paint in general is toxic, but the paints used at that time were even more toxic than modern paint. Much Fordite contains lead and other hazardous materials. Wearing it, especially if it is “sealed” should pose minimal threat, but working with it, or being exposed to any dust etc from compromises Fordite can pose health risks.

I might consider more valid the argument that people in those states should consider stopping tipping while in state, but not that all Americans should not tip at all or shouldn’t tip while in states that care about their service employees. The fact is that what happens on paper and in reality are two different things, and you can only be dinged for tips you report. Is it illegal not to report tips? Yes. Does it happen? Yes. Yes it does, even in states where tips aren’t credited to employers as minimum wage, because of things like taxes and tip pools. So I’m not convinced that people should stop tipping entirely. I usually leave cash tips, or leave a minimal card tip and then most of the tip in cash so that there is a record of a small tip and what happens to the cash isn’t my business.

I don’t have time to research the numbers, so I’ll assume that @bethorien is correct. That said, I still see a flaw in the logic. While it may unltimately force a change, in the meantime if everyone were to stop tipping there would be a real human cost to that. Change is slow and laws to bring about a comparable wage could take years- if they passed, which under the current administration and their position on regulation in business.... while that change is being made over possibly years, real people with homes, lives, kids, will be living not just with sub standard wages but also without the safety new of tips. So while it may ultimately benefit society to do without, we would be asking a lot of people to give up what for many constitutes a significant portion of their wages.

A role written for a male one, but changing the writing and tone and overall story so that a female character organically fits. When they announce a new reboot we often worry it will destroy the original. An old story we love and don’t really see how they would improve on it, what they could change without wrecking it, why it needs to be remade or what is left to say after the original did such a good job. And there’s one or several possible answers. Change the perspective and tell the story from a different view, a female, another race or ethnicity, another age or nationality, change the angle we look at the same story and you have the same story but also brand new. The key being to donot well and to write it from an informed perspective that can show what that view would be like and not just some “gender bend” from someone guessing at what the world looks like to someone else.

The latest Bond or Nolan Batman were more brooding and nihilistic than their past peers. To keep showing the same franchise and genre over and over the perspective needs to change or it stagnates. So in the vein a very real reason to change genders of remade popular franchises is to view a good story people love from another perspective. Sometimes the reboot takes a character and says “what if they were a high school student...” or “what if they were updated for modern archetypes...” so if we say “what would this movie look like from a female perspective...?” There’s nothing wrong with that. I’d be interested to know what a female secret agent- a female bond’s life would be like. Would M sexually coddle her? Would other agents treat her how Bond treated Money Penny? What techniques would she use and how might a woman solve the same problems male Bond faced that might be different? Would she face different problems, have certain advantages? Not just plopping a female character into...

@bethorien- I wouldn’t advocating making any change to a character or franchise just for changes sake. I will say only this of inclusion- It is not bad story telling to change character attributes between installments, especially in stories that don’t have continuity like most of the Bond Franchise. It might be bad story telling to change gender mid film, or mid Trillogy (unless that’s a plot point...) but keep in mind many of these franchises date from when female leads in that type of film we’re rare or unheard of. Bond is based in true stories from when women didn’t even have the rights to have exploits like that in real life. So using an existing franchise to jump start female leads and characters makes sense. Beyond that though- there is often a reason asides inclusion or just for change to switch genders- we have seen many of these characters time and time again. Even this latest bond was a radical departure of Bonds past. There’s a reason for things like gritty reboots and why..

@ewqua- I upvoted. I don’t agree with the down votes but understand some people are narrow minded and lack the courage or vocabulary to defend their point of view in words. I once received quite a dv melee here on another thread for basically saying the same thing about James Bond- that given how many actors played bond, that the only real similarities between each version were “British” and “male” there’s no real reason Bond couldn’t be British and female. There isn’t a real reason to change Bond to a woman, so yeah- only if it made sense to do so would I say go for it, but there’s no reason Bond couldn’t be female.

I would agree, a lot of writers seem to have trouble finding a voice for female characters. They seem to have trouble writing them “honestly” in a way where they are comeplete people, or in a way which their personalities and traits are aligned to other characters in the story. But that’s writing skill and not inherent to the gender as much as it is to the issues and perceptions surrounding it. In essence- if you can remove the pronouns or swap the pronouns and still have a good story, then it shouldn’t really effect wether the story is good or not. Obviously, certain nuances change with pronouns, and stories that rely on certain gender themes, dynamics, or issues this doesn’t apply. The “hook” of To Wong Fu is lost if we have women dressing up as women. Ms. Congeniality may still be good, but becomes more complex a story if we replace the female lead with a male lead trying to go undercover in a female beauty pagent- so hopefully no one takes my words as to say there is no difference.

Laura Croft as a man has already been done. Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone, the serials Indy was inspired by, the librarian... You could also argue other properties. I mean, in many ways she’s Batman without the theme and pulled from one city into the wide world. Plop her sprite into Turok or Far Cry and anyone who hadn’t played before wouldn’t know it wasn’t a regular ranchise title. Does Fem Shep vs he shep change the story of Mass Effect so much? Samus as a male space bounty hunter... would it be so different? If Jason was a giant woman in a hockey mask, if Tom Cruise and Emily blunt switched roles in Edge of Tomorrow? There are nuances of social gender roles one can use in writing to shape emotional responses, but largely gender isn’t so important to the story usually- but inclusion is important to many people.

Bad movies are bad movies. The Rock has had some really good roles, and he’s done some really crap stuff. Crystal Skull would have been bad without the Indiana Jones name, without the characters, without the cast and crew and legendary directors. Lucas made cultural pillars with films like American Graffiti and The original trilogy. But he also made episodes 1-3 and other flops. Bad movies aren’t gender issues. They’re bad movies. You could make an amazing female spy movie, or a terrible one. You can make the Nolan verse or the Keaton bat verse, bat man TAS, or you can make BVS.... each has its own take on the world and characters and style but uses the same material, and each is very different in delivery and reception. The gender isn’t important compared to the writing, acting, directing, and studio support.

Ripley was written as a man and then cast as a woman. Wonder Woman traditionally has the moral complexity of a goldfish and is essentially a rehash of old legends displaced in time- with her hook being the novelty, and the hook of the original legend being the novelty of a “female warrior tribe” at the time it was made. Lara Croft as well as WW and arguably Ripley were not invented as interesting female characters. They were evolved into interesting female characters and only largely so as society evolved as well. What I’m saying is not that I disagree that one shouldn’t make natural female characters, or that the characters named didn’t become or couldn’t be viewed as good examples of strong, interesting characters- I’m just saying that in the examples given are precedent for not only male characters who were turned female and well received for it, but a character with the complexity of Superman (staunch moral compass, near invincibility, etc.) and a character made popular by boobs.

That’s sort of a key factor though isn’t it? As you say, many service employees make under a living wage. For them to make a living wage, things would likely cost more. But if you pay $10 for a meal and $2 tip, or $12 for a meal and $0 tip- you still paid the same. What’s the difference? I’ll tell you. A system that relies on tips to make up the base salary is a system that allows an employer to pay an employee so little that they need charity to survive. So I’m not saying people shouldn’t tip, but I am saying that putting social pressure on people to feel obligated to pay someone’s salary because their boss is too cheap to isn’t a solid replacement for making a business accountable. If you can’t afford to pay your employees, you can’t afford to be in business, that goes for local small business and global chains.

And let’s not forget the Fast and the Furious!