I love this board.
It's like I can hang out with 500 of the smartest people I know....some of who are enjoying the moment with life enhancements; just like me. Talking in real time, commenting on reality. And the trip has gotten a shitload stranger than it was 50 years ago....
Thanks all! You keep me sane. Or, it's a damn cost-effective group therapy.
= new reply since forum marked as read
backatcha
Thanks to MIR and folks willing to self-regulate a discussion board....you get maybe the best place for latest breaking news and opinion/comment.
When you have a whole bunch of people reading various websites and posting info - minute by minute - you have an awesome place to keep real time tabs on what is happening. Really, like no other major media website.
Then, of course, you have Music Appreciation......
one of the most profound posts I've read on DU. 
I also will add "Me, too" because the DU community is the best!
Probably spent the whole night drinking and reading du. Maybe smoking pot, though. I was "Old and In the Way" back in my original manifestation. Because I was listening to "Old and In the Way" by "Old and In the Way" when I did the sign up thing.
What's really fascinating is that I only had 37,540 posts thru 11/8/2016 (13 years). That's when the Russians/GOP shut the site down and forced new names/passwords. Part of their election interference plan, I am sure.
Now, I've got 15,000+ under my current moniker since 12/7/2017 (5 years)....guess I have more opinions to share. 
But what's a few vices among friends?
pretty much every day. backatcha
Have a white Oak I planted in the perfect place, by my log home that I built in 1998. Found it growing off the road up to the house, a splendid specimen....it's now got a ~ 14" butt and it's approx. 45* ft tall - straight and true. Friggen gray squirrels are molesting the tree for acorns. Lots of leaves and branches on the ground, because of these varmints.
Then I think....maybe the squirrels are killing suckers and clusters that need trimming....maybe the squirrels are smarter about oak tree management than I am.
On edit, closer to 40'. I tend to have a liberal measurement when it comes to personnel things. 
Since the appointment of Shrub by SCOTUS, I've been coming here for sanctuary, and to see what the sane people are thinking about the news of the day. I love the Lounge where things are light and goofy. I depend on LBN when the news cycle is crazy, which is always lately. Liberal politics always, but also Music Appreciation, recipes, photography contests, wild science factoids and nature discoveries, animal memes... and great, smart, caring people. What could be better?
Though I wouldn't recognize hardly any of you in the grocery store, I consider you all friends and neighbors--well almost all. In short, I love this place too!! Thanks for being here!
I’m still sorry I didn’t recognize your new handle and growled at you, Old And In The Way. 
I’ve gotten a bit tetchy with newbies in my old age.
Cheers.
New name, same old thinking.
500 of the smartest people? It says there are 267,000 registrations, so you are leaving a whole lot of people off the A List.
Please point out a bullying comment.
And people in "the outside world" as you call it do indeed find the b word and the c word to be offensive when flung at women.
Gotta give you credit here for most creative insult ever though! "The middle school student council president type". That did make me laugh out loud.
Unfortunately middle school is far in my past, and I have no memory of any of those. Were they cruel to you? I'm so sorry.
YOU call ME a bully and then accuse me of trying to intimidate YOU?
Alrighty then. 
I didn’t see any transphobia on that poster’s part, I really don’t see that; he’s making a different argument altogether.
It IS a discussion board. 
what they all said.
I've stopped telling the younger generation be glad you weren't around in the 60's and 70's. That was REAL political and social turmoil. I've taken it all back. We can't hold a candle to these current developments.
Group therapy indeed.
during my first foreign svc assignment; it was an enormous desktop. lol
internet was not in existence back in 87 more or less.
That photo almost looks like the teletype we used to communicate long distance; the dawn of the "chat" that would take over the world.
LOL. we Would send a msg and wait quite sometime and watch, slowly mesmerized by instant letters, then words, then full attempts at real time communication slowly populate lines and long distance ideas on the screen. It certainly obliterated the telegrams and expensive long distance phone calls over the following few years.
on edit: I might add long distance landline phone calls
