Awesome, you got it!

I’ve also added the state programs information to my original comment, so I’m glad you brought it up.

I was kind of blown away when i first found about this and got into a long talk with a ranger who explained it all to me, so I certainly understand your skepticism.

Up until that point, I literally knew nobody who cut down their own Christmas trees, and now a few of my friends also get their own trees every year.

6 foot trees have fairly thin trunks, so all you need is any trail saw, I’ve even used a hatchet, and you’ll harvest the tree in a manner of minutes.

Nope, but I understand your assumptions.

The US has conifers everywhere, and the link above is for a single collective of federally managed public lands, but does not include every other state-run and private organization that sells Christmas tree permits across the US.

If you can’t find yourself in any of the states above, it’s likely you live in a state with state-run Christmas tree programs. Texas, Oklahoma, any state not in the half of the US listed above will have other state resources for Christmas tree permits and many private tree farms, which are maybe 10 dollars more but offer the same service:

Buy a permit, drive there, choose a tree, chop it down, take it home.

The alchemist is a good shout out for being so uniquely forgettable.

So far, other commenters have a pretty clear reason they didn’t like their book.

With the alchemist, we’re all just shrugging into the void left behind by something we’re sure was a disappoiintment.

Haha, jeez i forgot about these.

I think I read the first three? Such a tropey train wreck i actually had fun for the first couple.

But I was well and done after two, I was like well this is just unhealthy now by the second book you can tell childs isn’t paying any attention to plot or character development or anything that would make a story interesting, he was actively shutting my brain down.

it felt like that episode of The boondocks where Huey exclusively watches UPN as a social cognitive experiment.

That’s so funny. I was in somebody’s house and they picked up the alchemist and told me I should read it, and I asked them the same question.

“Is that about the boy who collects pebbles?”

And they told me

“Yea- well, no. I’m not really sure, i can’t remember the specifics, but it was really really good”.

And I was nice about it, but obviously if you cannot remember the main character or the point of the book at all it couldn’t have been a very significant experience for you.

You got it.

I finished it and was like omigod at least nobody I ever come across with the same morbid curiosity has to read this now.

Only way I can look at reading that book not being a complete waste of time.

This is exactly what happened to me. I was reading it for a while like okay, I guess this is kind of fun, and then a third of the way through I thought “oh wait, this is just kind of boring”.

Is that the one where the boy has a bag of pebbles?

Paper factory or something?

It is extremely babble-minded and not at all worth reading or deconstructing.

I read it in the mindset of your first question.

Turns out, any argument you can think up in 2 seconds against bigotry is going to be more insightful and well-founded than a rebuttal against nascent nazi scribblings.

Nope, centrally located because the whole point of the program is sustainably harvested trees accessible to civilians.

You can check the linked locations above.

Heck yea! A satisfying quest all around.

Real f’sure.

A lot of states sell Christmas tree permits every year, so for 5-10 bucks plus gas I can harvest my own tree(s) sustainably.

It’s rad.

If you can’t find yourself in any of the states above, it’s likely you live in a state with state-run Christmas tree programs. Texas, Oklahoma, any state not in the half of the US listed above will have other state resources for Christmas tree permits and many private tree farms, which are maybe 10 dollars more but offer the same service:

Buy a permit, drive there, choose a tree, chop it down, take it home.

To be a catty bitch: oh no shit?

The comments by Americans recently recognizing their shitty government and issuing sincere warnings to people who have been aware of the American peril for decades reminds me of student drivers earnestly explaining how important turn signals work to their driving instructors.

How recently did you learn not to trust the US government that you think it is news to anyone?

They’re asking where you report fraud.

The FTC is where you report fraud.

FTC

Report page

Rarely as a kid, but I pushed for adult discussions when I got older because otherwise I would never talk to them and it was clear they wanted to talk to me.

They only wanted to talk about inconsequential things, which is boring so no thanks.

So whenever I talked to my mom or dad after like 25 or something, I resolved to only talk about things I was actually interested in, and to cut short inconsequential conversations and steer back to interesting topics, things I normally didn’t talk to my parents about (drugs, relationships, philosophy), and eventually one topic or another got their attention (my mom told me about smoking pot in high school), and I continue trying to be as honest as I could with them because I don’t want a relationship with someone comprised entirely of small talk, but I don’t want to ignore my parents either.

I definitely think there’s a correlation between how you’re brought up and your relationship with your parents now, my parents implicitly taught me not to bring up consequential life topics to them as a child, and I had to recognize and actively fight against that terrible lesson as an adult in order to have any sort of mature, human relationship with either of them.