If you do not like the things we approve of, we suggest you revisit your stance. You are still allowed to like and/or engage in the things we dis-approve of, you are just wrong. – Eds.
The Toast Approves of the Following Things:
1. Taran Wanderer.
2. Taran Killam.
3. The new commercials with the “lazy phone” guy.
4. Dear Prudie.
5. Tea with milk.
The Toast Disapproves of the Following Things:
1. Robert Downey, Jr.
2. “It is what it is.”
3. Not owning a TV for reasons other than poverty.
4. People who say “I would just never forgive myself” about things happening to other people’s children.
5. The phrase but not the concept of “self-care.”
Tags: business, meta, official toast stances, stirring the people up, whimsically held positions
Taran Killam’s arms are my favorite new SNL cast member.
How dare you disapprove of my future second husband. No, you’re probably right. How do you feel about Jason Statham (my future third husband)?
I feel strongly that watching him, the Rock, and Vin Diesel just barely not make out in the next Fast and Furious film is going to be _excellently bad cinema_.
The barely-latent homoeroticism is my favourite thing about the F&F movies, closely followed by the ridiculous stunts and soundtracks. Also I want a ride or die tattoo. A ride or die temporary tattoo would suffice. Also I may possibly try to do burnouts in my car every time I watch a F&F movie. Also I love everything about them and please never take this franchise away from me.
Yeah I am not going to be able to contain myself.
I feel strongly that an Expendables/Fast and the Furious crossover film with Jason Statham as the glue would make me expire of happiness.
Fast and Expendable! Expendable and Furious!
This is why you and I get each other, Bergie. This is why.
I probably wouldn’t want to marry either of them, but I would definitely make out with both dudes.
Instead of self care…
– auto-solicitude
– ego devotion
– soul friendship
Treating Yo’Self
For the gamer nerds among us: Self-heal?
we just call that “solo buffing”
Auto-solicitude sounds downright filthy. I approve.
😉
I thought so too…
Taran Wanderer was my favorite of the five. I read it at exactly the right time in my life for it to have maximum impact.
Can we have a Welsh mythology appreciation day, Toastesses?
ASDF;LKAJSDF;ALKSJDF!!!! (as the saying goes.)
sdfjkdsngnasnfkamsfm
(aka mte)
Fancy a cwtch, lady?
I’m sorry, but Robert Downey Jr will forever own a tiny smirking section of my heart. That is how it is.
come on Terry Crabtree bein’ all cute with tiny James Leer are you kidding me ugh my high school self is so offended.
I have said it before and I will say it again: the only reason I suffer that wise-cracking goatee to live is because of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Val Kilmer CARRIED him in that movie.
The heart wants what it wants, Mallory. At least we can agree on Captain America.
ugh that is the best movie. but c’mon admit he wears the perfect 3/4 sleeve length in the Avenger/Iron Man movies. ahhhhh forearms.
Also goatees are awesome when wielded correctly because they create strong chins/jawlines where there may possibly be none.
DEM BLACKSMITHING ARMS. mmm, mmm, mmm.
I don’t know. Robert Downey Jr is one of the few people I’ve ever seen who can have a goatee without looking like a rapist. Full beard or go home, I say. No, seriously, please go home. Please take that unfortunate facial hair far away from me.
You just made Robert Downey Jnr Feel badly.
I disagree re: lazy cell phone guy commercials, but I do love Prudie dearly. An excerpt demonstrating why:
“I’m finding it pretty hard to believe that in the absence of hand-loomed organic cotton onesies, or locally sourced kale smoothies, that your nieces and nephews turned into robust, productive people.”
Here be the link, go off and read!
OMG THAT FIRST LETTER.
YES x 10. Love, someone who is drinking tea with milk right now.
TWO people who are drinking tea with milk right now.
Taran Killam is a treasure. I have to ask, though, are we approving of Dear Prudie as a forum for ridiculous (and probably fake) letters? Because her advice is often terrible and slut-shaming, and she’s really weird about alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading her column, but I don’t think she’s a good source of advice.
Also anti-cohabitation before marriage, which: what
No, she’s not anti-cohabitation before marriage- she’s anti-cohabitation without talking about expectations first (which I mostly agree with- I wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of moving in with my beau only to find out he wasn’t seeing things long term). She’s also way into sex before marriage.
Agreed. I don’t even it find it fun to hate-read her column, I just go straight to Carolyn Hax.
Carolyn Hax is the greatest. THE GREATEST.
Yeah, she is, but the stupid WaPo kiboshes my binge reads.
Tea with milk? Dear Prudie?
It’s like I don’t even know you people.
Oh my God, how do you have such self-control that you can look away? Every time Dear Prudie is up, an alert just goes off in MY BONES and I get to go rubberneck at dudes who are mad that their cousin looked at a tree nut during their dad’s fifth wedding. IT’S TREMENDOUS.
Also, I like tea without milk, too, but Nicole only likes tea with milk, so we split the difference.
Oh my god, the whole thing just makes me so deeply uncomfortable. I hate watching people make asses of themselves in public (and I am including good ol’ teetotaling, slut-shaming Prudie in this assessment). I get overwhelmed with secondhand embarrassment and end up walking around in tight little circles, shaking my hands and going “ugh ugh augh ugh ugh”. Incidentally, this is why I can never get into most reality shows.
(And I will confess that I haven’t really tried tea with milk, so maybe I might like it.)
Aw, lil buddy! Okay, don’t read it, I don’t like to think of you in a sad embarrassed walk. Come over and I’ll make you normal tea and we’ll read something you like.
YAAAYY. Can we read historical LGBT romantic fiction? Because that is my jam. (And I would love recs, if anyone has them.)
You’ve read Sarah Waters right? Because she fits the bill completely. And with titles like Tipping the Velvet and The Fingersmith, you know you’re in for a good time.
certain kinds of tea work better with milk: mostly blends for the English market. But plenty of others don’t work as well!
Tea with milk 4 LYFE
I didn’t even like hot tea until I had it with milk for the first time. It was like the heavens opened.
How ELSE would one drink tea in the morning?
One wouldn’t.
I don’t know if it counts as poverty so much as that I’d rather spend my money on fancy tights and octopus jewelry.
In my case it’s unicorn jewellery.
The lazy phone’s name is TJ Miller and he is hilars.
YOU FINISH SAYING THAT WORD
Nevs.
1) I hope that Dear Prudie is of the “so bad it’s good” variety, because that woman makes the temperance movement seem like raging libertarians.
2) Robert Downey Jr. told me my daughter was cute (Exact quote: “Cute kid. Good job!”) so he is on my Approve list FOREVER.
Come on over to my place for Avengers outtakes and cocktails?
No, you’re coming here for CA: Winter Soldier with Anachronistique and me, remember?
aw yiss. brb, checking Amtrak fares for April 3
How does The Toast feel about ‘so it goes’, which is a similar aphorism but a thousand times better?
It made it into a Billy Joel song. It stays.
Let’s not forget Nick Lowe in this thread about songs that prominently feature the expression “so it goes.” Like, does an opening lyric get better than, “I remember one night the kid cut off his right arm”?
I think Kurt Vonnegut appropriated it, so it’s good in my book.
And Linda Ellerbee
If The Toast is anti-Vonnegut, I’m packing up my toys and going home.
Robert Downey Jr is one of three actors whose movies my dad doesn’t fall asleep watching- for that incredible high-heeled goateed bitchcraft, I am his and he is mine. Also Wonder Boys. Also KKBB. Also Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Jude Law’s Mustache Seriously It Shouldn’t Work but It Does DAMN YOU JUDE LAW.
also I wait in joyful hope that one day Gwyneth Paltrow will let someone photograph her cradling RDJ like an infant in her incredible goop arms because I know this happens literally every second they’re together.
wonder boys FOREVER michael chabon be damned.
Jude Law is the ONLY person I know of who looks better with a mustache-with-no-beard than without. Damn You Jude Law indeed.
HOW DOES HE DO IT
I cannot believe that “we’ll have to agree to disagree” didn’t make the Disapprove list. I suppose “it is what it is” will have to suffice.
Well, this is only Volume One of Official Toast Stances.
What if I don’t own a TV because I watch all my TV on the internet, and it seems silly to pay for a second screen that I can’t even take in my room? But I still watch a lot of TV?
It doesn’t matter, though, because my love of Robert Downey Jr and the amount that I say “self-care” have already disqualified me.
It’s ok because you’d never proclaim “*I* never watch television” in a sanctimonious manner at a dinner party.
DOES A LAPTOP COUNT AS A TV? (asking for a friend)
yes! This is me as well. Also the thing about how cable is really freaking expensive. Why is cable so expensive?
But I’ve watched at least the first episode of pretty much every show on netflix so I think I’m ok.
Yeah, I don’t have cable because it is insanely expensive, but I do have an antenna! There’s all sorts of strange channels to be picked up with an atenna FOR FREE. My gentleman and I watch a lot of PBS, which is random and fascinating. Nature docs, Antiques Roadshow, musical performances. On Saturday night, we watched a documentary on piano repair, and then one on bodybuilders in Afghanistan.
I watch tv almost exclusively on my tablet while playing on my computer at my desk. We have a tv, but it only ever gets used for movies that my husband and I are watching together, which is pretty rare.
He is totally one of those “I don’t watch tv” people though and makes fun of me whenever I watch Grey’s Anatomy or Supernatural or anything that is both silly and awesome.
I basically only have a TV so that I can plug my laptop into it and watch my downloaded TV shows on a bigger screen.
Ok, that does sound great. Maaaybe a tv purchase is in my future.
Oh, Prudie. She’s so weird about sex and alcohol! To the point that if someone asks her a question barely tangentially regarding a sexual thing she will focus with epic tunnelvision on the sex part, neglecting the rest of the question altogether! I mean, otherwise her column is fun, and she has perfected the polite but concise shutdown-of-nonsense, but man.
Whenever people write in about specific sex or alcohol questions, they always include the caveat, “I know what you think about sex/alcohol, but…” Like, why are you even writing in to Prudie if you know what she’s going to say. So entertaining.
“It is what it is” = The Worst Phrase. IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING.
De-personalized statement of G-d’s identity?
I have been known to yell “THAT TELLS ME NOTHING” when anyone says that to me. I wish I could like your comment every time someone says that.
I think Taran Killam needs to be under strict regulation, for every hilarious “Boy Dance Party” there is an equally un-hilarious “glice”/”chun” sketch where he screams and mugs.
I like you.
I think that this is the curse of SNL, where all of the comedy is written in a 16 hour fever dream. I predict a long and wonderful post-SNL career for him.
True. Maybe he’s the Boy Kristen Wiig, who is weirdly sometimes better in movies than at sketch comedy even though she has the skill set to be great at sketch comedy.
The Toast approves of tea with milk; therefore, I approve of The Toast. The beverage of champions, etc.
*Watches Iron Man 3 on the computer monitor which is her household’s TV.*
I watch all my TV on the internet or Netflix BUT ALSO DO IT ON MY TV, SUCKAS.
Thank you for telling me about the lazy phone commercials. Love.
How do you all feel about the phrase “mistakes were made”? It’s such a weaselly phrase to acknowledge a fucked up situation while denying fault, but I still love it from the days when I’d accidentally kill myself by falling off a tall building or accidentally throwing a grenade at myself in Call of Duty.
Passive voice is unacceptable. Kill everyone who uses it.
I love that phrase, if for no other reason than because it gave us this marvel.
Ugh, I hate how Prudie spends half of her time lecturing people on how they shouldn’t have gotten into this predicament in the first place. Yes, Prudie, they know that NOW. Buuut the letters are so batshit and the commenters so delightful that I have lost many minutes of my life reading her.
I think it’s also worth noting that Cobie Smulders married Taran Killam, so that’s just another reason to approve of him.
I want to eat Cobie Smulders so that I might become her.
That’s an excellent excuse.
So say we all.
True Story: I went to the Avengers premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival, and the two of them were there together, and they were the most delightful individuals ever. Cobie Smulders seemed genuinely delighted to be there, and then she had to go do movie press things, and Taran Killam just hung out with fans and chatted and was a sweet friendly person. I wanted to go eat bad takeout and watch ridiculous movies with them both.
Complacency: it is what it is.
I think I might need to stop reading The Toast, as clearly our perspectives are simply far too different.
I’ve not heard of the first three things you approve of and think one of the last two is vile. And I like Robert Downey, Jr. (between him and Johnny Depp in the race for ‘most acts like he’s actually still in his movie when out in public’, he’s by far the lesser annoyance) and I don’t own a TV because it’s easy enough to watch most things on the internet so I haven’t bothered replacing mine in the year or so since it broke.
“I would never forgive myself” and also people who reflexively judge parents who leave their children in hot cars as abusive monsters. IT’S LIKE NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD READ THAT HORRIBLE WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE.
“It is what it is” as a catchphrase or does the Toast also dislike the concept in general and extend it to “the thing itself”/objectivism/Willliam Carlos Williams? (Because fuck that wheelbarrow and those stolen plums)
Relevant: http://the-toast.net/2013/09/11/texts-from-willia…
The vast majority of people I know who loudly and at length preach about how THEY don’t watch TV/their KIDS don’t watch TV watch way more televisions shows than I do, but they do so on their expensive laptops or tablets instead of on their ginormous ten year old TV sets they found in the alley (me). There’s this huge class element there, that because they can watch shows/movies on an expensive portable device it’s OK but people who watch an actual TV are everything that’s wrong with society.
This is very, very true.
Back in the day parents smugly did this, but instead of just letting their kids watch TV on pricey tablets, they let them watch videos of episodes of TV shows. Somehow watching videos of Barney and Veggie Tales and all manner of Nick shows was so much better than watching them on TV. Other than avoiding the commercials, I’m not sure how it was so much more highbrow.
You underestimate how weird some parents can be about avoiding commercials being seen by their children. 🙁
Can we use the word “Toastocracy”?
While I’m here for most of this (and currently drinking tea with milk), I am mostly here for TARAN WANDERER!!! The entire Prydain Chronicles needs more love, but damn if Taran Wanderer doesn’t strike a deep chord within my angsty soul.
Often my tv is on as I watch shows on my laptop. o_O
I cannot abide by milk in tea or anywhere else for that matter. But I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds Robert Downey Jr. to be absolutely insufferable. He’s the king of all man-children.
come sit by me and we shall drink milk-free everything together.
this thread is so old but i just found it and you sir or madam have made me realize something: RDJ is an insufferable man-child, and that’s actually what I like about him. my brain linked this with some tumblr-person’s rant about how BBC!Sherlock is a terrible person and a bad representation because he’s an emotionally immature jerk and Canon!Holmes wasn’t, and came up with the conclusion that that’s part of what I like about him, too.
I actually prefer men who aren’t full of grown up type feelings, because if they’re decent people otherwise, they’re that much less likely to be upset by the fact that I’m, well, kind of emotionally flat myself. I mean, I can and do feel love and caring and so on, but I’ve had bad experiences with exes that ended in ‘why aren’t you crying about this? why are you so cold?’ and I am NOT doing that one again. My partner, a man who once said, “I’m mature enough to accept how fundamentally immature I am”, is someone that doesn’t ever expect demonstrative shows of emotion, and THANK GOD. RDJ and Sherlock would, if you were crying, just get out of the way and let you get on with it. A lot of people would find that cold and uncaring, but for me that’s exactly what I want and need.
(And I suppose it doesn’t hurt that I want to Make Out With Their Faces.)
My old boss used to say “it is what it is”, whenever he didn’t want to deal with conflict. Also, he used to give self-help books as gifts, which is THE WORST.
How to be Passive Aggressive
1. Use meaningless aphorisms to deflect responsibility.
2. Give self-help books as gifts.
I adore milk-with-tea, but I do have to say that my ex-husband once tried lemon ginger tea… with milk. It took me weeks to even think about having lemon ginger tea again, since the milk CURDLED.
I use the phrase “it is what it is” but in my line of work it winds up fitting a lot, but it even annoys me when I say it!
Ugh. I remember well the first time I tried to put milk in fruit tea. Always a no-go.
Are we mad at RDJ now? I didn’t know. I’ll adjust my feelings accordingly!
Taran Wanderer is the best. The whole series is the best, but that one especially.
Taran Wanderer!!!! “Insolent pig boy” is still my favorite insult for my brother.
Remember when Sam Taylor Wood used Robert Downy Jr. in her Pietà? Good times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4PjMuIhwdA
I will never get over the Dear Prudie column where a writer was concerned about her 22-year-old sister’s toddler being in a house with a pitbull. Prudie responded “Well if your sister had a baby at 20, she obviously lacks good judgment.”
Besides being unrelated to the question, it isn’t even like 20 years old is shockingly young to be a mother. Come on!
(Plus what is up with those video columns? Who even watches those?)
Here’s my history as a sometimes-not-tv-owning person, please don’t judge me fellow toasties because I adore this website and its lovely commenters.
My life to 18: was pre-internet and I lived in a regional area so I watched tv as much as possible.
18-26 Didn’t bother owning a tv as lived in uni residences / sharehouses and didn’t have time to watch much as discovered going out in the evenings and working fulltime.
27-28 Lived with flatmates who owned massive screen tvs and watched them five hours a night – all the shows I wasn’t into. I was halfway through a degree I was studying part time (while working full time) so I gave up watching tv (also cooking more than once a week). Not bragging, just that’s what I was doing.
29 Moved out on my own, tv-less for four months until my friend’s brother gave me his old tv. No, I didn’t watch tv on my laptop in that time. Sometimes I just don’t watch tv. I don’t really find it fun on my own.
Now: I watch some shows with my partner because he love love loves film and tv and he chooses really good shows (including ones he thinks are my taste) so I never have to think about it. I prefer watching shows with someone.
I’m getting the sense that the tv-thing is on the list because people who like watching tv or lots of it feel judged, but I feel judged right back, and guyssss I don’t care if other people watch tv, go for your lives, I just don’t watch it a lot myself. I have lost count of the number of times that people have excitedly asked me ‘Did you watch X last night’ and then I get a weird look when I say ‘no’. That’s not very fun or polite 🙁
Can The Toast approve of people who read lots next time? Lots of Georgette Heyer? I would love that!
Is cream or half-n-half an acceptable milk substitute vis-à-vis tea? My friend and I have debated this thoroughly, with both sides still firmly entrenched in their opinions.
If no whole milk is available.
Hey, I just wanted to point out 2 typos in your post. You’ve put “tea with milk” in the approve list and RDJ in the disapprove list. It’s an easy error, happens all the time, but please do switch them so that they’re where they both belong, lest people become confused. I mean disapproving of RDJ, fine, not too many people will suffer, but if a single unfortunate soul consumes tea with milk as a result of this obviously accidental error on your part, that would be simply horrible.
Why can we not make up a phrase that has a similar meaning but sounds like an interesting idiom? I propose "Well, the cat *will* eat the banana gravy." (I mean, that's just off the top of my head. I'm open to suggestions.)
Ugh. I remember well the first time I tried to put milk in fruit tea. Always a no-go.
can you please explain your thoughts on RDJ in greater detail? do you mean disapprove as in you think he is a bad actor/annoying/overrated? you hated iron man (1,2,3)? you think he butchered ACD’s holmes? you are mad at him for stealing jude law’s heart forever? you think he looks terrible with the iron man facial hair but incredibly strange when he is clean-shaven? you are mad that because of his awkward shortness pepper potts wasn’t allowed to wear her fantastic heels and had to wander around barefoot in her only scene in the avengers? tell me more!!
See, that's the entire problem, IMO, with the phrase. Just because you don't want to label something doesn't mean it can't be described. My roommate had a girl pining after him for months, and when she would press him to tell her how he felt about her or where their relationship was going, he would only reply, "It is what it is." Begging the question, of course, "Yeah, but what IS IT?" This led to her getting more emotional and confused until he finally got up the nerve to tell her that his translation of "it is what it is" was just friends, at which point they ceased to be friends anymore.
Any time "it is what it is" could be used, there is always a more precise and helpful phrase that could be used instead.