You know you want to be in my bed. I do not mean that in a sexual sense, though I am VERY ALLURING (also I am sick, which drives lovers WILD.)
It’s around 10 a.m. in Ridley, Pennsylvania, at the local Wawa. The morning coffee rush has just ended at the convenience store, leaving only a handful of customers lingering during the calm before the storm of lunchtime hoagies.
“Are you interviewing people about Wawa?” a customer named Ferrenc Rozsa approaches me. “You know, I wrote a song about Wawa.” He quickly retreats to his car and then back into the store with a country tune blasting through the speakers of his iPhone.
anyone want to walk a turtle?
TNC is getting us all amped-up for Black Panther:
Despite the difference in style and practice of storytelling, my approach to comic books ultimately differs little from my approach to journalism. In both forms, I am trying to answer a question. In my work for The Atlantic I have, for some time, been asking a particular question: Can a society part with, and triumph over, the very plunder that made it possible? In Black Panther there is a simpler question: Can a good man be a king, and would an advanced society tolerate a monarch? Research is crucial in both cases. The Black Panther I offer pulls from the archives of Marvel and the character’s own long history. But it also pulls from the very real history of society—from the pre-colonial era of Africa, the peasant rebellions that wracked Europe toward the end of the Middle Ages, the American Civil War, the Arab Spring, and the rise of isis.
This is an old Captain Awkward piece on managing your depression at work, but I’ve recommended it to people a bunch:
Depression is a big fat jerk. It lies to you all the time. Here are some of the lies it has told me:
Jerkbrain Lie: Organized people keep their shit together (house clean, wardrobe looking sharp, desk immaculate, bills paid on time, go to the gym regularly, floss) without expending a lot of effort. It’s only hard for you to do these things because you are lazy and stupid.
Truth: Organized people are good at taking a little time each day to put their lives in order. It only looks effortless to you – they actually put time and effort into breaking these tasks down into small, manageable routines instead of letting them pile up to the point that they actually are difficult.
Jerkbrain Lie: Mistakes are real and count in a way that your successes aren’t real and don’t count.
This dragon is really hard for me to slay, personally. I suffer from a lot of perfectionism, black & white thinking, and it’s really hard for me to recover from a mistake. Since my brain is a jerk, almost anything can be a mistake for purposes of this exercise. “Ran out of laundry quarters without realizing, now bank is closed” = “CAN’T YOU EVEN HANDLE THE SIMPLEST TAKS, JENNIFER?” Depression interferes with self-respect by making all mistakes appear equal and irrevocable, part of the neverending and totally boring and self-centered story of how terrible I am.
Truth: Everyone messes up. A mistake does not have to derail your whole life or your whole day. When you make an honest mistake (i.e., something that is not a deliberate attempt to harm or a careless disregard for the safety and well-being of others that causes harm), stop and sit with it for a few minutes. Was there something you could have done differently? Can you promise to try harder to do that next time? Does some amends or apology need to be made? Own up, do your best to amend/correct, resolve to do better, and then let it go.
Jerkbrain Lie: Feeling depressed (lazy, horrible, avoidant) means that you can’t (get to work on time, complete work tasks, do writing that you need or want to do, do housework).
Jerkbrain Closely Related Lie: You will do all of that routine boring plant maintenance work when your mood improves! But now, when you are feeling so bad, time to go back to sleep or hit “Play next episode….”
Although doctors had supported better sanitation to improve public health and curb major epidemics, companies now exploited this authority, using it to vilify normal bodily functions, like sweating. Early in the 20th century, a Cincinnati surgeon wanted his hands sweat-free while operating, so he invented an antiperspirant called Odo-Ro-No. In 1912, his daughter Edna Murphey hired an ad agency to boost the company’s sales, and their first successful ad positioned excessive sweating as a medical disorder with a doctor’s endorsement of Odo-Ro-No. A few years later, the company tried a new tack: Convincing self-conscious women that their body odor (which it dubbed “B.O.” for short) was a problem nobody would directly tell them about.
Odo-Ro-No helped launch a trend of advertising-by-fear, sometimes known as “whisper copy,” which focused on gossip around topics considered impolite to address in public. Similar campaigns were soon waged against every imaginable imperfection, whether it was flawed makeup, gray hair, torn stockings, acne, underarm hair, bad breath (strictly using the clinical-sounding term “halitosis,” so as not to offend), or the ultimate—bad “feminine hygiene.” To describe the “life-destroying” impact of bad breath, an oral antiseptic brand called Listerine (after Dr. Lister) coined the ubiquitous phrase, “Often a bridesmaid, but never a bride.”
Any Toastie translators looking for a cool opportunity?
ALTA is delighted to announce the establishment of the annual Peter K. Jansen Memorial Travel Fellowship, beginning with the 2016 ALTA Travel Fellowship year. The Jansen Fellowship will be preferentially awarded to an emerging translator of color or a translator working from an underrepresented diaspora or stateless language.
The $1,000 fellowship will help cover the costs of airfare, hotel, and travel to the 2016 ALTA conference, ALTA39: Translation & Crossings.
Deadline for applications is April 8, 2016.
FKA twigs doesn’t think people have any clue what she’s doing, and she may be right:
In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, FKA twigs expressed a frustration with critics’ tendency at the time to sort her music along with artists like Kelela and Miguel in the vague genre known as “alt-R&B.” She says when she first released music and nobody knew what she looked like, they considered her genre-less. When her pictures came out, suddenly the mixed-race artist became an “R&B” singer. “I share certain sonic threads with classical music; my song ‘Preface’ is like a hymn. So let’s talk about that,” Barnett says. “If I was white and blonde and said I went to church all the time, you’d be talking about the ’choral aspect’. But you’re not talking about that because I’m a mixed-race girl from south London.”
I love weirdos in fashion, and Isaac Mizrahi is no exception:
When his father bought him a sewing machine at age 10, Mizrahi started making puppets. He conceived elaborate stories and began a small puppeteering business, performing at birthday parties to earn money. But his creativity wasn’t celebrated within his insular community. Mizrahi says the faculty at Yeshivah of Flatbush, the Orthodox Jewish school he attended, was less than thrilled with his enterprise, and as a result, he often clashed with authority. His teachers preferred he agonize over Talmudic interpretations, but Mizrahi was far more interested in doodling sketches in the margins of his Hebrew books.
“The puppets themselves were a conflict because at Yeshivah, we would talk like this was idol-making,” he says. “But any sort of art was looked down upon, so already I was kind of behind the eight-ball. It was this really bipolar existence because I didn’t fit in at all. The idea of being homosexual in the religion is not exactly something that’s accepted, and while I wasn’t out yet, at that age I knew and I was effeminate and artistic, and I was bullied and ridiculed for it.”
So tricky and uncomfortable (she shared in the comments that she’s found a new job, so it’s a happy ending!):
Yesterday, I had my mid-year review with my boss and during the conversation, she shared that it was obvious how unhappy I was and that no matter how much I demonstrate that my position is overworked, absolutely nothing would come off my plate (in fact, there is a good chance the workload would increase). I’m doing the work of 2.5 people and am often relied upon by colleagues across the organization to do work outside of my job duties, because of my background/skills.
My boss told me I need to think about whether or not this is the job for me, and if so, commit to the job description as it is (and stop raising issues/concerns) or work with her to develop an exit plan. At this point, I shared with my boss that I have been actively looking. It was a scary thing to say, but I think it opened up a productive dialogue. My boss asked me to think it over and share my decision in my next one-on-one.
Obviously we will discuss the new Captain America: Civil War trailer at the current time:
Nice try, Dan Who Is Very Confident He Knows How Feminists Talk:
Hi, two things:
1) “You know, I wrote a song about Wawa” actually made me gasp in fear.
2) Guys, “Fates & Furies” is the worst book ever written so if you’d like to discuss this I’d be open?
I just bought that (haven’t started yet) and I’m really eager to see which side of the fence I fall on. I mean, people are SO divided. Even at the ToB!
I read it with my Platonic Life Partner, Matt, whom you don’t know, so I don’t know why I mention it, just making conversation I guess, but he’s nice. ANYWAY. Good luck. I will drop everything if you need to complain about it.
yeah although the ToB commentator who was most pro- is also a childhood friend of the author, which could be coloring it a bit. (I’m still very intrigued to read it, though!)
HA! That was our book in Toastie book club two months ago and we all haaated it. I blame myself for suggesting it in the first place. Here for this discussion.
But can I submit my application for membership into the Toastie Book Club please and thank you? I promise to (a) read the book; and (b) not talk about my grandkids. Which I don’t have. But, you know, in the spirit.
You can! We’re in a google group now for discussions. I… don’t know how you join, I think the two owners have to approve you? it’s here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/toasties-… I think maybe you can just join and then get approved, but if not hopefully someone who knows otherwise (like Frumiosa) sees this haha.
Anyway we meet once a month in a Slack chat. This month we’re doing “Wedlock” (The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore) by Wendy Moore. The main meeting is supposed to be tomorrow, I think. But we have a straggler session next Sunday (3/20). (Which I might do because I got distracted by another book OOPS.)
Yes you can by signing up here! https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/toastie…
Our next book club discussion is actually tomorrow at 8 PM EST and it’s Wendy Moore’s Wedlock. We have a straggler session on the 20th, too. Next month is Rebecca Scherm’s Unbecoming, and then the future books are:
May – Rebecca Traistler – All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25814394-all-the-single-ladies)
June – Karen Abbott – Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18679391-liar-temptress-soldier-spy)
July – Margo Jefferson – Negroland: A Memoir (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24040176-negroland)
Hah, we replied like one minute apart! Yours is much more informative than mine, though.
You mentioned the Slack chat, though, which is super-important! I was mostly c/ping from my emails. 😉
Thanks for the reminder, I’ve got a hold on Unbecoming now so hopefully I’ll get a chance to at least start it before discussion next month!
I just signed up – I figure it’s a good sign if I go to borrow Unbecoming and realize I read it a couple months ago!
Ooooh, I’m so signing up for this! May-July’s selections are all in my TBR list, and it really helps me to have some outside motivation to buckle down and read a real book instead of bingeing on all the Hot Takes I find through Twitter.
I have read Unbecoming and want to talk about it, so I have submitted an application, I hope you will deem me worthy.
Oh oh, I am so signing up! This sounds so awesome.
Oooh, thanks, I’m totally joining this! I read F&F in January and it surprisingly grew on me in the second half.
My real life book club read _Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy_ and we HAAAATED it. If you are going to read it (don’t bother) read it by character, not straight through. Also there is a section in there about a prositute in Richmond who kept a diary and it is the shoddiest research I have read in an actual, published book. Read the footnote and see if you come to the same conclusion.
Okay, this is good to know as I’ve seen it everywhere and debated buying it. I shall save my money for better things (last time I almost bought it, I ended up with Between the World and Me and A Little Life so I am feeling secure in my reading choices).
So, what did you think of A Little Life? Because I H A T E D it, but also think it’s probably brilliant? Like, it’s perfectly what it is supposed to be, so my hating it is not at all to do with what Yanagihara achieved, but more something deeply personal that I can never really articulate, but just, you know, hold close to myself in a protective way.
I guess what I’m saying is, I hated Fates and Furies, and it’s a bad book. I also hated A Little Life, but think it’s perfect.
I haven’t read it yet! I’m too busy just carrying around TNC’s book and swooning over his writing and letting it hit me in the gut. I start A Little Life this weekend, I’ll definitely post once I’ve finished it – I’m down with hating a book for the right reasons, and now I’m curious what I’ll end up thinking about it!
I was the lone person who loved it in the toastie group, and the discussion was fascinating!
I thought it was OKAY but Lotto was just such a weak sniveling jerkass that I was only able to power through the first half because I knew he’d go away (as the lead protagonist, at least).
I like her prose, in isolation.
I despise or am angered by or am irritated by or all that every one of the characters (except the little sister gets a pass.) (Though I should despise her by association for hanging out w/ those people.)
Read Oreo if you want to enjoy a little mythic action in your modern story. Read bloody A New World (which you can read free via https://read.atavist.com/the-new-world?no-overlay… if you don’t want to pay for it) for a not-going-very-far but still has something to say about marriage TOB title. Read The Turner House or The Sellout if you want kickass writing.
I will happily second your recommendation for Oreo. I loved it, with all its flaws. It reminded me of Djuna Barnes at her least bitter and most playful – and I was thrilled to read in the foreword (after finishing the book) that Ross and her friends went to knock on Ms Barnes’s door (because OF COURSE that makes the most perfect sense) and super-sad that she turned them away.
I like to think of the two of them sharing celestial cocktails and intricate wordplay on some other plane.
I actually really hate her prose (I also read Arcadia and felt the same way), but I felt the same way about her characters. It’s odd when you want more terrible things to happen to them.
Her prose style is SO aggravating
When I found out that Lotto [redacts] himself, I. CHEERED.
Oh god I’m so glad to read this about “Fates & Furies.” It was on so many best of year lists that I read it and was so disappointed. Matilde’s backstory made me SO ANGRY.
Same with “Uprooted.” So many best books lists, so so so terrible it made me angry.
“Uprooted” read like some straight up Loki self insert fanfic. I didn’t mind the first quarter, but then it just all fell apart. Honestly, it would have been better if Tamora Pierce had written it!
On the other hand, there’s “Wah-Wah” by George Harrison, which is great.
I LOVED Fates and Furies, it’s the best book I read in 2015! I am so baffled to see that it inspires such hatred! Everything that was annoying about the first part was undone in the second. And I didn’t think the writing was annoying, just Lotto. Precious, sweet, artistic Lotto. *eye roll* I was seriously fist-pumping through 99% of Mathilde’s part, her rage gave me LIFE. I thought F&F subverted the expectations of the “two sides of a relationship” story in a Great way, and I loved the prose. I just don’t get why so many people hated it!
THE WORST BOOK. My entire bookclub hattttttttted it, which is so surprising given that we always have differing opinions. But seriously. We re-read chapters out loud and guffawed at how terribly it’s written, plotted, etc. Did this book have no editor? Also: she fucking thanked WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE at the end.
Look Wawa is not a cult it is just objectively the best possible convenience store in all of America, and the people that live in this corner of the country feel enormously privileged that we have it and don’t have to get a bunch of crap at 7-11 or Speedway or some shit.
I don’t even live in the US and I know Wawa reigns supreme thanks to the preaching of The Bloodhound Gang
Most of my family lives in Jersey and I absolutely love Wawa. When we’d go on vacation to the Jersey shore it was perfect. If you didn’t want to deal with tourists at the grocery store you could go to Wawa and get some basics on check-in day and then go to the store when it would be less busy to get everything else. And the hoagies! I dream about a good ham and cheese hoagie from Wawa regularly. I live in New Mexico where we can get fresh made burritos at gas stations and delicious though they are, they are not the same.
I am on my way to your fair state and I appreciate this endorsement of gas station burritos.
When I lived in Santa Fe, my parents came for a visit and my dad got crazy excited that you could order a burrito with green chiles on it from a gas station convenience store. Peak Dad moment right there.
I don’t know how far up north they go (I’m way in the southern part of the state), but Pic Quik burritos are my favorite gas station burritos, although only the ones with Santa Fe Grill signs do burritos (but that seems to be most of them, down here at least). New Mexicans are pretty serious about their burritos so you should be just fine finding something giant, delicious, and cheap.
That’s my husband’s favorite gas station burrito (he’s from Las Cruces).
I also live in NM and just want to mention that we can get DEEP-FRIED gas station burritos (and chimichangas). It is truly The Dream.
Look, Wawa is objectively no better than any other pretty good gas station convienience store like Cumberland Farms. I will fight anyone on that fact.
HOWEVER, Wawa is a cultural institution in certain areas like Dunkin Donuts is in New England (although I’m having trouble thinking of anything that has the same fervor of devotion- I don’t see people writing songs about Dunkin). THere is custom and nostalgia there which makes it seem like home or whatever for people who live in the areas where Wawas exist. I can accept that those facts make it seem better than everywhere else.
But yeah, objectively speaking it’s a perfectly fine convenience store.
A ludicrous assertion and I am happy to fight with you over it.
Meet me in Temecula, tomorrow, noon.
It’s a go.
Don’t throw away your shot.
This was the most pop culture referenced “pistols at dawn” I’ve ever seen!
People’s devotion to WaWa is like upstate New Yorkers’ devotion to Wegmans (Wegmans is all over the East Coast, but nowhere is love for it more fervent than in upstate New York). I have deep respect for that kind of love, as I will keep Wegmans in my heart long after I have passed from this world.
Wegmans is wonderful. As is WaWa, and also World Market. Maybe I just love W stores.
I fell in love with World Market in California, then when I moved back east the lone WM store within 100 miles closed. They FINALLY opened a few branches not too far from me and I visited last weekend and it was AMAZING!!!
However, despite living most of my life in Wawa-country . . . I don’t get it.
I live in an area with both Wawa AND Wegmans; I am truly blessed.
I worked at a grocery store on the West Coast that was trying to be Wegman’s even though no one else working there had any idea what Wegman’s was. Wegman’s was better. Honestly I’m only so excited about my New England Wegman’s because I know the joy of it from living upstate. People around here (myself included) use Shaw’s, Stop & Shop, and Marketbasket all interchangeably, the fact that a grocery store exists that is drastically more magical seems far-fetched until you go there.
Accurate! Wegmans started in my upstate NY hometown and our devotion is absolute, even from those of us who move away.
Whenever I visit my parents we shop at their flagship store – it is a glorious place. Wegmans! My heart pines.
THE FLAGSHIP??!?! You are truly blessed.
IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL, I WISH I COULD TAKE EVERYONE THERE!!!
Did you see the article in the Dem&Chron a while back about “people, stop taking out-of-town guests to Wegmans!”? I mean, it had a fair point – that we have other stuff too that’s worth seeing – but for a 100% free way of blowing someone’s mind, nothing beats the Mothership.
ARE YOU ME?
Right down to shopping at the flagship when I visit my parents.
I just came here to say: WEGMANS I LOVE YOU
But WaWa is much more similar to a Stewarts than a Wegmans.
(I also feel obliged to point out that Wegmans isn’t actually all over the entirety of Upstate NY, it’s more of a Western New York thing)
I mean, there’s almost a dozen in the Syracuse area, which is definitely Central NY, but I see your point, they don’t have them really east of there, that I know of anyways.
Yeah, but they don’t have any in Utica (which is where my parents live), and I don’t think there are any in the capital region, or anywhere in the north country
<reverence>
Wegmans
</reverence>
I married into an upstate NY family and had no idea about the glory of Wegmans until I visited the one in Ithaca, years upon years ago. We have them in the Boston area now, too, and the one in Burlington is EVEN BIGGER than the one in Ithaca and it’s like someone made my grocery store dreams come true.
I’ve known a couple people who’ve worked there, and they just rave about it. Like it’s their family, but better. Apparently employees are treated REALLY well, and there are benefits, including things like money for school. I’ll support any business that treats low-skill workers well and gives them a chance to move up.
Those are really good reasons to love Wawa!
Yeah, it is really good to employees, and they hire a lot of younger people, too — if you grew up around a Wawa, you almost always know at least one person who got their first job there.
EXCUSE ME, there IS SO a song about Dunkin Donuts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHUvCbNcal4
Cumby’s has some good coffee, but I haven’t found one in Central MA that can match the food offerings of a Wawa… maybe that’s regional too.
I live in MA and no joke one of the things I look forward to most about going home to PA is getting my Wawa hoagie!!!
I am now in New England and there are at least 4 Dunkin Donuts within walking distance of me, two of them across the street from each other, and they are UNDESERVING OF THIS COMPARISON. WAWA IS THE BEST.
I mean, they are completely different things with different purposes. I meant the comparison in more of the “omni-present, can’t start a day or go to a kid’s little league game without stopping there first, every car in New England has some Dunkin receipt or bag or something in it” way. So, like Wawa, it is just a complete staple in living life. Obviously they have different stuff and are trying to serve different roles, so the actual content doesn’t really compare.
Okay…but WAWA IS BETTER. (Wow, I am definitely making it sound like a cult, I’m just really missing it.)
When I first moved to New England, my spouse had been living there for several months while I stayed behind to sell the house we had just left. So I called him every time I needed directions to, say, a grocery store or a coffee shop. (This was before smart phones.)
First, he told me, “There are no coffee shops. Get used to Dunkin Donuts.” I did. I came to love Dunkin Donuts coffee and the fact that they would make me an egg sandwich on a bagel any time of day.
Second, every time I needed directions, no matter where I was going, my spouse included something like, “…and turn left at the Dunkin Donuts…” which I initially thought would be so helpful. Landmarks are helpful. Eventually I had to tell him to stop using Dunkin Donuts when giving directions. Because they are everywhere, occur every 1/2 mile, it’s like saying “turn left at the house”.
Third, we soon realized that Dunkin Donuts must be part of the village/town chartering system. “A community may organize and petition the Commonwealth to be recognized as a named Village when that community can prove it includes a minimum of (number) citizens and at least two (2) Dunkin Donuts.”
It sounds sort of like how a certain type of upstate New Yorker feels about Wegmans vs all other grocery stores.
(There were homemade “Wegmaniac” tshirts at the opening of the first one in MA.)
WAAAAAAAAAAANT.
Seeing as how pretty much every out of towner I’ve ever met agrees, this is true.
Wawa coffee is the best chain-store coffee and I will not hear any arguments to the contrary tbh.
This is the last place I thought I’d have to do this, but nah dog, Sheetz is clearly #1. Wawa is great and everything but Sheetz is the best. It’s like if the Waffle House was also a convenience store.
Sheetz, good gravy. Of course all of Western Pennsylvania has got a chip on its shoulder about the eastern half of the state, but of all the embarrassing ways they’ve tried to claim parity with actual civilization, the assertion that Sheetz is of the same calibre as Wawa is the worst.
As someone who went to college in south central PA but grew up in NJ near Trenton, I cannot give this enough likes. People think a friggin SHMISCUIT can compare to a Wawa hoagie and some Turkey Hill iced tea? Please.
I am sad that I only just discovered Sheetz on a road trip through West Virginia last year because this means I wasted all those earlier years of my life when I could have been going to Sheetz.
It’s been yearz since I was in a Wawa, but Sheetz jumped the shark a while ago. Not everything needz to end in a “Z.” And the MTO menu could be slashed by 80% and it would be a vast improvement in efficiency with no harm done to tastebudz.
They did just announce across-the-board raises to at or near living wage for all retail employees, though, so I’ll certainly give them credit for that.
Whatever, just because Sheetz has more drink options does not make it better than Wawa. Sheetz is Wawa & QuikTrip’s disappointing child.
I LOVE QT! I’ve not been to a Wawa, but whenever I go visit my family in southern Illinois, I always get a huge mixed up coffee at QuikTrip (I basically act like a kid at a soda fountain and mix all the flavors together).
QUIKTRIP FOREVER
QT 4 LYFE
I’m in Colorado now, and QT is one of the few things I miss about KS.
I am here for Team Sheetz when we inevidibly have our Sharks v Jets dance off.
I’ll join Team Sheetz – though to be fair at this point I’ve read the word “Sheetz” so many times it sounds like more of a nonsensical name than Wawa.
Sheetz is amazing
Sheets officially won my heart when I discovered they sell single servings of worms in dirt (chocolate pudding, crushed oreos, gummy worms) in their refrigerated desserts section.
Wawa has this also! And puddings with various other toppings (cookie dough, for one). Very handy for coaxing a 4-year-old to eat her lunch.
I have never properly been in Wawa territory but I went to college for a bit in western PA and I have endless hearts for Sheetz. They keep creeping closer and closer to me in TN, so I’m hoping one day they’ll build one close enough that I can swing by there for a sandwich during my regular jaunts about town.
We’re finally getting our first Wawa where I live and I wait impatiently to compare it to my favorite gas station convenience store, Sheetz. I fear I will be let down by Wawa.
Here’s the thing: Wawa just has the best stuff. I love Quick Chek just as much as any other kid from central Jersey, but Wawa’s prepared food is just the Peak Good. I had a Wawa salad for dinner the other night and it was just so, so good.
Just yesterday I was extolling the virtues of Wawa at a work meeting to a bunch of co-workers who refused to understand. “It looks like a 7-11.” “Um, if a 7-11 were clean and populated by fairies and rainbows and also delicious sandwiches.”
Yeah it looks like a 7-11 from a parallel universe where 7-11 is a place where you might actually want to buy food, sure.
It’s like 7-11 in Korea and Japan, where you can get real good food and none of the lights flicker ominously.
Damn, now I’m missing 7-11 kimbap AND Wawa!
Unlike 7-11 in Japan, Wawa does not sell 2-liters of vodka and plentiful other liquor of all sizes, which is perhaps its one flaw.
Relatedly, apparently the “midwest’s most popular convenience store chain, Speedway” is coming to Philadelphia and they have been showing commercials on TV that look like they’ve been recycled from 1982, and man do I wish I could have been privy to the corporate meeting where some hungry young VP convinced Mr. Speedway to throw half a billion dollars away on making inroads against the most beloved convenience store on the eastern seaboard.
Speedway is actually pretty excellent. Not saying it compares, but we have them here and they’re my second choice gas station (Thornton’s is better and is employee owned).
look I’m sure it’s fine for whatever it is, but come on man, do you guys even know what a Hoagiefest IS?
“the convenience stores of…SPEEDWAY” /end song
Dang I haven’t lived in the midwest for 9 years and that song is STILL in my head.
And now full-on stuck in my head, too. It can join the Discount Drug Mart jingle as songs I haven’t heard in about 4 years but stay stuck in my head.
I heard that too!
It’s where I always stop on roadtrips.
they’re coming to Boston, too! same ad campaign and everything. I don’t really understand why.
I had never heard of Wawa until today because I live in Texas and I guess it’s not a thing here. That’s okay though. I live right down the street from a convenience store called Apple Mart and it’s adorable and clean and has all the regular convenient things plus a little cafe and a deli. It’s one of the best things my husband and I discovered when we moved to this neighborhood a year ago.
I love you, Apple Mart!
well, if you want to understand the merits of Wawa, imagine Apple Mart, except instead of being down the street from you, it is literally anywhere you could possibly need it, whenever you are hungry or need coffee.
That…sounds really nice. Damn, now I want that.
The one thing I regret about leaving southern New Jersey is the lack of Wawa, and visits to my parents are also at least 25% visits to Wawa.
The thing I miss most from college is being across the street from Wawa. All I want for dinner is a hoagie with mac and cheese and some iced tea lemonade. GODDAMMIT WHY DO I LIVE ON THE WEST COAST
The Williamsburg, VA Wawa is perhaps the closest thing I have to a Temple. It is holy ground.
BOTH the Williamsburg Wawas are blessed. I lived across from the one on Penniman Road my senior year and it was most excellent.
#tribepride
THERE ARE TWO OF THEM NOW?
Oh God. WE HAVE TO GO BACK.
I am firmly on the QuikTrip side of the battle of the convenience stores, but the bond between me and the Williamsburg Wawa is stronger than that of me and any individual QT.
oh my god I miss Williamsburg and its Wawa SO MUCH
I have never been to one but I struggle to imagine a convenience store better than Quik Trip.
Right? When I moved to Philadelphia from the Midwest, I was like, “nothing can be better than QuikTrip, they have 11 million kinds of drinks and they’re 89 cents in the summer” but I was wrong. Wawa is even better.
Somehow I went my entire grad school career at Rutgers without visiting a Wawa once. (I seem to remember there WEREN’T any around there at that point.)
*Sees link in Toast!*
EXCUSE ME HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD WORD OF WAWA?
I’ve been away from Philly from a long time now, but there are few things which manage to make me quite so nostalgic for my Mid-Atlantic home region as Wawa. That plus really good cheesesteaks, obvz.
When I was in elementary school my family went whale watching on Cape May, and while we didn’t see any whales we DID get to eat delicious Wawa sandwiches on a boat and that made it THE BEST TRIP EVER.
Praise Wawa, for Wawa is Good.
Okay, so I was skeptical, because Gate stations in NEFL are pretty decent, and we literally had 0 7-11s in Duval County for years because Gate Petroleum is owned by our former mayor’s family (or something?) and they signed a contract to not allow 7-11s in the county for 2 decades. The 7-11s started opening 2-3 years ago and they are so good compared to the shitty family stores we suffered with for years (except for Gate, and now Dailys)
ANYWAY my brother moved to Orlando and his girlfriend is from Philly and they got Wawa down there a couple years ago and wouldn’t you know she evangelized to him and he evangelized to me, and now Wawa is in talks to open locations in Jacksonville, too, and I got a pulled-pork-on-mashed-potatoes lunch there once last spring and daaang I can’t wait until we get Wawa, too.
But I’m wondering how the lunch counter is going to compare to the Publix deli. Pubsubs are pretty good, but I’m all about the heat-and-serve dishes and popcorn chicken myself.
I mean, you know where they invent the sub sandwich, right? It definitely wasn’t daggone Florida.
Yes, but Pubsubs are an *institution* and even in Orlando where they have Wawa, people are still all about ’em. I mean, they do chicken finger subs? and that’s all people talk about on my twitter feed when there’s a promotion going on.
Although really anything Publix inspires fervent praise around these parts, so who knows. (They recently had a Chantilly Cake that was pure heaven, with mascarpone cream icing and almond glaze and fruit filling and i bought like 2 whole cakes in individual slices while it was on promo the last 2 weeks.)
So I never realized, before this 84-comment-long-and-growing thread, that convenience stores were a thing to which someone might have an allegiance.
Nothing in the thread satisfactorily explains why, though? Like, ok, they have hoagies, and…? (Basically I’m a little worried that it’s because it seems like the owners/operators are whiter than those of your (stereo)typical 7-11. See the comment about their being “all-American” in the link.)
well, practically-speaking, the people that work in the Wawa, and manage the Wawa, look a lot like whatever neighborhood the Wawa is in — the one I just went to was in North Philadelphia, and almost everyone who works there (including the GM) is black. I don’t know who the owners of Wawa are, so I can’t say that for sure — obviously it’s possible that this is a coded, subconscious racism, of course this is a possibility, and it’s no doubt true in certain circumstances, but I don’t know if it’s broadly or universally true.
I think in a lot of cases, it has to do with a combination of factors — for one thing 7-11 is a national chain, so it necessarily isn’t local to your community; you can’t have *local* pride in your 7-11 anymore than you can have pride in your local Best Buy or whatever. For another, Wawa is fairly ubiquitous throughout the area, and has foods that are more in line with our own local specialties — 7-11 has got hot dogs, which everyone can get, anywhere, Wawa has got hoagies, which are a Northeast food. (Also, the food is manifestly better; like, an order of magnitude better.)
What this means is that you’ve got folks whose entire childhood has included periodic runs to Wawa to get sandwiches, friends who got their first jobs there, a real sense that this place is our thing.
Thanks! That…sort of explains it. But of course true love cannot be explained to she who has never experienced it, so.
Winnipeg, Manitoba would disagree that you can’t have local pride in a 7-11. Slurpee capital of the world for 13 years straight, woo! (Montreal Quebec has no 7-11s, since I moved here I have had to make do with the FAR INFERIOR Couche-Tard Icee. And they close their slush machines down in the winter!)
That’s basically all Winnipeg has to be proud of since the general strike though. Let us have this!
Wawa was the epicenter of teenage life. When I got my drivers license, the Wawa parking lot was the very first place I went!
My workplace did a dinner pop up in Philly, which of course meant that afterwards we all got hideously drunk at an Irish pub in a strip mall next to a Hooters and then went to Wawa afterwards. Waiting in line to order sandwiches, my boss put his hand on my arm, leant in, and whispered: “Only order with the touch screen. Do not speak to the Wawa employees. Do not acknowledge the Wawa employees. Do not even look at the Wawa employees.” Which is all to say that I spent the rest of my time in that Wawa waiting for my sandwich experience to devolve into some sort of Night Valeian horror wherein an angered Wawa employee/old god would suddenly grow thrice its size and devour our entire group alive.
I would just like to say, in response to the article, that only in Princeton is it called “the Wa” and you will get laughed at if you call it that anywhere else (and indeed the Princetonians who have grown up with Wawa secretly roll their eyes at the appellation.)
Nothing better than a good long article about the history of smells and perfumes and deodorants. I would give almost anything to be able to smell things like ancient Egyptian wax perfumes, or the original Hungary water, or a 16th-century pomander. Smell is one of those things that you just can’t reproduce perfectly, so that may be forever lost, but wouldn’t that be amazing?
My Civil War trailer thoughts:
1. YAY CHRIS EVANS
2. Rhodey better be okay
3. I’m more excited about this than I thought I would be, considering how meh I was on Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.
I really hope Civil War is good. At this point, I don’t know why it’s not Avengers 3 instead of Cap 3. I swear it has more “Avengers” than Avengers 1 and 2!
I’ve just been cataloguing all the longing looks between Bucky and Steve, so I’ll be just fine with literally whatever they turn out.
In all seriousness, though, they have a lot to live up to coming off The Winter Soldier, which is a fantastic superhero movie. And even The First Avenger is great in its own whiz-bang period-piece ridiculous-villain way. I do trust the Russos, though, and the first trailer (more so than this one) was pretty reassuring.
I often agree with Film Crit Hulk, but yesterday on twitter he was going on about how “we have so little reason to care about Bucky”. And when the sheer amount of Stucky fic (and fanart) was pointed out he dismissed it as only part of the audience.
To which I say, very maturely: nu-uh!
COME ON, Film Crit Hulk. Even if you don’t care about Bucky at all, the fact that Steve cares should be enough to make you care.
Whether you ship it or not, Bucky is the most important person in Steve’s life. And I think we’ve been given plenty of reason to care in both movies. So yes, I am sticking my tongue out at Fim Crit Hulk now.
I will care about anybody Steve Rogers tells me to care about, goshdarnit.
Film Crit Hulk has passionate and well-reasoned arguments, but sometimes he’s just wrong about things, such as the ending of Mass Effect 3.
*ears perk up*
This and this. My take on it is simple: you shouldn’t do a 2001 ending to a space opera, which was why Star Trek: The Motion Picture was so disappointing (and almost never referenced in continuity again) and why the follow-up, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is considered the best Trek movie–the former was Gene Roddenberry trying to do something Big and Profound and Relevant to the Human Condition, and ending up simply rehashing an old episode (and not one of the better ones) and, in the process, throwing the one new female character under the bus, while the latter had a lot more to say in a relatively simple story about the space navy vs. space pirates. Some people are completely cool with the 2001 ending, just as FCH was completely cool with the ME3 endings, but for my money, the main problem with endings like that is that they just seem… cheap.
In conclusion:
EVERYONE better be okay. If Steve dies I will LOSE MY SHIT.
My roommate and I periodically need to take turns reassuring each other that Steve will be okay, despite having no way to actually know.
There’s a pretty good chance many/most of them will die to clear the field for all the upcoming new superhero movies.
NOPE I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALA.
Not yet, I don’t think; Infinity War will probably be the big board-clearer.
My husband, a man who takes comic bookery very seriously, assures me that several will die. He points out the actors’ contractual status as evidence. I am NOT looking forward. (i think all future avengers movies should have the breezy ensemble quality of Oceans 11 please and thanks)
Yeah, I know about the contracts and all. But Evans still has one more film on his contract. Based on comic precedent, Cap could die and come back. But I still don’t want it. I don’t want it at all. And I’m not convinced they’re going to follow the comics obsessively, they’ve diverged in all kinds of important ways.
So I’m going with some friends for someone’s birthday and I am just a tad bit anxious that I might weep for part of that party, if Cap dies. Everyone I’ll be with loves the movies, but I am on a different level of investment than the rest.
Rhodey’s definitely OK, right? They wouldn’t kill a character in a trailer, would they?
I think he is, just because I don’t think they would keep teasing a Big Death so obviously in the trailer. Also those Iron Man suits can withstand a lot!! It’s a fakeout, in my opinion.
I don’t think they’d kill him, at least not have Bucky kill him like the trailer implies, because that would tip the scales waaaay too far on the side of Tony. Though this trailer definitely seemed #TeamTony as Cap has no argument except, “I GONNA DO WHAT I WANNA DO OKAY.”
Yep, I think having Bucky appear to kill him is some reality show preview-esque editing, like where they show a lady dramatically crying and it looks like it’s because one lady yelled at her to leave her man alone but it’s actually because she spilled shrimp cocktail on her dog and ruined its new haircut, or something.
(I’m not sure if Bucky actually shoots him and I don’t think he dies, in other words)
Every single time we discuss Captain America or the Avengers (which, with my 12 year old daughter, is a LOT), she ends the conversation with, “I just don’t know why Spiderman isn’t an avenger. He should be. He should be FIRST. Why isn’t he an Avenger?” Yesterday I got to tell her he was in this movie. She is VERY EXCITED.
(And we have been arguing over Captain America/Iron Man for months now. My older sons think we’ve both gone off the deep end).
The great thing about that appearance is that he even does the classic Superhero Landing (© and ™ Deadpool), and then he’s like, “‘sup.”
And has such a widdle baby voice! Everyone else are these angsty manly men, and then Spidey’s all “ohai!” ^_^
I mean, it’s gotta be great, right? Black Panther is in it! Also, I think Age of Ultron was so bad partly because it was functioning as a bridge into Civil War and a new Avengers team. So it was all for a good cause – mainly to see Tony Stark eat a big ol’ piece of humble pie and get in fisticuffs with Cap.
The writing was so bad in Age of Ultron. And I’m still annoyed with Black Widow’s story in that one. “I’m not a real woman because I can’t have children!” Ugh.
Part of the problem with AoU was that Whedon and the studio were at loggerheads throughout the making of the movie. It’s hard to tell who’s more to blame–obviously Marvel isn’t perfect, as witness the absence of Black Widow merch or, for that matter, a BW movie–but I’m not entirely uncritical of Whedon, either. Regardless, both Whedon and Isaac Perlmutter are gone, at least from the creative process, so here’s hoping for some improvement, especially WRT the female characters.
When Cap said “I could do this all day.” AAAAAHHHHHHH still muppet-arm flailing (in my heart) over here.
I love Chris Evans’s voice in that trailer.
It probably won’t end with Captain America getting killed (because Chris Evans still has 2 movies in his contract), but in the other two Cap movies, he does end both with “welp, time to accept death!” which is pretty dark and looks like it’s going to happen again in this one. And it’s not really acknowledged in the movies. Like Iron Man 3 is all about Tony’s PTSD after risking his life. Steve pretty much is like “I’m just gonna let my best friend beat me to death, because why bother?” So I hope Civil War addresses that he’s a little fucked up.
I still want my Black Widow movie, but that’s never going to happen.
With luck, though, we will have a sort-of-prequel movie about Black Widow and Hawkeye: “What Happened In Budapest”.
I’m envisioning a light action-comedy, along the lines of Guardian of the Galaxy or Ant-Man.
I would DIE for a breezy and charming caper in which Black Widow and Hawkeye inadvertently destroy Budapest over the course of, like, three days. Trying to get some unnamed object SHIELD wants and busting faces in everywhere. Coulson would be there, too. SIGH
I actually just saw Ant-Man last night for the first time (in order to be all caught up) and now for the life of me I can’t remember a dang thing about it. A solid D- Marvel movie.
I also have trouble remembering anything of relevance in AoU because I thought it was a fairly useless movie, plot wise.
This latest should just be Avengers 3: THE AVENGENING instead of a Cap movie.
Also, unpopular opinion: I don’t care about Bucky and I thought the Winter Soldier was just a mishmash of bad writing.
I think I might be burnt out on Comics Movies? (sad face)
Occasionally you see twitter accounts by people pretending to be “SJWs” and they are so incredibly transparent. It’s both funny and a little sad, because you get the sense that for those people, when people who are not straight white men try to get through to them, this is what happens:
Yeah I feel like there’s not a lot more telling than how these guys think they’re making a point by adopting “SJW” language.
Oh yeah, a palpable hit there, Dan, you really demonstrated our hypocrisy by correctly understanding what the fuck we’re talking about, good work.
I got all excited at first because I thought that was a story about the charming town of Wawa, Ontario.
Obligatory plug for “Snow Cake”, a heartbreaking but good movie about Wawa.
Callum Keith Rennie! People keep not knowing who he is until I say “Cylon Model #2” but he’s in a ton of great (Canadian) movies.
Wawa, Ontario is one of the highlights of any trip from southern to northern Ontario. Along with TBay’s main food exports (to me): Finnish pancakes and Persians.
I’m from westerly of Sudbury and we had Finnish pancakes (and a lot of Finnish people), but Persians I only know of from TBayers.
I’ve only recently heard of Wawa the convenience store, so for awhile I’d been very confused about how the Ontario place had become so well known and popular.
I was worried there was some horrifying new cult taking root IN Wawa, Ontario.
Me, too! I didn’t want to click the link and read about a Northern Ontario town gone dark.
BEWARE THE CULT OF THE GOOSE
yes yes I as well
I’m still not totally sure what a Wawa even is. It sounds like the noise an elderly duck makes?
It’s the language of all the adults in Charlie Brown/Peanuts.
Back when we were first dating, my husband and I drove across Canada from Seattle to eastern Ontario via Jasper-Lake Louise-Banff. One night we found a campsite on the shores of North Superior, east of Thunder Bay, in the middle of nowhere. We camped there and the next morning the site owner fed us the largest breakfast we’d ever seen.
After we’d stuffed ourselves, we went outside with the hired man and his dog, and he asked us where we were headed next as he threw sticks into the lake for the retriever to fetch. We said we were headed toward Wawa and (eventually) Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron.
“Wawa, huh?” he said thoughtfully. “Wawa. It’s all city down there.”
One of my favourite things about the deleted comments is how they’re almost always ranting long after everyone has left the post altogether.
Oh man, now I want a penguin friend.
I’m not saying tortoise walking is my dream job but I’m not not saying it either.
“No tortoise experience necessary” . . . “He doesn’t wear a leash and is surprisingly quick” . . . “Henry is surprisingly energetic and fearless” . . WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?
I literally started composing a reply before realizing it was a weekday gig. Were I not working full-time right now, I would’ve jumped all over that opportunity. I’m a bit scared of tortoises and turtles, so it would’ve been good immersion therapy.
There is a tortoise who goes for walks in my neighborhood! The walker follows with a wagon in case she gets tired or hot.
This isn’t about a tortoise, but when I was coming back from dinner at a work conference, I saw a woman jogging with her pet bulldog. She had a skateboard, and when the dog got tired of running, he’d kick off on the skateboard and then his person would pull him behind her as she ran. His name is Walter, and he’s living the dream.
She might be living the dream too!
NEW TEGAN AND SARA!!! This just made my day. (Also, Heartthrob is seriously one of my favorite albums. So good.)
Oy, Yeshivah of Flatbush. Last I heard, they were banning gay alums from bringing their partners to class reunions. Though this was in 2008, so hopefully things have changed: http://forward.com/news/12498/gay-alumni-of-brook…
“Crying at my desk over a photo of an old man and a penguin” is exactly how I anticipated my workday starting.
I don’t even follow f-yeahsuchheartwarminginterspeciesfriendshipsthatyoullcry.tumblr.com or anything and yet I still have come to assume my day actually will start with heart rending tales of animal friendships.
Immediately started tearing up at the video and then this line just killed me “I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me.”
Morning cry: check.
Goodness, I thought I was the only one (and for realz, I was crying big wet tears at 8:00am). It was just so lovely and KIND, gah, here we go again with the waterworks.
A friend sent me this yesterday, a Hamilton parody about Angela Merkel, and I found it very fitting since I just came back from Berlin myself and indeed, “In Berlin you can be a new Frau.”
THIS IS DELIGHTFUL thank you so much for bringing it into my life.
Is “Wawa” something adults can say with a straight face?
yes. this jawn is serious. wawa is no joke.
well, its Wah-Wah and not Waa-Waa.
I feel like I’m getting further away…
Can you provide example words that contain these sounds? I think I would pronounce “wah” and “waa” the same.
wah as in the first syllable of water. waa as in the wail a baby makes? The waaaambulance?
Thats how I assumed it was pronounced and, no, that still feels like a ridiculous baby-talk thing to say.
Somehow waa-waa seems more dignified than wah-wah.
But I have never been to a Wawa. It sounds like perhaps its delighfulness overrides any trouble with its silly name.
This actually isn’t helpful, because Delawareans tend to pronounce is “wudder” and it’s definitely not “wuh wuh”.
Additionally, whenever my mother and grandfather are in the car together and pass a Wawa, they will perform the following, extremely deadpan dialogue:
“There’s a Wawa.”
“If it were backward, it would be ‘aw-aw’.”
“If it were upside-down, it would be Mama.”
“If it were upside-down AND backward, it would be “Am-am.”
Thanks, got it! I’d been pronouncing it like the baby one, but then I’m not from round these parts.
Actually in the mid-Atlantic saying it with anything less than a look of sheer rapture and exaltation will get you shot.
That’s true!
Seconded
I tend to put the accent on wrong and go “wa-WAH” like you’re saying tar-zhay instead of Target, it’s great.
I’m imagining Nelson after Homer eats that insanity chili. Haw-HAW, haw-HAW.
As I prepare for a long weekend trip to northern Maryland, I will make sure that I do this at every opportunity in order to maximize the number of people I can piss off.
Thank you to everyone who has suggested pronunciations, but I’m afraid this one wins with flying colors. I shall henceforth speak thus: Ma cherie, would you like a hoa-zhee from the wa-WAH?
Whenever we’d go on a trip and pass a Wawa, my mom would do the comedy trombone sound. Every time.
Waa Waa Waaaaaaaaaaaa
#momgoals
I have lived in the land of Wawa for several years now, and I sometimes avoid saying the actual store name because it still cracks me up.
My brain goes to Baba Wawa and then I smirk, so I’m not sure…
well it is Pennsylvania, so everything has terrible names and people are used to it. We’ve got the Schuykill river (pronounced skoo-kul), and major neighborhoods include Manayunk, Passayunk, and the nearby Pottstown. The subway system is called SEPTA (as in septic tank, or sepsis; this is the one I really can’t get over). The big mall is called King of Prussia. And everyone goes to Wawa. It is sort of depressing sometimes but i guess it builds character??
King of Prussia — pronounced Kinga Prusha.
I grew up in the area and have been teaching 19th century European history in recent months. It is really hard not to say Kinga Prusha when referring to the King of Prussia
Yeah, I remember watching Silver Linings Playbook and being like, YOU DIDN’T PRONOUNCE KINGA PRUSHA RIGHT disbelief unsuspended.
I would have thought it was pronounced sky-kel… I guess that’s just my California coming out.
ETA: for maximum California, I suppose I would have to pronounce it shy-kill.
This is the first to me I’ve ever seen anyone on the internet casually mention Pottstown. And heard Manayunk in the same breath as Pottstown. I grew up very close to Pottstown.
And now that I’ve typed Pottstown for the fourth time, I’m beginning to see the weirdness. Blue Ball still wins, though.
Your lack of reverence for our beloved Wawa has been…noted.
My wife proposed to me on a Thursday evening.
We had reached a mutual understanding that she would propose, though I didn’t know when and where. But we both had work the next day and it was pretty chilly, so when she suggested we go on an impromptu picnic at a nature refuge with relationship significance, I had strong suspicions.
We didn’t have a lot of time so instead of carefully preparing a picnic spread, we headed to a Wawa to get our supplies. Sandwiches, drinks, and chips. I frequently re-order the sandwich I got that night. It’s a pretty delicious sandwich, but, of course, most of the joy I get from doing that is for sentimental reasons.
While we were walking through the Wawa, getting stuff for our picnic, Lady Gaga’s “Marry the Night” came on, and we both misheard the lyric “I’m going to marry the night” as “I’m getting married tonight”, despite that not specifically being our situation (and despite me being a reasonable Lady Gaga fan and I really should have known better).
I forget when we both found out we had reached that same misunderstanding, but that was a special moment too.
Anyway, Wawa is a very nice convenience store.
If you haven’t had a major life event happen in a Wawa, are you even from the Delaware Valley? (I’m on Team Dumped a Guy in Wawa)
My husband I ate Wawa hoagies for dinner on our wedding night (we got married in the morning).
Did you see from the comments what LW’s workload actually was on that AAM? Completely ridiculous, sounds like they did well to get out.
Yes! I loved that Alison was like “Oh, wow, normally I’m skeptical of that claim, but yep! That is Way Too Much.”
I love that the LW said she was doing the work of 2.5 people, and the commentators helpfully pointed out that she is actually doing the work of, like, 6 people.
Wait, what? I totally missed that! Was it on the original post or the follow-up? I want to see what she was actually doing. (And kind of want to compare it to my own workload, because I suspect I’m still in Retail “time to lean = time to clean” mode, and not Actual Office Work mode for what is a reasonable amount of downtime.)
She pretty much did the work of 3 full-time Development staff members AT LEAST with some consultant work peppered throughout. I could not believe how much she was expected to accomplish. It was nice to see how much support she was getting in the comments after she itemized her duties.
Increasing someone’s workload to that capacity it basically punishment for a job well done.
Oh myyyy.
That’s. wow.
I know how much our Development team do (and we’re understaffed by 1-2 people), and how much they’ve been asking me to do, and I’m so glad she’s found a new job already!
OH I just realized I mixed up this letter with the other one today that was a follow-up. I found the comments describing the detail s~~
I can even hear Dan’s condescending tone of voice as he sneers, “you must be sexist…”
The pride with which he thereupon closed his laptop, thinking to himself, “I’ve shown them, finally, once and for all.”
And, pulling out of Splainville truck stop, our hero passes a portentous road sign: Next exit: Slut Road.
“Sure hope they’ve got a WaWa there. I could go for some stale coffee.”
I needed that article on work jerkbrain. I’ve read it before, but I had a job interview yesterday and holy crap has the jerkbrain been kicking my ass! Like the interview went well but I have to sneak into their tight schedule today to drop off paperwork that they couldn’t get to me til close of business yesterday -and I can and that’s fine and I’m trying not to be a pest but I keep worrying WHAT IF I ANNOY THEM BY DOING WHAT THEY SAID TO DO.
Or assuming it’s my fault they forgot to have the paperwork at my interview.
Jerkbrain can go to a hot place with no ice cream.
I got an email from the HR dept of the place I interviewed at last month and it’s in such inscrutable boilerplate language that I have no idea what it means. I sent a polite reply asking for some clarification and now I’m all WHAT IF THEY WILL BE SO ANNOYED BY THIS THAT THEY DECIDE NOT TO HIRE ME AFTER ALL
The only remedy I got is to remind ourselves that if they’re really so fickle that these things annoy them, it is not our fault and also we don’t want to work for them anyway.
Are there any other Toasties who want commiserate over avoiding Civil War? When I say I can’t handle what’s coming in this movie, I don’t mean I have all the feels. I mean thinking about what happens in this movie (come on, we all know what’s coming on some level) actually makes my stomach hurt. I’m to the point where I put up a “tag your CW posts” on Tumblr and I’m about to start unfollowing people who aren’t tagging because I have enough emotional crap going on right now and I don’t need this shit.
Am I the lone Toastie pretending like Winter Soldier was the last of the MCU Avengers movies?
You’re not alone… but I’m coming at it from a different perspective. I’ve never hated Marvel/Superheroes and despite not knowing the source material I’ve happily watched most of the MCU stuff but now I just have superhero fatigue and it’s reaching “bitch eating crackers” stage for me.
I have a low tolerance for extended drama and overt emotional involvement. I would happily continue seeing more Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, and other lighthearted fare. Or even films more along the lines of the first Cap movie. But this extended, emotionally fraught soap-opera tactic (not using that as a pejorative, soap operas rock if you’re into that sort of thing) is not my bag. It’s exhausting and I do not want it.
Yes! My husband (who loves comic book movies) doesn’t understand why I find the trailers so tedious. But has he ever really watched one? They’re all dark, dramatic slogs through dramatic, overblown conflicts. So heavy And so repetitive. Life is heavy enough without having to turn every fictional disagreement between friends into something with fate-of-the-world consequences.
This is where I’m at at well. I am SO TIRED of superheroes! I’m tired of the costumes, I’m tired of the code names, I’m tired of the sad man problems, I’m tired of the quote-unquote continuity, I’m tired of the tie-ins, I’m just! So! Tired! I want Marvel and DC to go on a wilderness retreat for five years so I can finally get some peace and quiet!
SAD MAN PROBLEMS
I… could only commiserate on avoiding ALL the Marvel movies, tbh. The only bits of them I watch are gifs of either Evans or Hemsworth stripping off shirts or walking around looking sexy lol. Legit, yesterday a male friend tried to discuss the trailer with me and I was like “sorry I don’t watch the Marvel movies, too many dicks for me.”
(I did USED to watch Agent Carter, my only concession to Marvel, but this season disappointed me.)
You are not alone. I am dreading CW.
I stopped caring about superheroes about five films ago. I’m just hoping the trend stops eventually. How long were westerns popular? Has it been that long yet?
I still love superheroes and I will continue to see superhero movies, I’m just sick to tears of all the overwrought MAN ANGST.
westerns went on for like THIRTY YEARS i don’t think we’re there yet 🙁
(late 1920s to mid 1950s, by my estimate, if you don’t count TV westerns)
(and my estimate doesn’t include the late 1960s and 1970s gritty/sexy reboots like Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid or McCabe & Mrs Miller)
At least westerns have HORSES. What do these superhero movies have?
Superhorses!
I can’t take another 20 years of this. Someone bring back pirate movies.
Or at least bring back Douglas Fairbanks (père) i mean have you seen his stuff? so self-aware of both the blatant sex-appeal aspects of his films (he spends like 75% of The Thief of Baghdad shirtless and in sheer or torn trousers!) and the goofiness and it’s so much fun. Plus he worked at going against the systemic racism of Hollywood, even though he wasn’t very good at it to modern eyes, with films like The Half-Breed. he’s basically everything the modern superhero movie should be but isn’t. Well, except I guess for Deadpool, but I won’t be seeing it until it’s available with xfinity On Demand, so I don’t know yet.
I won’t be avoiding the movie, but I can absolutely commiserate over trying to avoid all the content on tumblr. I can fall down the rabbit hole so easily, and I’m trying not to with this one! No matter what I blacklist, things slip through, though.
Why is it so hard for people to tag? I don’t get it. I had to unfollow someone last year who kept forgetting to tag stuff with spiders after I posted a request and then sent her a PM about it. Come on, folks. Tag your stuff. It’s polite!
SRSLY
I take some joy in unfollowing at this point. You don’t like tags? Fuck you, I’m out. There are so many things I aggressively don’t care about that are beloved by people I otherwise love. Like Marvel.
I loved loved loved The Winter Soldier, and if Civil War was the bringing Bucky in from the cold movie I think it was originally intended to be, I would be super excited. Because it could be about healing post trauma and all sorts of interesting things. Instead it’s a bloated mess stuffed with every hero possible and I have no interest. I didn’t see Avengers 2 and I don’t want to spend money on Avengers 3. I feel like I’m watching action heroes punch each other.
And I’m sorry but I hate Tony Stark now. I just do. He’s a privileged arrogant weirdly totalitarian asshole always interfering in someone else’s business. Steve is literally Captain America and he’s less of a World Police than Tony. Ugh.
All I wanted was Cap 3 to be a Bringing Bucky In From The Cold movie. Why couldn’t it be that? What did we do to deserve this mess?
I have a lot of gifs and yet I don’t have one for the perfection of your comments about what I would like for the last Cap movie versus what we’re going to get for the last Cap movie. Yes yes yes yes yes. I walked out of AoU after half an hour and I don’t regret it not even a little.
I am dreading it SO MUCH. Cap is my all time favorite, comics and movies and I’ve gotten to the point where I’m avoiding wearing my Cap stuff and shutting down all conversations regarding the movie. I just can’t. I can’t even. I get panic-y when I see the posters and when the trailer comes on in the theaters I just shut down. I know it’s an absurd reaction, but yeah.
I honestly thought that Wawa was just a nickname for Walmart until like… two years ago?
In Captain America-adjacent news, I highly enjoy the fact that Jason Mantzoukas apparently exclusively refers to Sebastian Stan by his full title, “Sebastian Stan, The Winter Soldier” per the newest HDTGM.
I just listened to that HDTGM ep and that “Sebastian Stan, The Winter Soldier” made me lol. Also, Zouks in general is a shining beacon of light.
OMG, thank you for informing me (by proxy) that HDTGM did an episode on The Covenant, a bad movie that I truly loved with all my <3 in high school. I’m so excited for next my commute now!!
#WAWA4LYFE
The first time I even saw a Wawa, I was visiting my parents in Virginia. I didn’t even know they existed this far north! Is it an eastern PA thing, though? I’ve never seen one in yinzer country. We’re all Sheetz and GetGo round these parts.
Definitely an eastern PA thing (and elsewhere on the East Coast), as that’s where Wawa originated.
I went down an FKA Twigs rabbit hole the other day and ended up watching her completely amazing MOBO awards performance, which was one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my living life. Guys, she might be the one. The expression on her face at the end is just I SLAYED YOU ALL, YOU WILL NOT FORGET ME.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7E4JXnMEec
Me and my roommate (who is from california) once drove to my hometown in NJ to go to a flea market to get some furniture for our new apartment, and on the way back we stopped at Wawa and got sandwiches. It was hoagiefest, so they were like, $2, and my roommate couldn’t stop talking about how good they were. 6 months later she goes “man, once it gets warm out, we should go back to that flea market. And stop at that sandwich place again” and I’m thinking like, what sandwich place did we stop at? One of the really nice italian delis in town? And I’m trying to think of where we went and she goes “you know, that place, wawa? That was the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my life”
Wawa objectively rules and I miss it every day
I have taken boyfriends to my hometown to meet my parents and go to Wawa.
WAWA. God now I want it like no other. The first time I took bf to the Wawa part of PA he was mad that I was making him get lunch at a gas station. But then he understood. Everyone understands once they have Wawa.
I wish I lived in NYC so I could walk that tortoise. I also wish I had the money for this: https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/more-furniture-… (it’s vintage taxidermy so if that’s not you jam, don’t click)
This New York Mag piece on where music is going is really lovely, and the best kind of ~*interactive~* journalism.
This ClickHole video manages to sum up my worldview in under a minute. DO NOT WATCH if you have any kind of phobia regarding snakes: http://www.clickhole.com/video/animals-snuggling-…
I am due May 4th, and I am really, REALLY hoping that as a first Mother’s day gift to me, this baby stays in until the 7th so I can see Civil War.
It’s surprisingly easy to take a tiny baby to a movie. Seriously, you can go places and do things in the first six months you won’t do freely again for years.
(gonna gush for a bit, guys) fka twigs is an artist more than a recording artist, if that makes sense, so I think trying to fit her into musical genres is a bit pointless. Also, the obvious racial pigeonholing of calling her “r&b” when she’s just *not* is bad, as is the pigeonholing into this “sexy songstress” thing, when her lyrics are obviously as much about violence and nihilism and spirituality as they are about sex– something she addresses pretty explicitly in M3LL155X in the videos.
It kind of reminds me of Fiona Apple, where everyone sees a beautiful woman and make all these assumptions about the things a beautiful woman can and cannot be singing about.
That Captain Awkward article is speaking directly to my jerkbrain. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had grown up with the internet and had easy access to information like this. Would I have figured out I was chronically depressed before my late twenties and developed better coping skills (my jerkbrain is still more often in control than not)? On the other hand, oh am I so glad I didn’t grown up with the internet and smart phones! The ability to permanently document and share youth’s foibles horrifies me.
Man, I am SO SO GLAD there is little record of my high school and college shenanigans. For a long time, there were some semi-findable archived e-mails from a private mailing list (I’m pretty sure they’re gone now, but there are enough semi-important people who share my name that I don’t really worry too much about anyone stumbling on them accidentally at least). But DAMN I would be in trouble if there was a facebook or even a livejournal stretching back that far. Also I would most definitely have been a sexting teenager if I’d had a cell phone – arrested for child porn? Who knows! But making it, no doubt.
RIGHT?? I am so glad all my adolescent angst was confined to paper notebooks in my bedside drawer rather than spewed across the internet.
while snapchat isn’t completely ephemeral, I do wonder if this is one of the reasons for its popularity. The youth rationally using a service that is less likely to follow them as they grow up.
I read that post a few years ago when I was *extremely* depressed and“Self, you can feel fucking horrible and still do the thing you need to do.” has been my motto for getting myself through hard times ever since. Captain Awkward has been enormously helpful to me, but that post in particular I re-read on the regular. Also, on bad ADHD day, I adapt it to say “Self, even if this takes you three times longer than normal, having it partly done is better than not done at all. Now GO.”
1: Turn on the news; actual civilization is overrated. We’ll stick to our pretend civilization with the constant binge drinking and the fries on everything. 2: The three rivers may smell, but they are only half as bad as the putrescent odor that comes from the concentrated bong water that is The Deleware. 3: Sheetz offers all sandwiches on pretzel bread for no extra charge, which is clearly superior to a hoagie roll.
I HAVE THE NEWS ON RIGHT NOW AND AM VERY HAPPY WITH MY CHOICES
Only if you don’t have decent hoagie rolls. 😛
And I agree that pretzel bread is THE choice for sandwich bread.
BUT Sheetz does not do it for me. Everyone says they are great, but everyone I go into feels dirty and they are always in intersections with weird traffic so going in and out of the parking lot is too stressful.
“Odo-Ro-No helped launch a trend of advertising-by-fear, sometimes known as “whisper copy,” which focused on gossip around topics considered impolite to address in public.”
Just yesterday, Rewind on CBC replayed a show from 1949 on advertising. They included a woman on the panel. She brought up advertising-by-fear (or maybe it was an audience member, but it was a woman), and was pooh-poohed by one of the men, like it wasn’t a thing. There’s another part where she says something, and the men actually start talking among themselves about what she meant to say, as if she wasn’t still there.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/rewind
Ha! There is definitely an Age of Persuasion that deals with this same topic (from recent years so, you know, it’s about how this is a real true thing.)
There was an episode of “Adam Ruins Everything” about it, too. (I had such a weird little crush on that show.)
And when I was nine-ish I stumbled on my mom’s first edition of “Crazy Salad” by Nora Ephron which has an essay about the development of “feminine hygiene spray” which was both horrifying and confusing to wee!alula. (On the other hand, sorry random goodreads reviewer, I was totally into the “interpersonal dynamics of Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan at the 1972 Democratic Convention.”)
(I still find the book really interesting, but it is in some ways very dated, very white professional women’s feminism and navel-gazing.)
I’m imagining a Broad City episode where Ilana gets the tortoise walker job and is all excited and then loses the tortoise. Hijinks ensue.
OR a re-imagining of the “Cheddar” episode of B99 but with a tortoise instead of a corgi
MILD SPOILER AHEAD:
What would Boyle be hugging that is not a possum?
hmmm…
SEWER GATOR
NAILED IT
“It’s a tortoise, he can’t get far!” *cue images of the tortoise trundling along miles away*
ANOTHER MILD SPOILER AHEAD:
Sorry, I just can’t stop chuckling (literally; people are Looking At Me Askance) thinking about how the tortoise just misses Kevin so, so much.
We already have a book for that: Rosalie the Bird Market Turtle.
I mean, yes, Rosalie is clearly a tortoise, but this story has everything a Toastie might find charming: a talking bird, a Parisian market, a tortoise masquerading as a turtle, and lots of strawberries.
ok, 45 is way too old to be pulling allnighters. I lost all my stats exam work (apparently I didn’t save? I hate having to use lab computers), had to spend hours trying to do it in excel rather than SPSS and thus I am very very behind on a lit review due at 5 today. I have skipped work both Wed and today to get it done. I am mainlining coffee. After that I have to coach 13 year olds.
Then I will sleep, and reward myself tomorrow by watching the CA trailer and listening to Tegan and Sarah before I write my next 2 papers.
I have a girl who my daughter idolizes on my team. She is 13 and has been hospitalized three times THIS YEAR ALONE for depression/anxiety. So far she’s thrown up from stress at every practice. My daughter really likes reconnecting with her (they haven’t been in the same classes for years). It’s a 9 boys 4 girls team. This girl did football with all the boys in the fall–but she’s soooo stressed. It’s only me and one other coach who really doesn’t know how to coach yet and doesn’t know the game at all AND who is a single-by-choice mom of an only child (not ideal coach material since, while well intentioned and very organized, this person just doesn’t know how actual children interact, but it’s who stepped up to help). Which means I have very little extra time to go chasing after a girl who’s running out into the dark to throw up outside. How can I help? Soon I will have another coach but I’m still the head coach and the one running the show. I need to know what behaviors I can do IN practice to minimize stress that address everybody but mainly are what she needs to hear. Ideas?
PS also my daughter is similar. She has been taking karate at her own insistence for 9 years. She is testing for black belt within the year. She is hands down one of the best students in her cohort. She barely makes it to class once a week. I go to school with one of the adult black belts, and he commented that out of the corner of his eye he thought she was one of the adult senseis. She said, “well, he only saw me out of the corner of his eye”, and rolled her eyes. She had made one mistake on the kata, kept going, but chewed the inside of her lip raw with stress. GIRLS! Imposter syndrome! depression! I feel helpless to stop this!
I don’t know what your competition set up is like, but maybe take the focus off competition/testing/external achievement for awhile? Run some skills workshops, play other games that reinforce skills without being about practise or beating anyone? Let the kids enjoy what their doing without it being about achieving something?
That first girl also sounds like she might be a bit over stretched; what other activities is she involved in, what’s her school load like? Are her parents involved, can you speak to them about her taking a break from something for a bit? Throwing up from stress regularly is pretty serious, does she even enjoy playing? Does she find it worth it to go through all that stress in the end? (She might well do, but she might also have some fear or problem thats causing such a large reaction to this activity)
I’ve been a student and a teacher for horse riding over the years; and sometimes its good to drill for an hour working on something specific, and other times you need to take the pressure off completely and let them just enjoy the sport (we used to do a lot of pony games like pole bending and versions of egg and spoon, its surprising how much skills can improve when you’re not concentrating on them, but concentrating on something completely different)
I have very little advice, but maybe it could help just a little to open practice with some calm stretching and breathing exercises?
Why is a single mom not good coach material? I don’t understand this comment.
No, that’s not what i meant, I’m a single mom. What I meant was, as a single mom /single kid always family, she doesn’t have any experience (and I’m generalizing here,because time) with fighting kids, distracting kids who are trying to rile up other kids, any of the typical things that “more than two kids in a family” parents know from being on “zone defense” for much of their parent-lives. Or the kind of things teachers know.
She’s a great helper but her experience with child(ren) is limited to an n of one. Hence she has a learning curve ahead of her which is less than ideal when the situation is as short-staffed and short on time as it is. I phrased that badly.
And also we both bitch because here we are, two single moms, stepping up to coach when none of the sports-crazy dads can be bothered.
I will try to make sure we break it up with fun things…I usually do, but I will make more of an effort. It will be easier when we are practicing in mostly the same place every time, instead of three different locations a week. I’ve been focusing on making sure the girls don’t only hang out together and the team partners up with different people each day.
Isaac Mizrahi and QVC trying to classify the moon and the sun is still one of my favorite things
Oh I hate that particular QVC lady. She’s really obnoxious.
But I love Isaac Mizrahi! My mom tapes him on QVC whenever she sees he’s on–for him, not the clothes. Then we’ll watch it when I’m visiting my parents.
Reading about how he didn’t feel like he could be himself until his dad died broke my heart a little.
Although I will say the funniest thing to watch on QVC is when Bob Mackie is promoting his line there. It’s all really terrible and dowdy with this wacko sequin embroidery but they talk about it like it’s really gorgeous, high-end stuff just because Bob Mackie made it and it’s hilarious. They’re bluffing so hard.
“The moon is such a planet I can’t even stand it”
Until I started watching Project Runway All Stars, my awareness of Isaac Mizrahi was minimal but now…J’ADORE! Super knowledgable, funny, bright, the man GETS IT.
There is a documentary about him on Netflix that you must find. It’s him mid 90’s with all the supermodels planning his next big show. And they show the entire thing from conception to entire runway show. It made me fall in love with him.
Everyone in the background yelling “IT’S A MOON” lol
I started following the amazing author of the harassment of women in STEM piece on twitter, and last night she drew attention to a writer from Science who was fired yesterday, something he believes is due to tensions after he fought hard to report his own piece on sexual harassment published last month.
His blog post on it here: http://michael-balter.blogspot.fr/2016/03/why-did…
All due respect to Mr. Rozsa, but the actual best song about Wawa (or really, the lack thereof) is No Wawa in the Hood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw3lIlsgjjI
Also, I suppose this means I have officially lived in Wawa territory too long, as I have opinions about which Wawa tribute song is the best.
Anyway, here’s “Wawa.”
I have never been inside one but whenever I see their sign* I hear it as sad trombone. WAH, wa-aa-ah
*or in the comments here, where it appears four hundred times at least already and I expect will double by lunchtime
I’m a half-Cuban southern Californian so to me a wawa is a bus
(is it spelled guagua in Spanish?)
every few weeks or so I say to Dan, REMEMBER CIVIL WAR IS COMING OUT THE DAY AFTER MY BIRTHDAY, and he always pretends like I didn’t just say that a few weeks ago and gets excited with me all over again.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEE
Oh hi, fellow early May birthday person!
(My birthday is two days after Civil War comes out.)
it is just OBJECTIVELY the best time of year to be born
We have the same birthday!!!
I too am looking forward to my birthday gift of seeing this movie.
*intensely voiceover voice* “Coming this May to a theater near you: Men Breathing Heavily and Staring at Each Other with Great Intensity. Also, Scarlett Johannson & Elizabeth Olsen.”
With Goofy Paul Rudd shrinking and growing big and cracking wise.
Truth: if an action movie is boring me, I like yelling “KISS” at the tv during intense staring moments.
Adding a link to what might be my all-time favorite Grub Street: http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/03/sunny-ozell-gru…
I might be more than a little in love with Sunny Ozell right now. (And extra-additionally in love with Patrick Stewart for his clearly awesome taste and you GUYS she calls him P.Stew.)
I love everything about this so much.
I went to a Wawa once and got a sandwich. It was okay. The ordering process was confusing though.
I was discussing with some fellow-nerds yesterday that removing the mutants from the Civil War plot really changes the calculus. Because with the mutants around, you have a very large number of people who are explicitly targeted for something they were born with – which is a true ethical quandary!
But if you remove the mutants, then you’re left with a majority of superheroes like Tony, who basically just uses a high-tech piece of killing technology that should be registered and tracked like a handgun, or Steve, who volunteered to be enhanced and therefore (one can argue) volunteered to shoulder extra responsibility. That seems like a much more straightforward issue.
Basically what I’m saying is Team Tony all the way.
also, Civil War was specifically about vigilante superheroes, and there basically are no vigilante superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Practically everyone who has a secret identity already works for the government. Captain America already works for the government. When these guys talk about how there needs to be a check on them, what does that mean? That they need to follow laws? They already follow laws they already work for the government.
Do they already follow the laws, though? I’m getting the impression that the pro-reg side is like, “Hey guys we gotta stop invading foreign countries and fucking their shit up. Also if you assassinate someone you should be prosecuted for it.” So I guess they’re a little hazy on the law-following currently.
(Something something the government in real life doesn’t follow its own laws lolsob.)
Yeah but that doesn’t make any sense, because Captain America was the one who was already giving SHIELD shit for doing things that it technically wasn’t supposed to. Like, how do these guys get organized into teams where Tony-I-Privatized-World-Peace-Stark is leading the “more government oversight division” and Captain-I’m-Captain-Daggone-America-America is leading the “libertarian ubermenschen division”?
I mean, even assuming that Tony has a change of heart after he nearly destroys the world with Ultron (which, I mean, he already *didn’t* have a change of heart about that, because his solution in that movie to accidentally creating an murderous artificial intelligence was to just create a different, better artificial intelligence), and assuming that Captain America is going to stick his neck out for Bucky, thus stuff still doesn’t really feel like it tracks for me at all.
So I read the Civil War comic awhile ago; and I’ve never really read any other Marvel comics, so my knowledge of the characters is from the movies.
And I was honestly SHOCKED that Tony Stark was on the side of the government. Like considering his libertarian crusade against government interference in Iron Man 2, it just makes no sense. And Cap is all gung-ho yay America so it would make sense for him to be on the pro-government team.
So I’ll be interested to see how this develops in the movie; there is a possibility that Cap is an old school conservative who thinks government oversight is bad, but I doubt they go that way.
My guess is Bucky does something terrible that kicks it all off and Cap sticks with him out of love.
For the most part, the Civil War comics seemed to be Mark Millar unsuccessfully trying to pilfer the storyline from Brian Michael Bendis’ more successful version in Powers (though, in fact, Bendis was using superheroes as a straight-up metaphor for gun control in a way that was both wrong and stupid — nevertheless, it turns out you can still make a pretty compelling story out of that).
As a comic, it barely makes any sense, *especially* in the Marvel Universe, where there’s really only a handful of costumed vigilantes with secret identities in the first place, and they all live in Manhattan.
I was a bit disappointed with the whole book. I read it because I knew the movie was coming out and I liked the sound of it so I thought I’d read the source.
I was expecting it to be a lot more in-depth, but from what I remember, its all a bit basic and just reads like a grudge match between Iron Man and Captain America.
Yeah, it’s pretty dull in my opinion as well, and it also has a lot of characters behaving wildly out of character in order to fit into Mark Millar’s “What if everyone was a huge asshole” worldview.
This is what I mean when it would make so much more sense if the Mutants were still around! Because then you could play it as: Tony – as a non-powered human, just a smart guy with good tech – is genuinely frightened of what these Mutants can do. Meanwhile, Steve, who is all about AMERICA, sees the Mutant Registration Act as an unforgivable affront against people’s civil liberties.
But then Fox had to go and keep its claws on all rights to the M-word.
From what I remember in the book the mutants don’t feature heavily; I agree that this story would work much better, Tony is all kinds of messed up at this point and it makes sense he’d react to very powerful mutants with fear!
IIRC the superhero registration act that is proposed is separate to the Mutant Registration Act which just makes no sense.
I’m hoping that they will manage to make some sense out of Civil War, which as you said below didn’t make much sense in the first place, by making the central question “Should Bucky be held responsible for his actions as the Winter Soldier, or what?” And if that’s the route they’re going, then having set up the implication that maybe the Winter Soldier killed Tony’s parents is smart, because it provides a plausible reason for Tony to be viscerally on the pro-prosecution side, even if it’s hard to buy that he would intellectually take that position. But so far the trailers aren’t really selling that for me.
Wait what? When was it implied that the Winter Soldier killed the Starks?
So I didn’t really pick it up either, to be honest, but many, many people in fandom believe it was a deliberate implication: in the Winter Soldier movie, when Steve and Natasha confront the Zola-computer and Zola is telling them how Hydra has secretly grown up inside of SHIELD and “when history did not cooperate, history was changed,” the images showing on the computer screen are the Winter Soldier in action, then the newspaper headline about the Starks’ death in a car accident. I read that as definitely saying that the Starks were assassinated by Hydra (well, that Howard was assassinated and that Maria was collateral damage, probably), but not necessarily that Bucky did it; a lot of people read it as definitely tying Bucky to the killing.
Ooooh, yeah totally missed that (and I don’t get involved in fandom at all).
TBH I’m not the hugest fan of the either Captain America movie, so I haven’t watched them as much as I have watched the others. Hydra killing Howard Stark makes total sense, but I don’t know about them sending in The Winter Soldier to do it, didn’t they die in a car crash? And his MO is a soviet bullet?
See, that’s what I thought, too — if someone sends the Winter Soldier to kill you, you are gonna know about it! “Make it look like an accident” is not really his MO! But from a storytelling point of view I think it’s a good move; even if they never confirm that that’s what happened, even raising the question can only help with getting Tony and Steve onto opposite sides.
We were talking about this over on Slacktivist last week but the thing is the mutants were studiously ignored in the comics too. Decades of Mutant-Registration-Act-As-The-Preface-To-Holocaust can’t be undone.
my favorite dress, the one i have considered buying a duplicate of off ebay just in case, is isaac mizrahi for target, and that article makes me love it even more
I bought an Isaac Mizrahi for Target dress off a fashion blogger who was having a clear out years ago – I would say it was kind of ridiculous to pay shipping all the way to the UK for a dress from Target but years later and it is still one of the best things I own!
I have a dress and a skirt from that line! I love them both very much. A combination of shrinking and growing makes the skirt currently unwearable, but I’ll be damned if I’m giving it up.
I have a skirt from these wonderful days and I still get compliments every time I wear it.
I have a brown suede jacket from Isaac Mizrahi for Target that I bought 11 or 12 years ago. I wish I’d bought two, one to wear and one to keep in pristine storage until the first one falls off me in tatters.
(I really <3 it, you guys, is what I’m saying.)
In happy news, my SCA name and motto are tentatively approved by those folks who approve such things.
My name will be Sibylla, with the motto: “The more you know” (in greek). I felt that toasties would appreciate this, because it makes me giggle.
nooo! the tortoise walker post was flagged for removal 🙁 Did anyone screenshot it and/or save it somehow with their fancy technowizardry?
Nevermind — It already made the rounds on the internet!
http://gothamist.com/2016/03/09/tortoise_walker_w…
OMG THESE PICTURES
YOU GUYS. My name is Sara (not Loren), and yesterday, I was at the park with my two kids, and this little girl (age 5, she said) came over and asked to play with us, and I said sure! What’s your name? AND IT WAS TEGAN. I literally almost said “have you ever heard” and then I stopped because haha what.
Side note, she asked me to help her onto the monkey bars, and before I did, I asked whether her mom was around, lest her mom to look up and be like “hey look a stranger has her hands on my kid.” She said no, that her dad was there but walking the path next to the fence around the park in order to — here she mimed what looked to me like a baby carrier on one’s chest, and I thought oh, he’s walking the baby around — “walk off his big belly.” Shortly thereafter a large man came huffing by and thanked me for helping his daughter. I said oh she’s very sweet, it was my pleasure, and thought but did not say haha she’s on top of your workout goals, too!
I initially read that as “in the parking lot” (WTF brain) and was very confused by the rest of your story.
I really like that Captain Awkward letter and have bookmarked and look at it a lot, but every time that story at the end of the woman whose son died brings me to tears. Maybe this is like, #INFPThings but there are times I really just CANNOT believe that we live in a world where it is 100% acceptable to fire someone 6 months after their son died.
I’m probably a bad adult for feeling this way, because most adults seem to make peace with these facts of life about our world but I just can’t. It gives me genuine, almost physical pain to hear about people in crisis losing jobs or homes or having their electricity cut off (don’t even get me started on the Flint water crisis), like I really feel it in my guts and bones, and I don’t understand why it’s considered childish or juvenile to say that.
This is why I’ll never be a manager. Putting objective business realities over human interests is just not a skill in my emotional toolbox, I guess.
Yes. Me too.
I thank Heaven every day that my only direct reports are college students so it’s my JOB to worry about their well-being more than how well they’re doing their jobs.
Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone with this feeling. I bet your college students appreciate you.
Well, they know I’m a softie about missed shifts!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl3jK8NCLFc
Now this will be stuck in my head all afternoon. Thanks Nicole.
All the Wawa love in the comments is warming my icy heart. Bless.
Callum Keith Rennie! People keep not knowing who he is until I say "Cylon Model #2" but he's in a ton of great (Canadian) movies.
<img src="http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/clevermanka/1047329/154660/154660_original.gif">
Of course it was They Might be Giants.
Wait what? When was it implied that the Winter Soldier killed the Starks?
Are there Wawas in the mid-west? The most efficient route to my home province takes me through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. I’ve done the drive twice now and have yet to find a decent cup of coffee on the road.
Nope, there are none out here. I had never even heard of them until I visited some friends in Delaware a year or two back.
No Wawas, but good coffee can be acquired: Caribou (Minnesota, parts of Wisconsin) or Dunn Brothers (Minnesota), Dunkin on I-94 in Wisconsin is consistent, not terrible and donuts. Culver’s has diner coffee and good burgers for the price, so it’s worth stopping for lunch. Also, there’s a Tim Hortons near Grand Rapids Michigan, but the last time I was there I was focused on funeral things, not coffee.
You should stop at The Norske Nook in Osseo. Good coffee, and the Best Pies!
OMG the penguin. I just want to hug a penguin you guys. I know they’re probably really mean or something, I KNOW they supposedly smell awful, but I just.. I really want to hug a penguin. I wanna pick that feathery pear-shaped doofus up off of the ground and hold it and cuddle it for a while. It can bite me afterwards if it wants to! As long as I get to hug it first!
If you have not seen the Isaac Mizrahi documentary Unzipped YOU HAVE NOT LIVED. It’s the 1990’s, height of the supermodel craze and amazing clothes. It is amazing. He is amazing. It’s streaming on Netflix.
I suppose I should get off my high horse about WaWa, coming as I do from the land where Dunkin Donuts is our Lord and Savoir.
All hail the dunkin’ glow sign.
I don’t think I’m depressed (well, as non-depressed as anyone can be who has spent a significant amount of time considering whether they are depressed) but I believe every one of those Jerkbrain Lies.
That Captain Awkward page is definitely bookmark-worthy. One of the things I thought about almost immediately is how some bosses–and one past boss of mine in particular–will pick up on many of those things and use them against people.
Thank you for penguin friend!
I married into an upstate NY family and had no idea about the glory of Wegmans until I visited the one in Ithaca, years upon years ago. We have them in the Boston area now, too, and the one in Burlington is EVEN BIGGER than the one in Ithaca and it's like someone made my grocery store dreams come true.
Back when we were first dating, my husband and I drove across Canada from Seattle to eastern Ontario via Jasper-Lake Louise-Banff. One night we found a campsite on the shores of North Superior, east of Thunder Bay, in the middle of nowhere. We camped there and the next morning the site owner fed us the largest breakfast we'd ever seen.
After we'd stuffed ourselves, we went outside with the hired man and his dog, and he asked us where we were headed next as he threw sticks into the lake for the retriever to fetch. We said we were headed toward Wawa and (eventually) Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron.
"Wawa, huh?" he said thoughtfully. "Wawa. It's all city down there."
I have a brown suede jacket from Isaac Mizrahi for Target that I bought 11 or 12 years ago. I wish I'd bought two, one to wear and one to keep in pristine storage until the first one falls off me in tatters.
(I really <3 it, you guys, is what I'm saying.)
Yeah, I remember watching Silver Linings Playbook and being like, YOU DIDN'T PRONOUNCE KINGA PRUSHA RIGHT disbelief unsuspended.