The most important news of the week, more important even than Sansa, is that Animaniacs is now on Netflix.
Gordon Korman was MY LIFE as a kid, and those books are still my Xanax and this profile filled me with pure bliss:
The plots are gentle in a way that, in retrospect, feels particularly Canadian. There are no real villains to hate, none of the cruelty of a Roald Dahl book or the social realism of Judy Blume. Ed Keenan, the Toronto Star columnist and a former Korman fanatic, described his books to me as “Ferris Bueller avant la lettre,” which feels exactly right. When you’re a kid, the stakes are low, but feel enormous. Things are maybe a little stupid, but then, so is childhood. Bruno and Boots don’t want to be split up. Bugs Potter, the hero of pair of early Korman novels, wants to sneak around downtown Toronto clubs and play rock music. Rudy Miller from I Want to Go Home just wants to escape his awful summer camp. The pleasure in the books is in the creativity of the schemes, the quality of the gags, the evident love between the characters, and the streak of anti-authoritarianism that, to a ten-year-old, felt thrilling.
one of the most beautiful things I have ever read
I found this history of fire escapes COMPLETELY delightful:
One of Andy Warhol’s first videos was shot on a fire escape, a short of his boyfriend, scissor in hand, giving Edie Sedgewick a pixie cut. An impossibly young Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe posed next to the iron railings in ripped jeans and white tees, punk poet and photographer in repose. On Wu-Tang’s song “C.R.E.A.M.,” Raekwon raps about “running up in gates, and doing hits for high stakes/Making my way on fire escapes.” James Baldwin’s short story The Rockpile, the two main characters, a pair of stepbrothers in Harlem, survey the landscape below them from the fire escape outside their window. Paul Simon looks out from a fire escape on Crosby Street on the cover of Still Crazy After All These Years. Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs dueled over Greenwich Village neighborhoods such as Hell’s Hundred Acres, where fire escapes with pots of geraniums signaled the home of an artist, likely an illegal squatter.
3. My coworker refuses to learn how to use a computer or a printer
I have a coworker who refuses to learn how to use a computer or a printer and handwrites everything. Most people in the office are used to it since everyone has worked here for 20+ years. She has worked here for 30+ years and never learned how to use any machine. Since I am the front desk, she hands me all of her work to type up and she has me print stuff out for her all the time. In the beginning, I did not mind and was eager to help. Now, I am finding myself becoming irritated when asked to help. She usually has a million corrections and changes her mind. Plus, it’s pages and pages of things to be typed and, what is more irritating, she will put a rush on it. I honestly don’t know how someone can be employed for that long at a company and refuse technology especially working in a office. I need some advice on how to handle this situation.
Please enjoy the BANANAS video for Toto’s “Africa”:
I found myself PROFOUNDLY MOVED by Seth Meyers talking about the birth of his kid but also my period is starting soon, so YMMV.
The replies to this are completely hilarious:
Melissa Gira Grant’s exceptional piece on a sex worker who killed a serial killer in self-defense and what happened after:
Heather really is busy. She sits cross-legged on the far end of the couch, a notebook on her lap. In round script, the cover lists first names: I recognize my own. Tomorrow Heather will go again to try to get an ID, get signed up for health insurance, figure out where to move, to work. Outside Charleston, a city where there is no organized and visible sex worker community, across the country and the world, other sex workers were sharing her story — or what they knew of it from media reports, from inference. But in Heather’s apartment, it was just one more day in the place where she fought for her life.
Upon being fired, Mr. Evans said, he had a problem. “For me, I was just wondering: How am I going to get my juice?” he said.
He bought every juicer he could find, but he was never satisfied. “It didn’t have the magic that I was accustomed to.”
So he resolved to create a miniaturized version of the industrial presses he had used at Organic Avenue. Working with freelance welders and machinists, he built prototypes in his Brooklyn kitchen. By 2013, he had a working model, albeit one that occasionally blew apart, sending pieces of metal and food scraps flying across the room.
this woman is the greatest living human
This deleted comment was left by “Louie the bug lover”:
WE’RE ZANY TO THE MAX!
Has Bill Clinton played the sax on the campaign trail this year? That joke could be relevant again.
Heh. Slappy Squirrel was hands down my favorite character. Still is.
Is she supposed to be Joan Rivers? Elaine Stritch? Phyllis Diller?
I had no context for any of their jokes as a kid but loved it all the same.
Some glorious combination of all of the above, plus with bomb-making and throwing skills. I mean, how often does a crotchety old dame come along who also has the skills of a member of ISIS and the sense of humor of an old vaudevillian? She’s a treasure.
It gives you that get up and go! I . . . gotta go.
And yet “there’s bologna in our slacks” will always be relevant!
I misread this as Bill Cosby for the first half of the day. That is very different from Bill Clinton.
Nobody does longreads like Texas Monthly.
Totally agree, and Pamela Colloff is one reason why.
It’s so true. I remember the first piece I read by them (which was actually the oral history of the Texas Tower sniper) a few years ago and I’ve been reading them ever since. I was shocked because though I’d grown up hearing about Columbine, I never once heard about the Texas Tower shootings. Of all the stories that Texas Monthly’s 2006 oral history goes into, the one that stuck with me most was Claire Wilson’s. I read the piece on her yesterday (after seeing Nicole’s RT about it) and! Do not recommend reading right before you go to bed! It took me forever to fall asleep after that. A beautiful, heartbreaking piece.
content note on that, because it’s not apparent from the first couple of paragraphs and I wish I’d known: the shooting deaths include a stillbirth.
Poor Bug Lover. Humor is hard.
“The world thanks you for nothing!” Surely Mallory is devastated by your criticism, Louie. She has more magic in her fingers fingers than you do in your whole bug.
When Matt worked as an engineer, he had one client who refused to email but would instead write his responses to emails, fax them to a coworker, who then had to SCAN them (not transcribe them??) and send that scan to Matt. That just seems so much harder than email?
I automatically roll my eyes every time I see the word “fax” at this point. Always, always harder than email, yes.
The company that holds my student loans insists on faxes. No amount of me telling them that there isn’t a fax machine in a 20 mile radius of me moves them even the slightest.
Also, the utilities for my town only let you set up direct withdrawals with a cancelled check. Which means I would have to order checks just to give them one. But you are allowed to make manual, one time payments on the website via credit card. None of my other bills have this issue. It is so infuriating. Come on people, it’s 2016 already.
I sign a lot of contracts at my job, and they all have to be delivered by fax. Legally, they’re more “acceptable” than email.
Scan and email is EXACTLY THE SAME AS FAX. Lawyer here. There is literally no reason to use fax to sign documents rather than scan and email.
I’m a lawyer. Our local rules often allow service by fax but not email, or email only under certain circumstances.
My boss refuses to learn how to enter citations into Lexis Advance, which is literally a Google style search bar. He would rather call me and have me pull the cite and email to him. This despite the fact that his assistant is perfectly competent to have learned this skill in the five years since we got LA. Life of an associate.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a jurisdictional thing. My jurisdiction changed the service rules a few years back to include email in some circumstances, but it varies.
What about security purposes? Not for contracts, but for forms with sensitive information like social security number. I had my mom/accountant send a fax a few days ago cause the recipient couldn’t access it via secure fileshare and asked me to send it as a “normal” attachment (her quotes) and I was like…um no, lady that works at a bank that apparently gives no training on information security, I am not casually sending you my social over email.
I’m a lawyer for a health care contractor, and we send everything that contains protected health information by fax or FedEx. Our privacy office doesn’t allow anything with identifying information to be emailed.
Also, the court that we interact with doesn’t accept emailed documents, because that isn’t considered a secure method under their federal guidelines.
I worked in a doctor’s office in 2010-11 and we used the fax machine CONSTANTLY, as did all the other practices we worked with. I think it’s probably still a thing in medical offices, like beepers.
I can confirm this. Fax is more secure when it comes to sending records. It’s such a waste of time and paper.
There was a lady who rented office space on the same floor as my company who was a financial planner of some sort, and apparently there were some client records that she was legally only allowed to send by fax because it’s more secure than email.
I used to* work with pension payments, and the bank would only accept sign off on totals and off-cycle transactions via fax. They actually employed someone (multiple someones?) to watch the fax machine and hand deliver faxes to the appropriate account managers.
*Used to = 2012. Not, like, 1987.
I worked for a company where we had to fax things to corporate all the goddamned time and upon my first visit to their office realized that all of those “lost” “not received” faxes were clearly just in a giant pile next to the machine. The person employed to watch the fax machine there just….didn’t worry so much about it, yanno? <headdesk>
Yep, the GP surgery I used to work in use a fax machine all the time, mostly to send urgent prescriptions pharmacies – they needed a signature and it was better than scanning and emailing.
I run clinical trials and the central laboratories who analyze labs will only send the results by fax, even though there’s no identifying information on the results forms. It took me 4 months to find and set up a fax machine for my office, and it takes up SO MUCH SPACE for something I use approximately 1x a month.
I can confirm this because my office (the editorial office of an art history journal) is constantly getting faxes intended for some office down in the Medical Center. Just to give you an idea of how secure your medical details are with those things.
The financial services industry still requires faxes because the regulatory status of email is still up in the air with regard to standards like “disclosure” and “consent” and “legal signature”.
Too often I have heard the phrase “wet signature” and then I just go and self-soothe for a few minutes/hours/ever.
What?! I think a “wet signature” is what dogs leave on fenceposts, etc?
I hate every city that insists on wet-sealed drawings. In this day and age! We hardly ever print any copies, much less the six that you want us to manually stamp and sign every single page of…
My uncle’s pension board insisted on a faxed copy of my ID. I scanned the ID, sent a copy to my brother (whose employer keeps a fax machine for roughly this reason), etc.
A lot of effort. But I need the money.
We have one product rep who will only fax. He is old, and has a corner on the market here, so we just try not to have to get things from him very often…
They’re still used a lot in the legal world, because that’s considered a more secure method than email. But we have fax software where I work, so that we can send faxes quite easily from our computers (instead of using a fax machine).
The judges I have legal hearings with don’t accept documents via email, since they often contain personal/ medical information (e.g., Medicare and Social Security numbers).
I had an attorney, who was approximately one billion years old, who used to scrawl notes to me on fax cover sheets and have his secretary fax them to me instead of anyone in the office learning to use email.
He was really good at what he did, though, and was a snappy dresser.
This would make a great obituary. Esp the last line.
I worked for an old attorney at one point and there was a client who had to submit Quickbooks files as part of discovery. The judge ordered that if you provided computer files you had to provide software to read those files as well.
I had to explain the difference between Quickbooks the program and a Quickbooks file to my boss. It was like trying to explain physics to a dog. I have a vague urge to rip some of my hair out just thinking about it.
Wait REALLY????? I’m actually appalled that you had to provide the QuickBooks software to begin with.
We ended up just putting in a link to a free online reader that allowed you to view QuickBooks files.
The idea was just to make sure that all parties could view all of the documents.
I mean, yeah, but what if it was like a Microsoft Word document? Can’t the court just take judicial notice that literally every law office in the country has that program?
Your attorney is in good company apparently the Supreme Court justices communicate via hand delivered written memos. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/08/supr…
Standard practice is to tip the delivery urchin a shilling for his troubles.
The delivery urchin is a clerk who makes more than I do after four years practicing, I’m not going to weep for their entitled T1 asses.
Does he at least wear his newsboy cap at a jaunty angle?
I’ve never met a HLS/YLS gunner who hadn’t kicked the idea of jauntiness until it cringed, but then again I am highly prejudiced against people who get to take their 1L year PASS FAIL.
IF ONLY. Then again I feel like I’m doin’ ok. But I could have worked at a place like Skadden and billed 3000 hours a year!
If it meant I had to rub shoulders with people whose report cards bear similarity to Maeby’s Boston school on Arrested Development, nah, I’m good, I got an A in Civil Procedure, not a crocodile.
“people who get to take their 1L year PASS FAIL”
WAIT, WHAT???
Look upon Harvard Law’s grade policy and come be smug and superior with me that you took Civil Procedure for a real letter grade: http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/ocs/employers/hls-gra…
(points, does Nelson voice from “The Simpsons”) HAha!
These threads about doctors and lawyers sharing all their files with faxes make me sad. I know somebody who worked for a startup trying to make a document-sending internet service as secure as faxes. The startup got bought by Oracle and promptly dismantled.
You may also blame Oracle for every Java-related thing that has happened in your life.
The owner of the company I work for makes his wife and/or daughter transcribe whatever he wants to send by email. He also makes them check his emails for replies! Because that seems efficient!
Free labor is always efficient.
The president of my company keeps track of his time on a notepad and his daughter enters it into our time tracking software every week. She gets paid for it, though.
I worked for a professor who wanted me to check her email, print them all out, and then go through them with her in person every day to discuss what I could respond to and what she needed to respond to. My claims that that would result in a hell of a lot of wasted time and paper were dismissed…until I showed up at her office with, like, a ream of paper and it took us >2 hours to go through it. That’s the ONLY time I’ve ever appreciated people who don’t trim down discussion threads in their replies.
Fax is used internationally and creates a legally binding document because it acknowledges receipt (and the receipt indicates that it was reproduced completely at the right location). It is also harder to intercept (and thus more secure) than almost any other method of communication. That’s why legal offices like to use it, at least, esp. for contracts.
Source: am lawyer.
This makes sense and all, but its still sounds like a PITA.
We have a client that insists we use an asset delivery system to send them any kind of document or design instead of just attaching it to an email. I know it’s for security reason, but no one is trying to steal your designs for an internal microsite you loons.
If it’s something that you’ve got in hard copy anyway, rather than electronically (like prescriptions with a doctor’s signature) it feels much more straightforward to fax them, because scanning and emailing them requires so many more steps.
Also am lawyer and have closed many US deals on just scan and email. And all non-US deals I have closed have relied not on faxes but originals. So, everyone’s processes may vary, but here in the US definitely don’t need ink signatures unless it’s, like, real estate.
I once worked in an office with an older dude who would print out EVERY. SINGLE. EMAIL. he ever received (even ads or one-word “yes” responses) and FILE them. One day he had me file a bunch of them and that was the day I discovered that his filing system only made sense to him inside his mind and I still don’t know what the heck.
Well now that I know there’s people like this in the world, the ‘please consider the environment before printing this email’ warnings at the bottom of my company emails make a whole lot more sense.
I have honestly been trying to figure out who prints any emails at all unless it contains important information (or in my case, I need to be able to scribble on it to think), these people clearly just want to watch the world burn.
Somehow I only ever see those “consider the environment” messages at the bottom of emails that I actually do need to print, usually for financial record-keeping at work, and then the message makes the email run onto a second page.
Oh my god, so I am really insane about touching the bottom of an iron. Like, I own an iron and probably haven’t used it in at least five years. But when I was packing it to move last week, I STILL MADE SURE NOT TO TOUCH THE BOTTOM IT MIGHT BE HOT so this gif is making me die inside.
ME TOO
Coffee break. Someone asked a woman at our table how she got the burn mark just below her clavicle. She said she was running late for work that morning and noticed a big crease in her dress and didn’t think she had enough time to take the dress off . . .
BUT SHE HAD ENOUGH TIME TO TURN ON AN IRON AND WAIT FOR IT TO HEAT UP? WHAT?
LORDT.
Debbie downer here: do things like this happen to her a lot? Because sometimes weird explanations are a cover for abuse
No, they didn’t. Plus, I was good friends with her sister, so knew a bit more about her personal life than your average coworker. And she was a single mother at the time (no partner or bf).
In all fairness, I have legit done this before, on more than one occasion. If you hold the fabric taut and a little way from your skin, you can get away with it.
Just be sure not to use the steam setting.
That definitely sounds like something I would do, if I could be bothered to iron at all.
Ahahaha, I’ve never seen that gif before, it is my new favorite.
Several advisers in the college I work at does this. Never mind that student records are 100% electronic now, with a “notepad” in the student file that they can c/p their emails into, and document imaging attached to each student record that they can upload the email to. No. They have to have physical files on all their students (because that’s what they have “always done”), and must print every important email and stick it in the file.
Ugh my dad is a lawyer and he does this too! Which maybe makes sense in a “keep a record of all communication” kind of way, but to a teenager making a couple extra bucks doing the filing, it was hell to print and file all those emails.
I get yelled at for not printing every single email even though I save them with backups such that they could be printed if need be. 70 year old boss is suspicious of these newfangled ways.
Oh god. I have a coworker who types me notes/replies to emails/memos etc ON AN ACTUAL TYPEWRITER instead of using email or, I don’t know, just telling me since my office is next door to hers. The typewriter thing could be charming or quaint, but the tapping sound through the wall makes me irrationally angry.
This is reminding me of when Ron Swanson got a typewriter.
I’ll always treasure the image of him yelling at the computer, “Delete Ron Swanson!!”
DELETE ALL PICTURES OF RON!
The Vine heard round the world.
I also found it charming when he went to Google Earth and trashed his computer as if that deleted him from the server. Oh, RonSwan.
I’m not surprised by anything anymore. I once asked for and received a document from [prestigious publisher]. It was a pdf file, opened in a browser, sceenshot, put in a word doc, and then printed in the wrong orientation. It was a work of art, I tell you.
I have a coworker who has to pass applications on to me to process. The requests are submitted as Word documents, sometimes with embedded images like maps or drawings.
My coworker prints out the requests, scans them, and uploads them to the network for me to pick up. I then have to retype the information in them, and often have to ask her to go back to the applicant to re-send the graphics because printing & scanning them makes them unreadable, surprise.
Yes, my coworker hates me. No, I’m not sure if she does this all intentionally, or if she honestly cannot figure out how to forward a Word document. I have asked repeatedly for her to stop printing & scanning, and have even given her clear directions, but she won’t change and I cannot get her boss to take any action. So I sit and stew, and run OCR on the PDFs.
This whole thread is just really making me realize I’m perfectly happy to be a bartender. Lower wages, sure, drunk people, yeah. But I can actually just tell people to leave if they annoy me, and also no one has ever asked me to fax anything.
If Louie the Bug Lover isn’t a butterfly who learned to use a keyboard using Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing I’ll eat a grub.
Do other people listen to The Archers and want to discuss it? I am overwhelmed.
Yes! I haven’t really been keeping up because 7pm is pretty much always the toddler’s bedtime, but I knew about the H&R storyline and have been listening the last couple of weeks. I didn’t hear last nights but I saw Twitter, so I’ve listened this morning.
I thought it was incredibly well done – scenes with that level of intense emotion are incredibly hard to do without getting cliched and overwrought but both actors stayed totally believeable. I am a little um-hm about the actual event, though: statistically, it’s *so* much more likely that Rob would have hurt Helen, and whilst there are cases of abused women attacking their abusers, they’ve usually been subject to much, much more sustained abuse than Helen has. (Not to diminish Helen’s experience, but domestic abuse which ends with the abused person killing the abuser is usually more like “fifteen years, literally no way out” than “several months to a year, friends and family who will probably support you even if they’ve been a bit crap”.) So I do feel that that was a bit of a cop-out.
On the other hand, they could have Rob survive and tighten his hold on Helen because now he’s got all that guilt to play with … which would seem to me to be the more plausible storyline but would also be so unlistenable that I don’t think it would be a good route to go down.
(TW – domestic abuse) *screeches to a halt* HI YES PLEASE. I was also a bit sceptical when my mum rang me (5 times) to tell me what had happened but when I listened I sort of changed my mind; I think they’re setting up Helen’s legal battle in a really good way, for example that she acted to protect Henry, that she stabbed Rob twice etc. Here’s a thing about the legal stuff: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2016…
So a) I did believe the moment very strongly and b) I think we’ll learn a lot about legal options fro women under the new ‘co-ercive control’ laws, which will be good.
From a listener point of view I also feel WHY DID KIRSTY LEAVE WHY DIDN’T SHE STAY IN THE FUCKING GARDEN, what Helen needed was a witness. Oh, and the Henry stuff was pretty heartbreaking.
I can see why Kirsty left – if Rob had found her there, he would have hit the roof and potentially been violent towards her or taken it out on Helen. I wish she had stayed, but I assume she was concerned for Helen’s safety.
I wish Helen had kept her phone on and the line open so Kirsty could have heard what was happening (or recorded it) but, again, if Rob had found out he would have been extremely angry.
I’m not sure how I feel about the actual stabbing, either – not the most likely of outcomes, statistically, and maybe not the best thing for listeners in abusive relationships. (Not that I think Helen was in the wrong, at all, just that it might be good to show women getting out without having to face a potential prison sentence. Although it’s not the programme’s job to show that.) I also have a slight quibble with the idea that he would goad her to kill herself – I have no doubt that he’s nasty enough to do it, but I would have thought that he was obsessive enough about the “at last, I will have a son and heir of my own blood” thing that he would have held off until after the birth.
I think it was very well done as well, although hard to listen to. (Admittedly, the Rob and Helen stuff has been hard to listen to for a long time.)
I am worried about what will happen next. I know women who kill their abusers are sometimes able to get a conviction for manslaughter, rather than murder, and a short or non-custodial sentence (as I have mentioned in loads of recent comments, I just finished reading a really great book about how the UK justice system deals really poorly with women, and there is a chapter about women who kill abusive partners and the possible legal defences), but I worry there just isn’t the evidence. So much of what Rob has done has been behind closed doors, and Helen’s done so much minimising – even to Kirsty, Jess and the helpline, there’s been lots of “I don’t know if I should be saying this” and “Really, I’m just overreacting”. She said she wanted to kill him in front of witnesses (Pat and Ursula); her mother thinks she’s been weirdly volatile recently; she’s been prescribed antidepressants; he has only rarely been physically violent to her (although the level of control is terrifying). I think a prosecuting lawyer could make a very convincing case for murder. If people like Jess and Charlie and Shula (re. the hunt sab issue) come forward, she might be able to get some decent witnesses to testify about Rob’s character, but he’s been so good at charming people.
Oh christ, don’t think I wasn’t up all night worrying about all of this. I wonder if Richard Locke might come forward with some Rob-revelation? I had this whole feeling as a naive listener that if Helen could just ease away from Rob she might just get her old life back, but of course that isn’t how these things happen.
I want to know what Richard Locke knows about him! Has there been any hint?
I don’t think he wanted her to kill herself – I think it was one more (abusive, controlling) tactic. Just *this time* he’d underestimated her and her desire to protect herself/Henry/the new baby.
for what it’s worth, I’ve heard that stab wounds are *not* always as fatal as we think they are (people run around athletically for half an hour after fatal stab wounds to the heart! it kind of seals itself up with blood! there’s plenty of time for an ambulance), in which case he could well still be alive.
Yes – the New Statesman article linked above assumed that Rob was incapacitated after the first stab, and that this potentially means Helen couldn’t use a self-defence defence because she stabbed him a second time. I do not think this is how this works! A half-arsed stabbing that infuriated Rob but meant he still had the means to hurt her or Henry would be worse than anything!
I am desperately hoping that Kirsty has the nous to dial 999 and get an ambulance straight over to the house, because if he is still alive but then bleeds out or something that Helen is totally fucked.
I’m still surprised he would take the risk – she’s been so beaten down mentally by him that it’s not inconceivable that she might have done it. (And then he’d just explain it away by saying how fragile she’d been, and how he’d begged her to start taking the antidepressants but she selfishly refused …)
Or he could have jumped in, wrestled the knife off her, and used the fact that “you tried to kill yourself and I had to save your life” as one more weapon against her.
My mother is furious (as she has been at pretty much every storyline for years). “So disappointing and frustrating. Such a missed opportunity to get across any sort of positive or useful message. Now, we’re left with the prospect of misunderstanding, injustice, a prosecution, a parentless child, and a baby that will eventually live a separated life to his incarcerated mother. Bloody crap scriptwriting. Could have been so much better. Best we can hope for is that Rob is just out cold from a bump on the head and recovers enough to be held accountable for his actions. A forlorn hope I suspect.”
(Split into two comments because I tried to post it about six times and it just would not.)
Yes, I agree with your mum! Especially about the impact on Henry and Other Baby. One of the things the Archers does incredibly well is just eek out storylines for years – almost like real life! – and it’s frustrating that all the amazing work they’ve done on developing this subtle and ghastly portrayal of abuse will probably get lost in the drama of the Grand Finale.
I ALSO agree with all this, except I don’t think the writing was bad in itself. I suppose as well iut would maybe have missed an opportunity to explore how the legal system works (or doesn’t work) for abused women. All in all I hoped for a different progression of this storyline but there are opportunities in this one too.
One thing – I would definitely argue that Rob’s controlling behaviour has been in evidence for over a year, although it’s ramped up recently (domestic abuse frequently starts or intensifies in pregnancy!). It’s not a 15-year thing, but it’s been building for a long time.
I used to listen religiously years ago, but stopped around the time that Linda Snell got stuck in the church tower in her Easter egg costume. It got to be a bit much.
To my great relief, I don’t remember that. It sounds painful.
Hi Nicole, are you still thinking of doing the meetup in Ithaca on Wednesday? Contemplating making the drive from a few hours away. Thanks!
I am! Gonna write it up for tomorrow’s link roundup. I REALLY want to see you bc I love you, so please come.
<3 <3 <3
I just sent an email to the upstate NY toasts that I’ve been in touch with for maybe planning something for Thursday after the talk. I know some folks will be coming from Rochester and Syracuse, so they may not be able to get down Wednesday AND Thursday.
There is a reception at 5:30pm on Thursday after the talk, and then Mallory and I have dinner with faculty, but we have downtime on Thursday for about two hours BEFORE the talk, and I really have no plans other than seeing Toasties.
Ok I’ll make sure everyone gets that info! Thanks!
I thought it was bad that one of my coworkers tells anyone who will listen that he misses the good old days when secretaries did all the typing for him, but at least he tries to use the computer and doesn’t pawn everything off on our department admin assistants. He is a big email printer, though.
I’m trying to think of a career where a refusal to use a computer would be acceptable and I’m really struggling. I feel like even jobs that are in no way tech based are likely to use a computer for HR paperwork and scheduling or communication with customers.
I had a client at work once who was purportedly an engineer. That being said, he would not enter the office because there were computers in there, he refused to provide an email address and only whimpered slightly and insisted that he “wouldn’t have one” when asked, and he had to be reassured that his printed invoice had come from a printer and not from the computer. Never in my life have I wondered so much about how someone else maintained employment.
What did he engineer, water wheels?
His horse-drawn carriages had the finest suspension this side of Constantinople!
I laughed so long and loud at this that I have drawn attention in this coffee shop. Thank you!
seriously laughed out loud at that, and thought immediately of Lisa from that one Futurama episode
he had to be reassured that his printed invoice had come from a printer and not from the computer
This is beautiful.
He sounds a bit like Chuck from Better Call Saul, a lawyer (and brother of the title character) who believes that he’s sensitive to any sort of electronic equipment or electromagnetic radiation. In theory, someone who’s a mechanical engineer could work out everything by hand, I suppose.
he’ll have the last laugh when Skynet goes active
In big organisations people like estates and security staff don’t necessarily have access to email and stuff. It’s something that comes up if you’re doing things like organising union stuff or staff networking (for LGBT, disabled or BME staff, for example), because it’s very easy for all the admin staff to assume that everyone is online and completely miss out the lowest paid staff.
I make online training courses for financial businesses, and recently had a client ask the question, “Can you please provide a paper version of your courses for our CEO? He doesn’t use a computer.”
So apparently you can get pretty far in life as a luddite, as long as you’re both male and white.
YEP. My partner is clerking for a judge who has never learned email or used a computer. Somehow people see this as old-timey and quaint for the old white dude – whereas I doubt anyone else would get away with it.
The director’s assistant here prints out EVERY EMAIL she sends or receives and then files it and complains about how long it takes them to organize them and how much space they take up.
There’s not really a nice way to say ‘I’m sorry you’re having a problem you created all on your own that has a very simple solution,’ so I just make a vaguely sympathetic noise. Once her car got broken into and they stole what they thought was a bag with a laptop in it, but was, in fact, a bag with a three-inch stack of emails.
…. but. but. there’s literally a filing system built in.
I am amazed that there are still people work that don’t use a computer, what do they do? what is their job? I do not understand how you can do pretty much any white-collar job without using a computer these days
I have no idea. She’s only 40, so she’s had email for the majority of the time she’s been working.
Even the chairman of our board of directors uses an iPad, and he’s a rich 80 year-old who can get away with not knowing about technology. He still asks me to fax things back to his office when he’s here, though.
Is this her doing it on her own or her boss making her do it? If this is a choice she makes on her own then I’m frankly quite worried about her.
Entirely her own choice. He’d probably prefer not to stand there for five minutes when he asks her if someone responded to something and instead of just searching for their name on email she has to find the correct file in the correct drawer and thumb through the plastic sleeve of printed out emails until she finds the answer. Or maybe I’m projecting.
How has she not been fired? She must be an A+ assistant in some other area, because wow.
She’s been here forever and she’s actually super organized and efficient. She just goes about it in a really weird, pointlessly time-consuming way. She’ll take the emails home and be organizing them till midnight.
O___________________________O
Efficient, in a pointlessly time-consuming way.
Oh. My. God. How often does she refer to these emails? Are they just collecting dust?
I print emails that have ultra-helpful information to pin on my cubicle. Like, a list of important names of dates. Other than that, nooooo.
She saves them for YEARS. I pointed out that she doesn’t need to keep the half-drawer of emails from 2011 about X topic and she said ‘You never know!’ She also has every email ever archived by year on her computer, so if she really needed something she could find it there. Once a project was being transferred over from her to me and she said she’d bring me the binder full of information and came down with this stuffed 5″ binder and I almost started to cry before I looked through it and realized that 98% of it was just print-outs of emails that I didn’t need.
I may still have a lot of my early emails saved on disks somewhere (in a format that I may no longer be able to read, i.e. the old Mac OS) that I should probably take the time to erase lest someone who’s going through my stuff after I die go to the trouble of finding out what I was like back in the day before I developed appropriate mental filters for outgoing electronic communications.
Aww, c’mon, if they go to the trouble of finding a way to read late-nineties MacOS email files, they deserve the reward of finding something!
Then I should plant something that’s genuinely clever or sufficiently bizarre.
My grandfather was actually a big deal engineer in his field until computers came along and he refused to learn how to use one. He had a SLIDE RULE, damnit, that was all he needed! (I think part of him still thought of computing as “women’s work,” too.) Yeah, that was not gonna fly. They made him retire.
Doctors! It’s way less than it was just a couple of years ago at this point, mostly because use of a qualified electronic health record is tied to a payment incentive (and now penalty) in Medicare these days, but there are still plenty of (usually older) doctors who just.refuse.to.use.one. Some of the systems are crap, no argument there, but how could you not!!
I’m a hospital chaplain. One of my coworkers is a nun. She is in her late 60s or early 70s, and just can’t. Since we’re in health care, we have to document via the electronic records. For years, she has just come to the office at the end of each day, and a volunteer sits down and charts from her dictation.
We are getting new charting software, someone official came around and flipped out because this violates confidentiality. The Powers That Be want us to get laptops and chart from the bedside. As a department, we have refused, because 1- it is against the core of what we do to stare at a screen instead of the patient and 2 – this particular colleague would collapse in a puddle of hysterics.
Right now, we are compromising by having someone from IT come down every day. They are grumbling, because they saw this as spending a couple of weeks showing her and then she would do it, and she sees them as replacing the volunteer, who still comes in and is sitting right there, filing or whatever. In the meantime, our manager is trying to explain to higher ups that we have lots of volunteers who see patients, and they all sign confidentiality agreements. Apparently TPTB thought volunteers just work in the gift shop, because they are having kittens.
This particular colleague is lovely, and sweet, and patients love her. She is literally heaven sent for some of our Catholic patients. We have a large number who are too angry to talk to a priest, but want the sacrament. But she will never figure out how to log in to the computer, let alone chart.
I can understand why, as a general principle, they want the care providers–medical, nursing, pastoral care, whomever–to do their own charting. But not only should there be allowances for reasonable accommodation–with, of course, the transcribing volunteer understanding how HIPAA applies to them–but also the hospital administration should understand very clearly just how bad the hospital would look if they told this sister that she couldn’t do her real work if she didn’t also do her own charting. Local papers would just eat that up. I’m not sayin’, but I’m just sayin’, know what I’m sayin’?
The director of a non profit I worked for famously did not use computers or email and part of my job was to go through her e-mail and respond on her behalf from her address and print out the important emails for her to read.
I work in financial planning and we have a couple of planners who will use their computers but not the workflow software that everyone in the company has used for 15 years. They will walk over to our office and ask us to do something for a client and when we ask them to assign us a work item so we have the record and can keep notes in a centralized location that everyone has access to, they whine and say they will send us an email.
Yeah, in my office we all still have dictaphones. They were UPGRADED a few years ago and now deliver electronic files directly to our secretaries for typing, rather than having to use tapes. It’s pretty fancy but also weird because someone out there is thinking, “we really need to take dictation into the 21st century”.
I have never used my dictaphone and I’m fine with that, but honestly, most people in my office still do.
Yesss Gordan Korman!!! When I was a wee girl in Texas I wrote him a fan letter and he wrote me back. I still have a complete set of his books and know The Chicken Doesn’t Skate word for word (it’s either sad or impressive depending who you ask). Boots was one of my major book crushes–so sweet, so sensitive.
Uh, I also wrote him a fan letter when I was a wee girl in Texas, and he wrote back. None of my friends had ever heard of him. Don’t Care High is *still* one of my favorite books, as is Losing Joe’s Place. My sister and I still say, on a regular basis, “There are a lot of things at this [fill in the blank with wherever we are] I don’t understand,” a la Mike Otis.
<3 <3 We clearly have the best taste.
Here for the Korman love! Don’t Care High and Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag are my favourites, and can still recite the entirety (such as it is) of Gavin Gunhold’s works.
When I was in Grade 9, my brother helped me mount a fake campaign for a non-existent person for student council. We may have read a few too many Korman books.
That is awesome.
YES! Boots was my first literary crush too! Less of a bad boy than Bruno, much more sensitive and school minded!
Here for the Gordon Korman love. My dad went to the boarding school that MacDonald Hall was based-on(ish) so the Bruno and Boots books feel like a conduit to my tween dad? I say “could hide a jeep in a teapot” all the time from Our Man Weston and no one ever gets it.
I was trying to figure out why the name sounded familiar even though none of the characters or books mentioned were ringing a bell. One Google later, it turns out I read exactly ONE of his books—The Twinkie Squad, which I got from a Scholastic book order form (why don’t we adults still have Scholastic book orders?? Or book fairs at the office?).
I don’t think I read it more than once, and I’ve forgotten most of what happened, but the plot element where the kid gets the Surgeon General to sign a paper and then writes his friend an excuse note on it still makes me laugh.
I LOVED KORMAN’S BOOKS SO MUCH. All those smart, sassy kids who are running their own games behind the backs of kindly-but-bumbling grownups… I wanted to grow up into a teenager just like Rudy. I think some part of me still aspires to be Rudy, actually.
omg Rudy’s arts and crafts project where he builds a box of dirt
It’s a saleté.
YOU ARE MY SISTER TODAY
I also love Gordan Korman! His books are so delightful – ESPECIALLY Chicken Doesn’t Skate! I still say “further study required” all the time, because of that book. He did a reading at the library where I worked when I was in high school, and the librarians got him to sign a copy for me. <3
No idea how a copy of I Want to Go Home made its way to a small library in NZ in 1981 but it was my first book crush, as in I would finish reading and start again at the beginning AND made my younger sister participate in a make-belive game based on it.
My office still has a typewriter in the mailroom because there’s a guy who likes to type his envelopes and fedex address labels and thinks this is the easiest way for some reason, but he does it himself and knows how to use a computer for everything else… I don’t understand why that woman hasn’t been fired.
Now that makes sense to me. I imagine that if I had a job where I regularly needed to print out envelopes I would sit myself down and figure out how to print them, but as it is, it’s a COMPLETE mystery to me, and I think it’s a lot easier to just handwrite envelopes and labels clearly. But typewritten would look more professional, I guess.
The first time I saw him doing it I was confused but it actually does seem pretty easy, assuming you know how to use a typewriter. You just line it up and type on the envelope directly. I wonder now if he types it because he has horrible handwriting or something and doesn’t want to risk Fedex losing his stuff.
Agreed! Plus, some printers actually seal envelopes inadvertently when you print on them which is Not Useful!
I’ve never had a good experience printing envelopes, they always get sealed or jammed up or crooked, and that’s aside from getting the Word document to look ok. Grr.
Yeah, I’m reasonably adept with most technology, but printing envelopes is something that completely stymies me.
(The last time I had to deal with envelopes regularly was back in the late ’90s, when I worked in a film museum, and we had a manual typewriter that we used for that and for film can labels).
The university where I work had a triplicate form that was easiest filled out with a typewriter (tiny spaces for text, had to push REALLY hard to get any imprint on the last page). The form was finally discontinued only about five years ago. I still miss the satisfaction of putting one of those forms in our ancient typewriter, banging out the information, and pulling it out of the roller.
We lost the typewriter three years ago when the person who kept it in her office moved to a different department. I miss it because my handwriting is HORRIBLE and for single envelopes, yes, a typewriter is nice.
But the woman in that office needs to retire, for real.
We keep our typewriter because of the sheer number of carbon triplicate forms different counties use for certain filings. Why they continue to do this when printing carbon triplicate is so expensive that one County is still using up forms with a clerk’s name who left office two terms ago I do not understand except “but we’ve always done this.”
“carbon triplicate is so expensive that one County is still using up forms with a clerk’s name who left office two terms ago”
That’s why. They have to use up all the forms, first.
What are they going to do when they can’t get typewriter ribbons any more…?
If you know how to use a typewriter is often actually is easier to just do envelopes that way because then you don’t have to remember which direction to feed them into your printer and risk wasting envelopes.
(I create all my fedex shipments online and then it prints the label on a single sheet of paper that gets folded and put into a window, but I get the envelope thing)
I had an internship in a catalog/processing department that still used an IBM Selectric to type up call number labels for the book spines.
That is actually useful and nice to have in the mailroom, if handwriting won’t do. Typewriters are also really nice for short notes. There is something satisfyingly decisive about the force with which they imprint your words on the page. I feel like I would have much more character and flair as a human being if I used typewriters more often!
I know it’s a Thing Hipsters Say and don’t actually use it for writing because so inefficient but I love the feeling of using the office typewriter, I think because I played on it a lot as a child.
This is highly specific, but most theatre management offices will have a communal typewriter, because union contracts for actors and crew need to be filled out with them. The first page is a form with blanks to be filled in, and there are two more carbon copies behind. It’s easiest to place the text correctly and get the imprint on all three pages with a typewriter. I did not imagine that I would be learning how to use a typewriter in my mid-20s!
Oh gosh you guys, I’m an old. I remember in 1989/1990 working as a secretary for an engineering department … we used Macs and I think we either used Word or MacWrite as well as MacDraw or MacPaint (wikipedia isn’t helpful in figuring out which one it was). In any case, I converted a bunch of carbon-copy documents to MacDraw/MacPaint (in my former life, I’d been a computer science major and a typesetter, so I had patience for getting every little line right) and the two other secretaries in the department thought I was a terrible person for doing that, although the engineers appreciated it. I think MacWrite/maybe Word came with a little program that could render fractions/algorithms into beauty using reverse-Polish notation (like HP calculators did), and the engineers thought that was wonderful … but having documents online that could be magically sent to everyone — bypassing the copying machine — was new and unusual.
Typewriters back then were also programmable, so you could set up mailing lists that printed automatically to labels (and could also be converted to printing envelops), and the other secretaries thought that was voodoo as well. I remember a manager telling me that I had to complete my computer science degree (I was a single parent, and at the time, all I wanted was a 9-5 job that had health benefits and maybe someday would pay my tuition) since it was obvious that I was over-qualified to be a secretary. But misogyny ruled at the upper management level and I had to quit and go back to school. (The exact words were “we’re not paying for a girl to get an engineering degree”.)
Like I said, I’m an old, and I don’t understand why people don’t know how to use computers now as well. Seriously, if even typewriters were programmable back in the 1980s, there is no excuse for not being able to learn how a computer works at a basic level.
We have a typewriter in the mailroom for envelopes. I have had to teach several new hires how to use it. We do our FedEx labels through their website.
Because she always can find a patsy and LW’s boss either doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or is afraid of dinosaur’s boss.
Toasts with fancier kitchens than me: what are your experiences with expensive-ass kitchen gadgets like that $700 blender? I’ve been checking out small appliances since we’re moving to a place with a decent-sized kitchen and I’m just astounded by the $3000 espresso machines and $600 stand mixers. (Or this $640 bread knife what the hell.) When is it worth it to shell out and when is one just paying a ton of money just to feel fancy?
In personal news, I had a great weekend visiting Tiny Nephew (here we are enjoying a Sunday morning cuddle). He is so cute that I forget he is actually crawling with disease and as a result of all that cuddling, I’ve come down with his gastroenteritis. I should have known better than to kiss a baby I knew to be sick, but… how could I resist that face.
I clicked on that first link completely prepared to mock it and and anyone who would contemplate spending $640 on a knife…but now I kind of want a damascened steel bread knife.
Been there, done that. My nephew had a vomiting bug that I was completely aware of, but I still cuddled him because I was flying out the next day. And then I had my first dose of a vomiting bug since I was a kid. GERM FACTORIES.
(Kitchen stuff: Find out what chefs use, tends to be good quality and worth the money. With the stuff you’re seeing, up to a point it is better quality and will last longer, but after that its just branding. For blenders/things with moving parts, the motor is important and a cheap one will blow out after a year or two with regular use.)
In my experience, there are three things worth splurging on: a good set of knives, a KitchenAid, and a Cuisinart. Got all three for my wedding 11 years ago and they’re still in perfect working order after thousands of meals and numerous moves.
Yes, these.
my mom bought a used kitchenaid mixer about 25 years ago and she hasn’t ever had to even replace a part. Those things last forever
I’m confused when people say that have a KitchenAid or a Cuisinart. Aren’t those the names of brands that could encompass any number of kitchen devices? Or are they especially famous for one particular device, and I’ve just missed this information?
Yep–KitchenAid is code for very nice, beautifully colored stand mixer with (essentially) a jet engine.
loooooove my KitchenAid mixer. bonus fact: if you are within driving distance of southwest Ohio and feel like making a day trip, you can tour the factory where they are made!
then you can drive into downtown Greenville to go to the Experience store: http://www.kitchenaid.com/experience-retail-cente…
that’s where i got my mixer (the better one, with the lifting bowl) at about $80 off retail, 10 years ago (my mixer is still working perfectly). also if you time it right, they’ll feed you! there is a demo kitchen showing you things you can make with the mixer, food processor, etc.
My assumption would be a KitchenAid stand mixer and a Cuisinart food processor.
Ohh, like that riddle the main character uses to stump a sphinx in one of Zelazny’s Amber novels.
What’s red and green and goes round and round and round?
A frog in a Cuisinart.
Yes- the KitchenAid stand mixer is a 20th century icon, capable of standing up to stiff bread dough, with attachment available for pretty much everything (pasta roller, meat grinder, you name it). I’d suggest getting the higher-end model with the lifting bowl rather than the tilting head; it’s made with stronger internal gears (solid steel instead of nylon and sintered metal), even though it’s not available in as many bright colors. It’s a little more expensive, but worth it if it won’t wear out so easily.
The Cuisinart food processor is an amazing all-rounder. Incredibly useful for everything from blending to grating. Just like the old infomercials say… it slices, it dices, etc.
In my family, the Cuisinart food processor is known as a whizbang (both noun and verb). My mom bought one of the first to be imported here. I could not live without it.
I have never had a food processor, and I can never figure out what it would do for me that would make it worth the price and the counter space.
I’ve tried some before, and I prefer just chopping things by hand, frankly. (Although I’ve only used the El Cheapo ones from Big Lots– maybe a more high-end one would be worthwhile?)
oh my god I love them.
I slice/shred/grate/chop so many veggies, make all the nut butters, hummous/babaganouj/etc, soups get pureed, a lot of doughs get made, and when I upgraded from the “tiny but mighty” to a bigger one it was truly amazing. it’s my weakness. however: YMMV for sure! it depends on how you cook.
also I have a cuisinart that my mom gave me as a hand-me-down that’s probably 15 years old and it is an absolute champ.
If you use it a lot a good stand mixer is well worth the money. I think the KitchenAid one I have was around $300 from Costco? But it is the fanciest (not major appliance) thing in my kitchen, because I like practicality.
Yeah, I tend to look at a lot of reviews, and see what they say, but generally I don’t think it’s worth it (other than the items mentioned by Frumiosa). When we were registering for our wedding, I was absolutely floored by how expensive some things are! Who needs a $500 toaster??? The reviews were spectacular, but if you can’t give me anything better than “This makes really great toast! Very even!” I just… why? I do a lot of cooking, but there are very few cases when the several hundreds of dollars machine is worth the extra over the one under one hundred that also has 4+/5 star reviews.
It totally depends on your cooking style, though. I grew up with my mom using her Kitchen Aid to make cakes. She has had it for 35 years and it works great. I cook almost every night and I bake very little other than cookies. I find a hand mixer to be much more practical for my life. Sure it is cheap and will not last 35+ years, but I only spent $20 bucks on it and so far it is going strong at 5 years old.
I asked for expensive knives for my wedding ($150 each range) and they are awesome. Highly recommend.
My deal with coffeemakers is, “How many cups of espresso could I buy at the local coffee shop for $3000?” I honestly would prefer to go out and have a professional with a professional machine make my espresso drinks. But that’s just me.
Yes! I’m struggling to think what I would use a mixer for, but I would love a good set of knives and pans. And maybe a food processor so that my knives stay lovely and sharp.
It’s sooo worth it to go to a professional for sharpening! Like just once every few months. If you’re looking for a great knife at a decent price, I really love http://www.chefknivestogo.com/riar24gy.html the knives this guy makes. They’re comparable to every Wusthof or Global I’ve owned, they keep a great edge, and they’re stupidly affordable! My whole kitchen crew had one or two, haha.
Don’t underestimate the lasting power of cheap hand mixers! My parents still use the one my mom bought in college and as far as I know it is still going strong.
For years, I did just fine with my aunt’s old hand mixer that only worked on settings 6 and 12. Turns out that was all that I really needed!
It’s my parents with the nice kitchen and not me, but based on communal experience I’ve learned that it’s not really the pricey gadgets that are worth the money, but the pots & knives. If you get yourself a good set of pots/pans (cast iron to kill a man, and/or stainless steel) along with good knives, you’re set.
That said, a stand mixer & a food processer are A+ kitchen additions. Maybe a good coffee grinder if you drink a lot of coffee? I personally think Breville kitchen appliances are better than KitchenAid or Cuisinart, but they are a bit more expensive.
Coffee grinder! Much love.
Cast iron! For anyone looking, the Lodge brand stuff is super cheap, and just perfect. You can get all the cast iron pans you will need for like $20 a piece.
Read reviews and ask friends, but also figure out what you would actually get use from. I bake A LOT of bread, so I actually have two Kitchenaids. Similarly, because I bake so much I have a large capacity cuisinart food processor. At the same time I don’t really use blenders that often so I have an immersion blender that I got on sale at Costco and works really well (also Cuisinart).
Shop around, and if you have Bed Bath and Beyonds near you even though they don’t have sales there, they do have the best return policy of any store–you can return anything, whenever, no questions asked. I try to buy all my kitchen appliances from there and I save the receipts just in case. There might be other stores near you with similar return policies. Or if price matters more than the ability to return if something breaks, wait until around wedding season and then Christmas to shop–that’s when you can get some really stellar deals. Check stores with discounted return areas like Bed Bath and Beyond–you can get things with damaged boxes or that were used once and returned for steep discounts. Also estate sales, yard sales, and thrift stores can be a good source of quality kitchen items. My best cast iron skillet is from an estate sale. Good luck and have fun! Stocking kitchens is the best!
If you are on the B, B & B mailing list or email spam list they send a 10-20% off coupon about every month.
I’ve had very good luck finding small appliances at thrift stores (like bread machines for $5, etc.) Oftentimes, they look like they were given as wedding presents and never used.
I’ve also found vintage appliances (like a 1950s Sunbeam percolator and Nesco electric roaster) in their original boxes with the original instructions, recipe books, etc., which is pretty cool.
I have found this blender to be completely worth it: https://www.vitamix.com/Shop/5200-Getting-Started…
The price tag is steep, but I use it nearly every day. It’s by far the appliance that gets the most use in my house.
I’ve got a Vitamix as well, and I’d say spending bucks on a blender is pretty worth it.
My friend recently raved about her Vitamix, and I was skeptical until she said she can clean it by blending dish detergent & hot water. Now I want one desperately.
Good knives (chef knife, paring knif, offset serated (this can be cheaper because you can’t sharpen it and will want to replace), whetstone, steal), cuisinart, and dutch oven.
My rule for whether spending money on fancy kitchen gadgets is worth it is: don’t buy aspirationally, do buy to fix things that annoy the crap out of you. E.g.: I would totally make smoothies if I had a good blender vs. I wish this stupid blender didn’t take 5 minutes to blend things that still have big chunks when it’s done. Upgrades are almost always worth it in the second case and almost never in the first.
I’ll only buy slow cookers that are actually branded by crock pot and I want a Kitchen aid very badly. That said, when I saw $300 rice cookers versus the one with five star reviews that were $30 I laughed most bitterly.
I bought a fancy rice cooker (though not THAT expensive), and I still haven’t used it because the instructions are so terrifyingly complicated. I should’ve just bought one of those “on/ off” ones…
The best rice cookers I’ve ever had are always zojirushis, hands down.
Since several people have mentioned knives, I’ll put in that although I agree that it’s important to have good knives, it’s definitely possible to get good knives without spending an arm and a leg. I have a $20 IKEA chef’s knife that I’m very happy with, though they don’t make the exact same one any more. And if you go looking at online roundups of good chef’s knives, they often include a pretty cheap Victorinox knife that’s marketed to restaurant kitchens.
Hey! I was a chef for almost a decade, so blah blah I know what I’m talking about. IMO and in the opinion of professional cooks everywhere, that stuff is way overpriced and not often as good a quality as you’d hope. I’ve had great success with the Vitamix brand, but also just as much with a handheld immersion blender. I even once made the dressings for a Michelin starred restaurant using a margarita blender. It all really depends on the type of cooking you will be doing with it! Are you going to be making smoothies every single day for the next five years? Get a Vitamix! Are you going to be making the occasional blended soup or paste? Handheld or Cuisinart should do you.
Chef-type person here. I’m not particularly moved by most “pro-sumer” stuff and neither are most other pros I know. Not that they aren’t usually okay, but in so many cases you’re paying for design and prestige, not power or durability. There are, however, instances where one should Accept No Substitutes. I use the following in my home kitchen and professionally:
–12″ All-Clad fry pan w/ top. Always and forever.
–Victorinox knives. Most chefs I know use these. They’re incredible quality for the price. 1 chef’s knife plus a couple paring knives.
–Epica Heavy Duty Immersion Blender. I think it’s ~40usd for the stick plus attachments incl. A mini food processor. I use this every day and it’s the best immersion blender I’ve used at any price (I’ve gone through 2 cuisinart and kitchenaid ones. They suck.)
–KitchenAid stand mixer. I bought my home one refurbished 10+ years ago and I use the hell out of it. The enamel is chipped in some places but it’s still going strong.
Nordic Ware aluminum commercial baking sheets
—
I’m ambivalent re: fancy food processors, but I also would rather use a knife, mandoline or immersion blender in most cases, so I only keep midrange ones on hand. I have Many Hard-Won Opinions on kitchen equipment, so if you ever have any questions, I’d be glad to help if I can.
Very helpful, thanks!!
I highly recommend this kitchen accessory review column from the Guardian (“Inspect a Gadget”)– both hilarious and useful:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/in…
Especially the one about the wifi-enabled tea kettle…
I make better coffee in my $100 Sunbeam than in my sister ‘s $2k Italian machine…
A lot of what I’ve bought (which mostly includes a juicer and dehydrator) I use for a little while, probably enough to justify the cost since I get the cheap versions, and then it sits in my cabinet for most of the rest of its life unless I find myself suddenly with a bunch of grapefruit that looks like it would make good juicing or on a whim decide to make my own dried mango again instead of spending the $14 a lb or whatever it is these days. So…I guess it depends on what you want to try and how likely you are to stick with using something.
My roommate uses her nice blender most mornings to make smoothies, so if you have a habit like that that would mean extensive use, then buying one of the nicer models is probably worth it.
Start with a minimum and add/replace by the piece when you’re consistently frustrated over something you can’t do with what you have. Research obsessively and look at/handle what you’re considering if at all possible.
Everyone else has gone over appliances and knives, so I’ll go on a different tangent that’s a favorite of mine: utensil design. So many utensils are just plain not usable for their intended purpose. Tongs that are flippy-floppy silicone at the tips and won’t grab. Spatulas that are rounded and thick at the edge and won’t scrape worth a damn. Flippers that are too floppy or too stiff or angled completely wrong for the intersection of human wrists and pan-sides. Pay attention to these things! You use them just as often as pots and more often than most knives or appliances. Constantly dripping, dropping, flopping, scraping utensils will slowly drive you insane. Expensive isn’t better-better is better, so use a critical eye.
Okay, a few things about knives anyway. Victorinox makes the best cheaper knives (there is no best cheap knife. They are all garbage), and also the best steak knives (serrated utility, round tip, sold in sets of 6. You will never use your table knives again).
Concerning sharpening: I sharpen my own and like it that way, but I’ve been told I’m odd. Most “professional” sharpenings just run the blade through a machine with a fixed angle. If you have regular “expensive” knives, this doesn’t matter that much. If you have hella expensive knives, congrats, you’ve just wasted money, and will need to spend more money to get them back in the condition they were when you bought them. Send them to someone who knows what they’re doing and can set (or preserve) whatever angle you want.
BUT, regarding hella expensive knives: they’re probably not worth it. Unless you love using knives so much you’re a bona fide expert. I cook for 4-6 every day, almost all of my prep is with knives, my mains are regular forged Wusthofs and Henckels, and I enjoy using them. I know I’m not good enough that handing me an $800 Shun (or w/e the hot brand is atm) would make a substantial difference to my experience (But they do look pretty).
I got an Instant Pot (pressure cooker that is also a crock pot and rice cooker) for Christmas and I fucking adore the thing. But I also eat a lot of beans.
Come on Nicole, the most important news of the week is clearly that this dog can fly a plane.
I think I speak for many when I say Dog is my copilot.
<3
Off topic: The Wisconsin primary has, frustratingly, given me something I agree with Donald Trump on – contempt for Scott Walker. As NPR reports, “He went on to criticize Walker’s performance as governor and the state’s financial standing, arguing that, ‘Wisconsin is doing very poorly, by the way.'”
The cognitive dissonance, it burns.
yeah and what’s amazing is that he specifically criticizes him for not raising taxes to pay for vital infrastructure!!!!
This election has been so fucking weird.
The worst thing about Donald Trump (out of, like, 5 billion spiritual flaws) is that he knows exactly how to make good decisions. He specifically chooses not to, and criticizes everybody else for making them/not making them based on whatever makes him look good, but he knows how to make good management choices.
the worst thing Donald Trump ever does is say things that I’m forced to agree with, it’s fucking AGONIZING
I’m almost certain he does this specifically to trick people who only remember the last 5 statements he made. Doesn’t matter how batshit everything else he says is, he’s got that one reasonable statement out there that he can point to and make people forget that he’s an actual garbage fire.
He is more spiritual flaw than man.
Martin Luther said that if one must sin, to sin boldly. The Donald took that to heart, and now excels at being The Worst.
Don’t feel bad. Donald Trump has contempt for everyone, so there’s bound to be the occasional point of agreement.
Exactly – stopped clock is right twice a day!
In other Wisconsin news, a white nationalist party has been robocalling for Trump. I’m this close to turning off my phone and almost didn’t answer when my parents called.
Source: Me, some people I know.
Heyyy, they did this in Vermont around the time of their primary. My friends and relatives were deeply upset by it.
I was at a wine bar over the weekend (Portland, Maine, you are a magical place and you are truly the Portland of the East Coast) and the good-looking man in a tuxedo who was playing the piano definitely played “Africa.” And “Beat It.”
Once as a teenager I was in a near-empty restaurant with my mom having dinner and as soon as the piano player noticed me, a teen, he switched from tinkly jazz music to jazzy piano covers of Christina Aguilera and like, Nickelback and other glories of the early 2000s. It was simultaneously hilarious and embarrassing and amazing.
That’s kind of adorable.
I’m going there in July! Do you remember the name of the wine bar?
Yes! This was MG’s Wine Bar. A nice place and very close to the Lobsterman statue, which is my new favorite piece of public art.
Any other Portland recommendations? I want to head that way for a weekend sometime this month.
I was there for a conference so most of what I did was related to the interior of the Holiday Inn which you know, was nice for a hotel convention center. So all I really did in the city was eat and then drink but it seems like the kind of place where you can’t go wrong. I went to a place called Slab and ate a pound of pizza and it was amazing, Bar of Chocolate has awesome drinks and desserts, Becky’s had great lobster roll, the statue of the Lobsterman warmed my heart, the crytozoology museum was fun but mostly a shrine to ego, and if you stay in the downtown area it’s super walkable and I loved it. I’m planning to go back and actually do stuff like the art museum in the not too distant future, it was such a neat little place!
Portland is my home! Thank you for saying such nice things about it. The art museum is free admission on Fridays and hopefully the trees and flowers will be in bloom soon…although it is currently snowing :-/
Restaurant – Duck Fat. For the fries and the vanilla milkshake.
Portland, ME is my favorite U.S. city. I would also strongly recommend going to the Green Elephant, which is a vegetarian restaurant that is consistently fantastic. If you can catch a show at the State Theater I would recommend it. It’s a good venue that pulls good shows but is very intimate.
I will never forget the experience of watching an ancient musician at a very old-school traditional German restaurant return to the stage for an encore, fitted out with a Hawaiian shirt, oversized plastic glasses, and a lei to sing Fools Rush In in a nearly inaudible falsetto with the heaviest of accents. Sublime.
Okay, first of all, Portland, Maine was first, thus the Other Portland is the Portland of the West Coast while we can just call ourselves Portland. Not that it is a touchy subject for Mainers or anything…
Second of all, I’m so happy you had a good time in our fair city! Based on where you said you ate, it looks like you had some good advice! Those are some of my favorites!
I love when people find my city to be as magical as I do!
My favorite open mic moment ever was at the University of Illinois in the early nineties when, in between a succession of mopey young men delivering their proto-emo musings on their girlfriends leaving them, one young dude brought it with an unapologetic, fully-committed solo acoustic version of “More Than a Feeling.”
One of the weirdest moments of my life was being in a San Francisco the last time the Giants won the world series, and the first celebratory song they played was “Africa” and somehow everyone in the bar knew alllll the words and sang along, and people were holding hands and swaying and shit. To Toto. I felt like I’d entered an alternate universe.
I don’t know what Thai restaurants in the States are like, but over here they frequently have their radios tuned to the kinds of radio stations that play a Great Mix Of The 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. On holiday once I knew I had found a super fancy Thai restaurant when they had a guy on a piano playing…exactly those same songs.
I turned into an email printer this week because Office 365 is garbage and we are getting so many confusing scheduling emails. I don’t know who I have become.
Melissa Gira Grant is an excellent journalist and I really loved that piece. Her point of view is clear, but she makes sure to my eyes to let the woman speak and shows respect for her as a person with agency.
Re: the second paragraph – it saddened me so much that nobody was willing to do thus that. Everyone else was trying to speak for Heather and act for her, without even once wondering what she wanted. Depressing, but unfortunately not all that surprising. Makes me all the happier than Melissa Gira Grant put her at the center of her own story again.
GORDON KORMAN. OK, I need to go reread Don’t Care High and Losing Joe’s Place right this minute. Oh, and A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag. I’m calling in Korman to work.
My only disappointment from my trip to Prince Edward Island this summer was that there were no Korman books in the used bookstore. I was like, “BUT THIS IS CANADA. I’VE BEEN LED TO HAVE CERTAIN EXPECTATIONS. DO YOU KNOW HOW IMPOSSIBLE HE IS TO FIND IN THE U.S.”
So so hard to find. Especially the old stuff. I remember trolling online used book stores in early 2000s looking for No Coins Please & the Bugs Potter books. Thankful that I got a bunch of ancient, taped together copies of his stuff at a library sale around 1996 (I was 11. It was perfection)
yessss, A Semester…. is the only one I’ve reread as an adult, and it held up SO WELL, I need to track down the rest. The zucchini fries! The girls-playing-football plot that totally captivated me as a wee feminist!
On registration day
at taxidermy school
I thought I saw the eyes
of the stuffed moose
move.
A Semester holds up particularly well for English majors.
Look up Gorman Korman fan fiction on google and you will not be disapointed! MacDonald Hall zombie apocalypse story? YES PLEASE! Boots is now in med school! Elmer works for CSIS (I think)!
You won’t find him in used bookstores because no one ever gets rid of their copies. We hoard them like treasure.
I still have my copy of Son of Interflux, which made me laugh so hard in a dentist’s waiting room when I was ten that I nearly hyperventilated and DEFINITELY slid off the couch and onto the floor.
Mallory’s fingers have their own fingers? wow!
*extremely old man voice* and yer fingers’ fingers, and yer fingers’ fingers’ fingers! *shakes cane*
Guys, this Monday is really feeling like a Monday. Usually I hide in my cube on Mondays, but my supervisor is out sick so I have to interact with patrons and students. I wanted to go home and study for the GRE subject test, but I forgot that I told someone I would attend a special Shakespeare lecture this afternoon, effectively keeping me at work until six. I just want to get back in bed! I hope you Toasties are having good mornings — thank you for letting me complain.
It is the MONDAYest of Mondays. I did not get enough sleep last night (insomnia AND a nightmare), am recovering from a head cold, my ID card didn’t swipe correctly so I had to wait around for someone to let me into my own department, my data analysis is coming up with NOTHING significant or useful, and my bottle of seltzer exploded all over me as soon as I sat down at my desk. At this point I am just like, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NEXT, MONDAY, COME AT ME.
Let’s play hooky.
It truly is the worst. I don’t understand how it was 70 degrees in Chicago yesterday and today it’s barely over 30, first of all. Also a man sat down next to me on the train who had NO sense of boundaries. He has sat by me before, and always sticks his elbows out to the side when he swipes his phone, and takes up more seat than he needs. Plus he doesn’t smell very good. I am slowly getting more and more confident about elbowing him right back.
I’m with you on the frustrating Chicago weather. I didn’t even enjoy yesterday’s weather very much because it was SO WINDY and I knew that today’s weather was going to be awful so I didn’t let myself be happy.
I usually have Mondays off, but the boss is camping with his son for a few days, so I’m at work today. That’s how much of a Monday it is.
I LOVED Bruno and Boots. I don’t know if I read any of his other books but I read all of those many times. Zucchini fries! Canadian football! Sneaking out of dorms to visit the girls’ school across the way! Loved them all.
teletype machine in the closet! that balloon of the Wiz (and how they basically tricked those people into getting married!)!
Every time I eat fried zucchini I think of Elmer and his bush hamsters.
I can’t think of “Africa” without thinking of Patton Oswalt talking about buying Lean Cuisines…
“Dun dun dun dundundun BLAM”
For me it’s Betty White singing it on Community.
Husband and I are now emailing Animaniacs quotes back and forth at each other, thank you yes that is a nice thing for a Monday.
(We are super behind the times and have been watching Jessica Jones finally, and Animaniacs is going to be a fabulous antidote to that particular darkness)
I finished Jessica Jones, and am now binging House of Cards season 3.
I’m just through with Jessica Jones, too, but somehow I only crave more darkness. Now I’m bingeing Daredevil (I have a lot to catch up on, ok?), but I’m still not ready for Animaniacs. Is something wrong with me?
I finished Jessica Jones and immediately started Wentworth, which is the otherAustralian women’s prison drama, and is much, much darker.
Whatever, it’s snowing in April, life is suffering, who needs to be cheerful?
I have a JOOOOB INTERVIEW! For a management level job (ahahah, I do not have any management experience), back in the sector I left three years ago and which I’ve been dying to get back to.
On the other hand, it would be a worse commute that my current job, and would mean putting getting-pregnant plans on hold for another few months. So basically, there is no downside! Get the job: exciting! new! hurray for being back in my preferred sector! Don’t get job: boo! but no horrible commute! and maybe-pregnancy!
Good luck! Although as both options are good, I suppose no luck is needed, because stuff will work out well whichever way the interview goes.
Yay! I wish you great happiness!
I worked at an investment firm where the CEO did not have a computer in his office as a point of pride. People on our team had to call him 5 times a day with a scripted market update. If someone forgot, there was yelling. I do not miss working there.
Gordon Korman! My family had to ban me from him on road trips because they got sick of listening to me alternate between muffled snorts and raucous laughter for hours at a time. He and Gail Carson Levine are the only two kids’ authors whose books I still keep on my shelf rather than in boxes in the attic.
ELLA ENCHANTED. I love it so much. I pretend the movie does not exist because of how much it massacred everything good about that book.
Seconded. I literally cannot think of a worse book to film adaptation
I call this one simply “Potato Pancake”.
This is actually the first time I’ve seen him tired out literally ever. I had people over and he was SO EXCITED he wore himself down! Amazing.
aww! He’s just a tuckered out little potato mash
Latke Dog!
It’s a hard life, being a tuber.
I want you to know that even though I have the world’s sweetest Golden Ridiculous nosing into my lap right now, I still check LRs specifically for Charlie Potatopants Tubernose.
“The world thanks you for nothing” is the most haunting true statement
It sounds like a line from a “why you are [x]: a text game.”
Guys, I need some love. I asked my partner to marry me. He said no. Where do I go from here? 🙁
I’m so sorry – I don’t have any suggestions for you but I am offering you a huge internet hug if you would like it.
Thank you so much.
Find your coziest friends and cry with them. I’m sorry this happened. Gentle, sustaining, internet hugs to you.
Thank you so much.
Ohhhhh I am so sorry. *hugs*
Thank you!
Aw, honey. *offers hug*
There are different “nos”. Take some time to figure out what his meant, and to figure out how you feel about it. When my partner first started talking about getting married (civil partnered, but similar thing), I wasn’t there yet. I felt like there were still too many uncertainties around how our careers and jobs might work out to, and although I loved her and I was pretty sure we would get CP’d one day, there were still too many uncertainties for me to make that commitment. A year or two later, I was.
So his “no” might mean “not yet”, “don’t know” or “not ever”. If he does mean “don’t know” or “not yet, but possibly one day”, you are still 100% allowed to be upset and heartbroken and maybe to decide you don’t want to wait for that day. You are allowed to say that moving towards marriage is important to you, and that if he can’t give you that commitment, that the relationship isn’t right. But you may also decide that you are happy to keep on doing what you’ve been doing and see what happens in the future. It is completely up-to-you, so take some time to figure out your feelings before deciding anything.
Best of luck.
Did you end up getting CPed?
We have some immigration issues in the mix which are the main reason I want to get married. I’m happy to wait to have a wedding if he doesn’t want one yet, I just want the legal security and my visa. He doesn’t seem to think this is valid because we are already in a committed relationship. And he says being married as the culmination of a relationship, not as something to “alleviate my fears” as he put it.
I just feel that since this is so important to me and has been for a while, and we already share finances and a pet and a car, going to city hall shouldn’t be such a big deal. But apparently is it 🙁 I didn’t think I was going to have to start over again.
a “culmination of a relationship” sounds so sinister, like it’s all down from there.
Personal anecdote time: my parents were sorta anti-marriage hippies, got married anyway for practical reasons, still married 38 years later. A friend got married for immigration/visa reasons over eight years ago – also still very happy with her husband and now two kids. My partner and I got our partnership registered for practical reasons, and that’s also working out fine so far.
Society sometimes puts such a high emotional expectation on marriage, but really it’s a legal arrangement that (unfairly, sometimes) privileges paired up people above single ones. You seem to see that, our partner does not. This may be a breaking point. But maybe it’s just the first step in attempting to match your two views of the world.
*hugs* if you want them, in any case.
I was talking about it at lunch (one of my co-workers is getting married this weekend) and I think sometimes it helps if you think about a marriage as a series of contracts between two people that have been simplified under the heading of ‘marriage’. Yes there is a romantic and loving aspect to it, but its also a contract that provides security and benefits both parties.
OP I don’t want to read too much into your situation; but, if you both want to continue the relationship, I think you should try and have conversation with him and both talk about what marriage means to you and whether you see it for you as a couple and why and maybe when. You say that you have some life things going on that means marriage would provide some relief and security, I think that’s fine, but maybe your partner doesn’t quite realised how big of a deal these things are for you right now, and that he can help solve them. If his intention is eventual marriage and he’s a bit hesitant because of the timing, maybe talking about it will help him see your side. You might even consider a couples counselor to help mediate your conversations.
Whatever happens, I hope your alright!
Thank you very much for your calming perspective. To me my visa issues have been obvious, but since he’s not the one it directly affects (yet), maybe he doesn’t know how much it affects me. We’ll see what happens.
I agree so much with selma. I don’t know if you’re in the US, but here, there are HUGE tax benefits when you file as a married couple versus separately. So this wouldn’t just change your visa status, and it would be a sensible financial decision for him as well. That might be relevant to future conversations about this, if you have them.
Huge tax benefits kind of depends. I always, *ALWAYS* got refunds. Now that I am married, my moderate income plus my husband’s larger income and some investments means that no only do I not get a refund, he is paying taxes owed.
I’m still in a better place financially, because we have pooled resources. But it’s a YMMV thing, with regard to taxes.
That is true! I am a single person who has never gotten a refund. 🙁
What you’ve written has calmed me down. Thank you for your perspective.
We did end up getting CP’d, yes! Seven years ago.
I am really sorry. This sounds so hard.
Here is my take on it, though, and feel free to stop reading if this is not what you need right now: if he is willing to keep discussing this, and if he is willing to treat your fears around immigration as real and legitimate, then this could be the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one. The thing is, he hasn’t actually questioned your relationship, or his love for you: what he’s done is disagree about the definition of what “marriage” is, and what it’s for. I have seen a few friends go through this – where they and their partner don’t see the symbolism of marriage as the same thing – and the danger is that both people fall into, “I don’t see why it’s a big deal!” You end up both focussing on your own definition of marriage, which is a big deal to you, and dismissing the other person’s reasons / need for marriage or not-marriage as “not a big deal.” Typical quote: “Marriage is really, really important to me and I don’t get why he’s being so stubborn when it’s just not a big deal!”
So, I’m reading between the lines here, but: his idea of a wedding is something that you both enter into purely for love of the other, with no external coercion or pressures. That’s not wrong, and it’s kind of lovely, in a way. He’s fighting for that ideal of marriage, which he maybe wants to have with you some day! Maybe he is scared of losing the day when you completely freely and uncoercively smile and say, “I do!” to him, and he knows it is 100% purely because you love him, in favour of a day where you say, “I do!” and think, “Phew, no more worrying about my visa.”
On your side, marriage means security and safety and your visa, and when he says “no” to that, he is saying no to doing what feels like a tiny thing that would demonstrate his love and care for you by taking away all those niggling* worries about visas and make you totally safe. That is an awful way to feel, and it really damages trust and I feel for you massively.
So, for you, the security and safety thing is huge, and his “culmination of a relationship” thing feels, well, maybe romantic, but also kind of impractical and theoretical, compared the reality of legal safety and security. You can’t see why his definition of marriage matters so much to him that he’d deny you this huge important thing, so the conclusion must be that he must just not care about you as much as he thought. For him, well, sure, obviously, the security and safety thing is there, but actual marriage isn’t going to make a huge difference*, so the point of marriage is about that expression of pure confidence and love, and it’s kind of hurtful that you’re dismissing that as “not a big deal”. If it’s a big deal to you, it’s allowed to be a big deal to him too. Is it “fair” that your definition of what marriage means gets to take precedence here?
(IMHO: yes, ultimately, it probably is fair that your definition takes precedence, since I think you probably have the most to lose. I am trying not to make too many assumptions here and I don’t know your gender, but clearly, the “legal security and safety” aspects of marriage have ALWAYS been more important to women than men. If you’re a guy too, then I think the fact that you have immigration issues sort of puts you in the same situation, where the security offered by marriage is unignorable. So I do think there’s a little element of privilege here. Easy enough to say, “but realistically, your chances of getting deported are tiny, so we don’t need to worry about that!” when it’s not your ass on the line. HOWEVER, I don’t think it’s completely unusual for someone not to have considered that kind of stuff before, and he probably isn’t seeing the full weight of what both “worrying about immigration” and “someone who says he loves me not doing this [to me, simple] thing that would relieve so many of my worries” means to you.)
ANYWAY – you are not wrong. But potentially, neither is he. He is wrong if he’s not listening to your perspective and not willing to negotiate or to understand your fears, but he’s not wrong for simply having a different idea of marriage to you. If he really is absolutely, massively committed to his idea of marriage to the extent that he really can’t budge, then you’ll have to decide whether or not that’s something you can live with. But I think this sounds workable-outable, if you can both give due weight to each other’s reasoning and what marriage means to the other and listen to each other fairly.
So I really hope you guys can work this out! Lots and lots of luck, and I hope you have a gentle day today.
* or not-so-niggling – I am sort of assuming, given his attitude, that the chance of your immigration status going badly wrong are real but small. If they are significant and you live with the real and present danger of being deported or something unless you get married, ignore all this because he’s being an asshole.
“clearly, the “legal security and safety” aspects of marriage have ALWAYS been more important to women than men” <<< this is so true.
It’s only recently that it’s started to be less true, and guess what? the result is that women get married later and get divorced more often, which I’m 100% seeing as a good thing: it just shows how many women entered and stayed in marriages because they had few other choices.
It’s basically the MRA problem: no, feminism did not make women stop liking guys like you. Feminism just means that women stopped having to pretend to like guys like you to access basic things like shelter and food.
Your comments are absolutely spot-on. How do you know so much???
It’s exactly what you said. He wants to say “I do” once we are free from all worries, once we have everything sorted, so he can be sure it’s given out of pure love. I want to say “I do” NOW before going further down that path because I need to feel secure. Should I invest even more time in living in a place I don’t really love just so I can be with him? Without being married, I feel like I’m his little toy. Why buy the cow if you can have the milk for free, I guess.
I feel so deeply hurt and rejected now that I’m not sure I can consider going on. I wish I could turn the clock back. Thank you very much for your thoughtful replies.
It sounds to me like you are both afraid of being taken advantage of, you are afraid that you are “his toy” that he doesn’t intend to commit to and he is afraid that you are using him for a visa and that your desire to be married isn’t out of love. I agree with having time apart, but when you are ready to talk again I would tell him what you said here and that you wouldn’t even WANT to stay except for him. He doesn’t seem to be connecting the dots between “be with him” and “get a visa”, or at least he has it the wrong way around. The intent of the visa is to be with him.
THIS.
(edited because my gif wasn’t workinggg)
Oh wow. If there are immigration issues involved, then no, his informal commitment is not actually “enough”.
ok I haven’t read all the comments in this thread yet. BUT I am going to jump in just to say: my spouse and I got married because his visa was expiring. we probably would have gotten married eventually if it wasn’t, but it was, and he would have had to leave the country and it would have been horrible. we weren’t really “ready” to get married then! we had a hard time of it! we had a rocky first few years! but goddamnit we loved – and love – each other and we worked through it. did we get married because we loved each other and wanted to have the safety and security to be together? yes! however: did we tell anyone other than those who actually needed to know that we had gotten married? nope. because it wasn’t their business. a year or so later, we told people we had eloped. so. there are a lot of reasons. immigration is as valid as any other reason. if your “asking out of fear” is fear of being separated due to visa status changing, that is fucking valid and rooted in love.
anyway: I am sorry you’re going through this; it’s hard and scary, especially when you’re not both on the same page. I hope my response isn’t out of line.
Thank you very much for your comment. It gives me hope.
I want to add to some great things selma and msbias have also said in this thread. FWIW I am a cis woman married to a cis woman and we were together for thirteen years before we got married.
I think that it can be really common for straight people to see marriage as “just a piece of paper.” (I’m presuming that you identify your relationship as straight, and PLEASE forgive me if I have mis-identified the situation.)
But when there is something legally tenuous at stake (e.g. my worst fear that my wife would not be considered the parent of our son because she’s not genetically related to him) (e.g. someone’s immigration status!), the “piece of paper” argument is just a reflection of that person’s privilege. Yes, for my brother and his wife (as an example) their marriage license is a piece of paper. They get certain benefits from having it, but no one would ever question their right to be where they are. They don’t get the SAME kinds of benefits that a same-sex couple, or a binational couple, would get from this piece of paper which says “we, the government of $STATE [and, by extension, the government of the United States and the several states therein] acknowledge that askelade and her wife have made some serious commitments to each other and WE THE GOVERNMENT are going to support them in keeping those commitments.”
As others have said, I hope this can be the beginning of a conversation. It is okay to get married because of practical reasons. I did! And I have zero regrets about not having a “special day” with all the stuff that goes along with it. At the end of the day, I have my piece of paper that says the government acknowledges that I have chosen to make a family with the person I love, and I have my family, and I have the law of the land behind my family. That is amazing and I don’t take it lightly.
Thank you so much for your perspective. We are a straight couple, but we’re coming at it from two different countries/cultures and backgrounds. My parents live together but never married, which I always perceived as my dad’s lack of commitment to his mom, whereas my partner’s parents are divorced and he was put in the middle in a big way. We already live together and our families recognize our relationship, there’s no religious stuff in the way, and I have other paths to a visa besides marriage, it would just be much faster and cheaper to do the spousal one. So it doesn’t seem urgent to him. But I want what you write, “the government acknowledges that I have chosen to make a family with the person I love.” I want it desperately as apparently equally as he does not want it. We are stuck. Thank you for your words, though.
Sometimes it can help to frame marriage as something that resides solely in the civil sphere. A break-up is sad in ANY relationship, but a divorce doesn’t have to be “worse” than a break-up, you know? (Count me among the queer people who desired marriage equality partly for the benefit of divorce equality! For a complicated break-up [kids, economic assets] a divorce is so much easier to navigate than a plain old break-up.)
I am wishing you so much good energy as you heal from this past weekend. I don’t know what you will end up wanting for your relationship. This internet stranger is rooting for you! *hugs*
Oof. 2 or 3 years ago I proposed to the man that I (still!) live with and was turned down. I understand his reasoning but it was a definite gutpunch and next time it is his turn because if I propose a second time and am rejected again I will have to leave the best person that I have ever been in a relationship with.
THAT SAID- is there a way you can separate your immigration status from the marriage question? I know that the marriage path can be the easiest but if there are other avenues open to you, it might be good for your peace of mind to start exploring those options. This way the two issues aren’t intertwined, which gives you better odds of solving both, and if the relationship is over, that you are already taking the positive steps to get visa/residency.
Oh 🙁 That is so hard. Does his answer means “not now,” or just a general no, and would you want to stay with him as nonmarried partners? In any case, seconding and thirding everyone’s suggestions of hugs, friends, and alcohol. Please take care of yourself <3
Big hugs, I’m so sorry to hear this. Remember to be kind to yourself as you process this. Wine, walks, funny cat videos – whatever you need.
Oh gods how awful. You were so brave and so trusting. I’m sorry.
I have no advice for you except this:
Go get yourself a couple of bottles of really, really good champagne, like Veuve Cliquot. Drink them. If you can’t drink champagne when you have a knot in your stomach and you feel like you’re lost in the woods, when the hell can you?
Seconding this. Let the bubbles buoy you up. You will see the light of the surface again.
This is lovely advice and I do believe I’ll take it!
Yep. On one occasion I had a pretty bad fight with my husband an drove off, then realised I didn’t want to deal with my parents and couldn’t really think of where else to go. So I bought a bottle of Veuve and drove back to our house, and sat out the back in the car where he couldn’t see me and drank it straight from the bottle. It was not super classy but was very comforting.
I’m sorry! It takes courage to do what you did, you should feel good about yourself no matter what else is happening.
If it helps (it may not), I proposed to my husband early-ish in our relationship and he said no, but we did end up engaged about a year later (and have been happily married coming up for 9 years). Sometimes two people don’t have the same timing but the commitment is still there.
Follow up from Friday’s Open Thread: you all are goddesses and I really should have followed your advice. I didn’t go No Contact (at least until last night) and instead hung out with my ex and her daughter on Sunday. This ended in yet another argument and nonconsensual kissing, like where I said clearly, out loud, NO, etc. and was ignored. I got the fuck out of there. And she followed up with an email in which she cut contact with me (admittedly nice choice, very much needed) and asked me to pay for this month’s rent in spite of the fact that I’m moving out on Saturday. She is determined to get every last penny from me which is sort of amazing to watch.
I’m sorry to all the Toasties who gave me sound and compassionate advice on Friday which I then didn’t follow. Sure enough, y’all were right on the money. I’m going to lose sleep over her daughter for a while but I don’t think my ex is the type to physically abuse her daughter… I’ve never seen this happen at least. And bb girl has another mother who is one tough cookie, a great old butch lesbian who doesn’t take any shit (she actually sent my ex a scathing email about her lack of responsibility for her daughter a few weeks ago… which Ex of course wanted me to make her feel better about). So anyway, I’m out of the red flag convention. Thank you all for your advice and support.
Oh honey, oh. Sending so much love to you. You’re doing the right thing and the brave thing.
ETA: I promise you, I swear it up down left right and center, that you will be okay. I spent a lot of time thinking about you and about your situation over the weekend, and believe me, I know from experience, that even if things end as badly as they possibly ever can, you will be okay. It may not be easy and it may not be a quick process but you will heal, and you will be okay.
Thank you houblonchouffe.
Oh geez, I’m sorry things went that way. Take good care of yourself and block her on every available outlet you can think of. Current iPhones allow you to block numbers, but some other models you may have to download an app.
It really takes a very special kind of person to try to insist that you pay rent for a place you no longer live in. Sheesh.
Please don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t do anything wrong – the only person to blame here is your ex. I’m just glad you’ve been able to cut contact with her so quickly. Good luck, and I wish you strength.
Thank you RubyRed. I’m glad we cut contact too. On some level I think she’s embarrassed by the way she’s acting. This isn’t who she truly is.
Just remember that whether this is who she *is* or not, it’s who she’s choosing to be right now. You deserve a partner who makes an active decision to respect and care for you.
So glad things are better! Look after yourself, sounds like it’s time for some self care.
Stay strong. You deserve all the good things, especially a relationship with someone who respects and values you.
You have no reason at all to apologise – leaving is hard, and it sounds like your ex has been sending you really mixed and confusing signals. I am so sorry she is treating you like this. It is so much better for you to be out of it, and I hope you start to feel better soon.
Thank you so much. It was one of those things where I still love her and (I think) she still loves me but that doesn’t mean we should be together. She’s 25 years older than me, and we dealt a lot with other people’s judgments. It created an us-against-the-world mentality. But even aside from that, we still had no future. She knew it and deep down I knew it too 🙁
You have nothing to apologize for – I hope you know this. I am so very sorry that all of this is happening to you. I hope you have a support network where you are. No matter how much good advice comes your way, only you are going through this, and only you can find a way forward. I will echo houblonchouffe by saying you are doing the right thing and the brave thing. Any of your options would be extremely hard. You are, have been, and will be in my thoughts.
All the gentleness to you. I am so sorry that you’re going through this. I have faith in you.
Oh, I am so sad for you that you’re dealing with this. I imagine you’re in the midst of a lot of grief.
In a way, I’m happy for you, because I think this is an important step to moving past this hurtful relationship. I am sure if will be hard, but there is a healthier life worrying for you on the other side.
Be gentle with yourself.
I am really glad you are out of there–I have quietly worried about you ever since your ex first sprung the let’s-get-married and then began flipflopping, and your updates in the last couple weeks have read like she was deliberately trying to throw you off balance by involving you in crisis after crisis. Please do take care of yourself. You are going to be so much safer and happier without her.
You are strong and thoughtful, full of kindness and light. Turning that kindness and light on yourself is exactly the right move now.
Take care of yourself! You have no reason to apologize. Hoping you can get into your own space and have some time to recover. If you can pay the extra rent it might be worth it just to be out with no further contact. Ten to one once you actually go no contact, your ex will be trying to get back in touch. Stay strong- our thoughts are with you!
So pleased you got out and it must be a relief to have her initiate the No Contact rule – she is so much likelier to respect that. Sending good thoughts your way
Sweetie, never ever feel like you need to apologise for when you chose to leave an abusive or potentially-abusive situation. I bet you know you’d never put that pressure on another person, so don’t put it on yourself!
Best of luck with moving on!
I’m not sure how I found http://actualteenadultteen.tumblr.com/ , which is an awesome blog comparing adult actors playing teens with their actual teenage selves (they just had a showdown – unsurprisingly the kid from Love Actually won) but it’s awesome.
I may have found it through the Toast. If I did, and I am offering a link that everyone has seen before, I’m glad to give you an extra link: http://actualhistoryscreenhistory.tumblr.com/ which is their newest site, comparing pictures of historical figures to the people playing them on-screen. It will be excellent.
Oh my god what is that costume from the Reign promotional pic? Is she wearing pantyhose??!?!
Reign costumes are the woooooorst. I started watching it once and just couldn’t because of the costumes. All the girls look like they’re in prom dresses they bought from Rainbow in the early 00’s.
It is so bizarre I love it. Plus Megan Follows.
Although I have given up now, it got even bizarrer than it was for the first couple of seasons and it was too bonkers even for me.
I still love Reign and may never stop. The Tudors used to give me such rage, but Reign is so thoroughly bananas that I can actually just enjoy it.
Megan Follows is a gift to us all.
I hit the wall when Catherine and Mary were running off somewhere and end up in a village eating chicken legs and then someone else rocks up in a carriage and says they are the king and queen. My head just exploded.
Hot pink satin. Hot pink. Satin.
Forget it Jake, it’s Reign.
A) Jamie Fraser from Outlander wasn’t based on a historical figure, so I’m not sure who they think they’re comparing him to.
B) Did anyone else notice that Pocahontas’ portrait is totally whitewashed? I get that it was the 1600s and people were racist, but still…
Wasn’t face-whitening makeup in vogue then? Might be that.
FWIW that painting was created long after her death. This is the only known contemporary portrait of Pocahontas
Thank you for introducing me to a new time waster and this image:
http://actualhistoryscreenhistory.tumblr.com/post…
I’m impressed by whoever made the lace collar for Pocohantas in the movie. Is that bobbin lace?
Knittlework, I believe.
But when is Histeria! going to be on Netflix? That’s the real question.
Yes, omg. I only have the vaguest memories of this show but I remember really enjoying it, and it is surprisingly hard to find clips online.
“Now here’s the fun part. Ask me if I care.”
I’m holding my breath for Freakazoid!
That kid who always shouted!
“We’re walkin’, we’re walkin’, we’re stoppin’.”
Why do I only remember that line?! Well, that and the bit about vomitoriums, which in retrospect was completely wrong.
GORDON KORMAN!!!! Also known as the BEST kids books! A friend of mine and I started re-reading them and formed our own informal book club. The first book discussed was The Twinkie Squad, which led to discussions of Pefkakia and what Commando and Douglas would be doing today as adults. Next up is the MacDonald Hall series and I am excited to discuss my love of Elmer Drimsdale.
Juicer man is a bit mad. But then again, I know people who actively identify themselves as ‘breatharians*’ so there’s that.
Who’s going to spend $700 on a juicer that you have to buy packets for and doesn’t work if your wifi goes down? I said the same thing about Nespresso machines though and they took right off.
*I’ve yet to get an actual definition of this out of them, but they claim to not eat solid food, or anything at all really apart from a bit of fancy juice every so often.
they claim to not eat solid food, or anything at all really
I guess they subsist off the periodic IV they get when they faint in public and are taken to the ER?
Yoga and breathing sustain them.
Apparently.
I know some people like this as well. They have trained their bodies to not need food. I am mystified.
That’s scary. I mean, if people could train their bodies to not need food, I’m sure anorexics and people in regions with frequent famines would already have discovered the secret. But they tend to, well, die…
but – chemistry! Thermodynamics! *flails*
That was a big thing in the 19th century (and the Middle Ages, and probably Late Antiquity as well; spiritually-motivated anorexia seems to crop up now and then as a thing).
Reminds me of Michelle Stacey’s The Fasting Girl, which I remember really liking despite the Goodreads haters, but then I am v. much into nonfiction that uses a particular person or event to cover a breadth of culture and v. much not a huge biography fan.
Same, friend. Same.
And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (“shedding,” as he called it finely, “the green blood of the silent animals”), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called “Why should Salt suffer?” and there was more trouble.
— G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill
They survive by lying (in fairness, this may include to themselves via heavy-duty compartmentalization) and the occasional accomplice. Wikipedia on Wiley Brooks, one Western proponent: “In 1983 he was reportedly observed leaving a Santa Cruz 7-Eleven with a Slurpee, a hot dog and Twinkies. He told Colors magazine in 2003 that he periodically breaks his fasting with a cheeseburger and a cola, explaining that when he’s surrounded by junk culture and junk food, consuming them adds balance.” Balance, mmm-hmm.
Mmmmmmm, delicious normal saline…
Haven’t some people died as a result of breatharianism? It’s terrifying.
Have they? That’s a bit scary!
As with a lot of health trends and food/eating trends, I imagine it can quickly fall into an eating disorder, or attract people with ED tendencies, and there’s the superiority element of it that probably makes them feel great about themselves while they’re dying.
My mother, who is a bit mad and very into anything alternative, got very excited about breatharianism until i pointed out that she liked it because it was an excuse for her terrible eating habits.
Sadly, yes – here’s a news story about a Scottish woman who died. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/453661.stm It’s such bollocks – it is physically impossible for humans to live off oxygen and sunlight; we don’t have chloroplasts – and the people who peddle it are scam artists who don’t care about killing people.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the lady who invented breatharianism was challenged by some filmmakers to be on film for a week full time to prove she didn’t eat, and they ended up catching her cheating (or, the cameras went mysteriously down for periods of 15 to 20 mins every once in a while).
I think it sounds like anorexia all over again. What’s the difference between starving yourself to become physically pure or starving yourself to become religiously/ideologically pure? Any way, you starve.
“probably makes them feel great about themselves while they’re dying”
It does. Fasting is (has always been) popular because it creates a euphoric state as part of the process of starving.
Are there any who *haven’t*? That would be more amazing.
That is true. Perhaps I should have said that everyone who attempts to do it “properly” will invariably die (because it is not physically possible for humans to survive on just oxygen and sunlight!), but there are people who claim to be breatharians who are lying and actually eating stuff.
I hate those Nespresso machines! Wasteful pods, annoying set-up, extending the Nestle hegemony. UGH
Re. Nicole’s tweet about Catholic school song re-writes: I was visiting my nieces’ wealthy Southern private school this past Xmas because the oldest was in the holiday program, and I found that they’ve revised “don we now our gay apparel” to “don we now our yay apparel” because apparently “Deck the Halls” is a known way for promoting teh gay agendaz? Or something.
I’ve mentioned this in December, but wanted to share it again because.. yay apparel! (I guess they thought this would be easier than explaining how the common usage of “gay” has changed over time.)
It’s amazing how you’re able to divine my innermost feelings.
That is painfully ridiculous. “Yay apparel” isn’t a thing!
Can the kids quietly sing “don we now ho yay* apparel”, or is that outdated lingo now?
*I would link to the TV tropes page for “ho yay” but I don’t want anyone to fall into the TV tropes abyss while at work.
OMG I totally forgot about the term “ho yay” and I wished I remembered it during this program. That extra layer of meaning would’ve been GREAT.
aww, you’ve just reminded me of the “homoeroticism yay!” tshirt that I got printed for my queer medievalist friend’s graduation, back in 2001.
(hot pink script, gothic style font ftr)
I would buy that shirt.
Honestly, I wonder if this was partly just an attempt to get through rehearsal without having to listen to seven hundred tween wisecracks about how gay Tim’s apparel is today.
Yay apparel sounds like what a coke dealer wears.
On the off-chance that I might save someone else from All The Feels, Far Too Many Feels: maybe don’t read “The Reckoning” if you’re a new parent. Oh man. Absolutely beautiful piece, but oh man.
Yeah. I’m due in 5 weeks with a baby boy and this was an on-going cycle of weep, recover, repeat. Not to mention that I went to UT and walked that path many, many times. I can’t even imagine.
i cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried
Yeah, I had to push away from the screen for a few minutes.
So many tears. And so many trips outside my bedroom office to hug my two-year-old son.
Our daughter starts college in Austin in the fall. Not at UT, but… still. I worry about campus shootings constantly.
I read it in short chunks throughout the day and just finished, so as to save my coworkers in nearby cubes from the weeping and the wailing.
I love everything early Gordon Korman but “No Coins, Please” is the best. (There’s also an IMPRESSIVE amount of Bruno/Boots fanfic around.)
I bought all the Macdonald Halls in ebook version when they came out and they have been Very Weirdly Updated For Today. Sadly very few of his other early books are available, and though I once owned them, they are long long gone.
noooo I hate when they do that 🙁 I hear tell they’ve gone after Are You There God It’s Me Margaret? as well and I’m not looking forward to it.
I was hoping someone would remember the name of the Gordon Korman book I love! No Coins Please is brilliant. I want a re-read immediately!
Could your day use a happy dance break? Perhaps you have not seen this Bollywood dance remix of “Sorry”
My day COULD use a happy dance break! Thank you!
My kid tried a little Bollywood dancing at a school event over the weekend and my heart grew THIRTY-THREE SIZES.
I am addicted to the original, so thank you.
That is exactly the happy dance break my heart needed. Thank you
That Toto video is only bananas if you’ve never seen the video for Hungry Like the Wolf.
ETA there is table flipping
Slow motion table flipping.
That’s a pretty great video. I loved Duran Duran and watched so much MTV back in the day, so I can see it in my mind’s eye.
Also. THANK YOU to an Anonymous Toastie for the gift. That was so thoughtful and brightened my life a lot this weekend.
I’m reading a book about the Levi Weeks trial and I’m learning so many fascinating things.
Like that Aaron Burr once lied, schemed, and mislead a bunch of people in order to make a water company that was secretly a bank.
It’s bananas.
Can you share the title, please? I want to read this now now now
Duel with the Devil!
Thank you!!!!
Didn’t that bank turn into what is now Chase? And their logo is supposed to be reminiscent of pipes, in honor of their origin?
Oh my god, you’re right. This is amazing.
I bank with Burr? Damn!
Oh yeah, if you read the Chernow, it seems pretty clear THAT was the real breaking point between him and Alexander. Because Aaron Burr screwed the people of New York who actually needed a water company! At least in the Chernow, Burr is so much more terrible than in the play.
I haven’t read Chernow because I don’t really like reading non-fiction books (it’s too hard for me to keep track of all the details). I’m only reading this one because a coworker lent it to me and I felt obligated, lol.
It was really crappy of Burr to use the water company as a front for his bank (and do a poor job actually providing water), but I also sympathize with him. It sounds like Hamilton was using his control of the banking system to stifle the Republican party. His secret water company bank was a crappy solution to a crappy problem.
My love for Animaniacs is strong and true and still influences way too much of my day to day.
To whit: my husband calls me Spookie. Which is apt and adorable. For years, as a result, I would walk around the house singing “She wears a disguise just like human guys, but she’s not a man, she’s a Spookie-boo” and I mean, he quotes Animaniacs at me all the damn time. But after doing this for oh, say 4 years, it comes to light that he has NO IDEA that I have been singing the Chicken Boo song. So, as soon as I saw this news today I let him know that I will be watching Animaniacs every night while he cooks us dinner. This is way better than the current selection, Law & Order, original edition. I look forward to the results, whatever they may be.
Just a general grumble that when my boss invites me to a meeting I don’t appreciate being told he’s going to ‘get things started and then come get me’ and 40 minutes later I’m still sat at my desk like a lemon.
I don’t care if it is just a supplier meet and greet, if you want me to be a part of something, I expect to be included in the whole thing.
Fuck that noise! I would be mad as hell, and resentful. Not that that’s productive, or anything. Don’t be like me.
Unfortunately I am exactly like you. This is part of an ongoing thing where nothing is really wrong enough to quit over, but I’m tired of working here and having this kind of bullshit pulled on me because they see me as young or unimportant or whatever. (It doesn’t help that I haven’t got a whole lot to do in this job, another story, so when I’m asked to do something/go somewhere I do actually want to do it, and then my boss does it himself anyway and I’m left with even less to do. More time for Toast though.)
The job hunt continues.
Ughhhh I am in the same boat. but I also feel obligated to stay at my job despite the fact that I am bored outta my mind all the time.
He just got back after an hour and a half and said sorry for not bringing me in, but it was all ‘top-level’ stuff.
Fuck that. Just because I’m a producer I don’t care about long term thinking or opportunities apparently.
Ugh. I assume you’ve had a conversation where you’ve told him this, perhaps a bit more diplomatically?
Not with him directly, he’s technically my boss’s boss, and our department head, but due to the small size of our team I work closely with him on projects and such; so I did mention this thing* that keeps happening to my manager in a review recently, and he agreed its a thing that shouldn’t be happening (and he’s noticed), but he’s a bit of a wet blanket so I doubt anything is going to be done about it.
(He asks me to do something and then does it himself; works on projects in the beginning, without assigning a producer, until he gets bored and palms it off to me without me knowing anything about it or having been in any of the meetings where important details are worked out. He doesn’t pull this shit with the other producer, but she’s a lot more experienced and senior to me and works on the bigger more important projects, and I get the weird projects that need a lot of time and working out)
This is A Monday, for sure.
But on the lighter side, the Pirates won their home opener and I discovered Jung-Ho Kung’s instagram account which is primarily pictures of him snuggling with his cute dog and wandering Pittsburgh’s cooler neighborhoods.
When you can find a ballplayer with a worth it social media account, it’s a grand thing. I stopped following my team’s players automatically because I really don’t need to see tweets about their protein powder’s company.
Both our CEO and a senior VP somehow completely skipped learning to type and use a computer but caught on to using email via smartphone/ipad. They’re in their mid to late 50s. So they can send and read email, although their spelling and punctuation is iffy and autocorrect is their enemy. But attachments, links, printing, etc are beyond them. The CEO has two executive assistants and uses the office manager and receptionist get by. And he owns the company, so he can pretty much do what he wants. The SVP does not technically have an assistant, so he monopolizes the admin who is supposed to support the entire department and uses the entry level hires to transcribe the notes he takes on yellow legal paper. It causes a resource problem, but no one can do anything about the SVP because the CEO does the same thing.
Are these people my mom?
I helped my hospital move over to an electronic medical records system some years ago, and much of my help was simply hand-holding a few doctors way out on the far tail end of the learning curve who had successfully resisted learning how to use computers and seemed to be deliberately fighting the EMR system when it came to writing notes on patients’ charts, even though it included boilerplate notes templates that would autofill a lot of things, or at least provide drop-down menus for them. I kept having to remind myself that these people made it through medical school and periodic board testing and continuing medical education.
YOU GUYS I’m going to NYC tomorrow and we’re gonna see Hamilton and it’s my first time leaving my kids in the care of their grandparents overnight and probably the last after the kids eat the grandparents alive, but I’m gonna ENJOY it.
I need to clean and pack, but I made the mistake of looking at the link roundup and now I have multiple longreads to get lost in instead.
YAY HAMLET! So jealous of you, you lucky duck.
IT WILL HAVE BEEN WORTH IT
Apropos of nothing, here is a dog who has invented what looks like a really great workout for lower body and…jaws?
Malinois are so weird!!! I love them!
TOTALLY OT BUT I GOT MY NEW PHONE YOU GUYZ!!!
i still had my iPhone 4. got the SE. it’s been less than 24 hours and we are already in love 5ever. i live in the future where All The Apps Work.
first order of business: neko atsume 😀
New phone joy! I feel so hip and futuristic!
I have now had my shiny new phone a whole weekend and I don’t really know what to do with myself! When I’m at home I end up switching between my tablet and my phone for facebook scrolling even though they both have the same stuff on them now, I just don’t want my tablet to feel left out because there’s a new kid in town, but I also want to play with my new phone. (They’re both Nexus and the tablet is only a year old, so now the only difference between the two is size.)
Its so nice having a reliable phone! I can now leave the house with just one phone instead of bringing my phone (which was pretty much only good for texts and calls and tethering to the tablet), my work phone (in case my phone loses the plot, which it did regularly) and my tablet for entertainment while in transit.
perfect gif is perfect.
I admire your priorities and dedication.
i’ve got ritzy bitz, an empty box, a rubber ball, and some string. LET THE COTCHING BEGIN!!!
I’m envious. I understand that the SE is the same exact size as the 5, and if that’s true then that would mean that a lot of the stuff that I got for the 5, such as a holder for my bike, that I got rid of or stopped using when I got the iPhone 6 would work.
it is the exact same size as the 5! which meant I was able to order a case before my phone even shipped. i gots me a fancy canvas diary flip with a clasp. i am a Phone Dropper *sigh* now My Precious is snug & secure.
People who refuse to learn to use computers infuriate me. Today at my library we received a document supply request; my colleague helpfully explained to the person over the phone that they needed to go to our website and fill in a form. He phoned back – the copyright form for private study purposes legally requires a signature, which means users need to print it, sign it, and fax/post/scan and send it back. He has no printer. Okay, fill in what you can and post us a signed copy later; we’ll fill the request for you anyway. No, I don’t know how to edit a PDF. Okay, let us hunt around and find a version of the form in Word to send to you. He emailed it to us – no, wait, he’s just emailed us the blank form. We finally got a filled-in form and I started to copy the document and write up an invoice. NO WAIT, he hasn’t bothered to fill in the section of the form asking for his address. I emailed him; it was undeliverable because he’d put the wrong email address on the form (his email address is [email protected]; he’d just put [email protected]).
The worst part was that he turned out to be in his mid-50s, younger than my mother (who is perfectly competent at computer stuff). I had assumed he was about 70. Also, our clients are barrisers, so you should be able to expect some level of intelligence.
The academic Robin Lane Fox refused, until recently, to use email; his secretary would have to print out his emails and put them in his in-tray. His daughter is the government internet tsar and the founder of lastminute.com.
Yeah, my 94-year-old grandmother happily uses email. And she never went to college (despite being very smart and engaging in continuing ed all her life), and is currently partially blind. If she can, your fellow can.
I suspect it is a control issue. Her husband, my grandfather the Ph.D., refused to use email (automatic typewriters were the limit for him), and had a combination of my grandmother and secretaries perform his correspondence for years. For him it was certainly about control, and about not suddenly looking like a beginner at something when he was old and grizzled.
I can sort of sympathize, and yet sort of not, because this character trait goes hand-in-hand with other not particularly nice character traits (like a tendency to make fun of anyone who *is* a beginner, including small children).
I used to have a boss who did not know how to use anything on her computer but her email, in the most pathetic and rudimentary way possible. The place hired two people to replace me: one to just be her little typing fingers and one to do all my other former job’s functions. Needless to say, I disagree with the idea that anyone is “too important” to learn to use basic technology that has been around this long. An adult with an office job who can’t dash off a quick letter or fill in a form online without an assistant? In 2016? Insane. Not to mention the waste of paper, as everything has to be printed, revised by hand in red pen like elementary school homework, then retyped.
lawyers have a marked tendency to be the worst at technologies. I assume it’s because they have to remember too much law-talking stuff to also remember how to scale a page for printing?
pretty sure they’re just entitled pricks
. . . I usually leave a couple bucks each morning for housekeeping at hotels?
My policy is something around $5/day. Hotel housekeeping makes at least minimum wage, right? It’s not like a restaurant?
(Yesterday I got Into It with a new acquaintance who tried to tip 15% after running the waitress ragged and I laid down the law about 20%.)
* looks around online * Huh, yeah, I guess that is on the low end. (I always do 20% for restaurants.) Usually I’m traveling alone and am very tidy, but still, fair point, $10 isn’t actually outrageous after all.
How would you change your $5/day if there were 2 humans and 2 small, very well-behaved dogs in the room?
Thank you for updating my habits!
When I’ve travelled with pets, I do a few bucks a day and then a nice note + $20 on the last morning. That’s just me, though!
I travel alone so I would add another $5 per human (possibly more if I was bringing, say, a child under 10 years). Regardless of behavior dogs shed so I would probably even add more per dog than per human out of consideration for the fact that they’ll be finding stray furs for ever.
That is usually what I do. Something I learned semi-recently (maybe here?) is that you should always tip every day of your stay instead of one lump sum at the end because there may be different workers on different shifts.
Yes to tipping every day because of shift changes!
I always try to do that — I once had a delightful correspondence with housekeeping on the notepaper during a weeklong stay.
Yes, absolutely! It’s generally not the same person.
Even if you’re staying at a small place with a tiny staff (like a B&B), there are often different employees during the week vs. on the weekends.
Nope, it’s just like a restaurant– I used to work in hotels and B&Bs as a housekeeper, and we were paid the lower “restaurant/ hotel” wage (i.e., less than minimum wage, on the theory that we would be receiving tips).
Technically, the employer is supposed to make up the difference if the housekeeper don’t earn X in tips, but that doesn’t often happen in the real world.
($5 a day is very nice!!)
I had no idea this was the case. I genuinely thought only waiters got less than the minimum wage and all other tipping situations were just more a cultural thing that evolved in that profession for whatever reason.
This is good to know and I appreciate you telling me! (That said, I think paying anyone less than minimum wage is barbaric, tip culture is broken, we need to value our service workers more.)
I honestly didn’t even know tipping housekeeping was standard until a couple of years ago <shamed face>, but now I do a couple of dollars a day.
I had no idea until this thread that it was a thing, but I am in the UK, where we have much less of a tipping culture than the US.
I was just thinking that this is a good reason never to visit the US! I would be accidentally accepting free labour everywhere! Why can’t people just be PAID, if they have a job?!
Right? I had always assumed that hotel staff were paid an appropriate amount and tips were an unusual and optional thing! I should remember this thread if I do stay in a US hotel.
The reason I found out about Animaniacs being on Netflix is because of their John Stamos April Fool’s gag. So that’s one April Fool’s joke that was actually useful.
UTTER RAGE http://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/wo…
People who live in the UK have no idea what’s going on in Ireland.
I am apoplectic over this. Even the judge sounded a bit shamefaced. All news outlets are basically c+p-ing the original report which was from the Belfast Telegraph (I think) and lousy with misleading anti-choice language. Referring to a 10/12 wk foetus as a ‘baby boy’ and the woman’s ‘son’?! That’s not objective reporting, it’s clearly unscientific and grossly biased.
As well as being absolute shitbags, the flatmates are also clearly lying liars. The foetus was 4in? My eye. The fact that the BT even quoted them shows the paper’s bias. Disgusting.
Obviously none of this is as bad as the woman being sentenced in the first place, but it’s still relevant. Biased, inaccurate media reporting is a big impediment to achieving reproductive rights. See also: illustrating stories about abortion with stock photos of 8+ month pregnant women.
‘It looked like a wee baby’ at 10 weeks, fuck off.
I don’t know the details of the law, but I’m surprised this is happening in Northern Ireland since it’s part of the UK, can’t the UK supreme Court step in?
Well it would have to go to the Court of Appeal of NI first and then to the UK Supreme Court. The UK Supreme Court probably can’t overturn the law the most it could do is declare it incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights which doesn’t overturn the law or obligate the parliament to take any action.
I’d be surprised if it was incompatible with the ECHR: what she’s been prosecuted for is effectively acquiring a controlled medication and administering it to herself with an intent to induce abortion, and I would be very surprised if that wasn’t allowed under the ECHR. What’s scandalous is that she had no access to safe, legal abortion, but I don’t think the ECHR could rule on “yes, she committed a crime, but she shouldn’t have had to”.
I completely agree that it is unlikely to be found incompatible with the ECHR especially since the ECHR’s jurisprudence on access to abortion has been mixed at best and has never recognized a right to an abortion in a country that did not already allow it. I just wrote that as an option since it was more likely (though still really improbable) than the UK Supreme Court doing anything else with the law.
Possibly they could technically, but are unlikely to. It’s so fucked up. Part of UK, but half its citizens denied basic rights because of religious fanatics. A different *kind* of religious fanatics than the ones the created the situation in the Republic, but the outcome is the same.
How? It’s the correct legal procedure. Abortion isn’t decriminalised in the UK: it’s still illegal under the 1867 Offences Against the Person Act, and the 1967 Abortion Act didn’t decriminalise it, just permitted it under certain circumstances, and it only applies to England, Scotland and Wales. I don’t know if there would be any grounds for an appeal, since acquiring and taking an abortifacient is illegal. It would also be illegal in England, Scotland and Wales if it was done outside the healthcare system and without the consent of two doctors. (AFAIK, the only other procedures which require sign-off from two doctors are trans-related healthcare. Women and trans people, you just can’t trust ’em, can you?)
(The Supreme Court also can’t do anything unless the defendant decided to appeal. Unless she actually wants to be an anti-abortion campaigner, it would make more sense for her to accept the three-month suspended sentence and try and move on with her life.)
England, Scotland and Wales get by on our abortion law, but our law is basically still pretty fucked. Canada is one of the very few countries where abortion isn’t governed by criminal law.
I’m under educated on abortion law in the UK, I thought it was legal; Its a whole fucked up quagmire, and the North gets caught in the middle, last I remember they did have a marie stopes clinic for early term abortion in Belfast, but that was a few years ago and they have probably be run out of town at this point.
Its disgraceful all over, and I agree that this woman probably just wants to get on with her life now, she has another child and a partner according to the article. There’s a fundraiser going around facebook to help her with costs. Every time a case like this comes along I think, this has to be it, people have to notice and get angry, but no one ever does and they quickly forget about until another woman is killed or kept alive as an incubator against her families wishes.
Sorry, I’ve re-read my reply and it sounds more confrontational and “surely you should know this!” than I meant it to! That’s me being cross at the situation, not at you. 🙂
I can’t see the abortion movement ever gaining much momentum in Great Britain, because the status quo is crap but basically works most of the time, and I just don’t think there’s the incentive to improve it. I am so glad that #Repealthe8th is getting more momentum in Ireland, but I think Northern Ireland gets screwed over in SO many ways. We worked out once that NI women actually have fewer rights than Irish women, because the X case confirmed the right to information and the right to travel for Irish women, but Northern Irish women technically don’t have either right. It’s so fucked up.
Don’t worry, I didn’t take it that way!
Like you said the UK gets by, and I’m sure the majority of people in England, Wales and Scotland have no idea what the situation is in NI (A large portion of them don’t even know that Ireland is a separate country from Britain/England, I’m not kidding here.).
I’m glad that the Irish population is demanding action on the 8th amendment, but I do not trust the Irish government or the politicians, they’ll say anything to get into office and will then do whatever they were going to do anyway, including staying mum on a referendum over the 8th or any action at all (‘Its not the right time’ or ‘we don’t have the resources right now’ or some bullshit.). Its been ruled a violation of human rights and they still aren’t doing anything, it took 20 years to legislate for the X case. The general election went by without a whole lot of comment from TDs about #repealthe8th, and I fear that sinces its primarily youth, women and urban campaigners who care about it, its not going to get much traction since its ‘well known’ that only older, rural people vote and that’s who the politicians cater too (I don’t know how true this in anymore, but its still common rhetoric.).
Not to go militant republican on anyone, but NI will always be caught in the middle of ROI and the UK it probably won’t get sorted out until a decision is made about which country its part of, and lord knows when that might happen.
You may have seen this already, but BPAS have launched a campaign to decriminalise abortion in the UK, including NI. It’s called We Trust Women and includes a large range of groups which are focusing on lobbying government. It’s small at the moment, but gaining momentum – spread the word!
I did not know about this, and thank you!
(Brief aaargh at the fact that not only women have unwanted pregnancies.)
I pretty much exclusively listened to Africa on repeat while writing my final college paper. My friends did not believe me until they saw my playlist was pretty much:
Africa
Africa
Hurry Up We’re Dreaming Pt. 1, with Africa sprinkled in every couple of tracks
Africa
Africa
Hurry Up We’re Dreaming Pt. 2, also with Africa every couple of tracks
“buy why???” everyone asked. “why not?” was the best answer i could come up with
I listened to songs on repeat while writing papers too!! Thankfully my first roommate and I were in totally agreement about which songs were right for which evenings.
We also got Pixie Stix at Costco and ate honey directly from the bear. We had a lot of fun.
Last year I listened to only one song on repeat for the entirety of reading days and finals period- Get Lucky. The most surprising thing is that I can still listen to the song.
I unintentionally tortured my roommates during a writing jag in which I played the 1974 New York recording of “Idiot Wind” eleventy billion times, because when the iron is hot even the least change can throw me off my groove. I consider this fair play for the times they accidentally cannot contain their color commentary on wrestling and wake me up from across the house, since at least you couldn’t hear my music from their room.
That’s a good one! Mine was, god help me, The Bad Touch by The Bloodhound Gang.
My final college paper soundtrack was International Feel on repeat, with similar reasoning!
Because I was an RA my senior year, I had access to an office in my dorm, so (a) no other ears were harmed in the writing of that paper and (b) I didn’t have to share my Smartfood popcorn with ANYONE.
I’m so glad we’re all learning we aren’t alone in this!
When my brother was in college, he did something similar as an experiment. He had heard that playing music on repeat could be used as a sort of Pavlovian conditioning to help with memory retention and recall, so for 3 days straight he listened to Karma Chameleon while studying and working on a paper for Italian Renaissance Art History. No relation of the material to the song; that wasn’t the point. In fact, he said the fact that it was unrelated was supposed to help the effect.
To this day, I can hum a few bars under my breath, just barely above the threshold of conscious hearing, and he will start talking about the major differences between the bronze reliefs by Pisano and Ghiberti on the doors of the Florence Baptistry.
I have a hard time writing in silence but I also am easily-distracted so too often will find my project has gone off the rails because I am listening too intently to my background music. Which means that when I, by sheer chance and shuffle-function, find a song or album that results in an actual GROOVE, I will not be moved from it until I finish writing. I think I would really like to write to “Africa” !!
Editing, otoh, must be done with lots of ambient noise and no music. A coffee place is good for this, as is my living room when someone else is watching television in it.
Interesting! I’m the other way around: I prefer quiet or classical music for writing, but I like lots of wordy, snappy music for editing (my job). The best editing music for me is rap. The flow and beat make my edits tighter and tighter as I go along. (I listened to a ton of Hamilton once it came out, obvs.)
They just don’t understand that there’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
I read somewhere that Tom Stoppard wrote all of Arcadia while listening to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” on repeat, which makes me very happy.
I can’t listen to music and write at the same time, but when I was writing a paper on the Kipling short story “The Gardener,” (a beautiful, compassionate, magical story that I highly recommend to all, btw), I listened to “Graceland’ whenever I took a break to make tea, because “Graceland” somehow summed up for me what the story was about, in a way that I found really helpful when I was getting bogged down in the details of my argument and losing the big picture.
Toasties, not feeling this Monday? Take a few minutes and Powerpuff yourself!
It me!
Perhaps you can tell me. A few friends over the weekend were doing this. Why is this a thing now? Is it promotional for a movie/show/new episodes or something? I’ve never been in that world, so it’s curious that this is making the rounds.
They’re making a new show that’s about to premiere (yay!) But apparently has transphobic content (boo!)
Aha! Thank you for clearing up the mystery. Probably could have googled that but, well….
POWERPUFF.
http://www.powerpuffyourself.com/#!/en/my-powerpu…
Also I really like the band who have done the theme tune for the new show, Tacocat. They have a song all about mansplaining! And one about Scully!
Here’s me! I wish I could have added more cats
Super accurate: Hoodie, flipflops, weirded-out cat, and RBF.
I am learning through this link roundup that I really hate fax machines.
fax machines are the devil.
Donald Knuth doesn’t use email, but he seems less ridiculous about it than many of the other people described here. It probably helps that he isn’t opposed to understanding the concept of email; he used email for fifteen years, but he got fed up and quit using it twenty-five years ago.
AFRICA!
I’m 10 seconds into this with no audio (I’m at my desk at work) and I already love it.
The audio is what makes it. The sound makes me physically cringe… I mean, literally– as in, my knees clamped together and my shoulders shrank into my neck; but they are amazing in their own way. They are completely unapologetic. They have an entire channel devoted to their karaoke covers. It’s part of the appeal, to be sure.
KENYA
i feel less bad about always hogging Africa at karaoke now
Toasties.
I have our first lacrosse game tomorrow. I have been informed by my professor that missing 3 classes due to games will “severly affect my grade”. Also we have 4 days of six games and it will be 32 F all week.
Also my daughter’s friend on the team just tried for the third or fourth time to commit suicide and may not even come back to school this year. I have to just tell the rest of the team , “she’s in the hospital”.
Also re: the foot running-over: I have to report him to CPS, don’t I? I am pretty sure the pediatrician did but if I don’t I think it might look like I wasn’t trying to protect her. Crap, I didn’t want to stir that hornets’ nest up, but I think I have to.
Today sucks.
Aren’t you in grad school? What class even cares about “grades”?
imho (i’m a mandated reporter in my state) the reason why we have mandated reporting is so that people in your situation don’t HAVE to. If you get the impression that CPS is ever casting aspersions on your decisions vis-a-vis reporting, you can just say “I knew that the pediatrician was reporting and I am glad that she reported it.”
Also, you didn’t stir up the hornets’ nest; you know who did.
Sorry about the news from your professor. I don’t know what your field is or what your program is like, but is it possible to take an incomplete instead of taking a lower grade? (In my program there was No Such Thing, but my wife had to do an incomplete or two, due to absences throughout the semester, and it worked out fine in her program.)
I loved Gordon Korman’s books so much (well, the ones that made it to my small-ish town’s library, anyway–No Coins Please and I Want To Go Home). I really want to give my niece and nephew (middle-grade readers both) a carefully curated selection of Books I Loved, but am horribly afraid of rejection. (It’s like the feeling of making a mix tape for someone you really want to impress, but a million times worse.) I already gave them a copy of “Sideways Stories from Wayside School” which, per my sister, they have not yet touched. 🙁
How can they reject Louis Sachar?! I feel your pain.
I am the only person I know who has read Sixth-Grade Secrets but I am pretty sure I have read it enough times for everyone I know. I don’t know why that’s the one I latched onto, but it was!
I HAVE READ THIS AND FEEL ALONE, TOO. 🙂
The thing is, I have to keep cool and casual about it, like “oh hey, here are some books I thought you might like”, because I suspect “HERE IS A PIECE OF MY SOUL, LOVE IT AS I HAVE LOVED IT” is not the right tack to take. And them following up is like “So… have they… no? “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series? Oh.” While inside I am like 🙁 🙁 🙁 .
That is me and the part-time children. Luckily I have a reading niece and at least she loves my books so I don’t have to shut down and DIE as yet again I buy books that are ignored forever
i hate to suggest it, but might your niece and nephew secretly be rats under piles of raincoats?
I shared the Gordon Korman article with my sister (we’re five years apart; she’d buy them, and then a few years later I’d sneak them off her bookshelf), and she informed me that her preteen daughters are getting into his more recent books! That just delights me.
When I was at a coffee shop last night, I hate-read the local paper. The highlight was a letter to the editor from some guy cautioning people to watch out for potholes. Despite being a short letter, it was repetitive. And the LW used “like” as if he was speaking (as filler, not to indicate he approved of something or was making a comparison).
Google voice to text should come with certain filters.
SPEAKING OF BANANAS MUSIC VIDEOS if you love the Talking Heads with all or part of your heart you will definitely need to see this thing I just found out about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylDBf7o_YtM
http://www.kamadojoe.com/downloads_public/KJ_SPEC…
I’m not saying this is actually an old-timey spaceship, but I’m not not saying that, either.
Toasties, how much is too much to spend on red lipstick? I rarely wear it, but there’s this shade I really, really want. It’s limited edition, and beginning to become hard to find.
How long do you the tube would last if you got it? I mean, probably you’d save it for special occasions, so you might end up getting months or years out of it.
I’d buy it if I could afford it, and it would work out to less than ten bucks a year for the number of years I expected to have it, but it takes me a long time to go through lipstick, so YMMV
It will last forever. I rarely wear lipstick, except for going out, and even if I were to start wearing it more regularly, I still don’t see myself wearing this shade during the day.
Probably more than one paycheck is too much. Up to that point though, it can be hard to tell. Best to say “not more than one paycheck,” just to be on the safe side.
I say buy it, buy multiples if you really like it.
Full disclosure, when an ex’s deodorant scent was discontinued I went on ebay and bought her 12 sticks. No regrets.
Thanks, all! You gave me the push I needed.
Fellow Toasties, I read THE MOST AMAZING Politico piece making the case for Al Franken as the Dem VP for this election and I almost burst into tears at the sheer joy of the idea of someone from SNL being a heartbeat away from the White House. I saw it in a group on Facebook and both Sanders and Clinton fans were ecstatic about it, too. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/20…
I don’t remember who recommended Overtone color-depositing conditioner but I bought some to keep my purple hair saturated and so far, it’s exactly what I need! Good color, good conditioning. Highly recommend.
I just made an Overtone order for teal!
I’m a bit late, but I wanted to share that I watched Animaniacs as a kid, every single day, because my mom had our tape player set up to record it every single day. We still have those tapes. It (and the other Speilberg cartoons) have always been favorites in my family. I’ve got to go watch them all again!
Toastarinas! I got married! It was… spectacular. As was our (first) honeymoon. I got a sunburn on April 1 in the PNW….
Here are words that I cannot get comfortable with: “Mrs.” “Husband”
Hooray! Congratulations! *clink clink*
Congratulations!!!!
I also feel weird about ‘husband.’ When I say “my husband” in any context it makes me feel a hundred years old.
I use Ms. and Partner because I am that level of angry feminist.
I came into work 3 hours early this morning on accident, now I”m working a 12 hour day. UGH MONDAY
Whereas I set up a computer for a VERY senior and eleventy-billion year old solicitor at one of the UK's "magic circle" law firms, in the late 90s.
I got a call a couple of hours later for assistance while he was trying to send an email. He'd opened the mail program, started composing a message, but was stuck on how to put spaces between the words. The space bar was a revelation. Then I went the extra mile and showed him the Enter key for making line breaks. He was happy to send his email after that.
No-one expected him to move to a paperless office – he still had his own secretary, who typed up and printed out the stuff for him.
But the fact he sent his own brief emails regularly – and obviously read them – saved half an hour of time for his secretary for each that he read and responded to online.
I was really impressed with him, and thought it was no wonder he was near the very top of the legal profession.
Tiger are also excellent, and substantially cheaper. And easy to use (I just use the "quick" setting 90% of the time, but you can cook 3 course meals in it). Panasonic do good ones as well.
Oh god, I still have hysterics about the Eggmaster.
Paying thousands for a home machine is ridiculous. I've not encountered one person who got proper value out of one – they simply don't make enough coffee to get really good at it. And a good barista (by which I mean a real one, not Starbucks) can get decent coffee out of nearly any machine, given time to figure it out.
Hah, they keep threatening to outsource my job (half email admin) to Office 365. Can I use you as a reference?
(We've shot down the latest attempt, but give it a couple of years…)
I detest them. Every significant IT-related request in the place I work is on a paper-based form that must be printed it and signed, and then faxed if you're not in the head office.
It is TWENTY-SIXTEEN! And I can't tell you how embarrassing I find it, working in the IT dept.