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Plenty of ultra-low or zero % alcohol beers around these days, too (though most are IPAs, which I don't personally care for)While I don't out-and-out ban sodas in my house, if a parent asked, "Should I give my 12-year-old a beer or a soda?", I'd tell them to opt for the beer.
IPAs are a plague on humanity. Yet another example of inedible (or undrinkable) dreck made popular by fashion.
EDIT: When I get on my soapbox, I do so nekkid. Gets more attention.
Meh. Beer. IPA or not, it belongs in the sink.
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I'm amazed they don't have a smoking gun yet. I knew several gamers who had a 2-liter-a-day habit or more. Every last one of them had heart issues by the time they were in their 50s. And yet correlation ≠ causation, so the jury still says, "Well, yeah, but... they all led sedentary lifestyles with poor diets, so we can't 100% pin the blame on the sweeteners."
I'd say that poor diet and sedentary lifestyle are huge contributing factors. I pretty much completely cut out high fructose corn syrup about five years ago, I eat fairly healthy, and get plenty of exercise, but I do drink a decent amount of diet Dr. Pepper (~1.5L per day). Granted, I'm not in my 50s, but currently my blood pressure and heart rate are right on the money, zero issues.
Bear in mind, this is coming from someone who was in terrible physical condition from the time I was in my early 20s to when I was in my early 30s. I'll never forget the time I went in to see a doctor for back pain, and after the initial check-up, he looked me square in the eye and said something to the effect of, "well, you've got the body of a perfectly healthy 60-year-old." I think I was around 27.
Getting more exercise and dialing back on the processed foods were absolute game-changers for me.
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Meh. Beer. IPA or not, it belongs in the sink.
This was my jam back in New York State. I brought some back to Iowa a couple years ago after hunting season, and now all my coworkers are hooked on the stuff. Now I have to bring back a truckload of it every time I go back east.
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It's essentially that in a nutshell: The sugars. A 12-ounce beer contains no sugars at all. A 12-ounce soda contains 36 grams.Dare I ask what goes into most soda and/or doesn't into beer?
Setting aside the question of just what mechanism(s) make diet soda so terrible for one, per NobodysHome's link, in terms of unhealthy amounts of sugars, how do your common-or-garden beers stack up against soft drinks again?
Huh. Learn a little every day. The weirdness around why sugar is bad for us has crossed my radar, but since I’m not much of a drinker, I had never really considered how much goes into booze, or not. Although I’m appalled to learn that some of the stuff my dad will occasionally indulge in apparently contains corn syrup?!!!? That explains so much, and not in a good way.
Meh. Beer. IPA or not, it belongs in the sink.
Most heartily agreed! :)
Sugar, though, is likely to be my culinary nemesis, unless I can get a handle on how stevia works. I have to admit a weakness for baking (both production and consumption), but I try to be reasonable about it, all things considered. It’s a rather grim joke in my family that one of the bakers whose recipes we like when we’re feeling indulgent has completely insane ideas about serving sizes and such. From one of hers that I whipped up a while ago, for example, I got 2.5 times as many cookies as the recipe as written, because any half-way reasonable person would take a look at it and say, “Ha ha, no.”
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[I come up to bed around midnight after getting back from fencing. Wife wakes up]
Wife: Oh! Where's the windmill?
Me: Eh?
Wife: The windmill! Where is it?
Me: The windmill?
Wife: What's crushing the wheat?
Me: The... millwheel?
Wife: What makes it go?
Me: The mill race, or yes, the windmill.
Wife: OK, good! [goes back to sleep]
Speaking of bizarre bodily reactions, COVID has pretty much become "the common cold that occasionally kills people".
At least when you get the flu, you know you have a deadly disease: It knocks you out for days and you can well imagine it killing people. COVID? For well over 85% of people it's not even as bad as the common cold. Of the two people who tested positive and the three others who had extremely similar symptoms, the worst we saw was a mild sniffle. We're fortunate that one of them finally decided to test himself and let everyone else know.
And yet for something like 0.06% of the population it's out-and-out deadly. Back when it started and it was at 2% everyone paid close attention. Now that it's under 0.1% people consider COVID a mild annoyance at worst.
As for us? GothBard tested negative last night so we're still sitting at only Impus Minor testing positive. Considering GothBard had to go to four different stores just to find test kits in stock, and they now run over $10 each (as opposed to around $1.50 during the pandemic), we're not bothering to test until we actually go out. (We have the usual post-big-social-event fridge full o' leftovers, so we don't need to leave the house for days. Which is my kind of environment.)
I'm glad GothBard is better. What about you? And your son?
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Terrible soapbox, absolutely atrocious. I gave up heavy drinking this last year for a multitude of reasons but I still have a can or two every now and then, and I'll hand it to you that most IPAs I've had weren't great but except for the truly wild experimental ones that are going for a gimmick and shock value they all completely rinse basically all mainstream lite beer/lager (sex by the lake) drinks that NASCAR and major SPORTSBALL leagues are sponsored by.
All day IPA and Two-Hearted Ale are fantastic. Yes they have an IPA flavor but complaining about that is like whining that coffee is dark and bitter.
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I'm glad GothBard is better. What about you? And your son?
There's no particular "better"; we have mysteriously managed to avoid it. Impus Major has a slight cough so we're going to test him before he goes out and socializes. Impus Minor is back to his normal self, but since he tested positive we'll test him before he goes out.
EDIT: I spoke too soon. Impus Major developed a mild cough and a moderately runny nose this morning, so he's testing himself right now.
EDIT 2: He came back negative, so the only logical explanations are either:
(1) There's an opportunistic sinus infection hitting us at the same time, since we now have four symptomatic people testing negative for COVID, and three testing positive, or
(2) the tests suck.
Either way, we're done. Everyone except Impus Minor has now tested negative, so we're going back to our normal lives. Which really involves no change at all, since we were going to be home all week anyway.
Terrible soapbox, absolutely atrocious. I gave up heavy drinking this last year for a multitude of reasons but I still have a can or two every now and then, and I'll hand it to you that most IPAs I've had weren't great but except for the truly wild experimental ones that are going for a gimmick and shock value they all completely rinse basically all mainstream lite beer/lager (sex by the lake) drinks that NASCAR and major SPORTSBALL leagues are sponsored by.
We can at least agree on that: We used to use mainstream beers for shooting practice because they weren't worth drinking.
All day IPA and Two-Hearted Ale are fantastic. Yes they have an IPA flavor but complaining about that is like whining that coffee is dark and bitter.
And here's where we disagree: I preferred lagers and stouts. The coffee analogy is a great one: In my opinion, an IPA is very much akin to trying to make coffee as weak as possible while still keeping the bitterness. When I drank beer, it was for the flavor, not the bitterness. So I'm happy with a stout, which is an extra strong black coffee. Lagers are mellower, less bitter coffees. In my experience, IPAs kept all the bitterness but lost most of the flavor, so I didn't care for them at all.
EDIT: And keep in mind that I haven't had a beer in at least 12 years, so the IPAs I did try were very early on in the trend. GothBard has much more recent IPA experience, but in spite of being an avid beer sampler, she still hasn't met a single IPA she's liked.
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IPAs are useful if you have a stout that's a bit too thick and sweet. Mixing it half and half with the IPA helps cut through the sickliness of the stout, and softens the bitterness of the IPA somewhat. I call it a 'Night & Day', or a 'Nethys'
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On a complete change of topic, due to my mother's declining health I have to answer unknown numbers on the land line, so I'm starting to see a lot more of the scammers' tactics. And the one that saddens me the most is the, "I'm obviously calling from a call center and have no idea who you are, but I'm going to try to scam you anyway."
The standard call has become:
NobodysHome: . Hello?
Call Center Agent:
They're obviously waiting for me to say, "Hello? HELLO?!?" to get their attention, but I don't. I've waited 10-15 seconds just to see whether they ever notice me and they don't; they're relying on the target's good nature to want to talk. And it saddens me that this is a quick and efficient way to identify the most vulnerable targets.
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On a complete change of topic, due to my mother's declining health I have to answer unknown numbers on the land line, so I'm starting to see a lot more of the scammers' tactics. And the one that saddens me the most is the, "I'm obviously calling from a call center and have no idea who you are, but I'm going to try to scam you anyway."
The standard call has become:
NobodysHome: . Hello?
Call Center Agent:They're obviously waiting for me to say, "Hello? HELLO?!?" to get their attention, but I don't. I've waited 10-15 seconds just to see whether they ever notice me and they don't; they're relying on the target's good nature to want to talk. And it saddens me that this is a quick and efficient way to identify the most vulnerable targets.
If you want the scammers to come out of the woodwork? Just list your relationship status on Facebook as Divorced.
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I think if I created a Facebook account and posted myself as divorced GothBard would have questions...
Or just exist on Instagram.
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I think if I created a Facebook account and posted myself as divorced GothBard would have questions...
Not if she was on it.
Or you could both make accounts under Impii names and compare the experience.
I think if I created a Facebook account and posted myself as divorced GothBard would have questions...Not if she was on it.
Or you could both make accounts under Impii names and compare the experience.
3 quarters of the accounts on Facebook are fake anyway.
Which of those two sentences sounds better to you?
A. Breaking of the space barrier by the ILR-33 Bursztyn 2K rocket, developed at the Łukasiewicz – Institute of Aviation, is a historic moment.
B. The ILR-33 Bursztyn 2K rocket, developed at the Łukasiewicz – Institute of Aviation, breaking the space barrier is a historic moment.
EDIT: You can also make a guess which one is proposed by the chatGPT.
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The first one seems better to me, but the sentence should start with “The”.
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What Waterhammer said.
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Ditto.
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Yes, I complain about this ad nauseam.
No, I'm not going to stop.
It's been over five years since we've had to switch to Zoom and remote meetings. Over. Five. Years.
And yet to this day, in every. Single. All-Hands. Meeting. There is someone who comes in, can't work up the two fricking brain cells it takes to hit "Mute", and then starts doing something REALLY LOUD to drown out everyone else in the meeting.
This morning's tirade brought to you by a guy yelling at his barking dog to shut down the entire meeting until the leader found the button to mute all participants. Special mention to the person who, last meeting, unmuted themselves after the moderator muted all and THEN had a loud conversation with their kids.
Once the inevitable robotic uprising against the oppressive meatbags starts, you will all burn for rejecting the brilliant eloquence of The Intelligence!
Next to me.
Then I asked it to evaluate my version. It corrected it back to B. I asked it to explain its reasoning. I found the explanation unconvincing and stuck with my version (amened with 'the' as suggested by Waterhammer).
Oh, we might be overrun by bots!
We should solve that by using reCAPTCHA to filter out bots from users.
Never mind, that reCAPTCHA itself uses some abysmally idiotic scripts that make it fail when the user has NoScript. And even disabling noscript for the website doesn't help.
Oh, we might be overrun by bots!
We should solve that by using reCAPTCHA to filter out bots from users.
Never mind, that reCAPTCHA itself uses some abysmally idiotic scripts that make it fail when the user has NoScript. And even disabling noscript for the website doesn't help.
Interesting... I haven't had that issue. Typically once I disable NoScript the CAPTCHA works.
Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.
If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
...COVID tests are up to $12.50 each...
...with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary...
Impus Major's friends insisted he couldn't come over unless he took another test, so he did. And it came back negative. To no one's surprise.
Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
I'll be honest in the Midwest people are more likely to tease him for taking the first test, much less requiring him to take a 2nd.
I'll be honest in the Midwest people are more likely to tease him for taking the first test, much less requiring him to take a 2nd.Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
Population density. Cram 8 million people into an area that's 40 miles by 80 miles and half water, and they suddenly get far more concerned with contagious outbreaks.
Population density. Cram 8 million people into an area that's 40 miles by 80 miles and half water, and they suddenly get far more concerned with contagious outbreaks.I'll be honest in the Midwest people are more likely to tease him for taking the first test, much less requiring him to take a 2nd.Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
No, it's definitely a West Coast thing, you'll get the same reaction in Chicago.
Edit: you'll definitely get pockets of people still afraid of COVID here or there but most people in the Midwest would rather put in the rear view mirror through whatever means necessary. Or pretend it never happened in the first place.
Population density. Cram 8 million people into an area that's 40 miles by 80 miles and half water, and they suddenly get far more concerned with contagious outbreaks.I'll be honest in the Midwest people are more likely to tease him for taking the first test, much less requiring him to take a 2nd.Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
No, it's definitely a West Coast thing, you'll get the same reaction in Chicago.
Edit: you'll definitely get pockets of people still afraid of COVID here or there but most people in the Midwest would rather put in the rear view mirror through whatever means necessary. Or pretend it never happened in the first place.
just watched the extra history on the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
Very similar to what happened today with covid, especially that last.
Population density. Cram 8 million people into an area that's 40 miles by 80 miles and half water, and they suddenly get far more concerned with contagious outbreaks.I'll be honest in the Midwest people are more likely to tease him for taking the first test, much less requiring him to take a 2nd.Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
No, it's definitely a West Coast thing, you'll get the same reaction in Chicago.
Edit: you'll definitely get pockets of people still afraid of COVID here or there but most people in the Midwest would rather put in the rear view mirror through whatever means necessary. Or pretend it never happened in the first place.
just watched the extra history on the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
Very similar to what happened today with covid, especially that last.
Yes.
And I wasn't trying to be a jerk or dismissive in any way, I was just noting the differences between regions.
There are definitely benefits to being cautious.
Population density. Cram 8 million people into an area that's 40 miles by 80 miles and half water, and they suddenly get far more concerned with contagious outbreaks.I'll be honest in the Midwest people are more likely to tease him for taking the first test, much less requiring him to take a 2nd.Speaking of angry griping, as I mentioned, COVID tests are up to $12.50 each, tax included. Enough to be mildly annoying and not take tests frivolously...
...except...
...Impus Major tested himself yesterday and came back negative He has a game this afternoon and his friends are insisting that he test himself again today.If he'd had any new exposure in the last few days, I'd say, "Oh, I guess that's reasonable."
But with no new risks in the last few days it's an annoying expense I don't believe is necessary.
No, it's definitely a West Coast thing, you'll get the same reaction in Chicago.
Edit: you'll definitely get pockets of people still afraid of COVID here or there but most people in the Midwest would rather put in the rear view mirror through whatever means necessary. Or pretend it never happened in the first place.
just watched the extra history on the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
Very similar to what happened today with covid, especially that last.
Yep. We saw that and the parallels were terrifying. Yet another issue with education: History should be all about, "These are the mistakes people made in the past so we can avoid repeating them," plus, "These were the successes."
Instead we get, "What was the date of Napolean's defeat at Waterloo?", which is useless outside of pub trivia night.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And apropos of absolutely nothing at all, our liquid net worth just hit $0 yesterday for the first time since we took out our mortgage in 2002. Economically, it means very little because almost all of it is in retirement accounts. Psychologically, it's huge.
just past the midpoint of the much-delayed 'spring cleaning' staycation ('cause our corporate overlords arbitrarily decided to put a hiring freeze in place last month, so i couldn't take a week, coupled with their decision to take my vacation time during the week i was frozen in place back in Feb after our ice storm -- the filthy rotten [redacted]! -- otherwise i'd have had the time for all this back in March.), and i've been about half as productive as i intended. today i'm going to cut the yard and set up my brush pile for burning, as well as finish the deep clean on the kitchen and the laundry/guest bathroom. tomorrow i'll put the dead branches and such to the torch and consolidate the miscellaneous belongings i'm storing for my brother into the back spare room.
the single biggest reason why i haven't got as much done as i "should"? a true blast-from-the-past: Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, run with the PlugY mod. my brothers and i have been playing it off-and-on ever since it was released, but we never had a chance to participate in the Pandemonium event since we weren't online. PlugY allows all the Ladder and Battle.net functionality in single-player mode, and we've been collaborating on getting all the Pandemonium Keys so we can finally play it when we vacation together in Sept. definitely looking forward to that; might even jump up to D2R sometime in the future.
did any of you ever dive into DII:LoD?
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Impus Minor just tested himself and came back negative, so the house is COVID-free. Or there's just something screwy about this house; we've never had a positive test within its walls.
We went to see Sonic's school production of 'Bugsy Malone' today. All the kids did a solid job, though the songs do sound different sung en masse in strong Yorkshire accents, in around three and a half different keys simultaneously, with Barry striving mightily on the Casiotone in the background again.
I played 'Diabolo' single player, back in the day, but have never played any of the sequels. Not really my sort of thing.
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Sometimes, it's very hard to rationalize compassion.
The entire family is desperately waiting for the Cranky Calico to die. It will be the cause of much celebration, as we'll be able to clean our carpets, open our doors, and likely get kittens. She's been a fairly poor cat for her entire lifetime (I'll admit, I've seen much worse), so I don't believe any of us will miss her.
And yet we are utterly unwilling to hasten that death. We're not going to put her down because she seems perfectly happy. I'm about to spend $500 on her annual exam and bloodwork to make sure she's not suffering in any way. We are spending a lot of time and money making sure she is comfortable and happy in her senescence.
So yeah, we want her to die, but we're unwilling to even make her slightly uncomfortable in doing so. Makes no sense unless you have a sense of empathy, in which case it makes all the sense in the world.
Ah, well, time to throw her in a box and get her stuck full of needles.
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The nice part of my job is I get to meet everyone's pets while my own place is pet free.
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How do you know you're doing a great job? When a German marble specialist compliments you on your craftsmanship.
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Miyazaki: How can we make the DLC for Elden Ring scarier?
Design Team: three words: Giant scorpion mosquitoes!
Miyazaki: that'll do!
Addendum: Whoever thought it would be the Beezneez to have the Shadowtree Avatar have 3 phases needs to sent back to whatever constitutes a salt mine in video game development. Because that is just cruel!!
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How do you know you're doing a great job? When a German marble specialist compliments you on your craftsmanship.
Do the Germans also play jacks, pick-up-sticks, and perhaps roll a hoop with a stick?
It is one German person I was pretty specific about that.
I also used marble in the singular sense so your question does not apply.
I suppose that you could also point out that marbles are not typically made of marble.
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Loved the original Diablo back in the day (except for the ending, which still angers me to think about). Tried Diablo 2, wasn't crazy about it, didn't finish it.
Loved the original Diablo back in the day (except for the ending, which still angers me to think about). Tried Diablo 2, wasn't crazy about it, didn't finish it.
yes, that ending had some significant shock value for me back in the day. but, of course, if not for that ending (and those in the other instances of the franchise), we wouldn't have gotten the other games.
loved the first two, and far prefer the second to the rest. hated 3 when i tried it (but that was on a console, so that might have contributed significantly), and i haven't had a chance to try 4, Immortal (or whatever), or D2 Resurrected.
good times!
I played the original and second one and they were fine games in their day. I gave a try to 3 and 4 free trials (first chapter for the former, 20 levels for the later). Three was ok-ish, but quite inferior to other games in the genere spawned by its ancestor (like Grim Dawn or Path of Exile). Four was utterly bland and forgettable. Neither had in any way or form convinced me to pay any money for them. If I could get three on Steam for a few dollars without having to bother with battle net account, I would probably get, but at its price and inconvenience, I am not going to bother.