Well obviously that’s a bit of a different situation. People do what they gotta do.

I’m talking about the trend at large, everyone’s doing it, especially the children, and in my opinion it’s part of the problem with them losing the ability to interact socially with each other and the world at large.

Just walk around with a tennis racket?

You’ve got a very 2D picture of this person and the situation, which makes sense, this is a text chat, and I haven’t spent hours detailing my life, their life, and the relation between. But give me the benefit of the doubt.

Some additional context, normally they don’t have access to their earbuds in the contexts we hang out, for whatever reason. The only difference is the earbuds. They were still half listening to the conversation, chiming in infrequently, not being standoffish, just distracted and removed, for no good reason.

And yes, in the context of “the purpose of our gathering together at this time is to socialize, and eat lunch together”, I absolutely would feel the same way about someone choosing that time to read a book instead of interacting with the group. That logic is exactly what I’m talking about.

I’m far from alone in this thinking, heck, there was a meme a week or two ago about how nobody can hang out these days without everyone sticking their noses in their phones the whole time. Same thing.

Again, I wouldn’t be rude to the person in either case. I’ll gently try to interact with you for a bit, as a subtle cue that you might be doing something… Abnormal. But nothing more than that.

Nice way to casually dismiss my points there. That’s fine. Yes in my opinion, as I’ve stated plainly, the way things were in this specific area, used to be better, in general.

The new way, as you’ve made clear, is very me-first. I can understand why that appeals to people, I just disagree with it being the correct way, or the kindest way. And I think society will be worse off for it, in general, in the long run.

But I think we’ve fleshed this out enough. Agree to disagree. I wish you well in your future endeavors.

As with all things in life, there needs to be balance. They have an amount of social anxiety, but it’s been getting better over the last year, as myself and other friends in our group have been taking an interest in them.

Sometimes you need to press the issue a little. It’s not socially acceptable to do what they’re doing. If they went to public school they might’ve learned better by now. If you don’t gently motivate a child to grow, they never will.

Life is lived and learned by stretching your boundaries and expanding your horizons. Even if that means tasting a vegetable you don’t like, every so often. Or turning off your device, and talking to someone for 20 minutes every few days or weeks.

Everyone is so eager to let others do their own thing, so afraid to ever imply that what someone chooses to do with their time might not be the best for them, especially when it’s children that need guidance and training in life… that nobody tells anybody to do anything they don’t want to anymore. To a fault.

I ain’t that old. I was just brought up to be kind and have manners, and that includes allowing yourself to be inconvenienced for a few minutes for the sake of someone else’s interests. Occasionally and within reason of course.

Phone calls, I get that. Sometimes I send people to voicemail if I don’t have the bandwidth at the moment. But that’s another area where the younger generations are… Drifting away from societal norms.

It’s like the college recruiter that has to keep special notes, because so many kids answer the phone in silence, they don’t say hello, and so you don’t know they’ve actually answered. Even though they scheduled the call and were expecting it. Just odd stuff.

Again, I’m sure there’ll be papers written on this stuff eventually. In the meantime, it’s fairly frustrating.

Preach!

You sound like the type of person op was talking about.

I can’t stand the new fad of everyone wearing headphones all the time. Opinion, the toll it’s taking on our collective ability to interact with each other and grow at humans is staggering.

I literally just left my friends house, and I was trying to engage with their teenager. Normally we get along just fine. This time they were responding, technically, but distant. Then I noticed the earbud, and saw the tablet playing a YouTube video.

I didn’t call them out, I’m not a jerk. But I would never ever do that to someone I was sitting in a living room with, while they were trying to talk to me. I don’t care who it is.

People do it everywhere though, all day. Groups of people, all friends, all walking together somewhere, all wearing headphones and earbuds listening to their own stuff. It’s wild.

You do you. And maybe it’s the “new normal”, I’m no social scientist. But it definitely never used to be that way, and with the way we’re finding out social media is cooking our brains, I won’t be surprised to read about this phenomenon in a decade or two, decrying the practice.

I’ve definitely destroyed a glass plate by printing PETG on it.

I’ve switched to one of those flexible metal ones with the texture on it. Forget what it’s called.

That’s frustrating. My SO does a similar thing, but to themselves.

If I suggest something as being good, it’s met with scrutiny more often than not. But if their in-laws suggest the very same thing, the initial opinion is much higher.

Frustrating.

Just one of those things you gotta try not to let bother you.

I won’t turn away a medium rare steak. It’s quite good on fact. But I’ve found with my palette, I’m more sensitive to being too rare than too done, having grown up on leather.

Like, rare is delicious, but if the cook does it wrong, myself included, then the texture and temperature of the meat is off putting to me.

My father in law gave a steak that was wedge shaped, so the thin end was overdone, but the thick end was beyond raw, on the inside. I struggled to eat that, though I did.

That being said, I also love beef tartare, so, go figure 🤷‍♂️

Thanks for the tuna recommendation, maybe I’ll have my SO order it and I’ll try some. I’m starting to like fish, in small doses. But my mom is allergic, so growing up we never even had it in the house, so I never learned to like it. That and my first introduction to it was some swampy pond Bass that my friend swore was delicious. It was not. It tasted like bad fish smells. That set me back a decade or two. But again, I’m coming around.

I like certain salmon meals, perch, crab, etc. Heck, canned tuna just went on the menu for me this year, so, progress.

I think you’re right. My brother was on someones Plex for awhile once. And one day the owner asked him how he was liking xyz show he was watching.

Innocent enough, but still weirded him out. He stopped using it immediately after that. Doesn’t want to be observed, even casually.

Best on well done, because it moistens the overly dry meat.

I say this as a lover of A1, and lover of medium steaks.

I grew up with leather and A1, and I still like that from time to time. Now I’ve come to love medium steaks, and if seasoned and cooked correctly, I don’t need A1. Though I still crave it, and will use it on my own steaks at home.

All in all, steak is delicious.

Good Lord that’s expensive!

So…

If someone was just looking for basic grinding, but with the precision of baratza, would it be ok to get the encore for $150? Or are you literally leaving flavor performance on the table?

Like I get it, precision grinding is critical to flavor. But where do the diminishing returns start?

Right now we use the built in grinder on the breville.

And I have a burr grinder that we got dirt cheap somewhere, but it’s finest grind is still quite coarse. I use it for the occasional flavored coffee, I know better than to put that through the GOOD grinder.

Nice lol, sounds like a good bud

Did you hate this man? Lol

At least they were still in rolls.

I worked as a receptionist for for a few years. One of our customers checks kept bouncing. The business was a luxury service. This person was not struggling or starving, they were purposely trying to get us to give up on collecting. Not answering our calls, sending us to voicemail. This went on for months. It was like $100.

I forget some of the details, but eventually the owner started calling around to other businesses, apparently some of them had this person on a no fly list, for the same bull crap.

Well, somehow the owner found the number of the spouse, and called them, and just kindly and professionally mentioned they were trying to get ahold of so and so and they hadn’t been able to reach them regarding an outstanding debt etc etc.

The check bouncer, was, PISSED. They called, and unleashed fury for the “unprofessional” act of calling their spouse. Which isn’t entirely untrue, but also, it’s not like we were a sex shop or something. Think… As benign as a hair salon…

The owner said “we’re just trying to collect the debt”. So the check bouncer paid the $100. They came in 5 minutes before closing with a DUFFLE BAG, of change. They could barely carry it.

It wasn’t ALL pennies, but it was all small change. It was gonna take FOREVER to count. But it was all legal tender. All loose and strewn together.

They wanted to leave after dropping it off, but the owner said no. It may be legal tender, but it’s not accepted until it’s counted.

So they sat in the reception area, while the owner counted the coins one by one. Glaring at each other and huffing the whole time. It felt like an hour, but was probably 15 or 20 minutes.

The change was correct. The person left and never came back.

Wild times.

My sister in law has the same machine, with the plastic collar.

We got an aftermarket aluminum one for ours, and it feels much better. Does the same job, ultimately, but cheaper and feels premium.

Not every trip, and not every time. But on some more glamping type trips, absolutely. It makes me wildly popular lol

https://sh.itjust.works/post/66731253

Hey look! It’s my espresso machine!

We got ours at the beginning of covid, still going strong. It’s survived a move, and several camping trips where we run it off a generator, from the trunk of the car.

It’s all automated, but you can run it in manual mode if you ever get fancy with your coffee (I haven’t yet). Heck, I still use the double wall cup for more consistency and ease. Plenty tasty.

$400 is a good price, also. Pretty sure it was 600 when we got ours, and that was on sale 🤔

We try to take our nephews ALL THE TIME, honestly the whole family does.

But their parents don’t want to be away from their kids, at all, ever. Every event or outing or engagement that they could possibly bring them to, they bring them to…

In fact, the grandparents had a big anniversary come up, so we planned an expensive fancy dinner at a big restaurant in the city. Black tie. We also coordinated a universally loved family babysitter to watch their kids, and our nieces as well from another family.

They. Were. Pissed. Not because of who we coordinated to watch the kids, but because their kids weren’t invited to the dinner. The fancy expensive black tie dinner. These kids were like 2 and 5 at the time. Insane.

It’s never gotten better. I never get to see my friend anymore, not without his kids. Going to their house is a circus, madness, kids running and screaming. And I don’t just mean in a “oh you don’t like kids” way. I mean, they are in your face, pulling and poking and prodding you as much as themselves. No personal space, and the parents see no issue with this. They just talk loudly over them like nothing is happening.

This goes on for hours. And you know what? Parenting styles are different, I don’t have kids,I can’t judge. But at least when they go to bed, we can stay and have adult conversation for an hour or two.

But wait… bedtime has come and gone, and the children are still awake and insane and in everyone’s face?

Well you see, the children really enjoy having company over, so it would be mean to send them to bed. N they can stay up…

And they do…

For as long as we stay, they stay. Midnight even.

So. We don’t. Sadly. Not anymore. We’ve tried talking to them about it countless times.

Now we still come over, because we still like them, and the children. But we do dinner, stay an hour, then go.

Have to, for our sanity.

Had some friends over the other night. Busted out my vintage copy of catchphrase, the one with the paper disc. We had a blast with that thing, hours worth. Good times.

All the shirtless people, it must’ve been hot in there, all those computers and CRTs dumping out heat.

Oh God, I can smell it.