Tinks

My husband wanted a special German stew this week and I went to price out chuck roast for it and it was $10/lb! It would cost us $20 in meat to make a pot of simple freakin stew. Round wasn’t even cheaper either! I quickly decided we weren’t having that stew right now. The price of beef is insane. Beef roast and stew was the poor meal when I was growing up - the thing my parents made to stretch the budget because you just buy a super cheap cut and cook it all day to make it edible, along with cheap veggies. Now those meals are damn near a delicacy considering the cost of the meat. Chicken isn’t much better either at the moment. Grocery shopping has become exhausting.

Hard disagree. In winter we have cozy warm clothing, crisp dry air to breathe, beautiful blankets of snow, houses lit up with decorative lights at night, and most importantly significantly less bugs! I love hiking and backpacking in winter. I would much rather sleep outside when it’s 0 C/32 F than when it’s 24 C/75 F+ at night. Once it starts getting warm here the humidity creeps up and you’re just sticky for months. Sitting outside on my porch on winter mornings bundled up in my coat and scarf having my morning coffee is one of my favorite things. If I do this in summer I’m eaten by mosquitoes within minutes.

I’m sure whether people like summer or winter more is heavily influenced by where they live, but here summer is hot, humid, full of mosquitoes and ticks, and just generally all around miserable. Late June through early September is the worst part of the year and it’s not even close for me.

I’m so glad my company a) has a “nobody wants teams” stance and even recommends against it to our clients, and b) doesn’t give a fuck if I go idle for hours because they hired me to do a job and if it’s getting done they’re happy.

Micromanaging culture needs to die. Fire employees who don’t do the job and be done with it.

One of the greatest joys of my life is being able to take my dog out with me in public because he’s very well behaved. Not perfect, but 95% there. The last 5% is the golden excitement over people and comes out when someone excitedly fusses over him (think leaning over him squeeing excitedly and talking to him in baby voice) and he forgets his manners and jumps up trying to hug them. If people act normal, he’s completely normal, chill and well mannered. He goes with me to all sorts of places like the hardware store, craft store, the liquor store, and out to eat at various restaurants with patios. I WISH we had a culture around dogs closer to France, because I think dogs would benefit greatly from it. Instead of being left at home they could be out living lives with their humans. Unfortunately that would put greater responsibility on owners to train their pups. Instead, we just ban dogs from most places because it’s easier for the businesses to not have to put up with entitled assholes and their untrained dogs. It’s sad.

Unironically I do get mad at kids (or anyone) on my lawn in the fall when we’re trying to seed it. The rest of the year I couldn’t give a fuck, but there’s a 3 week stretch where I water the grass twice a day to get the grasslings to grow and people walking on them ruins all that effort. And before anyone comes at me for a monoculture grass lawn, we only do it because our trial of “let it do what it wants” ended in weeds taking over that die in the fall, leaving the yard all dirt, and causing massive erosion when it rained in winter. We literally had to shovel dirt out of our driveway. Our huge back yard is still a sanctuary for bugs and wildlife with native plants and such, but the front yard gets watched over like it’s in an HOA because of the headache we had when we let the weeds and native plants win.

So yeah, darn kids better stay off my lawn in late September/early October!

My husband is German and has always found the crazy flag waving patriotism of the US odd. I never really understood his position until the last few years. Having been raised in the US, all of that seemed completely normal to me, but now I view it very differently.

Last week I was told that my dog’s trainer said I was the best client she’s ever worked with. The man that works at the front desk said he randomly asked her one day who the best client she’s worked with was and apparently with zero hesitation she said my name. I’m quite proud of that, because I worked really hard when I had my dog in training to make sure I was doing everything I could to make it, and us, successful. This trainer has worked with thousands of dogs and owners over the years so to have the distinction of being her best client is quite a pleasant surprise. I was determined to turn my crazy excitable COVID puppy into a well behaved dog I could take anywhere, and we succeeded. It was a lot of work, but worth it, and I’m proud of both the results, and the fact that apparently our trainer was impressed too. ☺️

Yeahhhh. My overnight RHR and HRV go absolutely wacky even with a single drink the night before. That’s not to say I don’t still have a drink sometimes, but watching my vitals has really made me aware of exactly how much impact it has. If I have 3-4 drinks in a night on a special occasion it will take days before my HRV and RHR return to normal, even if I don’t feel any physical effects at all. Still fun, but I’m definitely aware it’s not good for me 😂

Not even close. As the other poster said $500 or less is pretty common. Burials with caskets can run into the thousands just like with humans, but most people don’t do that.

I haven’t watched the latest season but Black Mirror put me off when it just straight up became horror. I don’t enjoy the horror genre with the jump scares and the scary monster crap. I really enjoyed the episodes of Black Mirror that were psychological thrillers or dystopian, but somewhere Black Mirror lost it’s way and leaned in to being blandly scary, not contemplatively scary.

Presumably the QR code captcha doesn’t trigger when the browser detects it’s a mobile device. This is for browsing on desktop, then verifying with your separate mobile device

The wild thing is that because of Delaware’s tax laws, a LOT of businesses are registered in that state. This is honestly bonkers to me.

Agreed. Back when FIFA announced that the US was going to get another world cup I was over the moon and thought for sure my husband and I would go to at least one game, and that was before the host cities were announced. (At that point we were season ticket holders for our local MLS club as well.) I live in a host city, so going wouldn’t be even mildly inconvenient, but not only am I not, I don’t even plan to watch the cup. 12 and 16 years ago I was watching every single game, even streaming them on my phone while at work. Not that FIFA was a bastion of morality even then, but I feel like it’s gotten so much worse, and supporting the games in any way just rubs me wrong. I’m also not happy helping this administration get a win of any kind, so I’ll just catch on Lemmy who wins and call it good enough.

If everyone ate more plant-based food, they’d probably be getting their protein in anyway. Beans, legumes and lentils are all full of protein, and that’s without even considering processed plant-based products like tofu or even meat-like products (Beyond or Impossible products for example.)

That said, while I absolutely champion people eating more plants, I’m far from vegan or even vegetarian. My diet includes meat, cheese and eggs. Not every meal needs to include meat though. I just think most Americans at least would be better off with a more well rounded diet with less processed food and less sugar.

Agreed. Went backpacking with my dog last weekend, who is on Simparica AND was treated with permethrin 2 weeks prior, and that little shit STILL ended up with 3-4 dozen ticks on him. He’s a golden, so meticulously going through his fur removing them was a long annoying process for both of us. Thankfully they were all dead because of the insecticides. There is zero chance I’m not using bug sprays. Ticks are out in full force and I have zero sympathy for them. With as many diseases as they carry, it’s a me or them scenario, and it’s not going to be me.

As someone who works from home with an office job, and is also on a health journey, I’m firmly on the side of team protein. I’m working on losing weight, and am watching my protein and fiber intake closely so that my body doesn’t eat muscle instead of fat. Also protein and fiber keep you satiated longer, so you’re less likely to overeat at your sedentary desk job. While the protein craze IS a bit overboard, I think most office workers would be better off if they got more protein, especially from plant-based sources which also contain fiber. Most Americans at least aren’t getting enough fiber, and beans are fucking delicious, versatile and cheap!

This is honestly not surprising information to me. Many dogs these days are kept mostly indoors or in their owner’s private spaces, only leaving for an occasional walk or a vet visit. Most owners either don’t know or don’t care to properly socialize their dogs to the world and show them that things aren’t scary. When I got my golden the breeder warned me he had developed some anxiety and skittishness in the past week, and it was likely going to be a long-term trait. She was correct, but because of that I’ve spent his entire life showing him new situations, places, people and things, and working with a trainer occasionally for guidance. 5 years ago walking past a large dumpster would freak him out to the point of running away, but now if he spooks it’s just a quick startle reaction before he cautiously investigates. He was taught and learned to overcome his initial fear reactions to new or startling things, and with gentle encouragement he quickly gets over it.

More dog owners should spend time actively working on this with their dog, and responsible breeders play a role by trying to breed healthy confident puppies. Some fears are harder to overcome than others, but working with a dog to overcome their tendency to be fearful helps overall.

This depends entirely on the vape. I quit smoking by switching to vaping, but this was before the current craze of nic salts. I switched using PG/VG flavored blends with much less dosage of nicotine than even the lightest cigarettes. It absolutely changed my life, and I will advocate for it being legal because of it. The Juul and other crazy high nicotine devices are very addictive though, and I’m of the opinion those need to be controlled better. Lumping all vaping together is very misleading though. I was able to quit vaping by reducing the nicotine blend amount in the juice I was buying, and that’s not really an option for a lot of these mass-market devices. This is part of the problem though - people legislating with a broad brush on a topic they know little about.

I go hiking a lot and I always carry pepper spray and a knife, specifically for dogs. My dog is usually with me and I have no qualms with pepper spraying an aggressive dog, or even hitting mine in the mix, to save his or my life. I hadn’t even considered strays, I’m mainly worried about the assholes who let their dogs off leash. That number of strays is a whole other nightmare scenario.

One of my favorites is Black Sails