Author: notbug

littlebluebarista:

jumpingjacktrash:

xenoqueer:

nettlepatchwork:

pervocracy:

Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home.  The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”

If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese.  Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.

Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)

Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.

From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.

the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.

volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.

so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.

of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.

it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.

If anything, it speaks volumes to how far we have come as a prosperous nation. A good example of this is traditional Italian food versus Americanized Italian food. Before people migrated to America from Italy, dishes were typically low-calorie and made with vegetables that grew in the garden. Yet when the Italians came and saw how plentiful the food was here, they went nuts with it. They invented things like pizza and fettuccine alfredo and all these other high-calorie comfort foods with the newfound sustainability that came from America. It’s not that they wanted to eat themselves sick, it was that they had come from a nation where it was difficult to put bread on the table in the first place and then all if a sudden there was? Food? And so much of it for everyone? As long as you’re responsible, having a multitude of blessings is not something to be ashamed of. Rather, it’s something to be shared, all if which goes to the heart of American culture.

hereafteryyh:

prokopetz:

Today’s aesthetic: keeping the same tab open in your browser for three solid weeks because you’re definitely going to get around to reading and/or acting on whatever’s in it any minute now.

This is a personal attack.

darkfrog24:

dark-haired-hamlet:

Pro tip: if an evangelical stranger approaches you asking to pray for you, there’s inevitably something about you that they see and want to change. [Ex: I attend a very conservative, very religious uni and am clearly tomboyish/lesbiany, and thus am constantly attracting evangelical strangers] If you can’t shake them (usually very difficult), then turn the tactic upon them by asking if they mind you leading the prayer bc “I have a few things on my mind.”

Then talk about whatever it is that’s making them uncomfortable. I ask god to protect all the lgbt+ kids that are lost, isolated or homeless. I mention my non-Christian brothers, sisters, and siblings that have to fight for recognition and respect in a monoreligious nation. I pray for the protection of immigrants and refugees, reminding my evangelical friends that their savoir was once one of that number. You can pray for pregnant mothers to find the resources and abortive care that they need, if they need it, if you’re feeling particularly brave.

This achieves two things: 1) there is no response to this, esp if you wrap it up with “amen, thank you guys so much for doing that with me. I hope y’all have a blessed day” and leave them no room to continue the prayer. But more importantly 2) that group will NEVER bother you again and you will show them, using their own method against them, that their prayer isn’t an act of faith, but of power.

Just thought I’d share bc I know that I used to be accosted by evangelical strangers once a week on my uni campus and never had a good response or ‘out’. This is by far the most effective method of shutting that sort of behavior down real quick.

Jesus could be a passive-aggressive son of a G and this is right out of his playbook.

scattermind:

aaaaasneakattack:

spacepearl:

if you wanna know how long this year has been: the whole fucking tide pod fuckery happened in january

Jesus

oh

unclevertitle:

bigwordsandsharpedges:

armedandgayngerous:

dumbbadger:

Soot tags gather after fires in areas with low circulation. They are not, as commonly believed, ash covered spider webs.

oh, well then what the FUCK are they???

They’re made of sticky particles from a polymer or petroleum based fire, like burning carpet, drapes, upholstery, and clothes. Due to a static charge, they chain together and naturally gather near ceiling corners because the rising hot air pushes them into the cool spots by convection. 

Because they’re formed by static electricity, they can only be removed with professional chemicals and equipment. Attempting to remove them improperly will only break the chain before all the soot can be captured, leaving the remaining soot to spontaneously reform the webs later. Even worse, trying to wipe or wash them away can firmly adhere the soot to your wall or ceiling, which will permanently stain it. 

A natural phenomena that only coincidentally resembles the damned webs of transdimensional ghost spiders.