I used to live down the street from where Necco wafers used to be made (I both no longer live there, and the Necco factory closed and is now a biotech company). At the time, I could tell which candy was being made by smell of the air. I think that's not true of what Novartis makes.

I've had that happen to me too. I once spent a flight playing Angry Birds with an absolutely charming pre-teen boy.

Mr Bartley's Burger Cottage begs to differ with you on the best burgers ever point. And yet, I want to be there (Wahlburgers) right now!

I've certainly tried describing in clear words exactly what I wanted, and have been told the kitchen can't do it, that there isn't anything between bleeding and well-done. I just gave up. I'm kind of wondering, though, if what I'm really being told is that if I can't eat it rare, I don't deserve the effort to have…

Frankly, I was done with the waiter side-eye for sending my steak back for more cooking when I was 12. And that was decades ago.

I'm right there with you, greenheart. If I could order it medium well and expect to get that very thing, I'd be happy, but if I don't ask for well-done, it's raw in the middle. I've been directly told the kitchen doesn't actually do medium to medium-well, I can have it medium-rare, or well-done.

I like my steak a bit past medium. That point where the center is pink, but doesn't have the raw meat texture.

As I recall the McDonald's chicken nugget story, the issue was exactly that the manager refused to give the woman a refund when the item she'd already paid for was out of stock. How exactly is it not theft if you pay for an item, aren't given it, and also aren't given your money back so you can buy what you want…

The mistake you made was asking what the big deal was about the picture at the top of the column explaining what the big deal about the picture is. Your mistake made you look like some combination of lazy (didn't read), stupid (what? that text below this picture explains the picture? Who would guess such a thing…

One suspects the same heartless landlord who put a cat left in warm lobby out into the freezing cold might evict the tenant who took that cat in for a few days.

As someone from a generation when kids routinely had most of those, no, she shouldn't be. It made for a pretty miserable childhood though; chicken pox is nightmarish at best. Anyone who would willingly put their (and other people's) children at risk for these diseases ought be slapped.

digital_ruse: I'm old enough that most of those vaccines weren't yet common when I was a child, and I had all of those except whooping cough and meningitis. A kid in my town a few years older than me had polio.

This is a complete travesty. She put out a magnificent album this year.

My kitty passed on a few minutes ago, peacefully in my arms.

Thanks LuckyCat and bittertaylor.I talked to the overnight vet this morning; she said Ms D had eaten some food during the night, and was a bit "sassy". The background is that she's had kidney disease for years, and is at crisis levels this week. She also has an enlarged heart, which contraindicates aggressive…

Thanks. I'm guardedly hopeful that she'll be coming home.

My 20 year old kitty is in the cat ICU tonight, and let me tell you, 20 years is not long enough.

The AcroCats are awesome; I saw them in MA this summer. At that show, most of the cats were doing tricks, but it was very clear that it was voluntary. The one trick all of them did consistently was to return to their carriers in response to a whistle. The Crazy Cat Lady strongly encourages everyone to train their…

It's an excellent gauge of sexism in the movie industry.

We saw the same thing in Massachusetts. Rent control and limits on converting apartments to condos: housing prices skyrocketing in urban areas. Thanks Western MA!