In Jersey diners, if you ask for iced tea, (in my experience at least,) they’re going to bring you weak, unsweetened, real tea, not that lemony powdered stuff. Probably even *cheaper* than powdered mix— three or four teabags, at least in my kitchen at home, can make a gallon of iced tea. I’m not sure, ounce for ounce,…

If it helps any, the original Hebrew version of the name is closer to ‘Khayin.’ At least they didn’t try to put *that* in the closed captions. :P

A long time ago, someone pointed out to me that the (untranslated version of) Canterbury Tales scans perfectly to Billy Joel’s ‘Longest Time,’ and I’ve heard it that way ever since. Seriously. Try it.

I have to admit that I have some very fond Applebees memories. It was the only place open at midnight on Saturday, which was when I routinely got off work. A bunch of us usually went to Applebees for a drink and some half-price appetizers and some kvetching about our jobs... good times.

Ooh, so if we merge the X-Files’ electronic heaven/hell, where the Patriots never, ever win, with Jason’s love for his team, what happens then? :)

So I’m *not* the only one who was taught to do the fork/knife thing when I was done eating! I was starting to think I’d hallucinated the whole thing; no one else ever does it.

You know, maybe this is a good time to unveil my foolproof plan for not ever having to perform procedures one finds offensive, or having to treat people who behave in ways one doesn’t personally like. This law, if I get it passed, will solve *everything.*

Mutants have always stood in for any oppressed group one cares to name, but over and over, I keep thinking of the Pohl story ‘The Day after the Day the Martians Came.’ About the human tendency towards othering and hatred; the point being that, once there was someone new on the bottom rung, everyone else moved up a…

I dated a guy once who got very, very cranky about the fact that he was my height or maybe a hair shorter. *I* sure as hell didn’t care. Never even thought about it, until he started getting snippy if I happened to wear heels or clunky boots that made me taller than him.

Mmm-kay. All right, I’ve finished beating my head against the desk, and I can sort of see what I think the idiot teacher was trying to do. Once we throw out the ‘good/bad’ terminology— because I don’t think anyone, anywhere, could seriously argue that owning and abusing people is ever ‘good’— what it sounds like what…

I just assumed that the point was that it only took five days for something like this to happen. Five days ain’t all that long.

I write and read fanfic myself. There’s something genuinely amazing about people’s ability to take stories or characters who, often, aren’t all that well-rounded, and imbue them with meaning and depth that was never in the source material. Sure, the well-known law applies. 90% of it *is* crap. So what? Doesn’t mean…

Some more than others. I did a whirlwind run of Italy’s great art museums, and after the four-millionth Annunciation painting, (with the same layout, same costuming, and, I swear, the same model posing for Mary,) I felt like I never wanted to look at another painting ever again. Being Jewish probably didn’t help.

The problem seems to be that everyone has trashy cousin so-and-so, who hasn’t worked in thirty years and gets just oodles of money from the government for her six illegitimate children and her flashy new car. She’s a myth, but she’s a myth that everyone sort of knows and very much resents. And numbers— stats of actual…

As regards the ‘open relationship’ fellow, sounds to me like he’s found someone else he wants to be with and wants permission to go for it. Vanilla has nothing to do with it; he just doesn’t want to look like a cheater, so he’s resorting to creepy mind games until he gets his way. You’re spot on— DTMFA.

It’s not even that he comes to terms with his dreams never coming true. He comes to terms with the idea that his only value lies in what he can do for other people. He’s being told that his own happiness is less important than the happiness that his various sacrifices brought to his family and neighbors. Maybe that’s…

I love the stuff. Straight up adore it. I drink it plain, though, no booze.

<Nods> I get the same sort of response when I admit that I’ve never seen Labyrinth, or at least not all the way through. People act like you’re admitting to having spent your childhood in a Skinner box. :)

It’s a bit of shtick from Monty Python’s Holy Grail film. Arthur is assumed to be a king on those grounds. By the end of the film... well.

Yeah, I did retail for a while after I got out of school. Bookshop. I have a degree in literature, and I read like I breathe. I don’t know much, is what I’m saying, but I do know books. And I lost track of how many times customers wanted to talk to a man instead of me.