Amen, I'm in the same boat. I get compliments and think "yeah, you're seeing them on a good day." Though mostly my kids save the real melt downs for home, the car, or that point where they've had more than your average child can take. Their way of saying, "I'm hungry, tired, walked out and now you want what out of…

I was in the Army for 12 years. You know the salaried job that can limit your sleep to 4 hours per day if needs demand (this includes training and general work, not just war time) all while you could get shot at? I always followed one boss' advice "never pay for anything that's job related, never work for free." If…

Ah, but the gospels don't conflict THAT much. There are far more similarities than not. Those differences tend to be either 1) one mentions an event the others don't, or 2) each subsequent book seeks to add more supernatural elements to the story. Equally, it is not surprising the stories were written so far after…

It is pretty significant. Though, there was always the view that Jesus might have been married due to the fact he was considered a rabbi and rabbis were required to be married in Jesus' time.

Nah, deep dish pizza is to geometry and the space-time continuum the way non-Euclidean geometry is a sure sign you've wandered into Cthulhu's house and are about to get devoured, or go mad, or possibly both.

No, it is more weird how you're equating this as being food safety, and then equating it to industrial safety.

Illusion with no actual backing is "necessary" in your book? Cool. Good to know.

Yes, but the waiter is also the last line in the "f'ed up food" defense chain. Cook forgot to hold the mushrooms? The waiter should have caught that. Gianormous hair on the plate? Waiter again. Granted when a place is slammed or the place uses someone else to deliver food, it's not the waiter's fault. They still…

I tip after booze, but before tax. The boozeman deserves his cut. The taxman is already getting his.

When have cupcakes ever not been a valid form of currency?

Yes, then, we were talking at cross purposes. I do think my wife's is more "doesn't distract herself" and less "silent". Lord knows half a dozen things are going through my head when I read. I have to wade through those to get at the text, even when those thoughts are about the text ("gee, I'd kick Lucius Malfoy in…

I'm not talking about reading out loud. I'm also not talking about talking a book out. Neither am I mentioning reading while your lips move. I'm talking about what is in your head. I've never had a teacher stand over me and say "no! you're reading quietly in your head too slow. Stop subvocalizing! Right now…

if there's anyone who needs emergency alcohol airdrops, it's ice fisherman.

I'd argue many people subvocalize. After all, not subvocalizing wasn't a thing taught in grade school. The only guy in high school whose reading aloud speed did not match the rest of the class was the dyslexic fellow. So how do you know if others subvocalized or not. The first I heard of the technique was after…

Yeah, my experience is similar. My wife reads for pleasure about three times faster than I do. We tested this on a novel of known word count (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). I read for 11 hours (about 300 wpm). She read for 2 1/2 hours (roughly 1200 wpm). She learned to read without subvocalizing from the…

The smirk was hers. She wasn't raised right. Me? I like me some tasty pig.

Okay, you've just won the internets for this gif.

My darling wife's response, "That's why we eat Turkey-Bacon" *smirk*

Yeah, that's easy to say, but when the author is mentioning Alien Space Bats as why the event changed the world, it gets kinda ridiculous. I had that problem with S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series. It had compelling characters then didn't really question why a bunch of changes occurred that would have to mean not…

Heh, you've obviously never lived in a small town. If you had, you'd know that there is no real thing as "privacy". The Japanese have a saying that you "see but don't look" meaning that in tight quarters you will see others in compromising or embarrassing positions, but will pretend to have not seen and "forget"…