I totally understand that perma-damp feeling. In a different apartment, I had a similarly “landlocked” bathroom with a similarly crappy fan. It always felt dank. Luckily, the landlord was solid and he actually cared about his buildings. About two months after I moved in I told him that the bathroom vent fan wasn’t…

How often do you feel like you have to change the one in the bathroom out? Ages ago I used damprid in the basement of a rental I had just moved into, and I felt like it worked really well in the interim until we could get a dehumidifier for the space.

Yeah, the only real advice on how to reduce bathroom humidity is to make sure your vent/fan is in good working order. Or upgrade to a better fan. There are things you can do to lessen the amount of humidity generated by showers—take shorter showers with cooler water, basically—but vents are the best solution.

Another pool-haver here. With the headline, I was expecting to see a much, much worse video, like the kind of traumatizing video where someone is pulling an unconscious child out of a pool. But yeah, the kid’s got three adults within two steps of him. He was supervised, even if the adults weren’t within arm’s reach.

I watched it and it felt like a warm hug, and I’m as cynical a bastard as they come. I honestly watched the entire episode on the verge of tears. Then I looked across the room and both of my parents (including stoic dad) were misty-eyed. I swear I’m going to watch it again tonight before I go to bed. 

Yeah, we’ve had some scarcity pop back up in our stores around here, too. Nothing dire, but a noticeable amount of empty shelving when I walked through the stores two weeks ago. For sure. 

Or, in Ted Lasso’s world, Bumbercatch. (I was irrationally excited in last week’s episode when Bumbercatch actually had lines). 

Gotcha. Hopefully you’ll get those soon. They are really nice. I would say they started popping up in my area about two years ago. 

Are you in the US? Many of the grocery stores where I live (Midwest) have hand-held scanners (or a phone app) that you can use to scan your own groceries as you go. Giant Eagle’s setup is really nice—you don’t even need to see the cashier when you’re done. You just scan the barcode on the self-checkout lane and insert…

I remember it blew my mind when I learned that the non-rhotic “r” in British English didn’t really develop until the late 18th century. So all of those Shakespeare adaptations I watched were lying to me my whole life.

I’ve seen that one in student papers from time to time. I remember how as a very young, very inexperienced teacher I used to bemoan these things. “What is happening to us all!? To our language!?” Then I grew up and stopped being so precious about language. Everybody has gaps. Everybody has room to grow. A student may…

Exactly. It would seem like an affectation if American speakers of English walked around saying they needed to buy a Qwa-san and LaQwah for lunch.* Same goes for forte. “Fort” might even be more more conspicuous because I would bet, if asked, that 90% of Americans would think that the French pronounced forte…

I love you. Come sit next to me and be my friend. 

This is my plan for Black Widow, which I might go see this week or next. All the theaters I go to have reserved seating now. I’ll jump online, find a weekday matinee showing at the dinky theater by my house. If there aren’t any other seats booked yet, I’ll wait until a few minutes before the show, and book. Virtually…

If someone tells me it’s not their forte, pronounced ‘fort,’ I’m going to start looking around for battlements.

I feel the same way. Regardless of what anyone thinks, “irregardless” has entered the lexicon. It is established. It’s meaning is clear. No sense in fighting it in everyday conversation. Similarly, I don’t get why people get all up in arms about “could care less.” Idiomatic expressions are often nonsensical or often…

Nah, the Oxford English Dictionary lists “for-tay” first and “fort” second. Both are acceptable pronunciations, although I would say “for-tay” is much more common. 

I cannot think of the last time I went to McDonalds for something other than breakfast, so that part of the article doesn’t surprise me at all. It has probably been decades since I’ve gotten a burger or chicken sandwich from McDonalds. But god help me I love a breakfast sandwich. I’ll probably stop twice a month and…

I really hope Quinn makes it out alive. That little teenage weirdo has grown on me. I am a little surprised that nobody mentioned Mark Mossbacher as the potential death. That would seem like the kind of move a show like this would make. Let the guy get a little bit of his self respect back, then off him. But I would…

Someone needs to tell Stelter that there is, in fact, a page in the playbook about this. In fact, it’s in pretty much every journalism textbook, and it’s a pretty short page. It goes something like this: