arch_8ngel

On 8/6/2021 at 11:21 PM, OptOut said:

 

Rationally speaking there should NOT be only a 33% price premium on a Mario 1 over a Mario 64. It's not rational in terms of rarity, availability, or cultural significance.

Rationally speaking -- I would expect there to be a lot more crypto-millionaires who won that lottery, that grew up on N64 than grew up on NES.

So I would expect much more "irrational pricing" of premium N64 items compared to NES.

On 8/6/2021 at 5:35 PM, fcgamer said:

People are dropping like flies, everywhere, but with such policies as the one I outlined earlier, many folks don't want to get the China-made jabs, or AZ. Why? Because they realise that there's little "vaccine power" in such jabs, they will still be barred from normal activities abroad in places like the USA, which has been highlighted right out of the gate, from the Broadway incident. Due to this, people would rather take their chances and wait for a "powerful" vaccine than receive a "weak" one, despite the risk of death or sickness to themselves or others around them. 

So yeah, it's definitely so much more than just two groups of people, vaccinated and unvaccinated, we're turning it into an international thing, dare I even say a class* issue? 

*In many parts of the world, the rich will travel to the USA for Moderna vax, whereas the rest of the population will receive what the country manages to scrape up, AZ, China Vax, Russian Vax, etc...

 

Would you seriously take the Chinese vaccine or the Russian vaccine? Given ANY other option that is currently out there?

Though the tone/content of your posts confuses/surprises me a bit, holding up WHO-approval as if it would matter to you, given your previously stated feelings about them.

For the Canadians in the thread - do any of you use Norbert's Gambit for currency exchange?

I read about it on a finance forum this morning, and was instantly curious about how prevalent it was.

21 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

Warning: Do not attempt Aldis Salisbury steaks

Ha!

56 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

If you're ever in Cincinnati, Skyline and Gold Star do have vegetarian alternatives. Skyline has a black bean and rice 3 way and Gold Star has a vegetarian version of the chili.

https://www.goldstarchili.com/vegetarian-chili?gclid=EAIaIQobChMInpWPzdOX8gIVDnxvBB08WAfDEAAYASACEgISFfD_BwE

Anything involving ground beef, you can make a really solid version using Beyond Beef. 

That is a really neat project/device! I love stuff like this.

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

I've been told that initially it was a struggle to get a covid-19 vaccine in the States, but by now, there's an abundance of vaccines available, so much that people from other countries are flying over for vaccine tourism. So why isn't the other 50% of the country getting vaccinated?

For many, the answer is choice. Afraid of the long term effects, don't believe in vaccines, feel they're healthy enough they don't need it, etc etc.

 

Anyone who has wanted it should have had access since mid-April.

Regarding "choice" -- what bothers me most is hearing morons claim they are making an "informed choice" when they don't know their asshole from their elbow, let alone have enough college level science to really follow the discussion. Basically they appear to mistrust actual scientists in favor of trusting talking heads that pander to their misunderstanding with conspiracy theories.

16 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

I was comparing Kraft "Parmesan" to the knockoff "Parmesan."

I realize if we're being hoity-toity about cheese, you want the Parmigiano-Reggiano stuff from those couple of places in Italy.

 

Sure, compared to Kraft, the off-brand grated "parmesan" is sawdust.  But even the Kraft stuff is practically just salt and anti-caking agent  

And the fancy authentic stuff is what a good grocery store has an entire wheel of that they break down into chunks at the deli counter. Usually seems priced around $15-$20/lb, but goes on sale for more like $9/lb (which is closer to normal for other European origin cheeses). But the price isn't so bad, since a little bit goes a long way...

1 hour ago, Tulpa said:

Real Parmesan cheese is actually tricky to make. In the EU, they don't even allow cheese to be labeled as Parmesan unless it comes from a certain region of Italy and is made by a certain recipe.

I doubt Kraft is duplicating the process exactly, but they may have the clout to come close, which might explain why their "Parmesan" is so much better than the others.

You must live in some alternate dimension where Kraft makes something that can legally be called cheese rather than a "foodstuff"

For parmesan, find your local higher-tier grocer (Harris Teeter, or a Kroger in a nicer neighborhood, Wegmans, etc), and near the deli section, they probably have a full wheel of actual parmesan that they break down into 1 lb and 1/2 lb chunks.

THAT is the "good stuff".

41 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

 

I dont know if its considered off brand or just a different product but I got some parmesan that was more chips or shavings rather than granular like you usually find in the pasta aisle. It was also kept in a cooler near the “fancy” cheeses and that was the best thing Ive ever tasted parmesan wise. So if you get a chance take a look for that and give it a shot

Because it was shavings of real block parmesan, rather than the stuff Kraft sells that is mixed with anti-caking agent.

2 hours ago, Rhapsody98 said:

It has to be Kraft Parmesan cheese.  The off brand smells like feet, and won’t melt into Alfredo sauce.  Your sauce ends up being sandy because the cheese is still granular.  Kraft Parmesan or go home.  

Just get a block of actual parmesan...  

17 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

I always get the most expensive primer and spray paint I can find (Which is what, like $7). One day in college I splurged on like a $4 can of spray paint and my eyes opened the world of not everything on the shelf being the same thing with different branding.

Paints are something that it is almost always worth going high-end, because the difference in pigment content and quality can be extreme.

Though the "affiliated" brand with a given store will often have at least one genuinely premium-quality line.

(having been in the miniatures hobby, though, I get a chuckle at a whole can of spray paint being $4, when itty bitty little 1.5 oz paint pots can cost that much  )

23 minutes ago, Estil said:

But the yellow Cost Cutters brand (Kroger) was waaaaay back in the mid-to-late 80s.  I imagine it was quite different then.

No, if anything it was LESS different then.  Kroger was not running their own brewery or running their own cigarette factory.

I would wager that a contract brewery for one of the majors was responsible for their product. Could well have been low-end, like Milwaukee Best or maybe Natural Light -- but I seriously doubt it was a unique dedicated product line.

Similar for the cigarettes.

EDIT:  so not a "major" but almost definitely a duplicate of another product with a store label:

https://untappd.com/b/falstaff-brewing-company-cost-cutter/3024785

"Falstaff Brewing" was responsible, evidently.

9 hours ago, Estil said:

Can you imagine the crazy guy who hosted a poker night and offered this?

Hey man, ya got a smoke?

 

I wonder who they contracted production from.

The thing with store-brands -- they are frequently a 1:1 product with some other offering from another brand you might recognize.

A low-tier store is going to contract with a low-tier producer.  A higher-tier store is going to contract with a mid/upper-tier producer.

16 hours ago, CasualCart said:

I buy bargain-brand for almost everything. 

But bargain-brand garbage bags are never a good idea.

-CasualCart

That is what you save shopping bags for  

Other than construction bags for renovation work, I think I have only bought one bag of kitchen trash bags in the last 20 years.

Store brand ice cream is usually garbage tier. But ice cream recipes and contents from brand-to-brand vary pretty widely, so the store brand is at least on par with other lower tier products.

Aside from USDA-graded items, though, most food items the grocery store don't really have that much objective quality stratification, and it can just be a matter of taste.

EDIT: generally speaking, I've found that "store brand" quality is going to be approximately on the tier of product that aligns with the tier of store.  i.e. WalMart "great value brand", coming from a lowest-tier store will be comparable to the lowest-tier "name brands" -- versus something like Harris Teeter or Wegmans being higher tier grocers having store brands that align with the a much better tier of branded product.

24 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Bumpage

Lil Nas X would approve

I thought he was best known for Pasta Magic?

I'll vote "no" -- since the scenario you're describing is basically cataclysmic. 

7 hours ago, fox said:

I'm ready to go full cyberpunk

Think about how hard that would be to clean!

1 minute ago, ExplodedHamster said:

PAID

Don't spend it all in one place!  

On 7/25/2021 at 9:26 PM, Gulag Joe said:

Here's the contract

For what it's worth - that is A contract, not "the" contract, in this case  

Everything is negotiable, and unless you saw this seller's specific contract, you can't say for certain what their terms were.  (edit: since you clarified that this was YOUR contract, and you were unable to negotiate -- I suppose we could confidently say that ExplodedHamster's terms were "at least as good" as your -- but I still think it would be faulty to assume that there was no chance at all that he managed to negotiate those terms)

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

6/10 for music. 10/10 for personality. 

Same.

I'm not into his core genre, but his crossovers are catchy and the guy's attitude is great.

14 hours ago, Tabonga said:

I think if someone dies (either someone in the residence or a law enforcement officer) as a result then the charges should be escalated above and beyond that.  What is particularly galling in a case like this is that the reasons behind it are so trivial.

Agreed.

I'm just talking bare minimum.  Swatting should be an attempted murder charge, right out of the box.

On 7/23/2021 at 4:42 PM, Tabonga said:

These buttheads deserve a special place in hell.  

https://news.yahoo.com/targeted-twitter-handle-man-dies-172200533.html

Swatting should result in a charge of attempted murder.