Not quite what you’re looking for, but I really enjoyed The Taste of Conquest by Michael Krondl.

When I first read your question, I thought it was a hypothetical situation. Like an improv exercise or something.

Anyway, I was bitten by a racoon once. Everything turned out alright in the end for both me and the racoon.

So here are some timely tips to help protect your location privacy.

The article explains each one in detail, but the list is:

• Disable Mobile Advertising Identifiers
• Audit Your Apps’ Trackers and Permissions
• Disable Real-Time Tracking with Airplane Mode
• Separate Devices for Separate Purposes

Yep!

I grew up in Honolulu, and every once in a while there would be a tsunami warning. I don’t know how old I was—I would guess 6 years old, give or take a couple of years—but during one tsunami warning my parents drove up a ridge and parked on the side of the road to wait it out. We had a VW Vanagon, and I remember sitting in the van playing with toys to pass the time. At some point, a girl around my age joined me in the van. Her parents had the same idea as mine, and I guess they invited her to play with me while we all waited.

I’m in my 40s now. I still think about that girl from time to time.

My thinking is along the same lines. I think OP and his wife both have good arguments for making certain dishes certain ways. And indeed, it seems (to me, in my unqualified opinion) that they need to have an ongoing conversation about which dishes each wants made which way.

OP’s wife is nostalgic for a certain boxed pancake mix because it reminds her of her deceased mother? Cool, that’s pretty low-stakes, just make the boxed shit. But part of OP’s self-care routine is cooking food from scratch, and that’s important too.

OP is right that fighting over this is silly. OP is wrong that scratch-made will always be better. Oh, I’m sure it will taste better, but in the long run it will be worse for OP’s marriage.

And crucially, they both need to be flexible. If OP takes pride in their cooking and the couple is having company over for brunch, then maybe leave the boxed pancake mix in the pantry and let OP wow the guests with their delicious and fluffy scratch-made pancakes. And of course, OP needs to remember that that flexibility is a two-way street.

If so, it’s propagating. I live in the NW USA and have been noticing it for years.

It drives me nuts that people frequently leave out the words “to be” when talking. For example, they will say something like, “the car needs washed.” No, either the car needs to be washed, or it needs washing.

I do something a bit like this. I’ll pick a theme (animals, food, places, etc) and then go through the alphabet one letter at a time and something from the theme that starts with that letter. Alternatively, I’ll pick a letter and just think of as many different words as I can that start with that letter. Those work for me most of the time!

“Because we can.”

There is a Son of Ernest movie being developed–at least in theory. It was announced over a decade ago, though, so maybe it’s dead?

In Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Forever, the scene where they go over to someone’s house and pretend to worship their refrigerator doesn’t further the plot or character development in any way.

This can still be problematic for other reasons, like sound. But I agree, they need weight (or better actors…).

There are dozens of us!

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, but IIRC, the film isn’t saying the Christian Jesus we all know about is immortal, but that this character in the film who is immortal (and a white dude, BTW) was assumed to be the son of God because people 2,000 years ago found out he was immortal and had no other explanation.

ETA: Looks like I remembered reasonably well. Here’s the scene in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bXtdr5BI74

I disagree that’s it’s an “unfair comparison.” It’s certainly not a 1:1, but to help someone with absolutely no bearing on what ranch dressing is understand, I think it’s a decent shorthand.

It’s like if someone from Mexico asked what sriracha is and I replied, “it’s like the Thai version of Tapatío.” Is it perfect? No, there’s way more nuance, but it gets them most of the way toward understanding.

So it sounds like the Internet died in 2008.

It’s basically the American version of salad cream.

The Third Man has that fantastic zither theme.

I’ve been drinking egg nog with lemon-lime soda for over 20 years, so I imagine it would be pretty good with egg nog ice cream as well.