Yeah, that asshole is nobody’s favorite.

Yes. The “Ginger”/“It” hype was off the charts. People were legitimately wondering if it was going to be some sort of jet pack or something.

Tell that to the civil engineers who designed spaghetti bowls full of splits and left-exits and ignored surface street routes and mass transit so even when the freeways are moving at the speed limit there is enough traffic that there is no guarantee there will be enough space to move over at the perfect time.

This is a lovely enough idea for actual intercity travel, and it only takes a couple of clueless asses to make that frustrating, but I see people who think it’s actually realistic in populated areas and I shake my head.

In Europe, Miele are supposed to be very good.

We have a Dyson rechargeable for small pickups. It’s nice, but nowhere near worth the hype. Lots of ABS and technology that is legit, but hardly revolutionary like they claim. I also had to replace the power-tool style battery after about three years, which is fair but unremarkable for a plastic box full of 18650 cells.

I don’t know about buy it for life, but an Oreck XL is a good value and easily repairable. We had one for about 12 years. It ran through many bags, about half a dozen belts, one puppy-chewed power cord, a few disassemblies to remove foreign objects that were too big for its rather small intake, and one replacement wooden brush cylinder. I doubt the consumables and repair parts even hit a hundred bucks for over a decade. When it finally went (cracked interior housing that refused to respond to super glue and cable ties), we just got another. In the interim, it’s just a good flat-floor vacuum. We have a random cheap-ass hoover with attachments for nooks and crannies, and because it gets little use, it’s lasted quite a while as well, though it wouldn’t last a year if it were the “main” vac.

I love Ten Yard Fight. It’s like the dev team in Japan had one guy who “totally knows American football!” and he explained it to the rest of them while they were all out drinking, and then the next day they were provided with 5 minutes of footage from the Burt Reynolds version of The Longest Yard.

But all in the best way.

Mutant League Football on the Genesis. The then-current Madden engine, but all the players are pulled from some sort of sci-fi horror comedy, while still somehow very tuned in to the history of the NFL.

Bribe ref to stall your opponent’s drive.

Murder ref to get things back on track.

Avoid those land mines!

You’re right. Funny how language can evolve, like if a phrase from an obscure German sociologist takes on a colloquial meaning not quite in line with its academic definition in the original treatise. 🤣

This is probably the best thread in a while for all of us Lemmings to display our true selves to each other. I love it.

theY are sOund aNd fury, Signifying nOthiNg.

Yonson=Jonson=Ben Jonson obviously wrote them all!

And Photographic is pronounced as /f/, yet we don’t insist on JPhEG or JFEG. Language is weird, and people often decline to create an acronym from a set of initials that could theoretically be one (“CIA”), or make an acronym where it may not initially seem natural (“HMMWV”).

Choosy nerds choose gif, soft G. :-)

I was thinking a Joint Fotographic Experts Group format.

Fair enough, LOL, though the second half of my comment still holds. I also need to buy some gin for my giraffe.

I always view that one as meaning that you must learn a lot about something in a short amount of time in order to use it effectively, where shallow learning curve, in a positive context, would mean you can make it useful without knowing all that much about its full capabilities.

While not quite as passionate as you, I agree. Nuts don’t help cake.

Advanced coursework in this subject: consider brownies.

If it were meant to be pronounced ‘giff’ as in ‘goober’, it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.

As an English major and history buff, Anti-Stratfordians live in my head rent-free. I hate their stupid, classist arguments that utterly depend on misunderstanding the context of Elizabethan theatre, Shakepeare’s story, his work, that of his peers, and how truly well documented he is for a 16th-century commoner.

Psycholinguisitics understands this effect. The “wrong” word is increasing cognitive load and slowing down the listener’s comprehension. The exact same thing happens when pronoun use is unclear and a person has to parse the most likely referent from context.

Language, especially English, is not computer code but leveraging the existing “libraries” of meaning and declaring variables carefully is usually very useful.

Having lost a few rolls, many years ago, to a Sheltie puppy with cat-like tendencies, I understand how annoying that would be to live with for the animal’s entire lifetime, and I’m willing to make an exception for cat owners. Otherwise it’s just making things harder for no good reason.