Sometimes it’s not the kids’ fault. I’d say most of the time the parents need to be involved in some way with the costume (buying, making, helping to make) and some kids just don’t have present parents so I don’t want to punish them for that.

Also I really don’t want leftover candy in my house (because I’ll eat it) so…

She is so badass. That last line gives me chills.

I know it makes me super basic but… dragons. I know, it’s not inspiring. But I must add a caveat. I prefer that they are intelligent, on par with or surpassing humans in intelligence and willing (if reluctantly) to interact with them. Game of Thrones dragons are cool and all but they don’t really do it for me in the same way as, say, the dragon from Dragonheart.

Ack thank you, I mix them up even though I’ve never read Brooks, who seems to be better loved.

It’s probably not the worst for me either but it’s easily the first thing I think of. Really left a bad taste I guess.

Oh yes I agree! And I’m a huge dragon fan, so it was extremely disappointing. That one I gave up on after maybe 50 pages. I couldn’t get past the prose. So I didn’t even get to the heavily recycled tropes, but I did see the movie once and they were plenty obvious from that.

No Such Thing as a Fish, from the QI Elves. Funny, informative, rarely about current events which is a breath of fresh air. Just nerds getting nerdy about stuff.

Wizard’s First Rule by Terry BrooksGoodkind. I suffered through the whole thing because I was young enough that I thought that’s what you should do when you’ve started a book, but I was also old enough to know that it was very bad. I’ve heard many people say they read it as teens and loved it, but I assure you, it does not hold up.

Hmm, maybe that’s why my English teacher assigned Huck Finn instead (which I remember liking).

The modem made noises when connecting, but if someone picked up the phone, your internet would just stop working and they’d get their dial tone.

Now dot matrix printers, those were real pterodactyl sounds.

I pan fry hotdogs all the time. I put a little water in the pan to help the hotdogs heat all the way through and then let it burn off and fry them a bit to get them slightly crispy.

So will an earthquake. It may be “cheap” but we do it that way because it’s light. At least in California. That way if it falls on you, you might not die.

I’m from California so my wealth meter is broken beyond all reason. Is 1.1 million euros really considered “rich?” Everybody’s making jokes about wearing a monocle or not asking questions about flooding and I’m sitting here thinking about the house on my street that sold for about that much recently…and is a tear-down. 😭

Edit: actually wait, it was more like twice that much… it was like $2.3 mil and there’s no way they do any less than strip it to the framing.

I’m not saying it’s always the right idea to stay with someone in this sort of situation. But the fact that you did was probably a major reason she could be successful. She knew she had support and that is so, so important.

I have an iPhone and whenever my Android-owning friend sends me something, it’s a tiny thumbnail of a photo. So yeah, goes both ways.