What's on your mind? (2024)

You’d think it’d work with most Axe “scents,” too. It does seem to work well on female teenagers :rofl:

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“The panda motorcade, escorted by police, formed a procession as it made its way from Dulles Airport to the District, with spectators lining the street and clapping as the trucks rounded the corner toward the zoo’s direction.”

Flew in Panda Express then drove from Dulles in bespoke trucks.

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Please keep us posted on your pizza projects year round! Your craft is such an inspiration. :pizza:

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That stuff kills healthy lung tissues! Talk about an asthma trigger.
We used to name the kids wearing the stuff (to hide their tobacco/pot use) Axe-oles. It is used by those masking their vape use, now.

Really? Most flavored vapes smell far more pleasant* than any Axe I’ve smelled. And tobacco is almost impossible to cover up with anything.

*Note that this is a very, very, very, very, very low bar.

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Gorgeous almost-full moon over the city last night :star_struck:

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You’re most welcome! I was also intrigued by the data. Immigration trends have long interested me. When I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, I lived near Waimea-Kona/Kamuela where the Parker Ranch is. There are other ranches there as well and horses, cattle and dairy cows are big business. Cowboys in Hawaii are called “Paniolo”, originally a Spanish word for a type of cowboy. I knew of the strong influence of the Portuguese in Hawaii (think malasadas, Portuguese sausage, etc.) but never thought there had been Portuguese cowboys in Hawaii!

If you haven’t already been to that part of Hawaii, I highly recommend it as it’s VERY different from other parts. It gets downright cold, is green, but not tropical and laidback in a different way than other parts of the Islands.

A while back one HO member was inquiring about where to eat on a layover at Newark Airport and another member referenced a neighborhood with Portuguese restaurants. Until reading that, I never knew about the connection between NJ and the Portuguese! And your comment about the size of the Portuguese population in NJ in terms of size related to the overall size difference between NJ & CA makes a lot of sense! Thank you for that!

I went to Portugal in 2006, visiting Porto, Lisbon and Faro. Porto is by far the best place I’ve ever visited and the #1 place I’d like to revisit! The architecture, the food, the weather were perfect! Lisbon was great, too. To me, Faro was just a resort city with an overload of British and German tourists.

A former student of mine in Japan is now on his third year of working for Mitsubishi Electric in Edinburgh, Scotland. Before he left to go there, I told him that my favorite place was Porto. He remembered and just went there and sent me a report on it with photos! I was thrilled that he went and remembered to tell me that he did!

I would like to visit the Azores as well. Madeira seems interesting, but for some reason, the Canary Islands (yes, I know they’re Spanish) interest me more.

I look forward to reading your posts if you do make that trip to Portugal again!

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I live in the city, and sometime many years ago I was out in the county after dark. I got into my car, and looked up at the sky, and was astonished to see … stars. Nothing special astronomical-wise. Just stars. I never see them in the city. Or butterflies, either.

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Yup. Light pollution is a thing. I saw some of the most amazing skies in the Mediterranean, and just outside our extremely light-polluted town in the boonz.

I’d also never seen such an abundance of fireflies until I moved to PA.

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Coincidentally, I’ve been reading this. Sarah Anderson is really great.

Screenshot from 2024-10-16 12-46-08

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“Household paper products have the highest rate of shrinkflation, the LendingTree analysis found. Out of 20 products it tracked from prior to the pandemic until today, about 60% had reduced their sheet count, the study found. (Only one item, a 2-pack of Scott multipurpose shop towels, declined in price per 100 count, according to the data.)”

What I remember was about 8 years ago when paper product companies enlarged the inner cardboard tubes to make it look like you were getting the same amount of toilet paper/paper towels. Was anyone else here fooled by that?

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Ice cream downsized back in the early 2000s - half gallons essentially disappeared and becamee 1.75 quarts. They then downsized AGAIN in the early 2010s to 1.5 quarts.

And coffee beans are rarely a pound - you now get 12 oz. Although World Market DOES sell coffee beans in 2 lb. packages, their smaller packages are all 12 oz.

ETC: OK, I’m mistaken about WM’s coffee beans. Their larger size packages are now 24 oz., NOT 32 oz. :expressionless:

Cereal packages; snacks (Fritos, potato chips, etc.) - everything’s gone through it. I remember a wine I used to drink all of a sudden having a VERY large dimple in the bottom of the bottle, when it never had it before. So you got less - maybe just a couple of swallows, but you got less. :expressionless:

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I remember shrinkflation as having started back decades ago and my first recollection of it was from this Andy Rooney segment on “60 Minutes” regarding the shrinking size of coffee cans (16 oz. → 13 oz. then.) I found it on YouTube and it aired almost 36 years ago from today on October 23, 1988. Before that, I don’t remember products shrinking in size.

And yes, the next products I remember shrinking were cartons of ice cream going down from 64 oz. to 56 oz. Now they’re down to 48 oz. or less.

I miss “full sizes” of things and I miss curmudgeons like Andy Rooney and Art Buchwald. When I was 15, Ohio State’s famous coach, Woody Hayes, punched a Clemson player on the field.

Soon after that, Art Buchwald published a column defending Coach Hayes for doing that. I read the column and became livid. I guess I hadn’t read any of Mr. Buchwald’s columns until that point because I didn’t seem to be aware of his sarcasm. My father was laughing hysterically at my being livid and had to calm me down by explaining some of Mr. Buchwald’s schlick. (I couldn’t find the column, but did find the offensive (heh) punch.

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A Japanese onsen (hot springs) resort is going to open in upstate New York in 2028. I’m quite familiar with Hoshino Resorts and onsen in general, but have never heard of Sharon Springs. It’s just under 200 miles (about 3.5 hours) from the city. That seems a long way to me. I wish the resort the best of luck, though.

“Family size”, what a conumdrum.

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On display at Dollar General checkout this morning. Cheetos Puffs (2/3 full 8 oz. bag) $4.95. Buy one get one free. I actually felt like I got my money’s worth for once.

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Just shaking my head at the fact that someone can review a croissant that is obviously raw dough on the inside, as delicious and amazing.

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