Sean Bean hiking up to the Lord of the Rings sets bc he’s afraid of helicopters is even funnier when you hear that Viggo Mortensen did the exact same thing, except Viggo’s reason for hiking to the sets was bc he wanted to be authentically travel-worn
Like literally you have Boromir doing this pretty cool thing bc he’s scared to death of the alternative while Aragorn just does it for The Aesthetic™
Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
So I was doing some research on common medications for a pharmacology class at school, and realized that Wikipedia is calling out the outrageous practices of pharmacological sales in the US. Right up there in the main intro to the medication they’re showing how much the drug costs to produce, versus how much a typical course of treatment costs in the USA.
Also, just so you’re aware, as of late Mat 2018, 1.80 GBP is 2.40 USD. For a three month supply of the pill. The same amount could cost you 150 USD in the United States.
I was working with a seagull and I said “as someone in Wildlife I know I should never anthropomorphize animals or hold them to any human moral standard, but seagulls are capable of and regularly knowingly commit evil” and the vet tech with me said “no yeah that’s true.”
Imagine: Humans accidentally insulting aliens using common idioms that don’t make sense when you don’t know they’re figures of speech
—
Human: Penny for your thoughts?
Alien: You taught me about currency, have I forgotten the value of “penny”? Do you really think my thougts are worth so little? I thought you liked conversing with me!
Human: Wait, hold on
—
Human: We can kill two birds with one stone if we-
Alien: I’ve told you time and again my people are primarily pacifists, and herbivorous regardless. Why would you suggest such an activity?
Human: No, wait, it was just a-
Alien: I will have no part of it, and this nonsequitor is irrelevant to our conversation. Please strike birds on your own time.
—
Human: So is there a method to your madness here?
Alien: *offended* Are you questioning my sanity?
Human: I was just-
Alien: Because that’s difficult to take from a being with the IQ of a gleesnork.
Human: I don’t know what that is but fuck you too
—
Human 1: *talking to someone about alien, sees alien approaching* Ah, speak of the devil and he shall appear!
DustAndFundamentalists 