Malls were dying in the US well before Amazon and online shopping itself was meaningful. Big box stores did a number on them. Best Buy and Circuit City had nearly the same selection of music that mall music stores did for much lower prices. Stores like Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million eviscerated the smaller more expensive mall book stores. Walmart, Target, and the like hit everything else.

Once that decline happened, I noticed that many malls started going after the kids that just hung around malls and weren’t in constant spend mode. Teens were treated like pests that were not wanted. Guess who got the message and didn’t come back a few years later when they had jobs and money?

Malls in the 80s and early 90s were pretty awesome, but malls told us to fuck off so we did. They can rot.

Sadly agree, I’ve been looking for a proper successor with no luck.

I am far from unbiased as I just switched back to my pixel 4a from my new Sony Xperia. I think the Pixel 4a is a flat out GREAT phone, full stop. It is perfectly sized IMO, has been very reliable, good battery life (though at this point I should look into replacing the battery), and it has a headphone jack. That being said, picking it as a new phone now essentially means going with a custom rom and hoping it stays supported. That’s fine and all, but it’s not something most people want. Just to be clear, the xperia isn’t a bad option per se, I only switched back because the phone came carrier locked when it was supposed to be unlocked and the carrier it was locked to was uncooperative so I refunded it.

I finally got a chance to have real wasabi at an expensive place. I did mix some in the soy sauce heh

It is exactly that. Some people really like them, others do not (me included). You usually need to go a little out of your way to get a font that supports ligatures for your editor.

Yeah, all my older cars worked like the truck you mentioned. It wouldn’t click or do anything if the bulb was out. That was handy for knowing it needed replacing I suppose.

Yes, I got my kid one the other day.

We definitely called them “push pops” when I was a kid, but I imagine it varied regionally.

I know a guy that did exactly this. I am living vicariously through him.

Most of the programmers I know (including myself) use Linux or BSD, but that all depends on who you associate with. A lot of companies are purely Windows shops and others just throw their programmers mac books and call it a day. At my last company I was only briefly allowed to use Linux until they decided it was no good as I couldn’t use whatever resource intensive corporate garbage security software of the year they bought.

There were clearly some questionable recycling methods for used toilet paper rolls back in the day, but don’t worry, the sweet orange flavor covered up the after taste.

When I last checked it was $40 for a bottle. $10-$15 is absolutely fine. I clearly need to look harder for a good price.

I have yet to try the Last Dab sauce as it is overpriced IMO. Your description of it does make me more interested though.

Agreed, most of the super hots aren’t actually very good tasting at all and you’d be better off sticking with a cayenne, hot Thai, or maybe a Red Savina. I have grown and had tons of super hots over the years and the only ones I actually likes were the Chocolate 7-Pots and Trinidad Moruga Scorpions. Even then, I would usually not use them in cooking as they just overpower everything with heat.

Mostly same here, but (I have an SSD with W10 on it. I haven’t booted into my Windows drive since 2023. I only had a a few games installed on that drive, but it was also useful for the rare instance that I needed to some some propriety configuration utility.

I am the opposite. When I was younger, I have significantly more free time and certainly better reflexes.eye-hand coordination. I doubt I could come close to beating any of the more challenging NES games that I did when I was a kid (not that Mario Sunshine was in that era).

Your experience mirrored mine, except that I also played the original. The game had some good ideas and mechanics, but it was frustrating and one of the few Super Mario games that I didn’t even want to finish.

Why do you say these things to hurt us?

I mean why not both since you’re clearly so ancient (like me :( ).

It worked as of six months ago, but it is possible that was patched in this recent “fix”.