30 Comments

I haven't dined at any of these restaurants since the 1980's.

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Only reason I chose the crotch joke over the others is I had heard the first two before. Second (plus) hearing of a joke is rarely as funny as a first hearing.

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Reader Poll idea: since so many localities are making plastic bags illegal, do people want paper, plastic, or reusable bags?

I personally like the plastic bags because they save me money (I line the bathroom trash cans with them, so without them I'll have to buck up and pay for the things; so cutting out plastic grocery bags won't save the planet; it will just cost me more money). Paper bags break easily and the only use we have for them as carrying other recyclables to the recycle bin. Our cats only watch Cat TV and don't seem interested in all the YouTube videos of cats and paper bags, so they run away from paper bags instead of playing with them. And reusable bags? I end up not unpacking them so my pantry is full of piles of canned food left in the bags. Because of that, I never seem to have one when I need it and end up buying more of them.

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What you call "slitted wafers" are "occlupanids." See www.horg.com/horg .

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Re: Twist ties on bread. What I REALLY hate is when the cheap company puts a tape-like tie on the bread that cannot be reused. Then I have to find some kind of clip or tie to reseal the bread. What are they thinking? That I am going to eat a whole loaf of bread in one sitting?

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RE the QR code menus: my mother doesn't have a cell phone. I guess going forward, she'll just have to explain what she feels like eating and explaining her food allergies until someone says "Yes, we do have that in the kitchen." What a waste of time. Is the printed menu such a chore that your restaurant can't pull it off? Do your prices and menu options change so often that you have to keep a constantly updated fluid way of conveying them to the customer? For customers who don't have phones or didn't remember to bring them (when my family eats out, only my husband thinks to bring his phone since the rest of us aren't married to our phones), are we to huddle around a phone looking at the menu options or will we just leave and head to Wendy's where we know what they serve?

Having only one option for delivering your menu to customers is a bad business practice because it alienates customers who don't want to download 275 menus onto their phones. If I try your restaurant and it is horrible, I don't want to have your menu hidden somewhere on my phone after I delete it.

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There needs to be a third choice - I prefer both the twist tie and slitted plastic wafer.

Why?

I use the twist ties in my garden to hold up droopy vines (my blueberries tend to droop because the gopher pulls the vine down to get to the berries - if I twist tie them, he gives up). I use the plastic wafer to clean things in the house (they fit in that hard-to-clean space between the stove and the countertop, so I slide the wafer in between, scrape out whatever is stuck there, and throw the wafer and the crap it dug out into the trash).

I voted twist tie, but can't do without either.

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I’ve been told that as a matter of practicality, a restaurant will slightly undercook the steak and burger compared to what the customer requested. As the story went, if the customer sends the item back, the cook can simply throw the item back onto the grill a little longer, whereas you can’t reverse overcooking. Don’t know if that’s true.

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I worked in a restaurant where this was the case with burgers - the cook found that often, when people wanted a well done burger, we'd have recook it because what they meant was charred, rather than well done.

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Any chance that's Prewar modeling the Wicked Witch socks?

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As I write (vote) there are 10 people weighing in on QR codes on restaurant menus. EVERY SINGLE ONE is over 45. This requires a poll. "Do you like being old?" "Have you picked out a funeral plot?" "Do you eat at 4, 4:30, or 5?" By the way, I am WAY over 45. I just think it is weird that everyone else is too.

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Did you know that some QR codes are used to wheedle their way into your phone? Cool, I want Applebees to plant a piece of Trojan software onto my phone so they can know I purchased plants from Home Depot so they can sell that information to seventeen local stores who can then put me on a terminal list to receive calls offering me discounted flowers, mulch, pots, landscaping...And that's just by seeing I purchased a plant. Imagine what they'll do if you asked Medicare for a new card for your mother - oh, that's right. Immediately after checking to see how to get my mother a new medicare card, I started receiving dozens of calls from Brad in Minnesota yelling at me that YES YOU DO GET MEDICARE! DON'T LIE TO ME! When, no, I do not qualify for medicare, but my mother does. But the calls are a dozen or more a day and boy are they angry that I claim I don't qualify for medicare when their informant at Applebees told them I do.

If you don't believe that is the case, try sitting in front of your smart TV, talk about something crazy (like replacement artificial testicles for your pet) and watch how quickly YouTube starts showing you artificial testicle ads and videos. i did this one day to mess up my husband's ads on our smart TV - I logged in as him, started saying crazy crap, and he started getting ads for frozen kale pops, women's fragrances, farm animal feed, and, of course, artificial testicles. His phone joined in by offering him these products and a lot of polka music.

It is all tied in together, our phones, our computers, our televisions, and letting anyone into that device can mean a lot more crap than you are already wading through. It's like ordering Guns and Ammo magazine - once you open that door, you are hounded for years by the NRA and right wing nut jobs who see you as a kindred spirit and won't leave you alone. The former owner of our house went to Oberlin Conservatory, he has been dead for 15 or more years, and we still get offers in the mail from people offering him discounted band instruments and equipment. The QR code is just like that - the open window for some idiot to search your file drawers and hound you for life.

https://security.virginia.edu/QR-Hack

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I never had the privilege of meeting Elden in person, but I traded occasional e-mails with him for at least a dozen years, primarily on the subject of "Loser Anagrams", or "Granola Smears", as we often called them. I will miss his insight and sense of humor.

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Our secondhand cats always come with weird names. Our current two are Luna and Moo. Luna used to be named Stella but we don’t know what Moo was called because his records didn’t convey with the cat like Luna’s did. The shelter renamed them. I call our boy Moo a lot of names “Princess Peach,” “Spot,” “Sir Pukesalot,” “the ambassador from Pukastan,” and “Orville.” Luna is often just called “girl cat” or “beautiful.” It really doesn’t matter what you call them - they never answer.

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We inherited a "used" cat named Luna from our neighbors after she started favoring our house and yard, because she was avoiding a tomcat that lived one house beyond them. I wouldn't have picked the name myself, but we never considered changing it, since we get along with the neighbors quite well, and it would have been awkward to suddenly start talking about the same cat, but with a new name.

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We figure it is short for Lunatic so in her case it fits

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I assume Lexi, as a more or less Plott Hound, more or less retains the breed's boar and bear hunting instincts. They are genetically noisy. That's the way they were bred. They are hunting dogs and barking is how they communicate (as you have learned), especially when they find something they want their humans (or pack) to know about --- like a bear or an empty water bowl.

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founding

Because of the discharge or drainage, you will most likely have to deal with a big honkin' dressing initially, which you will be asked to change daily. This will likely test Rachel's devotion. You may also have to lay off playing the trumpet and glass blowing for a while and abstain from roadkill. Food habits can cause these buggers. Unfortunately, you're officially only allowed 10 days of sympathy. A very common and highly successful surgery (even when the offending growth is near the parotid/facial nerve) for an experienced ENT (for the uninformed, that's an otolaryngologist, not a humanoid tree creature from Middle-earth).

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Am I the only one who thought the white dog had a partially amputated paw? (Which I actually thought was a tad tacky, but it didn’t stop me from captioning it)

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As the once-owner of a male Westie, I had a different first impression.

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author

This is the only one I got, I think: Yours?

"I used to have such a beautiful silky coat, but then I stupidly stuck my paw into an electrical socket..."

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A. Daisy hesitated to tell Max that now he should gesture with his other paw

when mansplaining.

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author

Oh, that one was good too. But I didn’t read it as alluding to amputation.

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founding

GW, I had 1/2 of my left salivary gland removed owing to a benign tumor. It went well, this is apparently way more common than I would’ve thought - my surgeon had done 4 the day before my procedure - and other than some numbness along the surgical cut, it’s been a relief. You’ll be fine.

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