Bartender_Venator
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User ID: 2349
Bartender_Venator
21d ago
I can second KENKA. I believe that's also one of the two spots that Vibecampers/postrats have their meetups.
If you feel like Chinese food instead, there's loads in Chinatown but I like Spicy Village for something casual - David's Bar next door will let you take their food in if you want to have a drink and likely meet some folks (more generally, a good way to meet people in NYC is to pop through a bar that's so small everyone is in close proximity). The infamous Dimes Square is nearby, but there's nothing to actually see at the moment.
Since you've got a lot of time, definitely go see the Cloisters. It's a great neighbourhood, too, and will give you some topological variety and good cardio just walking around.
Bartender_Venator
22d ago
Scotland (well, urban progressive Scotland, not the Highlands) is the Canada of Britain - their modern identity is deeply wrapped up in not being their richer, more famous, comparatively more conservative neighbour. As such, Scottish nationalism has taken on a distinctively left-wing, almost third-worldist character. Devolution hasn't helped, in that it's given Scotland a sort of toy government where SNP politicians can play around knowing they'll be bailed out of any serious consequences for bad decisions by the British taxpayer.
Bartender_Venator
25d ago
Not terribly often, but sometimes. Just helped a friend move last weekend (though I did get some old books and a sweet radio that I will likely never use any more than he did). I've probably done bigger good deeds than this one but it sticks with me: I was staying at my aunt's place in a third-world country where she rents out flats. Some elderly regulars were visiting, and the man was in very poor health, clearly not going to be around to come back next year. One day I'm walking out of the vestibule as he's walking in, and he suddenly starts to collapse, I'm in arms reach to dart in and prop him up. He's a big, portly guy but I'm strong enough to hold him up, my brother gets in on the other side and we slowly walk him over to a stair where we can sit him down safely. At that age, in that poor health, and with the issues of the local hospitals, a bad fall would likely either have killed him or meant the end of his mobile life. There's also something particularly satisfying about being able to help somebody just by being there and being physically strong/quick, primal male stuff.
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
They're just chinos, not dress pants (sometimes available in wool iirc), but Epaulet's Wilhelm cut is designed for serious lifters. Even their regular cuts are extremely flattering and have a lot of thigh/seat space.
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
Tailoring is not the end of the world. If you can get one shirt tailored to the fit you want, you can take down the measurements and send them to Luxire or a similar overseas place for made-to-measure shirts around the same price point as State and Liberty (depending on fabric quality and sales, but I can promise you even their cheapest fabric will be better-looking than some kind of "stretch performance" thing).
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
The other advantage of disassembling a planet is that doing so also disassembles the gravity well.
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
There's a good Nick Land essay about this where he argues that space exploration is really about planetary disassembly by posthuman intelligences rather than domestead frontier LARPing.
Iirc he starts from the premise that spheres are an extremely inefficient shape to extract mineral resources from, compared to disassembling a planet into asteroids and having space drones mine them.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
You just get exposed to different pathogens than your immune system is used to, it's traveler's diarrhea (which can absolutely hospitalize you if you're unlucky). I would assume all the unpasteurized cheese or cured meat or whatever doesn't help in avoiding trace levels of them which will be nothing to a local but will thrive in an unprepared gut. If you want to avoid it, avoid anything that wasn't cooked before serving, and wash your hands like it's April 2020.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Peptobismol and Imodium can be combined in all but rare instances, usually when you wouldn't want to take one of them in particular (think dysentery, not regular travel shits), different mechanisms of action.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Nice, both great films. If you want an interesting experience that will teach you a lot about Lynch's influences, I recommend watching Eraserhead and then Orson Welles' version of The Trial.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Fair warning, no spoilers: Lynch left Twin Peaks for an extended period in Season 2, and it gets really really bad for a bit. Not quite unwatchable but close. Soldier on, though, because The Return is arguably the greatest TV ever filmed.
If you decide to take a break and watch other Lynch stuff, Mulholland Drive was originally conceived as a Twin Peaks spinoff, and Blue Velvet is probably his Peaksiest film.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Sadly Turok's discussion of class was less than worthless, and seemed to mostly be about his own unexamined class insecurities. As I said elsewhere, "It's a funny barber-pole-of-status-signaling thing. I have never encountered someone on the internet who is actually upper-class for whom "lower-classness" is an object of vitriol rather than of disinterested study." But bringing that directly into discussion would also violate the norms of this space, such that any discussion from his posts was already drawing from a poisoned well.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
It's a huge, huge topic, and from a Mottizen perspective a lot of the received wisdom on wine is very questionable. My advice:
- Go region-by-region and familiarize yourself with it. There are some regions I know much better than others, and a lot of depth to go into in each one. This is particularly the case if you're in a marginal wine region, like Niagara, that specializes in particular varietals due to climate.
- Find a really good local shop and talk to the owners/go to their events. Can be a pleasant way to spend an evening and wine lovers like to go in-depth on why a wine/region is the way it is. Consider joining a wine club that will give you a couple varied bottles along with tasting notes.
- Stick to wines around the $20 price point for trying new stuff (maybe $25-30 now with inflation and tariffs). Even the experts will tell you that, for the most part, the price difference between $20-$80 is marketing. If you want to splurge, go above $80 on a varietal you know you like.
- Pairings do make a huge difference, particularly cheese. With a meal, the 'ideal' pairings are generally pretty well-known, just look up what you'll be cooking.
- It's ok not to like varietals. I don't like merlot and I can count the chardonnays I've liked on one hand (though one Franschoek chardonnay in particular is a grail of mine, has an incredible smoky flavour. Sadly my uncle has a long-running beef with the guy who owns the vineyard so no schmoozing in for me). Don't be afraid to develop your own taste.
- Don't be a snob. If AlexanderTurok drank wine, he'd be a wine snob. Nobody wants that at their tasting.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
I wish you had posted this yesterday. It would have gone well with my wine - I had a South African Cape Coast sav blanc, from an east-facing vineyard at the foot of a coastal valley, where the sea air and rocky soil produce a really crisp, refreshing white with an almost salty minerality. Paired that with a very mild, milky cheddar and some raspberries. In the evening, when it wasn't so hot, I cracked a Salamino di Santa Croce lambrusco. Again, that's a bit tarter and more acidic than your typical fruity lambrusco, but I paired it with a rich mushroom bruschetta. I don't actually know that much about Italian wine (the family place in Italy is on the coast, quite some way from the real wine country), but I know what I like.
P.S. I know you're supposed to capitalize "Sauvignon", "Lambrusco", etc., but that's always struck me as a little pretentious.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Yeah everything in London is super expensive, some things are just more ridiculous than others (rent being number one).
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Ah, you did get to my old neck of the woods. I took my first steps as a baby in the Natural History Museum.
There's a big price differential between the markup on pints/meals and supermarket stuff in London, for obvious reasons - those pints and meals have to be served to you by people who live in London. Personally, I find that Waitrose is comparable in price to non-Aldi/Costco US grocery stores for much higher quality.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
A decent pub is never a terrible spot to be, hope you and your friend have a great time.
London prices are mad for, well, everything. Though, living in the US now, it's always a pleasure to just pay what my beer costs and not end up with an extra ~30% from tax and tip.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Tottenham play football, and they're shit at it (they're Arsenal's old local rivals). Besides, I believe the team is on tour in Thailand right now, probably watching Asian twinks jerk off with plants.
If you're still in the area, after the Tate Modern I recommend walking down the river bank towards Westminster Bridge. It's definitely the prettiest and most interesting part of the river to walk along, and there are some good pubs near Waterloo Station if the walk gets you thirsty (sadly, my favourite, a railway arch pub entirely painted with murals of the Battle, seems to have closed).
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
The swearing is overly snappy and convoluted, and Cim is right that it was an extra-sweary period in British TV that sounds very silly now. In real life people who try to swear like that sound more like Ollie than Malcolm. But the overall tenor is definitely accurate to British politics in the Blair/Brown years. A story about two very senior aides of Gordon Brown (names omitted and stuff paraphrased, since the story was told in private, but newspaper readers at the time would recognize both):
I'm in my office with X, and she's complaining that Gordon's been fucking up everything lately, that he can't come across like a normal person, etc etc. She's got her back to the door, and doesn't see Gordon walk in. He's standing in the doorway and I can see he's about to fly into one of his rages. Now, he would have these terrible rages, and I learned that the only way to get Gordon out of it was to get even angrier than him, enough that he'd start trying to calm me down, so I jump up, kick over the litter basket, and shout "I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT THOSE BASTARDS ARE SAYING ABOUT HIM! I'M GOING TO KILL THEM!" And Gordon calms down, and he comes over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders and says "Calm down, [aide], calm down, it'll all be fine."
In the behind-the-scenes footage, too, the actors talk about the time they've spent with people in the civil service/government preparing for their roles. Nicola Murray's actress quoted one of them as saying "I don't know why we do this. It's not for the money, because we don't make any money, and it's not for the power, because we don't have any power. It's like you're working for charity... but a shit charity, that everybody hates." Who knows if that's real, but too good to leave out.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
It changes a lot in between parts, in terms of artstyle, storytelling, setting, powers, etc. The first 10 episodes of part 1 (i.e. Part 1 of the original manga) in particular is pretty rough compared to the others, and the action only really kicks off in episode 3, but it certainly kicks off.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
The uncanny valley depiction of foreign cultures is one of the funniest things in Jojo. Wait till you get to the second half of Part 1 (set just before WWII, plenty of wacky Nazis) and to Part 4 (set in a Japanese tourist's dream of Italy). Generally JJBA takes all the things that make shounenslop unwatchable - incredibly long fights, painstaking descriptions of each attack, powerscaling, ridiculous poses, flat characterization, corny villains, etc. - and dials it up so far it becomes amazing even if you normally hate that stuff.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
the ancient Christians, who steamrolled over the strength-is-beauty-is-justice pagan ethos of Rome, did not need mustache-twirling wordcels in high places berating anyone on their behalf to gain followers, nor did the French Revolution with its cries for égalité.
You don't think the Church Fathers were wordcels? You don't think Rousseau and Voltaire were wordcels? Revolution has always been a wordcel endeavour, for better or for worse, until it reaches the point where you need shape rotators to handle the finances and military logistics.
Bartender_Venator
2mo ago
Not suggesting they become academics (God, no! Affirmative action just scratches the surface of academia's professional pathologies). If you go to a top university, and are sufficiently intelligent, personable, and flexible, you can pivot into basically any type of email job you want with a little networking. Or, with luck, they can follow some passion and have a happy life doing something for its own sake.
It absolutely does work if you can convince the admissions officers that you are dead set on that particular department, you just have to be a little cannier. Knew a guy who was excluded (i.e. not formally expelled) from his posh high school for drug dealing who got into an Ivy-tier college that way.
Prostitution, for all its serious problems, is as lindy as it gets. Fairly analogous to how playing roulette at the casino is better for society than sports gambling on an app.
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