boston's north end is our "little italy". it's a big tourist destination. people go there from all over to get the besta pasta justa like u get in the old country.
it's about 80% bullshit. expensive, overly sweet, heavy. just bad. like maybe a rung above olive garden.
there are a few standouts that are actually good, but for the most part the food is bad
but people still love it!
my sister used to live on salem and charter and i spent a good time in the north end, so i know my way around
but
i'm curious as why you're casting your aspersion of italion food based on tourist grub
also conversations about authenticity of food are bullshit
well sure i mean i love mexican-american food. cajun & creole food are basically americanized po-folks french cuisine. there's nothing about authenticity that makes food good or bad. based on waht deek says about his experiences in china, i'm pretty confident that much of chinese-american food is an improvement over its chinese counterpart.
but american italian food just isn't something i cotton to. most of it was developed in the really early days of industrial agriculture, where available ingredients amounted to canned tomatoes, sugar, dry goods, mild cheeses, etc. as a result the traditional profile of italian-american food tends to eschew fresh ingredients and is targeted at a pretty basic bland palate.
there have been improvements to it, but especially in boston, the center of the bullseye in terms of italian food preferences is "sweet, bland, heavy, overly fried". u order a chicken parm basically anywhere in the city and what u get is a pound of overcooked pasta (often angel hair, which is the worst choice for a heavy meal like this), super-heavy sweet tomato sauce heaped over a deep-fried chicken cutlet. covered in shredded mozz. it's bad. but it's what people like.
you've probably read about marcella hazan. she immigrated from italy in i think the 50s. she was an engineer and had no culinary training but when she came to the US (NYC) she was so horrified by what we called "italian" food she studied up and became a food writer & chef. most of her recipes aim at lighter & simpler versions of italian-american staples. i guess her influence didn't penetrate too deep into new england tho.
but this is kind of a necessary step into changing american tastes
as much as i hate taco bell and boxed taco seasoning, both played necessary roles in getting americans to be more adventurous
and our grocery stores reflect this
without that processed shit, we would never get to where we are today where I can find bags of dried peppers to make mole in my local key foods
I dislike the idea of criticising people for being "dependant" on psychiatric medication. It plays into a lot of bullshit attitudes around mental health.
+12
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Shaz for real lets grab a parm sub fuck being healthy.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
from talking about food with my ex I know there's at least one school of chinese chinese food which seems to have evolved out of a form of chemical warfare with hot as fuck chilies constituting more than half of any dish and I think I know why that one didn't catch on outside china
(I think that was southish china. Where do they have the closest to american chinese food?)
Abdhyius on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Shaz for real lets grab a parm sub fuck being healthy.
well i can't today
but yes we should at some point
poo
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
as to my stance on roger ebert
yes, he watched a lot of movie and was clearly familiar with the history of film
i feel that there were a handful of films he was extremely disingenuous towards and this contradicts his supposed "objective" to watching and review movies
couple that with being the loudest mouthpiece in film criticism and i think he is a problematic figure
also, any review which measures are on a scale (be it stars, thumbs, numbers, tomatoes, whatever) is inherently garbage
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Chili's does a couple of things good. Their chicken tenders are amazing, and their skillet queso and chips are the bomb. Their corn on the cob is really good too.
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
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Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
from talking about food with my ex I know there's at least one school of chinese chinese food which seems to have evolved out of a form of chemical warfare with hot as fuck chilies constituting more than half of any dish and I think I know why that one didn't catch on outside china
(I think that was southish china. Where do they have the closest to american chinese food?)
Probably the Beijing area. Higher quality meat, sweet sauces.
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
My anti depressants make me go from "lying in bed sobbing because the world is too hard" to "lying in bed playing video games because the world is too hard". Other than depression, none of the issues I have been diagnosed with are being treated because doctors are afraid I will become addicted to them.
I am tired and I will gladly take addiction at this point.
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
I know I'm late, but Atomika likes fewer movies than Ebert.
It's true. I don't like many.
But I hope springs eternal.
Well, just to balance out the neigh sayers. I really like the movie you wrote up for the Instant Watch Movie dealio. Young Adult. That was a good movie that I would never have seen if not for your liking it.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
reviews were scored on smiley face, frowney face, whatever face, dude was very omnivorous in his movie tastes and had strange cares for liking things
also most importantly his reviews told you fuck all about what happens in the movie or what it's about but they gave you a good sense of what they're like, even if you don't actually understand the review
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Awwwww yyiiiiisssssss
IT just installed my 24 inch monitor.
Dude tried to take my second monitor, I told him to pound sound. This is America!
+1
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
we went with Smirnoff and were drinking it outside the festival
we realised we were running late to see GY!BE so we turned to the girls beside us outside and was all "hey, do you want some vodka? We're running inside"
and the girls were like "oh shit, you guys bought too much vodka too!"
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LudiousI just wanted a sandwich A temporally dislocated QuiznosRegistered Userregular
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
Rob her
She's reasonably attractive to boot. I'd never get away with it.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Also, I'm not dependent. I haven't had my vyvanse in like a week because my pre-authorization with my insurance ran out so I have to wait for a letter from my doctor. I'm certainly not fiending. I don't think Prozac is considered a controlled substance either.
All in all, dependent is a harsh word. Especially when I was making a silly weed joke. But I mean, hey, the shit I say, who cares? I just feel the need to point out that dependent is not a word I like to identify with.
Also it makes you sound a tad bit Tom Cruisey.
This is like that Whomp where Ronnie keeps making fat jokes at his own expense and a guy nearby is really uncomfortable. Then he says something relatively mild and Ronnie just bursts into tears.
I make fun of my fat ass all the time. I own it. If you aren't comfortable about you, dont make joke, Ronnie!
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
let her know that she is currently worth 13 grand more than me
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
Well you can say "no, I have no money. You have money."
not that I'd entirely agree that just 9 grand in the bank makes you not-poor but that's with my CoL in mind I have no idea what it's like where you are
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Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
edited July 2014
Authentic Szechuan chinese food was tasty but also my butt dear got my butt.
Donkey Kong on
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
I used to be really hard on behavioral drugs. I was almost to Tom Cruise levels of calling bullshit. But after close friends and family needing them to function it was a real eye opener. The toughest thing for me was always that the symptoms were the same. I don't need medication, and I've had bad depression, I've panicked before, and I've definitely been anxious. But its the reasons behind these things and the ability to naturally deal with them that are vastly different. You can't just look at the face value and say "If I can get over it, so can they" cause it simply isn't always the case. A hard lesson for me to learn at the time.
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Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
1) recognize that her problems are legitimate to her and it's really hard for you to give someone perspective (vs them developing it organically over a long period of their own observations)
2) if after respecting her difficulties she doesn't reciprocate the decency by trying and be more tactful, stop talking about money/stop hanging out with her
i can't imagine it's a good idea to try to force feed someone perspective
some people won't get along if they're in different phases of their life
How do I explain to my friend that being a 24 year old with 9 grand in the bank doesn't make her poor and that when she says she has no money to me it is insulting?
let her know that she is currently worth 13 grand more than me
shh-shh-shh, no, let's not count debt because that makes us sad
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BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
My anti depressants make me go from "lying in bed sobbing because the world is too hard" to "lying in bed playing video games because the world is too hard". Other than depression, none of the issues I have been diagnosed with are being treated because doctors are afraid I will become addicted to them.
I am tired and I will gladly take addiction at this point.
It has taken me about 8 years but finally I have gathered up the will and energy to bother enough people so that I might get all the right drugs and treatment I need.
It is particularly difficult because while the depression is being managed by my antidepressants, my energy level is still through the floor 9 days out of 10, so motivating myself to do the things that need to be done is really hard.
I wrote all of this in a letter which I then distributed to my family and my doctors though, so they understand now that while doing a given thing may seem easy, it can be the hardest thing in the world for me because my brain is a jerk and so I am gonna need some help.
boston's north end is our "little italy". it's a big tourist destination. people go there from all over to get the besta pasta justa like u get in the old country.
it's about 80% bullshit. expensive, overly sweet, heavy. just bad. like maybe a rung above olive garden.
there are a few standouts that are actually good, but for the most part the food is bad
but people still love it!
my sister used to live on salem and charter and i spent a good time in the north end, so i know my way around
but
i'm curious as why you're casting your aspersion of italion food based on tourist grub
also conversations about authenticity of food are bullshit
well sure i mean i love mexican-american food. cajun & creole food are basically americanized po-folks french cuisine. there's nothing about authenticity that makes food good or bad. based on waht deek says about his experiences in china, i'm pretty confident that much of chinese-american food is an improvement over its chinese counterpart.
but american italian food just isn't something i cotton to. most of it was developed in the really early days of industrial agriculture, where available ingredients amounted to canned tomatoes, sugar, dry goods, mild cheeses, etc. as a result the traditional profile of italian-american food tends to eschew fresh ingredients and is targeted at a pretty basic bland palate.
there have been improvements to it, but especially in boston, the center of the bullseye in terms of italian food preferences is "sweet, bland, heavy, overly fried". u order a chicken parm basically anywhere in the city and what u get is a pound of overcooked pasta (often angel hair, which is the worst choice for a heavy meal like this), super-heavy sweet tomato sauce heaped over a deep-fried chicken cutlet. covered in shredded mozz. it's bad. but it's what people like.
you've probably read about marcella hazan. she immigrated from italy in i think the 50s. she was an engineer and had no culinary training but when she came to the US (NYC) she was so horrified by what we called "italian" food she studied up and became a food writer & chef. most of her recipes aim at lighter & simpler versions of italian-american staples. i guess her influence didn't penetrate too deep into new england tho.
but this is kind of a necessary step into changing american tastes
as much as i hate taco bell and boxed taco seasoning, both played necessary roles in getting americans to be more adventurous
and our grocery stores reflect this
without that processed shit, we would never get to where we are today where I can find bags of dried peppers to make mole in my local key foods
it's just a worthless criticism
but when the center of the bullseye is still that same food it's absolutely pertinent. one of the reasons that "traditional" english foods are so reviled is that they were basically built around what was available during WWII. people got used to it, then preferred it, then instilled the preference in their kids. decades later most brits just prefer the flavor of canned peas.
this is not terribly dissimilar to what's up with italian-american food, especially in boston. sure the north end is a tourist destination, but it's also chockablock with italian americans from the south shore for whom this is a nice night out.
i mean it's great that "ethnic" food has integrated itself into mainstream american food, but if mexican cuisine was still centered around old el paso taco seasoning it would be bullshit, and that's where a lot of italian-american food still is, at least in new england and i suspect in much of NYC as well.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Awwwww yyiiiiisssssss
IT just installed my 24 inch monitor.
Dude tried to take my second monitor, I told him to pound sound. This is America!
good for you but where I work if you told me to pound sand I'd just pick up the monitor and walk out.
As long as you left me with two monitors, I would not care. You do not ask to drop by my hood to give me a new monitor and then tell me you're downgrading my setup to single monitor. That aint right!
Posts
yuss
Goddamn I want some good food today.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
but this is kind of a necessary step into changing american tastes
as much as i hate taco bell and boxed taco seasoning, both played necessary roles in getting americans to be more adventurous
and our grocery stores reflect this
without that processed shit, we would never get to where we are today where I can find bags of dried peppers to make mole in my local key foods
it's just a worthless criticism
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
(I think that was southish china. Where do they have the closest to american chinese food?)
It's true. I don't like many.
But I hope springs eternal.
YES MY CHILDREN
GO FORTH AND EAT THE FOODS
well i can't today
but yes we should at some point
yes, he watched a lot of movie and was clearly familiar with the history of film
i feel that there were a handful of films he was extremely disingenuous towards and this contradicts his supposed "objective" to watching and review movies
couple that with being the loudest mouthpiece in film criticism and i think he is a problematic figure
also, any review which measures are on a scale (be it stars, thumbs, numbers, tomatoes, whatever) is inherently garbage
K - Field trip cancelled.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
@TehSloth
Im not gonna have a stroke. Im just audibly sighing at how basic dese bitches are.
Probably the Beijing area. Higher quality meat, sweet sauces.
My anti depressants make me go from "lying in bed sobbing because the world is too hard" to "lying in bed playing video games because the world is too hard". Other than depression, none of the issues I have been diagnosed with are being treated because doctors are afraid I will become addicted to them.
I am tired and I will gladly take addiction at this point.
Well, just to balance out the neigh sayers. I really like the movie you wrote up for the Instant Watch Movie dealio. Young Adult. That was a good movie that I would never have seen if not for your liking it.
Rob her
reviews were scored on smiley face, frowney face, whatever face, dude was very omnivorous in his movie tastes and had strange cares for liking things
also most importantly his reviews told you fuck all about what happens in the movie or what it's about but they gave you a good sense of what they're like, even if you don't actually understand the review
IT just installed my 24 inch monitor.
Dude tried to take my second monitor, I told him to pound sound. This is America!
we realised we were running late to see GY!BE so we turned to the girls beside us outside and was all "hey, do you want some vodka? We're running inside"
and the girls were like "oh shit, you guys bought too much vodka too!"
good for you but where I work if you told me to pound sand I'd just pick up the monitor and walk out.
She's reasonably attractive to boot. I'd never get away with it.
I make fun of my fat ass all the time. I own it. If you aren't comfortable about you, dont make joke, Ronnie!
let her know that she is currently worth 13 grand more than me
Well you can say "no, I have no money. You have money."
not that I'd entirely agree that just 9 grand in the bank makes you not-poor but that's with my CoL in mind I have no idea what it's like where you are
Bud Lite lime-a-rita
1) recognize that her problems are legitimate to her and it's really hard for you to give someone perspective (vs them developing it organically over a long period of their own observations)
2) if after respecting her difficulties she doesn't reciprocate the decency by trying and be more tactful, stop talking about money/stop hanging out with her
i can't imagine it's a good idea to try to force feed someone perspective
some people won't get along if they're in different phases of their life
shh-shh-shh, no, let's not count debt because that makes us sad
It has taken me about 8 years but finally I have gathered up the will and energy to bother enough people so that I might get all the right drugs and treatment I need.
It is particularly difficult because while the depression is being managed by my antidepressants, my energy level is still through the floor 9 days out of 10, so motivating myself to do the things that need to be done is really hard.
I wrote all of this in a letter which I then distributed to my family and my doctors though, so they understand now that while doing a given thing may seem easy, it can be the hardest thing in the world for me because my brain is a jerk and so I am gonna need some help.
Not sure if that is helping due to hormonal things, or if it is because I almost certainly have hypertension, or both.
but when the center of the bullseye is still that same food it's absolutely pertinent. one of the reasons that "traditional" english foods are so reviled is that they were basically built around what was available during WWII. people got used to it, then preferred it, then instilled the preference in their kids. decades later most brits just prefer the flavor of canned peas.
this is not terribly dissimilar to what's up with italian-american food, especially in boston. sure the north end is a tourist destination, but it's also chockablock with italian americans from the south shore for whom this is a nice night out.
i mean it's great that "ethnic" food has integrated itself into mainstream american food, but if mexican cuisine was still centered around old el paso taco seasoning it would be bullshit, and that's where a lot of italian-american food still is, at least in new england and i suspect in much of NYC as well.
As long as you left me with two monitors, I would not care. You do not ask to drop by my hood to give me a new monitor and then tell me you're downgrading my setup to single monitor. That aint right!