mike carey

I've combined the threads.

Wiener Philharmoniker under Zubin Mehta? Swoon!

This is my reality. There are two big supermarket chains in Australia. The one I use mostly has an option in its loyalty program not to receive a printed receipt at checkout (the other doesn't). I could show the receipt on my phone (the transaction almost always loads instantly) but I don't need to have my phone with me to shop, I could use my plastic loyalty card, and cash or a physical credit/debit card. But both chains also give any customer the option not to print a receipt, primarily on smaller transactions, usually those under $30. It would appear neither sees the option of checking receipts on exit as being worth the effort.

A short trip from Tupelo to London is hardly around the world.

And I know you're real and legit too!

I just love that humble-brag. Shame I'm too far away to check.

As others have mentioned, there's been a consistent drum of reports on mpox, in this forum and in the press, in both Canada and Australia that I've seen, it's just not a headline issue any more. Australian health authorities are still saying that it's still a thing and people in the higher risk groups need to be aware of it. My last STI check at the ACT Government sexual health clinic, the doctor raised it and said I should seriously consider the vaccination. Publicity these days is in channels where it will be seen by the people who need to be aware of it, and that's not everyone, it's mostly MSM and their sexual partners.

You could well be right!

It wasn't a correction, it was just a clarification.

Not a post count, 30 days here.

Idyllic farmland and villages with an unseen darkness beneath.

The deep sense of civility here takes my breath away. But back to the topic of the thread.

I don't speak from experience, but rather from reading here for long enough to have seen some things. For a start, ignore the 'porn star' in RM ads, that's just something they do to deflect, marginally, from what that site does. Secondly, and more importantly, the men who have a real, and widely public history of porn can have enormous egos, and let mere clients know where they stand. But equally, there are escorts with that sort of public presence who bring no ego, they know what they have achieved and don't need to [figuratively] shove their fame down their clients' throats. They know they don't need to prove who they are, and usually know they can deliver, respectfully, and can make a client's evening without making it about themselves. But you can't tell at the start which they'll be. There will be clues. All you have to do is work out what the clues are,

Haha, you beat me to it!

It seems that the topic has reached its useby date and we've run out of things to say that address whether we have a mean-girl dynamic, and we're resorting to motives and accusations about who here is mean and in what way. This was never about attacking or defending our own, or any others' motives, and certainly not about an assessment of everyone, or anyone who falls under the LGBTIA+ banner. The two warnings could not have been clearer. I appreciate the comments I've received about the need to address some of the exclusion and attacks that some of the posts appear to contain, but not everyone seems to have taken them on board.

Gentlemen, a reminder, a warning to stay on topic was posted less than 24 hours ago. While mentioning the sort of things that people have said, or even weaponised (in general, not by naming individuals) is marginally on topic as being an example or illustration, debating the substance of them is not part of this discussion. This discussion is about what the OP saw as part of the nature of what this on-line community has become or is in danger of becoming. The few posts above this warning are an example of a discussion of the substance of an issue rather than simply naming it as one where the dynamic has manifested. If you think everything that can be said about whether we have a 'mean girl dynamic' has been said, stop commenting. If you want to discuss other topics, find a thread about them, or start one. Just don't bring that discussion to this thread.

@ApexNomad I figured your extrapolation to absurdity wasn't entirely serious but it provided a hook to post a comment. We often focus on the specifics of posts rather than more general point a question had been trying to ask!

Perhaps without even the need to resort to filthy lucre the distasteful issue of money.

I didn't see 'a billion' as being the figure to be spent on escorts, but rather it's a different way of saying 'if money were no object'. I also don't think it should be seen as possibly spending the lot on one or two escorts. We often read comments that $n is 'not realistic', but almost always they mean not realistic for the person posting, but the figure is almost invariably one that is quite realistic for at least some hirers. If you could find $2000 down the back of your couch, you could most likely spend that amount without blinking. If you had $1b, you could do it as often as you liked.

I don't think the emoticons are the problem. Just as is the case with typed words, they can be used to convey justifiable responses to some posts, just as much as conveying unwarranted snark, or 'mean girl' dynamics.

Gosh! Who knew?

Welcome to the forum! I'm sure we'd love to hear what you have to share with us. You've already seen the sort of conversations that we have here. It can be fun, but not everyone's posts are benign.

Folks, we've combined a new thread created yesterday with this one on the same subject. There had been some comments in the old thread as well as the chatter in the new one over the same time period, so when reading the recent posts (after the 'six months later' break on the previous page) bear that in mind if some comments don't appear to follow from the one above. The combined thread has a lot of insights into this subject, that many of us may have considered over our journeys with this hobby.

I do this all the time, I always have a plastic bag in the freezer to collect the bits and pieces I use to make stock. Right now I have four litres of stock in the freezer (in 2 litre milk bottles - leave some space at the top when I fill them for the ice to expand). It doesn't make a consistent stock that you might want for precise repeatable recipes, but in reality that's not what I want. It adds variety, complexity of flavour, that little bit extra to soups, stews and gravies over what water would give. All batches are different, some are better than others, but they all add something positive to food when I use them. (If I boil or steam veges, the water goes into a bottle to add to other stock or into the pot for a new batch.) I use the tops and bottoms of onions (removing most of the darkly coloured bits on red and brown onions to avoid making the stock too dark), carrot tops (not peels, but I could), celery leaves (although tender ones sometimes go in with other salad leaves) and the tougher base of the stalks, bacon rind if I trimmed it before cooking (I know standard US bacon may not have that), the bones and trimmings from meat removed before I cook (trimmings will result in fat in the stock, but I can skim excess off when it's cooling after I've cooked it), and even the bones from roast chickens or chicken pieces after meals, they have a bit of meat left and who cares whether it goes direct or via my plate into the plastic bags. As @jeezifonly mentioned, our fruit and vege now tend to come trimmed so there's less to use, but if they are too 'tired' but not completely past it, they can go in too. I don't know about the US, but here an untrimmed bunch of celery, to cite one example, costs less than a trimmed one (which comes in unnecessary plastic packaging as well), and less still than a 300g pack of cut celery sticks. All those leave are great for stock. The bag I have in my freezer is one that a loaf of bread comes in, and that's about right for the 3 or 4 litre pot (I have a 10L one as well) I have to cook the stock in. I just throw the scraps in, maybe add some more carrot or celery, dried herbs. If you want to go further, here the supermarket sells beef and lamb offcuts and also chicken necks, and you could get some of them - I rarely do, though. and fill the pot with water and cook on the lowest setting, topping it up if it boils down too much (you could boil it down deliberately to make a more concentrated stock and add water when you use it if you have a small freezer or just prefer stock that way - stronger flavour, it may be a jelly when you cool it rather than a liquid). I cook it almost forever (in reality probably 3 or 4 hours). At the end it doesn't look pretty, but I just lift out the bigger bits from the stock and strain it, not through anything too fine, although I could if I wanted it for a clearer soup, and put it into containers for the freezer, either the bottles I mentioned, or plastic tubs (mostly tubs butter or something else came in). And as I'm learning (not that I didn't already know) LABEL it. And also try to use evenly containers so you can stack it into the freezer rather than just pile it in, rectangular are better. But that's too much detail, it's your freezer, do whatever the heck* you want! *substitute word of your choice, if you wish.

What, @Vegas_Millennial, they didn't add a 10% gratuity? They weren't even trying!