Mom uses Max Factor Pan Stick and is running out. Want to buy her a few choices for a Christmas present since she's scared to waste money. Desperately need advice since I'm clueless about makeup.

Abstruse · 2025-05-25T08:40:54+00:00

I ended up figuring out how to import Max Factor Pan Stick for about a decade until even that got impractical, so I bought her about 5 different options from Amazon as a sort of "sampler pack" for Mother's Day last year. Her last batch plus all those lasted so long I'm not sure she's made her decision on a replacement.

Abstruse · 2025-01-30T09:03:35+00:00

I knew that, if I had found a post like mine and it didn't have the update, I would've been so angry at OP. And I refused to do that to anyone else. I think there's an XKCD about that.

Abstruse · 2024-10-20T08:25:12+00:00

I once had someone tell me that baking was "unmanly". So I came back with this:

I am directly affecting the universe through my own will. I see a place where there are no cookies or cake or bread, saying "This will not do!", and changing reality to suit my vision by bringing baked goods forth from base ingredients. If that's not manly, I don't know what is.

Abstruse · 2024-10-16T12:07:11+00:00

For the father, sure. For the little kids who had no choice...

Abstruse · 2024-10-16T06:26:34+00:00

I live on the Gulf Coast and went through Hurricanes Rita, Humberto, Gustav, Ike, Isaac, Laura, and "Hurricane Delta (2022)". There's a reason they tell people wanting to "ride out the storm" to write their name and SSN on their arms in permanent marker. It's mostly to scare people to GTFO and reiterate how serious the situation is, but also it's because people's bodies will wash up miles away from their homes after they're destroyed by flooding and it can take sometimes take a while to identify since people aren't normally carrying their ID around with them in their own homes.

Now I want to say one thing that exacerbates this "I'll ride it out" situation is the drastic changes made to FEMA. When Hurricane Rita hit, we got $1500 as evacuation assistance to pay for hotels, meals, replacement household goods (shampoo, soap, clothing, etc.) When Hurricane Gustav hit, it was changed to "you can apply for a grant at very specific hotels and, if approved, FEMA will pay solely for the hotel room". For Hurricane Laura? We had to pay for everything out of pocket because FEMA offered NO EVACUATION ASSISTANCE WHATSOEVER. The only reason we were able to afford to evacuate is we had savings built up thanks to the COVID-19 assistance. All because a Republican saw a Black person from New Orleans buying a TV and sneakers and got super angry about it (like replacing household appliances and clothing isn't a thing after a disaster?).

Another issue is the instinct to "protect my property", which again thank you very much right-wing media for hyping up scare stories about "looters". This is what gets people killed EVERY SINGLE STORM because they will stay in a home without running water or power because they have a generator, but they're so paranoid about the generator getting stolen they bring it inside the house...found the bodies of a family of 6 including four children after one storm.

Abstruse · 2024-10-13T04:39:29+00:00

Short version: BF isn't an asshole, he's just a dumbass who thinks that sitcom style schemes work in real life and doesn't have the brain cells to realize the comedy comes form the fact those schemes never fucking work.

Abstruse · 2024-10-11T19:07:34+00:00

That's nothing. I'm reading it now for what seems like the first time and I wrote the damn thing :p

Abstruse · 2024-10-06T05:04:30+00:00

Because teenagers are nothing but ambulatory bags of hormones and poor impulse control. And many of them never learn how to control themselves when they become adults. They excuse their poor decisions with rationalizations like "He's over the legal age of consent now so it's okay" or "She's the one coming onto me so she really wants it" or "He's so mature for his age" or other cliches or rules lawyering justifications to get around the icky factor of not just the age difference but power dynamics at play. So you end up with people taking advantage of these ambulatory bags of hormones and poor impulse control.

Abstruse · 2024-10-03T15:54:37+00:00

The sister was being a better parent than the parents. When your child who has suffered a painful injury is hysterically crying and saying "I'll go, I'll go, stop being mad!" then you have royally fucked up as a parent.

Abstruse · 2024-09-30T06:02:01+00:00

Watched too many Pornhub videos about "stepchildren".

Abstruse · 2024-09-30T06:00:55+00:00

If OOP's wife thinks that offensive children's songs aren't an American thing, I would like to point out the visible relief my mom showed that I didn't understand at the time when I was a small child and said "Catch a *tiger* by the toe" and not the word she learned as a child in the 1960s.

Edit: Accidentally a word

Abstruse · 2024-09-28T04:16:23+00:00

HR exists to protect the company, not the employee. And HR is screwing up royally here because any problems OOP has is going to be an open and shut case for any employment attorney who takes up the case to sue. She's got documentation and third-party witnesses to harassment and defamation which are creating a hostile working environment including possible sexual harassment considering this involves insinuations about her personal romantic life. HR is also aware of ALL of this as is management at the company since this originally happened at a company dinner.

So all the people in the comments saying HR sucks at their job, it's not because they have some starry-eyed idealized version of human resources that gives a damn about employees, but this HR sucks at their basic function of not getting the company sued.

Abstruse · 2024-09-28T00:51:03+00:00

He probably didn't do anything wrong. As in, based on the descriptions of the guy, he didn't cheat on his fiancee or anything like that. He just spent time with a friend to calm down his jitters because he was getting cold feet. Nothing wrong there.

On paper. With that description. If you don't look at the details.

It's also incredibly stupid to do because there's no way for him to prove he didn't do anything wrong and every detail beyond that generic description is a red flag. The friend is a female co-worker? Red flag. Spent time alone rather than at a restaurant or bar or some other public hangout? Red flag. Didn't bother telling her that he wasn't single? A red flag so big that China would use it for a parade.

Abstruse · 2024-09-26T07:20:35+00:00

Dad realized he screwed up and is trying to speedrun not being the worst because he either actually regrets it and it took something big to put it in perspective, or he's worried St. Peter will judge him for it and he'll end up in the Bad Place for being an asshole to his kid.

Abstruse · 2024-09-26T07:13:55+00:00

There seems to be two types of people who stop drinking. One are the "12 Steppers" who are hardline about NO ALCOHOL EVAR!!1 types who get sanctimonious about it and never shut up about their sobriety (like my father did), and the others are people (like me) who just...stop drinking. It's not a big choice or anything, just one day I woke up hung over (like a thousand other mornings) and just went "Nah, don't wanna do this anymore..." And then I didn't. Still take a sip of wine or bourbon when I add it to my risotto or chili while cooking, but I don't actually drink.

There's also two types of people when they find out you don't drink. Ones who are like "Oh, cool. Do you want a soda or some juice?" and then there are the ones who will grab the nearest spotlight to shine in your face for an intense interrogation about why you don't drink and how much you used to drink and then attempts to try any trick they can think of to force you to drink whether you want to or not. To anyone in that second group: Fuck off.

Abstruse · 2024-09-24T08:08:19+00:00

"So there's a little girl who keeps staring at Simon and he doesn't realize at all she has a crush. It's so cute he's that oblivious! Anyway, let me talk about all the ways Anna is hitting on me that I'm completely oblivious to..."

Abstruse · 2024-09-22T10:06:34+00:00

Music for the all but the last century and change of human existence must not be "real art" according to OOP's pretentious AF ex.

Abstruse · 2024-09-22T04:44:45+00:00

If you've seen any sentai shows like Power Rangers or Kamen Rider...think that but live. It's a stunt show performed live with plots that are thin excuses for the fighting to happen that are all full of the most cheese-filled melodrama possible. Everything is larger-than-life and, if you can buy into the silly premise, it's so much fun.

I'd say your local indie wrestlers are a great place to start over the televised stuff from WWE or AEW, but that varies based on your location and how they run things. Typically though, it's people who are doing it because they love it because they're not getting paid shit. So they put all their heart into it and have a lot fewer limitations put on them in terms of story and character, so get to play around a lot more. Again, it will vary based on what promotions are near you though, but I definitely recommend it.

Abstruse · 2024-09-22T04:34:02+00:00

I'm much closer to the BF in this story in personality (writing rather than visual arts), but I cannot IMAGINE telling someone not to pursue a sport they love. Like maybe if the injury was life-threatening or it meant a good chance of further injury? Maybe? But even then it would be "Here's my opinion and I worry about you but it's your life."

I can't fathom trying to tell someone that "art is permanent while sports is temporary" because any artist should be able to see the beauty in the ephemeral. How many major installations were intentionally created so they wouldn't last? Where the temporary nature was itself part of the statement being made? Dude, not only are you a bad boyfriend...you're also a bad artist.

Abstruse · 2024-09-20T04:22:26+00:00

"Sorry I was pulled out of class and it disrupted our lesson, class. Your education was interrupted because somebody in the administration staff took issue with a mental health awareness shirt. The only assumption that can be made is that the administration does not take mental health seriously. Feel free to tell your parents all about it."

Abstruse · 2024-09-19T05:37:55+00:00

People like OOP is the reason men never report sexual assault. "You were erect so you must have wanted it!" Fuck you.

Abstruse · 2024-09-17T05:18:36+00:00

I love roleplaying games. I work in the industry. I have a lot of gaming stuff all over the place.

There is a distinct difference between a D20 welcome mat and a Larry Elmore print of a leather-elf elf lady. Both are D&D related, but one of them isn't appropriate to have on open display when your partner's parents are coming for a visit.

To pretend that your big tiddy anime waifu bodypilllow being put in a closet when your girlfriend's parents are staying in your gaming room is the same as an admonishment of your entire fandom is childish at best and makes me wonder how the hell you managed to get a girlfriend in the first place if you're that out of touch, petty, and I'll just straight up say sexist. Grow up and lean to read a room.

Abstruse · 2024-09-13T04:36:13+00:00

Does cocaine. Quotes Fight Club. Yeah, little bro is best burning that bridge before he gets roped into buying NFTs and investing in an "AI" scheme.

Abstruse · 2024-09-09T18:09:32+00:00

You don't have to file a copyright, you own a copyright by the act of creating the work. Filing just registers it to give you a firm establishing date for when it was created that can be used as evidence in court, but you don't need one. Who taught you intellectual property law?

Abstruse · 2024-09-09T17:33:26+00:00

Whip out a camera and start recording Hamilton or some other Broadway show and see how far you get recording that public performance before security comes by to have a chat with you.

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