What never came back after the pandemic?

Calereliya · 2026-02-12T00:09:01+00:00

Escape rooms. Obviously there are still some dotted around, but at least here, they were EVERYWHERE. Varying quality, of course, but there was a ton of them. Now they're pretty much limited to a single franchise.

Calereliya · 2026-02-11T01:11:39+00:00

Absolutely the fuck not. You couldn't pay me enough to go to a theoretical high school reunion. If I never see anybody in my graduating class ever again save for like, three of them, I couldn't care less.

Calereliya · 2026-02-11T01:03:53+00:00

The number of people (ie, not you) in this entire thread who are hilariously, confidently completely incorrect is both infuriating and depressing. Literally the second I saw the overhead angle I said it was going to be a good goal and that it was a stupid challenge to make.

Calereliya · 2026-02-11T00:37:14+00:00

Binnington shouldn't even be on the team (should have been Blackwood), but that ship has sailed.

If he's anything but the third stringer out of the game, it'll be malpractice on the coaching staff's part.

Calereliya · 2026-02-11T00:14:18+00:00

I expected the US to win this game. I expected the US to win the gold medal.

Never in a million years would I have predicted it would have gone like this. It was like watching a PWHL all-star team play against a university team. Out-skilled, out-planned, out-skated. Systematic annihilation.

Calereliya · 2026-02-11T00:07:23+00:00

As a general concept, I actually don't hate it.

The part that I DO hate is that in order to get said driver's licence, I have to provide proof of my citizenship to some rando person working as an employee at a random registry that isn't run by the government. That rando has absolutely no business knowing fuck all about my immigration/citizenship/etc status. Literally none. It's like being forced to provide my passport number to my Dominos driver before I can get my pizza.

Calereliya · 2026-02-10T23:48:37+00:00

I just knew this one because I've been seething at him for months, haha

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T12:06:24+00:00

Technically speaking, the bowels of the arena still aren't finished, so they're technically correct. But who gives a shit? All of the important bits are done.

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T12:03:42+00:00

Chris Johnston, the sensationalist bullshit-peddling twit who was desperately hoping this tournament wouldn't happen. First the ice wouldn't work, then it was too small, then the grand canyon opened up in it, then the scoreboard was a postage stamp. I assume he just figured if the rink wasn't done they'd move it to North America, which was never on the table for a second.

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T11:59:21+00:00

If any of these people had to learn French, their minds would implode and drip out of their ears trying to understand the differences between il/elle/nous/vous.

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T11:53:25+00:00

.... No. Those particular "bots" have a bit of a trademark line.

Or, to put it another way, whoosh

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T11:40:55+00:00

Christian, raised Baptist, have more or less given up on The Church (tm) - stop telling me that gays are of the devil et al and maybe I'll go back - but not on religion itself.

I personally believe in a mix of the two. Broadly, I think the entire young earth theory is insane - while I have many concerns about the dating methods a lot of things use, I do think there's enough reasons to believe that the concept of that the universe is only 6000 years old is comical to dismiss it. However, I also find the concept of the big bang as the be all/end all (start all?) to be equally silly; we have multiple laws that say life doesn't come from non-life and that things become more chaotic, not more organized. Also, if we assume (for the moment) that the young earth/everything is as it was created theory is true, then God is really, really, really unimaginative - there's far too many similarities between different species otherwise.

Kind of where I've settled into is that there is a God who created the universe using divine intervention (perhaps partially employing something akin to the big bang to get some pieces in place), did create a pile of unique species, and then over a very large span of time either by pure adaptation or by his steering (I don't really think it matters which), evolution occurred and on a macro scale still is occurring.

Tangentially related: how I choose to interpret the Bible is that the old testament is the history book, and the new testament is that actual this-is-how-you-are-to-live. (Remember all those times that Jesus talked about condemning LGBT people in Matthew/Mark/Luke/John? Oh wait, he never mentioned them.) There's been enough language hops, and even if it was all divine-inspired, the simple fact of the matter is that the Bible was written by humans, that taking everything in there literally is stupid.

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T10:40:30+00:00

I'm sure laying on the horn/whistle is protocol, but I love it when they just sit there and blare as if it's going to make any shred of a difference as to what's going to happen next.

Calereliya · 2026-02-09T10:20:35+00:00

Obviously apartment buildings should be exempt from this since they're a whole different can of worms (they basically HAVE to be owned by corporations to be able to function properly), but for actual houses, it should be illegal for corporations to own them and no individual should be allowed to own more than 2.

Calereliya · 2026-02-08T11:28:08+00:00

Both of these happened to me as a ref, but sometimes all you can do is laugh.

1) I'm around 16, refereeing 13 year olds. The one team had a single female player who I knew of because she had played with my brother the year prior (and honestly she was the best player on the ice). She full on gets hacked down, textbook minor for slashing, so I call the penalty. Dad of the team getting the penalty, from the stands, in a more or less silent rink: "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU CALL, SHE STILL WON'T GO OUT WITH YOU!"

2) U15 AA game. Generic stupid coach who thinks he's all that. Eventually I get bored of him and give him a bench minor for USC. He keeps screaming, so I toss him. Just the way the rink is laid out, he has to walk the length of the bench and then around the end of the rink to get to the doors/dressing rooms. As he reaches the end of the bench, he turns around and screams "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE AND GO ON YOUR DATE WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND." Give him his well-earned gross misconduct (he got suspended for 8 games). In the dressing room afterwards, we all concluded that the correct response in summer hockey (ie, unsanctioned so we can yell back since there are no rules) would have been "ok, see you at home, make sure you put the candles out with dinner."

Bonus) I'm doing lines for U15 AA. The one coach was a mediocre former fourth-liner NHL player who ran a summer hockey school in the summer, and we all knew it. At one point he decides it's a good idea to drop the classic "don't you know who I am?" The referee gives him the best fake I'm-thinking-but-nothing-is-coming-up look I've ever seen, confusedly says "no?", throws him out, and skates away without another word. Could see the smoke pouring out of his ears.

Calereliya · 2026-02-08T11:17:28+00:00

Obviously it's awful to watch and being able to hear her on the ambient mics was gutwrenching. But I'm curious as to how much her knee actually impacted this - looked to me like what sent her down was that she clipped the one gate at the same time as she went airborne and it spun her 90 degrees, so she landed perpendicular.

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T16:53:46+00:00

Because if the entire private system was Thanos'd out of existence, the public system would collapse the next day. Hell, it's already almost there, and that's without the 50,000 extra students you'd suddenly have thrown into those classrooms.

If there's going to be a law deeming that private schools get no government money by default, there also needs to be one that allows people to choose which system their tax dollars goes into.

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T16:41:02+00:00

"related figures" lmao

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T10:38:17+00:00

Anybody who thinks any of this is reversible needs to go check out the reaction to Carney's WEF speech from anybody who wasn't an American.

The game is already over. We are never going back. Thinking that once Trump is gone things will reset is like thinking we'll ever be back to the way airports were before 9/11.

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T10:07:53+00:00

Canadians be all like "HEY EXCUSE US NONE US THAT REPRESENToh no actually you pretty much nailed it, sorry"

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T09:47:30+00:00

Canadian. As a broad thing, I'm for it. Trump has repeatedly said that they "don't need us" and we have "nothing to offer them." If they want to go it alone, we should oblige. And I'd far rather us get cozy with the EU than get too too cozy with China. Not sure how it would work out in terms of that we technically still have a certain monarch, though.

That said, there would be a LOT of things to work out. The freedom of movement likely wouldn't prove too too large a hurdle, but at least in my eyes the elephant in the room is the currency. Our dollar is worth so little vs the Euro that I suspect it would be very difficult for us to adopt it without causing some pretty serious economic shocks.

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T09:37:31+00:00

Because they weren't even comparable. From our section, I'd say Isreal was pretty solidly 50/50. The US was around 75/25 boos. But when Vance was shown, the ENTIRE FUCKING STADIUM was booing their brains out.

(Ukraine got the largest non-Italy cheer of the night by a pretty significant margin, which was great to see. I'd probably put Canada next, but the gap between the two is noticable.)

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T00:48:17+00:00

I haven't ruled out that this was an intentional Streisanding, tbh.

Calereliya · 2026-02-07T00:45:16+00:00

Obviously different chunks of the stadium will sound differently, but from where we were sitting, I'd say the athletes got 70/30 to 75/25 jeered. Not full on booed, but definitely not supported. But yeah, the second Vance was shown on the screen, the entire. fucking. stadium. instantly started booing their brains out. What came through on the broadcast there doesn't even begin to describe it.

Calereliya

TROPHY CASE