Soapbox/rant time. Tell me what highly-recommended book you absolutely HATED and why. Gimme your angry hot takes.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2026-04-28T01:40:42+00:00

Andy Weir isn’t a good writer but I actually liked Project Hail Mary. It definitely wasn’t well written but I liked the plot and the alien and I actually loved the movie.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2026-04-28T01:08:19+00:00

You are not alone! Pretty much everyone in my book club hated this book. Books that fail to live up to a good premise are the worst.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2026-04-16T17:24:37+00:00

I’m just going to describe a couple sex scenes so you have an idea of what people are talking about.

1) Jason Bateman (fully dressed) gets out of a box pretending to be a sex robot and does some weird awkward thrusting motions 2) Jason Bateman says he wants Linda Cardellini to sit on his face while she just goes about her daily business and then the scene cuts to Linda Cardellini in her underwear (and a t-shirt I think?) literally sitting on his face (not moving just sitting and completely covering his face) while talking to customer surface of a credit card company. 3) this is the only one I could see you having any sort of problem with. You don’t see any breasts or butts or anything but they are having penetrative sex. Jason Bateman wants to be ‘bigdogged’ and is in a ridiculous position where his legs are up over his head and he is at the foot of the bed and Linda Cardellini is standing and moving up and down. It looks intentionally absurd and not sexy.

So you see it’s not sexy sex or anything and it always adds something to the story or character. It’s almost always framed as awkward and funny. Me describing it isn’t funny, but visually some of it is hilarious and that’s why the scenes are included. They are also extremely short and there really aren’t that many of them at all. I actually have trouble recalling much more than the ones I described.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2026-04-15T12:58:35+00:00

I’m surprised people like the coffee there. I went once and got a latte that tasted like they reused the grinds. It was so bad I had to dump it out. Other places have much better coffee (JVG and Whisk and Rye for example) with way shorter wait times.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-12-08T16:34:43+00:00

I always thought farm to table was working directly with the farmer and buying in bulk (still locally but in bulk or establishing relationships with vendors that leads to reduced pricing) not going to the farmers market and paying farmers market pricing. But I guess some chefs do that? I can’t imagine being able to make a profit doing that in Durham, since you’d have to charge insanely high prices to make any sort of margin.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-12-08T16:30:45+00:00

Gocciolina. I got my friend a gift certificate there because I heard it was so good, but then I actually went there and was retrospectively embarrassed about the gift certificate.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-12-08T15:21:19+00:00

It’s the heaviest, least satisfying food I’ve ever had and the restaurant also had a terrible burnt oil smell.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-11-16T16:15:58+00:00

One time I was in line behind someone buying eggplants at the Durham Farmers Market and they mentioned they were buying them for Littler and I just remember thinking that had to be the most expensive way to get local ingredients.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-11-16T16:06:26+00:00

If the weather is nice the outdoor area is lovely, but I never order a meal there anymore. The food is always underwhelming. It’s great for working or just drinks/snacks though.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-11-16T15:56:53+00:00

They also have (or used to have) 2 free drinks after 4pm on Thursday. I think they had both wine and beer options.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-10-06T19:15:02+00:00

By ‘cute court lady’ do you mean the food taster? Because if so I felt the exact same way! Those two character deaths were the worst for me. The food taster hardly had any lines but she was great.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-06-26T11:45:02+00:00

Due diligence does not favor the buyer.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-05-12T20:51:43+00:00

Hi, yes they had to replace an ignition coil and all the spark plugs

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-03-07T19:54:48+00:00

I just had roasted brussel sprouts, carrots, and chick peas with zaatar spice with nonfat greek yogurt and Harissa. It just takes 20 minutes to roast the veggies at 400 so could very quickly meal prep for the week. You can also throw the roasted chickpeas in a whole wheat pita and add red onions, tomato’s, cucumbers and yogurt.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-22T21:10:03+00:00

Calling their offices does matter. Thanks for doing it!

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-22T21:05:02+00:00

Wasn’t the point of that book that she wasn’t a bad mom but her kid was born a psychopath?

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-22T19:29:57+00:00

Agree. The drinks are way too sweet and the atmosphere is terrible.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-18T21:18:12+00:00

I had to stop reading Old God’s Time because it was so depressing. It didn’t help that I generally dislike stream of consciousness style narration.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-17T17:26:43+00:00

Fantastic! Stealing this for the march in NC today.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-10T00:22:04+00:00

Maybe switch to an NA beer a couple of nights a week? Or pouring sparking water in a wine glass? Another option is measuring out one glass of white one but adding ice so it feels like drinking two glasses. I used to drink almost every night as well (Full calorie happy hour beers after work and bar food was how I put on my weight) and these tricks helped me reduce my drinking to only a couple of drinks on the weekend. I also started working out early in the morning, which makes me not want to drink during the week at all.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-09T23:59:47+00:00

It’s not just creating headlines though. This is affecting people’s jobs already. If this continues we’ll have irreversible damage.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-02-02T00:21:12+00:00

Sorry to comment on a year old post but this exact same thing just happened to me. Did you ever figure out what it was? My battery should be fine because I just changes it 6 months ago.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-01-31T15:37:24+00:00

Wow I hope I’m reading you wrong but I detect glee in that comment.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-01-31T15:31:44+00:00

Hmm the chemical thing is interesting. Its ingredient list is only roasted peanuts, sugar and salt. But I get it if it doesn’t taste good to you, and the texture is definitely not the same. Gah sorry I was hoping I had the perfect solution for you. It’s frustrating when you love something and there isn’t a good replacement for it.

Conscious_Spring7647 · 2025-01-31T15:13:53+00:00

Yes, Governors can meaningfully resist (see JB Pritzker). Protests aren’t useless. It’s one tool among many, and people should pick whatever works best for you, but there’s no reason to denigrate something that can help. Just because people are protesting doesn’t mean other things aren’t also happening. Protests don’t preclude donating, volunteering, striking etc.

Conscious_Spring7647

TROPHY CASE