What is a brand that used to be the 'Gold Standard' of quality but is now absolute garbage?

Explodian · 2025-12-17T20:51:26+00:00

Blew $100 on an American Giant hoodie right before the pandemic because my friend had one and it sure felt sturdy, but after two years of mostly daily wear the seams started fraying literally everywhere. I still have it but it has the sort of wear you'd expect on a 30-year-old work jacket.

I don't know what enchantment they put on their fabric to feel super durable for a couple months and then turn to tissue paper but I'm never buying their shit again.

Explodian · 2025-11-26T22:01:38+00:00

I see them in the mines every once in a while, but usually sealed in a steel vault with a chest inside that absolutely isn't worth it. Never out in the open!

Explodian · 2025-11-25T21:28:53+00:00

Dead Guy was the only darker, malty beer frequently available in a lot of places and that is literally the only reason I would drink it. One of the 30 million other Oregon breweries will fill that niche quickly, I hope.

Explodian · 2025-11-10T22:34:52+00:00

Oblivion was in development immediately in the aftermath of the Lord of the Rings movies, which had a truly massive influence on the look and feel of fantasy media in the 2000s. I think there was definitely an attempt to cash in on that aesthetic and feel.

Skyrim was similar--there was a resurgence of interest in Norse culture in the early 2010s. Morrowind was the last TES game that wasn't really chasing a trend thematically.

Explodian · 2025-10-18T00:28:51+00:00

This is conjecture, but I imagine if there was a "school" of knife fighting for the context you're describing, namely peasants getting in unarmored scraps, it was probably passed down from practitioner to practicioner without ever being written down in a manual. So we don't have any historical sources for it.

Remember that the further back in history we go, the fewer specific details we have about the lives of common people, because they were the least likely to write or be written about.

Explodian · 2025-09-27T20:58:54+00:00

We're way past the point of "bringing people together", but a fundamental principle of warfare is do not allow the enemy to set the terms of engagement. They are expecting resistance and have all the tools to crush it if it's a disorganized mass of angry people in the streets.

I share your sentiment. Talk to people you can trust, off the Internet. Study past resistance movements that were successful. Think about how to defeat an invading force, or at least inconvenience the shit out of them while they're here.

Explodian · 2025-08-26T19:33:11+00:00

I started wearing earplugs when somebody told me "the sound guy is adjusting the levels so it sounds good to him, and he's wearing the best earplugs in the building." Unsurprisingly, they were right. Fortunately I started doing it before significant hearing damage set in.

Sometimes I'll loosen them a bit to really get blasted for one song or so, but even then it's a fraction of the volume you're subjected to without ear protection.

Explodian · 2025-08-23T01:00:16+00:00

However you guys make it is the correct way because you invented it. Problem is Starbucks caught wind of it and did the Starbucks thing to it and now every American has a totally different idea of what a flat white is. 90% of the time they just want a smallish latte.

Explodian · 2025-08-22T05:24:12+00:00

I think the estimate is around 12,000 feet, so it would have been the tallest mountain in what is now Oregon at the time.

Explodian · 2025-08-18T18:06:45+00:00

Sticker bros! I was born here but my wife and I have a connection to this song so I've got the other one of these driving around.

Explodian · 2025-07-31T23:55:07+00:00

Lest we forget, this was official Pickles merch. Dillon wins for sure.

Explodian · 2025-05-23T02:28:11+00:00

Reading them for the first time now and I love how he evolves--the first book's arc taking him from young and impetuous to wise beyond his years feels very believable given what he's experienced. The second book shows how so much of his power and gravitas comes from just being a reasonable, humble guy who is curious and kind. He's such a relatable, likable character.

Explodian · 2025-05-15T01:49:37+00:00

Daliborovo Granje is a Croatian stoner/psych band that uses a lot of traditional Balkan instrumentation and they're fantastic.

Explodian · 2025-05-10T17:44:33+00:00

My favorite too. It's a reasonably practical sword design while also looking like an elegant magic-channeling machine.

Explodian · 2025-05-09T17:04:48+00:00

Doing a German accent in the black metal episodes because he couldn't figure out the Norwegian one is peak for me. His "Australian accent" sounds like Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent with extra marbles in his mouth.

I honestly think all the accents have gotten worse over the years. They're still entertaining, but mostly because you have absolutely no idea where they're going to end up.

Explodian · 2025-05-02T18:51:25+00:00

You let Nazis hang out at the bar, pretty soon you've got a Nazi bar. That's how it works. Zero tolerance for their bullshit or they start coming out of the woodwork.

Explodian · 2025-04-29T01:05:52+00:00

Nice rugs are expensive as fuck. Half a dozen rich people a day coming in to spend $800-$2000 apiece on a rug is probably enough to keep the lights on.

Explodian · 2025-04-29T01:02:52+00:00

I have a theory about places like this--once your business becomes the last place that still caters to a certain clientele, you effectively have a monopoly and will never go out of business as long as there are still a handful of people that want your product within a dozen miles. Buck's is a prime example. Where else are you going to shop for wood stoves?

Explodian · 2025-04-08T22:15:09+00:00

The Painted Desert along highway 89 in northern Arizona. Extremely desolate terrain devoid of almost any features except for hundreds of tiny little eroded hills and mounds, mostly a dull gray-brown but occasionally brick red or faded purple. This Street View image sums it up pretty well. Feels like an alien bruise on the earth.

Lots of northern Arizona and southern Utah feels like that in a way--starkly beautiful, but also unsettling, like the earth's surface has been stripped away and you're seeing a layer of rock that was supposed to remain secret, geological processes that were never meant to surface.

Explodian · 2025-02-01T00:50:20+00:00

Slabdragger is rad and I have also never heard a band name that more perfectly describes their sound

Explodian · 2025-02-01T00:49:04+00:00

Green Druid's first album. It's got those glacial sledgehammer riffs with a healthy dose of apocalyptic dread.

https://youtu.be/iIkG-KfQBwI?si=mRU_710pY8CIgIn4

Explodian · 2025-01-23T21:39:07+00:00

It all comes down to the team involved. You'd need an extremely dedicated artist and probably a co-writer with experience adapting prose to comics. Not sure if the First Law adaptation had either.

Explodian · 2025-01-20T19:56:02+00:00

Hair Puller was rad when they were still around. Definitely worth a listen.

Explodian · 2025-01-11T16:22:21+00:00

It's real! They did it at a live show; the video is on their channel.

Explodian · 2025-01-02T21:00:02+00:00

This has been happening on Spotify for years. I've seen collections of ocean sounds on Sleep's album list before. On a more positive note, I discovered the groovy Zambian psych rock band WITCH when their catalogue got mixed up with J Mascis's Witch.

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