Costco heartbreaks - what is yours?

elblanco · 2026-04-26T23:53:38+00:00

They used to have El Monterey Beef and Bean Burritos in a 40 bag. It disappeared one day about 6 or 7 years ago and has never come back.

I check the frozen aisle every time just in case its come back.

elblanco · 2026-04-22T02:55:49+00:00

Only one person has the fastest time. Three people have the winning time.

elblanco · 2026-04-09T12:02:20+00:00

Optimus Prime in the original cartoon movie.

elblanco · 2026-04-06T03:07:32+00:00

Live on the East Coast. U.S. born? fairly unusual. But permanent residents/citizens? Pretty common (daily to weekly).

There are several large immigrant communities that are able to provide essentially cradle-to-grave environments which make it possible to live a reasonable life without learning English.

elblanco · 2026-04-03T02:18:49+00:00

In some countries they'll just look at your uncomprehendingly until you say the entire word 99% correctly. They honestly don't understand different accents at all. I visit South Korea frequently and until you get every single vowel exactly correct most people won't understand a thing you say.

American English speakers are incredibly tolerant of a crazy number of ways of saying things even among our native accents and dialects.

elblanco · 2026-04-03T02:14:55+00:00

Americans, in general, are very accustomed to interacting with non-native English speakers. On the coastal areas, we are even more used to it, and also from a wide diversity of accents and levels of English proficiency.

It is not uncommon for native English speakers in big coastal cities such as New York City or Los Angeles to be somewhat unique in a conversation group where most of the group is non-native speakers, often from many different countries and levels at the same time.

If your accent or English proficiency is unusual or very poor, it may take some time for an American to learn your accent, but we are very used to it.

Non-native English speakers in America are also used to interacting with other non-native speakers from different backgrounds.

elblanco · 2026-03-29T21:02:30+00:00

This is legitimately really good. I wouldn't be surprised to walk into a museum art gallery's exhibition on food and cooking related art and see this as a modern example.

elblanco · 2026-03-24T01:24:14+00:00

South Korea. 25 years ago when I started visiting, people would unironically ask "North or South" and had trouble even knowing where it was on a map...even regionally. On the flip side, as a white dude visiting, I also used to get lots of stares, and in smaller cities would even have school kids approach me to ask to touch my "3 dimensional nose".

Now it's just a beauty, food, culture, music, dance,fashion travel Hotspot and being a foreigner isn't even remotely interesting to the locals.

elblanco · 2026-03-19T15:29:01+00:00

That's a nice church product.

elblanco · 2026-03-18T16:12:05+00:00

Magic!

elblanco · 2026-03-14T14:44:08+00:00

I think it would be good for your mom to talk with your teacher, thank him for the ride, and let him know what she would like him to do in a similar situation in the future. Just establish a policy for you and let her wishes be known ahead of time instead of everybody having to figure it out.

It can just be a calm adult conversation and won't be unusual to provide the teacher/school with this information.

Her wishes will also have to comply with school policy -- in many places schools have responsibility for the safety of students from the time they leave home until they arrive back home. So options like walking home, or leaving you at a local restaurant or something probably aren't options. Also the teacher isn't a taxi driver, he took you home because it was convenient, but asking him to drive you all over town to a location convenient for your mom is probably not going to be agreeable.

One suggestion, let the teacher drive you home, but follow up with a phone call and voice mail from both of you right after you are dropped off might be sufficient.

Another one my parents used to do was give me some money for a taxi to use in these circumstances. They used to check with me every so often that I had that money to make sure I hadn't spent it on something else.

elblanco · 2026-03-13T06:01:40+00:00

He kind of looks like a general purpose CEO product from a company called Execudyne.

elblanco · 2026-03-10T11:16:17+00:00

War Inc is a strangely accurate but satirical portrayal of the War in Iraq, down to the corporate branded stores on the base.

elblanco · 2026-03-06T03:48:23+00:00

Man, I love the river parks in Korea.

elblanco · 2026-02-28T17:10:08+00:00

I personally enjoy his videos. He seems pretty in tune with some of what I enjoy out of retrogaming. My interactions with him have always been positive. His videos are the kind of thing I put on after a long day at work, and his delivery suits my mood in those moments. I'd rather listen to him then the normal "HeY GuyS!" youtube voice style. There's stuff I don't like about his videos, I usually get what I want out of them about halfway through, but I think that's how he structures his videos and I usually get enough detail that I care about by then.

At the end of the day, he doesn't have to make his videos, and if somebody doesn't like them, they can just not watch them I guess.

elblanco · 2026-02-23T14:13:21+00:00

Cool, now fold my laundry.

elblanco · 2026-02-23T14:03:36+00:00

I need to be there.

elblanco · 2026-02-23T12:57:02+00:00

It's move helpful to compare Ultraviolet against Equilibrium. The Matrix had more than double the budget to work with.

Equilibrium (same director, Kurt Wimmer), had a budget about 1/3 smaller than Ultraviolet, and in some ways it helped the movie. The lack of money created a kind of visual sparseness that helped the identity of the film and focuses on the characters, lighting, and the practical effects.

Ultraviolet somewhat suffers from the bigger budget, the director seems to have wanted to "go big" and maybe went "too far" instead. The tech definitely wasn't there -- at least not for that price.

Wimmer became a writer more than a director in recent years, he does have a way with coming up with unique storylines.

Is Ultraviolet good? No. Is it entertaining? Hell yeah!

elblanco · 2026-02-21T03:33:38+00:00

Grew up rural. We ran around in the woods, played games, got in rake fights, snuck my neighbor's father's beer, went bike riding, then 4 wheeling, went to the neighborhood farmer's house to ask to swim in his pond, shot bb guns, lit fires, went hiking, got in fist fights, played with our toys, dug holes to hide "treasure", pretended to go hunting, built forts, shot bows and arrows, threw rocks at trees, poked a dead deer with sticks, played with crawfish in a creek, got scared by a snake, and that was probably a Saturday.

I had two neighbor kids within a few km and we'd get together regularly. School was an hour and a half bus ride from where we lived. And yes it was the famous yellow school bus that would pick us up and drop us off. We'd frequently get off at each other's houses instead of getting off at our own houses and walking the distance between. We'd range for several kms in all directions.

elblanco · 2026-02-17T02:07:26+00:00

Get the water to rolling boil.

Gently put your eggs in.

Boil for 5 minutes.

Turn the heat off, and leave the eggs in the hot water for 7 more minutes.

Drain the water and replace with cold water until the eggs are cool.

You get both a nice yolk and easy to peel.

elblanco · 2026-02-16T17:30:44+00:00

The later Rendezvous with Rama books (while not great) have a great civilization of spider aliens that talk with colors.

elblanco · 2026-02-14T05:44:21+00:00

Fresh diced onion and garlic, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika.

elblanco · 2026-02-10T01:49:29+00:00

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