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Joined 5 days ago
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Cake day: January 29th, 2026

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  • You’ll call me a curmudgeon for sure, but:

    1. “75” is kind of a shit high score, with the scale going to 100 and all.

    2. Demonstration of that point: LG is #2 with a score of 74, in spite of the fact that the terrible track record of their big-dollar linear-compressor fridges has made national news.

    3. We might also note that the span of scores here is really small; it’s just 8 points on a scale of 100. How meaningful is all this?

    4. CR’s reports like these are based on CR subscriber surveys. So they’re about consumer experience and sentiment for things bought brand new and generally things bought recently. I wouldn’t expect such a report to say much about lifespan or repair-ability.

    I’ve been a CR subscriber forever. I keep thinking I should cancel, though, because I’m not prosperous enough to live the way their target audience apparently lives.




  • At the movies with my GF. And, for the first time, her family.

    The lights come down. The film is underway. There’s a commotion at the other end of our row. GF’s sister has retrieved something from her bag. There are whispers. Something crinkly is passed down the row, one person at a time, to the left. Eventually, GF hands me a bundle the size of a football. It’s aluminum foil on the outside. Wax paper inside, loosely wrapping up … something. “What is this?” I ask, panicking.

    “Pumpkin roll?” she says. Indignant eye-roll tone. As if she meant to say “Uh, helLO, it’s a PUMPkin roll, OBVIOUSLY.” She’s suddenly realized that I’m some kind of bumpkin what ain’t never been to no big-suburb movie theater like this before. Where entire family-size bake-sale pastries are always surreptitiously circulating in the dark.

    We’ve been married 20 years now. When she’s mixed-up by some momentary contextual confusion, I am still likely to tease her by ‘explaining:’ “PUMPkin roll?”

    I don’t remember if I ate any of it.