I haven’t been to LA but I’ll also add, in the late 20th century a culinary movement sprung from California focused on fresh ingredients cooked simply. And as someone from the Midwest that’s what a lot of us think of LA food as. And crucially: we’re ass at it.

Primarily though its not to our tastes. Midwestern food, in addition to being influenced by the abundance of animal agricultural products, is also heavily influenced by the harsh winters. Food is high fat and hearty. Lots of canned and preserved foods. Its the mid century soup ad recipes that worked well enough to last.

All Midwestern critiques of LA food (such as oop) needs to be seen through that lens. Most midwesterners haven’t been there. They aren’t thinking guacamole, thats just ordinary food to them. They’re thinking fish tacos as prepared in St. Paul, some vegetables that were shipped across the country before being wood fired, and a bitter salad with a light vinegarette. It’s seen as fancy, unsatisfying, and generally unpleasant. And even worse, its all that while conforming to negative stereotypes they hold of Californians.

And in that vein if you’re sufficiently adventurous you can americanize your cheeses of choice

Its a different dish. American cheese is very melty but unless you go for some specialty shit or do some kitchen chemistry, its a very uncomplex cheese. It’ll taste like a blend of mild cheeses, predominantly unaged cheddar. That’s sometimes good, but one of cheese’s best features as a food is that it’s got a wide range of deeper flavors available. For the cozy familiar dish you go with the cozy familiar version. But those of us who love the depths of cheese and don’t have that craving, we often prefer more fancy cheese blends

Can’t speak to LA, but nah. Cream cheese is the East coast trick. The Midwestern secret is “cream of [ ]” soup. Cream of mushroom is my go to, but when I ate chicken I used Cream of it a lot too. It’s useful in casserole/hotdish where a roux would be great but a real pain in the ass.

They also probably didn’t make you keep taking them as an adult. I got a few of the “hey you’re probably neurodivergent let’s see how smart you are to better classify you” tests as a kid, but at 30 I haven’t had one in a long time because I’m 30 and that would be unnecessary.

That would be nice. Lightning would be better. Its looking like a fatal fall may do it. One cannot outrun the reaper, and his decline has been visible for the past decade. Ten years ago he was stupid and cruel but not obviously suffering from dementia

Its clearly a dementia test. AOC behaves like a non-cognitively impaired adult. Trump acts like a 70 year old who was in the NFL.

Why does the president keep bragging about his passing of dementia tests‽ How can he not understand that that is admitting to needing them?

The south was doomed because a significant portion of their labor hated them. They also had terrible industrial capacity, no international legitimacy, and no asymmetric advantage.

It’s a lot more like when Cambodia invaded Vietnam than when America did.

Yeah, I think people over and underestimate the value of rural public transit. The underestimating is that people vastly overestimate rurality. Small cities whose residents think of themselves as rural often would benefit from public transit, though trams may be a better option.

But the fucking boonies, places that never had a train or tram but they used to just have horses, those places benefit from personal vehicles. I wish those places would recognize that they’re a small minority of the population and infrastructure shouldn’t prioritize their ability to not take transit once they get into the city, but they do need accommodation

Its not that bad of one. Before major surgery I had to have a completely empty digestive system and so I had to drink a bottle of the stuff and take a laxative pill. Was it a fun night? Absolutely not. But it was much more of a don’t stray too far from the toilet scenario than a don’t get up off it one

That feels easier now than then

That really depends on if I’m my now age or my then age. Though either way, I’m looking for my mom

Just call him Doctor and he’ll be happy

I’ve always interpreted it as cope. “I keep acting alpha but don’t have anyone following me” “well that just makes you sigma, here read my book about why thats even better”

Nice lol

Pick greek letters and assign them to those guys! This is clearly collaborative world building. Im sure they’ll appreciate this.

That’s the world I want. Also I think that might actually be good for these guys. I think seeing some Kirk/Spock mpreg scanned from a paper zine written when by a horny woman their grandma was a young child may actually help these men.

See, I was surprised at how positive it sounded until that last bit.

I wonder what an Upsilon male is. The Wikipedia gives us more options than I’d expected.

I imagine a phi male is just a bit out of phase with other guys.

A theta male always figures out his angle of approach before beginning something.

A lambda male fails at predictable intervals.

A mu male is just a guy. It may be mean to say it but he’s utterly average.

And of course the omega male gets pregnant but not like in a trans way.

Curious what people suspect the other types of males are like.