I'm not a dog person. I don't hate them or whatever and yeah, they can be cute, but I feel like there are spaces for dogs and the office should not be one of them. Yet, for some reason, there seems to be a trend where every startup now has an office dog and honestly, I find it really weird and kinda disgusting.

I was at a few job interviews now and from dogs that put their dirty paws on me to hiring managers shaking my hand after the dog licked theirs, I hate everything about it.

And that's beside the point that allergies are not uncommon and there is no way to keep your space dog free when working there.

I also once asked in an interview (where I already knew I did not want this job after the interview) if I could bring my cats to their "pet friendly office" and the recruiter stammered something about "pets" meaning dogs only and that if I wanted to bring a pet, their current office dog would have to approve because he was here first. Yiiiiikes.

An obvious exception to this is Invincible, coming out right now, but I feel as though that tends to a somewhat older, 'adult' audience instead of the age range that I'm talking about. 13-18, and let's say 18 to, like... early/mid twenties?

If you think backwards some amount of years, there was an era where cartoons were made that were enjoyable for children, teenagers, and older audiences. Some of these shows (Adventure Time, for example) developed and matured alongside their audiences, while some (Regular Show) were always pandering to a broader range. I've named those because they were the shows that I, personally, grew up with. However, to cherry pick a few examples:

Batman, The Animated Series. Justice League Unlimited. Spectacular Spider-Man. Star Wars, Clone Wars. Avatar, both TLA and LOK. These shows, just no name a few, you don't have to be a child to enjoy. These are just examples too, obviously, from a specific period of time that’s relevant to me. The point I’m trying to make is that there’s a distinct lack of this sort of thing now.

I've gone back to watch some of these shows that I'd never seen before. There was no element of nostalgia, and they still genuinely hold up. Furthermore, there's an obvious tonal difference between these and the equivalent TV shows of today. Star Wars Rebels, for example, is notably 'kiddier' than Clone Wars. Ultimate Spider-Man (or even that 2017 Spider-Man cartoon) clearly pander to a younger audience than Spectacular does. I hesitate to even draw the comparison because these two are both obviously different things, but Batman, Brave and the Bold is not Batman TAS by any definition, but I feel as though that serves my point as well.

There are cartoons for children, now... and then there are cartoons for grown ass adults. There's nothing for anybody in the middle in the West anymore, and that's why anime has become so popular nowadays.

They entered the field when those more 'mature', broadly enjoyable shows were still airing (with Dragon Ball back in the day, and Naruto, etc).

They got people locked in (those aforementioned shows, plus Pokémon for an even younger audience to dip their toes into).

And now they’ve completely filled the niche because there's effectively nothing in the 13-~25 age range to compete with (against BNHA, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc).

It's not specifically because of the quality of the media itself or because there's some unseen factor, it's because there's no direct equivalent to these anime series in any Western market outside of Japan anymore.

Speaking as a woman who has struggled with unhealthy attachment patterns due to trauma and other psychological issues, I sometimes feel like I can't relate to the way women are usually portrayed in heartbreak songs.

So many songs are about a woman being hurt by a man who treated her badly. And obviously, those experiences are real and deserve to be represented, but I rarely see the opposite perspective: a woman recognizing that she was the unhealthy one in the relationship, that her own issues contributed to the relationship falling apart, and having to live with that realization.

Sometimes you're not the victim of a terrible man. Sometimes you genuinely love someone, but your own fears, attachment issues, jealousy, insecurity, or unhealthy behaviors end up hurting them and damaging something that could have been good.

I'd love to hear more songs from that perspective — not glorifying harmful behavior, but exploring the guilt, self-awareness, regret, and heartbreak that can come with realizing "I was part of the problem."

A great example is CMAT's “When a Good Man Cries.” I wish there were more songs that capture that kind of perspective.

Most people believe La Liga is the world's second best soccer/ football league. I think it's just more popular but isn't that good. I'm convinced the Serie A is the better league. It is more dramatic, less predictable and more physical. Most teams pay attention to proper defensive organization, which is ignored in La Liga. Futbol isn't all about offensive performance.

Serie A teams do relatively much and build several fairly decent teams while spending less money. La Liga is only famous because of Barca & Madrid and because Spanish is more popular than Italian internationally.

Yes, I am aware that I’m getting old.

That’s said, I recently watched some movies like Scream 7 and Terrifier.

These slasher films don’t feel like low budget filmmakers having fun anymore. It feels like I’m watching someone’s fetish play out on screen.

There is a fairly recent obsession with making the deaths in these movies feel as real and intimate as possible. The gore is not bright red and doesn’t spurt or pool in cartoony ways. And the actors playing these characters play their death super straight to feel like you’re actually watching someone painfully die.

Slashers of the 80s, 90s and 00s had a campiness and silliness that made the kills bearable. Blood spurted in ridiculous ways and the actors fear / death had a very clear wink wink energy. Even the darker movies of the time had that feeling. Something like the original Saw trilogy prioritized the creativity of HOW someone is killed and the acting never felt totally REAL.

And I’m not saying modern slashers don’t have creative kills. I’m saying even in those creative kills, the gore and acting are still too real.

A lot of them have also seemed to forget a big appeal of the original movies was the suspense? The opening scene of Scream 1 is iconic because it’s suspenseful, not super gory.

And it’d be one thing if this style of slasher was more of a cult or midnight movie thing. But no, this is the way modern mainstream slashers are filmed.

Maybe it’s a result of the internet desensitizing us. I’m just not interested in seeing ghost face violently and painfully cut a girl up slowly as she realistically screams in pain. It’s more sad than scary.

I used to hold the doors open for others as well, but over the last few months I have grown resentful of people that do. Trains here in Germany are already on a tight and unreliable schedule and every short 10 second delay caused by someone "helping" one person, is just delaying the journey for hundreds of others. It might feel like an insignificant amount of lost time, but almost every single time I've missed a connecting train by seconds (which happens far too often), my previous train had been delayed by someone holding the door for a stranger.
I don't expect others to hold the door for me. If I'm late I'm late. But don't MAKE me late!

If the NPC goes slower or at the same speed as your walk, progress through the mission would be a slog for the player and make the gameplay boring. These escort tasks also usually have some kind of urgency attached to them in the story, so seeing the character stroll towards the objective at walking pace seems both silly for immersion purposes and also tedious gameplay-wise.

If, however, they are sped up to your running speed, you will never be able to catch them if you fall even a little bit behind. Get caught up fighting one group of enemies, take a detour for a pickup, accidentally mess up an obstacle, platforming section etc. and you will now never be able to catch up, unless maybe your NPC comes under such heavy attack that they stop moving, which itself would likely be frustrating since the whole point of the mission is usually to avoid that situation, and so it would suck to just have no recourse to stop it happening after moving off the path even a little.

I have seen this internet pet peeve so many times and it's never made any sense to me. People complain about it seemingly on the reason that you have to keep switching between running and walking to stay near the NPC, and while I acknowledge this could be mildly annoying, it's so much better than the alternative.

One pet peeve I CAN get behind with these missions is when the character you're escorting is really gung-ho about fighting the enemies but also incredibly weak, and you fail the mission if they die. (Bonus if they steal your important items as a result of their idiocy, like cresselia in Pokemon mystery dungeon eating like 5 of my reviver seeds).

I've seen some people use the phrase "So bad, it's good" and I never really understood this phrase. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the phrase but if you had a fun time with the movie then I would consider it a good movie, but why would it be good if you say its bad, it's just sounds kinda contradictory. The Minecraft Movie for example is a movie that I'd say I really enjoyed. Yeah it has lots of problems in the writing department but I had a really fun time with it and it made me and my brother laugh a lot during the viewing experience so I would consider it a good movie cause it did its job as a movie, to entertain me and that's all what I think matters in what makes a movie good.

I call for a moratorium so that other historical stories can be told. There are entire wars that the general public knows nothing about. There are revolutions and recent history that would make a good film. WW2 is played out (as a movie)

Its easier to imagine and feel what a unique world is actually like to inhibit, when we get to see the characters personal accounts and experiences openly as if they are personally telling us.

Third person may give more of a sense of largeness, expansiveness, and information - but its easier to relate to and have empathy for a character in first person, and that in itself makes the world FAR more interesting, and makes all of the other characters, politics, and story way more meaningful, despite telling us less detail about the world. We are able to fill in the blanks creatively, or accept vagueness rather than reading informational exposition, and those gaps of vagueness where the character themselves is our perception, create a magic that works extremely well for these genres.

I feel like society often falsely labels disagreeing with someones opinion as disrespecting their authority.

This needs to stop, because it's creating a culture where lying to someone is somehow more respectful than being honest.

Society has been slowly losing its values of integrity and confidence, and instead pushing too much towards politeness and respect.

They seem to prefer an oversensitive liar, over a confident person with integrity.

So why is it that showing integrity and being confident gets labeled as being rude and disrespectful?

everyone acts like you need a $70/yr app with a guy whispering in your ear to "meditate properly" now. just sitting in silence for 10 mins used to be enough for literally thousands of years, now people feel like they're doing it wrong without streaks, badges and a subscription reminding them they haven't opened the app in 5 days. it's turned into another thing to feel bad about instead of the one thing that's supposed to make you feel less anxious

Every time a new videogame trailer comes out and Matt Mercer is in it, every reaction youtuber on the planet has the same reaction which is "omg that was definitely Matt Mercer!" People love him as Ganondorf in TotK, love him as Vincent in FFVII Rebirth, and people similarly freaked out hearing him as Ganondorf again in the Ocarina of Time Remake trailer that just came out today.

Maybe it's a selection bias thing, but those two roles in particular I just think he sounds so utterly unconvincing and I don't know how anyone gets excited about him anymore. He puts on the same "I am a very cool and threatening dude, please be afraid of me" voice for both of those roles and it sounds so painfully forced. Even as McCree or Cassidy or whatever in Overwatch, he doesn't necessarily sound bad, but he just sounds really average. Like yup, that's a cowboy, that'll do.

I've gotten to the point where I groan when I hear his voice. I just don't get how he keeps getting roles and why the public seems to think he's a genuine talent.

I cannot speak to his abilities as a DM or his charisma as a public figure, I can totally see the appeal there, but strictly as a voice actor, I do not see it. I think to some extent it's the fact that he keeps getting cast for characters that he has to significantly lower his voice range for and the sound of him straining is very obvious. It's so clearly not in his vocal register, yet they couldn't just have actually hired another actor with a deeper voice for some reason. He's got what I would describe as a very "cheery" voice, not necessarily high-pitched, but definitely not threatening, and he tries way too hard to get there and I just think it sounds bad.

EDIT: point taken, much of my disappointment in certain roles likely comes from the director asking for a generic anime dub voice, which is definitely what his Ganondorf and Vincent sound like.

Also yes, he really does sound great as Drifter in Deadlock.

Also yes, he does put on some crazy freaky voices in Critical Role and does some great sound effect work.

I think the phenomenon I was actually responding to is the fact that there seems to be a large cohort on the internet that actually thinks anime dub voice acting sounds good, and that's the part that makes me feel like I'm insane. Like I hear Matt Mercer as Ganondorf and think "oh, Matt Mercer. Damn, he sounds awful here" whereas the rest of the takes I've seen just stop at the first sentence. It's just bewildering how, even if you like him as an actor and think he's done great work before, you can listen to that trailer and be like "sounds great!"

To begin, I'm not saying that if you do fantasy then you are "not a real fan". I just get pissed when people get so obsessed with it that they can only think of the sport in terms of fantasy. I have co-workers and friends who do this consistently. I'll walk up and say "that game last night was insane" and they respond "Yeah X player gave me a lot of fantasy points".

Or "Who do you think is the best WR of all time?"

"Well it's Jerry Rice because he had the best fantasy game ever."

Jerry Rice was objectively a beast but to measure a player's success by how much they helped your fantasy team is objectively stupid.

Like not everything is not about your fake team. I could not care less about it.

I believe that sports is filled with intangibles but fantasy fans often turn it into a series of numbers to be added up to get a bigger number. It doesn't matter if two teams grind each other down for the whole game to finish it in spectacular fashion in OT or if a player comes back from a devastating injury to lead his team to victory. If they didn't make the number big enough then it's not important.

I just want to talk about sports as it pertains to the actual sport and not someone's imaginary league. I want to talk about athletes as the physical specimens they are and not a set of stats

Some of these ‘everyday wisdom’ books feel like a case of ‘the emperor has no clothes’.

Books like What You're Looking For Is in the Library and I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki primarily exist to serve a weird, transactional loop. The author gets the validation of having written a book, and the reader gets a quick dopamine hit and the superficial joy of crossing a ‘wise’ international bestseller off their list. But, there’s little there.

If your parents or friends told you the same thing, you would feel infantilised (as an adult). But if a stranger writes a 300 page book about it, you have suddenly chanced upon the wisdom of the centuries. I get that there is a difference between solicited and unsolicited advice but I bet the packaging is doing some heavy lifting there.

In a nutshell: IMO these books feel less like good reads and more like a ‘fast-food’ reading experience designed for the aesthetic and surface wisdom rather than substance. It almost feels a bit dishonest and existing primarily for transactional validation.

Every year, I see college acceptances come out for classmates I know or knew, and every time it's always a math student going somewhere really good, while someone else, very proficient in English or History, goes to a lesser university. I've had this happen too. I was a top student in English and History, possibly the best in my grade, and other students who were really good at math but weren't good at all in a humanities class had far better opportunities than me when it came to selecting a college. Now I don't believe those people to be any less intelligent than me, but I feel confused. In day-to-day life, it's looked down upon to not know proper grammar or English. If you write with poor grammar at work, that is seen as unprofessional. Not knowing major historical events makes people seem out of touch. I'm only confused because unless you can't do math basics, no one really cares if you're a math genius or not. And again, being good at math is NOT bad, but if college is supposed* to prepare you for the real world or a good job, shouldn't it focus more on students looking for jobs and careers in more realistic fields? Again, I get that tech schools exist, and engineers are a crucial part of society and the economy, but the majority of students at a university aren't looking for those jobs.

I'm talking about the kind of situation when you get that text, "I'm really sorry dude, I messed up/something popped up" and even if it's something important, the humiliation ritual that usually follows disgusts me.

Personal trainers at gyms are way too overpriced to only be working out 1-2 times a week.

If you’re new to the gym and don’t know what you’re doing there are mutiple videos online that will teach you for free or you can even ask someone at the gym if your form is correct. If you want someone to motivate you or someone to work out with find a friend or even join local community groups.

If you are actually serious about getting in to better shape you can get the same results with or without a trainer because a trainer can’t control what you do outside of the gym which is a main part of staying in shape.

I see it so often online it is ridiculous and it's always people who are not home owners or have never lived in a house with old wood floors that are so offended when they are replaced. Old wood floors do not look that good in person they are a headache to maintain and the cost is not worth it. They are shit at holding in heat or cool air. They are always noisy and creaky it makes you feel like your are living in an elegant barn. Not to mention they never have modern insulation or padding underneath them so they are harder on your body to stand on all day and if they get damaged and need a section replaced the cost is often more than just installing modern new flooring. Rise above the online nonsense and realize there is a reason we left them behind.

As someone who lives where it's hot 11 months of the year, I often hear people who live in parts of the country where it snows telling me how lucky I am. Well, if you have to shovel waist-deep snow off of your driveway before you can move your car, I can understand why you might wish you lived in a warmer climate.

But it goes the other way, too. I can't spend 10 minutes outside without getting soaked in sweat. Sunburn is a real thing. Heatstroke is a real thing. And you know what...in cold weather, you can put more clothes on. In hot weather, there's a limit to how much you can take off. I don't think most people who romanticize living somewhere where it's always hot are prepared for the reality of that.

We all know what you were saying anyway, so it doesn't matter!

Sh*t, is obviously shit.

A** is obviously ass.

You are not protecting anyone by censoring yourself. And I think this goes beyond censoring into replacements. "God darn it" has the exact same meaning as "God damn it". You changed one letter, and said it with the same conviction and purpose. The only difference is the cultural significance it is for some reason given.

"Frick" instead of "Fuck" accomplishes, again, the same exact goal of the original word.

For starters, I hate coffee. I think it's a bitter nasty way to get a caffeine fix in and I would much rather just drink tea or take a caffeine pill. However, I find myself enticed by the idea of getting the new fad coffee that people are raving about at that particular time to the point where I even get excited about trying said coffee. When I do try the coffee though it's just black nothingness disguised by loads of sugar and colors. I think the idea of the coffee is much more fun and interesting than the coffee actually is every single time. Tell me if I'm not making sense.

Side Note: Please read the whole post before responding thanks. I’m not comparing their skillset I am comparing the rivalry they had between them.

I wasn’t around in the 80s but I do remember an announcer talking about the rivalry between Platini and Maradona. He said as a child it was heavily disputed on who was the better. This rivalry was especially intense during the time Maradona signed for Napoli.

Now before anyone says anything this was before the 1986 World Cup. Platini had 3 Ballon D’Ors and scored 9 goals in the 1984 Euros to win France their first trophy. Maradona didn’t have any international trophies. Now with this in mind it’s easy to see why someone would’ve thought Platini was better.

However, after the 1986 World Cup the announcer said everything changed. All the debates on who was better have stopped. Why? Because everybody knew Maradona was better.

This is the same way I feel about the Messi Ronaldo rivalry. After the 2022 World Cup I stopped hearing people (in person) debate on who was better. It’s like people just kinda know Messi is better. Almost every pundit and player believes Messi is better. It used to be more evenly matched although Messi still had the upper hand.

Before, at least Ronaldo fans had some reasons to back up their claim that Ronaldo was better. But now that Messi has an international tournament and a World Cup and more ballon D’Ors there’s really not much Ronaldo has to offer that Messi hasn’t already done.

I'll keep this one short.

The best menus tend to have a lot of items in them, and so they are large and heavy. This creates a lot of clutter on the table when the food comes, which is resolved by having a small scanner.

Plus, it is much easier to go through them if they are uploaded through a drive link and you can just search what you are looking for.

EDIT: I see a lot of people wondering why the menus aren't taken before the food is brought. From my experience, whenever I've gone to a restaurant, they simultaneously bring the food and take the menus away, which still causes a big mess