Emchap's Shit from the Internet 10/4/17 🍠
I went to a wedding in Maine this weekend, which I highly recommend as a set of activities if it is at all possibly available to you. I drank so much delicious pumpkin beer and watched the stars and absolutely cried when my friend walked in to "Hallelujah" and out to "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" and caught up with all kinds of friends from college and felt comfortably changed from my 22-year-old self. PLUS there was a TINY GREYHOUND and she was great.
I went to Maine by car, and on the way back my companions and I decided to stop at a McDonald's for lunch, spurred in part by Malcolm Gladwell's weird ode to the french fry on his podcast.
Y'all, have you ever been in a fast food restaurant where you're slightly convinced it's immersive theatre because everything in the restaurant is going wrong? Because if you would like that experience let me recommend to you this McDonald's in the heart of opioid crisis country.
Once I nabbed my food, I walked past a woman who very much appeared to be a meth addict asking a clerk for 10 creamers in her coffee and 15 sugars (she was very specific). She rejected the coffee for being too light.
I passed to the drink machines. One said "for ice, use other machine." I got my ice, but the diet coke on the ice-containing machine was out of order, so back to machine # 1 I went.
There were no ketchup cups, so I opened my filet o' fish to put ketchup on the inner lid (#lifehack), but the two ketchup nozzles dispensed nothing at all. They had no give in a way that suggested that someone had removed the springs from them. There were no other ketchup packets in the restaurant.
I looked up and saw a child pull another down by its feet in the play palace.
All that said: my rolos McFlurry (ordered because, I was informed by the person at the front desk, they no longer have Reese's McFlurry's despite what the electronic menu said) was very tasty.
Shit to read
Myanmar got internet suddenly and then all at once, and it means that the population is relatively unable to tell real news from fake. There's also a veer into a discussion of character encoding, which obviously I am here for.
MLMs are a scam, and this longread on essential oil MLMs is fascinating. (My old college roommate who once left me a deeply passive-aggressive note on a lightswitch is now into LuLaRoe, which was a veer I did not expect.)
Leigh Cowart has been killing it lately, and this exploration of feelings and burial and trashfires (literal) underground is fantastic.
An internet community with which I was very loosely aligned fucking imploded yesterday, and that has made this article on culture-building particularly relevant to me: "We don't do that here" is such a great way to shut down norm-violating behavior.
I don't think I have ever eaten at an Olive Garden, but I loved this exploration of it as a non-place. (Why yes I do have an anthropology degree.)
Concussions are so hard, and this exploration of what it's like to have one is great.
Shit to listen to
This "Tunes for Toasting" playlist from Anthropologie (yes) is my personal soundtrack for all of fall right on through the end of the year. I love fall. I love sweaters. I love the fancy cinnamon candle that I bought from Anthropologie (shut up). It's the least-ironic season and I love it entirely and I will absolutely be quoting Decorative Gourd Season at my dad next time I call home.
Shit to buy
I want a Blizzard. Will someone buy me a Blizzard? They have a candy cane oreo one.
I bought a real rig to hang up my closet rod rather than using the tension rod my landlord provided, and I suggest you do the same. It's very frustrating to have the tension rod fall down!
This candle is the one I bought. It's very good.
Stock up on luxardos; it's about time to hunker down and drink whiskey through the end of the year. Perhaps this is the year I will actually buy a bottle of scotch for my home!