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humourharry · 3 years

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Hello.

Travis don’t read this.

Some of you are about to be real mad at me. But it must be said. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but it’s my blog and I don’t care.

I am honestly so disappointed about how just bad mbmbam has gotten recently. I stopped listening over a year ago because it was just too cringy but I started up again because I really needed some content to listen to. I figured I would be able to find at least a couple of minutes of listenable content within the 530+ episodes of this show.

Travis just ruins every single one. He fills up any single miniscule pause or moment of dead air with drivel. Whatever useless thought that pops into his head gets spewed out onto his brothers. All of his scenarios and fictions he creates necessitate some longwinded backstory for almost no payoff. And listen, it’s a comedy podcast. So the goal should be comedy. I see what he was going for with “Play Along at Home,” and I see that the comedic value in the bit was Griffin and Justins’ fury. Like, it was funny to ask Griff questions about Disney and ask Justin questions about Pokemon. But the anti-comedy approach can’t be one of the three hosts’ only contribution to the podcast. It is poison to my ears. I have never had the misfortune of hearing a Sad Libs. (In a recent live show, Griffin mentioned during the ad read that he had edited a Sad Libs out to spare the listener that tremendous burden. That comment was certainly a joke or a lighthearted jab at his brother but honestly, thank you Griffin.)

What kills me is Travis’s ability to completely obliterate the momentum of the show. Griffin and Justin will be riffing, building off each other, having good time. Then Travis will jump in with something as irrelevant as “haha yeah! and what if they were on the moon!” or something similarly asinine.

You just can’t justify it as “middle brother energy,” or “he has ADHD, of course you can’t follow his train of thought!”

It is a comedy podcast. If one of the hosts is petulant and attention seeking, it is going to be a bad time for everyone. If one of the hosts gets distracted and derailed, it is going to be a bad time. Perhaps his birth order or his ADHD are his reasons for his behavior but whatever the justification may be, this behavior just doesn’t make for good content. And that’s all I wanted, some good content. It truly is a shame that what once was a decent show has been ruined by 1/3 of the hosts being “anti-comedy.” What?

Another thing he does (that is often attributed to his ADHD) is interrupt. They all interrupt each other and talk over each other, but Travis’s interjections are never for the purpose of moving the bit along. He will interrupt someone’s train of thought to say “ [sjw disclaimer] just so no one calls us out on twitter....” or “just to be clear, we are NOT kinkshaming...” Travis has made it clear he wants to be the Ally Of All Allies, and he would never even dream of saying anything remotely shitty to any marginalized group of people. Sure. But his performative allyship is ruining his own show. I understand that listeners or content-enjoyers mustn’t ever try to shut down people who are only trying to increase the stock of harmless cheer in the world, but there is a limit. We don’t need every single joke about furries or whatever to be bookended with Travis’s “not that there’s anything wrong with thaaaAAAaaat....” whine.

Speaking of whining... I truly cannot stand to listen to the sound of Travis’s voice. This is my own personal problem. Sometimes I find the sounds of peoples’ voices so grating that it drives me up a wall. But beyond Travis’s baseline nasally voice and accent, he often launches into this very high pitched voice when he is trying to interject. (I’m not even talking about the Riddle Master). In Episode 536 he turned into a full-on squeal when talking to Griffin. Other times he is full-on shouting! Like I have to turn the volume down on my phone because he is fully shouting. Justin has begun doing something that I appreciate: if Travis is literally screaming into the microphone, Justin will get really quiet. He does this humorous, tongue-in-cheek sultry voice that is very soft. And it causes Travis to quiet down. But when Travis is left to do whatever he wants, he will become extremely loud while contributing almost nothing of substance. It can be really painful to listen to Griffin and Justin trying to move to show along or just power through one of Travis’s meaningless tangents. It would be bad enough for Travis to be so poisonously unfunny and annoying at a normal volume, but the the fact that he steamrolls everyone else at an intense volume and in an effeminate affect (nOT tHaT tHEreS aNYthiNG wRonG wiTH tHaT) and a nasally voice drives me nuts.

I am not the only person to notice these things. The reviews on Apple Podcasts are mostly positive. The only negative reviews are from people who didn’t like that the mcelroys were encouraging people to vote (these reviews were saying the show was getting “too political,” with the boys simply reminding people not to be fascists) and the rest are from people who insist that Justin and Griffin need to reign Travis in. I hope they are able to have a conversation with him in private. I know that TAZ Graduation has its own set of problems, but I’m afraid that their listenership is just going to decline further and further if no one talks to Travis about his tangents and deliberately unfunny bits. I have given them so many chances and I just can’t do it. I’m afraid that others might not be so generous.

Bye!

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enderspawn · 3 years

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🎼 (I can’t find the correct emoji lol) exile arc tommy?

Oh boy! (opens up breakdown playlist) /hj

Montreal – Penelope Scott

Sleep with a Baseball Bat – Cosmic Johnny

Brother – Gerard Way

breakdown under cut, tw for suicidal ideation on the first song esp

1. Montreal – heehee hoohoo suicidal/depression thoughts baby!!

I mean in short this is tommy saying he wont Survive exile. The intro of the song lists when the singer would be home from college/school and that “another 90 day summers gonna take [their] fucking life” which is rlly just. Tommy not gonna live THAT long in exile.

“And I would rather die And let me make it clear It's nobody's fault But I think we all know That I won't make it to Montreal”

So the thing here is that its “nobody’s fault” bc on one hand it is that he doesn’t blame tubbo but worse he doesn’t blame DREAM. Its just meant to happen, its not bc of anybody, yknow?

“And I would rather die I'll jump before I'll fall And I'm having lots of fun But I won't make it Montreal”

Mans tried to jump to his death before he “fell” whether bc of dream or an accident, hes makin the active CHOICE to end it rather than just waiting. Even w the fun he’s having w dream, he’s miserable and he knows he wont make it to see lmanberg again

“You like to talk about the future As if it's real And when you tell me that you love me I can almost feel it”

Dream keeps promising him stuff for the future. Maybe he can visit to see the tree, maybe he can get another visit, maybe he wont be alone. But tommy doesn’t care, its all fake to him (which like, it is so good for him but fjkdlsjf)

“It's not that it's a bad plan No, the plan fucking slapped I was so excited you don't know how bad I wanted all of it The coffee shop, the weather, the apartment But I don't want anything anymore I don't know, I guess I just got bored”

Okay so. Tommy kept trying to get shit together to leave, right? He wanted to go back so bad and have this domestic life w his friends but in the end he just got so downtrodden that after his shit got blown up he was so ready to just GIVE UP.

“And I don't wanna die I don't wanna get left behind But it's better half than none I hope to god you have some fun”

He doesn’t want to be in this situation, he still CARES abt the lmanberg crew but in the end hes been told that they’re happy WIHTOUT him. He’s not angry at them, not anymore, he just wants them to be happy bc he isn’t.

2. Sleep with a Baseball Bat – tommy and dream relationship baby!!

“And every time you wake up Thinking this could be the day Well something, something just”

Every day in exile he had no real plans. He just had to exist out there alone and hope someone else came. This IS the day he can do…. Something. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a goal.

“And when your love is an anxiety attack Don’t settle for that, don’t settle for that And when you wake and find the claw marks in your back Sleep with a baseball bat, sleep with a baseball bat”

Hes been manipulated into thinkin dream is his friend, that dream “loves” him but it makes him miserable! Hes paranoid and stressed and falling apart!! Boy!!! Fjdsklfj

“Siena says you’re getting used But something’s broken in your head And you can’t run away when you need to”

The other ppl who visited him, like ranboo, KNEW something was happening and that he was in a bad place but tommy had been manipulated by dream so much that he couldn’t process it. No, dream couldn’t be bad, dream was his friend, right? He couldn’t leave exile, dream would be upset. Its all what DREAM wants, not tommy.

“Hey, space cadet Are you still floating round the rock That you spent so much of your life trying to get away from? And does it at least look different from up there?”

OKAY SO ONE. SPACE CADET? THAT’S CLARA BABY!! TWO: he spent ALL his time on this server fucking fighting dream, trying to “get away from” him. But now hes stuck “floating around” with him as his “friend”. The last line feels sarcastic and bitter but like. FUCK it hits, yknow??

“It might take a couple tries till you believe it But love is real, you’ll figure it out, you’ll live to see it But you still have to take a couple of falls And you can’t make an omelet without breaking your balls So batter up Is your bed made? Is your helmet on?”

HAPPY ENDING POG!! HE STARTS HEALING!!!! HE STARTS REALIZING DREAM WASN’T HIS FRIEND!!! He still “falls” and relapses into wanting dream w him but hes so much better!!! Also,,,,, “is your helmet on” w the turtle shell helmet (eyes emoji)

3. Brother – IF TECHNO AND TOMMY NOT BROTHERS WHY THIS SON—(gunshot rings out)

Okay so on a serious note this song is abt addiction and while I don’t want to take away from that Serious Topic, it Does relate but w tommy dealing w his ptsd of dream

“And brother, if you have the chance to pick me up And can I sleep on your couch To the pound of the ache and pain? Oh, in my head 'Cause I'm awake all night long To the drums of the city rain”

Hhrhnrng staying at technos place to hide from dream and get better a lil JFKDLSJK. Also “the drums of the city rain” is referenced a LOT in this song but like. It keeps him up so,,,,,, dream JFKDLSJF. Mans barely ever slept in exile so it WORKS okay jfkdlsjf

“The lights we chase The nights we steal The things that we take to make us feel this (To the drums of the city rain)”

This is him and techno livin together!! Like in the first chorus you could see lights we chase being tommy finding techno’s place, then later it’s the lights of lmanberg as they sneak in. the nights they steal is both just time spent together and also straight up the times they stole shit JFKDSLJ. “the things that we take to make us feel” is the gapples tommy always eats so that he can feel safe (also, bc in the og song this is PROBABLY abt drugs and potions are drugs in universe so. Arguably getting a potion effect from the apple means it is Also Drugs? Fjdkslfj)

“I can't go back I don't think I will I won't sleep tonight as long as I still Hear the drums of the city rain”

Go back to logstedshire or lmanberg you ask?? The answer is yes. Both. He feels like he doesn’t belong in lmanberg and logstedshire is too traumatizing for him to return at this point. As long as he “hears the drums of the city rain”, or is thinking of dream, he Cant Sleep:tm:

“Does anyone have the guts to shut me up? 'Cause I believe that every night There's a chance we can walk away So hold on tight Because I won't wait too long In the drums of the beating rain”

Okay so hear me out but. This is just tommy and dream. “I believe that every night theres a chance we can walk away” is tommy hoping desperately for dream to let him go home, to walk away from logstedshire. He never will be permitted, not really, but theres a chance that tommy clings to. He wont “wait too long” while out in exile and stuck w dream bc hes desperate and miserable (also fun fact these analysis is basically me just pmv’ing shit in my head and rambling vaguely abt it but like. Listen,,,, flashback verse jfkdsljf) ALSO. The line “does anyone have the guts to shut me up” in relation to exile!tommy is just VERY important to me. Mans was so quiet and afraid to speak up when in exile.

“'Cause the nights don't last And we leave alone Will you drive me back? Can you take me home? (To the drums of the city rain)”

Following up that last paragraph, this is still in flashback. The days end and dream leaves again, making tommy alone. He asks if he can go back, if he can see home and lmanberg and everyone. But echoing the “to the drums of the city rain” after home CAN imply that “home” has become logstedshire WITH DREAM even tho it keeps him up and aaAAAAAHHHH

I swear this ends up okay and techno + tommy focused fjkdsljf

“Faces I don't know I am tired in the glow”

He feels isolated from everyone during his exile and lashes out at those who visit, to the point he feels like they’re all more or less strangers and “faces he doesn’t know”. Being tired in the glow is, imo, him over the lava.

“Of the freezing club Keep me breathing Don't make the lights come back Can you take me home? We all need this When we leave alone”

Hhhngg okay so tommy breakdown time! Hes in techno’s house (the freezing club) and is just pleading for techno to help. Don’t let “the lights come back” (lava again maybe? He doesn’t want to be Like This?) and just wants to feel like hes at home because hes just left exile and hes Messed Up Over It

“Remember when you and I would make things up? So many nights, just take me down To the place we can hear them play I miss that sound 'Cause now we don't sing so loud To the drums of the city rain”

OKAY SO THEY MAY NOT BE CANON FAMILY BUT WILBUR REMEMBERS SPARRING W TECHNO AS A KID AND PHIL IS HIS CLOSE FRIEND SO THEY STILL KNEW EACH OTHER AS KIDS SO SHUSH FJSDKL. Tommy just wants things to go back to how they were, before everything. When things were easy and they were kids just having fun. He misses it. Before exile, before lmanberg, before dream. But it doesn’t matter, because they’re stuck in this now. With his brother dead and his closest friend being the man who killed his best friend and helped blow up his country. Again, the drums of the city rain is dream. Because of his influence, its all different.

Hhhngngngn this is too long so I wont go into the last outro bc you can interpret it a LOT of ways, esp depending on how you want to Pace this song w the exile arc. But like. The analysis is THERE if you really wanna push it/animatic it babeyyy

#dream smp #mcyt #tommyinnit #exile arc #HHHHNG IM SORRY THIS IS SO LATE JFKLDSJ #I PROMISED MYSELF ID FINISH THIS ASK GAME UP AND WOULDNT GO IN DEPTH AS MUCH THEN DID EXACTLY THAT W THREE SONGS JFKDSL #tommy #answered #song ask game #listen the last song is a LIL bit of a stretch but its my playlist i get to put in the not depressing song fjdkls #Anonymous

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guacnroll · 7 years

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that 100 question jawn

Yeah so @starsburnouttoo tagged me in this like a month or two ago and I typed it up and never posted it so here it is. My bad.

1. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR CLOSET DOORS OPEN OR CLOSED?

Closed. I always thought some kind of monster was in there as a kid. Now it’s out of habit.

2. DO YOU TAKE THE SHAMPOOS AND CONDITIONER BOTTLES FROM HOTELS?

Why? That’s just more shit to pack and potential spillage to clean up later.

3. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR SHEETS TUCKED IN OR OUT?

Sheets tucked in. You know, like a normal person.

4. HAVE YOU STOLEN A STREET SIGN BEFORE?

I haven’t, but I would and I will.

5. DO YOU LIKE TO USE POST-IT NOTES?

I just use the memo app on my phone.

6. DO YOU CUT OUT COUPONS BUT THEN NEVER USE THEM?

I don’t use coupons unless I need them, so nah.

7. WOULD YOU RATHER BE ATTACKED BY A BIG BEAR OR A SWARM OF BEES?

Swarm of bees, because they could probably be dealt with easier. Smoke or some shit. Worse comes to worse, there’s a better chance of survival with a swarm of bees.

8. DO YOU HAVE FRECKLES?

I don’t think I’ve known any full Filipino with freckles.

9. DO YOU ALWAYS SMILE FOR PICTURES?

Lmao barely.

10. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE?

Getting interrupted while tal-

11. DO YOU EVER COUNT YOUR STEPS WHEN YOU WALK?

There’s an app for that, bruh. Count calories.

12. HAVE YOU PEED IN THE WOODS?

I went backpacking in the mountains for a week for a class, so yeah.

13. HAVE YOU EVER POOPED IN THE WOODS?

A week. At least we had toilet paper.

14. DO YOU EVER DANCE EVEN IF THERES NO MUSIC PLAYING?

Why would I do that? I’m not even a good dancer in general.

15. DO YOU CHEW YOUR PENS AND PENCILS?

I used to. Not anymore.

16. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU SLEPT WITH THIS WEEK?

Do engineering textbooks count as people?

17. WHAT SIZE IS YOUR BED?

Twin because that’s what the apartment provided.

18. WHAT IS YOUR SONG OF THE WEEK?

Suede – NxWorries

19. IS IT OK FOR GUYS TO WEAR PINK?

Why would it not be okay?

20. DO YOU STILL WATCH CARTOONS?

Listen man, there’s so much anime out there, and with that Steven Universe shit coming out, damn. Speaking of which when is Koe no Katachi and Kimi no Na wa getting subbed this needs to be a thing also back to Steven Universe what’s Cartoon Network doing like are they trying to lower rati-

21. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE?

If I don’t like a movie I’ll just stop watching it. The worst movie I remember having to watch all the way through is the second Percy Jackson movie, and I only watched it because my little sister wanted to watch it.

22. WHERE WOULD YOU BURY HIDDEN TREASURE IF YOU HAD SOME?

I’d probably take a long drive somewhere, and find a nice secluded area. Then I’d bury it there, and record the geo coordinates somewhere.

23. WHAT DO YOU DRINK WITH DINNER?

It depends on what I’m eating man. You gotta match the drink to the food, bruh.

24. WHAT DO YOU DIP A CHICKEN NUGGET IN?

Chick-fil-a sauce, Polynesian sauce, BBQ, ketchup, honey mustard.

25. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?

Filipino food’s da bomb.com.

26. WHAT MOVIES COULD YOU WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND STILL LOVE?

Any Studio Ghibli movie, probably. Or, you know, Shawshank Redemption. Maybe Clerks? Idk.

27. LAST PERSON YOU KISSED/KISSED YOU?

Someone at a New Year’s Eve party.

28. WERE YOU EVER A BOY/GIRL SCOUT?

Luh mao. Nah.

29. WOULD YOU EVER STRIP OR POSE NUDE IN A MAGAZINE?

Yall are funny.

30. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A LETTER TO SOMEONE ON PAPER?

I dunno, like, sixth grade? Yall ever heard of e-mail? Game changer, man.

31. CAN YOU CHANGE THE OIL ON A CAR?

I drive. I better know.

32. EVER GOTTEN A SPEEDING TICKET?

Nah.

33. EVER RAN OUT OF GAS?

I try to make sure that doesn’t happen.

34. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF SANDWICH?

Either chicken parm or pulled pork.

35. BEST THING TO EAT FOR BREAKFAST?

I was talking to a few of other Filipino friends earlier. Bacon, eggs, and rice seems to be a staple in Filipino, or at least, Fil-Am culture. Idk if that’s just an Asian thing or a Filipino thing, tho.

36. WHAT IS YOUR USUAL BEDTIME?

Electrical Engineering major and late working hours dictate between 12-3 AM.

37. ARE YOU LAZY?

Despite all the work I piled onto myself, I still find time to take naps. So yeah.

38. WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU DRESS UP AS FOR HALLOWEEN?

Astronaut, Harry Potter, the usual.

39. WHAT IS YOUR CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN?

Year of the ox.

40. HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN YOU SPEAK?

My parents tried teaching me Tagalog as a kid but apparently my bitchass was like “Speak English I’m an ungrateful brat hahahah.” I know a few words but other than that, nah.

And English. But that’s a given.

41. DO YOU HAVE ANY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS?

Nah.

42. WHICH ARE BETTER: LEGOS OR LINCOLN LOGS?

Better question: who would answer Lincoln Logs?

43. ARE YOU STUBBORN?

Only on something that really matters to me. So like “drop this class it’s getting in the way of your grades,” I’ll be like “nah.” Other than that prolly not.

44. WHO IS BETTER: LENO OR LETTERMAN?

I don’t watch a lot of late night talk shows, and those guys are like before my generation, bro.

45. EVER WATCH SOAP OPERAS?

My sister told me to watch this K-Drama called Goblin and that’s basically a soap.

46. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS?

If there’s no railing then yeah.

47. DO YOU SING IN THE CAR?

Not unless I’m the only one in the car honestly.

48. DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER?

Lmao nah.

49. DO YOU DANCE IN THE CAR?

Only when I’m with close friends or alone.

50. EVER USED A GUN?

Yeah. It was pretty fun ngl.

51. LAST TIME YOU GOT A PORTRAIT TAKEN BY A PHOTOGRAPHER?

Last year.

52. DO YOU THINK MUSICALS ARE CHEESY?

[has flashbacks of high school pit band]

53. IS CHRISTMAS STRESSFUL?

The most stressful part of Christmas is my mom bringing us to Church for like 3 hours.

54. EVER EAT A PIEROGI?

They’re pretty good.

55. FAVORITE TYPE OF FRUIT PIE?

Apple, probably.

56. OCCUPATIONS YOU WANTED TO BE WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

Musician, author, scientist, somebody famous with lots of hoes and money, idk.

57. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

My friend claims he talks to ghost and I’m inclined to believe him tbh.

58. EVER HAVE A DEJA-VU FEELING?

Yeah, a bunch.

59. DO YOU TAKE A VITAMIN DAILY?

Nah.

60. DO YOU WEAR SLIPPERS?

Don’t touch my chinelas cuh

61. DO YOU WEAR A BATH ROBE?

Nah.

62. WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO BED?

Sweatpants, t-shirt. The basics.

63. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CONCERT?

Kanye West, floor tickets, TLOP PSU 2016 heh heh

64. WALMART, TARGET, OR KMART?

Target bruh

65. NIKE OR ADIDAS?

I have a pair of Adidas sweatpants so like Adidas I guess

66. CHEETOS OR FRITOS?

Cheetos if I had to choose.

67. PEANUTS OR SUNFLOWER SEEDS?

I hate peanuts.

68. EVER HEAR OF THE GROUP TRES BIEN?

Ohhh you tryna go there? You think just because you know one obscure band means you’re all that but I bet you don’t even listen to prog rock you hipster piec-

69. EVER TAKE DANCE LESSONS?

I should.

70. IS THERE A PROFESSION YOU PICTURE YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE DOING?

Nah. But the dream girl is probably Yuja Wang, so if you’re classically trained in any instrument then you’re probably an 8/10 in my book already.

71. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE?

Nah I got dem recessive genes bruh.

72. EVER WON A SPELLING BEE?

Like, once. In third grade. It wasn’t a huge thing.

73. HAVE YOU EVER CRIED BECAUSE YOU WERE SO HAPPY?

The only time that would’ve happened in my life is when my sister was born.

74. OWN ANY RECORD ALBUMS?

I got a vinyl of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band b/c y not ya feel

75. OWN A RECORD PLAYER?

I’ll probably buy one. Eventually.

76. DO YOU REGULARLY BURN INCENSE?

The only thing I burn regularly is dat broccoli heh

77. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?

Yeah, that’s like a thing most people do.

78. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN CONCERT?

I’mma see Chance the Rapper soon, but other than that, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Isaiah Rashad, and I’d like to hear Yuja Wang perform some Prokofiev or Rachmaninoff or something.

79. WHAT WAS THE LAST CONCERT YOU SAW?

Kanye West lol

80. HOT TEA OR COLD TEA?

Hot tea preferably.

81. TEA OR COFFEE?

I like both, but given my life I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee to stay awake recently.

82. SUGAR COOKIES OR SNICKERDOODLES?

Idk.

83. CAN YOU SWIM WELL?

I know how to swim, I guess.

84. CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH WITHOUT HOLDING YOUR NOSE?

Who can’t?..

85. ARE YOU PATIENT?

I wouldn’t be able to be an engineer if I wasn’t :^)

86. DJ OR BAND AT A WEDDING?

I’ll figure it out when I’m at that point.

87. EVER WON A CONTEST?

Does winning a music scholarship for my high school count.

88. HAVE YOU EVER HAD PLASTIC SURGERY?

Nah.

89. WHICH ARE BETTER: BLACK OR GREEN OLIVES?

I’m not, like, an olive expert man.

90. CAN YOU KNIT OR CROCHET?

Nah.

91. BEST ROOM FOR A FIREPLACE?

The living room I guess.

92. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED?

Yeah sure.

93. IF MARRIED, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED?

Nah.

94. WHO WAS YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH?

There was some cute bassist in the pit band in my junior year. I prolly could’ve asked her out, but like she was a senior going to college so I didn’t really see a real reason at that point.

95. DO YOU CRY AND THROW A FIT UNTIL YOU GET YOUR OWN WAY?

No because I try to be better than that.

96. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Nah.

97. DO YOU WANT KIDS?

Sure.

98. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?

Idk, blue, maroon.

99. DO YOU MISS ANYONE RIGHT NOW?

I’m at home rn so nah.

100. WHO ARE YOU GOING TO TAG TO DO THIS VIDEO NEXT?

Is this a video? This isn’t a video.

@katie-be-happy @bluebrry What’s up yooo

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themoneybuff-blog · 5 years

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Some Thoughts on the Cost of Eating Out

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a situation where I was really hungry but there werent many food options around. I decided to keep my costs as low as possible, so I went into the only restaurant I could find, a nice little diner. I want to be clear during this article that I am not picking on this diner. It was a nice place to eat, the service was good, the food was good, and I was happy with it. At the diner, I ordered an extremely simple breakfast. I had a cup of coffee, some scrambled eggs, some fried potatoes, and two pieces of toast. The total bill was about $10 really, not that bad and then I left a $2 tip, so the cost was $12. During the meal, though, I couldnt help but calculate the costs in the back of my head. I was served roughly three scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheese on them, probably a single potatos worth of fried potatoes, two cups of coffee, and two pieces of toast with maybe a teaspoon of butter between them. So, lets look at the ingredient list of that meal: + three eggs + 1/4 cup shredded cheese + 1/2 potato + a small amount of onion in with the potatoes + two slices of bread + roughly a tablespoon of butter + two cups of black coffee + a negligible amount of salt and pepper I could assemble those ingredients into a breakfast at home in about the same time it took them to get breakfast out to me at that restaurant, and then Id have a few items that would go in the dishwasher afterwards. So, what would the ingredients have cost me? + I can get a dozen eggs for $1.99, so three eggs cost $0.50. + I can get eight cups of shredded cheese at the local grocery store for $5, so 1/4 cup of shredded cheese would cost $0.16. + A typical potato weighs about 12 ounces and Id estimate that I had half of a potato on my plate, and a pound of potatoes these days comes in around $1, so the potatoes cost about $0.38. + The small amount of onion was probably $0.05. + I can get a loaf of 20 slices of bread for about $2.50, so two slices cost $0.25. + I can get a stick of butter for about $0.75 and that contains 8 tablespoons, so a tablespoon of butter costs about $0.09. + I can make two cups of coffee at home for about $0.70 using my usual coffee making technique. + Well add on another $0.10 for seasonings like salt and pepper. The total cost of those ingredients is $2.23. Even if you might quibble with the cost of each item and think that it would be more than I stated, youd be hard pressed to get this over $3 unless you went very high end with each item. As I noted earlier, I think my time investment would have been similar if I prepared and ate this meal at home, though I would have been busy in the kitchen for 15 minutes instead of reading the menu, ordering, and staring at my phone for 15 minutes waiting on the food. However, that effort would have saved me about $10. The meal quality probably would have been pretty similar, but Im pretty sure I would have at least liked my coffee at home better. Im kind of picky about coffee and I really like my home brew recipe. This experience reminded me of a few key principles of food frugality (and taught me a few things as well). Eating out consistently is a very expensive endeavor. When you compare a meal prepared at home and a meal eaten out of similar quality, the meal eaten out will always be more expensive. When you eat out, youre not only paying someone to prepare it for you and someone to serve it to you and often someone to clean up for you and someone to manage those folks, youre also paying for the facilities to make and serve the food, the taxes, and some profit for the person who invested all the money to pay for all of these things. Sure, you can sometimes find a decent meal at a restaurant thats less expensive than a great meal at home, or a low quality meal at a restaurant thats less expensive than a good meal at home, but youre taking a serious cut in quality, and if you apply any sort of frugal planning and use low cost food staples at home, a restaurant is never going to consistently beat or even come close to the low cost of preparing food at home. I was really paying for convenience, not the food. When I went to that restaurant, my focus was on getting a decent meal relatively quickly. It seemed to be the fastest option available to me at the moment, and thus I was really paying for convenience rather than the food itself. Thats often a big consideration when people eat out. They do so because theyre hungry and theyre not near any options for preparing food themselves or to acquire low cost and quick to eat items. There are many places in America where the only convenient options for food are convenience stores and fast food restaurants, even in places where you might not expect this to be true. Situations where you need to spend for the sake of convenience are often prevented by better preparation. Whenever you find yourself in a situation where youre turning to a restaurant or a convenience store not because you want a nice meal on a special occasion, but because you need to do so out of convenience, its usually because either you didnt plan ahead at all or youre in a crisis moment. An emergency is understandable, but many meals that people eat out do so solely because they didnt plan ahead when they knew that there was a good chance that they might need to eat a quick meal or a hearty snack in a convenient way. There are a lot of ways to prepare for those kinds of situations, where you need a quick, convenient meal. You can make a lot of meals at home in advance so that you have items that can be popped in the microwave or oven at your convenience. You can use a slow cooker for a lot of meals. You can mostly prepare meals in advance, leaving only final assembly for busy evenings. You can prepare sack lunches to take with you. Or you can do this: I could have prepared better by keeping more food items in my bag. My favorite technique for keeping hunger at bay when Im out and about is to have a few food items in my backpack, which is pretty much always with me when I leave the house for more than a few minutes. Its because I didnt do this that I wound up in that Im hungry, theres no other food options, time to go to a restaurant situation. My routine should be that if I know Im going out and about soon, I make sure that my bag has some food items in it, just in case. Toss in an apple, some granola bars, a water bottle, a bag of nuts, maybe some crackers or something. The key is to just have something thats low cost and easy to eat in my bag. In fact, I usually have several granola bars and/or protein bars in my bag all the time for situations just like this one, but Id consumed them all over the previous few weeks and there was nothing in my bag. Eating out should be an experience you cant recreate at home. The meal I ate was perfectly fine, but it was one that I ate solely for convenience. It wasnt a special experience or a memorable experience. In fact, I probably would have forgotten about it had I not planned on writing this post. It would have become a forgotten $10 expense, the kind of lost $10 that ends up paving the road to financial struggles. The best financial approach to food that Ive found is to eat meals mostly prepared at home and mostly made out of low-cost staples and only eat out (or have treats) on genuinely special occasions. Its easy to learn how to cook a ton of great meals with low cost staples, especially if you have a reasonably well stocked pantry. On the other hand, special occasions are usually best when theyre really meaningful youre eating with someone special or its a truly special occasion and when theyre planned in advance so you can anticipate it. I have far more financial concern about a $15 meal from a restaurant three or four times a week than a $75 meal at a restaurant once every month or two. If thats the financial path youre on, its time to rethink the costs of eating out. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/some-thoughts-on-the-cost-of-eating-out/

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matingsaliva-blog · 6 years

Text

If Anything Happens to me, Know that I Still Care About You Deeply

We’re going to the grocery store. I haven’t felt good for the past day and a half because I took pills on an empty stomach and driving around the sickening back roads of Philly have been giving me a headache. I don’t want to tell you so I just say that Lincoln Drive is making me dizzy and you pretend to understand. I don’t want to talk about it so this answer comes as a huge relief. I’m nauseous I tell you. I only tell you that because I’m afraid my insides may explode and I don’t want to throw up in your car because that has never been a good impression no matter how many times someone says it’s okay. This isn’t the end of the world. But to me, it is.

I feel bad and I can tell you genuinely care about my well-being, which sort of annoys me. I change the subject again. My face is plastered to the window and the frozen winter dew is outlining a really abstract rendition of my face. I get self conscious that even this amorphous natural phenomenon has chosen to distort what little pride I have in my looks. I am a silhouette of dripping window droplets. I say they should repave the roads. I think you’re annoyed that I don’t particularly say that to anyone and certainly without conviction. You notice things like that. You think that I should have a world’s worth of captivating and contributing thoughts when I speak into the void. It’s an observation and I have to internalize the loss. You agree. You say it without much substance, probably to mirror me. Obviously it has never occurred to you.

We pass the road where my dad used to work. I point out the factory. It is across from Laurel Hill Cemetery. For some reason I imagine him on the factory belt line taking specimens of ink and saying “Yes, this ink is good. Thanks team” but part of me thinks that he wasn’t that team-centric or even well-mannered. But he was liked, very much, from what I know. I wonder if he ever wandered over to the cemetery or at least just appreciated that it was there. Maybe he should have been buried here.

I’ve sat there listening to commercial trains screech their way through long expanses of suspended bridges over highways at this spot. I wonder if he heard this too. It was so loud. But not just loud in a way that you can ignore, it was invasive and I bet he blocked it out over the 40 years that he had worked there. Clocking out as a greasy, rail-thin but respected man as the trains rubbed their metal against the tracks. I admire that.

I say they should really repair these roads, again, to engage you. We’re hitting potholes and bumps which is hard to continuously ignore. You agree. Again. I don’t know how I want this conversation to go. I think about bringing up a memory of my dad but every time that I do, nobody knows how to act. They want to dress me in sympathy and say sorry and I want to tell them that it’s been a very long time. It’s fine. Time will tell how it has cured or destroyed me but that will come at various and uncomfortable times and I want you to be prepared. So I say nothing. You look at it as the stark and surgical demeanor I’ve chosen for you to glimpse into and that’s all that I can give to you. It isn’t suppressed, I just don’t have time for it. Not now. But people pry, they want to pluck me and remove it from me because they think I live with it in an extreme way. Actually, the day-to-day is a lot harder, in all honestly. I keep this to myself, too.

Later when I get to know you, I’ll relay that this this is okay to joke about. My biggest fear is that my sadness cannot become a joke that I can laugh about. It just takes time to get there. I need to stand perched above it all like an orator and decide which pieces are okay and most of the time anything goes, (unless it’s about how I don’t deserve to be loved because I have too many problems that one singular person cannot handle on their own.) This might concern you a little bit, given the context. We talked about my life insurance policy while we were driving one night and I laughed and said that I probably don’t have much of a chance. I said something like “at this point, they probably won’t cover me or it’ll at least be very expensive given my inability to want to stay alive.” I’m not responsible enough to even think about that yet and you tell me that your parents set yours up with their disposable income and as much as my family loves me, there’s definitely a line.

You laughed shyly when I said this and I told you it was okay. I made a really dark joke the other night and you laughed uncomfortably, again, but that’s all I could have hoped for. You let it be and chalked it up to one of my many social misfires that you’ve chosen to find endearing right now. Because you like me and I’m pretty and i try very hard to be functional around you. You said that it’s funny how I compose this dark and morose life as a protective blanket so that I have something to fall back on, but that I seem happy most of the time. I laughed this time. If i even begin to argue this point, i will sound like a 13-year old goth kid pissed off at my parents for not dropping me off at the mall on a Friday night. I guess that’s a privilege, or I should be more of an absolute garbage crying child so that you see my true self catapulting toward legitimate moments of truly wanting to die. I like you though, but I can live without you. I shatter inside and my heart-to-brain artery sort of stops functioning.

We’re almost at the store. I know that I don’t really want to go in. I’m holding my head in my hands and I’m smiling at the funny things you say because I know you’re checking. You need instant gratification and I don’t mind. I have to remind myself that you’re doing me a favor and that i should be grateful. I have to relearn these emotions, I need to feel them rather than acknowledge that they exist. I ask you if it’s okay if i stay in the car, I have to make a phone call. You say absolutely. You leave and I open the notes in my phone

1. Buy more things that excentuate my tits 2. Collect decorative boxes 3. Buy apple butter from Whole Foods 4. The abcs of socialism? 5. Bankfujzzy (idk what that means) 6. Pink silk ribbon 7. The Girl with Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace 8. An objectively shitty poem 9. A thought “You could have hung out with jocks in high school but you chose art instead and that made you a very sensitive girl.”

Theres nothing of value in these lists. I know you’ll take your time in the store because you have to check all of the food labels. I have time to kill. I will make up a fake conversation in a few minutes about how my nephew was being a dick and my mom called me because she was upset. This will validate my extreme adversity to entering public places. I lean back in the seat and close my eyes. I can feel my eyes water and the eyeliner forming drops in my cornea. I close my eyes and let it flow out. Everyone says my eyes are red all the time anyway. I am going for the Sky Ferrieira look but without all of the other shit. They’re flowering. It’s okay.

“Remember when you drinking whiskey and you told me that I had said the nicest thing to you that anyone had ever said to you?” “Vaguely.” “You were talking about poetry. I told you that you seem really happy, your demeanor changes. When you talk about things that you’re passionate about, it makes me happy. I could listen to you talk for hours. “Yeah that’s still the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” “I thought you said it because you were drunk.”

My hair is so greasy I can feel the grime burning my eyes and yet I feel considerably fine just knowing I have a very nominal control over it in the privacy of my own home. Sometimes the smells let me know that my body has had experiences and I embrace that I moved through it without dwelling on my self worth. I drop into puddles of reflections of me. When I’m compartmentalizing. There will be a debate if any of this is really worth fixing. And I will respect your decision. Always.

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