That I will never enjoy the taste of wine.

I figured out I would never like coffee in my teens, and had the same realization about beer in my 20s.

But it wasn’t until this year, in my mid-thirties, that I finally accepted that I don’t like the taste of wine and probably never will. After years of trying the full spectrum of wines, I had to admit that it wasn’t the “notes” that were turning me off, nor was it a problem with the quality of the wine. It was the fundamental “wine-ness” that I disliked, the same as I don’t like the “beer-ness” of beer or the “coffee-ness” of coffee.

I dunno, I didn’t have much of a problem with them unless my hands were wet. Occasionally couldn’t make the triple-tap work, and maybe some issues with accidentally adjusting the volume. I found the “push and hold to play notifications” function to be super reliable, though.

Meanwhile, Google’s like, “We’re removing the ability to silently check your notifications using your Pixel Buds. You have to use the voice command now. No, we don’t care that you primarily use them in public spaces. And we really don’t care that our voice recognition has a 15% success rate.”

Here’s the story.

The actual monetary loss to Air Canada (known affectionately as Fuckstick Flights Inc.) was insignificant, but the PR was bad.

Then again, I can’t remember the last time AC had positive press. Before that they forced a guy with cerebral palsy to drag himself off the plane.

I phrase my dislike of dogs differently: I do not care for 99.9% of dogs. If a (human) friend has a dog, I will dutifully engage with it on a limited basis. I may even enjoy myself a bit, too.

But a random person walking their dog in the park? Please keep it away from me. I don’t care how much of a “good boy” you think your pup is, I don’t know or trust them.

I grew up in southern Ontario, and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure this out. I heard the acronym daily as my parents listened to CFRB, but it didn’t click until I was almost 20.

Furthermore, there is an option to destroy the special “gift” if you can resist accepting it. However, all you get for doing so is a few brief lines from the Emperor. Your companions don’t seem to notice, and there isn’t even an quest log update.

Anxious Times by The Luka State or Hardship to Sail by Excuses Excuses.

So say we all.

Somewhat related, I wonder how much of an effect birth month can have on a child’s school performance, social development, and athletic ability.

Where I live, a child is eligible for junior kindergarten starting in September of the year they turn four. A child born in January would therefore be around 52 months old on their first day of school. Meanwhile, a child born in December would be around 41 months instead. That is a substantial gap, and my experience with kids that age is that even a difference of a few months can see dramatic changes.

I’m personally thinking right now of my nephew, who starts JK in a few weeks. He will turn four right before Christmas, and when he returns from holidays, some of his classmates will start turning six because he’ll be in a combined JK/SK class. I can’t imagine how difficult it might be for him to keep up with those much older classmates, a situation caused by virtue of his birthday.

I’ll fully admit to being completely ignorant about voting the first time I did it. I was politically disengaged for moody teenager reasons, but my parents forced me to go to the polling station anyway. I didn’t care to vote for any of the candidates, but was also worried that I would get in trouble if I spoiled my ballot because I hadn’t paid attention in civics (again, for moody teenager reasons).

It’s posturing. Guys gotta prove they have the not-gays.

As I said in another topic, this is the only way to play FF3 in its original form (or at least close to it) and in a language other than Japanese, outside of emulation. The DS remake is fine, but it is definitely a different experience.

I’ve spent some time with the first three, so I can give my opinion on those.

The FF1 remake is very different experience than the NES original. That version had a ton of minor bugs that gave that gave it a unique balance. Every subsequent remake, including the pixel remaster, has been an attempt to fix those bugs, and add modem QoL features, and then rebalance the game to try to keep the same feel. I think the pixel remaster is a good game, and comes closer to the feel of the original than some other remakes, but it is still a distinctly different experience. I’d characterize it as a different game wearing the same clothes.

The FF2 remaster, on the other hand, is probably the best way to experience that game. The Famicom original is notoriously unbalanced and player-hostile, but those problems are effectively bypassed by the simple inclusion of two QoL features: a map, and a one-button autobattle. It took decades, but FF2 is finally worth recommending to more than hardcore fans.

The FF3 remaster is in an odd situation, in that this is the first time a close approximation of the Famicom original is officially available outside of Japan. The DS remake from 2006 is a significantly different game, especially in the first couple of hours. I didn’t play as much of this one as the other two, but I can’t imagine it deviates too much in the later parts of the game. I would guess, though, that the more flexible save mechanics make the notoriously difficult final three dungeons much more manageable, though maybe more prone to soft-locking.

Bell was available in Nova Scotia when I lived there. It’s also in Ontario. I can’t speak for other provinces.

There are actually three major telecom companies making up 85%+ of the market share: Bell, Rogers, and Telus. Don’t be fooled by names like Virgin, Fido, and Koodo, as those are just the “lite” subsidiaries of the three major companies respectively.

For supermarkets there is Loblaws, as you said. But, it’s not like Sobeys and Metro are much better, they just keep their robber-baron executives better hidden.

I’m just getting to the end of reading Orconomics, and it had a somewhat novel take on this. Basically, elves live so long that their entire personality can change century over century because they meet, and subsequently outlive, so many new people.

The really quick, really accessible version is the Extra Credits videos, though understand that they simplified a lot of things, and made some mistakes (which they admit to in a follow-up video).

The Great War YouTube channel also covers some of the same ground in an accessible but more rigorous manner, though I don’t remember them going over all the “clash of empires” background stuff.

On the far other end, I liked the book The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan. It’s a dense tome, but it’s chock full of details.

Same with me and WW1. There are so many more factors to the start of that conflict than the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

My wife is from an Eastern European country, and whenever we visit her folks I have a similar experience. Every single restaurant reeks of smoke, and there is apparently no political appetite to change that.