It means puzzled and/or confused.

Many authors seem to think it means amused mixed with some confusion or puzzlement or something else like that.

Some dictionaries have started to include definitions along those lines, which is correct to do if that is becoming a common usage. But that makes the word bullshit because it no longer conveys a clear meaning. Unlike some words that gain new meanings through misuse, it’s usually not clear which meaning is intended from context. Usually I can easily imagine a character’s response to something to be either of these definitions so I often can’t understand the author’s intention. I often find myself taken out of the story while I try to understand which meaning I should use. Because of this I think the word has become useless and shouldn’t be used.

Bemused

It’s used incorrectly so often that even when I suspect it’s being used correctly I can’t be sure. At this point it’s ambiguity makes it a bad word choice.

Absolutely, I shouldn’t have used cheap as a synonym for bad, or vice versa, that’s my mistake.

There are a lot of very good wines at low price points, especially from underappreciated regions. A little experimentation will result in finding some great value.

The same goes for the whiskey. There are a lot of distilleries out there with great offerings far below the price of the big names everyone recognizes. Especially when you take fads into account. Many bourbons and Japanese whiskeys that used to be good buys are now ridiculously priced.

Yeah, but…are you saying you never want some shitty nachos?

I can only speak for myself but I’ve eaten at Michelin star restaurants all over the world and enjoy fine dining whenever I have the time and I love it, but sometimes I just want taco bell.

Alcohol, on the other hand; good Scotch and wine has ruined the cheap stuff for me. I can’t drink cheap, or even mediocre, whisky or wine anymore. If it’s not very high quality I’d rather just have something like a gin or vodka cocktail.

I think it started with people saying “I would like to (do something very illegal) to (some person) in Minecraft.” Thinking that saying “in Minecraft” would shield them from any repercussions because they only wanted to do it in a simulated environment. Eventually some people would just shorten it to things like “…in Minecraft” and leave the obvious part unsaid.

Seriously, I’d like to know too. I’ve always thought that you got them and then you were done. But maybe that was counting on there not being a bunch of disease vectors walking around.

I was disappointed when this happened but now I’m glad I can’t find it anymore. I had become lazy, just putting it on everything. Now I have a variety of sauces I choose based on what I’m putting it on. There are a lot of good sauces out there. With proper pairing you might not miss Sriracha at all.

Turning off Java script worked when this happened to me. Firefox and ublock origin. It breaks some things but you can do it on a per site basis.

If you want to know how bad we’re being fucked, search for the PPI, the producer price index. CPI, the one we always hear about, is the measure of inflation to us, the consumer. The PPI is the measure of inflation to producers, what they pay for goods and services to produce the goods and services we buy.

The PPI has been back to “normal” for a while now. Pretty much as soon as the post COVID logistics issues were mostly ironed out. The difference between PPI and CPI changes is pure profit.

We don’t get daily articles on the PPI though, I wonder why.

Edit: tell people about PPI whenever you can, online or off, the more people know, the better. It’s easy enough to say inflation is just down to greed but being able to back it up by comparing two simple charts will help people really understand.

It’s not too heavy. That’s “premium feel and materials.”

You can’t get it in the boonies. I live in a city and my insurance, with an earthquake rider, is only a few hundred a month. My coworker lives in sparsely populated area (by the standards of this metro area) and his insurance costs a little over 7x as much, and continues to rise.

And it’s deserved too. These people move out there because they’re the type that want to “own land,” but then none of them maintain it. I’ll go over to his house for a party and be in the backyard and everywhere I look, his property and every property it touches, as soon as you go beyond the area immediately around the house that is actually used, the entire ground is covered by kindling. One dropped cigarette and his entire neighborhood is gone.

It used to be that when people talked about hypersonic missiles it was understood to mean hypersonic cruise missile, something that could hug terrain and maneuver. Then Russia and China came out with “hypersonic” missiles that were just ballistic with maybe some minor maneuverability so the term doesn’t mean anything until you dig deeper.

Shut the fuck up! Now Vader, he’s a spiritual brother, with the force and all that shit. Then this cracker Skywalker gets his hands on a lightsaber, and the boy decides he’s goinna run the fucking universe - gets a whole Klan of whites together, and they’re gonna bust up Vader’s 'hood - the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that?

The footprints of chargers and gas stations aren’t the same though. A lot of places I go have a row of 8-10 spots with chargers. No added footprint really, just installed at the front of the spot. Compare that to an 8-10 pump gas station, even without a convenience store. If you removed a gas station and replaced it with rows of spaces with chargers I think you’d get more cars through over a given period of time.

Malazan.

Most books, including the ten book series, are by Steven Erickson. There are several other books by Ian C. Esselmont. Read them in publication order regardless of author.

All the bullshit with tipping on food delivery apps made me stop using them years ago.

First I hear the apps are stealing tips. Then they’re not stealing tips anymore. Then maybe they’re stealing some of the tips.

To try and avoid all that I tried to use cash. The drivers don’t get their base rate reduced and they get the entire, non-reportable cash tip. Then my food started taking twice as long and arriving cold because the drivers thought I was stiffing them.

My theory is the apps do this (pre-tipping) on purpose to discourage cash and after-tipping so they can lower what they pay the driver and they’ll still accept the order because they see the higher after tip amount. So now the apps might not be technically stealing tips, but they’re using up front tips to allow them to reduce their shitty base rate for everyone.

Now if want delivery it’s pizza, Chinese, or one of the few other places with their own drivers. I’ve had this policy for years now and I don’t see myself ever going back unless it’s an emergency.

Bonus to me: all my takeout/delivery is now 20-30% cheaper. Everyone should really take a look at the inflated prices they’re paying and decide if it’s really worth saving a short drive.

My paternal grandmother’s KitchenAid model K mixer she bought just after my grandfather returned from WW2. She gave it to my mother in the late 70’s because she wanted a new one and the damn thing showed no signs of dying. My mother gave it to my wife about 15 years ago for the same reason.

We’ve bought some new accessories but that fucking zombie mixer will outlast the roaches.

I live in California. I’ve been to Alabama, Portugal, and Latvia (just this year for the Baltics, great places). I disagree.

Parts of the deep south are just fucking alien in a way I’ve never felt anywhere else.

Different places in Europe are, of course, different. But different in a way you can wrap your head around with an undercurrent of commonality. The same things being done in interestingly different ways by normal people.

The sense of dislocation and strangeness I feel in certain (not all) places in the deep south is far beyond anything I’ve experienced, not just in Europe, but also Asia, South America, and North Africa.