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Namesake
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There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Guilded Age
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Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
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Dumbing of Age
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The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
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Beeserker
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Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
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I think it’s the chain restaurants we’re supposed to be killing, which means the ones that are more expensive than fast food but not as unique as independent places.
Oh, like a Chili’s or a Red Robin. I just always catalogued them as fast food because they sell a much more slowly prepared version of fast food. Thank you.
Are we? Friend took me there when I turned 21 and the place was packed with college dudes. (Yeah, he wanted to see how much of a prude I was. After 20 minutes of silence, he finally said “Well?” and I said “Mine are bigger” and stole his mojito.)
Applebees, The 99, TGI Fridays, Chili’s… I lump them all into one generic, interchangeable group of “suburb food”. Old Country Buffet and Cracker Barrel have safe predictable meals for the elderly. We only have McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s up here, but I choose Wendy’s when possible.
The trick to finding good food is to look for local joints in the okay part of town that look like dives, but are always crowded. You know the people aren’t there for the ambience! (Also, if you’re at a restaurant for the first time, order the dish they named after the restaurant.)
As someone who lives in the south, zoomer, I agree to every part of what you said. I live with family, and they’re big fans of Cookout, Folks, and Cracker Barrel. Really deincentivizes me from going out to eat with them.
Course, when they go on dates and I’m not around, they go to Chili’s which I like a lot better than Cookout. Meh.
Actually we spend less than 25 year olds in 1989 on eating out. And entertainment. And transport. And clothing. And medical care. In fact, we spend less % of our income than gen x on everything, except of course housing. That’s the only thing we spend more on. But that’s not exactly news.
Shhh, don’t explain math to the entitled elderly sophisticates who write articles about “them damn kids is the worst because x!” If you point out that our spending habits largely exist because wages haven’t been kept anywhere near inflation and we’re always broke, old writers might have to face up to their own role in ruining society! (Which considering they run it and have run it for decades, is a lot more accurate than blaming the young.)
Just kidding, it’s fine. No one reads their ‘think’pieces anyway because newspaper and magazines are dead.
Indeed. Very unoriginal. Pretty much every future generation will be the iGeneration, anyway, unless societal collapse brings about the end of technology.
Generational names don’t really seem to get solidified until after all of their members are born. The term Generation X didn’t really take off in its current meaning until the late ’80s, and although the term Millennials seems to have been first coined to refer to us early-’80s to early-’00s kids back in 1987, it too didn’t really gain any ground in the mainstream until the mid-’00s. We’ve got 5-10 years before we have to worry about the options available for naming the next generation.
nah, it’s just going to be millennials all the way down from now on. it already covers, what, a 25-30 year span? it’s completely silly to be lumping people in their 30’s in with today’s teenagers…
I am technically a baby boomer (very tail end) and I’ve spent my entire demographic life being lumped in with people 15 years older than me. Get used to it, kid. (And get off my lawn! Also, you call that music?)
I’m older than you, Keith (1959), anc I could never understand what makes me a boomer. The name Baby Boomers refers to the population explosion caused by Greatest Genners returning from WWII, getting GI Bill educations, and then settling down to shit out a brood. My parents were children during WWII (both born in ’37), so they were too young to be considered Greatest Gen. So,when someone tells me everyone born between 1948 and 1964 are all in the same category, I cry bullshit.
The trouble is that “millennials” has a great sound to it.
We’re seeing the same thing happen with it that specifically happened with Baby Boomers, where a bunch of folks are using it as a catch-all for “people older than [the speaker] who are assholes, often bigoted”. Which is why it keeps being used to describe middle-aged white voters, even though all of the actual Baby Boomers are named for a phenomenon circa 1946-1965, and only the very youngest of them are 52. (Prediction: we’re gonna keep referring to people in their late 40s and 50s as Boomers for a while longer yet. It might even become less of a generational word and more of a generic descriptor, with people vaguely thinking the “Boomers” are so named for their tendency to yell (“boom”) at clouds rather than for the post-war baby boom that made them a disproportionately large and influential generation.)
Similarly, “millennials” is being used as a generic word for The Youth, even though people who are currently teenagers are actually part of what we’re currently calling Generation Z. (That’s not likely to stick; millennials used to be Generation Y, but people already frequently forget that Generation X exists, and that was the progenitor of that style of generation-naming. A potential candidate mentioned on wikipedia that I’d currently bet on: the iGeneration, as what distinguishes GenZ from millennials is “widespread internet usage at a young age”.)
I find all of this vaguely amusing. It’s a peasant dish – It’s a pie with a potato topping, whatever kind of meat you’ve got in your area and whatever veges you’ve got available. Corn wasn’t used because corn wasn’t common in the British Isles. It’s used in American versions because it is.
Even the cottage vs shepard’s pie distinction is apparently an English one, not common in Ireland.
So now apparently apart from killing gold, Applebees, diamonds, the housing market, the renting market, and boobs, now they’re killing Shepard’s Pie. What else will people claim Millennials are killing?
honestly I am SO relieved it wasn’t. I’m still burnt out on them from the last arc. Nothing against them as characters or the pairing, I just want to see more of the rest of the cast now.
Always a classic.
And just think, all of those references are about to be knocked down a notch, as the future belongs to making political scandal jokes about President Bannon.
Dude, I got my first unsolicited senior citizen discount when I was 37! That was more than 20 years ago and I still don’t qualify for 95% of the ones I get.
I am regularly and consistently mistaken as a range of ages within “too young to drive”. I basically stopped aging when I was like 12. A D.A.R.E representative outside a Best Buy tried to get me to come over to her table yesterday, as a matter of fact. More than once, when I’ve told people my age, they have laughed AT LENGTH and then told me “no”.
My mom’s been regularly mistaken for somewhere around 15 years younger than she is, like, for my entire life, so I’m looking forward to finally being taken seriously, professionally, some time around when I’m ready to retire.
Don’t kill capitalism, co-opt capitalism to build free market institutions that actually serve the needs of the populace and give workers a fair deal in the process. If you kill capitalism in absolute terms the only real alternative is a command economy which is just as bad for the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, is just as prone to abuses that makes workers an underclass and is more fragile to boot.
A woman I know who grew up in the former Soviet bloc recently told me to advise anyone I knew who wanted to kill capitalism to make sure they had a solid working alternative first. She didn’t specify what that might be, except that what she grew up with wasn’t better.
It wasn’t. Communism encouraged laziness because Everyone had a work. There is a jokey saying about those times “Whether you stand or lie down you deserve two thousand”. Basically there was no unemployment, everyone was being paid… but for one thing the amount of goods available wasn’t great and people were Highly unmotivated to work. Why should they if they’ll get paid one way or another.
Capitalism goes into the opposite extreme, it’s fukken survival of the fittest… or rather getting all energy sucked out of you and dying of stress and heart problems by the time you are 40-50.
It isn’t even survival of the fittest – that’s the pretty myth of capitalism. It’s the survival of those with capital and in the long run, without heavy government intervention (or wars and collapses), capital is mostly inherited. As long as the return on investment is greater than the growth of the economy as a whole, capitalism serves to concentrate wealth.
The counter to this is simple, but difficult – high marginal tax rates, very high inheritance taxes and preferably some kind of wealth tax.
@thejeff
Well I was mostly talking about the “little guys” who are treated as expendable work force to be used and thrown away by the guys you talk about, the ones with Capital.
But yeah Capitalism basically leads to the creation of social classes not unlike in monarchy, nobility with cash at the top, townspeople and peasants at the bottom.
There were a LOT of problems in the country mentioned, but “laziness was encouraged” was… not one of them.
Like, your explanation of what was wrong with a tyrannical dictatorship where, for example, people were being murdered by secret police is basically the shortest, blandest fairytale version of the lie capitalist countries have been selling their citizens literally ever since Marx was like, “hey, I have an idea”.
Universal Basic Income is not what brought down the USSR, it’s not what’s wrong with North Korea, etc etc etc etc etc… etc……..
@Li
I’m from Poland, a country which WAS communistic for like 50 years and I have some idea of what it looked like here. I was referring to the economic, not the political system and unfortunately that IS what it looked like.
People were simply unmotivated to excel or work harder because there was no point to that. And those who tried to excel were usually shoved aside because of Political reasons. Polish industry and technological development was always encouraged NOT too do too good in order not to make Russia look bad.
@Li
I forgot to mention one thing. Something absolutely ever present during communist times was “Getting a deal”. Basically because Communism was such an economical failure people had to get smart and rather illegal. Stealing from the workplace, giving bribes, favouring family and friends. There was an EPIDEMIC of that kind of stuff. Everyone lived according to the philosophy “If it belongs to the country it belongs to no one” and stole and defrauded as much as they could.
Something along those lines. The big key is government policies that keep capital (and thus power) from accumulating too much. In theory, you could take that money and just burn it and it would still be worthwhile.
In practice it makes sense to spend it to improve the country and people’s lives – education, infrastructure, social welfare, etc.
@thejeff
Put the money in the hands of the working people and the economy will continue to grow. I mean it’s the average guys that really drive the economy because in sheer numbers they beat the rich in how much food, clothes, chemicals, gasoline, cars, education etc. etc. they need. You give the money to average Joes and they drive the economy. You give it to the rich and it mostly sits on their bank accounts like some depraved High Score. A yacht or a mansion with golden toilet sits is nice but it hardly produces enough work to keep the economy going.
If it just sits in bank accounts, that’s one thing. Generally though it doesn’t. It gets put in nice safe investments that still get a better return than the growth of the economy as a whole. Traditionally land (or housing and other real property), but anything that generates rent.
That’s how it grows faster than the economy as a whole. What happens over time when the economy grows at 3%, but the return on capital is 8%? Those that started with an advantage in capital wind up owning more and more of the economy. It’s inexorable.
Happens even when working people still have enough to drive the economy, though it leads to the case where they don’t.
Also the protagonist is a transgender Japanese-American lawyer who always wears cargo shorts and manages to get himself into conspiracies like Dina gets herself behind doors
Well, I would except a large part of why we’re killing certain industries is because we can’t afford them or don’t have time for them since we’re overworked.
A little bit. I would say we’re probably the first generation that can proudly say that things weren’t better in “the good ol’ days” with a straight face.
Sure we have nostalgia for the things we loved back then. Sure we’ve seen some of our industries of love taken over by corporate crap (the gaming industry) but it’s all getting better as we advance, even with the minor human setbacks here and there.
All of the life changing, and improving technological advancements that we have seen in our lifetimes have emboldened us as a progressive set of adults, and the future is looking bright…regardless of how shitty the dying off of the previous political generation looks. Yes, we are very powerful.
Aw man I wanted Becky and Dina they’re adorable. Oh well. Also WALKY DON’T BECOME YOUR SISTER. Actually your sister is pretty cool. Lots of conflict for you.
I myself adored it. Well, it has a former Doctor in it, so…
But yeah, it was pretty amazing. And I agree with what you said about character motivation. A big part of making characters feel real isn’t just giving them fleshed out personalities, but explaining why they have those personalities.
That final line of the episode justifies so much of about what we’ve learned about Scrooge, Donald, and the triplets. A good reveal like that makes so much of what came before suddenly clear.
This is probably going somewhere, but since this is all I have to go on today: “It’s not office hours, your sister at least had some reason I’d want see her outside of that, kindly Fuck the fuck off.”
I fucking hate yelp reviewers as a waitress. Way to get me in trouble for “not saying thank you when I paid” or “looking bored when not at our table”. Fuck you.
Whenever I leave Yelp reviews, I try to compliment the staff if they were good and just not mention it if they weren’t.
But really I’m not even sure why I leave Yelp reviews to begin with.
Also speaking of work I have need for advice from smart people but need to be anonymous. And most commenters here are some of the most woke people I know anonymously. I’ve seen others ask for advice and support so I figured I’d give it a shot.
I work at a restaurant that I love. The bosses family treats us all like family and does all kinds of things for us. Recently my school + work schedule is going to be hectic for me and they aren’t letting me switch my hours to a more convenient time…which…whatever…I can manage. But when another waitress left I figured I could just steal her hours. So I found a friend to be a new server and got her to apply so we could split all the hours left between us two. My friend wasn’t hired though and I suspect it is because she is trans.
I have a lot of reasons to think this. Mainly since she is the most qualified person we’ve ever had apply and she has proven talented and personable. and the reason for not hiring her is “She wouldn’t fit our team”. This is bad enough but I also have reason to believe that our undocumented employees are treated horribly and paid less than they deserve.
I need this job. And they also keep guilting me since I love the bosses wife and daughter and they would have to take more hours if I left. So would another waitress with severe SEVERE health/pain issues. I don’t want to hurt any of them but I’m fucked on hours and selling my morals by workingg for him is fucking killing me
I think ultimately it boils down to what’s more important: having a job and therefore money, but having to bend your morals for the sake of the others, or quitting the job and leaving the others to their fate, but getting away clean?
I were you, I’d figure out where my limits were. At some point you have to do what’s right for you. Maybe your moral code is flexible in the face of money and guilt. But maybe it’s not — and if that’s the case, then the longer you work there, the worse you’re going to feel, and the greater the resentment.
Look, if you NEED the job, you like the job, you love the owner’s family…
Yeah, it sucks that the boss may be a bigot (Do you have any hard evidence btw?)
My friend has more training than anyone on staff when it comes to food which is something my boss is desperate for. They clearly couldn’t come up with a reason not to hire her so they brought her in for unpaid training instead after telling me “Yeah your friend who comes in today isn’t going to work probably. She just doesn’t fit in with the team we are going for”. Then let her waste a whole day training and said they’d rather fuck us over on hours than hire her.
Plus the barely paid undocumented workers abused in the back I’ve kind of tried to pretend I didn’t see in the past (which I’m not proud of). But we’ve known about it a long time and when a former employee kind of confirmed that they’d been paid low wages under the table I wasn’t surprised because we all suspected.
I’ll preface this by saying that I am not trans, but I am female, homosexual, and non-white, so while I can’t fully understand and appreciate the magnitude of the negative experiences that trans people face, I have known discrimination in my life. In situations like this though, unless there’s more you’re not sharing, I would probably give the boss the benefit of the doubt. It’s his business, his family basically, and maybe your friend just rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe you told her they really needed somebody so she came off cocky when he talked to her. Maybe something in her tone of voice made her seem suspicious. Maybe she just really is generally a jackass and you don’t see it because she’s your friend. Who knows? I know I’ve not hired people simply because they came across personality-wise as somebody I would not enjoy having to interact with on a daily basis, and that may be what happened here. Absent of any other evidence of anti-trans bigotry on his part, I myself would assume it was just a personality mismatch were I in your shoes.
If you need the job you need the job. See if you can find a better job at a company which you feel better about. Its likely not a good idea to let your boss hold your coworkers hostage though he is perfectly capable of hiring more workers to fill in the gaps and if he really is not, having less people will just give the remaining workers more leverage.
That is a tough situation and I am sorry. *appropriate gesture of support*
As others have already pointed out, you sound pretty upset about the conditions there. This job kind of seems like a clusterf*ck: you are doing a juggling act between work and school, you’re trying to finesse ways to get a more workable schedule, and you’re torn by ethical and moral concerns. Like a lot of other people are saying, if you need the money, you need the money. However, you need to consider your mental health too. I’ve worked some sh!tty jobs in my time and I can say they can drain you and hurt you in a very profound way.
I agree with Emperor Norton II about your Trans* friend. I don’t know what kind of legal options she might have or if she even wants to take that road. Were I you, I wouldn’t advocate for her to the boss or confront the boss about her unless she wants you to do so. (I also don’t know how “out” she is so you may want to be very careful to respect her privacy.)
It’s very admirable that you’re worried about what will happen to your co-workers if you leave. However, ultimately there is nothing you can do about that. You need to make the decision that is best for you in this situation and they need to make their own decisions. In that position, I might talk to them and tell them you’re not trying to abandon them or make their jobs at the restaurant harder, but you really need to leave because you’re not comfortable working there anymore (or whatever reason you feel okay giving). It is great that you care about them, but you do not have any obligation to them beyond that which you take on yourself.
I second the comments about trying to find another job before leaving. (That is always a good plan when leaving any job.) I don’t know where you live, but I’m in a large city, and here restaurant workers with experience are *always* in demand because it’s not the kind of job you can just jump into with no experience whatsoever (well, except maybe for fast-food places, but the restaurant where you work doesn’t sound like one). You also might think about on what terms you want to leave. Would it be helpful for you to be truthful and “call out” the boss when explaining why you’re leaving? If you do that, remember that you may be burning a bridge in terms of getting a good reference from him. Again, you have to do what is best for you, not just financially but also emotionally.
A number of years ago I left a job kind of abruptly when I simply felt I couldn’t morally work there anymore. It was a security position at an electronics manufacturing plant. The site supervisor who hired me was a cool guy who was really understanding about my school schedule and who really bent over backwards for his employees. He got removed from the position for giving employees “too much” overtime – we had people working there who were supporting families and needed overtime pay to make ends meet. Subsequently we had a series of increasingly worse replacements, culminating in an ex-military man we used to call “Sergeant Sh!thead” behind his back. He systematically exploited and demeaned us guards. While that was bad enough, my personal breaking point came after two specific things. First, I found out that some sectors of the plant were manufacturing components that were going on weapons the military was using in the Middle East. That REALLY bothered me; however, I managed to tolerate it for a while by telling myself that I wasn’t being paid by the electronics company. The guards were contracters and I was being paid by the security company. Then, Sergeant Sh!thead reported the supervisor of the cleaning company that serviced the plant to the INS after hearing gossip that he was an “illegal.” The cleaning staff supervisor, with whom I was friendly, was from Brazil and had come to the U.S. on a student VISA, which had expired. He was trying to get it renewed but that is a long process. After Sergeant Sh!thead reported him, the guy lost his position at our plant (he wasn’t fired from the cleaning company but was placed elsewhere). The last time I talked to him he told me that he didn’t know how much trouble he was in with the INS. This man was NOT a terrorist; he really wanted to be “properly” documented. He also was a supervisor for a cleaning company that exclusively employed South American immigrants so that they could show proof of employment when applying for papers and citizenship. There were a lot of other factors involved, but those two definitely contributed to my breaking point. I’m not sure I would have left when I did otherwise. About a week after leaving I found a much better job working for a real estate company (this was pre-2008, obvs).
However, I have to note that I had the *privilege* of being able to leave and know I would find another job. At that time I had one college degree under my belt and was just months away from earning two more (my academic career is boring and complicated). I had held many other jobs so I knew I had good references. I’m also white and had a support structure, including my family and my partner, on which I knew I could depend if I absolutely needed to. (It’s kind of a point of personal pride for me to be able to say that, since I earned my first undergraduate degree, I have *never* asked my mom for monetary support. However, I’m well aware that I’m super-privileged to have a mom who I *could* ask to support me.) I also had a car and lived in an area where there were other jobs available.
I don’t know your personal situation and it’s easy for me to say, “Do what you think is best ethically!” But I’d basically say (the tl;dr version): do what is best for YOU, whatever that means to you.
Yeah, first of all, I would not like to be in your situation (rather obvious, isn’t it). No matter what you do, you will seemingly end up hurting other people, including people that, as far as I can tell with the information I have, don’t deserve it.
So, in random order:
First of all, I think you should talk to your friend and listen to her opinions. Will she want you to stand and fight with her? Will she understand that you’re not in an easy position to make a stand on this? Are there other things you can do to help her, like trying to find her a job somewhere else?
-If- you end up deciding to leave, be smart about it. Make sure to have another job lined up first. Same thing if you decide to end up confronting the boss. Remember, it’s easier to get a job if you have a job.
You say you’re treated like family, yet they’re not giving you the hours you’d like, and they’re guilting you into making it easier on the wife and daughter. To me, that seems like a clear difference between who’s actually treated like family; but this is an opinion based on the information I have right now.
I especially feel for the waitress with the severe health/pain issues here. Half a year back, my board game group used to go to a 24-hour diner for some late gaming, and we’d have the same waitress. I noticed one time that she seemed to be out of it, and when it was time to pay, I asked her is she was OK. Turns out she was not. She told me that she was having big back pains and wanted nothing more than just sitting down and crying; and she should not have been working at all that night… But since this is America, she was working. Fuck that shit.
And yeah, I obviously gave her extra tip that night. And pretty much the rest of the nights we were there, before we migrated to a different place.
Anyway, while I right now don’t really care much about the mother and daughter, I -do- care about your co-worker in bad health. I really wish there was some way you could get things your way without turning her into collateral damage. While you don’t have to mention the mother and daughter to your friend, you might want to mention your co-worker.
Yeah. Thanks. I’m still not sure my friend knows WHY she didn’t get the job. I don’t want to hurt her since she thinks they may possibly have had other options but with my shitty work schedule she’ll quickly find out. I should probably tell her. Fuck. Capitalism is so shitty
Would quitting make some kind of positive difference outside of making you feel better not being associated with a dick? I’m gonna be blunt, you’re working a low-level, pink-collar job and you need the money. You’re not the sort of person who’s morally obligated to leave a job because the boss might be a bad guy. That’s generally for people who either would be following immoral orders, or who would be making a statement impactful enough to make some potential practical difference.
It’s very possible your friend was discriminated against (though frankly she may have not been hired BECAUSE she was too qualified, that’s a thing), and the chances the undocumented workers aren’t getting screwed somehow is very small. Those things suck, and if you can actually do something concrete to fix them, that’s all well and good. But you’re a marginalized queer person (I presume, given your name) working your way through college, who needs money, and you being unemployed and the impacts that would have on your life would also suck. Like, on a societal level, we don’t need more queer people having to drop out of college and not being able to pay their bills either.
Absolutely keep solidarity, talk to your friend like Emperor Norton said, but- again, to be blunt- don’t hurt yourself because you feel guilty either.
Coming from a food service background (20 years and counting of restaurant work) there are three ways I can see your friend not having gotten the job besides the obvious. The first is that one of her former employers may have blackballed her when contacted for checking work history. It’s a shitty and technically illegal practice, but because it’s all but impossible to prove and people are people it happens and there’s not much that can be done about it.
The second is that, as Blackbird suggested up thread, her personality may have rubbed your boss the wrong way. Having helped weed out potential hires in the past I’ve always looked past such things to more important issues like skillset and quality of work, but not everyone is capable of doing that.
The third and final is that she may have been too qualified. With the other workplace issues you have mentioned, someone who knows the industry really well and has their shit together can be a liability because they can unintentionally rock the boat in ways that, while technically doing the right thing, can shift the elements of how the business works in ways that destroy a small business’ economic sustainability.
the mcdonald’s i worked at til may of this year had a way of discouraging yelp reviews: we put a link to a survey on our own site that, when filled out, gave a code you could write on the receipt and use to buy one get one quarter pounder or egg mcmuffin free.
I can’t remember ever being carded going into a bar, even when I was 19(the legal drinking age here in Saskatchewan) and probably looked 15. On the other hand I had a 7/11 clerk ask for my ID when I was in my mid 30s when I was trying to buy a lottery ticket.
Typically here in Ohio you can quite well enter most bars and pubs at 18, but you cannot buy alcohol without ID. There are places where you can’t, but that is because they do the ID check at the door and once inside you can freely order and it’s a much rarer business model.
I’ve either eaten lasagna without meat (which is likely because my parents have a lot of vegetarian dishes, though they’re not vegetarian) or I never noticed the meat, so it’s still a moot point. :p
“Tell me, now,
Is there a man among you here,
Is there no one who will stand up and try to fight?
Tell me, man!
Is there not one in all your ranks,
Is there not one who values courage over life?
They looked to me once,
Now they turn to you.
Do you understand now?
Do you see that the truth is
They don’t want to change this!
They don’t want a hero;
They just want a martyr!
A statue to raise!
I’ve given everything I can,
There are no heroes left in man!”
“I will not be told where to stand! I will not be told what to say!
Not by man or machine, not by you, not by anyone tonight!
You’ve got to do better than fear.
You’ve got to step out of the shadows and fight!
And when they see your face again,
they will know what it means to have fear dragged out into the light.”
No idea, but somehow it reminded me of:
“I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!”
… I’ve looked over 18 years old since I was 14 years old. It was the facial hair. A mustache. I didn’t like to shave until a teacher in highschool made me shave it off.
(Percussions.)
Now I’m 37 and I look like a kid if I shave my facial hair off. Go figure.
Facial hair does not help at all to make me look older. Been speeing resumés all over the city for the past several weeks, and multiple people have asked me if I’m under 18. I am, in fact, 23.
Hey, Willis, I just want to say I’ve been reading DoA for 4+ years, and I’ve read through the archive at least ten times, and it’s always been a source of positivity in my life. Thanks.
Those darn Millennials and their not buying diamonds and other expensive shit because they can’t afford it after the older generations wrecked the economy.
And they all want those blasted participation trophies even though that was the older generations idea and none of the Millennials asked for them and that they’re always participation RIBBONS anyway.
Just as technically that apostrophe should follow the S not precede it. It’s a type of food traditionally common among shepherds in the region, not the recipe created by and attributed to a singular shepherd or someone named Shepherd. ;p
1. No not at all, no one has ever written Shepards’ Pie, besides that would be pronounced shepardseses (like Jesus’ apostles)
2. I imagine it’s written that way because the original cooks were Shepards, so each pie could have been said to belong to a single one, a shepard’s pie…or because everyone realized Shepardseses sounded really stupid
A traditional mincemeat pie does indeed actually contain meat. Many modern recipes have excised that, but usually beef suet remains a staple part of the filling and crust anyway. Personally I prefer the meat in, it adds a richness that rounds out the flavor of the standard apples with currents or raisins and spices.
My English boyfriend would like to protest, shepherd’s pie is lamb and potato, “if someone has been feeding you shepherd’s pie made of vegetables they are LYING to you.” He does, however, appreciate the “too flavorful” joke and is now making more self-deprecating jokes about his country’s cuisine.
I told him the only place I’ve ever seen shepherd’s pie on the menu is the Harry Potter section of Universal Studios, and it was made of beef, carrots, peas, and potato, and he was displeased.
Ha, awesome. I thought that was the funniest joke in this one; “too flavourful” – ha!
I am not lucky enough to have an English boy- or girlfriend, but my ex-wife was friends with a bunch of the filthy Limey bastards who were expatriates in ‘Murrica. And, speaking of English cuisine, she noted that when she visited them in Ye Olde Englande that it seemed like they made a mental survey of everything they ate, with the only question being “Is it sweet? Or is it savory?” and the answer being “Then pour custard on it” or “Then pour gravy on it.”
This strip has helped solve a problem of modern nutrition. After the revelations about Pink Slime being in hamburger meat, all the supermarkets (hopefully all) posted signs that they weren’t putting the stuff in your burgers. So where did it go? Where can you hide it? Why not shepherd’s pie?
veggie lasagna is vastly superior to sheperd’s pie. hell, even shitty cafeteria veggie lasagna is better than sheperd’s pie.
but then, I grew up with shepherd’s pie and didn’t even know what lasagna *was* until… probably until I was a teenager. I knew Garfield liked it and it was food but that was it.
Ok. This is probably the one time I get to flash my “Help I’m ignorant about a foreign culture because I’m American” card, so I’m going to use it. What’s Shepherd’s Pie? Is that anything like Chicken/Turkey Pot-Pie?
…
Also I just want to add that when you’re criticizing cooking for “not being bland enough”, I think you might have overly sensitive taste buds, Jason.
Sheperd’s pie is something like a casserole, with the top layer being mashed potatoes, which become nicely browned and crusty (hence “pie”) when the dish is baked.
Thank you. It’s always kinda bothered me I didn’t know what it was. And also, now I know I made an upside-down shepherd’s pie last week when I used potato instead of noodles in the lasagna I made for my roommates to celebrate being back from my family reunion in Michigan.
Real shepherd’s pie is basically lamb and potatoes, so Walky’s just as American as you in his “knowledge” about it (and it’s so appropriate that you have a Walky avatar right now).
And stereotypically, English food was not known for having much in the way of seasonings in it (or other ways to make it tastier)… Of course, if you grow up without seasonings, you’re probably used to what little flavour there is, and when someone then tries to spice up the recipe a bit, it somehow will feel wrong.
The main reason for british food having a bad reputation can be linked to the rationing of WWII (there was some in WWI but not as much) which only ended in the mid 1950s in that there simply wasn’t much available that wasn’t being put to the war effort and then trying to pay off debts
Interestingly the “hangover” of stodgy food could also be felt in former british colonies, even food in NZ (where I hail from) was pretty bland and dodgy well up into the 1980s but now its much better thanks to travel and immigration
Having said that a well made shepards pie is pretty damn tasty
I’ve been to England three times and to Scotland once. I ate some of the best food I’ve EVER had there. Cornish pasties! Steak and ale pie! Fish and chips! Bangers and mash! Afternoon tea with scones and clotted cream! The BEST candy ever and gas (petrol?)-station chocolate that tastes better than gourmet chocolate in the U.S.! Shepherd’s pie! *drooling*
IMHO, the U.S. needs to get with the program and cook MANY more things in pie form.
I got hold of a book of rationing-era recipes, which suggested such delicious life-hacks as making your butter ration last longer by cutting it with mashed potato and water.
Well, actually, I do, because I just don’t care for them that much. I have substituted fresh green peas with good results, but it’s not traditional.
Ground lamb has a pretty aggressive flavor, especially when you make sure to include some of the drippings. Some Worcestershire sauce, some red wine, some onions and/or carrots, you’ve got a right savory meal.
I suspect fresh peas are actually more traditional. I’m pretty sure shepard’s pie is older than common frozen foods. Using frozen peas probably dates to the 50s.
Ground lamb may be more flavorful than beef – explaining why the more common US version using cheaper beef needs more spicing up.
The entire reason for the British Empire was an attempt to find food, somewhere, that tasted good and/or like something.
And so when they finally got to India, the clouds parted, angels sang, and the voice of the ALMIGHTY spake: “Behold, for I have led you to the Promised Flavour.”
And then the Brits grabbed up tea and curry with a “these are ours now” and scarpered off back home.
the version I grew up with was ground beef on the bottom, mashed potato on top. maybe a little onion in the meat if you’re lucky. It was flavourless and gross.
That’s my definition but as thejeff says, it’s interchangeable.
Fish pie is another pie made (mostly) with a potato topping.
The taste depends what you stick with the meat on the bottom. Lea & Perrins sauce, wine or anything else will make it tastier. Or put a grated hard cheese on top of the potato.
It’s the classic dish using left-over meat from the Sunday roast.
I’ll just leave this video here. It’s Keef Cooks, one of the many YouTube cooking channels I’m subscribed to (this one’s mainly Brit focused), showing how to make Shepherds’ Pie. It’s a good starting place if anyone here who isn’t from the British Isles or their cultural relations wants to understand the modern take on traditional home cooking in the region.
Actually, if I were Jason, I’d be worried that Walky was stalking me. Of course, that pretty much sums up Jason’s relationship with the Walkerton twins, doesn’t it?
Reading Yelp reviews in the hopes that the person you’re looking for has not only left a review but done so in a way that could lead you to identify him is not exactly the smartest thing. It also assumes that either they left the review and are still at the place, or that despite the review being negative they are going to return to the place. Walky was able to track down Jason through comic logic, not intelligence or resourcefulness.
When the statisticians at Google why there were 300 extra searches for “Shepherd’s Pie” one week, I’ll secretly know the answer. Oh sweet, obscure knowledge. How you make the world weird.
I’ve never in my life thought of Shepherds pie as obscure.
Though if you want a more flavorful (and therefore, I assume, blasphemous) version, I make these killer mini shepherds pies with sausage instead of mutton.
This, but instead of ground beef, use a ground sausage of your choice. I usually use an italian, just because it’s easiest to get in that shape around here.
I also typically double the suggested amount of gravy, so 4tbsp flour and 4 of butter instead of two each, but I like mine a little saucy.
Thx – that would represent more use than I ever got from a muffin tin – the sausage substitution makes me think of alternative fillings, like maybe for little deep-dish pizzas
I aim to be at the uni bar the night before an assignment is due. I am like 50% certain a little bit of wee came out for at least one student who saw me
I wish I knew why the older generation gets so angry about participation awards when they created them. I always kinda liked getting a little trophy or ribbon for trying because guess what? Some of us try as best as we can in the sports we’re signed up for, and I know all it got me was being teased and made fun of by the other kids for not being good enough. At least I got a trophy too.
Honestly, sometimes just showing up is hard enough, especially for those who aren’t athletically inclined. What they should do though, is give a big award to the top three, and then participation awards for everyone who took the effort to participate and try their best.
See, that’s a great idea! Like, the top teams should be rewarded and given their chance to shine for being the best, but everybody who participates gets their little reward too! Because sometimes it honestly is easier to just give up. Kids should get a little something for trying their best to reward hard work, even if it didn’t lead to a win.
Yeah I was always under the impression that no one took those seriously? Like, I saw you give a cheap medal to everyone here, you did not make an attempt to hide this fact. And, considering that this is probably some sort of school event, I’m only here because I’m being forced to be, I actually presumably tried very hard to get out of it, so, like, I can tell you’re sure as hell not praising my effort, EILEEN.
But like I think participation awards only work if the kid you’re giving it to isn’t a horrible little asshole like I was.
Part of why I bought into it might be because my mom had a huge shelf of trophies so growing up I wanted to make her proud with my own trophies. I got some ribbons for good grades but it wasn’t that same.
i’m always mystified when it comes to everyone getting participation trophies. like… did i miss the cutoff for a few years? did my private elementary school not give them out? where’s my damn trophies??
My school never gave them out, but in my town we had some sort of…sports group stuff where you could sign your kids up to participate in teams and stuff. I’m sure that has an actual name, I just haven’t dabbled in it for ten years so I can’t remember what it is. But in my case at least it wasn’t affiliated with the school. It was moreso a community thing because people wanted kids out of the house and exercising. Not a bad reason, but certain competitive attitudes made it hard to endure.
I actually hated school sports event because I was so bad at it, once my total result was below the charts – that one really was painful.
But getting a ribbon just for showing up seems strange (as you could only get out of it if you called in sick anyway).
Maybe they should include some fun stuff for people not good at common athletics?
I was Jason today. I work in a rehab clinic and we get meals on our shift, today was “shepherd’s pie”. It was an abomination of sweet sloppy joes-esque meat and corn everywhere. Usually, I don’t complain about food (I still ate the whole goddamn thing) but I just had to voice my opinion about how this wasn’t real shepherd’s pie and that how the taste should be “simpler”
Source: My grandmother moved to the California from Scotland after WW2 and she made us real shepherd’s pie all the time.
Whilst I do appreciate a bit of the ol’ self depricating “british food is bland and/or gross” (thanks for that, wartime rationing!), I do have to chime in as a resident brit and say that if this were a little truer to life, Jason’d be wound up that he couldn’t order Chicken Parma at the bar.
Or possibly that there isn’t anywhere to get a good Chicken Tikka Masala in town.
In 1993 we attended a wedding in Iowa City, the couple were from suburban Boston and suburban NYC. We were told that the home of UIowa got its first Indian restaurant and it was open four hours a day, five hours a week.
They have since moved away. No idea what’s going on for international food, but I can only imagine Iowa City (and Bloomington) have gotten better on this strong the last two dozen years.
I love, love, LOVE Jason. Especially as interacts with Wah-kehrton.
Eh. Renting is better because you can call maintenance when crap breaks down and you don’t have to worry about paying for it. And I do, too, go to department stores- specifically the grocery section, ’cause ain’t no one picking out my produce and meat for me. I suppose once a year I wear out my jeans and need to go buy those, too, since you can’t try ’em on online. So, yeah, millennials do, too, go to the department store! (Everything else, hell, yeah, I buy that shit online).
True difference between Millennials and you old people? We don’t park in the fire lane, get out, and lean on the door chatting on our phones while our wives load the groceries in the trunk. And they say WE”RE entitled.
After looking at the websites associated with Cracker Barrel and Cookout and Old Country Buffet, I can only opine that you millennials aren’t killing them fast enough. Get back out there and stomp them suckers flat.
Yeah I don’t know why everyone’s so sad about us killing chain restaurants, they suck. I could go to Chili’s, or I could go to a DELICIOUS small business that costs the same amount, or I can eat the exact same frozen microwaved food at home for like two dollars. Why in the ass would anyone go to Chilis? Why is this something anyone is worried about preserving?
Bad ad alert: some kind of code on this site auto-redirects me away to “isolate.hahi.gdn”. It’s been like that for several days and it only happens on this site.
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LIFEHACKS
also Walky, you have clearly never had Bennigan’s Shepherd’s Pie
which isn’t that flavourful at all =p
(Millennials are killing restaurants anyway so w/e)
I shot a restaurant in Reno, just to watch it die.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
And leave evidence lying around? Are you mad, sir?
I lol’d.
https://xkcd.com/206/
Are we? I thought we ate out more than baby boomers and, uh… whatever the generation before us is. Gen X?
(Unless you meant killing as in KILLING IT, like, in a good way, in which case I completely misinterpreted you, oops. |D)
I think it’s the chain restaurants we’re supposed to be killing, which means the ones that are more expensive than fast food but not as unique as independent places.
Yeah, those – you know, the ones that old folk like because nostalgia and no damn taste.
…So, like…Olive Garden? I honestly can’t think of any other chain restaurants that don’t technically count as fast food.
Applebees and the like. The ones that aren’t bad, but generic and more expensive than they should be.
Oh, like a Chili’s or a Red Robin. I just always catalogued them as fast food because they sell a much more slowly prepared version of fast food. Thank you.
Apparently Millennials Are Killing Hooters, for which I can only say, well, thanks!
Are we? Friend took me there when I turned 21 and the place was packed with college dudes. (Yeah, he wanted to see how much of a prude I was. After 20 minutes of silence, he finally said “Well?” and I said “Mine are bigger” and stole his mojito.)
Oh, well played…
out damn
(Well then, I went to type out “’bout damn time.” and that was what decided to type out. I think my computer wants to sleep.)
Applebees, The 99, TGI Fridays, Chili’s… I lump them all into one generic, interchangeable group of “suburb food”. Old Country Buffet and Cracker Barrel have safe predictable meals for the elderly. We only have McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s up here, but I choose Wendy’s when possible.
The trick to finding good food is to look for local joints in the okay part of town that look like dives, but are always crowded. You know the people aren’t there for the ambience! (Also, if you’re at a restaurant for the first time, order the dish they named after the restaurant.)
Death to Cracker Barrel.
Their sawmill gravy is about as flavorful as sawdust.
I’m pretty sure I’d be beaten to death with small wooden crosses if I said that here in the south.
Those fuckers hurt.
As someone who lives in the south, zoomer, I agree to every part of what you said. I live with family, and they’re big fans of Cookout, Folks, and Cracker Barrel. Really deincentivizes me from going out to eat with them.
Course, when they go on dates and I’m not around, they go to Chili’s which I like a lot better than Cookout. Meh.
I think someone else can comment better than myself here.
Incidentally it’s wath the gravy is made of
Actually we spend less than 25 year olds in 1989 on eating out. And entertainment. And transport. And clothing. And medical care. In fact, we spend less % of our income than gen x on everything, except of course housing. That’s the only thing we spend more on. But that’s not exactly news.
Well, we don’t spend all our free time hanging out with our friends at the food court in the mall.
Or at the mall in the first place, for that matter.
In more ways than one, the Internet is our mall.
Shhh, don’t explain math to the entitled elderly sophisticates who write articles about “them damn kids is the worst because x!” If you point out that our spending habits largely exist because wages haven’t been kept anywhere near inflation and we’re always broke, old writers might have to face up to their own role in ruining society! (Which considering they run it and have run it for decades, is a lot more accurate than blaming the young.)
Just kidding, it’s fine. No one reads their ‘think’pieces anyway because newspaper and magazines are dead.
I think part of the joke is that Jason would think even that non-flavorful shepherd pie was too flavorful.
Clearly he’s been in the states too long then. Shepherd’s pie is supposed to be flavourful.
It’s supposed to be filling. Should some flavour care to hitchhike along, okay, but not a dealbreaker.
If you’re making something with gravy in it and there’s no flavour you just suck at cooking.
Judging from the number of people who put salt on their food before tasting it, there is a lot of sucky cooking out there.
Or people that just don’t taste their food first. I have a grandmother that tried to put tomato sauce on bacon carbonara.
I’ll admit I suck at gravy, but then I’ve also never really been as addicted to good gravy as some of my friends are.
That or Jason’s just always loved bland.
Made with real shepherds, naturally.
Have you any dean?
Are Millennials killing Shepherd’s Pie?
Is Walky even technically a millennial anymore, I’m barely a millennial!
18 years old, so born 1999. Technically a millennial. This year, anyway.
I know I’m a millennial because I had the Internet while I came of age. What generation comes after us, do they have a spiffy name yet?
The Hopeless
I ran into something calling them the iGeneration or something. Let’s hope that doesn’t catch on.
Indeed. Very unoriginal. Pretty much every future generation will be the iGeneration, anyway, unless societal collapse brings about the end of technology.
Or unless Apple decides to rebrand sometime in the next 30 years.
Nah, that’ll never happen.
I think that was MC Lars.
The only one I heard is the extremely original Gen Z. What do they even plan on calling the next one, if they’re going with that?
I think the next character after zed is the open curly brackets; ascii 7B or 123 or something like that.
Generational names don’t really seem to get solidified until after all of their members are born. The term Generation X didn’t really take off in its current meaning until the late ’80s, and although the term Millennials seems to have been first coined to refer to us early-’80s to early-’00s kids back in 1987, it too didn’t really gain any ground in the mainstream until the mid-’00s. We’ve got 5-10 years before we have to worry about the options available for naming the next generation.
nah, it’s just going to be millennials all the way down from now on.
it already covers, what, a 25-30 year span? it’s completely silly to be lumping people in their 30’s in with today’s teenagers…
I am technically a baby boomer (very tail end) and I’ve spent my entire demographic life being lumped in with people 15 years older than me. Get used to it, kid. (And get off my lawn! Also, you call that music?)
Me too. 1963. I think the arbitrary pigeonholing is silly anyway. It’s just one more way to slice demographics to try to make some kind of point.
I’m older than you, Keith (1959), anc I could never understand what makes me a boomer. The name Baby Boomers refers to the population explosion caused by Greatest Genners returning from WWII, getting GI Bill educations, and then settling down to shit out a brood. My parents were children during WWII (both born in ’37), so they were too young to be considered Greatest Gen. So,when someone tells me everyone born between 1948 and 1964 are all in the same category, I cry bullshit.
The trouble is that “millennials” has a great sound to it.
We’re seeing the same thing happen with it that specifically happened with Baby Boomers, where a bunch of folks are using it as a catch-all for “people older than [the speaker] who are assholes, often bigoted”. Which is why it keeps being used to describe middle-aged white voters, even though all of the actual Baby Boomers are named for a phenomenon circa 1946-1965, and only the very youngest of them are 52. (Prediction: we’re gonna keep referring to people in their late 40s and 50s as Boomers for a while longer yet. It might even become less of a generational word and more of a generic descriptor, with people vaguely thinking the “Boomers” are so named for their tendency to yell (“boom”) at clouds rather than for the post-war baby boom that made them a disproportionately large and influential generation.)
Similarly, “millennials” is being used as a generic word for The Youth, even though people who are currently teenagers are actually part of what we’re currently calling Generation Z. (That’s not likely to stick; millennials used to be Generation Y, but people already frequently forget that Generation X exists, and that was the progenitor of that style of generation-naming. A potential candidate mentioned on wikipedia that I’d currently bet on: the iGeneration, as what distinguishes GenZ from millennials is “widespread internet usage at a young age”.)
I think we have to wait until millennials start complaining about younger people. That’s normally how these things work out right?
This first-wave ‘Millenial’ has been doing it for years now!
Then again I’ve always felt like a Gen X-er who was late for the bus, so I dunno.
The Damned.
Still Living With Their Parents generation
Nothing can kill Shepherd’s Pie! It can’t be destroyed by conventional weapons!
truffles are kryptonite to shepherd’s pie
Like fruit cake. Or broccoli.
Fruit cake is great when made right. I mean any dish that is preserved by pickling it in alcohol is wonderous.
Teeth and a digestive track are its only weakness!
…. Bob help us all.
It’s like the Grimace.
Whoever makes a shepard’s pie without meat ought to be hung up by their thumbs. “Lasagna made of vegetables” my ass.
Beef, peas, carrots, corn and potato.
You can swap some of those ingredients (e.g. beans for peas), but yeah.
I’m hungry now.
Lamb. It’s not cowboy’s pie.
A smart shepherd uses his neighbour’s cow rather than his own sheep.
In my grandfather’s day, he was served horsemeat shepard’s pie.
I have also seen people add beets, which are an abomination unto Nuggan.
Right. If it contains beef, it’s a cottage pie. Also, neither version contains corn.
I find all of this vaguely amusing. It’s a peasant dish – It’s a pie with a potato topping, whatever kind of meat you’ve got in your area and whatever veges you’ve got available. Corn wasn’t used because corn wasn’t common in the British Isles. It’s used in American versions because it is.
Even the cottage vs shepard’s pie distinction is apparently an English one, not common in Ireland.
If he was properly British he’d be complaining it was a ‘Cottage Pie’ if it was made with beef rather than lamb…
So now apparently apart from killing gold, Applebees, diamonds, the housing market, the renting market, and boobs, now they’re killing Shepard’s Pie. What else will people claim Millennials are killing?
can we kill hate? that would be nice.
Don’t forget retail, especially conventional bookstores.
To paraphrase Bender,
A book what?
A what store?
A what what?
The auto industry, in a couple years after gas prices creep back up and the manufacturers are stuck with a 3 year inventory backlog of $75,000 trucks.
Wait. Millenials are killing boobs? BOOBS?
Dammit, that’s the last straw. Clearly, it’s time for drastic measures.
You’re only just hearing about this? Clearly you need to keep abreast of things better.
(… me too, apparently. BOOBS?)
Wait, what? I…what? Just…huh?
Also, newspapers.
death.
oh, wait, sorry.
AHEM. “DEATH.”
Oh, I was expecting more Becky and Dina…..
Maybe the sudden cut means things got seriously X-rated as soon as we left them.
Maybe…that’s what all the abrupt scene cuts mean.
Someone wanna check on Danny and Sal? Perhaps she couldn’t resist the Eagles and pounced on him right then and there.
More like they’re holding hands while looking at articles about creatures that are rated X-tinct! Hey-o!
honestly I am SO relieved it wasn’t. I’m still burnt out on them from the last arc. Nothing against them as characters or the pairing, I just want to see more of the rest of the cast now.
Like Dina herself, they appeared suddenly, and are gone just as fast.
Willis only made yesterday’s strip to stop Bagge from being too sad.
Totally worked
Border of panels one and two:
Guy looks like a Mad Fold-In! ^_^
Ha! He does. I wonder what strange pun will be revealed.
Something about Nixon, no doubt!
Always a classic.
And just think, all of those references are about to be knocked down a notch, as the future belongs to making political scandal jokes about President Bannon.
No one will ever be pun-worthy like Nixon! His name rhymes with too many things!
And the great thing about using Nixon in a fold-in is that his name is almost a palindrome!
….
….. that’s not actually a great thing, is it? Dammit.
Also, age is hard to read in general. I stopped aging between 23 and 30.
32 is showing up with some force now.
Dude, I got my first unsolicited senior citizen discount when I was 37! That was more than 20 years ago and I still don’t qualify for 95% of the ones I get.
And I was 27 the last time someone asked if my parents were in.
I’m 30 and I still get carded…
I am regularly and consistently mistaken as a range of ages within “too young to drive”. I basically stopped aging when I was like 12. A D.A.R.E representative outside a Best Buy tried to get me to come over to her table yesterday, as a matter of fact. More than once, when I’ve told people my age, they have laughed AT LENGTH and then told me “no”.
My mom’s been regularly mistaken for somewhere around 15 years younger than she is, like, for my entire life, so I’m looking forward to finally being taken seriously, professionally, some time around when I’m ready to retire.
I thought Walky just crawled under the bar’s floorboards and got dust caught in his hair.
But, like, do any other Milllennials feel oddly powerful from hearing about all the stuff we’re apparently able to kill
Not me.
I just wish I could kill something more impressive. There are many industries on my list that I would do away with before “paper napkins”.
This is just our warm up act
Today, paper napkins; tomorrow, fossil fuels.
and just wait until we kill capitalism :V
Don’t kill capitalism, co-opt capitalism to build free market institutions that actually serve the needs of the populace and give workers a fair deal in the process. If you kill capitalism in absolute terms the only real alternative is a command economy which is just as bad for the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, is just as prone to abuses that makes workers an underclass and is more fragile to boot.
A woman I know who grew up in the former Soviet bloc recently told me to advise anyone I knew who wanted to kill capitalism to make sure they had a solid working alternative first. She didn’t specify what that might be, except that what she grew up with wasn’t better.
It wasn’t. Communism encouraged laziness because Everyone had a work. There is a jokey saying about those times “Whether you stand or lie down you deserve two thousand”. Basically there was no unemployment, everyone was being paid… but for one thing the amount of goods available wasn’t great and people were Highly unmotivated to work. Why should they if they’ll get paid one way or another.
Capitalism goes into the opposite extreme, it’s fukken survival of the fittest… or rather getting all energy sucked out of you and dying of stress and heart problems by the time you are 40-50.
It isn’t even survival of the fittest – that’s the pretty myth of capitalism. It’s the survival of those with capital and in the long run, without heavy government intervention (or wars and collapses), capital is mostly inherited. As long as the return on investment is greater than the growth of the economy as a whole, capitalism serves to concentrate wealth.
The counter to this is simple, but difficult – high marginal tax rates, very high inheritance taxes and preferably some kind of wealth tax.
@thejeff
Well I was mostly talking about the “little guys” who are treated as expendable work force to be used and thrown away by the guys you talk about, the ones with Capital.
But yeah Capitalism basically leads to the creation of social classes not unlike in monarchy, nobility with cash at the top, townspeople and peasants at the bottom.
@Eldritch Gentleman
There were a LOT of problems in the country mentioned, but “laziness was encouraged” was… not one of them.
Like, your explanation of what was wrong with a tyrannical dictatorship where, for example, people were being murdered by secret police is basically the shortest, blandest fairytale version of the lie capitalist countries have been selling their citizens literally ever since Marx was like, “hey, I have an idea”.
Universal Basic Income is not what brought down the USSR, it’s not what’s wrong with North Korea, etc etc etc etc etc… etc……..
@Li
I’m from Poland, a country which WAS communistic for like 50 years and I have some idea of what it looked like here. I was referring to the economic, not the political system and unfortunately that IS what it looked like.
People were simply unmotivated to excel or work harder because there was no point to that. And those who tried to excel were usually shoved aside because of Political reasons. Polish industry and technological development was always encouraged NOT too do too good in order not to make Russia look bad.
@Li
I forgot to mention one thing. Something absolutely ever present during communist times was “Getting a deal”. Basically because Communism was such an economical failure people had to get smart and rather illegal. Stealing from the workplace, giving bribes, favouring family and friends. There was an EPIDEMIC of that kind of stuff. Everyone lived according to the philosophy “If it belongs to the country it belongs to no one” and stole and defrauded as much as they could.
Democratic socialism comes to mind. A mixed economy in which capitalism does what it’s good at, and socialism handles the rest.
Something along those lines. The big key is government policies that keep capital (and thus power) from accumulating too much. In theory, you could take that money and just burn it and it would still be worthwhile.
In practice it makes sense to spend it to improve the country and people’s lives – education, infrastructure, social welfare, etc.
@thejeff
Put the money in the hands of the working people and the economy will continue to grow. I mean it’s the average guys that really drive the economy because in sheer numbers they beat the rich in how much food, clothes, chemicals, gasoline, cars, education etc. etc. they need. You give the money to average Joes and they drive the economy. You give it to the rich and it mostly sits on their bank accounts like some depraved High Score. A yacht or a mansion with golden toilet sits is nice but it hardly produces enough work to keep the economy going.
If it just sits in bank accounts, that’s one thing. Generally though it doesn’t. It gets put in nice safe investments that still get a better return than the growth of the economy as a whole. Traditionally land (or housing and other real property), but anything that generates rent.
That’s how it grows faster than the economy as a whole. What happens over time when the economy grows at 3%, but the return on capital is 8%? Those that started with an advantage in capital wind up owning more and more of the economy. It’s inexorable.
Happens even when working people still have enough to drive the economy, though it leads to the case where they don’t.
i mean, ‘diamonds’ is a good one to stuff and mount on your wall
I totally feel that.
We like to kill many unnecessary things what cost money.
On the plus side, I just read that we’re saving libraries. Go team!
Killing the diamond industry is going to be the plot of my second webcomic.
Also the protagonist is a transgender Japanese-American lawyer who always wears cargo shorts and manages to get himself into conspiracies like Dina gets herself behind doors
You just got yourself a reader.
Now if only I could find myself a writer.
It’s your webcomic. Why can’t you write it yourself?
No, see, the problem is that I am a lazy bastard
I volunteer to write your webcomic.
“your webcomic.”
done.
Well, I would except a large part of why we’re killing certain industries is because we can’t afford them or don’t have time for them since we’re overworked.
This.
A little bit. I would say we’re probably the first generation that can proudly say that things weren’t better in “the good ol’ days” with a straight face.
Sure we have nostalgia for the things we loved back then. Sure we’ve seen some of our industries of love taken over by corporate crap (the gaming industry) but it’s all getting better as we advance, even with the minor human setbacks here and there.
All of the life changing, and improving technological advancements that we have seen in our lifetimes have emboldened us as a progressive set of adults, and the future is looking bright…regardless of how shitty the dying off of the previous political generation looks. Yes, we are very powerful.
That’s pretty much what we boomers said when we were young. But hey, optimism is a wonderful thing so I’ll shut up now.
Well, other than minor little things like the economy and climate change, I suppose.
Problem is that we are killing it by starving it to death, having no money to feed it.
“reasonable taste”
or lack thereof, apparently
Shepherd’s pie should never be bland.
BECAUSE WE’RE POOR!!!!
…Oh, wait, that’s just me.
It’s a lot of us.
most, even.
Amen.
is walky attempting to improve his grade? again?
Aw man I wanted Becky and Dina they’re adorable. Oh well. Also WALKY DON’T BECOME YOUR SISTER. Actually your sister is pretty cool. Lots of conflict for you.
I agree with “Don’t become your sister” because for Walky that can easily mean his crack about “imagine all this, plus with boobs!”
And the last thing Jason should say is “I don’t need to imagine it”, meaning the likelihood of that statement approaches 1.
The guy in panel 1 and 2 seems to be having some sort of cosmic horror event. “I exist between two planes!”
I know, right? In one panel he’s frowning, and in the next one he’s smiling. Reminds me of those creepy masks used to represent theater.
He’s discovering the fourth wall, like Gwenpool.
OK, I’ll be honest, I don’t have too much to say about what is clearly a set-up strip for the future.
So instead, I’ll link to my latest blog post, where I have waaaaaay too much to say about the two pilot episodes of the new DuckTales show.
Glad you liked it!
I myself adored it. Well, it has a former Doctor in it, so…
But yeah, it was pretty amazing. And I agree with what you said about character motivation. A big part of making characters feel real isn’t just giving them fleshed out personalities, but explaining why they have those personalities.
That final line of the episode justifies so much of about what we’ve learned about Scrooge, Donald, and the triplets. A good reveal like that makes so much of what came before suddenly clear.
I only glanced at your review cos of.spoilers (thanx for warning), but let’s say you’re not alone:
http://somethingpositive.net/sp08142017.shtml
Randy on Twitter, Tumblr, and in that comic was the reason I decided to give it a shot.
This is probably going somewhere, but since this is all I have to go on today: “It’s not office hours, your sister at least had some reason I’d want see her outside of that, kindly Fuck the fuck off.”
I fucking hate yelp reviewers as a waitress. Way to get me in trouble for “not saying thank you when I paid” or “looking bored when not at our table”. Fuck you.
I love it when people’s random avatars are very appropriate.
I love it even more when they are extremely inappropriate, like right now.
Whenever I leave Yelp reviews, I try to compliment the staff if they were good and just not mention it if they weren’t.
But really I’m not even sure why I leave Yelp reviews to begin with.
Good yelp reviews actually can really REALLY help people. So that’s good.
Also speaking of work I have need for advice from smart people but need to be anonymous. And most commenters here are some of the most woke people I know anonymously. I’ve seen others ask for advice and support so I figured I’d give it a shot.
I work at a restaurant that I love. The bosses family treats us all like family and does all kinds of things for us. Recently my school + work schedule is going to be hectic for me and they aren’t letting me switch my hours to a more convenient time…which…whatever…I can manage. But when another waitress left I figured I could just steal her hours. So I found a friend to be a new server and got her to apply so we could split all the hours left between us two. My friend wasn’t hired though and I suspect it is because she is trans.
I have a lot of reasons to think this. Mainly since she is the most qualified person we’ve ever had apply and she has proven talented and personable. and the reason for not hiring her is “She wouldn’t fit our team”. This is bad enough but I also have reason to believe that our undocumented employees are treated horribly and paid less than they deserve.
I need this job. And they also keep guilting me since I love the bosses wife and daughter and they would have to take more hours if I left. So would another waitress with severe SEVERE health/pain issues. I don’t want to hurt any of them but I’m fucked on hours and selling my morals by workingg for him is fucking killing me
Like I am mad at my boss but don’t want anyone else at my job to suffer
That’s a pretty crappy situation, friendo.
I think ultimately it boils down to what’s more important: having a job and therefore money, but having to bend your morals for the sake of the others, or quitting the job and leaving the others to their fate, but getting away clean?
I were you, I’d figure out where my limits were. At some point you have to do what’s right for you. Maybe your moral code is flexible in the face of money and guilt. But maybe it’s not — and if that’s the case, then the longer you work there, the worse you’re going to feel, and the greater the resentment.
Look, if you NEED the job, you like the job, you love the owner’s family…
Yeah, it sucks that the boss may be a bigot (Do you have any hard evidence btw?)
Just weight your Morals against your Needs.
My friend has more training than anyone on staff when it comes to food which is something my boss is desperate for. They clearly couldn’t come up with a reason not to hire her so they brought her in for unpaid training instead after telling me “Yeah your friend who comes in today isn’t going to work probably. She just doesn’t fit in with the team we are going for”. Then let her waste a whole day training and said they’d rather fuck us over on hours than hire her.
Plus the barely paid undocumented workers abused in the back I’ve kind of tried to pretend I didn’t see in the past (which I’m not proud of). But we’ve known about it a long time and when a former employee kind of confirmed that they’d been paid low wages under the table I wasn’t surprised because we all suspected.
can you report them? that sounds like several kinds of illegal. Ask a Manager would probably know where to report them to…
…or would reporting the boss be dangerous for the undocumented workers these days? :/
That is essentially handing them to the feds. And this is a local restaurant so there is no higher boss than him.
I’ll preface this by saying that I am not trans, but I am female, homosexual, and non-white, so while I can’t fully understand and appreciate the magnitude of the negative experiences that trans people face, I have known discrimination in my life. In situations like this though, unless there’s more you’re not sharing, I would probably give the boss the benefit of the doubt. It’s his business, his family basically, and maybe your friend just rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe you told her they really needed somebody so she came off cocky when he talked to her. Maybe something in her tone of voice made her seem suspicious. Maybe she just really is generally a jackass and you don’t see it because she’s your friend. Who knows? I know I’ve not hired people simply because they came across personality-wise as somebody I would not enjoy having to interact with on a daily basis, and that may be what happened here. Absent of any other evidence of anti-trans bigotry on his part, I myself would assume it was just a personality mismatch were I in your shoes.
If you need the job you need the job. See if you can find a better job at a company which you feel better about. Its likely not a good idea to let your boss hold your coworkers hostage though he is perfectly capable of hiring more workers to fill in the gaps and if he really is not, having less people will just give the remaining workers more leverage.
That is a tough situation and I am sorry. *appropriate gesture of support*
As others have already pointed out, you sound pretty upset about the conditions there. This job kind of seems like a clusterf*ck: you are doing a juggling act between work and school, you’re trying to finesse ways to get a more workable schedule, and you’re torn by ethical and moral concerns. Like a lot of other people are saying, if you need the money, you need the money. However, you need to consider your mental health too. I’ve worked some sh!tty jobs in my time and I can say they can drain you and hurt you in a very profound way.
I agree with Emperor Norton II about your Trans* friend. I don’t know what kind of legal options she might have or if she even wants to take that road. Were I you, I wouldn’t advocate for her to the boss or confront the boss about her unless she wants you to do so. (I also don’t know how “out” she is so you may want to be very careful to respect her privacy.)
It’s very admirable that you’re worried about what will happen to your co-workers if you leave. However, ultimately there is nothing you can do about that. You need to make the decision that is best for you in this situation and they need to make their own decisions. In that position, I might talk to them and tell them you’re not trying to abandon them or make their jobs at the restaurant harder, but you really need to leave because you’re not comfortable working there anymore (or whatever reason you feel okay giving). It is great that you care about them, but you do not have any obligation to them beyond that which you take on yourself.
I second the comments about trying to find another job before leaving. (That is always a good plan when leaving any job.) I don’t know where you live, but I’m in a large city, and here restaurant workers with experience are *always* in demand because it’s not the kind of job you can just jump into with no experience whatsoever (well, except maybe for fast-food places, but the restaurant where you work doesn’t sound like one). You also might think about on what terms you want to leave. Would it be helpful for you to be truthful and “call out” the boss when explaining why you’re leaving? If you do that, remember that you may be burning a bridge in terms of getting a good reference from him. Again, you have to do what is best for you, not just financially but also emotionally.
A number of years ago I left a job kind of abruptly when I simply felt I couldn’t morally work there anymore. It was a security position at an electronics manufacturing plant. The site supervisor who hired me was a cool guy who was really understanding about my school schedule and who really bent over backwards for his employees. He got removed from the position for giving employees “too much” overtime – we had people working there who were supporting families and needed overtime pay to make ends meet. Subsequently we had a series of increasingly worse replacements, culminating in an ex-military man we used to call “Sergeant Sh!thead” behind his back. He systematically exploited and demeaned us guards. While that was bad enough, my personal breaking point came after two specific things. First, I found out that some sectors of the plant were manufacturing components that were going on weapons the military was using in the Middle East. That REALLY bothered me; however, I managed to tolerate it for a while by telling myself that I wasn’t being paid by the electronics company. The guards were contracters and I was being paid by the security company. Then, Sergeant Sh!thead reported the supervisor of the cleaning company that serviced the plant to the INS after hearing gossip that he was an “illegal.” The cleaning staff supervisor, with whom I was friendly, was from Brazil and had come to the U.S. on a student VISA, which had expired. He was trying to get it renewed but that is a long process. After Sergeant Sh!thead reported him, the guy lost his position at our plant (he wasn’t fired from the cleaning company but was placed elsewhere). The last time I talked to him he told me that he didn’t know how much trouble he was in with the INS. This man was NOT a terrorist; he really wanted to be “properly” documented. He also was a supervisor for a cleaning company that exclusively employed South American immigrants so that they could show proof of employment when applying for papers and citizenship. There were a lot of other factors involved, but those two definitely contributed to my breaking point. I’m not sure I would have left when I did otherwise. About a week after leaving I found a much better job working for a real estate company (this was pre-2008, obvs).
However, I have to note that I had the *privilege* of being able to leave and know I would find another job. At that time I had one college degree under my belt and was just months away from earning two more (my academic career is boring and complicated). I had held many other jobs so I knew I had good references. I’m also white and had a support structure, including my family and my partner, on which I knew I could depend if I absolutely needed to. (It’s kind of a point of personal pride for me to be able to say that, since I earned my first undergraduate degree, I have *never* asked my mom for monetary support. However, I’m well aware that I’m super-privileged to have a mom who I *could* ask to support me.) I also had a car and lived in an area where there were other jobs available.
I don’t know your personal situation and it’s easy for me to say, “Do what you think is best ethically!” But I’d basically say (the tl;dr version): do what is best for YOU, whatever that means to you.
Good luck!
oh. good point about mental health, reminds me of the Ask a Manager article on workplace PTSD. http://www.askamanager.org/2014/11/are-you-haunted-by-your-last-bad-job.html
Sounds like you already know what you need to do.
That’s a real big non-answer mate.
Yeah, first of all, I would not like to be in your situation (rather obvious, isn’t it). No matter what you do, you will seemingly end up hurting other people, including people that, as far as I can tell with the information I have, don’t deserve it.
So, in random order:
First of all, I think you should talk to your friend and listen to her opinions. Will she want you to stand and fight with her? Will she understand that you’re not in an easy position to make a stand on this? Are there other things you can do to help her, like trying to find her a job somewhere else?
-If- you end up deciding to leave, be smart about it. Make sure to have another job lined up first. Same thing if you decide to end up confronting the boss. Remember, it’s easier to get a job if you have a job.
You say you’re treated like family, yet they’re not giving you the hours you’d like, and they’re guilting you into making it easier on the wife and daughter. To me, that seems like a clear difference between who’s actually treated like family; but this is an opinion based on the information I have right now.
I especially feel for the waitress with the severe health/pain issues here. Half a year back, my board game group used to go to a 24-hour diner for some late gaming, and we’d have the same waitress. I noticed one time that she seemed to be out of it, and when it was time to pay, I asked her is she was OK. Turns out she was not. She told me that she was having big back pains and wanted nothing more than just sitting down and crying; and she should not have been working at all that night… But since this is America, she was working. Fuck that shit.
And yeah, I obviously gave her extra tip that night. And pretty much the rest of the nights we were there, before we migrated to a different place.
Anyway, while I right now don’t really care much about the mother and daughter, I -do- care about your co-worker in bad health. I really wish there was some way you could get things your way without turning her into collateral damage. While you don’t have to mention the mother and daughter to your friend, you might want to mention your co-worker.
Yeah. Thanks. I’m still not sure my friend knows WHY she didn’t get the job. I don’t want to hurt her since she thinks they may possibly have had other options but with my shitty work schedule she’ll quickly find out. I should probably tell her. Fuck. Capitalism is so shitty
It’s shitty indeed.
*internet hugs offered, if you want them*
Would quitting make some kind of positive difference outside of making you feel better not being associated with a dick? I’m gonna be blunt, you’re working a low-level, pink-collar job and you need the money. You’re not the sort of person who’s morally obligated to leave a job because the boss might be a bad guy. That’s generally for people who either would be following immoral orders, or who would be making a statement impactful enough to make some potential practical difference.
It’s very possible your friend was discriminated against (though frankly she may have not been hired BECAUSE she was too qualified, that’s a thing), and the chances the undocumented workers aren’t getting screwed somehow is very small. Those things suck, and if you can actually do something concrete to fix them, that’s all well and good. But you’re a marginalized queer person (I presume, given your name) working your way through college, who needs money, and you being unemployed and the impacts that would have on your life would also suck. Like, on a societal level, we don’t need more queer people having to drop out of college and not being able to pay their bills either.
Absolutely keep solidarity, talk to your friend like Emperor Norton said, but- again, to be blunt- don’t hurt yourself because you feel guilty either.
Coming from a food service background (20 years and counting of restaurant work) there are three ways I can see your friend not having gotten the job besides the obvious. The first is that one of her former employers may have blackballed her when contacted for checking work history. It’s a shitty and technically illegal practice, but because it’s all but impossible to prove and people are people it happens and there’s not much that can be done about it.
The second is that, as Blackbird suggested up thread, her personality may have rubbed your boss the wrong way. Having helped weed out potential hires in the past I’ve always looked past such things to more important issues like skillset and quality of work, but not everyone is capable of doing that.
The third and final is that she may have been too qualified. With the other workplace issues you have mentioned, someone who knows the industry really well and has their shit together can be a liability because they can unintentionally rock the boat in ways that, while technically doing the right thing, can shift the elements of how the business works in ways that destroy a small business’ economic sustainability.
the mcdonald’s i worked at til may of this year had a way of discouraging yelp reviews: we put a link to a survey on our own site that, when filled out, gave a code you could write on the receipt and use to buy one get one quarter pounder or egg mcmuffin free.
They’re destined to do this dance forever
What a good place to be–don’t believe them
‘Cause they speak a different language and it’s never really happened to me
(Happy Hour Again!)
I can’t remember ever being carded going into a bar, even when I was 19(the legal drinking age here in Saskatchewan) and probably looked 15. On the other hand I had a 7/11 clerk ask for my ID when I was in my mid 30s when I was trying to buy a lottery ticket.
Typically here in Ohio you can quite well enter most bars and pubs at 18, but you cannot buy alcohol without ID. There are places where you can’t, but that is because they do the ID check at the door and once inside you can freely order and it’s a much rarer business model.
I’ve either eaten lasagna without meat (which is likely because my parents have a lot of vegetarian dishes, though they’re not vegetarian) or I never noticed the meat, so it’s still a moot point. :p
*loves shepherd’s pie*
“Tell me, now,
Is there a man among you here,
Is there no one who will stand up and try to fight?
Tell me, man!
Is there not one in all your ranks,
Is there not one who values courage over life?
They looked to me once,
Now they turn to you.
Do you understand now?
Do you see that the truth is
They don’t want to change this!
They don’t want a hero;
They just want a martyr!
A statue to raise!
I’ve given everything I can,
There are no heroes left in man!”
“If these people… tell this story… to their children… as they sleep… then maybe someday, they’ll see a hero… is just a man… who knows he is free.”
“I will not be told where to stand! I will not be told what to say!
Not by man or machine, not by you, not by anyone tonight!
You’ve got to do better than fear.
You’ve got to step out of the shadows and fight!
And when they see your face again,
they will know what it means to have fear dragged out into the light.”
+1 internets to whomever can tell me where this comes from without google.
one of the Lost Episodes of My Little Pony ?
Fuck those ponies, no.
Mr D confirmed as clopper
>:(
Awww! The Ponies are great!!
at a guess, it sounds like the Protomen.
I couldn’t be any more specific than that, though.
+1 internets To you my good internaut.
Seriously, the lack of knowledge of such a good band simply bothers me a lot.
Sounds like a Queen song.
Interesting comment, as the band has covered queen songs before.
for some reason, it reminded me of some of the speeches in the ancient British sci-fi film Things to Come
Would you bloody keep quiet there already ;D
No idea, but somehow it reminded me of:
“I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!”
If there was ever a “Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl” style mashup of Metropolis and Spartacus…
I suspect it’s the Bard.
… I’ve looked over 18 years old since I was 14 years old. It was the facial hair. A mustache. I didn’t like to shave until a teacher in highschool made me shave it off.
(Percussions.)
Now I’m 37 and I look like a kid if I shave my facial hair off. Go figure.
If I shave my glorious beard off I instantly lose 7 years.
I’m in a similar boat there. I’m similarly aged (38), but if I shave my mustache and goatee I look like I’m maybe 20 to 22.
Facial hair does not help at all to make me look older. Been speeing resumés all over the city for the past several weeks, and multiple people have asked me if I’m under 18. I am, in fact, 23.
Hey, Willis, I just want to say I’ve been reading DoA for 4+ years, and I’ve read through the archive at least ten times, and it’s always been a source of positivity in my life. Thanks.
Well except for the rape, child abuse, suicide, and constant mental trauma!
Jeez this comic is dark…
Characters overcoming those things can be very, very positive.
I assume Wally found some way to pronounce the “u” in flavourful.
flave-oar-full?
oh or flave-hour-full maybe
Those darn Millennials and their not buying diamonds and other expensive shit because they can’t afford it after the older generations wrecked the economy.
And they all want those blasted participation trophies even though that was the older generations idea and none of the Millennials asked for them and that they’re always participation RIBBONS anyway.
When you look like my sister you can go wherever the hell you want.
“I’ll keep stalking you until you bang me like my sister” ?
…phrasing
That works either way, actually.
The hell kind of shepherd’s pie has he been eating? You’re supposed to make it with lamb
lamb? I’ve only ever seen it made with cheap ground beef. or ground mystery meat, maybe.
now that I think about it, the name does make more sense with lamb. or mutton.
With other meat it’s normally called cottage pie, I think.
The name “Shepards Pie” might give a small hint about what’s supposed to be in it!
Hint: what do you typically shapard?
Krogans?
I’m sorry the answer was banthas
Why not nerfs or shaaks??
You herd those.
No, quarians. I spent three damn games fixing their problems.
Cherry pie has cherries in it.
Apple pie has apples in it.
Mincemeat pie…doesn’t actually have meat in it, but it does have mincemeat.
And that brings us to shepherds pie…
“Is that squire on the fire?”
“Mercy no sir, look closer, you’ll notice it’s grocer”
Technically it’s Shepard’s Pie with an apostrophe
Just as technically that apostrophe should follow the S not precede it. It’s a type of food traditionally common among shepherds in the region, not the recipe created by and attributed to a singular shepherd or someone named Shepherd. ;p
1. No not at all, no one has ever written Shepards’ Pie, besides that would be pronounced shepardseses (like Jesus’ apostles)
2. I imagine it’s written that way because the original cooks were Shepards, so each pie could have been said to belong to a single one, a shepard’s pie…or because everyone realized Shepardseses sounded really stupid
A traditional mincemeat pie does indeed actually contain meat. Many modern recipes have excised that, but usually beef suet remains a staple part of the filling and crust anyway. Personally I prefer the meat in, it adds a richness that rounds out the flavor of the standard apples with currents or raisins and spices.
Looks thicker. More like vicar.
I’m guessing shaap.
Ring particles? Speaking as a minor moon of Saturn, that’s what I usually shepard.
I’ve always seen it made with ground beef because here in Amurrica lamb costs an arm and a leg.
Walky, no. why are you stalking Jason. what the hell.
Finally getting some of that dreaded ‘tutoring’, I imagine…
Wait, the old guy is Walky?!?
Also, I just woke up from a delightful dream about slavery.
Should have put “delightful” in quotation marks.
The same age as the other first years, 18 or 19.
I think you need to read my comment again
My English boyfriend would like to protest, shepherd’s pie is lamb and potato, “if someone has been feeding you shepherd’s pie made of vegetables they are LYING to you.” He does, however, appreciate the “too flavorful” joke and is now making more self-deprecating jokes about his country’s cuisine.
I told him the only place I’ve ever seen shepherd’s pie on the menu is the Harry Potter section of Universal Studios, and it was made of beef, carrots, peas, and potato, and he was displeased.
Ha, awesome. I thought that was the funniest joke in this one; “too flavourful” – ha!
I am not lucky enough to have an English boy- or girlfriend, but my ex-wife was friends with a bunch of the filthy Limey bastards who were expatriates in ‘Murrica. And, speaking of English cuisine, she noted that when she visited them in Ye Olde Englande that it seemed like they made a mental survey of everything they ate, with the only question being “Is it sweet? Or is it savory?” and the answer being “Then pour custard on it” or “Then pour gravy on it.”
I kinda want panel 1/2’s derp/dorp face as an avatar. The problem is, I’m suuuuuper lazy.
If you get too lazy, you might see assholes with tiki torches marching into your life
…what?
(outdated click-bait, since this was/is a link to the requested avatar image, but it was not picked up on, so I put it to work)
…nice one.
I did I own custom avatar, which suggests it’s not rocket science. And my attentions are heavily diverted elsewhere for.the moment, too.
This strip has helped solve a problem of modern nutrition. After the revelations about Pink Slime being in hamburger meat, all the supermarkets (hopefully all) posted signs that they weren’t putting the stuff in your burgers. So where did it go? Where can you hide it? Why not shepherd’s pie?
veggie lasagna is vastly superior to sheperd’s pie. hell, even shitty cafeteria veggie lasagna is better than sheperd’s pie.
but then, I grew up with shepherd’s pie and didn’t even know what lasagna *was* until… probably until I was a teenager. I knew Garfield liked it and it was food but that was it.
and apparently I can’t spell today. o.0
Shepherd’s pie is awesome, Walky. You just haven’t had one with ground beef inside.
Ok. This is probably the one time I get to flash my “Help I’m ignorant about a foreign culture because I’m American” card, so I’m going to use it. What’s Shepherd’s Pie? Is that anything like Chicken/Turkey Pot-Pie?
…
Also I just want to add that when you’re criticizing cooking for “not being bland enough”, I think you might have overly sensitive taste buds, Jason.
Sheperd’s pie is something like a casserole, with the top layer being mashed potatoes, which become nicely browned and crusty (hence “pie”) when the dish is baked.
Thank you. It’s always kinda bothered me I didn’t know what it was. And also, now I know I made an upside-down shepherd’s pie last week when I used potato instead of noodles in the lasagna I made for my roommates to celebrate being back from my family reunion in Michigan.
Real shepherd’s pie is basically lamb and potatoes, so Walky’s just as American as you in his “knowledge” about it (and it’s so appropriate that you have a Walky avatar right now).
And stereotypically, English food was not known for having much in the way of seasonings in it (or other ways to make it tastier)… Of course, if you grow up without seasonings, you’re probably used to what little flavour there is, and when someone then tries to spice up the recipe a bit, it somehow will feel wrong.
The main reason for british food having a bad reputation can be linked to the rationing of WWII (there was some in WWI but not as much) which only ended in the mid 1950s in that there simply wasn’t much available that wasn’t being put to the war effort and then trying to pay off debts
Interestingly the “hangover” of stodgy food could also be felt in former british colonies, even food in NZ (where I hail from) was pretty bland and dodgy well up into the 1980s but now its much better thanks to travel and immigration
Having said that a well made shepards pie is pretty damn tasty
I’ve been to England three times and to Scotland once. I ate some of the best food I’ve EVER had there. Cornish pasties! Steak and ale pie! Fish and chips! Bangers and mash! Afternoon tea with scones and clotted cream! The BEST candy ever and gas (petrol?)-station chocolate that tastes better than gourmet chocolate in the U.S.! Shepherd’s pie! *drooling*
IMHO, the U.S. needs to get with the program and cook MANY more things in pie form.
The high tea is imitated in the USA for a good reason. (My wife’s perfect b’day treat, and she’s a tea fanatic.)
I must add the old joke about English breakfasts being so large and wonderful. Eat enough at one and you might be able to skip dinner.
I love how there are always historical reasons for everything once you start looking!
I got hold of a book of rationing-era recipes, which suggested such delicious life-hacks as making your butter ration last longer by cutting it with mashed potato and water.
Don’t forget the frozen green peas!
Well, actually, I do, because I just don’t care for them that much. I have substituted fresh green peas with good results, but it’s not traditional.
Ground lamb has a pretty aggressive flavor, especially when you make sure to include some of the drippings. Some Worcestershire sauce, some red wine, some onions and/or carrots, you’ve got a right savory meal.
I suspect fresh peas are actually more traditional. I’m pretty sure shepard’s pie is older than common frozen foods. Using frozen peas probably dates to the 50s.
Ground lamb may be more flavorful than beef – explaining why the more common US version using cheaper beef needs more spicing up.
Roast a beef or lamb joint on the Sunday, grind up the leftovers for Shephards pie on the Monday.
Ground roast meat needs more liquid to cook though.
The entire reason for the British Empire was an attempt to find food, somewhere, that tasted good and/or like something.
And so when they finally got to India, the clouds parted, angels sang, and the voice of the ALMIGHTY spake: “Behold, for I have led you to the Promised Flavour.”
And then the Brits grabbed up tea and curry with a “these are ours now” and scarpered off back home.
the version I grew up with was ground beef on the bottom, mashed potato on top. maybe a little onion in the meat if you’re lucky. It was flavourless and gross.
also it’s not really pie, it doesn’t have a pie crust or anything. just meat and potato.
If its made with beef its a cottage pie as shepards pie is only made with lamb (hence the name) but both are very tasty so its all good
Apparently that distinction isn’t nearly as clear in Ireland as in England. There “cottage pie” is the older name and may be nearly interchangeable.
That’s my definition but as thejeff says, it’s interchangeable.
Fish pie is another pie made (mostly) with a potato topping.
The taste depends what you stick with the meat on the bottom. Lea & Perrins sauce, wine or anything else will make it tastier. Or put a grated hard cheese on top of the potato.
It’s the classic dish using left-over meat from the Sunday roast.
It’s a large pasty.
I’ll just leave this video here. It’s Keef Cooks, one of the many YouTube cooking channels I’m subscribed to (this one’s mainly Brit focused), showing how to make Shepherds’ Pie. It’s a good starting place if anyone here who isn’t from the British Isles or their cultural relations wants to understand the modern take on traditional home cooking in the region.
Actually, if I were Jason, I’d be worried that Walky was stalking me. Of course, that pretty much sums up Jason’s relationship with the Walkerton twins, doesn’t it?
I’d be more worried about intelligence and resourcefulness Walky put into finding him. He sucks at math but an idiot he is not.
Reading Yelp reviews in the hopes that the person you’re looking for has not only left a review but done so in a way that could lead you to identify him is not exactly the smartest thing. It also assumes that either they left the review and are still at the place, or that despite the review being negative they are going to return to the place. Walky was able to track down Jason through comic logic, not intelligence or resourcefulness.
I rather think Walky checket the Yelp for the handful of British/Irish pubs in the region and was sure, Jason would leave a negative review.
So Walky’s hair isn’t going grey from stress.
From being around Jason.
When the statisticians at Google why there were 300 extra searches for “Shepherd’s Pie” one week, I’ll secretly know the answer. Oh sweet, obscure knowledge. How you make the world weird.
I’ve never in my life thought of Shepherds pie as obscure.
Though if you want a more flavorful (and therefore, I assume, blasphemous) version, I make these killer mini shepherds pies with sausage instead of mutton.
I don’t think Jeremy meant Sheperds pie was obscure, but why the spike in searches for it.
Recipe, or it never happened.
http://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a50736/best-mini-shepherds-pies-recipe/
This, but instead of ground beef, use a ground sausage of your choice. I usually use an italian, just because it’s easiest to get in that shape around here.
I also typically double the suggested amount of gravy, so 4tbsp flour and 4 of butter instead of two each, but I like mine a little saucy.
Thx – that would represent more use than I ever got from a muffin tin – the sausage substitution makes me think of alternative fillings, like maybe for little deep-dish pizzas
Shepards pie is obscure?
My fellow countrymen are ashamed of Shepherd’s Pie: it rarely makes it to recipe books.
Peasant food. Not high cuisine.
Ironically, I’ve read that ex-Public School boys retain a taste for it from their school days.
Jeffrey Archer used to serve shepherd’s pie and krug for his after-Tory conference party soirees. He knew his audience.
I searched for it, but only because I was familiar with it as “meat pie with mashed potato topping” and wondered if I was missing something.
Dangit, Walky.
Shepherd’s Pie is delicious.
This would make me, as a TA, not happy at all.
I go to the bar to drink and get away from students, darn it, not to see them.
The only time I’ve ever seen mine there they look scared of me and flee.
Also I’m in Aus so I’m not even safe from 18 year old first years at the bar.
Mine usually pretend they never met me before. It’s kind of beautiful, really.
I aim to be at the uni bar the night before an assignment is due. I am like 50% certain a little bit of wee came out for at least one student who saw me
Underage? But he is… oh right, alcohol from the age of 21.
I wish I knew why the older generation gets so angry about participation awards when they created them. I always kinda liked getting a little trophy or ribbon for trying because guess what? Some of us try as best as we can in the sports we’re signed up for, and I know all it got me was being teased and made fun of by the other kids for not being good enough. At least I got a trophy too.
Honestly, sometimes just showing up is hard enough, especially for those who aren’t athletically inclined. What they should do though, is give a big award to the top three, and then participation awards for everyone who took the effort to participate and try their best.
See, that’s a great idea! Like, the top teams should be rewarded and given their chance to shine for being the best, but everybody who participates gets their little reward too! Because sometimes it honestly is easier to just give up. Kids should get a little something for trying their best to reward hard work, even if it didn’t lead to a win.
Man, I never even bought into participation awards. Like, I know I did poorly, you can’t convince me otherwise with an arbitrary object.
Yeah I was always under the impression that no one took those seriously? Like, I saw you give a cheap medal to everyone here, you did not make an attempt to hide this fact. And, considering that this is probably some sort of school event, I’m only here because I’m being forced to be, I actually presumably tried very hard to get out of it, so, like, I can tell you’re sure as hell not praising my effort, EILEEN.
But like I think participation awards only work if the kid you’re giving it to isn’t a horrible little asshole like I was.
Part of why I bought into it might be because my mom had a huge shelf of trophies so growing up I wanted to make her proud with my own trophies. I got some ribbons for good grades but it wasn’t that same.
i’m always mystified when it comes to everyone getting participation trophies. like… did i miss the cutoff for a few years? did my private elementary school not give them out? where’s my damn trophies??
I suspect it’s one of those things that was something of a trend, but not nearly to the extent the parodies make it.
My school never gave them out, but in my town we had some sort of…sports group stuff where you could sign your kids up to participate in teams and stuff. I’m sure that has an actual name, I just haven’t dabbled in it for ten years so I can’t remember what it is. But in my case at least it wasn’t affiliated with the school. It was moreso a community thing because people wanted kids out of the house and exercising. Not a bad reason, but certain competitive attitudes made it hard to endure.
I actually hated school sports event because I was so bad at it, once my total result was below the charts – that one really was painful.
But getting a ribbon just for showing up seems strange (as you could only get out of it if you called in sick anyway).
Maybe they should include some fun stuff for people not good at common athletics?
Jason will have to carry home a drunk Walky and prop him against a wall, won’t he?
The challenge for some readers will be accepting that he’s worse off like that.
Walky! You magnificent bastard, I read your BOOK!!
Not like real estate prices are trough the bloody roof or anything.
I was Jason today. I work in a rehab clinic and we get meals on our shift, today was “shepherd’s pie”. It was an abomination of sweet sloppy joes-esque meat and corn everywhere. Usually, I don’t complain about food (I still ate the whole goddamn thing) but I just had to voice my opinion about how this wasn’t real shepherd’s pie and that how the taste should be “simpler”
Source: My grandmother moved to the California from Scotland after WW2 and she made us real shepherd’s pie all the time.
Whilst I do appreciate a bit of the ol’ self depricating “british food is bland and/or gross” (thanks for that, wartime rationing!), I do have to chime in as a resident brit and say that if this were a little truer to life, Jason’d be wound up that he couldn’t order Chicken Parma at the bar.
Or possibly that there isn’t anywhere to get a good Chicken Tikka Masala in town.
In 1993 we attended a wedding in Iowa City, the couple were from suburban Boston and suburban NYC. We were told that the home of UIowa got its first Indian restaurant and it was open four hours a day, five hours a week.
They have since moved away. No idea what’s going on for international food, but I can only imagine Iowa City (and Bloomington) have gotten better on this strong the last two dozen years.
Who has some inside info?
New best strip alert
I love, love, LOVE Jason. Especially as interacts with Wah-kehrton.
Eh. Renting is better because you can call maintenance when crap breaks down and you don’t have to worry about paying for it. And I do, too, go to department stores- specifically the grocery section, ’cause ain’t no one picking out my produce and meat for me. I suppose once a year I wear out my jeans and need to go buy those, too, since you can’t try ’em on online. So, yeah, millennials do, too, go to the department store! (Everything else, hell, yeah, I buy that shit online).
True difference between Millennials and you old people? We don’t park in the fire lane, get out, and lean on the door chatting on our phones while our wives load the groceries in the trunk. And they say WE”RE entitled.
We won two world wars doncha know?
That guy in the background of frames 1/2 looks really weird, merged with himself like that.
Has Walky got a crush on Jason?
Vegetable lasagna is lasagna made of vegetables. Shepherd’s pie is an abombination because it contains neither sheep, nor shepherd.
I think you mean COTTAGE pie is an abomination, as it contains no cottages.
Shepherd’s pie by definition contains sheep.
Jason, Walky, I want you both to stand in separate corners and think about what you said about shepherd’s pie until you are suitably ashamed.
After looking at the websites associated with Cracker Barrel and Cookout and Old Country Buffet, I can only opine that you millennials aren’t killing them fast enough. Get back out there and stomp them suckers flat.
Yeah I don’t know why everyone’s so sad about us killing chain restaurants, they suck. I could go to Chili’s, or I could go to a DELICIOUS small business that costs the same amount, or I can eat the exact same frozen microwaved food at home for like two dollars. Why in the ass would anyone go to Chilis? Why is this something anyone is worried about preserving?
Bad ad alert: some kind of code on this site auto-redirects me away to “isolate.hahi.gdn”. It’s been like that for several days and it only happens on this site.
Maybe they let him in because “I’ve seen this kid in here plenty of times, I guess they got a haircut though”
I mean potatoes are vegetables in name only…
they do have vitamins C and B6 in fair quantities
Now kiss.
Sharpie works on hair?
If it puts its heart and mind to it, Sharpie can accomplish anything.