Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@NintendoByNature Haha. I was late in my response in clearing up the biscuit issue.

Can’t find a single place that sells American style biscuits in China. It’s weird because they used to have these posters in the KFC that showed buckets of biscuits and Mac n’ cheese on the wall, but it wasn’t on the menu here 🤨. Gave me false hope.

@NotTelevision Yeah, that's also true over here. But for us, it's actually BECAUSE of the English, what with their "tea and biscuits" and all. Those are mostly sugared or made of any other kind of sweet-flavored ingredients. General rule in most of Europe though, is that biscuits are never soft or fresh breads, so they're either thin and hard, or they're thick but airy and crispy, like rusk or sea biscuit.

But I do know about plain and/or hearty biscuits. In fact, the Dutch name for sea biscuit is quite similar: zee beschuit. And rusk is also called "beschuit".

For references' sake, this is Dutch "beschuit", in case you've no idea what rusk is:

The international version of that often looks more like these:



Another difference is that the Dutch version is usually more airy and soft, whereas the international version is more sturdy, often also referred to as "twice-baked bread". To make things a bit more confusing and/or comical where translations are concerned, we call all of those examples "toast" over here, so they're not considered the same as "beschuit" to the Dutch...

@Heavyarms55 @Anti-Matter But do you guys play with any of the your Switch friends? The other reason I never send friend requests is, with the game titles I play, and inability to communicate, and life schedules not meeting up, it was extremely rare I ever played with anyone, and the only benefit I have with having Switch friends is being able to see what other people are playing.

I guess with Animal Crossing, you don't have to coordinate to visit friend's islands? You just go to their island when you want?

@ThAnOsReXxX ThanosFleXXX, is Cup o' Dirt your username? I saw a "Pong Lenis" in Rocket League yesterday, and wondered if that was you 🤔🤔🤔

@ThanosReXXX Ohh yeah that’s confusing. It’s hard to know what you are getting in the international snack food aisle, if you’ve never tasted it before.

The airy and soft version sounds good. I’ve had the the ones in the toast form that you showed there, and you’re right. Very dense and stiff, similar to packaged Italian biscotti. You feel like you’ll chip a tooth crunching into one.

@WoomyNNYes Hell, no. That was just my response to your Brian Regan video. I guess I kind of wrongfully assumed you'd get the reference...

Just in case you don't know it:

@ThanosReXXX Oh man, I guess I didn't know that bit. Funny. I saw Brian Regan live in 2009. I really liked a couple of his older shows. Actually I'm just glad my ignorance of the Cup o' Dirt bit left me the opportunity to mention the "Pong Lenis" username on NL

So this is turning into a confusing office day. The state office is going back to an old method to pay our providers that’s based on a payout average from Q1/2 medical claims, from today through the end of June. That means instead of an itemized invoice payment, I’ll basically be getting a check and have to use my own guess to figure out where the funds should be allocated across our 8 county catchment area. I don’t do well with abstract sometimes, and it’s take. My supervisor and my colleague each half an hour to try and explain it. I eventually needed a 4 year old explanation complete with drawings, and I’m still not sure I’m 100% convinced. Hobbit brain no feel good.

@HobbitGamer I defintely have benefited from visuals to understand advanced math, or math in general. I think that's why struggled with algebra(maybe it's just boring), but calculus made more sense.... cause graphs & shapes. Edit: I don't think everyones brain architecture is wired to just "get it" with math. I guess you could say that about a lot of things, or why some people excel at certain things. Analysis of Einstein's brain(post mortum) found both halves of his brain were much more connected than the average brain.

@NotTelevision Here's another fun fact: long before gender reveal parties were a thing (ever since the mid 1800's), the Dutch celebrated their newly born with "beschuit met muisjes", which is biscuits with sugar-coated, and appropriately colored aniseed kernels. The Dutch name means "biscuits and mice", because the coated aniseed kernels look like tiny little mice with a tail. And they still stick to that tradition, in most households. Looks like this:

Here's some additional info, and a recipe, if you care to try and make some for yourself:
https://www.thedutchtable.com/2011/10/beschuit-met-muisjes.html

@WoomyNNYes By the way: my NNID name is simply the same as on here, minus one X, because that's one letter too many, according to Nintendo's dumb 10 letter limit...

I miss Little Caesars. They used to be everywhere, and then about 20 years ago every last one of them vanished. They still had it in the Kmart K Cafe, and then when they remodeled ( yes, a Kmart that actually remodeled. I know it's hard to believe, but like folks with Sasquatch, Loch Ness, and being anally probed by green aliens, I was there, I saw it myself, I believe!) they still had it at a little kiosk stall in the front, just a few items. They removed that years ago, and of course now the whole store is gone. (then again, so are all other stores, so there's not much difference.) It's been a good 10 or 15 years since I've even smelled a Little Caesars, yet I still see commercials for them. My nearest one according to their website is like 3 hours away, 2 states over.

Of course I'm sure the food is even worse than it once was. Dominos used to be great, then was ok, and now is kind of nauseating. Pizza Hut used to be amazing, then was Reggified to be mediocre and nasty but still somehow desirable like Doritos. Then went downhill again. Now it's like a frozen pizza but smaller.

I remember Little Ceasars in the late 80's early 90's mostly. 2 pizzas on a big cardboard tray in a paper bag. Bread sticks in a mini version of the same. Then the gimmicks. The plastic pails of pasta, etc. Fun store. Always crowded. It was like a 1 hour wait or more on a Friday with a line outside and everyone fighting for that one bench to sit on inside.

@ThanosReXXX Yeah, for here, I wanted to use my nickname (see in my signature), but I didn't want a big internet footprint that could be easily google'd, so I went woomy. If internet privacy wasn't an issue, my NL name would match my Switch name.

@NEStalgia Weird. My metro area has a couple of them!

Stupid autocorrect keeps changing "food" to "good". Darn technology.

@ThanosReXXX Thanks for telling me! I'll check my friend requests when I'm next on my Switch again. Could be tonight or sometime tomorrow. It depends whether I want to play Link's Awakening or WarioWare Gold more. XD

That username is one with multiple meanings and is one I use elsewhere, primarily on Discord. Tyranexx was already taken (Darn copycats), so I settled on that one instead.

Also...You've never had B&G?! I understand not wanting a big breakfast, but really it's a food that's good (albeit not very healthy) at any time of the day in my book.

@NintendoByNature Haha, health before taste buds! Though I know of some with lactose intolerance who do risk the reactions on rare occasion. I know it's pretty common and, in fact, dairy tolerance is rare in some populations.

I love milk and most dairy products in general. If I ever develop lactose intolerance, I'll be a sad, sad panda.

@NotTelevision Pleased to meet you as well! 🤝

The "biscuit" thing confused me a little when I first got into British literature as a kid. It took me a bit to understand that they were referring to cookies.

@Tyranexx Remember a few weeks ago when half of entire generations seemed to require gluten-free everything? And then a few weeks later an entire year's supply of normal wheat flour was purchased in a matter of days and suddenly everyone can handle gluten?

@Andrew_R_2000 It's weird. On one hand I'd say in this region there's intense competition from Domino's that's absolutely everywhere (bleh) a few other chains, Pizza Hut, plus a real pizza shop on every corner, almost literally. On the other hand, the other chains survive just fine, and Little Caesars thrived quite well when they were here. Not sure what happened. I can only assume a regional franchiser bailed out, and for whatever reason it wasn't an attractive franchise for anyone else to get into. I might recall (but we're going back 25 years or so) that Kmart Corporation actually WAS the franchiser listed in some of the locations here. I can't find any information on Wikipedia that they ever actually owned Little Caesars itself, but maybe they were a major franchise operator at the time. That might make sense, maybe they closed them all when they started opening up locations inside their stores (they still have a handful of Little Caesars inside a few remaining stores.) But why no other franchiser has stepped into that market vacuum here, I can't imagine. Heck, it'd make money even now. They were a major disruption in chain pizza when they appeared in the early 90's!

@ThanosReXXX I thought the 'mice' moniker was because it looks like little colorful mice poops were all over

@ThanosReXXX well I guess i cant talk ya into then, I suppose. Yea I second the slice of bread or bagel at most for break fast on most days. I'd rather sleep or just get to work right away. When I was in Italy, break fast was perfect for me. Slices of bread, meats, cheeses, and jams. Espresso too, of course 😉

@NotTelevision dang that stinks. Then ahain, China doesn't seem like the place to go wild for biscuits 😂

@Tyranexx what's wierd is I can have cheese and be ok. At least in smaller amounts. But a little milk or ice cream, and that'll rattle my cages

@WoomyNNYes Well, internet privacy is an issue, but as far as friend requests are concerned, it's pretty easy to ignore or block the ones that you don't want or appreciate.

@Tyranexx Ah, that sucks when a name is already taken. That's also why I once had the name "TheRealThanos", as you may remember me telling before, because I didn't want to use the often suggested "Thanos7354" and similar options. Luckily, at some point in time, my current moniker dawned on me, and had I kept up to date with the background story of my avatar, then I would have known that the answer to my own name-giving conundrum was staring me right in the face all along...

As for biscuits and gravy: as mentioned, it's more about me not really having an appetite for hearty foods, early in the morning, not so much a dismissal of how good it can actually be or taste. I'll definitely try it, whenever I set foot on US soil again, and believe you me: unhealthy isn't anything that'll stop me. If it would, then I wouldn't be having sweet-flavored breakfasts every morning...

As for the confusion concerning biscuits: I sometimes think that the custom and the word has been brought over from/coined by sea faring people, in the old settlers/first founders days, when all they took with them on the trip to the Americas were dried or pickled goods, dried and hearty sea biscuits among them. At some point, when they were firmly land-based, they simply dropped the word sea and henceforth referred to them as biscuits.

And then, when populations of Westerners began to grow in America, they did also get sweet variants, but they simply called them cakes or cookies instead. Or something to that extent. That's what might have happened, in my opinion. Meanwhile, back home in the British Isles, the English had their tea and biscuits...

@HobbitGamer No, luckily not. That would actually be rather gross. Just look closely and you'll see some of the aniseed kernels on that picture indeed having tails sticking out of their sugary coatings.

EDIT:
Sent you a friend request as well. No rush, though, seeing as I won't be playing Animal Crossing for at least another month, but if you're curious about what games I have, feel free to browse through the list.