[ghporter]

Especially when their speakers’s drivers have dried out cones, and their turntable (“‘Cause vinyl is always better”) is has a cheap-@ss cartridge with a crappy stylus…. But those speaker cables will make it all better.

Any music lover that does actual research would know the frequency ranges their speakers can handle, then decide on cables based on diameter versus frequencies carried, and connector types instead of being “oxygen-free” and such. (I’ve edited this part a couple of times for clarity.)

We just recently donated our simple, basic espresso machine because we hadn’t used it in who knows how long. It made good espresso, but we found we preferred other types of coffee drinks. Having a machine that imports the beans itself, roasts them perfectly, grinds them with nuclear precision, then makes a perfect shot of espresso from that wouldn’t change the fact that we just don’t care for espresso that much. Which makes me think that a lot of the aficionados really don’t like espresso, but they just can’t admit that so they keep buying fancier and fancier machines hoping they will eventually like what comes out of them.

[Laminar]

What’s a good coffee shop in Chicago? I’m here for a few days.

[subego]

Intelligentsia.

https://www.intelligentsia.com/pages/locations

There’s a consensus it’s among the best, but I don’t bother comparing other places because I live right by one.


If you’re downtown, there’s one in the Monadnock building, which is the world’s tallest load-bearing brick building.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock_Building

[Laminar]

Tried their double espresso. Hot baked bean water.

We stayed in Pilsen and tried the espresso at A Cup of Joe, same thing.

Went to Sip and Savor in Bronzeville on our third day and liked that espresso, tasted more like coffee and less like hot beans. Though I did have to wait at least 10 minutes for it to cool before I could even sip it.

Best food was the fajitas at Cantón Regio, even though their salsa was mid. I don't know if they purposely gave the gringos the bland stuff but was expecting better.

The Shedd's chicken sandwich was better than MSI's.

Also how dare they close the fucking bean. IT'S THE BEAN.

[subego]

Well, I was supposed to make it for you.

[Laminar]

Wait is the swear filter off? I wasn't expecting to see the f word there.

[Laminar]

shit damn hell fuck

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Wait is the swear filter off? I wasn't expecting to see the f word there.

It’s been off for at least a year now.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

shit damn hell fuck

Most people say this after they miss out on my coffee.

[subego]

What did you think of the MSI otherwise?

A genuine highlight of my formative years was going there to be indoctrinated with modernist propaganda.

[Laminar]

It was great - we have reciprocity through our local science center so admission was free, but we did splurge for the 007 exhibit.



11yo liked the exhibit enough that he asked to watch a James Bond movie.

Lots of highlights.


It was fun for me to show my family what I do at work, the Toymaker 3000 is basically my everyday life.



Lots of dramatic play happening on the trains and airplane.

Kids' favorite part of the whole vacation was the hotel pool in Naperville.

[andi*pandi]

parents plan amazing trip with new experiences
kids: like the cable tv in the hotel room, the hotel pool, or don't remember it at all

kid: I've never been there.
Me: yes you have. Dont you remember?
them: no

[subego]

The toymaker they had in my era.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

11yo liked the exhibit enough that he asked to watch a James Bond movie.

Moonraker.

My reasoning is he will enjoy it more at this moment than any other because it becomes more stupid with age.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

parents plan amazing trip with new experiences
kids: like the cable tv in the hotel room, the hotel pool, or don't remember it at all

Our AirBnB had a Roku TV so we were still able to stream YouTube and Hulu. The hotel TV had cable, which was I think their first time experiencing cable. It was made worse because the on-screen TV guide hadn't been corrected for daylight savings so it was wrong and the Sponge Bob episodes it promised were already over. We watched Bob's Burgers.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by subego 

The toymaker they had in my era.

The Henry Ford museum in Detroit has one that molds a 2008 F-150.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Moonraker.

My reasoning is he will enjoy it more at this moment than any other because it becomes more stupid with age.

He specifically asked to watch one of the modern ones because he was afraid the special effects of an older movie wouldn't hold up. I let him know that good practical effects hold up well, and Bond movies typically don't have a bunch of CGI, but I don't remember much about the Brosnan movies which is probably the era of peak bad CGI.

Mmm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Yl9SahZJF-E

We watched No Time to Die.

[subego]

Has he seen the original King Kong?

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

The hotel TV had cable, which was I think their first time experiencing cable.

Beyond the issues with the guide, what did they think?

I would imagine it seems pretty boring compared to a phone or a Switch.



Edit: no friends with Luddite parents who still have cable?

As a kid, one of my best friends didn’t have TV. Every time he visited it was like a mini-Rumspringa.

It should come as no surprise he was way the hell smarter than everyone else. Also a brilliant DM.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Beyond the issues with the guide, what did they think?

Frustrating because after Bob's Burgers ended there was only news, grown up movies, sports, or reality shows and even then most channels seemed to be showing commercials at any given time. We turned it off and went to sleep.

Edit: no friends with Luddite parents who still have cable?

Not afaik. If he's at a friend's house they're playing outside or playing video games. Our direct neighbors moved in during Covid so we didn't go in their house and they didn't come into ours, which kind of stuck? Neighborhood kids all play outside. In-laws' house is the only place where watching a show is the best option and they have Fire TVs so still no cable. My parents' small town municipal telephone company is trying to get out of the cable business so my dad is figuring out how to go streaming, not sure if that's happened yet. But my parents are very activity-based with the kids so there's no time for sitting around at their house.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

small town municipal telephone company is trying to get out of the cable business

How many more dead memes can we stack on top of this.

[subego]

Deliveries were screwed up because of the holiday, so I’m reduced to Colombian. Not bad, but not good enough for me to make a habit out of it.

[subego]

My stomach can’t handle it so I’ve pretty much stopped, but had some in season Alaka washed Ethiopian. Excellent.

Also glad I could still make it properly. I’ve been worried since I haven’t been testing.

[subego]

Set up standard issue for my dad. Ninja drip maker on the “rich” setting. Melita paper filters. Baratza Encore grinder set to 21. 60ml of Ethiopian per 500ml water

Review was “better than I was expecting”.

[andi*pandi]

A friend gave me an old fashioned looking percolator type coffee maker. The coffee goes in a little metal basket, no filter, and then the water boils and steams it? For some reason this method does not give me stomach issues as the mr coffee does. The taste is smoother. However sometimes the grinds escape the basket.

https://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beac...-8858951?psc=1

[Thorzdad]

It doesn’t steam the coffee. The water boils and rises up through the center tube, spilling out onto the grounds. As the grounds get saturated, the coffee drips through the basket back into the boiling water, to be recirculated back up the tube back onto the grounds.

[ghporter]

Percolated coffee is brewed differently from drip. With drip, the water goes through the grounds once. A percolator recirculates what’s already been through the grounds over again - often many times. One thing this may do is change the oil content of the final result, which may be why andi doesn’t have the same stomach issues with perked coffee.

I think there’s a kind of distinct flavor to percolated coffee. It’s not as much “different” as that it has different tones and notes. And yes, it can be smoother, even if it’s just as strong as Starbucks likes to make their drip coffee.