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Unpopular opinion, also pretty rude, read at your own risk (about ballet)

I don't get the current hype of Chloe Misseldine. To be fair, I haven't seen her dance in person, or a lot, just a few pieces and some clips here or there. Obviously she's good, but she would not be principal of my (obv nonexistent) company.

(Although not having seen her dance much is also kind of the point. Like I see her because she's one of the most hyped current American dancers so it's just there and I can't avoid it. But her dancing has not grabbed me to want to seek out more of it. i.e. why I don't understand the hype and wouldn't choose her as principal of any company.)

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Compared to my community, I do not consider myself well-traveled. (Obviously there are a lot of people who do not have the means to travel, and compared to them I'm obscenely well-traveled, but compared to my family members, friends, coworkers, etc, I haven't seen nearly as much of the world.)

Today an ad for a tour company played at the end of a youtube video, and it showed like the great barrier reef, the pyramids, marrakech, etc, and the whole time I was like, I've been there, and I think I've been to every single place they showed in the ad. So today was really the first time that I thought, oh, maybe I have become well-traveled compared to like the average traveler (even though I have so much of the world left to see).

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Ariana DuBose is one of the few women I think looks way better with short hair, not that my opinion means anything.

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There’s something about my vibe, like maybe rbf, that says to strangers out in the world “don’t mess with me” and I’m so grateful for it because it’s protected me from all the horror stories I’ve heard from others.

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Okay so I’ve just started watching Interior Chinatown (finally) and the thing I’m kind of struggling with is, how old are each of these characters supposed to be? Obviously the detective is not super young because she’s a detective and Audrey is early/mid 20s, but Ronny and Jimmy, are they similar ages, 30s?, college/aged?

ETA: wait I get it now. I totally forgot the premise of the show, which I knew from when the cast was doing the media tour/promos etc, but completely forgot. And even though there were all kinds of things dropped in the show that should have sparked my memory, it took more than an episode for me to get it/ remember

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I think I mentioned this last season, but Kristen Kish really is a great host.

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When did people start using the word gilet? I don't think I ever heard it before in my life until two weeks ago, and now like a dozen times.

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Honestly, the Republicans should own the shutdown. They're literally shutting down the government with DOGE anyway. They're whole point is basically that government and its workers are unnecessary. So why do they care if they can't pass a CR? And why do they want to blame it on the Dems?

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Another day, another date order conversation. What really annoys me is the unavoidable huge number of people who are always like, the US writes month/day/year because that's how they say it and everyone else says it day/month/year so that's how they write it. That doesn't address the fact that we say it in a different order and why do we do that? It's not really answering or addressing the thing people are talking about at all, but a huge percentage of people think that answer suffices. Like do you think critically about anything?

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I just found out the American tv show High Potential is a remake of a French show.

I was watching the American show for no good reason, and it was okay, but not doing that well so I think it won't last. But now I just started the French one, and so far (half way through the second episode) the American one is real remake, like the first two episodes are basically the same.

But as an American the French version helped me appreciate the American version more, like I like it now whereas before I didn't. But also, I like the American version more than I like the original French version. Except I don't know what will happen when the American version runs out of source material, because I don't know that they can continue with original stories and have it feel the same.

I don't know if I'm getting older and lazier and that's why I like the American version more. Or maybe I'm just used to the American version of "quirky" so having seen it, I don't get the same feeling of the main character's "quirky" even though the intent for that character is there in both French and original. Like maybe my American bias means that the French will always sound too sophisticated or something, and I know literally nothing about French and French culture to pick up on that part.

ETA: I'm on the fourth episode now. American version still following the French version super closely. But I see now how this fourth episode story was very French.

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This is not a hot take, but apparently there are some people out there who need to hear it: If you're going to propose, and it's a surprise, and the person you're proposing to wants an audience, and you're positive that person will say yes, and you want family present but can only manage to arrange one side, then it should be the family and friends of the person receiving the proposal, not the family and friends of the person proposing.

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I just read a post about gifts and one thing the OP mentioned was never receiving a thank you note. Several comments went on to say that one should never expect a thank you note and are annoyed to receive them and never send them. Then I did a quick search and many people were wondering whether they should send thank you notes and under what circumstances.

In my opinion, a thank you of some kind is always necessary.

I didn't understand until way into adulthood that the primary reason for a thank you note was not a mere expression of gratitude. That is of course nice as a giver to receive something that says the recipient is grateful for the gift. The actual primary reason for a thank you note is to communicate what you received.

So yes, sending a thank you note to a guest at a wedding who gave a gift is necessary because maybe that guest actually brought an envelope and it got lost. Yes, if you receive an actual gift, however old you are, please send a note back. You don't even have to say you like the gift. Just be like, thanks for giving me x, I appreciate you thinking of me.

A thank you note means the person who gave you the gift knows you have received it and that there was no mix up. The one exception is if a person gives a gift to the recipient in person.

Often parents deliver gifts to children from other people, meaning the giver does not actually see the child and hand the child the gift in person. In my family, and with most of my friends, the child is made to write a thank you note. In today's world with smart phones etc, I'll receive a photo of the child with the gift in lieu of the thank you note. It tells me the child actually received the gift.

And maybe you think, well, I gave the gift directly to the parent; surely that's fine. Maybe it is. Or maybe it was a token gift so doesn't matter. But maybe the parent lost the gift or stole it from the child and gave it away so the child never receives it. Not have I read many accounts of this happening, I know some of my own extended family members have done this to their children as well.

You can be like, well, it's an amazon delivery and the person who sent it received a delivery confirmation. Have you never received the wrong item, or had it confirmed but it had been delivered to the wrong address? You still need to send a note. All they need to know is what you received. The end.

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I don't know what generation ends things with "I fear." For a while I was hearing like linguists on tiktok or shorts or whatever talk about it more than I actually heard people use it, but I hear/see people use it more now. Anyway, as an old person who doesn't use it, it just looks and sounds SO old fashioned to me, not sure which time period, but like you know, really old, like shakespearean or whatever.

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Hot take: Irish people cannot get offended, even play/pretend offended, at the stereotype of being drunk or drinking too much if they also count Fairy Tale of New York as a Christmas song.

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Tiger Woods obviously has his challenges as a human and is not someone I would generally consider to be a wholesome person. But every video clip I've ever seen of him watching/playing golf with his son has been wholesome.

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I don't have a reddit account and I don't really want to start one but one question I saw on ask reddit that I kind of thought about answering is what do you miss about the pandemic. And while there are a lot of things, the thing I miss the most is no school shootings. I realized that was what I enjoyed the most maybe only a week or two into everyone staying at home, and now it's definitely what I miss the absolute most.

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Because someone on my facebook posted this, Obama considering RFK Jr to head EPA, as a headline in Politico from 2008, I just have to say,

that's not the own you think it is. Head of EPA is not the same as head of HHS. On paper, RFK Jr is qualified to be head of EPA as an extremely successful environmental attorney who did good work in that field, plus he did not seem as insane 16 years ago. Also, I didn't look it up, but given the headline posted, I assume that means he wasn't selected, so if he did show a little crazy, maybe that's why he wasn't chosen. RFK Jr however is not renowned in the public health field and has made statements of ideas that would be harmful to the public if enacted (raw milk), and is therefore clearly unqualified for the position of head of HHS. And if you can't immediately see this, it's just showing how uncritical of a thinker you are.