The Dumbing of Age Book 13 Kickstarter is still going! I promise! We're about $1,000 away from FREE LUCY MAGNETS! Brewski
The Dumbing of Age Book 13 Kickstarter is still going! I promise! We're about $1,000 away from FREE LUCY MAGNETS!
240 thoughts on “Brewski”
NGPZ
Joyce’s Bar Adventure continues!!! Yippee!!!!
*plays “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles on hacked bar speakers*
Decidedly Orthogonal
“I don’t know. Fly casual.”
“Gronnnk“
Ana Chronistic
Joyce rolling in like, “How do you do, my fellow adults?“
Cholma
Steve Buscemi approves! (at least, I’m pretty sure he does; he seems like a hip dude)
butting
He would definitely approve. This is the guy who hung out in his neighbourhood in that costume one Halloween, handing out noms.
We need him behind the counter. “It’s a juice and coffee bar, man, like I been tellin’ ya! Martinis are for squares, man.”
Adept
That fan art is amazing
Doctor_Who
Unfortunately, Joyce is overheard by some Film Studies grad students. When Dorothy comes back she has to rescue Joyce from being caught in the middle of an intense debate over which of Grant’s movies is funnier and more quotable, Bringing Up Baby or Arsenic and Old Lace.
Joyce now gets to add prominent Mid-Atlantic accents to her list of bizarre phobias.
Casi
Mid-Atlantic Accents are scary, a completely constructed accent is absolutely terrifying to think about
Skater Girl
The modern British accent was also artificially constructed elocutionist making money off the newly developing merchant class trying to separate themselves from less wealthy fellow commoners.
LiamKav
What on earth is the “modern British accent”?
Daibhid C
From the description, Received Pronounciation. And yes, it’s scary; if I hear someone talking RP I assume they’re either going to foreclose my house or present a documentary at me.
Agemegos
Theres a very good Youtuber about English pronunciation and accents called Dr. Geoff Lindsey (he’s a professor at UCL), who has interesting material about RP. Here’s his video about its catastrophic loss of prestige since 1962: https://youtu.be/jIAEqsSOtwM?si=aecaiXElcmu3V9hm
Taffy
The phrase “catastrophic loss of prestige” in relation to an accent is funny to me. Oh no, they won’t think I’m as posh anymore! Royston! Royston! Fetch me my fainting couch!
PirateTawnee
What an excellent link, thank you.
I was a little disappointed he didn’t quote Mandy-Rice Davies’ famous quote during the Profumo trial “well he would, wouldn’t he?” as a hugely significant marker of the death of deference from the working classes to the upper classes. Great video though.
Marianne
If you’re talking about Received Pronunciation, it’s actually a preservation of the Nottingham accent from centuries ago (the modern Nottingham accent has become very different), because Nottingham was one of the earliest universities. This is how it gained the image of being the accent of the “well educated”.
morleuca
Arsenic and Old Lace! Because Peter Lorre
brionl
Bringing up Baby! Because leopard
someone
The quality of a movie is directly proportional to the amount of cats it features, so I concur.
Doctor_Who
There’s a cat in Arsenic! “Even the cat’s in on it”.
Granted, the one in Baby is much bigger.
Osopescado
I’ll have one of your finest alcohols, served up and down on the rocks, neat. I’ll take it stirred but not shaken with extra no ice.
Osopescado
“Martini with a twist please.”
“Here’s your martini, and Vader is Luke’s father.”
Steamweed
NOOO!
Sirksome
I’m an adult and I don’t know who Cary Grant is. I guess I could google that, but so could a toddler.
Aura
Well I’m not going to be outdone by a toddler! *commences reading wikipedia*
Schpoonman
I recognized the name, did have to look it up to confirm he was an actor in primarily BW film.
butting
Homework time! Queue up North by Northwest, you won’t be disappointed.
(James Mason! Martin Landau! Edward Platt from Get Smart!)
Daibhid C
I know who he is, but my mental image isn’t of any of the films, but of a series of sketches by impressionist Alistair McGowan in which he shares university digs with Hugh Grant and Richard E. Grant. (The Student Grants.)
Carey would always walk in halfway through the sketch and say “Sorry I’m late, I was being chased through a cornfield by a biplane.”
Pizzasgood
I thought I knew who Carry Grant is, but then I realized I was thinking of Carrie Underwood… and then upon looking her up to make sure I spelled her name right I realized that actually who I was thinking of was Mariah Carey.
PirateTawnee
no no, it’s spelt Mariah Carey, but it is pronounced Marie Curie. Easy mistake to make.
NGPZ
of all things she just HAD to bring up taxes when I’m still working to make back that money lost earlier this month ;-;
Jamie
I enjoy paying taxes. It means other people’s lives don’t get worse, and I’m here for that.
NGPZ
I dunno bruh. Depending on how much of that goes to the US Military, it can (and very often does) make many peoples’ lives worse across the planet.
But eh, beats going to prison. Plus all the more reason for me to continue making people happy by bringing their game projects to life.
drs
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
22% Social Security, 14% Health, 13% National Defense, 13% Interest, 12% Medicare, 11% Income Security.
So 22+14+12+11 = 59% goes to pensions, health care, and welfare.
Nedlum
The Federal Government, budget-wise, is an insurance company with an army; all the rest is fiscally incidental.
thejeff
And the army is a moving company with guns, which makes it even weirder.
jeffepp
“Armatures talk Tactics.
Professionals talk Logistics.”
Military maxim
“The one who gets there firstust with the mostust wins.”
Military maxim
Opus the Poet
That was a confederate general who said that, and who later went on to found the Ku Klux Klan… I have random military science fact bouncing around my brain, no wonder people think I’m weird.
NGPZ
What those statistics don’t tell you on their own is that our government has disavowed and even sponsored genocide, unjust wars and human rights violations including the likes of COINTELPRO and MKULTRA, and the Vietnam War on multiple occasions.
GoodbyBallad
I like the new profile pic!
Didn’t recognise you for a moment.
NGPZ
Thanks! It’s a tipsy Reagan Ridley from Inside Job, thought it’d be rather fitting at this point in the storyline ^^
HueSatLight
I don’t enjoy paying taxes, I also don’t enjoy washing dishes. But I enjoy some of the effects of both of those. Washing dishes doesn’t have quite as much unnecessary paperwork that can screw me over if I fill it up wrong, but at least corporations and the megawealthy keep getting breaks.
Daibhid C
When I was younger I was confused about how many American fictional characters seemed to be self employed, since they all had to go through the same tax hoops as my Dad, a self-employed accountant, and his clients. Then I learned that all Americans have to do this, which is even weirder than the drinking age.
As a salaried employee in the UK, every year I get a letter from HM Revenue and Customs saying “Pay As You Earn hasn’t gone catastrophically wrong this year, so you’re good”, and that’s me paid my taxes.
Daibhid C
Oh, wait, and another letter from Highland Council saying they’ve not been informed of any change in my circumstances so they’ve Direct Debited the same council tax as last year.
Nedlum
The reasons the US hasn’t automated taxes for W-2 employees the way many other countries has are:
1. Intense lobbying by tax prep companies who want to charge you to do the (honestly not that difficult) work for you.
2. Grover Norquist, who wants people to dislike filing taxes, which by extension will lead to them disliking paying taxes, so they’ll want to cut taxes, even if the actual mental load of filing taxes is mostly unrelated to the tax bracket system.
Maryland’s tax system, for what it’s worth, is a significant improvement over the IRS’s: if you have an account it’ll remember who you are and who your dependents are, and it will more or less walk you through it, step by step. Not as nice as them just sending you a letter saying “Here’s your MD-502, does everything look right?”, but better than the IRS Free Fillable Forms.
thejeff
Not only do the tax prep companies lobby congress, but I suspect they also push propaganda directly to the public about how hard and complex taxes are, which is mostly nonsense, unless you’re self-employed or running a business.
David DeLaney
and this year the IRS has struck back, it seems
with Direct File plus a group of other free-file options
first thing on their webpage
the cries of the paid preparers have been music to my heart this month
thejeff
Only for some states, sadly not mine. Did mine with the Free Filable Forms again.
It interests me that I’ve seen more complaints this year that the IRS hasn’t automated taxes the way some European countries have. Almost feels like a response to them introducing the new IRS filing option, but I’m not sure who’d be pushing that line.
NGPZ
I’m a self-employed video game programmer and still have to pay taxes RIP
Adept
Same. It’s truly weird to “hate taxes”
pope suburban
Yeah like I hate that they don’t go toward universal health care, subsidized housing, food assistance, disability support, and UBI kind of stuff, but also I like roads and I appreciate what good the lobbyists allow the money to do. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing.
NGPZ
“When the government gives money and opportunities to the Rich and White, it is called ‘subsidies’. When the government gives money and opportunities to the Poor and Minorities, it is called ‘welfare’. But everyone in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. The highways our white collar brothers take to get to the city were built with federally subsidized credit to the tune of 90%. Everyone in this country lives on welfare. The real problem is that all too often we tend to have socialism for the Rich and White, and rustic free market capitalism for the Poor and Minorities.”
— Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
HueSatLight
Joyce doesn’t pay taxes yet. Becky will, and they’ll be complicated enough this year she should pay someone to do them. Lucy, Ken, Roz, Sayid, and Asma will. Marcie will and probably has.
thejeff
Maybe. They’ll all have to file. I doubt any of them made enough to owe, except maybe Marcie – since the others are all part time. Becky’s will depend on what she made from Robin and how the apartment was structured. It was still only a couple of months of work, so it’s not likely to be much.
Icarus
Your first time is your first time though, however old you are.
BlackScarabFilmZ
Is that all it takes to be an adult? Taxes and knowing who Cary Grant is? Well, I’m an adult and I tick both those boxes so… fair enough!
Bleuryder
I find this arc hilarious in the worst way. It took me a minute to why are they freaking out over drinking if they’re clearly over 18, and then I realized they’re not in Puerto Rico (where I’m from). The legal drinking age here is 18. (Although a LOT of clubs you need to be 21)
Dragonfire
Right?? Here in Canada it’s 19 in most places, and 18 in a couple of provinces. Either way, by the time most kids in post-secondary are done their second term, they’re old enough to go to bars.
I once hosted a friend who’d moved to the States and her boyfriend who was from there the summer we were 19, and took them out to a pub one evening. I was fine, she was fine; he had never been out drinking and made an absolute fool of himself.
Seven
It’s also 18+ in my country for these kinds of night clubs. It also reminds me of an exchange program our school did with Germany. They spent a week in our town, and we spent a week there months later. Turns out that you can buy beers when you’re 16, and my exchange family even told me that “you can’t be in Germany and not try a beer.” Massive culture shock.
zee
*they’re not in a normal country, fixed it for you. Having it at 21 is such a minority. This is wild. Technically my country doesn’t have a drinking age, just a buying age (18) so it’s extra strange for me to see, I’ve been drinking in controlled environments since I was 17. Different setting but the two times I went to college parties I’d walk in and just be handed a jello shot or alcoholic punch or something.
HueSatLight
Technically, 21 is the purchasing / public possession age. Consumption laws differ by state. in mine, parents/guardians can give their kids alcohol.
Sirksome
I wonder what a good first alcoholic beverage is if you actually want a first time drinker to enjoy themselves. I know beer is pretty universally known as a bad first drink. I imagine anything too dry is probably also bad, but I’m not a drinker to begin with and could be talking out my ass. Maybe a mixed drink? Like a rum and cola maybe?
DailyBrad
Mixed drink or something like a hard cider or “alcopop”, something sweet.
Like a hard lemonade is a pretty low barrier of entry.
RassilonTDavros
Rum and cola (and, I would recommend, a twist of lime juice to make it a cuba libre) is absolutely a good first drink, provided you like cola in the first place.
BarerMender
How do you twist juice?
eh, whatever
You twist the lime.
AGV
That’s twisted
Casi
I thought you put the lime in the coconut and drink them both together
Icalasari
Margaritas would be my suggestion. A mix like a sunset. Basically, something sweet and a small glass so there isn’t much alcohol to help ease one into it
Icalasari
I swear, I respond on mobile only when Becky would be hilarious and/or inappropriate
StClair
Rum and coke, wine cooler, screwdriver, or some other juice/soda mixed drink, yeah.
Taffy
+1 for rum and Coke. Easy to measure, and it’s literally sugar, so it mainly just tastes like Coke. Substitute whatever other soda you’d prefer, in case you’re One Of Those People™.
Dara
I may not be representative because my first “I like this” drink was vodka. However, a vodka kamikaze, if they’re using fresh fruit like they bloody well should, is a delight under most circumstances, in no small part because it tolerates shitty well vodka pretty well. (And in my experience you’re more likely to get fresh fruit with bad vodka than good vodka and bottled juice. But that’s just my experience.)