…but before we roll something out that may or may not cost five bucks, what are some great $5 buys that you can still get (or that you can’t still get)?
@jouest@Thumperchick I had a big gas motorhome in the 1990s (actually still have it in my driveway if anyone volunteers to come tow it away).
Don’t ever get a big gas motorhome.
But with gas around $1/gal, getting 6-8mpg was not so bad. OK it was still pretty bad.
On the other hand, for cheap little economical cars (econoboxes they were called), between me and my mother had 2 VW Diesel Rabbits, a Geo (Chevy) Metro (3 cyl), and a Honda Civic. All got at least 40 mpg, some got over 50. This was in 80’s-90s. Most automakers changed their lineup to much more powerful cars (sold at much higher profit I’m sure) and haven’t touched that sort of mileage number for the subsequent 30 years.
@jouest@pmarin@Thumperchick OTOH, we recently bought a Toyota hybrid AWD SUV (Venza) for my wife. She is averaging ~40 mpg with it and, while no performance car, it has plenty of power for everyday driving (225HP gas and electric combined) is comfortable and roomy enough for our needs.
@jouest@pmarin@Thumperchick Much of the reason for the dearth of high-mileage cars these days can trace to the typical US-market car being a lot heavier now, due to automakers wanting to meet safety standards via use of more cheap steel instead of more clever design and better materials. In some other countries, substandard vehicles can still be sold as long as their shortcomings are clearly admitted, and this facilitates the availability of vehicles of greater economy at what many find to be an acceptably greater risk in an environment where things the size of an F250 Super Duty are rare. If the US market had not been propagandized into screaming for ever bigger and more irresponsible SUVs and goddamn pickup trucks, we could be selling such cars here with reasonable safety as well. But that’s a rant for another day.
Meanwhile, the convergence of mandatory feature bloat and the impending doom of the ICE powerplant has brought us to the point where a decreasing portion of the population can afford a new vehicle at all, and yet public transport capability is still regarded as an afterthought to be postponed for a decade or two. (Preferably forever.)
I thought every day here is good for a rant, but always in a civilized and if I might even say intelligent manner! I think we are getting good at it!
But yes the safety stuff too. I forgot, when I was in elementary school my mother was in an Opel and was rear-ended at a traffic light at fairly high speed by a possibly drunk guy in a large car. She had back and neck issues for a long time. She called the Opel “the Tin Can” because it was so flimsy and poorly-built. Years later in Europe I had the misfortune of getting an Opel as a Rental car and it was for the longest drive – Italy to Southern France to Netherlands in Winter. I can say that the Opel of 2000 felt no more solid than the Opel of 1970.
Meanwhile I retain my position that most “SUVs” bought today are really just minivans without sliding doors.
@jouest@Thumperchick@werehatrack Also there was nothing wrong with 4-cylinder pickups; there used to be a lot of them from many makers (though U.S. branded ones tended to be imported and just re-badged to a US maker name in the 70s-80s). Most got at least 30mpg. Corporate profit$ much higher with big heavy trucks at least V-6 or V-8 (at one time V-10 but that’s done). No need to sell low-cost 4-cyl econo-trucks at lower profit$ if none are available in the US market (which they are not at the moment).
Also for fun search “Chicken tax trucks” and you will be amazed. This has been going on for a while.
@pmarin The bigger and more problematic officially-an-SUV atrocities (Suburban, Tahoe, Expedition, etc) are more like pickups with a roof and seating all the way back. And I see loads of them used as one-person commuter vehicles. For all that I loathe that state, Florida used to tax vehicles by weight class, and the heaviest cars paid more than double as much for their plate renewals as the lightest ones. The plates used to reflect the weight class. It still wasn’t enough of a hit to cause people to avoid the banana boats, of course.
@jouest In 1997ish I was living in Tampa and gas got down to $0.88 a gallon. Then I met my wife and everything continued to get more expensive in perpetuity.
@chienfou I can’t remember if it was Hardee’s or Roy Rogers in Milford, CT, in the late 80s or early 90s, but my dad and I stopped to get a strawberry shake, and I freaked out after taking a sip, BECAUSE THERE WERE CHUNKS OF SOMETHING STRINGY IN MY SHAKE. Turned out they used actual blenderized strawberries in the shake. They became our go-to from then until they closed.
@chienfou I remember a time when Hardee’s was not the same as Carls Jr. I worked for them for about 5 minutes when I was 14 almost 15 and got fired for running my trap to the managers wife. God damned I was a stupid kid. Anyway the 80s were a hell of a time. And the mushroom and swiss was god damned delicious.
@chienfou@Cindyloohooo Yeah, I was on my way to a convention on the East Coast about two weeks after Hardee’s got bought out, and suddenly a whole bunch of their better items were just gone.
@jouest lol. Not quite. I think I’m guessing minimum wage was probably around $1.35 an hour or so maybe a dollar. I’m not sure I know my first job was a $1.35 an hour and I think at that point in time gas was about 20 cents a gallon
@Cerridwyn@jouest Minimum wage in the early '60s was $1.15 for most covered workers. I believe that the next increment was $1.25 around 1963. The purchasing power of the Federal minimum wage peaked in 1968, but it has not been adequate to supply a living wage for one full-time working person living alone at any point in my working lifetime. State minimum wages also fall below the living-wage threshold, though they come much closer. Texas has no state minimum wage.
Do we want to step it up with a vest? Something like a fleece (not puffy). Yesterday (seriously) mayor of the neighboring town was at grand opening of a Goodwill store, and had a fleece vest with the town logo embroidered on it. And below it (apparently for him only) it said “Mayor” so there would be no doubt I suppose. It seemed so silly, and yet now I want one (but can’t say mayor, maybe just “guy that lives nearby”. And of course “lives in a van down by the river” always a classic, and sometimes applies to me.) [Lives in a VanGogh down by the river was a favorite I’m proud to have found]
Well, you can still get movie theater box candy at The Dollar Tree for $1.25, Target for $1.19, Woodman’s a little higher, Walmart about the same. Not as good as when everyone had it for a dollar, but closer than a lot of other things. I’m assuming we’re all buying 4 boxes of mini Charleston Chews. KEEP 'EM IN THE FREEZER.
@jouest@mossygreen I don’t understand freezing your Charleston Chews. I love me some CC, but they’re already VERY chewy at room temperature…frozen ones are essentially rocks.
@jouest@PooltoyWolf Ugh, it’s hard to explain. There’s something about the way the nougat breaks when it’s frozen that’s really pleasing when you bite it. The minis are the perfect size for it.
@mossygreen I actually prefer them slightly microwaved. Only for very few seconds though. Any longer and they become a lava-temperatured chocolate and nougat mess.
@Cindyloohooo@mossygreen@narfcake Eek that too. Don’t forget how much $$ greedy corporate raiders got by buying K-mart and then bankrupting it, then did the same with Sears. They are on their yachts somewhere laughing at us. (and there are thousands of ex-employees who had company stock that became worthless as the raiders looted and pillaged).
@mossygreen@narfcake It really sucks because they were very instrumental in me being able to afford fresh fruits and vegetables because it was actually affordable
@Cindyloohooo@mossygreen@pmarin TBF, K-mart wasn’t doing so well by the late 1990s, culminating in their first bankruptcy in 2002. The hedge fund manager vulture capitalist that took over afterwards and “purchased” Sears certainly didn’t make thing any better for either store, however.
@Cindyloohooo@mossygreen@narfcake Yeah just sore because I was one of those that actually bought K-mart stock in the 1990s just for “fun,” like “it’s so low, how much lower can it go?” – of course the answer was $0. (which is true of all stocks; some just riskier than others).
I didn’t put much into it but when all the stuff happened, I was more sad about employees who had worked there for many years and sometimes were given retirement benefits in company stock, or so I heard. And then when I heard the same “bankrupt” (ethically, at least) people somehow looted enough money to “buy” Sears, yes, that made me a sad Panda. Plus memories of going to the old Sears at the big Mall with my mother in the 1970s. And the Sears catalog that was thicker than a vintage phone book.
@mossygreen
I haven’t had a CC in so long, I’m gonna have to look for a box of the mini ones. I don’t eat candy much, if I do it’s more gummy weird candy. My favorite is butterfly gummies and roundums
@Cindyloohooo@mossygreen@pmarin The kicker to all this: Sears was Amazon before Amazon existed. The catalog provided the convenience of shopping from home, offered just about everything, had multiple regional warehouses for faster fulfillment, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s, could have even pivoted to online shopping through Prodigy in which they were part owners in.
@mossygreen I cannot even recall having seen Charleston Chews, I’m guessing that they may have been a bit regional in their distribution and/or popularity. The descriptions don’t sound like something I’d regret having missed, and the name absolutely would not have made me curious. But all of that can be said for a lot of things. The names applied to candies are often antidescriptive, and that’s not peculiar to the US market. I mean, really, Three Musketeers? Snickers? Payday? Musk Sticks? Violet Crumble?
I’ve gotten some decent things for $5 and under in the Target Bullseye section. Such as 2 iridescent martini glasses (like these that someone is selling for $17 on eBay.)
@jouest I will have you know that I have never owned (or even wanted) Ugg anything. And while I may be guilty of yoga pants on occasion, I do not yoga.
@Kyeh It bothers me that there is an entire business model built up around buying out places like Bullseye’s Playground and Five Below, and flipping the stuff for three times its retail price online. Ditto people who cruise thrift stores to scalp stuff, I wanna slap these people.
@jouest@Kyeh@werehatrack The one-two punch of that, and me being a bit too wide to fit into the bodysuit at the moment, have basically prevented me from fursuiting for over a year. My mother wore him during Megaplex last month.
@jouest@Kyeh@PooltoyWolf Back around 1991, my now-ex had to back out of doing the Intro To Rocky Horror For Virgins session at a local event because she no longer fit in her old Frank outfit. So she asked me to do it. But her bustier was too big, so I had to quickly hit Frederick’s for an appropriate one. Much hilarity ensued.
@jouest@Kyeh@werehatrack Nope, that’s actually me! I’m partialing there, in a French maid outfit lent to me by a friend. (That photo depicts the fursuiters in the Sunday late night parade, which was a fraction of the size of the main fursuit parade on Saturday.)
I think it’s a wonderful world where some people have landscape architects and installers, some have home construction or remodeling builders, and some (one anyway) has a fursuit builder.
Pepperidge Farm turnovers still taste exactly the same as they always have, and are $4.29 before tax at Woodman’s. Of course, there used to be a Pepperidge Farm outlet store walking distance from my home where you could get 2 for $3, but I try not to dwell on that.
@jouest With the benefit of hindsight, it was extremely odd. We had a pretty close Sara Lee outlet, but it was attached to a factory bakery. That made sense. The Pepperidge Farm outlet was just a little storefront in a strip mall with a Toys R Us and a liquor store, for some reason. Don’t get me wrong – it was a Golden Age for a tween/teen obsessed with raspberry turnovers and no car.
@jouest@mossygreen I remember those. For all kinds of things. Original Hostess Factory Outlet was the bomb. And there was a time in my life that I always lived relatively near one. It’s strange that they don’t exist anymore but I guess it’s because we put more preservatives in the bread and stuff and it’s no longer baked locally.
@Cerridwyn@jouest They might have improved supply chains and/or be selling to dollar stores or discount stores/grocery chains now. I also really miss the Entemann’s outlets that also had Thomas English muffins. Those were around up to about a decade ago, I think?
@jouest@mossygreen@werehatrack woohoo. I remember having one of those too but it came quite a bit after the others. We just go to the hostess outlet for ho-hos and ding dogs all the time
@mossygreen Our Pepperidge Farm outlet is in a strip mall as well. It also sells Campbell’s food service soups and entrees. I make sure I stop in every time I am in the area.
Once you make a crust from Gingerman cookies you never go back.
@KNmeh7 SO JEALOUS. Do they have the turnovers? I think there’s still an outlet I can get to easily in southern Wisconsin, but I rarely drive that way anymore.
Don’t get me wrong – it was a Golden Age for a tween/teen obsessed with raspberry turnovers and no car.
In high school the shortest way to the high school (about 1.5 miles away) was via a main street with stores. We had a Hough Bakery there and I LOVED their little mini cherry and other berry and apple pies (well and glazed donuts). Many weeks I’d blow at least an hour’s worth of babysitting money in there on the way home. When younger I used to ride my bike there (about a mile) and blow my allowance on one. Way less than a dollar, let alone five.
About 15 years ago, I was on my way to DC for a convention, and decided to stretch my legs to delay road fatigue by dropping in to a 5 Below. I’d never been in one previously. One of the things they had was a pair of neon rainbow tiger/zebra/whatever striped fleece pants. That’s the kind of concealable outrageous crap that used to help preserve my sanity, so I grabbed them despite the fact that the temp in that area was in the low 80s.
They were $5. Bargain!
When I got to DC, the temps were in the 20s.
I was damned glad I had those fleece pants to use as an under layer. Some of the other folks at the convention wished they’d had my foresight; I didn’t tell them it was just a lucky grab.
The current (but sadly limited time) $5 Meal Deal at McDonald’s qualifies. You get a double cheeseburger, 4 McNuggets, a small fry, and a small drink for $5. Ends at the end of the year, I think.
@jouest@PooltoyWolf Like the corporate marketing people that engineered the huge pandemic era price increases ever eat their own company food. They are probably all fit and healthy and have personal trainers. The price gouging was really just an excuse for huge profits just like Kroger and others have done.
jouest had a quick thing to say 10 hours ago
…but before we roll something out that may or may not cost five bucks, what are some great $5 buys that you can still get (or that you can’t still get)?
I can’t still get a $5 IRK; can you?? [without playing “Spend this amount, get it for this amount” games].
@IndifferentDude@mossygreen@xobzoo We got the current answer, and it’s sort of predictable and/or traditional. But at least it’s a better version of laptop accessory than what we’ve been getting in IRKs for way too long.
@jouest@okham I remember the .99 whopper. Don’t order with cheese or else it was $1.69. Too much for a piece of cheese – probably not good for us anyway. Sometimes would walk to it with some co-workers (late 1990s?). The brief bit of exercise made up for the Whopper without cheese.
Later on it became a Whopper Jr deal at same price. Now everything is $8.
@okham At the University of Florida (late 1990’s), you could get a cheese pizza for under $5 at Hungry Howies. Those were the days. And bean burritos under $1 at the campus Taco Bell. Also, great cheap food from Chinee Takee Outee just off campus.
There is an app Too Good To Go, which allows restaurants and bakeries to sell off excess, day-old, or mistake products at a discount. The idea is everyone wins with less waste, businesses make some money, and someone gets good food cheaper.
The value definitely depends on the participating business. Some of my better scores are Dan the Baker, which was $10 for a loaf of country sourdough, two cruffins, and two pumpkin cruffins. Although not cheap, it is a heck of a deal for his quality.
Whole Foods bag for $10 included 3 pork tamales, 3 chicken tamales, vegetarian fall salad, fried chicken, farro salad. Well worth it.
Original Goodie Shop bag for $6 had donuts, cake, and cinnamon roll sticks.
The app isn’t in every city, but check it out if yours does.
@KNmeh7 l
I look on there all the time but never have actually purchased anything (most are not right around the corner). I’m glad to know it’s worth the time. I’ll have to start purchasing stuff.
@KNmeh7
I deleted the app because nothing I wanted was ever on it, and also it had a weird idea of what was geographically close to me. Maybe it’s gotten better since
I remember when you could buy new undies for $3 like it was just a couple of weeks ago. I could almost have a fresh pair for every day of the week, those were the days!
@kuoh But were in sizes 3XL and larger; maybe good after twice-daily McDonalds meal deals, making sure to get the non-diet soda with all the High Fructose Corn Syrup for proper body building.
@kuoh well, I resemble that remark. An earlier discussion in this thread about K-mart (and then I brought up Sears,) reminded me of the Sears in the 1970s when my mother would shop for clothes for me and they sent me to the “Husky” section which was a thing at that time. I guess it was for “big-boned” boys. Now when I’m at a Home Depot and I see their in-house tool brand called Husky, I have a little bit of sadness still remaining from 50 years ago.
/youtube
EDIT psychological health notice: don’t ever feel sadness about your own body. One thing you learn after all those years. Hard to do as a child, though.
I’m cleaning out closets and keep finding shower curtains. There are three of the boat ones up and probably a few I haven’t found yet. What was I thinking?
@lonocat I do remember the classic song but not the ad itself. I do remember the Hamburglar who apparently now is on the Board of Directors advising how to maximize profits.
I just want to point out that there was like nine months in the late 1990s where you could fill up half my Civic’s gas tank for five bucks.
Honorable Mention: those shitty subway footlongs that weren’t a foot long.
@jouest I remember that. We took so many road trips that summer because we could all finally afford gas on a teenager’s minimum wage paycheck.
@jouest @Thumperchick I had a big gas motorhome in the 1990s (actually still have it in my driveway if anyone volunteers to come tow it away).
Don’t ever get a big gas motorhome.
But with gas around $1/gal, getting 6-8mpg was not so bad. OK it was still pretty bad.
On the other hand, for cheap little economical cars (econoboxes they were called), between me and my mother had 2 VW Diesel Rabbits, a Geo (Chevy) Metro (3 cyl), and a Honda Civic. All got at least 40 mpg, some got over 50. This was in 80’s-90s. Most automakers changed their lineup to much more powerful cars (sold at much higher profit I’m sure) and haven’t touched that sort of mileage number for the subsequent 30 years.
@jouest @pmarin @Thumperchick OTOH, we recently bought a Toyota hybrid AWD SUV (Venza) for my wife. She is averaging ~40 mpg with it and, while no performance car, it has plenty of power for everyday driving (225HP gas and electric combined) is comfortable and roomy enough for our needs.
@jouest @pmarin @Thumperchick Much of the reason for the dearth of high-mileage cars these days can trace to the typical US-market car being a lot heavier now, due to automakers wanting to meet safety standards via use of more cheap steel instead of more clever design and better materials. In some other countries, substandard vehicles can still be sold as long as their shortcomings are clearly admitted, and this facilitates the availability of vehicles of greater economy at what many find to be an acceptably greater risk in an environment where things the size of an F250 Super Duty are rare. If the US market had not been propagandized into screaming for ever bigger and more irresponsible SUVs and goddamn pickup trucks, we could be selling such cars here with reasonable safety as well. But that’s a rant for another day.
Meanwhile, the convergence of mandatory feature bloat and the impending doom of the ICE powerplant has brought us to the point where a decreasing portion of the population can afford a new vehicle at all, and yet public transport capability is still regarded as an afterthought to be postponed for a decade or two. (Preferably forever.)
@jouest @Thumperchick @werehatrack
I thought every day here is good for a rant, but always in a civilized and if I might even say intelligent manner! I think we are getting good at it!
But yes the safety stuff too. I forgot, when I was in elementary school my mother was in an Opel and was rear-ended at a traffic light at fairly high speed by a possibly drunk guy in a large car. She had back and neck issues for a long time. She called the Opel “the Tin Can” because it was so flimsy and poorly-built. Years later in Europe I had the misfortune of getting an Opel as a Rental car and it was for the longest drive – Italy to Southern France to Netherlands in Winter. I can say that the Opel of 2000 felt no more solid than the Opel of 1970.
Meanwhile I retain my position that most “SUVs” bought today are really just minivans without sliding doors.
@jouest @Thumperchick @werehatrack Also there was nothing wrong with 4-cylinder pickups; there used to be a lot of them from many makers (though U.S. branded ones tended to be imported and just re-badged to a US maker name in the 70s-80s). Most got at least 30mpg. Corporate profit$ much higher with big heavy trucks at least V-6 or V-8 (at one time V-10 but that’s done). No need to sell low-cost 4-cyl econo-trucks at lower profit$ if none are available in the US market (which they are not at the moment).
Also for fun search “Chicken tax trucks” and you will be amazed. This has been going on for a while.
@pmarin The bigger and more problematic officially-an-SUV atrocities (Suburban, Tahoe, Expedition, etc) are more like pickups with a roof and seating all the way back. And I see loads of them used as one-person commuter vehicles. For all that I loathe that state, Florida used to tax vehicles by weight class, and the heaviest cars paid more than double as much for their plate renewals as the lightest ones. The plates used to reflect the weight class. It still wasn’t enough of a hit to cause people to avoid the banana boats, of course.
@jouest In 1997ish I was living in Tampa and gas got down to $0.88 a gallon. Then I met my wife and everything continued to get more expensive in perpetuity.
Hardee’s “Big Bag” meal deal
@chienfou rare Hardee’s W
@chienfou @jouest I sometimes feel like the only person in the known universe who actually enjoys Hardee’s burgers and fries.
@chienfou @jouest @PooltoyWolf
Their curly fries? Hell yeah. The regular Hardee’s fries were always limp and soggy
@chienfou I can’t remember if it was Hardee’s or Roy Rogers in Milford, CT, in the late 80s or early 90s, but my dad and I stopped to get a strawberry shake, and I freaked out after taking a sip, BECAUSE THERE WERE CHUNKS OF SOMETHING STRINGY IN MY SHAKE. Turned out they used actual blenderized strawberries in the shake. They became our go-to from then until they closed.
@chienfou I remember a time when Hardee’s was not the same as Carls Jr. I worked for them for about 5 minutes when I was 14 almost 15 and got fired for running my trap to the managers wife. God damned I was a stupid kid. Anyway the 80s were a hell of a time. And the mushroom and swiss was god damned delicious.
@chienfou @Cindyloohooo Yeah, I was on my way to a convention on the East Coast about two weeks after Hardee’s got bought out, and suddenly a whole bunch of their better items were just gone.
5 dollar t shirts. quality diminished over time, bbut they are still there.
and LOL thumperchick, I remember when case was 14 cents a gallon, so I guess I’m old
@Cerridwyn but then $5 was two months’ salary!
@jouest lol. Not quite. I think I’m guessing minimum wage was probably around $1.35 an hour or so maybe a dollar. I’m not sure I know my first job was a $1.35 an hour and I think at that point in time gas was about 20 cents a gallon
@Cerridwyn @jouest Minimum wage in the early '60s was $1.15 for most covered workers. I believe that the next increment was $1.25 around 1963. The purchasing power of the Federal minimum wage peaked in 1968, but it has not been adequate to supply a living wage for one full-time working person living alone at any point in my working lifetime. State minimum wages also fall below the living-wage threshold, though they come much closer. Texas has no state minimum wage.
@jouest @werehatrack California through most of my working life has been well above federal. But yeah it’s pretty bad
Well there’s Five Below, but not everything there is $5 or less, just as Dollar (and a quarter) Tree isn’t all just $1.25 anymore.
Not quite $5, but still under $6 – this current offer at shirt.woot:
https://forums.woot.com/t/5-shirts-for-29-at-checkout-october-2-october-4-2024/1823768
@narfcake Nice selection - lots of oldies! I spotted 2 by @ACraigL; there’s also 1 by @jasneko.
@jasneko @Kyeh @narfcake I have 3 in that sale, actually.
@ACraigL @jasneko @narfcake Hmmm … can you give us a clue?
@jasneko @Kyeh @narfcake
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/welcome-to-sarcasm-69
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/diversified-portfolio-2
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/kids-table-alumni-4
@ACraigL @Kyeh @narfcake And here’s mine for anyone else who may want to check it out
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/books-owl
@ACraigL @jasneko @narfcake Oh, Kid’s Table is the one I missed. A number 1!
@ACraigL @jasneko @Kyeh @narfcake
I like the beer and kids table one
@ACraigL @jasneko @Kyeh @narfcake Now that I see Kid’s Table Alumni, I think we need a Scapegoat Emeritus shirt.
Do we want to step it up with a vest? Something like a fleece (not puffy). Yesterday (seriously) mayor of the neighboring town was at grand opening of a Goodwill store, and had a fleece vest with the town logo embroidered on it. And below it (apparently for him only) it said “Mayor” so there would be no doubt I suppose. It seemed so silly, and yet now I want one (but can’t say mayor, maybe just “guy that lives nearby”. And of course “lives in a van down by the river” always a classic, and sometimes applies to me.) [Lives in a VanGogh down by the river was a favorite I’m proud to have found]
@ACraigL @jasneko @Kyeh @narfcake @pmarin How about Local Man, below a logo that looks very similar to a certain onion?
Well, you can still get movie theater box candy at The Dollar Tree for $1.25, Target for $1.19, Woodman’s a little higher, Walmart about the same. Not as good as when everyone had it for a dollar, but closer than a lot of other things. I’m assuming we’re all buying 4 boxes of mini Charleston Chews. KEEP 'EM IN THE FREEZER.
@mossygreen my teeth fear a frozen Charleston Chew
@jouest But MINI ones aren’t as scary! I shouldn’t eat them either, I have two crowns.
@jouest @mossygreen I don’t understand freezing your Charleston Chews. I love me some CC, but they’re already VERY chewy at room temperature…frozen ones are essentially rocks.
@jouest @PooltoyWolf Ugh, it’s hard to explain. There’s something about the way the nougat breaks when it’s frozen that’s really pleasing when you bite it. The minis are the perfect size for it.
@mossygreen I actually prefer them slightly microwaved. Only for very few seconds though. Any longer and they become a lava-temperatured chocolate and nougat mess.
@mossygreen @sicc574 And M&M’s slightly warmed in the microwave are amazing.
@mossygreen I miss the 99 cent only store so much. I’m so sad about them closing.
@Cindyloohooo @mossygreen Just like other strong beloved stores, private equity sucked the value out of them and killed them.
@Cindyloohooo @mossygreen @narfcake Eek that too. Don’t forget how much $$ greedy corporate raiders got by buying K-mart and then bankrupting it, then did the same with Sears. They are on their yachts somewhere laughing at us. (and there are thousands of ex-employees who had company stock that became worthless as the raiders looted and pillaged).
@mossygreen @narfcake It really sucks because they were very instrumental in me being able to afford fresh fruits and vegetables because it was actually affordable
@Cindyloohooo @mossygreen @pmarin TBF, K-mart wasn’t doing so well by the late 1990s, culminating in their first bankruptcy in 2002. The
hedge fund managervulture capitalist that took over afterwards and “purchased” Sears certainly didn’t make thing any better for either store, however.@Cindyloohooo @mossygreen @narfcake Yeah just sore because I was one of those that actually bought K-mart stock in the 1990s just for “fun,” like “it’s so low, how much lower can it go?” – of course the answer was $0. (which is true of all stocks; some just riskier than others).
I didn’t put much into it but when all the stuff happened, I was more sad about employees who had worked there for many years and sometimes were given retirement benefits in company stock, or so I heard. And then when I heard the same “bankrupt” (ethically, at least) people somehow looted enough money to “buy” Sears, yes, that made me a sad Panda. Plus memories of going to the old Sears at the big Mall with my mother in the 1970s. And the Sears catalog that was thicker than a vintage phone book.
@mossygreen
I haven’t had a CC in so long, I’m gonna have to look for a box of the mini ones. I don’t eat candy much, if I do it’s more gummy weird candy. My favorite is butterfly gummies and roundums
@Cindyloohooo @mossygreen @pmarin The kicker to all this: Sears was Amazon before Amazon existed. The catalog provided the convenience of shopping from home, offered just about everything, had multiple regional warehouses for faster fulfillment, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s, could have even pivoted to online shopping through Prodigy in which they were part owners in.
But alas …
@mossygreen I cannot even recall having seen Charleston Chews, I’m guessing that they may have been a bit regional in their distribution and/or popularity. The descriptions don’t sound like something I’d regret having missed, and the name absolutely would not have made me curious. But all of that can be said for a lot of things. The names applied to candies are often antidescriptive, and that’s not peculiar to the US market. I mean, really, Three Musketeers? Snickers? Payday? Musk Sticks? Violet Crumble?
@mossygreen My mom sucked a filling out of her tooth with a milk dud in 1988 and I still think about it twice a week. shudders
@Cindyloohooo @mossygreen Bright Sun Films latest video, which came out after my last post:
I’ve gotten some decent things for $5 and under in the Target Bullseye section. Such as 2 iridescent martini glasses (like these that someone is selling for $17 on eBay.)
@Kyeh Target Bullseye section is just Meh for people wearing Ugg boots and yoga pants
@jouest I will have you know that I have never owned (or even wanted) Ugg anything. And while I may be guilty of yoga pants on occasion, I do not yoga.
@jouest No Ugg boots or yoga pants here, sorry.
@jouest @werehatrack Fun Fact: my fursuit builder built my feetpaws around Uggs LOL.
@jouest @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack That must be comfy!
@Kyeh It bothers me that there is an entire business model built up around buying out places like Bullseye’s Playground and Five Below, and flipping the stuff for three times its retail price online. Ditto people who cruise thrift stores to scalp stuff, I wanna slap these people.
@PooltoyWolf Yes, I agree
!
@jouest @Kyeh @werehatrack They are, though of course like the rest of the suit, very VERY warm unless it’s winter. Heh
@jouest @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack Yeah, and in Florida…
@jouest @Kyeh @werehatrack The one-two punch of that, and me being a bit too wide to fit into the bodysuit at the moment, have basically prevented me from fursuiting for over a year. My mother wore him during Megaplex last month.
@jouest @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack Is this her?
@jouest @Kyeh @PooltoyWolf Back around 1991, my now-ex had to back out of doing the Intro To Rocky Horror For Virgins session at a local event because she no longer fit in her old Frank outfit. So she asked me to do it. But her bustier was too big, so I had to quickly hit Frederick’s for an appropriate one. Much hilarity ensued.
@jouest @Kyeh @werehatrack Nope, that’s actually me! I’m partialing there, in a French maid outfit lent to me by a friend.
(That photo depicts the fursuiters in the Sunday late night parade, which was a fraction of the size of the main fursuit parade on Saturday.)
@jouest @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack Oh! Well, that’s one way to avoid overheating…
The picture of the entire group is incredible - SO many people!
@jouest @Kyeh @werehatrack Did you find the main parade photo?
@jouest @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack
I think it’s a wonderful world where some people have landscape architects and installers, some have home construction or remodeling builders, and some (one anyway) has a fursuit builder.
@jouest @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack
I saw the photo of 912 of you in a big ballroom!
@jouest @pmarin @werehatrack I’m definitely not the only one!
@jouest @Kyeh @werehatrack Crazy to think that these days, the number of fursuiters is triple the number of total attendees my first year!
Pepperidge Farm turnovers still taste exactly the same as they always have, and are $4.29 before tax at Woodman’s. Of course, there used to be a Pepperidge Farm outlet store walking distance from my home where you could get 2 for $3, but I try not to dwell on that.
@mossygreen living near outlet stores feels odd.
@jouest With the benefit of hindsight, it was extremely odd. We had a pretty close Sara Lee outlet, but it was attached to a factory bakery. That made sense. The Pepperidge Farm outlet was just a little storefront in a strip mall with a Toys R Us and a liquor store, for some reason. Don’t get me wrong – it was a Golden Age for a tween/teen obsessed with raspberry turnovers and no car.
@jouest @mossygreen I remember those. For all kinds of things. Original Hostess Factory Outlet was the bomb. And there was a time in my life that I always lived relatively near one. It’s strange that they don’t exist anymore but I guess it’s because we put more preservatives in the bread and stuff and it’s no longer baked locally.
@Cerridwyn @jouest @mossygreen Decades ago, my father knew where the Entenmann’s outlet was in Miami. That place was dangerous.
ᴏʜsʜɪᴛᴏʜsʜɪᴛᴏʜsʜɪᴛ ɪ ᴍᴀʏ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴊᴜsᴛ ғᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ Eɴᴛᴇɴᴍᴀɴɴ’s ᴏᴜᴛʟᴇᴛ ɪɴ ʜᴏᴜsᴛᴏɴ ɪs ʟᴏᴄᴀᴛᴇᴅ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ’s ɴᴏᴛ ғᴀʀ ᴀᴡᴀʏ ɪ’ᴍ ᴅᴏᴏᴍᴇᴅ.
@Cerridwyn @jouest They might have improved supply chains and/or be selling to dollar stores or discount stores/grocery chains now. I also really miss the Entemann’s outlets that also had Thomas English muffins. Those were around up to about a decade ago, I think?
@Cerridwyn @jouest @mossygreen Last year, I started making my own crumpets, which has greatly reduced my interest in English muffins.
@Cerridwyn @jouest @werehatrack Ha, great minds thinking alike about devil’s food crumb top donuts.
Edited to add: doomed, or blessed?
@jouest @mossygreen @werehatrack woohoo. I remember having one of those too but it came quite a bit after the others. We just go to the hostess outlet for ho-hos and ding dogs all the time
@mossygreen Our Pepperidge Farm outlet is in a strip mall as well. It also sells Campbell’s food service soups and entrees. I make sure I stop in every time I am in the area.
Once you make a crust from Gingerman cookies you never go back.
@KNmeh7 SO JEALOUS. Do they have the turnovers? I think there’s still an outlet I can get to easily in southern Wisconsin, but I rarely drive that way anymore.
@mossygreen Yes! They are our most purchased frozen item there. I love the raspberry. Puff pastry sheets and cakes too.
@KNmeh7 The raspberry turnovers are legitimately the best thing they make, except for the citrus snowball holiday cookies.
@KNmeh7 @mossygreen Funny that we all remember Pepperidge Farm and Pepperidge Farm Remembers.
/youtube Pepperidge Farm Remembers ad
@mossygreen @pmarin
@jouest @mossygreen
In high school the shortest way to the high school (about 1.5 miles away) was via a main street with stores. We had a Hough Bakery there and I LOVED their little mini cherry and other berry and apple pies (well and glazed donuts). Many weeks I’d blow at least an hour’s worth of babysitting money in there on the way home. When younger I used to ride my bike there (about a mile) and blow my allowance on one. Way less than a dollar, let alone five.
@KNmeh7 @mossygreen My father loved the Milano cookies!
About 15 years ago, I was on my way to DC for a convention, and decided to stretch my legs to delay road fatigue by dropping in to a 5 Below. I’d never been in one previously. One of the things they had was a pair of neon rainbow tiger/zebra/whatever striped fleece pants. That’s the kind of concealable outrageous crap that used to help preserve my sanity, so I grabbed them despite the fact that the temp in that area was in the low 80s.
They were $5. Bargain!
When I got to DC, the temps were in the 20s.
I was damned glad I had those fleece pants to use as an under layer. Some of the other folks at the convention wished they’d had my foresight; I didn’t tell them it was just a lucky grab.
@werehatrack Five Below is like if Meh was a mirage halfway to DC
The current (but sadly limited time) $5 Meal Deal at McDonald’s qualifies. You get a double cheeseburger, 4 McNuggets, a small fry, and a small drink for $5. Ends at the end of the year, I think.
@PooltoyWolf McDonald’s knows they have flown too close to the sun and came up with that thing to compensate
@jouest @PooltoyWolf Like the corporate marketing people that engineered the huge pandemic era price increases ever eat their own company food. They are probably all fit and healthy and have personal trainers. The price gouging was really just an excuse for huge profits just like Kroger and others have done.
WAIT!! The $5 IRK is coming back??
@IndifferentDude Silly.
@IndifferentDude I also came here to suggest this.
@mossygreen Well, he did say:
I can’t still get a $5 IRK; can you??
[without playing “Spend this amount, get it for this amount” games].
@IndifferentDude No argument on my end, I swear.
@IndifferentDude @mossygreen Note that first line, though:
They aren’t promising they’ll bring back the $5 IRK, but they seem to be hinting at it so that we’ll get excited.
@IndifferentDude @mossygreen @xobzoo We got the current answer, and it’s sort of predictable and/or traditional. But at least it’s a better version of laptop accessory than what we’ve been getting in IRKs for way too long.
Five $0.99 whoppers made for a great dinner for a poor college student.
@okham for me it was Arby’s 5 for $5, disassembled and frozen for later reassembly.
@jouest @okham I remember the .99 whopper. Don’t order with cheese or else it was $1.69. Too much for a piece of cheese – probably not good for us anyway. Sometimes would walk to it with some co-workers (late 1990s?). The brief bit of exercise made up for the Whopper without cheese.
Later on it became a Whopper Jr deal at same price. Now everything is $8.
@okham At the University of Florida (late 1990’s), you could get a cheese pizza for under $5 at Hungry Howies. Those were the days. And bean burritos under $1 at the campus Taco Bell. Also, great cheap food from Chinee Takee Outee just off campus.
So I tucked a 5 dollar bill into my waistband. I told my wife, “All you can eat - under 5 bucks!”
I miss her.
@Trinityscrew next time try her waistband
There is an app Too Good To Go, which allows restaurants and bakeries to sell off excess, day-old, or mistake products at a discount. The idea is everyone wins with less waste, businesses make some money, and someone gets good food cheaper.
The value definitely depends on the participating business. Some of my better scores are Dan the Baker, which was $10 for a loaf of country sourdough, two cruffins, and two pumpkin cruffins. Although not cheap, it is a heck of a deal for his quality.
Whole Foods bag for $10 included 3 pork tamales, 3 chicken tamales, vegetarian fall salad, fried chicken, farro salad. Well worth it.
Original Goodie Shop bag for $6 had donuts, cake, and cinnamon roll sticks.
The app isn’t in every city, but check it out if yours does.
@KNmeh7 this is going to not exist in my town and it’ll break my heart but here goes…
@KNmeh7 l
I look on there all the time but never have actually purchased anything (most are not right around the corner). I’m glad to know it’s worth the time. I’ll have to start purchasing stuff.
@KNmeh7
I deleted the app because nothing I wanted was ever on it, and also it had a weird idea of what was geographically close to me. Maybe it’s gotten better since
I remember when you could buy new undies for $3 like it was just a couple of weeks ago. I could almost have a fresh pair for every day of the week, those were the days!
KuoH
@kuoh But were in sizes 3XL and larger; maybe good after twice-daily McDonalds meal deals, making sure to get the non-diet soda with all the High Fructose Corn Syrup for proper body building.
@pmarin Hey big “boned” people deserve good deals too. Besides, they give the little swimmers more space to roam.
KuoH
@kuoh well, I resemble that remark. An earlier discussion in this thread about K-mart (and then I brought up Sears,) reminded me of the Sears in the 1970s when my mother would shop for clothes for me and they sent me to the “Husky” section which was a thing at that time. I guess it was for “big-boned” boys. Now when I’m at a Home Depot and I see their in-house tool brand called Husky, I have a little bit of sadness still remaining from 50 years ago.
/youtube
EDIT psychological health notice: don’t ever feel sadness about your own body. One thing you learn after all those years. Hard to do as a child, though.
@pmarin Yeah, no need to be sad about being a husky. A hussy on the other hand…
KuoH
@kuoh @pmarin Wait a minute - some of my best experiences of my younger years involved hussies.
I’m cleaning out closets and keep finding shower curtains. There are three of the boat ones up and probably a few I haven’t found yet. What was I thinking?
@sammydog01 Were some of them received in Irks? I see a theme there - longing to be at the beach?
@Kyeh I like beaches. I did get one in an irk but it was the creepy monk one. I still have it of course.
@sammydog01 I was able to send my monk one to someone here who was seeking one!
Not $5, but $4
Commercial from 1972
@lonocat I do remember the classic song but not the ad itself. I do remember the Hamburglar who apparently now is on the Board of Directors advising how to maximize profits.