I’ve got family in both camps. When they’re together, I give up and go where I want because there’s no impressing both groups in my neighborhood during the weekday lunch hour, especially one that can also accommodate my household’s dietary restrictions. The closest we get to that is Martha, which is open for lunch on Friday and everyone is, at minimum, ok with.

But when they come separately, I pick very different spots. There’s a few places they all seem to genuinely like, but none are open for lunch during the weekday.

Mulherins would be great, but they don’t do lunch on weekdays. Needing a weekday lunch spot definitely rules out a lot of the neighborhood favorites; even the ones that do weekday lunches are often only like, 3 days a week.

I like Cheu a lot, but they’re not open for lunch, except on Saturdays

Yeah, I think Suraya would work for the latter, and maybe/probably the former, so long as they’re not the type to be scared of food they haven’t had before, or be pissy about the city being complicated and expensive.

There’s a certain type of South Jersey that would go to Suraya, bitch that nothing is “a regular sandwich” and they don’t want something because it has a word they don’t know in it or whatever, complain about “how much food” you can buy for that price back at their local strip mall, and have Opinions about the way Suraya does seating.

If that’s their brand of difficult, I’d go to Murph’s

Yeah, I like the Riverwards a lot, but most of the nicer spots that you’d take someone that you wanted to impress don’t open til 4 or 5 and only do lunch on weekends.

There’s definitely SOME options, especially if they expand to the Riverwards in general, but I’d need to know more about what kind of Jersey they are. Suraya is probably the safest all around bet, so long as you can go W-F, unless they’re scared of food that they don’t eat at home.

Fair. I like Front St because they do a good job of accommodating my house’s dietary restrictions, and the worst food we ever had there was still pretty ok. I just don’t order cocktails there.

I like Cedar Point for the reasons you mentioned, but when they do fail on me, they’ve failed big. I wouldn’t risk it if I was trying to impress someone.

That’s funny, because while I have some issues with Front Street (mostly about their cocktails), I’ve found Cedar Point to be pretty unreliable re: quality.

I like them both, FWIW.

What kind of “talking shit from NJ” are they? Like, sheltered South Jersey suburbs, rather go to Applebee’s, scared of the city? Or NYC area, being dicks about “the city” talking shit? That’s going to affect my call.

Yeah, I think that’s absolutely true, especially in the short term.

I think it would benefit many young people to have a college experience that doesn’t come with crippling debt, and would also benefit the nation’s general body politic. I don’t love the idea that the best use of a young person’s time is just to be trained to work and then assigned to an employer as quickly as possible.

But in the short term, the state will definitely benefit from filling open positions with capable staff and putting people that might otherwise struggle with meaningful employment into good jobs. It’s a good idea, and I’m all for it.

Fine.

See and Stevic, Celinda R., and Rose Marie Ward. “Initiating Personal Growth: The Role of Recognition and Life Satisfaction on the Development of College Students.” Social Indicators Research, vol. 89, no. 3, 2008, pp. 523–34 and Bok, Derek. “Character: Can Colleges Help Students Acquire Higher Standards of Ethical Behavior and Personal Responsibility?” in Higher Expectations: Can Colleges Teach Students What They Need to Know in the 21st Century?, 58–79. Princeton University Press, 2020.

My personal, anecdotal experience absolutely matches traditional expectations and more rigorous studies about college and similar institutions (like say, national service programs - see Frumkin, Peter, and JoAnn Jastrzab. “Personal Growth.” in Serving Country and Community: Who Benefits from National Service?, Harvard University Press, 2010, pp. 104–32.) in providing more meaningful spaces for intellectual curiosity and growth, as well as personal growth, and providing tools for learning independently as an adult, than does moving directly into the workforce. That’s one of the stated missions of higher ed. No workplace I know of makes that a mission in anything other than the most vague lip service.

In an ideal world, we’d make room for that experience for everyone that wants it, and would benefit from it, and not make that experience cripple them financially for the rest of their lives.

But we should also make it possible for people to skip it if that’s what they want, or if that’s not an environment in which they’d grow as people, and if they can do the job without it, especially since we don’t live in an ideal world.

Eh, I know I worked all throughout high school and it didn’t do shit for me other than provide spending money. And that’s been true of a lot of my work experience since then.

But college was actually a pretty meaningful period of personal and intellectual growth for me. In a world where I could have skipped right into the workforce, I’d be a wealthier person, but I don’t think I’d be a better person, and I definitely wouldn’t be able to think through things or find information I want as well as I can now.

The goal of life experience for young people is not just about succeeding in the workplace, which is a place I’ve found to be not particularly conducive to personal growth or developing skills that aren’t directly and immediately marketable to your specific workplace.

My brother skipped college/trade school and went right into the workforce, and he’s still more or less the same dipshit he was in high school. Not a lot of growth there of any sort. He doesn’t have my debt, but I wouldn’t trade places with him.

Yeah, in an ideal world, young people would get the kind of broad education and life experience that comes with a college education (or similar life experience) before diving into the workforce.

But we’re far from that world, and making people take on crippling debt just to acquire fairly basic jobs that don’t actually require a degree to do is something straight up bullshit.

Good luck to her! Especially if the goal is Northeast, Delco, or South Philly. Because even if you nail it, you still sound like you're fucking up to anyone not within driving distance.

Watching it on tv is also an option, FYI.

I’ll be going to a friends house that I go to every year, where we put it on tv and then eat and drink and talk shit all day without having to step in barf or dodge assholes or stand in the cold.

PSPCA isn’t part of the city’s outreach. ACCT is the extent of the city’s involvement here.

ACCT will spay/neuter community cats and unowned cats free of charge with an appointment, but will not do pets. Everywhere on this list will do owned and unowned cats at a lower cost than most veterinary offices.

I live in one of a handful of areas in the city where parking is legit not that hard. People still pull this shit to avoid using the ample parking that exists like, a block and a half away from where they chose to park.

I always assumed that, in addition to being a trick to try to get the other team in trouble, it was also a trick to get to sit down for a minute - soccer players run around A LOT.

I know it’s terrible, but I kind of like it. It’s the only real sport I can think of that incorporates drama class. Like, you can win by being good at soccer, but it also helps to be good at pretending, and everyone is in on the pretending what with the dumb little “healing spray” and all.

Lol, the ball busting can come after you make his year.

Alll this, but also, see if you can find a review of the book in an academic journal (JSTOR has really opened up access to stuff since the pandemic).

Dropping something like “x person said something nice about your book in this journal” would probably make his year.

This would also be a good way of taking an interest in the work and what he does that doesn’t involve reading a list of stuff about bugs.

Still wayyyy cuter than I’m looking for. They’re really nice, but not our style

Funny timing, though! I just picked these up today: https://www.etsy.com/listing/754665365/assorted-christmas-cards-christmas-cards

Not Philly local, or exactly what I was looking for, but close enough on both counts

Yep. Pretty sure Board of Elections, 311, and a handful of small community services divisions are there too.

Kraken was actually a miss for me.

But being part of pioneering a new genre will, by default involve some lesser works. Like I said, it’s an always-read.

Mieville is an always read for me, but can be hit or miss.

City and the City is the strongest standalone work, imo, which I don’t think is an unpopular one.

But you’re onto something about his strengths - Mieville’s best stuff is actually where there’s room to sprawl a bit into world building. Look into the Bas Lag series.

I’m fully on board with like, half his standalone novels and novellas, and the others were fine.

He also does short stories well.

From a historical standpoint, not really. This was a whole arm of Méliès studio that was staffed with women, who meaningfully contributed to the artistic value of the product but were never credited.

The article does a good, if brief, job of explaining why gender is a notable part of the history of filmmaking in this place and time.

I mean, I’m the one that linked the report. I saw the U.S. on there.

How is the U.S. having a dodgy track record on human trafficking and slavery an argument FOR adopting a district ALSO associated with human trafficking and slavery?

Like, I’d get it if we were knocking it out of the park - yeah, it’s a problem there, but we’re really good at this. But we’re not that good at this.

But, and hear me out here … what if three rich assholes found a way to take what desperate people are currently doing for money in AC, and monetized it to their benefit without ever actually having to do sex work themselves?

FWIW, I’m all for legalizing and normalizing sex work. Work is work. But I don’t trust any of this crew to head up the effort.