Thank you for your detailed write up. I’ve been going to Costco for 2-3 decades now, and I remember the cutco and vitamix demos from way back when I first started going, and if anything I don’t see them at all now. I think it definitely has to do with when I go now vs when I used to go, but I kinda figured they’d mostly stopped those. Sad to hear they’ve become a problem.

Really sorry to hear about the change in food quality/stock. My biggest gripe is the pasta. Sometimes they have a 6-8 pack of pasta, we’re not too picky about type, spaghetti, linguine, penne, rotini, are all fine, but sometimes they just have ditalini. So strange imho. Most our other staples (fruit/veg/meat/dairy) are pretty standardly stocked. I think we’re not too loyal to any specific product, more just looking for a specific food group, so we probably don’t notice the changes as much as other families. Costco also isn’t a weekly visit for us, as we have some other grocery stores we get specialty things from and I definitely notice changes in their offerings more than in Costco offerings. I think because I’ve been going for so long I don’t mind the rotations as much. I figure they’re only stocking things that they can get me significant savings on, and we’re pretty flexible with what we eat/cook. They recently dropped a packaged breakfast bar they’d been carrying for the last year+, so that was a bit of a blow I’ve yet to properly replace, but otherwise I never feel like I’m “missing something.”

Really wish farmers markets were more accessible. We technically have one within an hour, but it’s on Thursdays. Hard to even pretend that makes sense for us. If you have any soup/stew recipes you want to share, please do. I’m more of a vibes based cook, but I’m always looking to try new recipes.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the return of your cheeses and pretzel sticks.

Sorry to hear about the cookie, but honestly I hadn’t bothered to order it because it looks like it wouldn’t be worth the calories.

What do you mean by vendor harassment?

The actual food has been pretty consistent around here, and I don’t use the app, so I can’t really opine on that, but I’m surprised to see people reconsidering renewal. At the very least, the pricing and variety of products has been consistently good. Around me, a single serving of any fruit/vegetable is like half of what Costco is charging for a family serving. I can buy 5 celery sticks for x at my local or 40 celery sticks for 2x at Costco. I don’t necessarily need 40, but even if I just need 20, our Costco membership makes sense for that alone.

Ugh. Sorry to hear that. I’m lucky enough to live near several big cities so I have a lot of options.

For what it’s worth, I’ve ordered fabric from spoonflower and it’s been great so far. I also get a lot of scrap/unique fabrics from small Etsy sellers, and 99 times out of 100 it’s perfect. Every once in a while the fabric has clearly been in a smokers house for a long time or terribly taken care of, but generally people do a great job of picking fabrics that go together and they package them nicely. Full disclosure my spoonflower purchases are all through their Etsy store because I don’t wanna make a whole new account for their site, but I imagine it’s the same experience regardless.

Honestly, my local Joann’s staff remembered me and always asked about my last project and how the recipient liked it. “Did your dad like his new tie?” “Did your uncle like the model boat?” legit some of the nicest people.

There’s a legit fabric store near me, like where designers get fabric, and it’s way more expensive, but the quality is better and the variety is unmatched, but I really don’t need all that. There’s also a sewing/quilting specialty store near me that’s independently owned and operated. Far less variety of fabrics, but more variety of patterns. Depending on what you went to Joann’s for, it’s possible there’s an alternative near you, though honestly I still preferred Joann’s to the two above alternatives. Just letting you know that sometimes there are other local options where the staff is equally helpful.

Aghhhhh. I hate this so much. The same with head start programs. Like every $1 spent on early childhood programs saves $7 (at the low end!) in the long run. We have the answers. Makes me want to scream honestly.

Yes, and I’d like to not see it happen either 🥰

/s obviously

I don’t have any of those, but I can’t seem to find reporting on this statement yet. Can anyone verify if it’s a real tweet?

Maybe I’m too peace pilled for this, but I really don’t get tankies or anyone who simps for any government. Like, I have no personal problem with people from any country, so why can’t we all just be chill and not slob on the knob of governments. All governments have done bad stuff. The us had literal slaves. Really wish governments would just come out and say “yo, we messed up a lot, don’t take it out on other people though”. And then we could all just hug and eat cake or whatever. This is only tangentially related to your comment, but I’m just sick of people doing government posturing for the government so I’m just gonna leave the comment anyway. Hope you have a great day.

Wow, you weren’t kidding. $4 a can is a bit rich for my blood, but I will take your word that they’re good cuz I don’t know how else they can stay in business like that. I buy tea for my family by the gallon and it’s less than $4 vs an equivalent $32 worth of cans if I did the math right. It seems like they’re only available offline at Nordstrom. Hope you’re able to find them locally.

Mind sharing what kind it is? I generally drink hot tea, but my family likes cold tea so I like to keep some on hand. Would be nice to be able to also drink it myself, but it’s just so sugary (and I’m from the south, so I know my sweet teas) it’s hard to feel refreshed.

I’ve never heard of or seen that before. Thank you for passing along your white whale lol. Now I need it too. Tbh, all their flavors are pretty good if you haven’t tried the others, I’d suggest giving them a shot. My local grocery store (it’s very local so not naming it so I don’t dox myself) has a very good alternative store brand. I like berry flavors, and their in house brand is just as good as polar if not better. Worth trying your local store brand just in case you get lucky and find a new favorite!

I don’t feel as strongly about la croix, but if I have a choice I’m getting polar water instead. If you’re looking for flavored water, it’s the best imho.

My big issue with it is basically summed up by this meme. By doing this he’s established that he’s willing to break promises and take advantage of systems that republicans are abusing, but only when it benefits him personally. He could executive order a bunch of different things, and go on a pardon spree, but what he does with his power is just to pardon his son. Unlike the rest of us, a Trump presidency will basically not affect him at all, and the little it would/did has to do with his son and he doesn’t even have to deal with that.

Do I want his son in prison? No, not really. But considering he all but lied about being a 1 term president and refused to step down making a primary impossible, which at least contributed to the dems loss, it’s an extra slap in the face that the only real consequence he had to face is able to be erased by a stroke of his pen, and yet he seems to be doing nothing to protect or help anyone else who has been hurt by his decisions. I don’t think Hunter should suffer because of who his dad is, but his dad is making (and has made) us all suffer and is unwilling to do anything about it.

I’m not making a fuss about it, but if I was, it’d not be about the pardon, it’d be about how his big move as a lame duck with immunity confirmed by the Supreme Court is to get his son out of prison and watch everyone else suffer.

The IOC stopped accepting IBA decisions like this because they are a corrupt organization. The IBA never provided that information and we don’t have confirmation of that, but by disqualifying her, a title was restored to a Russian athlete and they had made Russia’s gas company a main sponsor of the IBA. I’m not saying I know anyone’s chromosomal makeup, but I wish people would stop stating it as a fact. She could have it or not, but we do not know.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/paris-2024-summer-olympics/olympics-boxing-imane-khalif-xy-chromosome-italian-boxer-quit/5662035/

Before anyone claims Russophobia or whatever, not all Russian organizations or people are corrupt, but it’s well agreed that it was a poorly run organization with a lot of problems. For what it’s worth I’d be suspect of any country in that position. Sports are a big point of national pride and monetary gain, and people should be wary of any decisions affecting pride or money, regardless of the circumstances.

In the US several hotels will offer a “continental breakfast” included with the stay. I guess you could argue that it’s not really free, considering it’s factored into your stay at the hotel, but there is technically not a separate charge for it and it’s considered an “amenity”. I know that this is not necessarily common in other places, so I thought I would mention in case you were not aware.

I think it is showing what you are saved as in the other persons phone. There are ones where the guy presumably saved a girls number but she didn’t bother to save his and another where the girl saved him as do not answer. I think the point is so you can see how the other person views you. These are mostly joke features and the feature you mentioned is pretty standard now.

I’m seeing some hostility towards you as a hiring manager which is rough, because hiring manager is not necessarily HR. It often means the manager of the person being hired. So the person on a specific team responsible for filling positions on that team. I’m not sure if you directly hire for your team or it’s an HR term in your case, but just adding this here in case it helps someone not be rude to a random person on the internet.

Also, as a person who hires people on my team (I don’t use the hiring manager title, but yea) it’s ridiculous how awful some resumes are. We don’t use hiring software, and I personally review all the resumes, but we are a small team so I totally understand why that would be used. The overlap of people who don’t like filling out the forms but who also want to be evaluated on who they are rather than what’s on their resume is a circle. I don’t want to dismiss anyone who doesn’t have a degree, but just because a degree isn’t on the resume doesn’t mean they don’t have one. Plenty of people leave off the years they worked at a specific job. I can assume months or years, but the form would help clarify that without wasting anyone’s time. Decisions have to be made somewhere and if people want to be judged by people in their field, then their full time job will likely not be hiring, so sometimes they use these forms for standardization purposes. I don’t like them either, but they are not this evil thing they are made out to be.

Good Omens on Amazon

Yea, understandable in both of those scenarios, but neither was the case at the time.

FB has been terrible in my experience. Craigslist is still ok if you can filter through the spam. I once contacted a seller on FB for an item that was 300 cash. We had set a time for pickup later that day and I went to the bank to get the cash. I messaged them when I was 10 minutes out and they told me not to come because they had already sold it. I totally understand selling it if I had not been communicating or had been ignoring their messages, but the last thing we had messaged each other was just a few hours prior while agreeing on a time. They didn’t even bother letting me know they had sold it. I would have just arrived at the place and they never would have shown. That, among a lot of other issues, and I won’t buy or sell on FB anymore.