Fishin' in the stream of consciousness (all-purpose, no topic chat thread)

I don't understand how this works but Holy Cow:

 

tl;dr Mentos make a really good surface for carbon dioxide bubbles to form, so when you dump them in soda (Diet Coke is traditional) it sets off a chain reaction that makes all the carbonation come out at once. This guy also added dish soap and paint to turn the resulting geyser turn into brightly colored foam.

 

Would it be weird to give a coworker a present a couple days after Christmas if we've only known each other a few months? I have some soap and hand cream from bath and body works that I'd like to give her, but I don't know if she'll like it. She's the only coworker I'm planning on giving a gift to.

 

I don't think its weird, and if you've got a good camaraderie or just like the friendship or good coworkership then a gift is fine
I guess for her personal taste, hm, you may find out if she's not rly into that particular soap or w/e, and I suppose that would just mean readjusting your inner sense of what she might like
It'll probably be fine

 

It's just that I'm bad at figuring out what people want. I try to go for something interesting or useful, and it's been kind of hit or miss for me. One year I got a coworker a little box of lip balms because she was always talking about how dry her lips were. She unwrapped it, looked at it, and sarcastically said "Wow, guess I won't run out of chapstick for awhile." I'm just weird about giving gifts because I'm never sure how they'll be received. The last Christmas two coworkers I was giving gifts to just quit, so I ended up giving their gifts to other people. The gifts I put no effort into were liked more than a gift I did put effort and thought into.

 

honestly it sounds more like lip balm coworker was an asshole

 

Barely 5 minutes into Christmas with the relatives and already want to leave.

 

What a thoughtful gift. I’m sorry she was so rude. Because she was. That’s not you, that’s her.

There really is no way to predict how any person will react to any particular gift or even gifts in general. A lot of people are so stressed at this time of year that their very best effort to express their most sincere appreciation will come across like they are grappling with the simultaneous realizations that they are hovering on the verge of a terrible wedgie and that they have been using data instead of wifi to play youtube holiday music for nearly six hours. Sometimes people will react better to somewhat random gifts simply because they (rightly, as it happens) had no expectation that they would receive anything from you. Getting a gift at all is a pleasant surprise.

You can’t make someone happy with the right gift. You couldn’t possibly know everything that’s happening in their life and in their mind. You get a tiny little glimpse at the moment they open the present, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll have the information you would need to truly understand what you’re seeing and why. As hard as it is to give gifts well, it’s also hard to graciously receive a gift. People fail at this a lot.

If something goes wrong during a gifting interaction, the kindest follow up gift you could give (to both the other party and yourself) is a charitable and sympathetic interpretation of everyone’s motives and reasons.

 

I had a little bit of that problem this year; one thing my mum bought me was the wrong thing, and on the actual day I said nothing about it because I didn't want to upset her. People are kind of on edge at Christmas. Gently brought it up today and there was no problem, we think the company might have sent the wrong item and we're gonna check. But that's for family stuff; for gifts for people you don't know so well you often kind of have to go generic and express appreciation for receiving generic things in return. Nature of the beast, and the coworker's reaction was really rude.

 

This article reminds me a lot of things @seebs says.

 

anyone know if there’s a good way to download 8tracks playlists? I’ve spent the whole day so far preserving my favorites on spotify and by tracklist, but if there’s a way to get the actual audio files that would make my life so much easier

 

I'm checking out RWBY at last! Only a couple episodes in so far, not bad at all.

 

I was won over by the line about normal knees, I think it was? And then the show completely stole my entire heart when a vending machine got smashed in a cafeteria incident, because the product it was advertising was People Like Grapes brand soda. Anyone who comes up with a product name that hilariously stupid just for a background prop is obviously speaking my language.

 

I just got back from Little Women and it was S O G O O D, if any of y’all get the chance to see this film please do its amazing

 

Ngl all these lo fi versions of theme songs being posted rn are fire, especially this one :0

 

Is anyone making New Years' resolutions? Making solid "I will do this" statements really doesn't work for me because I forget them, but I do find it helps to choose a goal to work towards. Also:

 

Two so far: open my own bank account/get a debit card to learn how to manage money for myself, and learn something new in depth

 

I’m not making resolutions per se, because I feel like a failure when I inevitably break them, but my goals for next year are to move out and get my license!