@futurebird
It was kind of funny to recognize East Asian stereotypes about white guys from the U. S.
Gives you perspective.

EZ Cheese has a low rent reputation, but I think if you could take it through a time portal it'd be considered some kind of amazing gourmet food. Just for being so consistent and evenly flavored.

I think Henry VIII would have gone nuts for EZ cheeze on ritz crackers.

EZ Cheese has a low rent reputation, but I think if you could take it through a time portal it'd be considered some kind of amazing gourmet food. Just for being so consistent and evenly flavored.

I think Henry VIII would have gone nuts for EZ cheeze on ritz crackers.

@DrOinFLA

You don't want to know what I encountered traveling with my (white) husband. I was asked if I was in a gang, if I knew various rappers. And some chick ask my husband if he was very poor and that's why he "had to" marry a Black woman. All of this really naive racist junk.

Although, this wasn't super common it was enough to be kind of obnoxious.

The same sort of people wanted to touch both of our hair. Which was funny because that never happened to my husband in the US.

@futurebird
Yes, that's horrible. Although the Japanese kids always wanted to "pet" the blond hairs on my arms, but they were in elementary school, so I just chalked it up to curiosity and dealt with it. But it never feels good.
Also, the "aunties" would follow me around the supermarket and rifle through my cart, like "What's the gaijin going to eat tonight?" That was rather annoying.

@futurebird I have often thought about how the cheapest table wine today would be amazing in the past -- so smooth and refined and doesn't make you go blind. Henry VIII would have loved washing down his EZ Cheese with some Sutter Home White Zinfandel.

@DrOinFLA @futurebird

I don't think I mind stuff like that, as long as they ask first. Of course, it doesn't happen to me that often (it'd probably be my beard, if anything).

Kids do occasionally look at me funny around Christmastime... 🤭

@michelestrider @futurebird
I keep thinking that the floor in quality of so many things have silently gone way up in the last 2-3 decades.

As a guess: digitalization and process control; better management practices; stricter regulations; and competition/market access.

@DrOinFLA

Spray cheese is part of my heritage I will not be cowed

@TerryHancock @DrOinFLA @futurebird when I visited China last year with my family, all white, pretty typical, the Chinese all wanted to be photoed with me. Not my husband or my kids, just me. I think it was my height and age. The tour guide was a bit embarrassed but I told him I saw this 20 years ago when I was with another tall white older western woman. She was surprised but something about regional Chinese people not sure what.

@jannem @michelestrider

I got a cheap RC car with a camera on it. (control it with your phone)

I was FLOORED by the high quality of the camera. It's better than an iPhone from 5 years back. Good enough to use in video editing without it looking suspect.

The camera is smaller than a matchbook. The RC car is the same size as a matchbox car.

@futurebird @jannem @michelestrider

WTF would you have to control a car's camera with your mobile phone? Especially these days, as travelers are encourage not to bring them.

@jannem @michelestrider

I got a cheap RC car with a camera on it. (control it with your phone)

I was FLOORED by the high quality of the camera. It's better than an iPhone from 5 years back. Good enough to use in video editing without it looking suspect.

The camera is smaller than a matchbook. The RC car is the same size as a matchbox car.

@futurebird @jannem @michelestrider any link to where to get it, sounds ace

@futurebird I have often thought about how the cheapest table wine today would be amazing in the past -- so smooth and refined and doesn't make you go blind. Henry VIII would have loved washing down his EZ Cheese with some Sutter Home White Zinfandel.

@michelestrider @futurebird The sweetness would have made them spit it out. We live in an era when sugar claims more lives than alcohol.

@futurebird @DrOinFLA

I didn't grow up with spray cheese but I did grow up with tube cheese which was maybe the Canadian equivalent. It came in a plastic sausage shaped tube with a little star shaped valve where you squeezed the cheese out. My dad lived on that and cheese whiz when I was a kid.

@RobotDiver @futurebird @DrOinFLA

Like toothpaste?

@TobyBartels @futurebird @DrOinFLA

More like a little plastic sausage with a valve in the middle of it.

@RobotDiver @futurebird @DrOinFLA

A valve in the *middle* of the tube? That's wild!