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we need a hugbox emoji but this was the best I could find
Muh stress from bideo games
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- BernieSanders : That thing is Millie Bobby Brown ???
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I just smoked 3 bowls of fresh indica, if I could just close my eyes that'd be very chill, thank you.
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Ever come across this shit? People who don't know the difference between Latin, Latinx, Latinx and Spanish? Non-Latin-Americans are one thing but people actually from South American not knowing the difference...
1.
"Elon is from Africa but not black. Anya is Argentinian but not Latinx..."
2. "what a beautiful color she is!"
"Darn shitlords posting obviously racist posts. Emotional weakness!"
3.
"she's half Latinx..."
4. "she's half Argentinean"
"yeah, the whitest Latin country..."
"no we're not... I'm from there"
5. "I believe she is Latinx"
"she's not, she has a Spanish Mother and an Argentinian Father and her Mother tongue is Spanish but she's not Latinx..."
6. "she is Argentinian"
WARNING, r-slurs r-sluring!
7. Some F*cking dude getting all literal and scientific in the most annoying and cringe way possible
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Everything below is solely my opinion and totally not meant to be taken as fact. Go away feds.
Let's talk about life, wodie. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that people do not care about you. People will exploit you for all you're worth and then kick you to the curb, all while pretending they are your friend. The pursuit of money brings out the worst in people, and folks will throw away their morals and treat others horribly just to keep a job they hate and continue to put food on the table.
I don't bring this up arbitrarily. The reason why I discuss this matter is because I'd like to discuss a workplace where there are no morals. Workers are treated horribly, are disposed of without a second thought, and are paid far below minimum wage. The company I'm talking about is Valnet. If you're lucky, you've never heard of it, but Valnet is a monster that has been steadily growing and making the internet considerably worse, wodie. I'm not even joking. This is a company actively spreading misinformation, deteriorating the quality of the internet as a whole, and utilising slave labour for the sake of profit. Valnet is an intensely immoral business, and I'd like to illustrate why.
This won't be a massively long essay, wodie. My aim is simply to stick to the most important points and prove that you should never visit Valnet sites and, no matter how desperate you are, NEVER work for this evil corporation. And yes, I am directly calling out management because they are the ones who decide to treat humans like garbage and prioritise greed over being good people. Yes, this refers specifically to CEO Ouissam Youssef, a deeply selfish human being who runs a global sweatshop that is currently facing lawsuits. He is not my wodie. Youssef and his business are responsible for monumental amounts of heartache, tears, and broken dreams, and they have profited immensely from this.
Throughout the course of this essay, I will point out the company's insatiable desire to buy up as many reputable brands as possible and milk them for all their worth. I will point out Valnet's use of AI, and the systemic use of plagiarism that keeps this hellish business afloat. Everything I point out will be backed with evidence, wodie.
I'm about to speak up. Not because it is easy or because it will help me gain money. I am speaking out because it is the right thing to do. Valnet has been getting away with its wicked ways for too long, and someone needs to put a stop to it. I may not have the resources to take on a giant like Valnet through courtrooms, but I do have the power to speak out and say NO to evil businesses that put profits over people.
The essay will go as such:
1. What is Valnet?
2. Valnet's Enshittification of the Internet
3. Working for Valnet
4. Valnet the Bully
5. Conclusion
What is Valnet
To be clear, Valnet is powered by human suffering. It is a necessary element of the company's money-making strategy. Their entire business model is contingent on grossly underpaying writers and demanding unrealistic workloads. But how did this nefarious business become the monster it is today? That's what I seek to discover.
Valnet was founded in 2012 by Ouissam Youssef. He and his wodies were interested in acquiring acquisitive businesses and making a profit from them, and through their ventures, they learned a lot about the world of investing, and they also realised there was a lot of money to be made with geek culture websites. Here's an interview in which Youssef discusses business and his career. It's important that you watch this because it offers you some insight into Youssef's mind, wodie. Valnet isn't a company that cares about video games or pop culture, it doesn't care about workers or about the readers of the sites (in my opinion). Valnet is solely interested in generating profit by any means necessary. Valnet's aim is to buy businesses and wring them for everything they're worth with no regard for the human cost. And there is an extremely high human cost.
Geek culture has exploded in the last few decades and what was a niche community has grown into a global movement that generates billions. Geek hobbies like tech, gaming, and comic books have proven to be extremely profitable as businesses like Bethesda, Marvel, and Embracer are discovering. However, many of these new businesses hoping to profit off of geek culture do not care in the slightest about their product or about their customers. They simply exist to make the most money possible, regardless of the means. The result of this is that a very small number of people benefit while the rest of us have to deal with the negative consequences. Enough, it's time to shovel all that nonsense back into Valnet's face, wodie.
Over the years, Valnet has rapidly expanded thanks to its constant acquisition of new sites centred on tech, gaming, and pop culture. Some examples of sites Valnet has snatched up:
- Comic Book Resources
Comic Book Resources is a site that covers mainly geek topics such as comic books, films, television, games, and anime. The business was founded in 1995 and was snatched up by Valnet in 2016.
- Collider
Collider is yet another popular pop culture site, this time with a focus on film and television. It was founded in 2005 and it receives a significant amount of traffic daily. As of 2020, it is under the ownership of Valnet.
- MovieWeb
MovieWeb follows the same mould as Collider, offering news on the entertainment world. As of 2021, Valnet owns MovieWeb
- Screen Rant
You've probably heard of this site before. It is the acne of Google; impossible to get rid of. Screen Rant posts clickbait articles centred on gaming, anime, television, and film. It's sister site, Game Rant, is focused on gaming, wodie.
There are plenty more sites owned by Valnet, including:
TheThings
The G*mer
Fextra Life
Dualshockers
Hardcore G*mer
OpenCritic
Hot Cars
Top Speed
Car Buzz
Simple Flying
The Travel
Give Me Sport
Football Fancast
Football League World
The Sportster
TheRichest
Backyard Boss
Android Police
XDA
Pocket-Lint
MakeUseOf
How-To Geek
So what happens when Valnet buys a new site? Well, Valnet gets wealthier, and Youssef gets more money in his pocket. However, for literally anyone else involved with the site, life gets significantly worse. We'll discuss that more in the next few sections, wodie.
Valnet's Enshittification of the Internet
The internet never used to be the way it is today. Once upon a time, Google was quite trusted, and you could rely on it to return useful sites providing valuable information. That is not the case any longer. Pretty much all search engines are a pain to use, and they seldom return trustworthy information from credible sites. Instead, the sites that land up at the top of search terms are the ones that follow internet trends and stuff their site with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) keywords. The higher up sites land on Google's search engine, the more views a site gets, and the more ad revenue the owners receive.
You all know how it goes. You need information on a pop-culture-related topic, and spam from Valnet's sites dominates the front page. Want to look up something about your favorite game? Well, the entire front page of Google is just Game Rant, The G*mer, and Dualshockers. To add insult to injury, the information is often incorrect or features a misleading headline that tricks you into reading vapid clickbait pieces with no substance.
Consequently, sites that wish to make a profit play the SEO game and attempt to manipulate Google's search algorithms to increase their visibility. You'll notice that most Valnet sites follow a similar format, down to the font used and the layouts of the articles, wodie. This is because the format has been expertly designed to maximize SEO, often at the cost of good writing. You see, you have to realise something, wodie. Valnet isn't selling genuine articles. They're selling SEO magnets that are vaguely pop-culture-themed. The aim isn't to provide you with information, the aim is to get you to click on their links and bring them that sweet ad revenue.
You can see this enshittification by analysing your typical article from a Game Rant site. They all use the same format, so a critique of one site basically applies to all of them. Let's start with this article titled "Pokemon Fan Shows Off Ogerpon Cosplay".
https://g*merant.com/pokemon-ogerpon-cosplay/
First and foremost, this article represents perhaps one of the most annoying trends of modern day content creators. All they do is snatch up Reddit content and post it as their own. This is lazy and completely degrades the entire industry of games journ*lism. The whole field has been corrupted into mere clickbait and vapid content with 0 substance. This article in particular is just referring to a Reddit post that was made literally less than 24 hours before the Reddit article.
https://old.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/1iywwqh/ogerpon_cosplay/
So, assuming the article was actually written by a human, we have someone who is scouring Reddit for content and reposting it as blogspam in under 24 hours. This isn't even exclusive to the /r/pokemon subreddit. Game Rant does this for all the major games, including Red Dead Redemption, Starfield, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, and more, wodie. The users of these subreddits are sick of it, as it's not just Game Rant that does this.
In an attempt to fool sites that simply gather their content from Reddit, some subreddits have set up fake posts with fake information to fool sites. This happened with WoW which reported on Glorb, something which real sites began posting on, which was quite hilarious. This trick was repeated in the No Man's Sky subreddit where they tricked publications into reporting on a fake hidden boss in the game. This goes to show that these sites are not interested in reporting factual information. Instead, they are solely focused on getting clicks and making ad revenue.
We move down the article and we arrive at our next problem - the use of AI. Yes, I can 100% assure you that Valnet sites routinely use AI on their articles. When you see that "summary" section, know that it was generated using AI. It's built into their CMS (content management system, essentially where folks write their articles). So don't believe Valnet when they say they don't use AI. It's literally required that writers use AI.
We can also make a couple of educated guesses regarding the use of AI to write the body of the articles. I suspect that several Valnet writers routinely use AI to write their articles. My reasoning? Well, some writers are operating at non-human levels, producing 5-6 articles a day for weeks on end. This isn't realistic, and it suggests a strong likelihood that writers are using AI to help boost their output. I don't blame them. What is required of writers is ridiculous, and the expectations make it such that it is impossible to produce quality content while still keeping up with the quotas. I'll post a random writer for example. At one point they publish 11 ARTICLES IN ONE DAY. Even if they didn't use AI, there is literally no way to possibly produce good content at this rate, wodie.
https://g*merant.com/author/josh-cotts/
If you attempt to read the aforementioned Pokemon article, you'll notice that it doesn't say anything useful, and it is barely coherent. The whole thing exists as an excuse to stuff in as many keywords as possible, along with a slew of backlinks to other Game Rant articles to keep readers on the site. These tricks are implemented to trick Google's algorithm into boosting Game Rant's article to the top. Consequently, these substanceless articles get more exposure than meaningful, well-researched articles, leading to the continued enshittification of the internet.
Over the years, video game journ*lists have lost their reputations and have become quite loathed among g*mers. Honestly, it's often not the journ*lists that are the problem, wodie. They enter the industry with big dreams of reporting on an industry they have a genuine passion for. However, the demands of companies like Valnet forces these writers to become drones produce mindless content for the sake of selling ads. When you see shitty gaming articles, don't blame the writer. They're literally just trying to put food on the table. Lay the blame with the companies that force writers to fill the internet with nonsense.
Working for Valnet
As you can probably guess, working for Valnet is a geniunely horrible, soul-crushing experience. The company takes writers, wrings them for everything they're worth, then throws them to the curb. There are some genuinely hardworking writers at Valnet who are having their talents squandered by wasting them on a company that has them writing 20+ pieces of clickbait a week.
So, there are several reasons to despise Valnet's working conditions, wodie. Let's start with the pay. Valnet pays its workers peanuts. It is absolutely disgusting. The payment system has changed drastically over the years, and it differs between websites, but they all pay about the same terrible rate. As a senior writer, I was earning $14.50 for a 600-word article in 2023. Bear in mind, writing a single article requires research, writing, gathering images for the articles, and sticking to a very strict format that requires you to completely butcher your writing to adhere to SEO regulations. Consequently, a single article can take you a whole afternoon, and that's if you're rushing and genuinely don't care about accuracy or quality. After all that, it's highly likely your article will still come back for edits from the editors who treat you as though you're actually being paid a fair wage to care about it.
So, let's say an article takes you 6 hours. That's about $2.42 an hour, with no benefits. To put that into context, in the USA the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Anyone paying workers $2.42 is being GROSSLY IMMORAL. Yes, I'm referring specifically to the CEO of Valnet, Ouissam Youssef. The business he runs is evil and exploits human beings for the sake of generating profit. Ouissam, what you're doing is deeply wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Valnet is also very keen to fire writers whenever they believe it'll save them money. Take CBR for example. When the site was acquired by Valnet, they fired a lot of key workers as they turned the site into a content mill. Consequently, lots of writers on the site left in protest. Even the social media manager sabotaged the company, sick of their immoral ways.
For any Valnet workers who may be reading this - leave the company right now. Trust me, nothing good will come from continuing to support this shitty company. No, this won't be a stepping stone to a better career. Nobody takes Valnet sites seriously and if anything they will be a blight on your CV, wodie. Everyone on the internet hates you and if you try to share your articles anywhere you will be met with hostility and hatred. Nobody is impressed with your below minimum wage job, and your time would be better spent as a literal McDonald's cashier where you would have better hours and earn more.
Valnet the Bully
All the things I've described so far are pretty bad, but perhaps the worst thing Valnet does is try to silence anyone who criticises them, wodie. With that said, I am taking a significant risk writing this, and I considered posting this on Reddit first but I decided to post here instead because quite frankly I am aware that Valnet is happy to swing its weight around and use the law to try and silence anyone who says anything bad about them.
The YouTuber FireB0rn made a video criticising Valnet. The video was accurate and featured interviews from previous Valnet employees. In response, Valnet sent out copyright strikes against the YouTuber, resulting in the videos being taken down. This isn't the first time the company has done this. They also bullied Jenny Geist who dared to speak up against Valnet, sending her a physical cease and desist to her address. Twitter user Josh Tyler also tried to speak out against Valnet, and was hit with a cease and desist. Josh is not taking it lying down, fortunately.
Here's the full response, along with the original cease and desist letter issued by Valnet, at the link below. https://t.co/NIvg968IcL
— Josh Tyler (@joshtyler) December 4, 2024
There is a silver lining, and that's the fact that people are fighting back, wodie. Currently, Valnet is dealing with a big lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that the company misclassified content creators as contract workers. I hope Valnet loses this lawsuit hard and has to pay all those workers. Some writers have reported that they have received emails from Valnet offering them $100 to not pursue legal action. LOL I hope they lose tons of money. They deserve it to the fullest, wodie.
Conclusion
Wodie, why does it seem like the workplaces that pay the least, treat you the worst? Valnet is a horrible company that represents everything wrong with late-stage capitalism. Such a business is made possible by greed and a disregard for humanity. Think about how many people have slaved away out of desperation only to earn pennies for their work. How many writers suddenly found themselves without a job, not because of their terrible writing, but because Valnet management got a little too greedy.
When I spend a lot of time in isolation, weird things happen, wodie. I learned this trick where you close your eyes and, I guess, open yourself up to your thoughts but suppress all instincts to judge. If you do this, you'll detatch things and events from their imbued meaning and see things for what they truly are. Once I thought about jeans and I could just experience them without thinking of them as "pants" or "things to put on your legs". I hope I'm making sense. If you do this with other things in your life, it can help you to contextualise things which is useful if you've been obsessed with something and need to lower the intensity of the emotions you feel towards it.
Alright, wodie. That's all I got for today. In short, gaming journ*lism is dead and Valnet delivered the killer blow.
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don't worry I'm gonna cut this
shit down
my (F28) wife's (F25) sister (my sister-in-law) is trans (22)
"Lesbian" and a in one family,
what are the odds
I walk upstairs and I noticed the door to the master bedroom. I open it and see my sister-in-law standing in my wife's closet trying on her lingerie.
22 year old man puts on his sister's underwear, very valid behaviour
I didn't say anything out loud because I am a pretty intimidating person
Ever since then, sister-in-law has been texting, apologizing, saying how she's been having a hard time passing and this was her "last resort option."
I had no other choice. I HAD to put my sister's lingerie on. Literally nothing else could be done.
My problem now is, after I tell her what happened, what do we do?
indeed what a conundrum
A chud containment breach and delusionposting
ensue
The porn addicted weirdo trying on his sister lingerie as a fetish is actually
when are chuds going to get a fricking software update
I feel like this is a "trans women bad!" Bait post with how people are responding.
Just be a Decent Fricking Human Being and let your brother stroke himself off in your underwear chud
I don't have a big enough for this
Suddenly you owe men emotional labour
Yeah, make sure to wear your own sister's lingerie instead while she and her "wife" are in the house, you won't get any judgement that way
On the off chance this isn't completely made up by a transphobic troll, tell your wife.
Perfectly normal behaviour
as usual:
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Dying of food poisoning rn so I am firing on all cylinders as near death adrenaline floods my body.
— rDrama.net (@rdramanet) March 2, 2025
The incorrect answer is the furry association. They do NOT think you want to be a dog, or to screw the pooch. This will be the first and last take that the average reader aware of…
- dang : Fake and straight
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amazon execs r so mad LOLLL maybe stop asking dumb interview questions and people wouldn't build shit like thishttps://t.co/RMwouy3enr pic.twitter.com/sBdWTx2aFJ
— Roy (@im_roy_lee) February 28, 2025
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There was an emu in the paddock.
Eventually smoke from the fires in the Grampians rolled in. That interrupted our Nerf war
PFA !strayans
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1. "race mixing should be considered a crime"
2. "no race mixing!"
"lol look at you"
3. "lol bet she only wants men who are over 6' feet and makes 6 figures"
"Okay incel"
4. "if the kid is black, automatic no"
"yeah I'm not raising a baboon baby"
5. "what's the point of making the babies brown?"
"because racism is funny"
6. "missing the point here..."
"F you shitskin Niqqer"
7. "lol you all got small peepee"
"you're a dude..."
"talk to me dirty, Daddy"
8. "this is horrible, we have real problems, what a shame"
"DARN ZIONIST!"
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New AI-powered talking sex doll can comfort users who climax too quickly: ‘Two minutes is awesome’ https://t.co/rQgqNTV9xz pic.twitter.com/iPQ1FO0viK
— New York Post (@nypost) March 2, 2025
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Another video of Attwood making a lewd analogy about Canada and the U.S. pic.twitter.com/cTiFjTssdt
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) February 27, 2025
NEW: More pics of trans-identifying Canadian man who is charged with stabbing his two small children, leaving his 8-year-old on a feeding tube
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) February 27, 2025
Alice Micheal Attwood has been released after a brief psychiatric hold pic.twitter.com/jhFdAvwXjj
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Competing with the entire third world, young Brits are now out of their traditional Greggs or Wetherspoons gig, fuelling a potential slump in NOS Canister sales
In October to December 2024, an estimated 14.4% of all male 16-24-year-olds were Neet, compared with 12.3% female.
Rdrama still has growth potential
Niall became Neet after getting in with the "wrong people", he says.
"At first, it just seemed like Reddit but with cat emojis," Niall says, describing the Neet community.
"But before you realise it, you're saying words like 'Bussy' and 'dramapilled' - it alienates you from people."
"So obviously I had to get off all that stuff."
Seethe
can you blame them? whats the point of working, theres no light at the end of the tunnel.
It's literally easier to just say you have long covid and rake in the bennies
Yeah except 1/3rd of the country
"I'm sorry chancellor, but the economy won't budge. Our labour productivity is still 24% lower than pre-2008 trends.
"Why don't we try importing another 2 million people?"
Also at the idea that Europeans aren't lazy
do you have a source?
waaahhh billionaires exist!! My mental health!
How did the bong go from conquering the world to this level of cute twinkry in 100 years?
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Darn started with a spoiler already
Polska president also told Zelenskyy last week that he should listen to Trump and even now telling he should return to Trump and sign the deal
So we now have multiple EU countries that openly stands with US. Yet EU (organisation) leaders talk about how Europe is united. You know that Europe that is 40% Russia and with Belarus and countries that don't support Ukraine the united Europe is less than 50% of Europe
But here what Europe needs to do to win r-slur award
EU can't even use any of their weapons without US permission if U.S. says tomorrow: no you can't send weapons to Ukraine there will be nothing they could do.
But germs r-slurred they will legit spend more money on Ukraine despite their economy shrinking
And its Folks car getting bought by chunks
https://old.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/1ibgtgd/vw_prepared_to_hand_its_factories_to_chinese/
You they have sad faces but they happy that they ain't Nazis
https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1j0s8p4/after_clashing_with_trump_and_vance_zelensky_is/
Zelensky practiced incredible self-restraint, including during the Fox News interview. I don't know how he does it.
After the journoids left the room there was almost a brawl between Zelenskyy, Vance and Trump
We already know Zelenskyy cursed on Vance so we missed coolest historical moment in 100's years
Also europooria so united
🇬🇧🇱🇻🇱🇹🇱🇻 The Baltic states have not been invited to tomorrow's summit of European leaders in London with Zelensky and are "very unhappy" about this, Sky News reports.
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) March 1, 2025
It is noted that British Prime Minister Starmer will have a telephone conversation with the leaders of the… pic.twitter.com/oaRNTewWRV
But some local guys like @Tonberry legit believe Europe will unite and win against l'evil wordu
But here some memes:
https://instagram.com/reel/DGbLgZWy9h-/
Even Arestovich took part in it
https://instagram.com/reel/DGOLpMXIKQJ/
This is the most updoted story about Ukraine. OMG waman crying and no stones flying
Foids tears is like the most powerful weapon on earth true gentlemen can't stand those
- Arran : fat
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By the way I'm using scans online of the ones I own because they're much higher quality than any photos I could take.
NUMBER TEN
Republique de Guinee bird stamps
I have this whole set I like the fact that they're pretty large and diamond shaped
NUMBER NINE
republique Rwandise space stamps
These ones look great, America has poor moon landing and space stamps compared to countries who didn't even participate.
NUMBER EIGHT
Syrian Arab Republic Roman arch of triumph stamp
This one's pretty neat I like the fact that it's from a country that doesn't exist anymore
NUMBER SEVEN
Romania Fairytale designs
Pretty sure these are probably designs based off of fairytales, not sure what else they'd be based off of. Pretty interesting look.
NUMBER SIX
Hungarian Mask stamps
These stamps from 1973 show different mask designs, I really like when stamps show cultural things from the country that they are from so definitely
one of my favorites for that reason.
NUMBER FIVE
100 years of Egyptian stamps
I like the cultural artifacts that are depicted on this set of two stamps and I also like the arabic writing on them a lot as well.
NUMBER FOUR
Yemen conquest of Mars stamps
These stamps are from 1970 and depict a fantasy scenario with people traveling to colonize mars. The art on these stamps is beautiful and I like the scenario it depicts as well. Back then we definitely all thought that we were going to have flying cars and be living on the moon and mar by now.
NUMBER THREE
Liberia African tribal masks stamps
I love this set. The art it depicts is so beautiful and the ones I have in my collection are in great condition as well. I especially like the Bamileke elephant mask the beads are so colourful and if you've ever seen one of these in person at an art museum you'll know just how complex and beautiful these masks are in person. I also like how large these stamps are it makes what they are depicting easy to see and display.
NUMBER TWO
Ras Al Khaimah cat stamps
Just like with the last set of stamps I like how large these are they look great displayed in my binder. There is more than one Ras Al Khaimah cat stamps set but I'm just including both of them since I have both full sets. The ones I have are in great condition and have vibrant colours. I also like the fact that these stamps have arabic writing on them, I like collecting stamps from other countries and any stamps with arabic writing are my favorite because I think that the script is very beautiful.
NUMBER ONE
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The drinks being removed are literally all either milkshakes or teenage girl non-coffee drinks, including the Java Chip Frappuccino, the Iced Matcha Lemonade, the Royal English Breakfast Latte and the Chocolate Cookie Crumble Crème Frappuccino
Note that most of these drinks can still be ordered via customising existing drinks, this change is mostly menu simplification
/r/starbucks and /r/starbucksbaristas should be very happy about this - the two subreddits are constantly filled with baristas complaining about how many ridiculous drinks they have to make, and However theyre mad, and Lets try to understand why:
/r/legaladvice lol but go off i guess
Its nasty and bland because it like only contains 20g added sugar instead of 40g added sugar (excluding literally any sugar thats in the other ingredients in the drink)??? American tastebuds have been destroyed
If customers want a stupid drink then they have to build it themselves in the app and pay more for it, and Sounds like a win win
omg! Youre not kidding anyone, youre still going to Starbucks no matter how much they charge you for your sugar slop
i feel like 1, and Train your staff better
2, and Itll be easier for them to make now that its listed as a base drink + modifiers rather than expecting a barista to know exactly how to build a Chocolate Cookie Crumble Crème Frappuccino
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I am made a modified Martha Stewarts Coq au Vin for a dinner party tomorrow.
Recipe:
Ingredients
6 chicken thighs
1 bottle full-bodied red wine
Coarse kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
8 oz thick bacon, cut into ½-inch lardons
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, (if needed)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2-3 stalk celery, finely chopped
2-3 carrots, finely chopped
8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
½ lb small mushrooms
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp Cognac
2 bay leaves
5 fresh thyme sprigs
Instructions
1. Place chicken in a large bowl, and add wine. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Remove chicken from wine, and pat dry; reserve wine. Season chicken well with salt and pepper.
3. Cook bacon in a Dutch oven over medium-low heat until crisp, about 20 minutes. Transfer bacon to a plate, leaving drippings in pot. (You should have 3 tablespoons; you may need to add oil.)
4. Raise heat to medium-high. Working in batches, cook chicken, flipping once, until golden, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
5. Add mirepoix (onion, celery and carrot) to pot, and cook 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic, and cook 2 minutes. Add mushrooms, and cook until brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in flour and tomato paste, and cook 2 minutes. Add Cognac, and cook, stirring, 1 minute.
6. Return bacon and chicken to pot. Pour in reserved wine, and add herbs. Bring to a simmer.
7. Cover, and place in oven until chicken has cooked through and vegetables are tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Discard herbs, and skim fat from surface.
Previous recipe here if you prefer better onions. https://rdrama.net/h/food/post/271668/coq-au-vin-marseychef