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#321 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 5,294
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Caught a few moments of our mayor being asked questions this morning. Someone asked about having people departing planes immediately sanitize their hands. Took him a while of meandering to point out the FAA would make that call. Was likely totally not reassuring to anyone who didn't already understand that.
Someone at work now rolls around all day with a cart full of wadded up paper towels and a couple of spray bottles, they are wearing gloves. A friend of mine took a friend of theirs to a procedure this morning, said they were taking face temperature scans at the hospital entry and asking questions about if they've traveled recently, etc. |
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#322 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 449
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My mom works at costco and has asked multiple people why they're buying toilet paper.
They said they didn't know. I guess it's just one of their program directives from the chips that Chamin implanted in their head. |
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#323 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,987
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Ah, gloves. I love the people who misunderstand how gloves work. Okay, you've got a barrier between your hands and everything else. That just means whatever you touch gets on the gloves...which you then touch to every other surface, including your face, you dirty pig. You've achieved nothing except preventing viruses being absorbed through your hands, which isn't actually a thing. The point of gloves is to wear them to touch something, then when you're done, remove the gloves. Replace with another pair, if you want to, but same thing applies. Wearing one pair of gloves everywhere is not going to help you unless you manage to a) never touch anything, in which case you don't need gloves anyway, or b) manage to control yourself to never touch any uncontaminated surface after touching a contaminated one. Option b is really, really difficult. It's why hospital staff go through a lot of gloves, and only wear each pair for a short time and specific task within a defined space.
tl;dr: wearing goddamn surgical gloves to the grocery store isn't going to do a damn thing except make you look stupid, and possibly cause you to get a latex allergy. You do not want a latex allergy. In this day and age, a latex allergy is a very bad allergy to have. It can literally kill you if you ever need medical treatment. It makes medical treatment more difficult. And neither sex wants to discover they have a latex allergy while using a latex condom. It is the worst time to find that out. The very, very worst. Think about it. The worst time. |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#324 |
Suspended
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 19,688
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#325 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 6,906
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Wore a decidedly fashionable 9 mil black pair of gloves yesterday and today I wore the 5 mil baby blue ones. Of course, I only wore them while I was in the store - managed to snag a couple hand sanitizer wipes on my way out so I could wipe off my credit card (and my gloved hands just in case) when I got to my car. And yes, change them often.
Latex? I already have that allergy. Nitrile, bitches. |
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#326 |
Gentleman of leisure
Tagger
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Flying around in the sky
Posts: 26,423
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Been doing this for a few weeks now. Slowly increasing stock. Just bought a 1kg packet of powdered milk. Will make 10 liters of milk. So will not run out. Will not buy any more long life milk. Can give some long life milk to the neighbours. Or maybe TP. Discovered have enough to last us for the rest of the year. Have not bought any this year. Bought 40 rolls sometime back, even though I had plenty at the time. I wonder if they have what I have forgotten about?
Bit worried about how much meat I have. Still some in the shops. But took heaps of photos in two supermarkets of empty shelves. Most long life food products are gone, as well as other essential consumables. TP and tissues are history. |
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#327 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,310
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I was at the store and saw a woman buying 26 two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew. I counted them while I was standing in line. I assume this was all the store had in stock. Strange hoarding choice. But I guess if you absolutely need to have Mountain Dew in two-liter bottles when the apocalypse comes, then it is better to be safe than sorry.
Also, there was one and only one package of toilet paper on the shelves. Nobody seemed to be interested. And there was a big sale on soup. Cheap prices. I don't know why they are marking down stuff that is going to sell anyway. The soup section was almost empty. But a bunch of chunky New England clam chowder. My favorite. And I'm out. That's why I went to the soup section in the first place. I grabbed all they had, which was about 5 cans. A good deal. I needed some distilled water for my CPAP. I'm out. I hate to not have it. I use a lot. The stock wasn't low. But I bought twice as much as I need. Because...reasons. I also bought tissues. I'm low on stock. They still had some boxes of the good stuff. I bought more than I need. I've been sick before without tissues, and it is not fun. I can get by without toilet paper if it comes to that. But if I am sick I want quality tissues. They also had a sale on frozen pizzas. I'm not sure why. They didn't have any other similar frozen foods on sale. I bought the last few pizzas because it was a good price. |
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I don't need to fight to prove I'm right. - Baba O'Riley |
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#328 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Sir Fynwy
Posts: 31,073
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Buying tinned soup makes sense to me. If you and your family are feeling unwell then it's an easy way to get some hot, soothing food inside you with minimum effort.
Nearly 30 years ago Mrs Don and I had typhoid and cholera shots before we went on honeymoon to Kenya. Although only a small proportion of people are supposed to react badly to them, we both did and were confined to bed for 3 days with flu-like symptoms. At one point each offered the other "a million pounds" to make a cup of tea. Thankfully we had an ample supply of tinned soup. edited to add.... Mrs Don plans to pop into Lidl after going to the gym this morning. She'll pick up a couple of litres of UHT milk (which doubtless we'll throw away in a few months time), a couple of packs of pasta and/or rice, some frozen fish and/or meat and, it being Lidl, probably a 3 ton capacity car jack, a pair of welding gloves and a surfboard. |
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#329 |
Maledictorian
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 14,408
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how many Mentos did that lady buy?
Sounds like a case for the ATF to me... |
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Ceterum autem censeo fox et amicis esse delendam. |
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#330 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,310
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I don't need to fight to prove I'm right. - Baba O'Riley |
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#331 |
Lackey
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: South East, UK
Posts: 96,145
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A few more people than usual. Remember all the big store operate on JIT, so they probably hold no more than a predicted week of supply of toilet paper. Even without anyone "hoarding" TP if say 20% of people buy a pack of TP earlier than usual it will be enough to empty the shelves. I can't see the TP manufacturers ramping up their production lines, it makes no sense for them, TP isn't perishable so people in a months time won't be buying TP as they usually would and they'd end up with a glut.
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I wish I knew how to quit you |
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#332 |
Quester of Doglets
Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Sunny South Australia
Posts: 2,931
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This is a good theory, but unfortunately does not match what we're seeing here in Oz...
People are buying huge numbers of packets of 24 rolls per packet, and then going psycho at any store worker who dares mention the 'one packet per customer' policy. That policy is good and all, but doesn't seem to be working. Bought some more dog food after work today, and asked about the TP. Was advised that the store hadn't had any since the middle of last week. |
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We would be better, and braver, to engage in enquiry, rather than indulge in the idle fancy, that we already know -- Plato. |
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#333 |
Gentleman of leisure
Tagger
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Flying around in the sky
Posts: 26,423
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And then instead of refilling the supermarket shelves with TP any big orders by companies get priority. I am shocked that people can buy TP at all. Have only seen it once in the last few days.
Ditto for lots of other products. |
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#334 |
New Blood
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 7
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To prevent covid-19 the best way is using hand sanitizer and hand wash
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#335 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 24,626
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Science is self-correcting. Woo is self-contradicting. |
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#336 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 42,986
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Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. “Perception is real, but the truth is not.” - Imelda Marcos |
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#337 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 5,187
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People in this area are going into the freight delivery area of the local supermarket (where they aren't allowed to go) to grab toilet paper as soon as it's unloaded from the delivery truck.
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#338 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Puget Sound
Posts: 15,374
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There's always corn cobs. Or a passing goose.
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To survive election season on a skeptics forum, one must understand Hymie-the-Robot.
My authority is total - Trump |
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#339 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,458
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"A closed mouth gathers no feet" "Ignorance is a renewable resource" P.J.O'Rourke "It's all god's handiwork, there's little quality control applied", Fox26 reporter on Texas granite You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it. Art Buchwald |
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#340 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 7,328
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It's too bad most of the states have instituted price-gouging laws to prevent charitable business owners from pricing out people who are luxury-buying inordinate amounts of supplies.
Raising prices removes luxury buyers from the equation, leaving product for people who actually NEED the product, albeit at a higher price. |
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"I dont call that evolution, I call that the survival of the fittest." - Bulletmaker "I thought skeptics would usually point towards a hoax rather than a group being duped." - makaya325 Kit is not a skeptic. He is a former Bigfoot believer that changed his position to that of non believer.- Crowlogic |
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#341 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 5,216
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The man with one watch knows what time it is, the man with two watches is never sure. |
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#342 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 30,003
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//Slight hijack//
Not that any of this excuses price gouging or stupid panic runs but is toilet paper really one of those products that people purchase on such a small margin? I mean TP is cheap, not bulky, and doesn't go bad. I never pegged it to be one of those things that people go "Okay I use 7 sheets per trip to the bathroom, I make an average of 1.7 trips to the bathroom per day, minus the trips I make at work, the average roll contains 400 sheets, adjust for windage, convert to metric, factor in the capital gains tax and... I need exactly 4.8 rolls to last me from now until next paycheck" with. I've never gotten just enough toilet paper to make it through the immediate future. |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#343 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 24,855
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I buy a Costco sized pack, and we have a spot for it in the pantry. When it starts to get low, we buy another Costco sized pack. I think it lasts us about four weeks. Maybe six. I really don't know. I do the Costco shopping, and I buy it whenever my wife puts it on the Costco list. I've never tracked the rate of use.
Fortunately, I got a Costco sized pack a week before the frenzy set in. I must admit I'm starting to get depressed about this whole situation. The possibility of getting sick is one thing. I can live with that. The possibility that I might not be able to buy toilet paper, or eggs, or basic things that we pretty much take for granted though, is very depressing. I haven't made a purchase in a grocery store since Thursday, but I assumed that by this coming weekend things would be back to normal except for specific products like disinfecting wipes. It looks at the moment like I will be wrong about that. |
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#344 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,691
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I bake my own bread on occasion because I enjoy it. The shelves have been out of yeast for a while so that's not an option. However long down the road it is for this to be relatively under control I'd love to be able to do a survey of people who panic-bought yeast :
1) Have you ever made bread before in your life (half point if you've used an automatic machine)? 2) Did you end up throwing away that yeast because it expired before you used any of it? bonus question: 3) Did you know bread is not a substitute for TP when you bought the yeast? |
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#345 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Sir Fynwy
Posts: 31,073
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Yes both with and without a bread machine.
I've used dried yeast, a live sourdough and made soda bread and flatbreads when yeast was unavailable. Not so far. Depends how the bread turns out. Some of my denser bread can be used to prevent pooping when used as a tompion. edited to add... Just re-read your post. If you don't have yeast you can still make soda bread or unleavened bread and if you're willing to wait a little while you could make your own sourdough starter: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-mak...e-kitchn-47337 |
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#346 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Posts: 7,334
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Also noticed the lack of yeast with some curiosity. My jar of active dry yeast is about half empty.They were out of the jars of yeast but had the individual single-serve yeast packets left. I didn't buy any of those packets because it's pretty expensive way to get yeast. That might turn out to be a mistake. Hoping my supply lasts until my big resupply day in a couple weeks and that the yeast in back in stock.
I still have baking powder, so I guess I can still turn flour into something half decent should I need to. |
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Gobble gobble |
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#347 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 30,003
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This mentality is old news to Floridians. Or as a meme once put it
"Y'all (expletives) survive on 2 sodas and 4 beers a day the rest of the year but a hurricane comes toward ya and all of a sudden you need 48 bottles of one specific brand of virgin blessed spring water a day to survive." |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#348 |
JREF Kid
Tagger
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 8,223
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"Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance, the eternal pratfall of the religiously convinced" - Joe Klein, Time magazine "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan |
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#349 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Colorado
Posts: 3,924
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In cold weather, I let the bread rise in a slightly warmed oven. Turn it on its lowest setting for a few minutes, then turn it off again. Then put the bread dough in.
Later I just cook in the oven like normal. I can never, ever get the knack of kneading the bread myself. My mixing machine has a kneader attachment (looks like a squiddidly metal rod) that does it pretty well. |
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#350 |
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through a scribbled morning waving necessary ankles
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Cair Paravel, according to XKCD
Posts: 32,254
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Get a bread-making machine. It's not exactly a difficult process making it yourself, but it's more complicated than slinging the ingredients in the machine and pressing Go. Bread-making machines more or less guarantee you an edible loaf, whereas I've made bread without one that ended up more suitable for garden walling.
Dave |
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There is truth and there are lies. - President Joseph R. Biden, January 20th, 2021 |
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#351 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 30,003
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The problem with breadmaking is people making it too complicated.
Anyone can smash together a halfway decent loaf of passable sandwich bread in a pinch given basic ingredients with, at most, a couple of tries. A "Shelter in Place" scenario is no time to be making your first loaf of artisan whole wheat rye quinoa five grain. |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#352 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,691
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#353 |
"más divertido"
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: USA! USA!
Posts: 22,779
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I wore latex gloves to vote today. Received the ballot and signed my name in my leather gloves, went to the booth and pocketed the leather ones, put on the latex ones from my pocket, did the ballot, handed it and the marker in, opened the door and tossed the latex ones in the trash. Swabbed my leather gloves before and after.
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#354 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,691
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Agree with this sentiment. If you plan on making bread because you need to hunker down or the shops are out of fresh, a bread machine is an inexpensive way to get something simple that you probably won't render inedible unless you don't pay attention. But if you're doing bread for the fun of it nothing beats the hand process, especially if (like me) you enjoy things like coarse, rustic round loaves or the like. About 2/3rd of what I do is on pizza stones or the like, and not in regular loaf pans. But yeah, if you've never done before and your needs are Covid based then get a machine. Just good luck finding the yeast. I'm down to two packets of an oddball specialty yeast I got as a gift at work a month ago. Yes, I know : 1st world problems. |
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#355 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,987
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Not very high. Your leather gloves were contaminated by touching the ballot and pen. Your hands were contaminated by touching your leather gloves when removing them. Your pocket was contaminated by putting your leather gloves into them. Everything that's been in your pocket since has been contaminated.
You can't win, basically. Unless you are in a sterile area of a hospital with every motion planned out you can't avoid contamination. |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#356 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 13,001
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The gloves are just a tactile reminder not to touch my face.
I wear rubber gloves, disinfect gloves with 91% iso. alc. after leaving store. alc. is already in my coat, I don't have to touch door handles. I also wash down my debit card, which I've kept separately. I wash my hands with alc. I put on other leather gloves to drive. no face touch. I only shop at co-op every 5 days. otherwise no contact with anyone. |
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#357 |
"más divertido"
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: USA! USA!
Posts: 22,779
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#358 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Port Townsend, Washington
Posts: 30,675
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I've got to go to the store today to pick up prescriptions, so I guess I'll see what else I can stock up on!
If we really get desperate there's a whole turkey in the freezer. I got it for $0.69 a pound right after thanksgiving. |
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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant. |
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#359 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 30,003
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As of Sunday the food seemed all to be normal stock at our local Publix. The hand sanitizer, toilet paper, disinfectants were all picked clean but none of the food supplies looked all that picked through.
I think at this point we're just in the self feeding part of it, where the only think being bought up is stuff we're being told is being bought up. |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#360 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 18,549
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Or get a yeast starter going. Easier than a sourdough. Do it before you need the last of your yeast to do it. Yeast flour, warm water, the day before, next day use half to make your bread, refrigerate the other half. Yeast counts double in 20 minutes. When I brew wine I buy a pack of yeast once per season, use the dreck from one batch for the next.
Practice now, or be prepared to eat your hard tack mistakes. |
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Any sufficiently advanced idea is indistinguishable from idiocy to those who don't actually understanding the concept. |
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