One Of The Only Things I'll Say Negatively About Leverage Is How They Handled Parkers Thing In The French

One of the only things I'll say negatively about leverage is how they handled parkers Thing in the French connection job. She spends the whole episode talking about how she wants something to enjoy OUTSIDE of the life like eliot has cooking, hardison has gaming, and sophie has theater but then her thing ends up being art which like. Is fine. We know she loves art and shiny things, but the clear answer is music.

She did not stop dead in her tracks in the middle of a con, losing track of time and what she is doing TWICE because she heard her boys performing music, for you to say that music doesn't make her feel things.

She got CAUGHT in the scheherazade job bc she was so enamored with hardisons playing. She was completely caught off guard when they came in the room which is fucking unheard of for her. Don't tell me music doesn't make her Feel Things.

Can you imagine how absolutely wild it must have been for Eliot's students in The French Connection Job? Like, you come to this overpriced class that you don't really care about and your teacher is a 5'5" angry wall of muscle who can spin a knife faster than you can see and tosses your phone in the water when you text during his class. But he only looks physically pained and moves on from the geek grinning over the laser so he's probably not gonna kill you? Probably?

He's a hardass, though, like the ultimate of hardasses and he has definitely killed before, so, you know, be careful.

But then you glue a unicorn horn ice cream cone to a plate and he physically crumbles like he cannot believe you are this stupid.

Oh and he and the geek definitely know each other. Only someone you care about could physically embarrass you that bad at your work. And the geek clearly knows something you don't because he will propose the stupidest ideas just to get Chef Scary Guy to growl in his face with a knife and stay grinning the entire time like he knows he's safe.

Okay, so maybe this chef's actually a marshmallow? Like a crusty one, but sometimes you'll do something right and his face will just light up with pride and you get this wave of relief. So maybe he's gruff for show and wouldn't actually hurt anyone.

Then opening night comes, and it's chaos, and at one point a guy walks in and without looking up Chef Scary Guy tells him to leave if he isn't gonna help. And almost faster than you can watch the guy is out cold on the ground and Chef is stepping over him shouting that he needs a medium steak and you don't have the time to process this cause it's the dinner rush. This happens two more times. There are three guys unconscious in the corner of the kitchen and the man who put them there is patting you on the shoulder and beaming with pride at how you roasted those veggies and just ...

Wild. Absolutely wild.

it's really weird having a first dog be blind and then getting a second who can see...like how was I supposed to be prepared for this.

this creature can perceive when I put the treats up on the high shelf. or when I hide stuff behind my back. I can't fool her!! she's always watching me and she shouldn't have this much knowledge!!!

I walk around at night and I shine my flash light directly into her eyes and I'll just be standing there staring at her weird blue orbs for like 5 seconds until I realize it's probably extremely annoying to her, because she has eyes!! I'll turn on the light in the room and she gruffs and grumbles like ?? oh right!! light wakes you up!! the fuck??

Hey, are you a broke motherfucker trying to save money on groceries and attempting to plan for having food in the house at the end of the month? Do you have a good system for storing frozen meat? If you don't, here's how I do it:

Large Bastard called me when I was at the plasma center (we're broke motherfuckers!) to tell me that Aldi had nearly expired pork chops (use or freeze by tomorrow) for 50% off, so I told him to get 4 packs.

I keep my freezer pretty full with homemade stock, frozen meat, frozen veggies, frozen fruit, and g-free bread, so I can't just stick the big packages of pork chops directly in the freezer, and besides if I do, the pork chops will freeze to each other and then I'll have to thaw the whole mass of them if i want to cook them, which will increase thawing time.

So what I do instead is make an accordion of waxed paper and fill it with pork chops.

This ends up saving a ton of space, and means I can choose to thaw 8 pieces or 1 piece or however much I need at a time.

3 packs stored this way are smaller than 1 pack from the store.

The final accordion of meat gets wrapped in a layer of waxed paper, then put into a freezer bag with the air pressed out, and now if I don't have cash for groceries I've still got something to eat.

This is also the way that I save meat that is close to its spoilage date that I won't be able to cook before it goes bad. If you stick a family pack of chicken breasts in the freezer, you have a family pack of chicken breasts to thaw. If you put them into little waxed paper envelopes, you've got single serving packets that you can easily toss into a soup or bake from frozen.

This is ALSO pretty much the technique I use to freeze banana slices when my bananas are going brown and I'm not in the mood to bake, only I freeze them on a cutting board before breaking them off and sticking them in a bag when they're frozen.

Freeze wet stuff in individual pieces, not big chunks, so you don't have to break up big chunks to use your frozen food.

I know this probably seems pretty obvious to a lot of people, but it wasn't obvious to me until a couple years ago because nobody ever showed me how to do it and I didn't grow up in a family that cooked a lot.

Say what you will about redemption but the character premises for the two new leads absolutely slap. "Hardison's 20 year old hacker little sister who grew up with the highlight reel of leverage decides to join and learns the gritty details that were left out of storytime" and "guy who would probably be a mark under different circumstances decides to Do Better and get kidnapped into the team about it" are both objectively funky ideas.

write for the audience you want, not the one you’re afraid of