@LSLGuy is the Philips Seafood place still around in the Inner Harbor? I’ve had several good meals there but not since 2017 or so. On trips from NYC to DC we’d stop at the Inner Harbor sometimes for a quick bite in preference to the I-95 rest areas, sorry to hear it’s dying.
And as for “Sugar sugar”, a few years ago it was playing in the drugstore and I sang along, transported back to being a little kid, walked down the aisle and saw a woman in her 50s singing along too.
I can appreciate “Sugar Sugar” as a pop tune, a commercial venture to make money. A catchy hook, tension, release, etc. It was a corporate studio session musician factory creation. They done good.
ETA: @gkster two posts up.
The Phillips seafood is still there right on the corner of the water & waterfront road at the eastern edge of the museum district. It’s in what used to be the Pratt St. powerplant. Large outdoor seating area, large indoor restaurant. I was there at an off peak time, but it was approximately deserted.
fireworks
When my mother is sick, she eats chicken noodle soup from Mrs. Grass. As a child, I almost didn’t mind getting sick, because I would also get chicken noodle soup.
No way would I voluntarily eat that stuff now.
The other thing is most store-bought cookies, such as Chips Ahoy. I thought they were a treat, because I always got stuck with homemade cookies. Poor me.
I may have one box of American-style cookies per year, and that’s enough. I prefer the ones I bake.
Sadly, yes. I mean pro fireworks are fine.
Yeah, way, way too salty. Same with ramen, but I add extra water.
Hate to say it, but… Oprah.
I watched that show every day after school in the 90s. I was a latchkey kid, daytime TV was basically my parental substitute. I loved the show because it leaned in on a lot of heartfelt topics and positivity.
In retrospect looking at all the grifters and charlatans she platformed, it’s hard to feel good about her anymore.
Zoos.
I’ve come to feel strongly that keeping nature’s noble creatures as captives so that people can gawk at them is nothing less than cruelty. Zoos are much more humane than they were years ago in most cases, but I couldn’t attend one now without feeling sympathy and sadness, no matter how well the animals are treated.
Zoos are now keeping species from going extinct. Also reintroducing rare species back.
And wild animals- once they get a suitable biome, things to do , plenty of food , etc- they are happy.
Admittedly some zoos dont do those things, so you are right about those.
I used to love the circus. Now I cringe at the thought.
This one is likely Canada-specific, but both Swiss Chalet (mainly roast chicken) and Harvey’s (mainly burgers) restaurants changed their cooking techniques sometime in my twenties or thirties and they taste about a third as I remember from when I was a kid. They also merged at some point; until recently there was a Swiss Chalet/Harvey’s combo at the bottom of my street, though now it’s just the latter. The fries epsecially are much more bland and filling than they used to be.
Sounds like Red Hots?
I still like those, and your description matches them perfectly to me.
Yes, that too.
I’ve recently been digitizing old family home movies. I came across one my wife shot when, as a radio DJ in the 1970s, me and another DJ participated in an elephant race at a local shopping center, where the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus was appearing. Watching that film, I felt sad for the elephants, which were probably kept in deplorable conditions, transported from town to town, being ridden by radio DJs in shopping center parking lots as a publicity stunt. Looking at the film, I felt embarrassed having participated in something that tawdry and inhumane. Fortunately, most if not all of those traveling circuses have gone away, and those remaining don’t exploit animals…or young hapless radio DJs.
Bubble gum. As a kid, I’d buy a pack of Double Bubble or Bubbliciuos or whatever and stuff 3-4 pieces in my craw and chomp away.
My high school job was at Baskin-Robbins, and it seemed every kid’s favorite ice cream was “bubblegum.” That stuff was insipid**. Looking at it, smelling it, scooping it day after day–making “bubblegum milkshakes” for snot-nosed kids–it tipped the scales for me. Now the thought of bubble gum makes me somewhat nauseous.
** I do not mean to disparage BR-31. Aside from bubblegum, any ice cream they sell is head and shoulders above anything you can buy at the store or get at Coldstone.
I had a similar experience in 1969 when I was 17. Except it was with a copious amount of dark rum. Haven’t touched it since. 
Sometimes storebought cake itself is tolerable. But I’d rather go without cake than eat that garbage that passes for frosting now. When I’m in a hurry to make a cake I’ll use a mix, but I still make my own frosting.
We had a kids birthday party last weekend. The sheet cakes came prefab from Publix. The frosting was a strange substance I’ve never eaten. It looked like a typical sugar-based goopy frosting that had been spread or piped onto the cake.
But it melted to nothing in your mouth as if it was cotton candy. It had no creamy mouthfeel; it just disappeared as it got wet. Weird science for sure. And not in a good way.
I’ve had that cake too. It has a weird plastic filmy taste to it as well. No thanks!
Yes! real buttercream, or maybe cream cheese on certain cakes.
Just plain nasty.
As a teenager, I thought Boston had a pretty rocking good sound. Some years later, I came to grasp that they were part of the counter-impetus that drove punk rock. These day, all their material sounds like over-produced vapid garbage to me.