Some Golden Globes predictions, LOTS of questions and answers about 'Heated Rivalry', the definition of a hit movie these days, Netflix and the theatrical window for Warner Bros., and a bit on driving
“Because then what I’ll do is set the microwave for six minutes, fill up my water, walk back to my office, drop the water bottle off, then go to the voice booth, record the VO, then go pee, and then make it back to the kitchen to pick up my lunch. And I usually get back within 15 seconds of the microwave beeping.”
After watching the Eras doc, I think Lainey and Taylor Swift have a lot in common.
I swear this is an adhd indicator. I cannot watch my husband cook because he just, pokes at things as they sear? I prep food, cook, fold laundry, clean up as I go, set the table, prep water bottles, etc. I am really, really bad at only doing ONE thing unless it’s incredibly absorbing mentally/physically.
100%. She watches her C and K Dramas with captions on WHILE playing some tetris-like game on her phone. I'm like "how do you read what they're saying"?
Not sure about Lainey but auditory processing disorder is really common in neurodivergent people. I can read a subtitle often before 3 words are spoken and can then understand the spoken dialogue much easier.
Based solely on Squawk Chat reading, for several days I honestly thought there was some new TV show called HR about an HR department that people were super excited about 🫢😂
I'm a counterpoint to this - learned on stick, drove stick for many years (until used stick-shift Mazda 3 I got off my brother failed), never been a good driver.
But I am at least aware that I'm not a good driver, so maybe ahead there? And I certainly wouldn't be any better if I'd learned on an automatic. It may be I'm just constitutionally incapable since I find driving simultaneously hideously boring and terrifying.
Was a transit girlie until my loathing of strollers and the impossiblity of getting a 3-year-old to walk anywhere in a sane amount of time turned me into an extremely resentful SUV-driving soccer (not really) mom.
100% agree to both. All the extra features make people pay attention to the road less because they think they’re safer, and pay more attention to the fucking computer in front of them (seriously distracted driving much?!). Give me an old stick shift Honda with buttons any day.
I don't think there are stick shifts in electric cars--not in the traditional sense, anyway--so I guess I'll never drive stick shifts again. I did love driving manual, though.
Lainey's time management fills me with both admiration and horror, lol. I realized a long time ago that my brain isn't well-suited for multi-tasking. In fact, even switching between tasks take me a while. And my brain cannot function at high efficiency for any great lengths of time. If I'm super efficient for a couple of days, ticking off long to-do lists, then the following couple of days I'm completely useless. So these days I've resigned myself to middling efficiency on a daily basis, because I always have to pay for high efficiency some other time so it washes out the same.
My lunch in the microwave oven just dings and dings and gets cold and has to be heated again--all the while I sit fifteen feet away and do nothing particularly intense or interesting. :D
This is where we all need to play to our strengths! I long to be half as efficient as Lainey but I just don’t think my brain is built that way.
If I’m toggling between projects requiring high amounts of cognitive labour (or psychological/emotional labour, also a large part of my work) efficiently for a day or so, I pay for it with brain fog for a few days. I think it has a lot to do with my GAD diagnosis - my anxiety makes me highly ruminative. It’s great for solving problems but it’s like an engine that overheats. And it’s very hard to turn off so it keeps on doing the labour when I’m off the clock, including sleeping. The dreams I have involving work are nuts but I do sometimes wake up with solutions ;)
I’m on several medications, do therapy/mindfulness/CBT, etc etc. tried THC/CBD but it makes me nauseous and I feel very lethargic after so it’s a no-go. I’m lucky that alcohol doesn’t really help because if it did I probably would have overused it, especially pre-diagnosis.
All that to say - we can’t all be Lainey but that’s Ok:) (my theme for 2026 is do less better)
One of my favorite things about NYC is that I don’t have to drive. I never got my license since I know I’m too high strung to be a good driver and it’s unpleasant to drive in this city. It’s also a full time job to find parking where I live. Taking public transportation everywhere has probably given me a tiny carbon footprint, it’s not much in the grand scheme of things but I still brag about it all the time.
I’m an nyc native but live in the burbs now. Learning to drive in nyc teaches you to respect pedestrians, keep your head on a swivel, and parallel park quickly. Plus you really can’t go much over 40 so accidents happen but don’t tend to be fatal. I was horrified learning how many teenagers die in car accidents in high school in suburban areas!
OK question for NYers. Why is it acceptable to honk CONSTANTLY, even at someone who is waiting to make a right turn for a pedestrian to cross the street? It's crazy!
OMG Lainey, I feel SOOOO seen with your comments about preferring manual and people sucking at driving these days. I have been so frustrated (living in Denver, where the public transit is anemic at best and never goes where you want to go) with the abysmal and dangerous drivers I have to share the road with. My last boyfriend, a Gen Xer, didn't even know basic rules like, never go around the snow plow crews, and that the striping of the yellow lines indicates when you can and cannot pass. *scream emoji* I've gently flashed my brights during the day behind someone parked in the left lane on the freeway (you know, as I was taught was the polite thing), only to have them turn the rest of my drive into a retributive justice situation, trying to cut me off and making me slam on my brakes and sitting behind me with their brights at full for miles. Like, dude, that's a basic road rule!
I could go on like this for hours. I am so frustrated. I too wish more people would drive stick - but mostly I wish more stick cars were available! I don't have one because nothing in my price range and preferred style was available when I needed a car asap in July 2020, and I miss it terribly. (And this after living in NYC without a car for ten years.)
This is another issue that you've hit on! In North America they don't offer so many models in manual - but in other parts of the world, the manual option is there! We are the part of the world with incompetent drivers.
I had a friend let me learn on his car and the first car I bought myself was a stick shift. I’m still happy I know how even though I haven’t driven one in years.
My first car was a stick, too! My parents were very excited to pass all chauffeuring duties to me (cool, cool), and every day, I had to parallel park on one of the busiest streets in town - during rush hour. You do that in a stick at 16, you're set for life. 😂
I know how to drive a stick in theory (learned on one all those years ago) but now only drive automatics. But my husband will only drive a manual (for all the reasons you listed) and I only convinced him to trade in his very old car for a brand new model because we learned that VW wasn't going to be making stick shifts anymore (at for sale in America) and we got the last Jetta in a stick.
I wish I lived somewhere with good public transportation. I have before and it's amazing. Sure, there are headaches about public transportation but I hate that I have to drive everywhere all the time.
I have to say, I work in Human Resources. And when HR (the show) started to blow up I was wondering why there was so much excitement about "my job". Then I was worried there was yet another "Workplace HR sucks" group moan going on. I was so happy to see, for once, HR can be fun sexy times!
I have been waiting at lights with cars rolling backwards because it’s a stick and they don’t know how to drive so I don’t think those kinds of cars guarantee being a good driver. Not being a distracted driver is what makes you a good driver and cars have added more and more things to distract you. In Toronto it gets more complicated because there are cyclists and pedestrians that add to the issue. Plus traffic and construction and conflicting policies keeping on street parking in the financial district but with bike lanes. And don’t get me started on Metrolinx being a corrupt slush fund for buddies of a certain premier because why 15 years for the Eglinton line?
And parking is also a pain.
That said I will also say Uber has made the traffic even worse in Toronto. Prior to it, taxis were limited to a certain number. It was capped at around 5,000. With uber (and their lobbyists) this is now 80,000. So when you wonder why traffic has gotten worse, uber and Lyft are why.
And on principle I am not a fan of companies that come in an under cut people who have to pay for hefty commercial auto insurance premiums, plus annual inspections and city bylaws requiring cars only being a certain age. The uber drivers don’t end up lasting that long anyway because it’s not profitable long term. Meanwhile taxi drivers were once well paying jobs for many immigrants who were then able to make enough money to pay for their kids to go to college.
Also we haven’t yet really tested in Ontario just how much insurance coverage is given if there is a serious accident to a passenger. It certainly is not the $10 million coverage that you get in a taxi cab.
It may just be the online spaces I'm in, but Quinn makes perfect sense for actors from an adaptation of a romance book. I was impressed they turned it around so fast and do hope H and C are booked and busy!
When I still lived in nj and worked in Philly I took public transit everywhere and I loved it so much. I would seriously give almost anything to have robust trains in this country.
I live somewhere without adequate public transit, and driving is the only realistic option. I also have 2 kids and hockey bags are not easy to schlep around without a vehicle.
I lived in Sydney AUS for a little bit and absolutely loved not having a car and taking public transit. It removed a lot of mental energy and decision fatigue - once you’re on the bus or train, you’re not thinking about traffic, parking, etc. you can read, make grocery lists, study (I was a student then), etc.
I live in a suburb of Vancouver that’s so far away, calling it a suburb is a stretch. When I was still doing the type of law where I was going to court regularly, I’d often travel to Vancouver which could take over 2 hours during rush hour. The public transit options were very limited but when I could make it work it was such a luxury to have that time to review and prep.
I miss driving a manual SO much. But my husband never learned how to and when I tried to teach him, it made him too anxious. And I didn't want to have a car that I was the only who could drive it, so I bought an automatic when my manual Honda Accord finally croaked. My dad still drives a stick and he taught my teenager to drive one (I should note, my dad taught him when he was fourteen. My teenager can't get his license for another two months and already drives a stick shift).
Thank you for answering my question about Netflix and WB this week! I wish these companies would stop merging. For one - it degrades the whole theater experience and for another, it's going to start getting prohibitively expensive to have more than one streamer at home at a time.
When Sarah first said she drives an SUV instantly thought to myself wow Sarah baddie drives a caddy .. truue👌🔥 but nvm. I will say though as beautiful as some SUVs are, it’s total dogshit driving them as your 5’1-5’3 (I am 5’3 AND A HALF) and had to borrow my uncles car (Not an SUV but a Hummer H2– still wide af) for a week and I almost died with the seat and dimensions. Never again. 🚫
“Because then what I’ll do is set the microwave for six minutes, fill up my water, walk back to my office, drop the water bottle off, then go to the voice booth, record the VO, then go pee, and then make it back to the kitchen to pick up my lunch. And I usually get back within 15 seconds of the microwave beeping.”
After watching the Eras doc, I think Lainey and Taylor Swift have a lot in common.
I swear this is an adhd indicator. I cannot watch my husband cook because he just, pokes at things as they sear? I prep food, cook, fold laundry, clean up as I go, set the table, prep water bottles, etc. I am really, really bad at only doing ONE thing unless it’s incredibly absorbing mentally/physically.
100%. She watches her C and K Dramas with captions on WHILE playing some tetris-like game on her phone. I'm like "how do you read what they're saying"?
Not sure about Lainey but auditory processing disorder is really common in neurodivergent people. I can read a subtitle often before 3 words are spoken and can then understand the spoken dialogue much easier.
Based solely on Squawk Chat reading, for several days I honestly thought there was some new TV show called HR about an HR department that people were super excited about 🫢😂
“I’ll say it again, driving stick makes you a better driver and the quality of driving on the road would improve if more people drove stick.” Agree!
And driving a car with autopilot features makes you a worse driver. Just facts lol
I'm a counterpoint to this - learned on stick, drove stick for many years (until used stick-shift Mazda 3 I got off my brother failed), never been a good driver.
But I am at least aware that I'm not a good driver, so maybe ahead there? And I certainly wouldn't be any better if I'd learned on an automatic. It may be I'm just constitutionally incapable since I find driving simultaneously hideously boring and terrifying.
Was a transit girlie until my loathing of strollers and the impossiblity of getting a 3-year-old to walk anywhere in a sane amount of time turned me into an extremely resentful SUV-driving soccer (not really) mom.
100% agree to both. All the extra features make people pay attention to the road less because they think they’re safer, and pay more attention to the fucking computer in front of them (seriously distracted driving much?!). Give me an old stick shift Honda with buttons any day.
"thanks for the opportunity, but you might regret it since I’m about to go off."
Lainey, not a one of us EVER regrets when you go off 😁
I don't think there are stick shifts in electric cars--not in the traditional sense, anyway--so I guess I'll never drive stick shifts again. I did love driving manual, though.
Lainey's time management fills me with both admiration and horror, lol. I realized a long time ago that my brain isn't well-suited for multi-tasking. In fact, even switching between tasks take me a while. And my brain cannot function at high efficiency for any great lengths of time. If I'm super efficient for a couple of days, ticking off long to-do lists, then the following couple of days I'm completely useless. So these days I've resigned myself to middling efficiency on a daily basis, because I always have to pay for high efficiency some other time so it washes out the same.
My lunch in the microwave oven just dings and dings and gets cold and has to be heated again--all the while I sit fifteen feet away and do nothing particularly intense or interesting. :D
This is where we all need to play to our strengths! I long to be half as efficient as Lainey but I just don’t think my brain is built that way.
If I’m toggling between projects requiring high amounts of cognitive labour (or psychological/emotional labour, also a large part of my work) efficiently for a day or so, I pay for it with brain fog for a few days. I think it has a lot to do with my GAD diagnosis - my anxiety makes me highly ruminative. It’s great for solving problems but it’s like an engine that overheats. And it’s very hard to turn off so it keeps on doing the labour when I’m off the clock, including sleeping. The dreams I have involving work are nuts but I do sometimes wake up with solutions ;)
I’m on several medications, do therapy/mindfulness/CBT, etc etc. tried THC/CBD but it makes me nauseous and I feel very lethargic after so it’s a no-go. I’m lucky that alcohol doesn’t really help because if it did I probably would have overused it, especially pre-diagnosis.
All that to say - we can’t all be Lainey but that’s Ok:) (my theme for 2026 is do less better)
One of my favorite things about NYC is that I don’t have to drive. I never got my license since I know I’m too high strung to be a good driver and it’s unpleasant to drive in this city. It’s also a full time job to find parking where I live. Taking public transportation everywhere has probably given me a tiny carbon footprint, it’s not much in the grand scheme of things but I still brag about it all the time.
I’m an nyc native but live in the burbs now. Learning to drive in nyc teaches you to respect pedestrians, keep your head on a swivel, and parallel park quickly. Plus you really can’t go much over 40 so accidents happen but don’t tend to be fatal. I was horrified learning how many teenagers die in car accidents in high school in suburban areas!
OK question for NYers. Why is it acceptable to honk CONSTANTLY, even at someone who is waiting to make a right turn for a pedestrian to cross the street? It's crazy!
That’s just people being assholes, and in general drivers don’t have much patience. Sorry!!
OMG Lainey, I feel SOOOO seen with your comments about preferring manual and people sucking at driving these days. I have been so frustrated (living in Denver, where the public transit is anemic at best and never goes where you want to go) with the abysmal and dangerous drivers I have to share the road with. My last boyfriend, a Gen Xer, didn't even know basic rules like, never go around the snow plow crews, and that the striping of the yellow lines indicates when you can and cannot pass. *scream emoji* I've gently flashed my brights during the day behind someone parked in the left lane on the freeway (you know, as I was taught was the polite thing), only to have them turn the rest of my drive into a retributive justice situation, trying to cut me off and making me slam on my brakes and sitting behind me with their brights at full for miles. Like, dude, that's a basic road rule!
I could go on like this for hours. I am so frustrated. I too wish more people would drive stick - but mostly I wish more stick cars were available! I don't have one because nothing in my price range and preferred style was available when I needed a car asap in July 2020, and I miss it terribly. (And this after living in NYC without a car for ten years.)
This is another issue that you've hit on! In North America they don't offer so many models in manual - but in other parts of the world, the manual option is there! We are the part of the world with incompetent drivers.
Thanks, I hate it...
I had a friend let me learn on his car and the first car I bought myself was a stick shift. I’m still happy I know how even though I haven’t driven one in years.
My first car was a stick, too! My parents were very excited to pass all chauffeuring duties to me (cool, cool), and every day, I had to parallel park on one of the busiest streets in town - during rush hour. You do that in a stick at 16, you're set for life. 😂
I know how to drive a stick in theory (learned on one all those years ago) but now only drive automatics. But my husband will only drive a manual (for all the reasons you listed) and I only convinced him to trade in his very old car for a brand new model because we learned that VW wasn't going to be making stick shifts anymore (at for sale in America) and we got the last Jetta in a stick.
I wish I lived somewhere with good public transportation. I have before and it's amazing. Sure, there are headaches about public transportation but I hate that I have to drive everywhere all the time.
I miss NYC's subway on a daily basis. Not perfect but damn was it good. Like Lainey said, you can get more done when someone else is driving!
I have to say, I work in Human Resources. And when HR (the show) started to blow up I was wondering why there was so much excitement about "my job". Then I was worried there was yet another "Workplace HR sucks" group moan going on. I was so happy to see, for once, HR can be fun sexy times!
LMFAO “why r they so excited about my job” dfkm💀 ⚰️⚰️
I have been waiting at lights with cars rolling backwards because it’s a stick and they don’t know how to drive so I don’t think those kinds of cars guarantee being a good driver. Not being a distracted driver is what makes you a good driver and cars have added more and more things to distract you. In Toronto it gets more complicated because there are cyclists and pedestrians that add to the issue. Plus traffic and construction and conflicting policies keeping on street parking in the financial district but with bike lanes. And don’t get me started on Metrolinx being a corrupt slush fund for buddies of a certain premier because why 15 years for the Eglinton line?
And parking is also a pain.
That said I will also say Uber has made the traffic even worse in Toronto. Prior to it, taxis were limited to a certain number. It was capped at around 5,000. With uber (and their lobbyists) this is now 80,000. So when you wonder why traffic has gotten worse, uber and Lyft are why.
And on principle I am not a fan of companies that come in an under cut people who have to pay for hefty commercial auto insurance premiums, plus annual inspections and city bylaws requiring cars only being a certain age. The uber drivers don’t end up lasting that long anyway because it’s not profitable long term. Meanwhile taxi drivers were once well paying jobs for many immigrants who were then able to make enough money to pay for their kids to go to college.
Also we haven’t yet really tested in Ontario just how much insurance coverage is given if there is a serious accident to a passenger. It certainly is not the $10 million coverage that you get in a taxi cab.
It may just be the online spaces I'm in, but Quinn makes perfect sense for actors from an adaptation of a romance book. I was impressed they turned it around so fast and do hope H and C are booked and busy!
When I still lived in nj and worked in Philly I took public transit everywhere and I loved it so much. I would seriously give almost anything to have robust trains in this country.
I live somewhere without adequate public transit, and driving is the only realistic option. I also have 2 kids and hockey bags are not easy to schlep around without a vehicle.
I lived in Sydney AUS for a little bit and absolutely loved not having a car and taking public transit. It removed a lot of mental energy and decision fatigue - once you’re on the bus or train, you’re not thinking about traffic, parking, etc. you can read, make grocery lists, study (I was a student then), etc.
I live in a suburb of Vancouver that’s so far away, calling it a suburb is a stretch. When I was still doing the type of law where I was going to court regularly, I’d often travel to Vancouver which could take over 2 hours during rush hour. The public transit options were very limited but when I could make it work it was such a luxury to have that time to review and prep.
I miss driving a manual SO much. But my husband never learned how to and when I tried to teach him, it made him too anxious. And I didn't want to have a car that I was the only who could drive it, so I bought an automatic when my manual Honda Accord finally croaked. My dad still drives a stick and he taught my teenager to drive one (I should note, my dad taught him when he was fourteen. My teenager can't get his license for another two months and already drives a stick shift).
Thank you for answering my question about Netflix and WB this week! I wish these companies would stop merging. For one - it degrades the whole theater experience and for another, it's going to start getting prohibitively expensive to have more than one streamer at home at a time.
When Sarah first said she drives an SUV instantly thought to myself wow Sarah baddie drives a caddy .. truue👌🔥 but nvm. I will say though as beautiful as some SUVs are, it’s total dogshit driving them as your 5’1-5’3 (I am 5’3 AND A HALF) and had to borrow my uncles car (Not an SUV but a Hummer H2– still wide af) for a week and I almost died with the seat and dimensions. Never again. 🚫