* people with interesting, entertaining blogs who abandon them in order to say stuff on Twitter you don't understand because it's all boring conversations with people you don't follow
* people who post photos of women wearing glasses, captioned "I LOVE smart women!"
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Monday, 5 August 2013 00:04 (ten years ago) link
* prezi
― Autumn Almanac, Monday, 5 August 2013 01:19 (ten years ago) link
Ditto with Neanderthal. My original headlight bulb lasted ten years, and then the replacement burns out after three months. And to add insult to injury the way it's mounted you have to position this oddly shaped spring clip around a post and a clip to hold it in place. And the passenger side is even worse, as the windsheild wiper fluid tube is right in front of it.
― nickn, Monday, 5 August 2013 02:56 (ten years ago) link
when it's raining just enough that the lower wiper setting moves too slowly and lets water pool too much to be effective, but not enough that the next wiper setting up moves too fast, and after a few repetitions, starts making that rubbing sound since there's not enough water on the windshield.
THERE NEEDS TO BE AN EXTRA SETTING.
there needs to be a rheostat, imho
― Remember! The cormorant is a big brrd. It has got a long neck. (unregistered), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:00 (ten years ago) link
i.e. a knob that allows for INFINITE WIPER SETTINGS
― Remember! The cormorant is a big brrd. It has got a long neck. (unregistered), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:01 (ten years ago) link
its possible to get a really good public education in nyc
i got one, and i didn't even go to stuyvesant. gifted & talented programs, magnet schools, advanced classes, music education. my parents wouldn't settle for mediocre schooling. one great thing about nyc is you're not stuck in your neighborhood's school district -- you can go to any school that will have you. i went to high school on the upper west side and took the subway in from brooklyn every day.
― derpoleon and d'ohsephine (get bent), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:09 (ten years ago) link
My previous car (1995 Mercury Villager) had no fewer than nine wiper settings. And it still wasn't enough.
xp
― Esperanto, why don't you come to your senses? (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:11 (ten years ago) link
yeah, i never really got this. i know people that wear glasses who are SHIT DUMB and people with perfect vision that are genius-level.
― derpoleon and d'ohsephine (get bent), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:12 (ten years ago) link
it's such a cheesy porn trope. if you want to have a SOPHISTICATED BUSINESSWOMAN or BOARDING SCHOOL TEACHER or SEXXEE LIBRARIAN, just put her in a pencil skirt and add a pair of glasses. i can't believe how many otherwise smart/with-it guys fall for this shit.
― derpoleon and d'ohsephine (get bent), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:16 (ten years ago) link
i remember some awful film I had to review years ago which cast elle mcpherson as the dorky main character's love interest, and to show she was SMART they put her in glasses; actual laughs from theatre every time she appeared in them
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Monday, 5 August 2013 03:40 (ten years ago) link
There's some blog or buzzfeed style site called Nerdsaresexy or something, and it's main img is a stock photo of a porn chick on an office chair with a laptop/glasses/possibly also a lab coat? UUUURGH.
― It is like ganging up on Enya (Trayce), Monday, 5 August 2013 08:36 (ten years ago) link
i can't believe how many otherwise smart/with-it guys fall for this shit.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l8xeX8k9lgo/SNMCGIyvaqI/AAAAAAAAG5I/XHWnZca-z6Y/s400/mccain+palin3.jpg
― pplains, Monday, 5 August 2013 13:59 (ten years ago) link
its possible to get a really good public education in nyc, but it depends on tracking, a bit of luck, etc. like i know its a mixed bag, but nyc public schools include some of the highest achieving ones in the u.s.
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Saturday, 3 August 2013 18:20 (2 days ago) Permalink
in 9/10 cases it depends on money, i.e. enough money to live in Manhattan or a few brownstone brooklyn neighborhoods -- btw this is probably a difference between now and when JBR grew up here. In the other 1/10 cases it's a matter of choosing to live in a handful of (still not cheap) neighborhoods, mostly in queens or southern brooklyn, where you'll feel more like you're in the suburbs anyway but at least you have a subway. Just hoping for their kids to get into the ultra-competitive Stuyvesant or Bronx Science isn't really an option for most people.
BTW the out-of-zone schooling thing is only really an option for high school -- you have 8-9 years of schooling in your zoned school.
― HOOS next aka won't get steened again (Hurting 2), Monday, 5 August 2013 14:16 (ten years ago) link
There's a facebook group called "Lost <cityname>" and it sometimes brings great pictures of former businesses, buildings, and parks that the city no longer has, but the commenters are HORRIBLE. Half the time it's people saying how sad it is we no longer have whatever is pictured, when the pictured thing was relatively negative for the city. This morning some dude is going on about how we need to save some giant concrete plaza with a fountain because he waded in it as a kid.
― carlos danger zone (mh), Monday, 5 August 2013 14:48 (ten years ago) link
Those toilet paper dispensers that have one roll stacked on top of another for when one runs out, except the two rolls are in contact and the tension is all misadjusted, so you can only tear off one square at a time or less unless you reach over with one hand, lift the top roll up on its spring, then pull from the bottom roll until you get a sufficient amount of TP. All I want is to wipe, why are you doing this to me? ;_;
― Here's the storify, of a lovely ladify (Phil D.), Monday, 5 August 2013 14:48 (ten years ago) link
I can pour my own coffee here at work, but thanks for thinking of me there sales-guy-who-thinks-he's-Flo-at-the-Dime&Drop-Diner.
― pplains, Monday, 5 August 2013 14:50 (ten years ago) link
xpost uggghhh Phil I hate that
― the pen is mightier than the penisword (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 5 August 2013 15:45 (ten years ago) link
lord do I hate people who can't alphabetize. Many alphabetical mistakes on this "alphabetized" template in my dept, including BL appearing before BE.
― Neanderthal, Monday, 5 August 2013 16:25 (ten years ago) link
Phil D otm - also those dispensers where the rolls are side-by-side, and when one's finished you slide the bottom bit along, except people don't understand that and just try and pull little tufts of paper out of the minuscule gap
― kinder, Monday, 5 August 2013 17:50 (ten years ago) link
You should have told him to kiss your grits, pp.
― nickn, Monday, 5 August 2013 17:51 (ten years ago) link
it's usually pretty crowded when i take the subway home in the evening. if i'm able to, i'll scooch up against the doors on the side that isn't opening.
if not, i'll generally go to the area precisely midway between the doors -- although narrow (because the seats there face forward/back rather than inward) it's relatively out of the way, and on a crowded train there's really no call to be walking the length of the car.
tonight this woman followed me there, set up camp, and while reading accidentally elbowed me/nudged me in the kidneys with her backpack for a stop. so i moved, and a stop later she followed me and did it again. it wasn't exactly egregious (other than following me) but it was both annoying and made me wonder whether she was gonna pick my pocket.
when i got off we glared at each other briefly. i guess that is pretty mild by the standards of what women go through regularly, but wtf
tl;dr subway riders are savages
― mookieproof, Monday, 5 August 2013 23:27 (ten years ago) link
nyc subways are actually powered from the harvesting of irrational anger, iirc
― HOOS next aka won't get steened again (Hurting 2), Monday, 5 August 2013 23:27 (ten years ago) link
for something more irrational, i realized today that i hate forks clovetofu with tines that are not parallel
― mookieproof, Monday, 5 August 2013 23:28 (ten years ago) link
on a crowded train ppl will put up with much more encroachment than they would in, say, an elevator, but don't be doing shit on purpose
― mookieproof, Monday, 5 August 2013 23:30 (ten years ago) link
ffs, got some new tools that i thought would do the trick, and went back at my car again. got the bolt to loosen, somehow some way, and began victoriously loosening it to where it tightened up again, and I couldnt' get it to go any further before I got dizzy from the heat and having to bend at awkward angles.
giving up and taking to the shop. yay for paying $100 for what I could normally fix for $20 if I didn't have to contort my body like stretch armstrong to fix the damn thing.
― Neanderthal, Monday, 5 August 2013 23:33 (ten years ago) link
last weekend we discovered that the door locking actuator for the front passenger door of our car was not locking when the car was centrally locked.so we took it in to be repaired. this weekend, we discovered that the rear passenger door actuator is now not locking. u_u
they all operate independently so it's not that the mechanic screwed up and upset the other one, it's that these things are STUPID. honda denies there is any kind of design flaw in these fucking things yet EVERY CR-V of our model runs into actuator problems exactly at the same moment that our started too. they all just independently crap out at random times.
stupid fucking things RAGH
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 5 August 2013 23:42 (ten years ago) link
when i used to go to shelbyville we used keys to lock our cars, which was the style in those days
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 00:10 (ten years ago) link
gimme five bees for a quarter, we'd say
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 01:19 (ten years ago) link
the LA/NYC versions of these are full of racist commenters and people who like to point out that their idyllic neighborhoods of yore are "SOOO GHETTO" now.
― freelance helgenberger (get bent), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 04:08 (ten years ago) link
if you wanna dry your face with a hand dryer go ahead but have the common courtesy to point the blower back in a handwardly direction when you're done, you disgusting savage.
― click here to start exploding (ledge), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 09:46 (ten years ago) link
enormous image of actual handdryer in question for illustrative purposes:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Images/Products/size_3/HD2400MA.JPG
― click here to start exploding (ledge), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 09:47 (ten years ago) link
There's a facebook group called "Lost <cityname>" . . . This morning some dude is going on about how we need to save some giant concrete plaza with a fountain because he waded in it as a kid.
the town where I grew up in the 80s was a giant pile of ugly 50s concrete stacked under a permanently grey sky, and I did still get a pang on hearing that a particularly ugly and illogically arranged gum-tarnished slab of an open-air mall had been knocked down
brb going to look up which parts of town were replaced by something not made of concrete, or at least made of slightly newer and less gum-spattered concrete, and bemoan their loss on social networking groups
― slippery kelp on the tide (a passing spacecadet), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:16 (ten years ago) link
plz consider bemoaning in the following threads:
Defend the Indefensible - Concrete Architecture
Deposed buildings
― click here to start exploding (ledge), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:20 (ten years ago) link
I got IA every time someone said the word "chatter" yesterday on the radio
― joygoat, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:22 (ten years ago) link
my IA of the day: when a bus/train is standing room only, and you position yourself so as not to block the aisle completely, and then someone else stands right beside you even though there's more room elsewhere, and both of you together are blocking the aisle, and you know people think it's your fault at least as much as theirs
(or, if you are fatter or less pretty than them, you know people probably think it's mainly your fault bcz of course ugly people are dumb and careless and of course fat people are taking more space and oxygen and Twinkies than their fair share, but hey)
― slippery kelp on the tide (a passing spacecadet), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:24 (ten years ago) link
speaking of radio: people are usually from a place, except on music radio, where they're 'out of' a place
'that was a band out of portugal'
jesus christ
― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:27 (ten years ago) link
xxxp I neither want to bemoan or defend concrete. I know my post was p. anti-concrete but there are nice bits of concrete architecture and then there's Swindon. "Deposed buildings" thread looks interesting though
― slippery kelp on the tide (a passing spacecadet), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:28 (ten years ago) link
Oh, I like concrete! This plaza was never meant to be a wading pool, it's just that disgusting savages were never chased out.
― carlos danger zone (mh), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:34 (ten years ago) link
here is the plaza in question, in its heyday. not embedding in the thread:https://sphotos-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/526971_10200606219461440_189540018_n.jpg
― carlos danger zone (mh), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:46 (ten years ago) link
On the page for my town, not a month goes by where some old person wistfully bemoans about the bygone days of sipping coffee at Sambo's.
― pplains, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:49 (ten years ago) link
Granted, I wish there was a 24-hour restaurant on that hillside now instead of Walgreens and the paint store, but I've managed to live with it and not bump the same thread every four weeks.
― pplains, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:50 (ten years ago) link
oh lol pplains
― carlos danger zone (mh), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:50 (ten years ago) link
ia: the phrase "chattering classes" (for the idle rich, i guess. working-class people don't chatter, ever.)
related ia: when (e.g.) the NYT calls a demographic "the ___ set" (collect 'em all!)
― freelance helgenberger (get bent), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:52 (ten years ago) link
although i love the band the monochrome set and think it's a clever name!
― freelance helgenberger (get bent), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 13:53 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/FMuQz78.png
― pplains, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 14:02 (ten years ago) link
I think I was debating an idiot, the same guy is now going on about some convenience store chain which is run by "those people" or something. I have only seen one of them total, so he's either generalizing his experience to everyone, or he lives in some part of town I probably am not visiting.
― carlos danger zone (mh), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 14:05 (ten years ago) link
I was assume any convenience store chain not headquartered in the Des Moines area is run by "those people."
― pplains, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 14:29 (ten years ago) link
possibly!
I think our convenience stores are more governed by the fact that there are a couple pretty nice chains that generally stick to certain markets/store sizes so if you are locked in a neighborhood that can only support a smaller store and it's not rural, you're going to get whatever independent operator thinks owning a gas station in 2013 is a good business plan.
― carlos danger zone (mh), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 14:38 (ten years ago) link
another addition to this thread:
I was walking back past the bar after grabbing a slice of pizza and a soda over the weekend and a guy I know started asking me about whether I liked the pizza from that place and started launching into a merits of pizza places discussion, with the base being that I was eating mediocre pizza.
dude it's 1AM and I wanted a slice of pizza, jesus christ
― carlos danger zone (mh), Tuesday, 6 August 2013 14:40 (ten years ago) link
We have a real estate column at the paper and Kum & Go is making its forays into our market. If I have to edit something one more time about an LLC out of West Des Moines, Iowa.....
And really. Kum & Go?
― pplains, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 14:44 (ten years ago) link