Things you were shockingly old when you learned

And I'm pretty sure everybody will be tired of them next month. They'll end up tossed in the same toy chest as the silly bands, the rainbow loom, and whatever else the last 17 fads were. Save room for whatever's next.

I think its funny that everyone's all up in arms about them being banned in schools/being such a massive fad, as if this has never happened before (hello, yoyos, heely shoes, those wooden clacker balls on string in the 80s that broke everyones wrists...)

By everyone I dont mean in this thread obv

Trayce is right that on one level it's just the new Heelys. iirc, tho, no one claimed Heelys were essential therapeutic aids, to the extent that it was ableist to ban them.

slap bracelets!

*slap slap slap slap*

i bought a fidget spinner while waiting for twin peaks to start, the box says:

• WORK • CLASS • HOME
• BUSY • BORING
• BUSY BUT LAZY

no one claimed Heelys were essential therapeutic aids, to the extent that it was ableist to ban them

Ah point there. And thats just daft.

This year has been a heavy year of preteen fads: bottle flipping, slime/slime videos, ASMR, fidget cubes, fidget spinners.

ppap

I have no idea what most of those words mean :/

(and i have 2 stepkids! lol)

Bottle flipping: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/us/bottle-flipping-craze-is-fun-for-children-but-torture-for-parents.amp.html

Slime/slime videos: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/03/for-kids-slime-business-booming/ZsR6UEIns41gLJTu7kN83O/amp.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ibhdmEYvpYo

Oh slime! That stuff was around in the 70s... but back then I suspect it was hella more toxic (and it stained the shit out of everything)

Clair de Lune isn't about a woman called Clair.

Volkswagen cars are named after winds.

Jetta = jet stream
Golf = Gulf stream
Passat = German word for trade wind
Scirocco = sirocco
Vento = wind in Italian & Portuguese
Bora = a wind of the Adriatic & Black Sea regions

what abt the toerag or tuarag or whatever its callec

Ectoplasm was better.

I will say that the fidget spinner is the first non-electronic thing I've seen a kid interested in in years.

Most of the children in my orbit for most of the last 5-10 years have been happiest when staring into glowing rectangles. Every birthday and Christmas, I'd actually struggle to explain this to generous grandparents - "yeah they're not really into playing with toys."

If they're into bottles or spinny things or jars of slime or whatever, it's at least engaging with a 3D object.

Touareg was a North African tribe wasn't it? Normally portrayed as desert arabs in films etc.

isn't it a Touran?

also what about Polo?

Shirt, sweet or sport?

The soy sauce I've been using to cook with isn't actual soy sauce.

― MarkoP, Friday, 12 May 2017 22:23 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

waht

Shirt, sweet or sport?

car

Clair de Lune isn't about a woman called Clair.

I remember as a child with no french hearing it as a moving piece of music about mental illness

The only reason I'm not a clueless old man about fidget spinners and the resurgence of slime is that I tutor a ten-year-old.

What abo0ut the nazi history?

& what about the story that no self respecting nazi would call himself one since it was a derogatory nickname. Have wondered if teh Trump pronunciation wasn't closer to the original derivation than the more commonly heard one.

xxp

That was a very sad post until I realized it didn't say "a child with no friends"

XP sorry that was about Volkswagen not spinners.

Fanta also has history with the Nazi regime. Coca cola not wanting to sell a product so closely identified with themselves in the regime.

no, they couldn't get the materials to make coca-cola due to trade embargo so they came up with fanta

I still feel like LED colored lights should cost, like, $20 a piece of something - THEY'RE JUST THAT SHINY AND FASCINATING TO ME.

At the Scout Fair last fall, this lady cut open a cardboard box that was just stuffed those LED foam sticks and started handing them out to the kids, sometimes two at a time. I thought, Good Lord, what kind of budget does this place have? But then I got home and saw that you can <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Promotional-Party-Sticks-Stick-Baton/dp/B01G6RSCJ6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495632790&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=led%2Bfoam%2Bstick&th=1";>buy 'em for 79¢ a piece</a>. The actual manufacturing cost is probably something like 14¢.

The boy got mad the other night and ripped the light out of his foam stick (which was still working six months later). He threw it in the yard while I was getting in the car. When we got home, the light show was still in full effect, like a rave for ants in the rock garden. I stood there in the night, thinking about how my grandmother used to think a GameBoy cost close to $400.

that last paragraph is raymondcarveresque

The moisture on my glass of gin was warm. I crouched down in the driveway for a few minutes and closed my eyes. When I opened them, my son was standing behind the porch railing in the electric light, looking at me and wondering what it was he had done.

this kid is a monster: https://mic.com/articles/177801/how-two-teens-3-d-printed-a-fidget-spinner-empire-out-of-their-own-high-school#

A 'shibboleth' is not a Lovecraftian elder god

Rock Me Amadeus is not part of the soundtrack to Amadeus.

But it would have been awesome if it had been. Like Marie Antoinette avant la lettre.

the existence of Solitary Bees, of which most forsake honey production and colony life to go it alone with the bairns or something.

Rock Me Amadeus is not part of the soundtrack to Amadeus.

― Alba, Thursday, June 1, 2017 5:27 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is understandable. It's weird that they'd omit one of his most famous compositions from a movie about his life.

Er war Superstar.

times square was named after the new york times

I just learned that now

That Chubby Checker is a play on Fats Domino, despite how obvious it is. Not that I often find myself thinking of Chubby Checker...

that right-clicking will automatically clear all clearable cards in microsoft solitaire

xpost I always wondered if anyone got the joke when I briefly changed my dn to Portly Backgammon.

That Chubby Checker is a play on Fats Domino, despite how obvious it is. Not that I often find myself thinking of Chubby Checker...

Wow. As in, I didn't realise that either.

Yeah that's a good one!

damn

Grew up with my Mum's Fats Domino album so when Chubby Checker and the Fat Boys hit the charts I immediately thought "who's this imposter?" My pun radar was strong as a kid.

the more i think about the more it kinda makes me mad

Let me add some fuel to that fire with a selective list of Chubby Checker's singles:

The Twist
Let's Twist Again
Twistin' U.S.A.
Slow Twistin'
La Paloma Twist
Teach Me to Twist
Limbo Rock
Let's Limbo Some More
Twist it Up
The Twist (Yo, Twist!)