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  1. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    ^^^^^^ In the “Terms Which Have Disappeared” thread is a discussion of terms and phrases of rural origins, especially those referencing livestock, and how it should come as no surprise that so few people these days, even those who use the phrases, could offer an accurate explanation of their...
  2. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    Some (mis)usages become more widely used than the “correct” ones. At that point, we have little choice but to accept that popular usage trumps. I hear “hone in” more often than the “correct” “home in” that I’m left to acknowledge that that battle is lost. I haven’t yet given up on correcting...
  3. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    A few years back I had a pleasant exchange with a man who was at the airfield adjacent to Pearl Harbor on that Sunday morning. He was in his 90s when our paths crossed. A conversation with a Pearl Harbor attack survivor would be about the last thing a person would expect when he does his...
  4. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    I suppose it isn’t trivial, and it doesn’t tick me off so much as pique my curiosity, that I’ve heard very little mention of what occurred on this date 81 years ago. Only a small segment of the population has any firsthand memory of it, and the overwhelming majority of that small cohort were...
  5. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    Young people, young males especially, are more given to being smart assess, to thinking they’re more clever, smarter, more sophisticated, than they actually are. That was too often true of me, and of many of my friends and associates. Some never outgrew it.
  7. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    That’s assuming the matter was covered in the earlier grades, or even the later grades, for that matter. And that the teacher him- or herself was boned up on it. Had a similar discussion recently. A university level lecturer was bemoaning how little command of standard grammar and punctuation...
  8. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    But then, there’s the unpretentious use of “eats” as a noun, of which I approve, or used to, anyway. Way back in the middle of the last century, when I was young, a down-scale eatery might display a sign reading “Good Eats.” Alas, I fear that these days it would be used ironically, an affected...
  9. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    They’re standing on the street corner, in short skirts and holey fishnet stockings.
  10. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    It’s gotten to where I don’t answer phone calls if I don’t recognize the number, this because more often than not it’s one shady solicitation or another. Several leave messages telling me of the piles of cash from the “employee retention“ program my business will be leaving on the table if I...
  11. tonyb

    What's the worst coffee worldwide?

    I see ads for home-duty espresso machines for under $200, and some under $100, even. The reviews are not entirely negative. Some do a passable job, it’s said. They look decidedly light-duty — plastic bodies, thinnish metal components. I wouldn’t expect them to last more than a year or two in...
  13. tonyb

    how far does a person need to travel to be considered a "Tourist" ?

    ^^^^^ Yogi Berra was quoted as saying, in regard to a once-favorite local dining establishment … “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” Like many of Yogi’s poetic if oxymoronic utterances, I understand this one completely.
  14. tonyb

    What's the worst coffee worldwide?

    I’ve heard “Waffle House Country” used as a sort of shorthand for Middle-American normal folk culture, with a Southern bent. It kinda works because it says something without saying anything too specific. Make of it what you will. There’s one a few miles from here, where I’ve lived for seven...
  15. tonyb

    What's the worst coffee worldwide?

    There’s a reason those commercial coffee decanters are shaped that way. They‘re round (ish), with a narrow opening. That makes them relatively easy to carry without spilling. And the coffee pours quickly and accurately. Very little splashing. If I were still a primarily drip coffee drinker (we...
  16. tonyb

    Thanksgiving Traditions

    “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles.” Thirty-five years is creeping up on “tradition“ territory. Close enough for me. I don’t know that it will have the holiday-specific legs of, say, “It’s a Wonderful Life“ at Christmastime. But I wouldn’t bet against it.
  17. tonyb

    Your Most Disturbing Realizations

    I don’t expect anyone to always be at his or her best. I’m not in need of angels. I would hope that others would regard me similarly. However, I would also hope that the lives of the people left to deal with me are made better by my presence — or, at minimum, not appreciably worse. I wish I had...
  19. tonyb

    Tourist cabins, auto and motor courts

    ^^^^^^ A motel alongside I-25 in Denver was demolished awhile back, the land it occupied scraped. The sign remains. It appears the new development there will take the name of that defunct motel, with the sign preserved.
  20. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    They still do.
  21. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    As if it weren’t egregious enough that the guy two places ahead of me in line here at the Post Office is conducting a cell phone conversation at elevated decibel levels, he speaks in the tritest of cliches. He has a gold wedding band on his left ring finger. Pity the poor soul with the matching...
  22. tonyb

    Tourist cabins, auto and motor courts

    ^^^^^^ I’m torn on whether the remaining signage ought to be saved or left to return to the earth from which it came. As is my way, I like for these old things to show the lives they’ve led. If they are saved, I’d prefer they not be restored — stabilized, maybe, but not put in a like-new condition.
  23. tonyb

    Terms Which Have Disappeared

    It’s been awhile since I’ve had regular conversations with what we in the business commonly called “PR flaks.” A more polite handle was “agency (or company or whatever) spokesperson.” The people best suited to that kind of work have skills (and personalities) quite different from my own.

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