So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Lean'n'mean]

I can remember in the 90's there was a fad of putting a whole Camembert, still in it's wooden box into the oven until it melted & then with bits of bread, scoop out the hot, semi-liquid goo, much like a fondue..... very popular at middle class dinner parties.
Mmmm...Bon appétit.

This was also the decade of chicken cooked in Coca Cola & batter coated, deep fried Mars bars, so it's prehaps best not to dwell on this period of experimental gastronomy. Oh....& people had a sudden, devouring passion for Guacamole & ate it until it came out of their ears, strange times.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ I'm not sure the Guacamole thing ever went away as, at least in NYC, avocados sell like mad in the supermarkets - they take up a meaningful amount of space in produce - and it's on the menu of, naturally, every Mexican / Southwestern / etc. restaurant plus practically every pub that expands its menu past burgers has it.

Also, the fancy places often have their own over-priced version of it. And it must have quite the mark-up as the waiters - in any of those places - practically assault you as you're sitting down - "would you like some Guacamole / we have the best Guacamole / we make it table side / how 'bout some Guac for the table while you're deciding?" My girlfriend and I like it (we're not crazy for it), but the aggressive sell kinda puts you off.

And, of course, the avocado-toast mania gave Guac an entirely new delivery system and marketing angle.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I will never comprehend, why so much girls like these oxen-noserings! Disgusting...

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
If you mean those rings that go through a piercing in the nasal septum, yeah, I agree, that look doesn’t appeal to me, either (especially not when mucus collects on it), not that this old man’s opinion should matter to her so adorned.

However, those little whatever-they’re-called things in the side of the nostril are okay by me.

 

[Trenchfriend]

^^^^^
If you mean those rings that go through a piercing in the nasal septum, yeah, I agree, that look doesn’t appeal to me, either (especially not when mucus collects on it), not that this old man’s opinion should matter to her so adorned.

However, those little whatever-they’re-called things in the side of the nostril are okay by me.

Yes, I mean those "septum piercings". I call them "oxen-rings".
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=septum+piercing&go=Suche&qs=ds&form=QBIDMH

Disgusting pestilence...

 

[Woodtroll]

I will never comprehend, why so much girls like these oxen-noserings! Disgusting...

Agreed. I've never seen a tattoo or a piecing on a woman (with maybe the exception of normal pierced ears) that made the woman more attractive than she already was. Usually, I think to myself, "What a shame".

But, as tonyb says, I'm past the point where my opinion matters much to the ladies anyway.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Not really a bad thing, just:

Alpaka-Yoga

 

[Hidebound]

When people put pleather/vegan leather in the "leather" section on ebay. There are sections for fake leather!

 

[Edward]

Yes indeed. About three weeks back my wife's father was struck by a car and killed, and as we were gathering up information for some of the paperwork and we came across his twin brother's 1941 certified German copy of his Austrian birth certificate. That was a complicated time and place for bureaucratic paperwork for sure. It was quite something seeing those German Reich stamps staring back at you in the flesh.

My condolences on your loss. It is fascinating to see the Reich symbology in that sort of day to day usage. It rmeinds me of those photos of the Auschwitz staff off duty, playing with kittens and so on in that it really bring it into the human experience. Which makes what was done by that regime all the more horrific for that humanity; imo, when we dehumanise and demonise the perpetrators of such evil, we run the risk of not learning the lesson of how it happened before because we lose that human element.

Something that ticks me off and that I run into a lot these days when looking at listings on eBay or Etsy:

* Mad men robe
* Mad men fedora
* Hugh Hefner Smoking Jacket
* Peaky blinders cap
[...]

Once in a while the pop culture reference is warranted. I've seen jackets that were meant to be reproductions of one of Hefner's jacket. I don't know how good the reproduction is, or whether it was done with Hefner's blessing while he was still alive, but at least there's a connection. However, I've also seen Hefner's name slapped onto random smoking jackets!

What I don't get iswhen there's no conceivable link, e.g. "WW2 1950s Mad Men Bowler Fedora Hat Cosplay Goth Gay Interest?" - which I have seen before now.

Sigh. In a very few years I will be retiring and “repatriating” back to the USA. I am already missing the excellent subsidized wines, cheeses, etc. that I have access to now.

Vienna is a beautiful city, if not the cheapest place in the world! Friend of minel ives there and I've been over a couple of times. Biggest difference I noticed from my experiences in Germany (Berlin, really) is that whereas a Berlinner will answer my German (reasonable on a simple ask for a menu type way, but I'm clearly not a native speaker) in fluent English, in Vienna they let me carry on with as much German as I can manage - and will then switch to flawless English if I get lost. In both cases the individual with whom I am interacting is clearly intended to be polite and helpful, but I've noticed that significant diference in how they do it. Interestingly, my mother, who speaks a fair bit of German, has been asked a few times in Germany whether she is Austrian; I wonder whether there's something about the North of Ireland accent when combined with the German launguage that sounds Austrian!

That sounds rather like ghee, the South Asian clarified butter used for cooking and medicine.

Don't get me started on ghee.... a few years ago, during a cycle of my washing machine, instead of expelling all the water out, it shot it back up through the pipe, into my sink, and flooded my kitchen. Lots of odd, black globs in the water... Our local hardware guy advised us it's a common problem in our part of the East End. With the local population demographics, a lot of people cook with black ghee, then when finished pour the residue down the sink without thinking. Eventually it can clog the pipes....

Agreed. I've never seen a tattoo or a piecing on a woman (with maybe the exception of normal pierced ears) that made the woman more attractive than she already was. Usually, I think to myself, "What a shame".

But, as tonyb says, I'm past the point where my opinion matters much to the ladies anyway.

If ever I'm tempted to think thatI don't care for what a lady is wearing, I try to remind myself how good it is to live in a time and place where women are as free as men to make their own choices.

Never been a big fan of the central nose ring myself, but I hold that opinion irrespective of gender. If a lady chooses to wear on,e I highly doubt she cares remotely what I think about it.

When people put pleather/vegan leather in the "leather" section on ebay. There are sections for fake leather!

Quite so. Either they are under the misapprehension that they can convince someone who went looking for leather to buy plastic instead, or they are hoping to mislead someone who doesn't bother to read the small print...

 

[Hidebound]

If ever I'm tempted to think thatI don't care for what a lady is wearing, I try to remind myself how good it is to live in a time and place where women are as free as men to make their own choices.

Never been a big fan of the central nose ring myself, but I hold that opinion irrespective of gender. If a lady chooses to wear on,e I highly doubt she cares remotely what I think about it.

Some people get awfully invested in what women do or don't wear, I often wonder why they think it's their business in the first place.

Quite so. Either they are under the misapprehension that they can convince someone who went looking for leather to buy plastic instead, or they are hoping to mislead someone who doesn't bother to read the small print...

In the case of the ones labelled "vegan" I assume they're doing it for activism reasons. In either case it's very annoying.

 

[MisterCairo]

Edamame beans.

I just don't get them.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Why are youngster boys wearing "Caterpillar" T-Shirts?

Freebie?

 

[GHT]

Some people get awfully invested in what women do or don't wear, I often wonder why they think it's their business in the first place.

Some people cannot accept others way of life. Most just get on with it, but since social media came along, everyone has a soapbox to air their views, and don't they just. I'm always minded of the quote that some say is President Lincoln's, others attribute it to Mark Twain:
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."
For the record. There is a biblical proverb that expresses a similar idea, namely Proverbs 17:28.
The New International Version:
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.
King James Version:
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

 

[Trenchfriend]

What REALLY TICKS ME OFF!

In school, 5th and 6th grade, we had handicraft lessons, before the division in Hauptschule and Realschule. Our 1910s school was then in completely overhaul and modernization, the very first time. And the new craft-cabinet got only place for half of our class, so my half had to go outside in the old GDR-style polytechnic craft-cabinet, which lies in some distance.

Curiously, this totally raddled 50s or 60s-bullding survived, after the 90s. Years ago, a refurbishing started and continued slowly, but was completed in 2018. It has now place for at least four family-apartments, because it got four roomy balconies.

And what happened? Another physiotherapy practice enters and seemingly got the whole building! And the four balconies are hanging there, totally useless! A place, where at least four families could live, wasted! As if we wouldn't have enough physiotherapists!!

 

[Tiki Tom]

Nothing worse than a balcony going to waste. From April/May until October, ours is an extra room where most meals are eaten. Summer evenings are for sitting out there and watching the swallows and bats tumbling in the sky. From October through March, the balcony is an extra refrigerator; mostly for beer and wine.

 

[Hercule]

Son started at a new school for high school, thus my commute to work this morning was 90 minutes / 60 miles door to door! Heaven help me it's only the 2nd week of freshman year.

 

[Harp]

Caught the evening train, barely, then five minutes down the track the engine broke down.
A second train pushed us back to LaSalle Street Station where we all boarded a second train after
it was decided a new engine hookup was out. I missed the first five innings of the Cubs v Mets,
and, surprisingly Chicago was ahead. The Cubs were hitting against the Mets but failed to best
the Nats during a homestand. Ironically, ex-Cubs batting coach Chili Davis now is the Mets bat sergeant.
Davis advocated full field and shift bust tactics but also argued for a strong farm system to sustain
the team; also to develop pitching from within the organization. Chili advised against using analytics
as the be-all-end-all one swing fits all homer derbyism because of its impracticality and for the salient
reason that the game of Baseball is far too complex to be shoe boxed by a single simplicity.
Unfortunately his advice fell on deaf ears.
Hopefully, after this busted season heads will not roll onto the sawdust.
Maddon can be extended a few more years and the Chicago farm system rebuilt with a core nucleus pitching crop.

 

[Fading Fast]

Caught the evening train, barely, then five minutes down the track the engine broke down.
A second train pushed us back to LaSalle Street Station where we all boarded a second train after
it was decided a new engine hookup was out. I missed the first five innings of the Cubs v Mets,
and, surprisingly Chicago was ahead. The Cubs were hitting against the Mets but failed to best
the Nats during a homestand. Ironically, ex-Cubs batting coach Chili Davis now is the Mets bat sergeant.
Davis advocated full field and shift bust tactics but also argued for a strong farm system to sustain
the team; also to develop pitching from within the organization. Chili advised against using analytics
as the be-all-end-all one swing fits all homer derbyism because of its impracticality and for the salient
reason that the game of Baseball is far too complex to be shoe boxed by a single simplicity.
Unfortunately his advice fell on deaf ears.
Hopefully, after this busted season heads will not roll onto the sawdust.
Maddon can be extended a few more years and the Chicago farm system rebuilt with a core nucleus pitching crop.

Your experience is one of the reasons why I chose to stop commuting and live in the city. It wasn't so much the inconvenience now and then, but the "unknown-ness" of it - will tonight, the night I really need to get home on time (or the morning I really need to get into work on time), be the night it breaks, is delayed, the tracks freeze, seize from the heat, etc? It was just too much uncertainty and frustration bookending my days.

 

[Harp]

I lived downtown in the Gold Coast district until my apartment building; circa 1929 was sold,
with all us tenant pawns summarily displaced during yet another Chicago real estate condo phase.
The Rock Island line is exceptional overall and my professional travel expenses corporate paid,
so I cannot complain about the commute itself but circumstances do occasionally derail things.
Loved living downtown and my unit was offered at a discount price but being innately peripatetic
I moved back to the South side where I belong.

 

[Edward]

Interesting to read these last few comments as I prepare to put my very central London flat up for sale, so we can buy a freehold house on the outside edge of "inner London". In reality, I'm only planning to move 20 minutes EasT by tube, but it still feels like a big move. Funy how life goes.

The noe thing I've never made the best use of has been my balcony; these last few years I've preferred to stay indoors, especially in Summer (hate the Sun, hate the heat). I expect we'll make more use of outdoor space when we have a garden of our own, though.