So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

The moment I hear somebody invoke their IQ in any argument is the moment I know there's no reason for me to listen to anything else they might have to say.

I was reminded of this a few minutes ago while reading of the fellow (whose name I shall not mention) who killed three and injured a fourth yesterday at UNLV.

It seems he sought a teaching position at the school in 2020. He didn’t get the job. His public online profiles boast of his academic credentials (a PhD among them) and his teaching career. He claimed to have solved the mystery of the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance and decoded the Zodiac killer’s messages. He had a mind like an “steel trap,” he wrote. He mentioned at some length how very smart he is and how he’d been a member of Mensa for 35 years.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Yikes, I wouldn't want to work at Emergency Rooms, this evening! Frozen over wetness, all over the place. I can imagine the countless bruises and fractures...

 

[Cuvier]

Trivial yet ticks me off. Full moons. I enjoy sitting on my back patio, fire in the pit, dog at my side, beer or other such refreshment in hand on a cool evening. Especially on a full moon as my mind wanders to myths, legends, and fantasies of the celestial bodies. What ticks me off are all of the would be road racers using my street as a drag strip. Something about a full moon brings out the stupid in people. I'm not very...pusillanimous. I have no problem spotlighting them when they hit third gear. I love the sound of their brakes and them cussing at me for ruining their fun. I especially love seeing the red and blue lights of the police when they make it in time to catch the racers. Still ticks me off as it ruins an otherwise great evening.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

In New York on business I stopped near my hotel for aspirin and fished a five dollar note from my pocket clip
before noticing the fellow next to me lay a $100 dollar bill down for a chocolate. The clerk looked over at me
and chuckled about a full moon over New York.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

My phone died so I now have another phone. It’s a pre owned iPhone 7 but they can’t activate it until the old account associated with the phone is closed! I was told that I have to wait until the account lapses which can take up to 45 days. The previous owner of the phone is deceased so we have no idea what the password or PIN number is and apparently we may have to pay any outstanding phone bills for them to close the account immediately. Meanwhile I’m basically without a phone for the next couple of months and access to my images and such and I can only get on the internet at home via the Wi-Fi.

Has anyone else encountered this difficulty?

 

[Trenchfriend]

See, that's, why I "love" retail!
Tobacco (chain) stores, selling Clipper lighters, but not having all replacement parts in sortiment, only the flints.

Went from the main station through inner city, looking around for any other possible stores. Suddenly encountered one of these newer "stoner-stores", which of course usually got Clipper stuff, and he even sold me single replacement parts! I grabbed five and paid 6 EUR.

Sorry, tobacco chain stores, you lost the business...

And my usual classic tobacco store in this city just doesn't sell Clipper.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Burning your hand taking something out of the microwave and yet the food is still cold.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I think we've spoken about this before, but I suspect a lot of unhealthy nostalgia of the "the past was perfect, and everything turned to doo doo in year X" is one of two things. Either 'Golden Age Thinking" - wherein the perfect era was typically before the speaker's birth (see Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris for a perfect take-down of this), or what I call 'Tom Buchanan Syndrome', where the individual feels a specific period of their life was perfect, and they're forever trying to get back to that. I've been very lucky so far, I think, that I've felt life has been on an upward trajectory - the bonus, I suppose, of growing into the grumpy old man I've been since I was about fourteen.

Every generation believes that they’re living in the worst of times. Though in some cases they were probably right.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Fasciae, Fasciae, FASCIAE... WTH??

FASCIAEISM going on, marketing boys??

Did I miss something? Everywhere you look, the want to sell these fasciae sport products, even on Tchibo.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Surely a worldwide phenomenon.

One day before a holiday, the grocery stores are FULL of people. But why??

And the day after a holiday the lines at the post office are twice as long. One postal worker told me that they call it “Double Monday” as normally Monday is the busiest day of the week for the post office.

 

[tonyb]

Not really trivial …

Blocking intersections. It not only impedes traffic flow, it can also delay emergency response.

And on that note …

Lights and sirens? Get the eff outta the way! Seconds count.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I was reminded of this a few minutes ago while reading of the fellow (whose name I shall not mention) who killed three and injured a fourth yesterday at UNLV.

It seems he sought a teaching position at the school in 2020. He didn’t get the job. His public online profiles boast of his academic credentials (a PhD among them) and his teaching career. He claimed to have solved the mystery of the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance and decoded the Zodiac killer’s messages. He had a mind like an “steel trap,” he wrote. He mentioned at some length how very smart he is and how he’d been a member of Mensa for 35 years.

Also Ted Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber) comes to mind.

 

[Edward]

I was reminded of this a few minutes ago while reading of the fellow (whose name I shall not mention) who killed three and injured a fourth yesterday at UNLV.

It seems he sought a teaching position at the school in 2020. He didn’t get the job. His public online profiles boast of his academic credentials (a PhD among them) and his teaching career. He claimed to have solved the mystery of the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance and decoded the Zodiac killer’s messages. He had a mind like an “steel trap,” he wrote. He mentioned at some length how very smart he is and how he’d been a member of Mensa for 35 years.

It's the perennial villain-origin story, isn't it? Somebody feels they have been unjustly ignored, decides to make everyone listen in an horrific way... But for our different laws in certain regards here in the UK, I'm sure we'd have had an incident in academia by now, given the way university senior managements are now all run by moneymen only interested in profit, who haven't seen the inside of a classroom in decades, if they ever even did work in the academic trenches.

Every generation believes that they’re living in the worst of times. Though in some cases they were probably right.

Reminds me of the old one:

"The optimist believes we live in the best possible world - the pessimist fears he may be right."

I've seen this line attributed to a dozen different people over the years. Usually Mark Twain.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Podcasts where one quarter of the content are shoutouts and off topic tangential banter.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Oh man, I'm so happy, that drug (chain)store still has my Lavazza decaffeinato 3/10 beans!

It's not that easy to get well tasting decoffeinated beans in the stores. The Lavazza still fit my taste, are normal affordable priced, mild and natural decoffeinated (CO2 method).
But there are not much more brands in the stores. Dallmayr has decaffeinated beans, but I had them and they were bad/sour.
And funnily, Café HAG beans, which is of course THE brand, are not always to find in grocery stores and in our smalltown's central market not, too.

Always good to know, where you can get YOUR stuff.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Here's a trivial issue to kick off 2024.

My wife and I have lunch at an upscale (but not terrifically expensive) restaurant nearly every Sunday. All the servers have got into the practice of using the pronoun "we" when addressing us. I don't know if this is a training policy of the establishment or if it's one of those things that gets picked up unconsciously from other servers.

Now I am not the king of anything, so I find the use of we (instead of the correct "you") to be both pretentious and presumptuous. Unless that waiter or waitress is planning to sit at the table and have lunch with us, he or she should not ask, "Have we decided what we'd like for lunch today?", or "Have we saved room for dessert?" (No, we haven't, we are counting our calories.)

Now that pronouns used to address us is practically a life-or-death issue, I'd like to ask all waiters and waitresses to address me as "you", and never, ever address me as "we".

 

[BobHufford]

"Have we decided what we'd like for lunch today?"

I bet when you order their response will be “perfect”. I received five “perfects” for a single drive through coffee order the other day.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The "what do we like, today?" stuff is coming from the old-fashioned serving language, right? I remember, that this adressing was much more common in the 90s in our "province".

Since them, they seemingly teached them to act more professional, with the one exception of chain stores, which want to be anyhow "youthful" and now adressing customers with "Du", what was probably stared by Ikea.

If that happens, I "turn a deaf ear to it".
Yes, sometimes, I may look too young for my age, but if that would be the real reason, adressing with "Du" would happen much more and not especially in these chain stores.

Just for fun, I could test it in the same stores, beeing dressed much more "upscale"-looking to see if they switch to "Sie".

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Here's a trivial issue to kick off 2024.

My wife and I have lunch at an upscale (but not terrifically expensive) restaurant nearly every Sunday. All the servers have got into the practice of using the pronoun "we" when addressing us. I don't know if this is a training policy of the establishment or if it's one of those things that gets picked up unconsciously from other servers.

Now I am not the king of anything, so I find the use of we (instead of the correct "you") to be both pretentious and presumptuous. Unless that waiter or waitress is planning to sit at the table and have lunch with us, he or she should not ask, "Have we decided what we'd like for lunch today?", or "Have we saved room for dessert?" (No, we haven't, we are counting our calories.)

Now that pronouns used to address us is practically a life-or-death issue, I'd like to ask all waiters and waitresses to address me as "you", and never, ever address me as "we".

Excellent sir. Your grammatical comment quite nicely boxes imperial pronoun usage, wraps and ties bow to this travesty.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I bet when you order their response will be “perfect”. I received five “perfects” for a single drive through coffee order the other day.

Amen to that. If not "perfect", then "awesome".