So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Fading Fast]

Having grown up pre-digital, I love physical books and paper, but have switch to online newspaper for practical reasons - I can get them earlier (which I need for my work) and without leaving my apartment. I hate disagreeing with Lizzie (as I'm usually wrong), but I think the on-line version of some papers (NYT and WSJ, for example) - once one gets the hang of it (took me some time) - does provide a context and "code" for how to read it / what's important / where to find things. And the links to other related stories and past stories is quite helpful. To be clear, I am referencing the computer screen version not the mobile phone version (which is meaningfully inferior for the NYT and marginally worse for the WSJ).

My only two complaints with the on-line version is they never stop tinkering with it. In the physical world, when a paper would update its physical layout, it was a big deal and happened rarely; on-line, they tinker too often so you are almost always learning anew how to use it. Also - and this is my only real complaint (I can adjust to the rejiggering) - there is no beginning and no end - there is no, "this is the news today." Instead, stories come and go, get updated and edited all the time, so you aren't really sure if you've read everything, missed something or need to re-read a story as periodically you'll see "update at..." and a later time posted.

I push myself to think if this is just a cranky "old-school" complaint as I don't know how to "think" in the digital world, but I don't think so as it seems odd to ask your reader to re-read an entire story just to find the one or two updated paragraph or few lines. And it seems odd to not provide a clearer timeline of stories, but that might be because the digital generation is always "surfing" and not looking for a complete read.

 

[JimWagner]

E-readers vary quite a bit in look and feel. My main reader is a Kindle Paperwhite and it is nothing much like the glossy, backlit screen of a computer monitor, tablet or smartphone. It's about the size of a paperback but thinner. I can vary the font size to what is comfortable for me. It works even better in bright ambient light.

It is black and white and not particularly good for either color pictures or magazine type media. But I'm not big on magazines and don't read newspapers. Around here newspapers are just pale shadows of what they used to be - a few AP stories you can find online, local politics and lots of advertisements. Very little useful content.

I do read a few technical pubs on my tablet to get the color and graphics, but being retired that's not so much any more.

There's a place for e-readers and a place for print and I certainly wouldn't restrict myself to one or the other. It's not an either/or kind of thing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Here's something that really ticks me off -- people who put their tickets in their mouth while they fiddle with their gloves or their pocketbook or some other fiddly thing and then hand them to me at the door. Really? Like I want your cold, your flu, your Legionnaire's Disease, your herepes simplex, or whatever else is percolating around in your saliva this week.

When people do this I make a show of being very careful to avoid touching the part of the ticket that has had intimate congress with their tongues, and I hand the stub back pinched between thumb and forefinger as though it were a dead pogy. But they never get the point. Maybe I should keep a bucket of Lysol on a stool next to me, and dunk each ticket before performing the tear.

Any of you out there who have the habit of doing this, just stop. The people you're handing your ticket to think you're an ass.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Speaking of taking tickets. Back in the '70s I used to go to the old Kokusai Theater in L.A. to get my samurai movie fix . After getting my ticket at the box office, I handed it to the ticket taker a the door. She was a middle-aged Japanese lady and she tore the ticket in two lengthwise instead of across in the usual fashion. This always reminded me of the ancient, apocryphal boy's myth concerning Asian women, but I refrained from commenting upon it.

 

[GHT]

I eat alone, and waiters often sit down to get the order. Otherwise, they're competent enough. I frequent chain restaurants whose waiters receive minimum training, which doesn't foresee all the annoying things untrained waiters can do. Of course, most of their customers are untrained diners, too.

Now there's a contentious issue, diners who need training.
Lemastre, You are from America, if you were to dine in a British restaurant, I mean a real restaurant, not a fast food joint, you would probably need a modicum of training. You see we eat using both of our utensils. It's deemed bad form to cut your food up, then place your knife down and proceed to eat, using just your fork. But I am the first to admit that being snobbish about the right and wrong way of how to use a knife and fork, especially as, when in the UK, if you dine in a Chinese establishment, you are expected (by the food etiquette police,) to use chopsticks, like you were born with the knowledge of their use, is just too ludicrous for words.
Whenever I dine out in The States, not only does the waiter sit at the table and watch, it feels like every diner wants to see the weird way Limeys employ their knife and fork.

 

[DJH]

GHT, I'm an Essex guy that's lived in the US for 25 years and I still find it odd how people handle the cutlery here.

It's interesting that I notice people I eat with regularly, colleagues, family, etc start to eat the proper way after hanging out at meals for a while.

 

[GHT]

GHT, I'm an Essex guy that's lived in the US for 25 years,

I lived in, first Seven Kings and then Goodmayes, for more years than I can remember.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Some of us were raised on food that didn't need to be cut with a knife -- if I wanted a knife I had to get up and go into the pantry and get one out of the drawer, they weren't set out at the table. Casseroles, macaroni dishes, baked fish, and such things don't require cutting. You just stab them with your fork and shove them into your face.

We'd use a knife when we ate beef or pork, but those were rarities at our table. Our meat was usually ground up in chunks in a casserole.

I've never seen anyone cut up their food all at once and proceed to eat it, or do this "fork switching" thing that apparently the internet is all up in arms about, and I've been an American all my life. Must be some kind of weird regional/bourgeois thing.

 

[JimWagner]

Some us do know one fork from another and can properly use them. And even know how use chopsticks correctly.

Actually, I can use chopsticks better than some of the younger Chinese in our extended family. My wife is Chinese and I learned how to use them correctly when we were first dating over 45 years ago. We use them at home a lot.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

I love the feel of having a book in my hand, but because of my aging eyes, it's easier for me to adjust the font of my Kindle. While my library offers some books in large print, there are many books I want to read that only come in regular size type. We live in a small home with space at a premium, which doesn't afford a voracious reader such as myself much room for books. In fact, I have only one small bookcase in my bedroom to house some of my favorite books that aren't available for my Kindle and my old time radio cds like Fibber McGee and Molly. I'd be perfectly content to spend an afternoon in a used book store simply browsing the aisles. Sadly, I have to drive about half an hour to another town now to browse a used book store. We used to have two used book stores locally, but both closed down because the landlords intentionally raised the rent so high as to force the sellers out to get a "better" clientel. One was so greedy that he remodeled the store to make it into two stores and collect twice the rent! I fear used book stores are also going the way of the dodo bird.

 

[Zombie_61]

Here's something that really ticks me off -- people who put their tickets in their mouth while they fiddle with their gloves or their pocketbook or some other fiddly thing...

Isn't that what pockets are for--to hold your ticket (or whatever) while you're fiddling with fiddly things?

...You see we eat using both of our utensils. It's deemed bad form to cut your food up, then place your knife down and proceed to eat, using just your fork...

I've only seen people do this in movies and on television, and it's usually done purely for comedic value. I can't imagine ordering, say, a nice steak, then chopping it into tiny bits that will get cold faster while I'm trying to eat. It makes no sense to me.

As for the whole "fork switching" thing, I've only ever done that when my wife and I have dined in one of those "hoity toity" restaurants that require "gentlemen" wear a suit and tie and everyone is supposed to mind their manners. And I can assure you, that's a rare occurrence in my life.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Here's something that really ticks me off -- people who put their tickets in their mouth while they fiddle with their gloves or their pocketbook or some other fiddly thing and then hand them to me at the door. Really? Like I want your cold, your flu, your Legionnaire's Disease, your herepes simplex, or whatever else is percolating around in your saliva this week.

When people do this I make a show of being very careful to avoid touching the part of the ticket that has had intimate congress with their tongues, and I hand the stub back pinched between thumb and forefinger as though it were a dead pogy. But they never get the point. Maybe I should keep a bucket of Lysol on a stool next to me, and dunk each ticket before performing the tear.

Any of you out there who have the habit of doing this, just stop. The people you're handing your ticket to think you're an ass.

It's good for your immune system, embrace it.

You could always put on a pair of surgical gloves & face mask whenever they put tickets to lips.....they may get the message then.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Here's something that really ticks me off -- people who put their tickets in their mouth while they fiddle with their gloves or their pocketbook or some other fiddly thing and then hand them to me at the door. Really? Like I want your cold, your flu, your Legionnaire's Disease, your herepes simplex, or whatever else is percolating around in your saliva this week.

When people do this I make a show of being very careful to avoid touching the part of the ticket that has had intimate congress with their tongues, and I hand the stub back pinched between thumb and forefinger as though it were a dead pogy. But they never get the point. Maybe I should keep a bucket of Lysol on a stool next to me, and dunk each ticket before performing the tear.

Any of you out there who have the habit of doing this, just stop. The people you're handing your ticket to think you're an ass.

That's a thing, I was wondering about, since my childhood. I mean, I'm reared, not to take things like this in my mouth and I will never get the idea of doing this. You can put a ticket in one of your pockets on your trousers, so why putting it in your mouth, for real? Putting your gloves in your mouth on doing other things, too? Eeek!

Sorry, I think, that's a thing on not using the brain and thinking. Maybe people, which love to live in a permanent rush or so.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Isn't that what pockets are for--to hold your ticket (or whatever) while you're fiddling with fiddly things?

That segues neatly into my next point -- what's with people refusing to wear coats no matter how cold it is outside? I see a lot of puffy nylon ski jackets and puce-colored fleeces and vests and such, but very few people bother to wear actual warm coats, and then they berate me for having a box office window that's outdoors. "WHY DO YOU MAKE US SUFFER IN THE COLD?" Hey, you moved here of your own free will -- you wanted to be a Mainer, now start dressing like one. And you'll even have a pocket for your ticket.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I think, it is this "fully-comprehensive-mentality", without using the own brain.

 

[Fading Fast]

Here's something that really ticks me off -- people who put their tickets in their mouth while they fiddle with their gloves or their pocketbook or some other fiddly thing and then hand them to me at the door. ...

That's just gross.

As to the coat thing, I've kind of notice an opposite thing where people wear the puffy jackets, vests or similar item indoors in places like restaurants or libraries. I've seen people come in from the cold outside wearing a puffy jacket, sit at a table at a diner near us, order, eat, pay and leave without taking the coat off - and the diner is properly heated. While not everyone does this, many do today. I'd boil over, but clearly, these people are comfortable or they wouldn't do it - I just don't get it.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@Fading Fast

I think, this is such a special thing on these diners. In Germany, today, the masses do not more really like the fast-food-diners like McDonalds and so on. But it's very popular, that if you go once into these diners, like a kind of an alien , you will exaclty see these "curious" people, which you describe, doing things, that you can't comprehend.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A lot of places don't have anywhere to hang your coat, and draping it over the back of your chair can be clumsy, especially if the tables are closely-spaced. And if you're sitting at the counter, you don't usually even have a back to the stool to drape the coat over.

 

[Trenchfriend]

That's right, Lizzie.
I think, Fading Fast means those curious people, coming in, sitting on their table, eat, but with closed winter-jackets the whole time and seem not to think about.

In Germany, we have mainly the classic restaurants and normally I hung my jacket or coat over my chair or lay it beside on another chair or the often existing benches at the wall. But if the wardrobe is really near to me, I'm using it, of course.

 

[Fading Fast]

I see people wearing their winter / heavy jackets, etc., inside happening quite frequently. In the diner I referenced, it's a bit tight, but they have hooks on posts for coats and things - if I don't get a booth, I hang my coat on them. Not only do many people not take these heavy coats off, but sometimes, they don't even unbutton them when inside.

I have no hidden agenda with this topic and am sincerely not being critical, if you want to wear a coat inside a diner while eating or at the library while reading a book, that doesn't bother me at all other than that I'm curious why most of those people aren't feeling uncomfortably warm. I am not one of those "it's alway hot in here" guys, I tend to feel cold and wear sweaters / sweatshirts all winter. Hence, I don't think my temperature meter is off - and my girlfriend says the same thing ("why are they keeping their coats on").

I'd say its been about the last 5 to 10 years that I started noticing a big increase in this behavior - have others noticed it / have they noticed an increase? Maybe it's always been happening and I'm just noticing it, but it seems people used to always take their winter stuff off when coming inside a restaurant, library, etc. in the winter.