So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

Quite probably, if the quality of the answers on those websites is any indication.

Anyway, a real American uses a spork. Two utensils merged for a single efficient purpose without regard for any moss-covered traditions. What could possibly be more American than that?

 

[HudsonHawk]

Quite probably, if the quality of the answers on those websites is any indication.

Anyway, a real American uses a spork. Two utensils merged for a single efficient purpose without regard for any moss-covered traditions. What could possibly be more American than that?

And we're back to the mule...this time of the cutlery world.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What's even better is when the handle of the spork is a knife. The tail of the mule, as it were.

 

[William G.]

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.

I can only speak for myself, as I'm guilty of this… I wear my coat in the car and I run the heater in the car. Then I get acclimated to warm air AND the coat. So, when I go into some places to eat after being in my warm car, it feels cold to me even though the temperature is perfectly reasonable. It may be 20-30 minutes before I take my coat off because of this.

Val, on the other hand, never wears a coat in the car, and she sheds the coat as soon as we're inside a building.

That's my theory, anyway.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@William G.

Wearing your wintercoat by driving your car, that is an absolutely normal thing, no question! Here in Germany, we have our 1,3/1,4/1,6 litres-four-cylinder-cars and if you want the car warmed nice, inside, you have to drive at least 10 kilometres, so you have to start your drive by wearing your coat/jacket, indeed.

And the next problem are todays cars, with their efficiency-optimized engines (with the balance-shafts for less vibration and the low-friction-oils), which are heating up slower than earlier engines. On my 1,4-litres-Kia Rio II (Rio 5) it has no sense, to adjust the heater to more than the beginning of the red scale. The engine produces not so much heat.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I usually keep my coat on while eating breakfast downtown because the seat I usually sit in is right by the door, and every time somebody comes in, I get a blast of cold air. I like that seat, though, because it's at the end of the counter and it gives me room to spread out my newspaper, so keeping the coat on is the best option. I do, however, unbutton the coat because otherwise I'll drip eggs on it, and I hate dry-cleaning bills.

As far as car heat goes, my car is never heated up fully by the time I get to work, so I don't even bother to turn the heater on.

 

[William G.]

@William G.

Wearing your wintercoat by driving your car, that is an absolutely normal thing, no question! Here in Germany, we have our 1,3/1,4/1,6 litres-four-cylinder-cars and if you want the car warmed nice, inside, you have to drive at least 10 kilometres, so you have to start your drive by wearing your coat/jacket, indeed.

And the next problem are todays cars, with their efficiency-optimized engines (with the balance-shafts for less vibration and the low-friction-oils), which are heating up slower than earlier engines. On my 1,4-litres-Kia Rio II (Rio 5) it has no sense, to adjust the heater to more than the beginning of the red scale. The engine produces not so much heat.

That's a good point, and I hadn't thought about that. My dad has restored a couple of old cars from the '50s and those old heaters get extremely warm compared to newer cars. It does seem, unless I'm making a long trip, that my car only gets warm about the time I get where I'm going.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My '41 Dodge heats up twice as fast as my '99 Subaru -- I think it may simply be a matter of a six cylinder engine with a big radiator versus a four cylinder engine with a small radiator.

 

[2jakes]

That's a good point, and I hadn't thought about that. My dad has restored a couple of old cars from the '50s and those old heaters get extremely warm compared to newer cars. It does seem, unless I'm making a long trip, that my car only gets warm about the time I get where I'm going.

This is probably weird, but I put my towels & clothes in the dryer. It feels great to put on the warm
toasty clothes after a morning shower.
I would rather take a hot bath in the morning but I find it very difficult to get out & my mind starts to
think of reasons to call in sick or ways to justify that I can’t come in today for work.

My VW beetle takes a bit to warm up .
But I’m ok, because the last thing I take out of the dryer is my jacket, gloves
& blanket.

 

[Trenchfriend]

My beloved Kia Sephia 1.6, with its "Mazda B6"-engine-type still was a classic real good heater of the 90's. Classic semi-synthetic 10W40-motoroil, no balance-shaft and yes, the engine heated up circa twice as fast, than the 1.4-engine of the Kia Rio II. You could use the heater fully, if you wanted.

By driving the Rio II, with its ultra-silent, minimum to no-vibrating, still cambelt-driven 1,4-engine (!), you really have the feeling of driving a non-vibrating boxer-engine like Subaru or Porsche. Generally very relaxing, I tell you!

But a further car-problem on winter is, that often these thermostatic-valves opens to early to the cooling-circle!

 

[Fading Fast]

This is probably weird, but I put my towels & clothes in the dryer. It feels great to put on the warm
toasty clothes after a morning shower.
I would rather take a hot bath in the morning but I find it very difficult to get out & my mind starts to
think of reasons to call in sick or ways to justify that I can’t come in today for work.

My VW beetle takes a bit to warm up .
But I’m ok, because the last thing I take out of the dryer is my jacket, gloves
& blanket.

We live in an old apartment with old style radiators, so we put our close on top of those before showering so that they are nice an toasty when we put them on. We have an old wall-mounted radiator in the bathroom that is prefect for hanging towels over - sometimes old technology has its advantages.

 

[2jakes]

^^^
I like the old tech as far as keeping warm. But I have a friend who has it so hot inside the house that it
is uncomfortable & difficult to breathe. Worse is another who is a chain-smoker. I hardly visit for obvious
reasons.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^
I like the old tech as far as keeping warm. But I have a friend who has it so hot inside the house that it
is uncomfortable & difficult to breathe. Worse is another who is a chain-smoker. I hardly visit for obvious
reasons.

I cannot go into smokers homes. Not only can't I stand the air when I'm there, but I hate the smell that is on one's clothes, hair, etc. afterwards. It simply is too unpleasant for me to do it. To each his own.

 

[2jakes]

I cannot go into smokers homes. Not only can't I stand the air when I'm there, but I hate the smell that is on one's clothes, hair, etc. afterwards. It simply is too unpleasant for me to do it. To each his own.

Totally agree !

 

[Trenchfriend]

^^^
I like the old tech as far as keeping warm. But I have a friend who has it so hot inside the house that it
is uncomfortable & difficult to breathe. Worse is another who is a chain-smoker. I hardly visit for obvious
reasons.

Yeah, real classic. Overheated room on wintertime, dry air, under 35% humidity.

Better, to heat not that much, hold the humidity in your living room over 40%, if possible, and wear a nice warming flannel-shirt or so. The mucouse-membran on your nose will thank you.
I think, a (digital) hygrometer is one of the most important things, to have in your household.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Homes in New England are almost universally oil-fired forced-hot-air heat, which leads to a very very dry wintertime environment -- you get used to the occasional sharp sound of wood cracking from the dryness, and unless you like to watch pieces of yourself flaking away as you walk across the room, you buy hand and body lotion by the case. And that's with the thermostat set at 65.

You can spend a ton of money on humidifiers that get moldy and break down every couple of years, or you can do like I do and leave a pan of water on the heat register in your kitchen and bedroom. As long as you remember to refill it when it goes dry, it helps make the winters a bit more tolerable.

Of course, the 90 percent humidity we get in the summer averages out the dry winters. Then instead of wood cracking you hear the sound of people swearing because all their doors and windows are swollen shut.

 

[Fading Fast]

Homes in New England are almost universally oil-fired forced-hot-air heat, which leads to a very very dry wintertime environment -- you get used to the occasional sharp sound of wood cracking from the dryness, and unless you like to watch pieces of yourself flaking away as you walk across the room,...

It was quite a surprise, shock and signpost for me when my skin started doing that in my late 30s. "What me, use moisturizer, please," now I use it everyday or, as you so poignantly put it, flakes of me float off if I don't. . That said, I'll take dry heat over summer humidity any day.

 

[Zombie_61]

...My VW beetle takes a bit to warm up...

Everyone I know who has ever owned a Volkswagen with an air-cooled engine learned pretty quickly that warm air in the passenger cabin is mostly a matter of wishful thinking. And you must have a squeegee handy to clear the "fog" from the windshield on cold and rainy days.

 

[Edward]

I always think of those stark all-white interiors as looking like cheap rentals. No character at all.

The 'buy to let' crowd in the UK are notorious for his and anyone else whose primary interest in property is as an investment. The whole deal is to depersonalise it as much as possible, as apparently thst makes it worth more....

During dinner last night a friend and I had a brief discussion about the probability that even restaurant menus will someday be replaced by some form of electronic version. We're both currently in our mid-50s, and I gave 50/50 odds on whether or not it would happen during our lifetimes.

I've already seen it, both here in London and Beijing. Typically it sends the order direct to the kitchens. Can be great, all depending on how well laid out it is.

I think the tipping point will come when you have a generation of people who learned to read on screens instead of on paper, because the actual mechanics of reading are different between the two formats. When you're reading from a printed book, you're focusing your eyes in a specific way on a specific page layout which is quite different from the process of reading on a screen. When a generation arises that finds reading from a printed book to be as tiring and unnatural as some of us find reading off a screen, that will be the end of the line for books.

That and cost. Not always the case, but many academic texts are much cheaper in ebook form. Myv undergrads, at least 80% of them, already take all their notes on a laptop. Not a big jump to do all their readong on one too.

It is well to remember that a lot of the earliest rules on table manners were there for hygienic reasons just as much as they were for social differentiation. In German, for example, one of the early sets of rules is the Hofzucht by the Minnesinger known as Tannhäuser written about 1250. For example it admonishes: do not drink too much, don't speak with your mouth full of food, don't put the bones back into the serving bowl, don't use your fingers for the mustard or sauce, don't blow your nose into the table cloth or hand, and don't blow into a hot drink. This last rule makes sense as drinking vessels were often shared between diners. The eating fork did not yet exist.

True... In the UK, though, 99% of these rules are solely about perpetuating the in/out crowd.

I live in the mid-Atlantic. I am frequently amazed at seeing young people wearing t-shirts and basketball shorts, and even men older than me (see photo) wearing shorts and golf shirts when the temperature is in the 40's or 50's. Of course I don't know, but I imagine that it's some kind of dysfunctional machismo at work.

Even so, men over sixty don't need to be wearing shorts in public unless they are at a beach.

Change that to "men over sixteen" and we're in agreement!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Everyone I know who has ever owned a Volkswagen with an air-cooled engine learned pretty quickly that warm air in the passenger cabin is mostly a matter of wishful thinking. And you must have a squeegee handy to clear the "fog" from the windshield on cold and rainy days.

I spent two winters -- real Maine winters, as in below zero -- driving a '69 Beetle thirty-four miles to work at 4 AM. I kept a pair of heavy woolen hunting socks in the glove compartment as protection against frostbite, which was a very real danger on these trips.

I kept a long handled ice scraper in the back seat -- when it sleeted I'd often have to reach out the window and scrape the ice off the outside of the windshield so I'd have some idea of where I was going. I'd do this while the car was in motion, which was ever so much fun.