So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

George McManus has a lot to answer for.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I haven't figured out the quote feature and must have Dennis' comment floating around someplace, but don't have time to seek it out now. Lines (queue to some of you) have gone through a strange change in Colorado over the last 24 months or so. We've had a very large influx of new people moving here, so it must be a norm in some other region, but I cant stand it. We have always formed a line around here standing fairly close to the person ahead of us. We don't tap them on the back of their head with our brim, but would have to take a half step back if someone asked to be excused to pass between us. More and more I run across people who, when they're the next person up for the cashier, stand back five or six feet, as if they're at the bank with a sign saying "wait here for the next available teller." I mean, really, what are they thinking? They're back almost to the aisles, so instead of everyone else knowing how or where to form an orderly single line, you get people lining up in three, maybe four aisles, and blocking other people from the product they came for. It's crazy!
I wish I was younger (bigger wouldn't hurt either) so I would have more gravitas confronting them. I can hear them starting the conversation when they get home, "Some crazy old guy in a hat..."
(I did spot the quote button directly below)

 

[The Jackal]

I haven't figured out the quote feature ...
(I did spot the quote button directly below)

its actually the "reply" button you are looking for. I hit the "+quote" button once and couldn't figure out what it was I did.

 

[tonyb]

...

Tell that to the folks who think it belongs to somebody called "St Patty" - whoever she is. (Maybe she is the lady who convinced the US that the Irish all eat "corned beef and cabbage", and drink watered down green beer? ).

Over here in God’s Country “Saint Paddy” is more commonly used. My understanding is that it is a holdover from when “Paddy” was something of a slur aimed at Irish immigrants. (That, and “Mick” were the most common disparaging terms.) It appears that the Irish adopted it, after a fashion, and that took the sting out of it.

I have no recollection of anyone taking offense at “Paddy,” although my birth post-dates the famine by about a century, so there’s a fair amount of New Country history at play there.

Ballard, the historically Scandinavian district in Seattle, was once colloquially called “Snus Junction,” a reference to the habit of some workers in the cedar shingle mills that lined Salmon Bay to chew their tobacco, as smoking was prohibited in the mills. The phrase is rarely heard anymore, and even when it was, no one in my memory ever took offense at it. The last of the mills shut down more than half a century ago, and you’re quite unlikely to hear any Scandinavian tongue spoken on the streets of Ballard these days.

I was once taken to task for referring in print to Rainier Valley, another district in Seattle, as “Garlic Gulch.” The person taking offense was the first and only person in my recollection ever to voice an objection to referring to the historically Italian district by that name.

Saint Patrick’s Day in the U. S. is mostly an excuse to drink too much. And to hold sales on appliances and granite countertops and all those other things that have not a ****ing thing to do with Ireland.

Cinco de Mayo is fast becoming another such observance. So grab your sombrero and gather up la señora y el niños and head on down to Big John’s Appliance Depot!

 

[LizzieMaine]

If you think that's bad, there's an obnoxious furniture dealer in Maine that blankets all local TV channels with mind-numblingly stupid commercials for whatever holiday promotion they've got going. The cake was taken once and for all by this year's "Martin Luther King Mattress Special."

And late-stage capitalism marches on.

 

[tonyb]

If you think that's bad, there's an obnoxious furniture dealer in Maine that blankets all local TV channels with mind-numblingly stupid commercials for whatever holiday promotion they've got going. The cake was taken once and for all by this year's "Martin Luther King Mattress Special."

And late-stage capitalism marches on.

Locally produced TV ads are often so cheesy, with such amateurish production values, that a person might be left to think it’s deliberate.

There’s one here for a cremation service that’s so hokey it leaves a person fearing he’d be left medium rare while the crew went to the company picnic.

But again, those ads are memorable, so perhaps that’s the point. Like bratty kids, they get attention any way they can. I can name but one cremation service, and it’s the one with the cheesy ads.

And I’m obviously not a native Spanish speaker.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Saint Patrick’s Day in the U. S. is mostly an excuse to drink too much. And to hold sales on appliances and granite countertops and all those other things that have not a ****ing thing to do with Ireland.

Cinco de Mayo is fast becoming another such observance. So grab your sombrero and gather up la señora y el niños and head on down to Big John’s Appliance Depot!

In this part of southern California Cinco de Mayo is, and has been for as long as I can remember, the bigger of the two "holidays" because of the large Latino population. Truth be told I don't notice much of a difference other than everyone is "Mexican" on one day and "Irish" on the other, but my wife and I rarely drink alcohol so we aren't participants. Alcohol consumption, barbecues, and cheesy "appliance sale" commercials are de rigueur on both days, so I suppose the only real difference is which country's flag is displayed in those commercials.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Just a timely reminder that there are only 257 shopping days left before christmas.

 

[Edward]

I hit the "+quote" button once and couldn't figure out what it was I did.

If, as you scroll through the thread, you see a post or several to which you want to reply, click on the quote button, then when you're ready to reply you simply go to the reply box and click on 'add quotes'.. That brings up a list of all the posts you quoted, and lets you choose which ones to address (sometimes one has become irrelevant during the course of a long thread), so you can delete it). Then you just reply as normal, except that you can address multiple posts within a single posting (up to a maximum of 5,000 characters).

Over here in God’s Country “Saint Paddy” is more commonly used. My understanding is that it is a holdover from when “Paddy” was something of a slur aimed at Irish immigrants. (That, and “Mick” were the most common disparaging terms.) It appears that the Irish adopted it, after a fashion, and that took the sting out of it.

Paddy would be the common one in Ireland. The main pet names for Patrick in Ireland would be Pat or Paddy, with Paddy alays being the big one for St Paddy. "Patty" is a girls' name (from the female Patricia), though not one I've ever heard used in Ireland. That's an Americanism which rather grates when wielded with assumed authority by Americans ho think they're Irish because grandma ate a potato once.... The other bugbear is the inevitable "four leaf clover", when in reality St Patrick is represented by the Shamrock (the three parts to the leaf on this native Irish plant being associated with the Saint because he is reputed to have used it to explain the Trinity).

I have no recollection of anyone taking offense at “Paddy,” although my birth post-dates the famine by about a century, so there’s a fair amount of New Country history at play there.

I think in Britain a lot depends on the tone of voice it's spoken in. (Much like the English have long called themselves Brits as a temr of endearment, whereas in West Belfast it's anything but! ) Mick was exclusively a term of abuse here. Fortunately "white n****r", apparently at one time used by British troops to refer to one Northern Ireland community in particular, never caught on.

Saint Patrick’s Day in the U. S. is mostly an excuse to drink too much. And to hold sales on appliances and granite countertops and all those other things that have not a ****ing thing to do with Ireland.

It's the ame in England - and, truth be told, parts of Ireland itself too.

Cinco de Mayo is fast becoming another such observance. So grab your sombrero and gather up la señora y el niños and head on down to Big John’s Appliance Depot!

Heh. I quite enjoy the range of festivals like tat that come up in multicultral areas. I'd love to see more of the Day of the Dead, though there isn't much of a Meican community in London that I'm aware of.

Locally produced TV ads are often so cheesy, with such amateurish production values, that a person might be left to think it’s deliberate.

Back in the eighties, in Northern Ireland the local channel 3 franchise, UTV, used to regularly have ads for local businesses which consisted of a photograph of the business in question, and a voiceover by the same continuity announcer as was doing the shows that evening as well. Always dreadful copy, half of it ripped off from bigger, more popular ads of the time...

 

[Harp]

Office taking bets this morning on how long Darvish lasts tonite. One or two, maybe three innings....

 

[GHT]

Tell that to the folks who think it belongs to somebody called "St Patty" - whoever she is. (Maybe she is the lady who convinced the US that the Irish all eat "corned beef and cabbage", and drink watered down green beer? ).

What's with the watered down green beer? I've not heard of that one. What I do have a whinge with though is the way Coors bought the distribution rights to Caffrey's then ceased to distribute it throughout the US. At the same time Caffrey's on draught started to disappear from UK pubs. You can get it in pressurised cans, but that's a pale imitation of the original. Is it one of those General Motors Street Car conspiracies?

 

[The Jackal]

What's with the watered down green beer? I've not heard of that one.

Its not a thing everywhere. I'd never heard of them doing it growing up, and only first heard of it when I got stationed near Savannah, GA. But I'm told that Savannah is a major party city at St Patrick's day and that people travel there from all over the country, so that may have something to do with it.

I don't think anywhere near where I live now did it this year.

Depending on which urban legend you believe, it either started when a doctor of some sort added a chemical dye used in textiles to a batch of beer (potentially to poison it), or when a bartender at a different venue put arsenic in the beer. Both of these events had reporters covering them, and most people attribute that media exposure to the rise in popularity of green beer.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The dye in question was most likely simple laundry bluing, that stuff your grandmother used to create the illusion that her sheets were white. It's highly concentrated, and a few drops are enough to turn a whole barrel of yellow beer green.

Bluing is usually made with "Prussian blue," which is generally considered to be non-toxic, even though it's a form of cyanide salt. If anything it probably wasn't any more toxic than the beer.

Given that New England is heavily populated by the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" crowd, the green beer flows copiously out of the taps, down the gullets, and up again into the gutters every March 17th. You get used to it.

My mother was born on March 17th, and her name is, in fact, "Patty." So we just assume that St. Patty refers to her, even though she's a Methodist.

 

[GHT]

Given that New England is heavily populated by the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" crowd, the green beer flows copiously out of the taps, down the gullets, and up again into the gutters every March 17th. You get used to it.

To which if The Bard had been born unto The Emerald Isle he may, or may not have said:
Enjoy thy booze on our saint's day,
but heed thou this cautious warning,
if thou shoulds't drinketh to much ale,
thou shalt puketh in the morning.

 

[tonyb]

March 17 was my maternal grandfather’s favorite day of the year, for reasons I will never know. If it is ever disclosed that he (and we) have any Irish blood, it’ll come as a complete surprise.

He died on Saint Patrick’s Day, 1989.

 

[tonyb]

It has come to my attention that we have yet another commercially exploitable annual observance: Siblings Day, which, as it happens, is this very day, April 10.

I trust my surviving siblings will forgive my having overlooked it.

 

[Artifex]

If every day, week and month dedicated to a special cause were laid end-to-end, we should have a very long year indeed...

 

[LizzieMaine]

The tradition of the "Hallmark Holiday" started with Mother's Day, which was a scheme to sell greeting cards and flowers. And guilt.

 

[tonyb]

A since-deceased woman of my acquaintance, who was an old gal back when we knew each other, kept regular company, pretty much nightly, with Mr. Jim Beam. She was fun to have around.

On one of her later birthdays a friend presented her with a greeting card titled something like “For the Woman Who Drinks Only on Special Occasions.”

It was a booklet, really, with an entry after every date on the calendar telling of whichever saint or occupational category or whatever was to be honored on that day.

It always the 5 o’clock hour somewhere.

 

[EngProf]

The dye in question was most likely simple laundry bluing, that stuff your grandmother used to create the illusion that her sheets were white. It's highly concentrated, and a few drops are enough to turn a whole barrel of yellow beer green.

Bluing is usually made with "Prussian blue," which is generally considered to be non-toxic, even though it's a form of cyanide salt. If anything it probably wasn't any more toxic than the beer.

Given that New England is heavily populated by the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" crowd, the green beer flows copiously out of the taps, down the gullets, and up again into the gutters every March 17th. You get used to it.

My mother was born on March 17th, and her name is, in fact, "Patty." So we just assume that St. Patty refers to her, even though she's a Methodist.

I give up...
Why would ANYBODY put laundry bluing in their beer to begin with? How would anybody know that anything other than possible suicide would result?
If someone knew in advance what to expect, I am very impressed with their knowledge of chemistry.

Somehow it reminds me of that scene in "No Time for Sergeants" in which Will Stockdale's pals put lighter fluid in his drink so it will taste more like his uncle's moonshine that he is used to - which has a bit of kerosene added "for flavor".