So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[HanauMan]

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.

Good luck on that, buddy.

I lived in small apartments my entire life until I became tired of that lifestyle and bought a small duplex with a grass garden. Sitting in the grass, and cutting it, were a novelty and fun.....for a while. Now, twice a month over the summer you'll hear me whining "I don't wanna mow that darn lawn again!".

 

[LizzieMaine]

I hate yard work with a flaming passion. I get dirty looks from my new neighbors, whose lawn is manicured like a pool table, but I don't care. I let the weeds grow high, and the bees and the butterflies like it, and I mow the grass maybe three or four times a summer and let it go at that. I don't have "soil," I have a sixth of an acre of old coal ashes and clinkers skimmed with a light dusting of dirt, and weeds are the only thing that will grow there anyway.

 

[Trenchfriend]

and weeds are the only thing that will grow there anyway.

There's your next idea for getting money (21+ people in Maine)!

 

[Edward]

Good luck on that, buddy.

I lived in small apartments my entire life until I became tired of that lifestyle and bought a small duplex with a grass garden. Sitting in the grass, and cutting it, were a novelty and fun.....for a while. Now, twice a month over the summer you'll hear me whining "I don't wanna mow that darn lawn again!".

Yeah, I think we'll be going for paving and decking.... seems to be the norm in the majority of houses we're looking at already. I don't mind the idea of mowing a small lawn if needsbe, but I'd never have the patience to plant and weed flowers and such.

 

[Harp]

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.

Foyles book shop is no longer on Charing Cross right?

 

[Edward]

Foyles book shop is no longer on Charing Cross right?

Foyles is still in business, but it moved a few doors up to a different building a few years ago. Still a great shop, but it doesn't have quite the same charm as the original building, which was eventually demolished in 2017 despite many protests.

 

[HudsonHawk]

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

Genuine synthetic leather!

Along those same lines are people who list everything as "vintage". One of my more recent hobbies has been trying to get into old hi-fi equipment and trying my hand at electronics repair. I'll search eBay or Craigslist for old turntables or amplifiers or what have you, and I'm constantly running into advertisements that say things like "vintage turntable! highly collectible!". Ummm...you bought that last year, and I can buy a brand new one for less than you're trying to sell that piece of junk. Who do you think you're fooling, buster?

 

[HudsonHawk]

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.

Working in the oil patch, we'll occasionally run across an old piece of steel pipe or valve or flange that was made in Germany in the 1930s that is stamped with a swastika or other Nazi symbols. It's sobering. Such pieces are highly collectible, though they don't interest me at all.

 

[GHT]

Why is everyone whinging about gardening? My garden is beautifully sculptured, weeded, watered, pruned and gorgeous. Can't remember the last time I did anything to it though. We have a couple of gardening fairies see to it, a husband & wife team, and what a grand job they make of it. My missus likes to design various borders and flower beds, but our gardeners keep it looking pristine.

 

[tonyb]

I hate yard work with a flaming passion. I get dirty looks from my new neighbors, whose lawn is manicured like a pool table, but I don't care. I let the weeds grow high, and the bees and the butterflies like it, and I mow the grass maybe three or four times a summer and let it go at that. I don't have "soil," I have a sixth of an acre of old coal ashes and clinkers skimmed with a light dusting of dirt, and weeds are the only thing that will grow there anyway.

Anything that might accurately be called a lawn in this semi-arid climate with wild temperature swings requires lots of watering. Lots.

We, like many here, have an in-ground sprinkler system. But we don’t use it. The first year we lived here the sprinkler guy I called in for its autumnal blowout informed that the system wasn’t up to current code and that it had leaks. Making it “right” would cost more than we will pay.

I use a sprinkler in the front yard during the hottest and driest periods and just let the fenced-in backyard grass survive as best it can without supplemental watering. Our two smallish dogs romp around in that backyard and poop and pee back there and do that digging with their rear paws thing that dogs do after they’ve made their deposits. So, you know, it ain’t exactly a putting green.

I’d rather have the dogs and the small water bill than a manicured lawn.

 

[3fingers]

Genuine synthetic leather!

I'm sure you remember the popularity of naugahyde in the '70s. Apparently there wasn't a large enough population of Naugas to support the demand since it became extremely rare pretty quickly.

 

[Edward]

Genuine synthetic leather!

Along those same lines are people who list everything as "vintage". One of my more recent hobbies has been trying to get into old hi-fi equipment and trying my hand at electronics repair. I'll search eBay or Craigslist for old turntables or amplifiers or what have you, and I'm constantly running into advertisements that say things like "vintage turntable! highly collectible!". Ummm...you bought that last year, and I can buy a brand new one for less than you're trying to sell that piece of junk. Who do you think you're fooling, buster?

True vintage hifi, though, is a thing of real beauty. For me, the sweet-spot is the seventies: beautiful design, high quality sound, and well looked after the value will only go up (unlike the 1990s stack system I'm currently clearing out.... it was my pride and joy when I got it for my eighteenth; twenty-seven years later, it's time for the old girl to be euthanised. Early 70s transistorised hifi is hard to beat. While I'm inevitably going to use modern stuff for the peripherals (including the speakers, as a Higher Power vetoed the idea of Celestion 66s with 12" drivers....), the heart of my new system is a 1978 Pioneer sx890 (would love a Marantz 7210, but they're much rarer over here than in the US). At the minute I have a seventies direct drive Sony TT, but in time I'll be buying the 2016 version of the Rega Planar III - a table which hasn't changed all the much since its original 70s incarnation. The 70s was the first era of really good quality hifi, imo - after that, sound quality could be had a bit cheaper, but unless you spend crazy money now you'll never get the beauty or the physical build quality of the 70s stuff...

Working in the oil patch, we'll occasionally run across an old piece of steel pipe or valve or flange that was made in Germany in the 1930s that is stamped with a swastika or other Nazi symbols. It's sobering. Such pieces are highly collectible, though they don't interest me at all.

I've always been interested in bits from any side as historical artefacts, but yeah, there's something weird about it when you're looking at everyday, domestic stuff, when you realise this wasn't the tool of either the True Believer or the poor bugger conscript on the other side, but the kind of thing that would have been commonplace had 'they' won.

 

[3fingers]

Working in the oil patch, we'll occasionally run across an old piece of steel pipe or valve or flange that was made in Germany in the 1930s that is stamped with a swastika or other Nazi symbols. It's sobering. Such pieces are highly collectible, though they don't interest me at all.

I have run onto a few of those too.
There are a fair number items from the Crane foundry here in America from the early 20th century up until the nazi's came along that included a swastika cast or stamped into the piece. It originally was supposed to be for good luck. Obviously that went by the wayside after the nazi's appropriated it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The swastika was very very common in the US up until the mid-thirties as a generic "Indian" symbol -- you'd often see a cartoon of a Native American sitting in front of a wigwam with a swastika pattern on it, or a souvenir Indian blanket woven with a swastika border, or a novelty "lucky coin" with a swastika stamped on it. The insignia of the Army's 45th Infantry Division -- a unit first organized in Oklahoma, the former "Indian Territory" -- carried forward this theme:

That insignia didn't get changed until 1939 -- which shows how deeply ingrained the symbol was before the Nazis got hold of it.

 

[ChrisB]

Two observations for Labor Day:

Six hot dogs and eight rolls, you would have to buy 24 to make it come out even.

The supermarket started selling Halloween stuff two weeks ago.

 

[Zombie_61]

Two observations for Labor Day:

Six hot dogs and eight rolls, you would have to buy 24 to make it come out even...

There are exceptions, of course, but around here hot dogs are generally packaged in quantities of ten and buns in quantities of eight. So you would have to buy four packs of dogs and five packs of buns to even them out. I like hot dogs, but not that much.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I’m reminded of a sign in the Green Lantern Tavern reading ...

24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case
Coincidence?

 

[EngProf]

The swastika was very very common in the US up until the mid-thirties as a generic "Indian" symbol -- you'd often see a cartoon of a Native American sitting in front of a wigwam with a swastika pattern on it, or a souvenir Indian blanket woven with a swastika border, or a novelty "lucky coin" with a swastika stamped on it. The insignia of the Army's 45th Infantry Division -- a unit first organized in Oklahoma, the former "Indian Territory" -- carried forward this theme:

That insignia didn't get changed until 1939 -- which shows how deeply ingrained the symbol was before the Nazis got hold of it.

I remember seeing a ~1932 Western in which the Indian character had a headband with a row of Swastikas on it. Even though I consciously know the history of the symbol, I couldn't resist thinking, "Wow! A Nazi Indian!

 

[Edward]

Re fake leather, "PU leather" is an increasingly common term on UK ebay (as well as ecommerce sites more generally). I think that should be banned- surely it's like saying "vegetarian beef"? I know that food hygiene and licensing bodies in the UK object to Halal places if they advertise "bacon" or "haM",unless they make it clear in their listings that it's a chicken or turkey-based subsitute. Which I think it fair enough. There must be people who don't necessarily click that pu leather means polyurethane, i.e. not leather at all. I'd be furious if I thought I was buying real leather only to have a plastic-product turn up.

The swastika was very very common in the US up until the mid-thirties as a generic "Indian" symbol -- you'd often see a cartoon of a Native American sitting in front of a wigwam with a swastika pattern on it, or a souvenir Indian blanket woven with a swastika border, or a novelty "lucky coin" with a swastika stamped on it. The insignia of the Army's 45th Infantry Division -- a unit first organized in Oklahoma, the former "Indian Territory" -- carried forward this theme:

That insignia didn't get changed until 1939 -- which shows how deeply ingrained the symbol was before the Nazis got hold of it.

Somewhere I have photos from a work trip to Bangalore in 2010, showing a Hindu temple covered in swastikas. Typically in India they are the reverse of what we're used to seeing, but it's interesting to see that there is one part of the world where the symbol wasn't irredeemably degraded by the Hitlerists.

 

[HudsonHawk]

True vintage hifi, though, is a thing of real beauty. For me, the sweet-spot is the seventies: beautiful design, high quality sound, and well looked after the value will only go up (unlike the 1990s stack system I'm currently clearing out.... it was my pride and joy when I got it for my eighteenth; twenty-seven years later, it's time for the old girl to be euthanised. Early 70s transistorised hifi is hard to beat. While I'm inevitably going to use modern stuff for the peripherals (including the speakers, as a Higher Power vetoed the idea of Celestion 66s with 12" drivers....), the heart of my new system is a 1978 Pioneer sx890 (would love a Marantz 7210, but they're much rarer over here than in the US). At the minute I have a seventies direct drive Sony TT, but in time I'll be buying the 2016 version of the Rega Planar III - a table which hasn't changed all the much since its original 70s incarnation. The 70s was the first era of really good quality hifi, imo - after that, sound quality could be had a bit cheaper, but unless you spend crazy money now you'll never get the beauty or the physical build quality of the 70s stuff...

I agree about 70s hi-fi equipment. It was the perfect combination of style and substance. I have a couple of early 70s receivers that I've reconditioned, a Sansui 8080 and a Marantz 2230. The 2230 is sort of the entry into their top-end stuff at the time, and it doesn't have as much power as other offerings, but it's considered by many to be the best *sounding* receiver Marantz ever made. It sure sounds sweet. And you're right, 70s gear in decent condition (and even in non-working condition) is getting ridiculously expensive. A fully functional Marantz 2270 (same receiver as the 2230 but with more power) is going for about $2,000. I picked up the 2230 I have from a local ad for $150 because not everything was working. A little Deoxit, re-soldering, and a little elbow grease got in shape again (luckily I didn't have to replace any major parts). Fixed up the cosmetics, cleaned up everything, replaced the lamps, etc, and it looks pretty spiffy, and I could probably get $400-500 for it today. I have a recently made Orbit turntable, a no frills belt-drive made right here in the good ol' US of A, and it sounds pretty good through my Canadian-made Paradigm speakers from the 80s. Of course, the Holy Grail of 70s home hi-fi speakers are the JBL L100s, but those are crazy money, and even the re-issues are out of most peoples' budget. I reckon I'll continue to search garage sales and local ads for cheap stuff to work on. It's been pretty fun expanding my electronics skills, and it makes the music more enjoyable.