How have you mistakenly offended people recently?

1. I told the grocery store cashier thanks a lot and she said WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME? and I said I said THANKS A LOT and she said whoah, I thought you said something else. I think I know what she thought I said, but seriously, what kind of person winds up two minutes of chatting about debit cards and poblano peppers by saying THANKS, SLUT?

2. I was eating a grapefruit on the way to work, and since there was no trash bin on one corner I dropped a bit of rind down a storm drain. Some lady tsked me for littering. I know it's not an optimal disposal situation but it's like fruit down a drain, so I don't know that it merits a ton of criticism.

You eat grapefruit on the go? I usually have to stand over the sink.

loool @ 1

Chicago: Grapefruit On The Go

"like fruit down a drain" is what my grandfather always said when i let opportunities pass me by

ha, Jaymc, it was my first time, and it was worth it

I think I was too sharp with some lady at a store in Whitehall last week. People move slowly there, and when my mom "volunteered" me for a shop lady's help (which I didn't need), the lady started dragging me around the store pointing out things I hated and I just cut her off.

She also asked if "mid-century Danish modern" was anything like "shabby chic", so you can maybe see where that was going.

I'm going to start saying "thanks slut" & see if anyone catches on.

adding insult to gratitude is a big look in '09, i can feel it

i sent out a pitch to some journalists a couple weeks ago offering up a few of our clients as experts & got a response back from a writer at a top ten paper looking to speak to a specific talent, who was at that point too busy with his actual job to do interviews. i told her that the guy was busy, and maybe we could set her up with someone else; she SNAPPED at me with a whole "ive never heard of this guy and now youre telling me hes too busy etc etc." i had to backtrack very carefully--she assumed (as most journalists would) that i meant "too busy" as in "too busy w/ media appearances."

she just sounds like a dbag tbh

thought that said "adding insult to grapefruit". xxpost

thanks, dbag

i think most mistaken offenses can be chalked up to the offended party being arbitrary assholes who are just looking to get pissed about something

i wonder if the rind is out to sea yet

dammit I already picked my username for the week

i think most mistaken offenses can be chalked up to the offended party being arbitrary assholes who are just looking to get pissed about something

Yep.

- said excuse me, EXCUSE ME, PARDON ME increasingly loudly to a bunch of tourists who I'm pretty sure didn't speak English and only got out of the way because they were scared by my yelling

- cursed mildly at headset-wearing type on film crew in park because she wouldn't let me walk down the path I wanted even though other people were freely walking down from the other direction. (I took the suggested detour but then walked back up the path from the other direction until I was right behind her, and it took a lot of self-control not to tap her on the shoulder and get all Larry David about it.)

haha this thread is just going to become "fights Nabisco had with people mostly in his head"

that second story sounds more like you being offended than her, nbs

not me but a friend of mine got into the unwinnable 'lets guess ages' game with some people at this bar saturday night. he lowballed this one lady with a '31' and she was 27....... oops.

it's a fail to even enter into one of those games

hahahahaha one of my coworkers did that to an office mate's date at a holiday party a couple of years ago; he told this 21-year-old woman she looked like she was over 30 and it was magical

not me but a friend of mine got into the unwinnable 'lets guess ages' game with some people at this bar saturday night. he lowballed this one lady with a '31' and she was 27....... oops.

This isn't quite the same as that, but I once told a woman in a club who'd started talking to me that "you don't look 30" after she'd told me that that was her age. She looked 40.

not me but a friend of mine got into the unwinnable 'lets guess ages' game with some people at this bar saturday night.

not to mistakenly offend or anything but is your friend really stupid?

xps

Asking a guy to get out of a picture my friend was taking at pride ended with a guy shouting at me for being a homophobe and running away.

i think there's an age where women like to be told they look older and i think it stops around 21

not me but a friend of mine got into the unwinnable

i did that about 6 months ago. Except the girl was 21. So I put ten years on her. Oops.

looool a hoy hoy

I think I downplayed the "mildly cursing" part, Max -- she might not have been full-on "offended" but she definitely thought I was a crazypantsed jerk

not that stupid, just has a hot girlfriend. he dug his own grave but 31 seemed very safe at the time.

Once I met a friend-of-a-friend, who was generally a drunk sour bastard, and managed to take everything I said the wrong way. I just decided to not even hold a conversation, just reply to what he was saying. So he goes on some drunken rant about how he's actually a really nice guy, and some great thing he did. I said, "That's laudable," and he yells, 'SEE EVRYONE, SHE THINK'S THAT'S A LOTTA BULL!"

If you are in a bar playing the age-guessing game with women, the answer is ALWAYS "21", even if they are in a Rascal and are carrying an oxygen tank and a colostomy bag.

I'll remember that the next time I'm in a medical fetish bar...

Nabisco just ate a grapefruit for the first time recently?

once i was at a college bar talking to a girl and she asked me to guess how old i was and i said "21" and she leaned in and said, "17!"

did you show her your license after that?

how old she was rather

I am wondering if there are people who go around saying "THANKS, SLUT!"

this is reminding me that I recently saw what had to be, like, 15-year-old girls drinking in my neighborhood the other night. I don't know how these bars are running their business, but seriously, if a girl's still got braces, maybe try carding her

Hey, my wife had braces at 21 and so did one of her college roommates!

Also the Trapper Keeper was "ironic"

did she also weigh 90 pounds, have a wardrobe mostly from Hot Topic, and do lots of bouncing and giggling?

haha foiled by xpost

she probably didn't bring the Trapper Keeper to a bar, though ...

also, i would be offended by someone tsking me for something silly like accidentally dropping a grapefruit rind down a drain. but then again i don't generally like busybodies.

once some crazed middle-aged woman pursued me in her car down sunset blvd, i think because of an anti-war sticker i had on the bumper. she tried to spit at me but the spit was a little, uh, "thick" and it just kinda flopped out and stuck to her mouth and dribbled down onto her car door.

oh, it wasn't an accident, I tossed that rind on purpose

I may or may not have also shouted TAKE THAT, RIND

THANKS, SLUT

could have maybe been interpreted as "Think, slut!"

I learned that "oh hai, thank you for my awesome ticket which I will treasure all week, there is a guy running for this bus [still stopped but doors closed] but I'm sure you saw him, by the way thanks again" might be less likely than "could you open the doors" to make the driver shout at you for telling him what to do, but possibly not, as bus drivers are crotchety types, for largely understandable reasons

also I guess it is 3 years too late to say, "Thanks, slut. Thlut," so, yeah.

There probably are slutty grapefruit out there somewhere.

well, grapefruits ARE tart ...

also I guess it is 3 years too late to say, "Thanks, slut. Thlut," so, yeah.

― a passing spacecadet, Monday, 6 July 2009 19:46 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol it is never 3 years too late for this

Ruby Breakfast would be quite a good porn actress name imo

wait a minute, tomatoes and grapefruit now?!

also grapefruits are soft, pink and wet and explode in your mouth when eaten.

rind tossing

offended by how lame this thread is

Eisbaer I would feel better about both grapefruit and women if you'd used a word other than "explode" there

'fructify'

"go off"

I don't think it's any longer a mistake what you people are up to.

"enjuicify"

By "grapefruit rind" were you perhaps indicating the outer peel? That stuff doesn't decay very easily - it's too full of citrus oils - so that leaving pieces of it about is usually a bad idea. Not at all like apples or pears.

yeah, but it sounds like something birds or rats would eat along the way.

not something to get mistakenly offended by, either way.

If it's usually a bad idea, under what circumstances is it a good idea?

mass outbreak of scurvy amongst sewer mutants

xp Hi Dere: if you're secretly working for Chris Hansen.

littering is a srs pet peeve of mine. i have been known to yell at people on the street for it. sure, a grapefruit rind is easily biodegradable, but so is dog shit, and no one wants that lying around. a friend of mine "had to" yell at a dude last week, cuz after he picked up & bagged his dog's shit he just left it in the gutter. dude copped a serious attitude about their "not being a trash can" (when the next one was uh, two blocks away.) so imho, don't be lazy, just put your waste where it belongs.

their e_e there.

if dog shit smelled like grapefruit and didn't stick to your shoes i wouldn't give a rind where you left it.

I admit I have copped attitude about not being a trash can so I sort of see where dude was coming from.

i prefer to think of myself as a garbage disposal.

Carrying the dog shit bag is not a pleasant task, but I wouldn't just leave it in a gutter.

that's why the baggies exist, so you can transport the poop to the receptacle

Just to be clear, I dropped it down the drain, so it wasn't sitting out on the street. But yeah, I realize it's not an optimal situation.

Also yes, totally aware of the longevity of the outer peel, cause I have a piece of one from high school (long story) -- but this was like the inner rindy junk, peeled off the back of the section I'd just eaten. (I know there's a word for that, but I don't know what it is -- that's not "pith," is it?)

ooh tell us a story

Hahah btw I realize now that I had dog-poop baggies in my back pocket, so I suppose I could have technically used one of those to store it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithing

Wikipedia, you are a crepe

I think I angered this woman on Saturday when I applauded her and walked away after she mentioned that she doesn't own a television.

^^ I am applauding you and not going anywhere

was it rousing applause or a golf clap? Maybe you didn't applaud properly.

Was yr applause genuine or sarcastic?

Oh it was definitely sarcastic.

In my defense, I was just going inside to get a beer.

But I did stand up and take a step in her direction before I started applauding, so maybe that seemed confrontational.

*applause*

*leaves thread*

Get me a beer, omar.

I know someone like this who recently claimed not to have any idea who Dora the Explorer is and this is someone with a small kid. I was like really lady? Cartoon little girl with a bowl cup on backpacks everywhere - has a friend named Diego . . . ring any bells? Oh well we don't own a television. It was said in that way that insinuated that she was better for not doing so. Wish I'd thought to applaud and walk away tbh.

"bowl cut"

she is better imo

I only watch youtubes

wow good for you!

Wait, you sarcastically applauded someone and you think that "mistakenly" offended them poly?

TBH I own a TV I never watch, so.

we never got a converter box for our tv, so it's all dvds all the time. tbh i miss the law & order and fuzzy seinfeld.

I think I angered this woman on Saturday when I applauded her and walked away after she mentioned that she doesn't own a television.

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Monday, July 6, 2009 4:30 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omg poly <3

Wait, you sarcastically applauded someone and you think that "mistakenly" offended them poly?

It wasn't "mistaken" at all, true.

tbh my admiration of polyphonic entirely depends on the context of the utterance, and whether the woman was trying to score points or merely demurring her knowledge of television

Yeah, just because someone says that they don't own a TV, doesn't necessarily mean that they're trying to be smug or superior.

tbh my admiration of polyphonic entirely depends on the context of the utterance, and whether the woman was trying to score points or merely demurring her knowledge of television

I was having having a conversation with other folks about television, and she interjected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVhrIfaPKxw

well THEN it depends if she was part of the group having the conversation, and wanted something to say on the subject, or was simply butting in, having heard what was being discussed, to be all miss specialkins

LJ i applaud your tireless attempts to get to the bottom of this

xp ian - we have this old wood-paneled set that was being tossed out at my old job - many years ago. We don't have a converter box or cable or anything. We watch videotapes and dvds, some of which are television shows. Am I supposed to automatically be apologetic about this?

i start all casual conversations by stating my tv ownership status btw

Louis this woman was obvious being an idiot.

Yeah, just because someone says that they don't own a TV, doesn't necessarily mean that they're trying to be smug or superior.

― snoball, Monday, July 6, 2009 5:31 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

True but the kind of people who go out of their way to tell you this or interject as was the case with Poly often are trying to be smug and superior tbh.

and then i walk away from it xsxp[osts

"obviously" being . . .

Sometimes when people are talking about going to the bathroom I interject and say oh, I don't "go" to the "bathroom"

lol John how is that iPhone treating you

hahahaa

fwiw "i don't watch a lot of tv" is a bit less confrontational that "omg i don't even OWN a tv"

she is better imo

― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, July 6, 2009 3:40 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark

loooooooooooooooooooooooooool

what we talk about when talk to middlebrow pseuds

"i call it 'television' because 't.v.' is a nickname and nicknames are for friends and television... is NO friend of mine"

Is that because television can't dance?

Postscript: Later I won her over and she invited me to a party I will not be attending.

too busy watching tv?

xp enbb: It's just frustrating to me that it should come across this way or be assumed as a sign of smug superiority. I mean, I "waste" plenty of time on ILX. I certainly don't feel superior to those who "waste" time watching reality tv or other programs that aren't critically approved.

Guys she was clearly hitting on polyphonic. You were in there, man, before you slow-clapped her.

x-post Sarahel - not watching a lot of TV or watching mainly DVDs isn't the problem at all! It's people who do this AND make a point of telling you they do this in a way that is unquestionably smug. Trust me, if you'd heard the lady I was talking about earlier you would understand what I mean. There is no question that about whether or not she thinks she's superior for this - she does.

. . . and it's obnoxious.

too busy watching tv?

Quite possible!

Guys she was clearly hitting on polyphonic. You were in there, man, before you slow-clapped her.

She was pretty cute, but I'll live.

You should bring a TV to her party.

And by TV, we mean TransVestite

I was gonna say that some people have a way of saying this as if television were a disease, but to be honest nobody would butt into a conversation about Valtrex and go "I don't even have herpes"

I think the thing that's usually annoying about it is that some people simultaneously (a) are trying to act all casual like it's no big deal that they don't have a TV, which is 100% true, and yet (b) are clearly really proud of themselves about this and sort of fishing for your acknowledgment that it is brave and special and impressive of them not to have a TV.

FYI TO ALL

i dont have a tv

i swear we've done this "i don't even own a television" shit before.

You should bring VD to her party.

...a DVD

"but to be honest nobody would butt into a conversation about Valtrex and go "I don't even have herpes""

Too bad. This would be an awesome conversation starter.

just so you guys know ian does have a tv i saw it

You should bring VD to her party.

And by VD, we mean Vaginal Dentata

x-post Actually Max, he admitted as much already. Keep up.

]"but to be honest nobody would butt into a conversation about Valtrex and go "I don't even have herpes""

Maybe they'd give you the clap?

Not owning a television: c or d?

xp enbb: Yeah, that's true - there are people who trot it out as a badge of superiority, especially in the context of child-rearing. I just get frustrating feeling like I should be apologetic or deny feelings of superiority because I don't watch "regular" television, and the things that I do watch on dvd are the programs that are stereotypical of the smug "I don't watch tv, except for ..." people. I'm sure this is related to class/education guilt. I have friends that speak with pride about how they never went to college or they dropped out in a way that makes me feel like I'm some sort of privileged tool for going to college and graduating.

i am a robot made of tvs - feel pretty superior to all of u, obv

They should make something like purity rings, but for television

haaaaa snoball

brb, watching Lamp

TV PARTY TONITE!

pj tv party on the dl

I'm watching Big Brother...

my parents are ex hippy art student types and they used to be friends with a pair of real crunchos who refused to have a tv in their house and once my mom took me and the daughter of this couple to the library and the girl whose name was lucy went and grabbed a video off the shelf and gathered up all these children and told them were going to watch a move and then placed the video on the table and sat down expectantly

i offend people all the time by being polite. chivalry really is dead
but that's not what this threads about anymore, eh?

I sometimes watch stupid shit like Entourage on my bigger than it needs to be HD TV. I'm sure ilx hates me appropriately.

(xpost) It wasn't what it was about to start with

my parents wouldnt let me watch tv when i was a young robot either - thats why i remade myself as a tvbot

also i wanted to make a bring HD = hors d'oeuvre joke but the time seems to have passed

when I was 13 my mom came home early from work and my sisters and I were watching MTV and my mom finally realized what MTV was and she got rid of our TV for a year. I think she thought we'd all experience this amazing imaginative creative outburst but the actual effect on me=I have no memory of this year at all.

― horseshoe, Friday, April 6, 2007 2:38 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sarahel - I get what you mean. I don't know - I have absolutely no problem admitting that sometimes shitty mindless "regular" tv is awesome. I also don't harbor any fear that this makes me any less intelligent than people who don't own TVs or never watch any trash.

few weeks ago I was looking for new flatmates and discussing this with current flatmate (female one) and she asked me about who I had in to see the place etc. this one girl who was friends with an ex gf came to see the place and I was saying "yeah I found her v attractive, it might be weird to live with someone I thought was beautiful."

I only thought about 3 weeks later that my female flatmate must have been like "erm thanks."

loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Not owning a television: c or d?

Also: TS: Having vs. Not Having a Television

sorry i don't watch your FANCY HBO i only have BASIC CABLE

LOL - I read that and assumed LG had posted on the wrong thread. What does that have to do with watching or not watching tv?!

I only thought about 3 weeks later that my female flatmate must have been like "erm thanks."

hahahahaha comedy gold there

xp horseshoe - my mom cancelled cable after she woke up in the middle of the night once - I think I was 9 - and saw me watching hair metal videos on MTV.

I wasn't allowed to watch MTV until I was in high school.

I forgot one of these: I was out walking with my gf and trying to start telling some kind of story, but I kept getting interrupted by random stuff. So around the third time that I'm trying to tell the story, this homeless guy asks for change, and I say sorry, man, and try to re-start the story, and I'm like two sentences in when he asks for something else, and I say sorry, man, can't help you, and I turn back to my gf and try to continue the story for like the fifth time, and once again I'm two sentences in when he asks something else, and at this point I'm really annoyed and I turn to him and go I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING SENTENCE, MAN, and he looked pretty thoroughly hurt/offended by that.

offending homeless people c/d

I wasn't allowed to watch MTV until after I graduated from college and moved to an apartment where my roommates were willing to split a cable bill, but this was because my parents lived too far out in the country to get cable and our dorm rooms weren't wired for it.

xp nabisco: you were actually pretty polite to the guy.

sorry I didn't read where the thread had gone, just the initial premise!

fwiw "i don't watch a lot of tv" is a bit less confrontational that "omg i don't even OWN a tv"

I have probably said "I don't own a TV" before (aiming for an "uh I'm kind of broke right now, sorry for not being up on normal people culture" rather than "I am a superior being", but possibly missing) because the problem with "I don't watch much TV" is that some people take this as a challenge for them to list TV shows that you absolutely must have been watching regularly, because - what? you aren't a real person if you don't watch Lost? or they want to out you as the kind of person who claims not to watch TV but actually has like 10 must-watch shows each season? Eh.

okay now I have an on topic story! this one person came to see my flat and she was like looking at the living room and said "oh brilliant, you don't have a TV, that's so refreshing." To which I sort of meekly said "well we do actually, see that 29 inch TV, right there, look at it, it's huge."

And she was like "oh well I meant like it's not the focal point of the house."

R, I was laughing at myself for forgetting the original purpose of the thread. Not criticizing you for posting yr story which, btw, was great.

lololol ronan

"sorry for not being up on normal people culture" rather than "I am a superior being"

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel when I tell people I don't watch tv.

"where i grew up, the television was 67 inches and we never watched it"

if it were a couple of inches bigger, it would be a really (alright not really) funny joke...

oh yeah erica I knew that, no offence taken!

Ronan your stories are literally killing me

I posted this on the Chicago thread, but a coworker mistakenly (I don't think she intended to call me a bitch but who knows) offended (not really, but it could have been offensive if I had been of a mind to be offended/cared about what this coworker thinks about me) me today in a conversation about first impressions when she said:

Coworker: I mean, somebody might think you are a real bitch, but then they get to know you, and it turns our you're really okay!
Me: ... Yeah, I get that a lot.

On topic, though: we have a TV but no cable but we watch TV on the internet all the time so I'm not sure if that makes me smug or awesome or a bitch until you get to know me or what.

At work recently, and I still can't tell if this was a genius evasive action, a coworker had been calling me "Rowan" all the time. He's super nice and a really good guy, and even though I've just started he's v friendly to everyone and stuff, which says a lot about him cos he's a presenter and usually there's an aloofness there.

Anyway I went out for drinks with my colleagues about ten days ago and he's v matey and after a few drinks everyone is cracking jokes etc and he says something and ends it with "Rowan" so I figure I'll make a joke of it and I'm like "you know my name is Ronan? Fuck's sake, Rowan???" and he's like "What? I know your name is Ronan, I just mean like, 'Rone' you know? It's just shorter!"

Felt really bad then though he wasn't offended really...as I say, was either a genius evasive action on his part or he's just that affable a dude that he's affectionately abbreviating your name after a few weeks (which is a possibility with this guy.)

Part of me was like he's obviously being all bro style, like "HEY RONE, MY OLD BUDDY" and I've ruined it

You should have said, "all my close mates use my entire given name, at all times; Ronan [middle name] F[last name]"

you had something special and you stamped on its pleading face repeatedly until it was dead but still the benign affability in its features was visible in the bloodied dirt

you're confusing this incident with my last relationship

who, me or LJ?

I just did the Philippe "Noooooo!" face

lj!

that is the saddest 2-post exchange i have ever seen fwiw and i want to cry and also give ronan a big hug

no i was just joking really rather than revealing true sadness

you know that changes nothing, right

leave rone alone

so rone-ry

http://nicknackpaddywhack.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/scooby-doo-magnet-c11747661.jpeg

rut ro

rere's a rhost!?!?!

Wow I'm gone for an hour getting in to work and the TV... er thread explodes.

I am not unafraid to say I dont watch TV because I think TV is shithouse *shrug*. I watch DVDs and things though. Its adverts I'm again'.

I think I offended my workmate yesterday (the one I posted about on the annoying coworkers thread) because when he snuck up behind me and just STOOD THERE for ages and then said "hello! Miss provisioning!" quite loudly, I paused, and then yelped "AAH DONT DO THAT".

...the fact I paused before I did it made it sound like a staged freakout though, which was a bit crap.

*applauds, leaves*

(just kidding.)

"I don't enjoy television, I only enjoy watching its shows in a slightly different storage format"

From now on I'm going to tell people I never watch television, I only watch shows I saved on my DVR

To be fair, Trayce's stance on TV is more or less identical to mine, except I watch live TV for sports.

i almost never watch live television either. Chiefly because I find it hard to watch the telly at the same time every week to see the shows I like, and other than a few shows I find television deeply boring. Only time it's at all passable is if you're broke and just chilling with your girl, Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares or whatever is fairly watchable in that situation.

Although I can get away with saying that without sounding like a pseud because I usually add "i play xbox all the time and watch live football".

Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares

See this is exactly the kind of thing I watch and love. It's entertaining. I am not ashamed.

i actually definitely shouldn't have used that as an example of a random tv show because yeah it is pretty awesome!

"i've fucking eaten here!"

Isn't part of what people are trying to say when they say "I don't watch TV" that they're explicitly not one of those people who comes home from work and just zones out on the couch with a bag of Cheetos and Two and a Half Men? If they watch shows on DVD instead, it's seen as more purposeful somehow (couples talk about "working our way through The Wire" like it's a project), not just a mind-numbing exercise.

x-post Damn right it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcPUAW6u5ME&feature=channel_page

Yeah, shit like Masterchef is ok, even great, when it happens to be on, but I don't really ever go out of my way to see live TV (Blur at Glastonbury was more or less the first time this year I did). It's a personal thing; I just don't feel much of it enriches me or engages me particularly well, and the good shit you can generally get on DVD. The only thing I reckon I'm really missing out on is good nature documentary (can that be a generic noun?) and there's a fuckload of great natural footage on the internet. I mean, I DID enjoy The Apprentice a coupla years back, and there are other things I'd probably enjoy now, but I'm not really fussed by completely avoiding them. It's a time/priority thing.

That said, my only vocalised problem with TV is with the adverts, and I have absolutely nothing against people who do watch plenty of television. Besides, they're the ones who'll basically tell me what to later see on DVD...

Basically, if a *really* promising new sitcom touches down any time soon, I'll watch it live.

Jaymc is OTM fwiw and The Wire is definitely on my hitlist (having only seen the first 4 eps of series 1)

Isn't part of what people are trying to say when they say "I don't watch TV" that they're explicitly not one of those people who comes home from work and just zones out on the couch with a bag of Cheetos and Two and a Half Men? If they watch shows on DVD instead, it's seen as more purposeful somehow (couples talk about "working our way through The Wire" like it's a project), not just a mind-numbing exercise.

Yeah, I think so but I guess I just don't see how it's really all that different. You can watch TV and still be an intelligent and productive person. It's ok ppl - don't feel guilty etc. You can also not watch TV if that's your thing. Bottom line is who cares? I just don't want to have to hear it from ppl who obv have a *thing* about how awesome they are because they don't watch TV or only watch certain shows on certain formats. They're not move intelligent they're just usually a hell of a lot more pretentious.

btw I am zoning out on the couch in my underwear watching some awesome Two and a Half Men action right now.

w/ cheetos

Isn't part of what people are trying to say when they say "I don't watch TV" that they're explicitly not one of those people who comes home from work and just zones out on the couch with a bag of Cheetos and Two and a Half Men? If they watch shows on DVD instead, it's seen as more purposeful somehow (couples talk about "working our way through The Wire" like it's a project), not just a mind-numbing exercise.

I kind of agree with this except for the mind-numbing part. My problem is less that the consumption of television programmes is passive, mind-numbing and doesn't involve engagement on the viewers part; it's more that it's a very scattershot and haphazard way to consume material, and people generally don't do anything similar with other media. I.e. I don't know anyone who just randomly buys books and reads them without any idea of what they are, nor do I know anyone who goes to the cinema and walks into a screening of a film they've never heard of, yet people will sit for hours randomly flicking through channels and watching anything that looks half-interesting. If it wasn't such a commonplace habit it surely would be thought of as strange.

" I.e. I don't know anyone who just randomly buys books and reads them without any idea of what they are, nor do I know anyone who goes to the cinema and walks into a screening of a film they've never heard of"

public library encourages this behavior w/ books and DVDs with their themed "check these out!" displays, and I think they are successful.

i only watch shows when they air, never on dvd or tivo or whatever. can't think of a snooty line for that other than "i'm lazy"

"yet people will sit for hours randomly flicking through channels and watching anything that looks half-interesting."

Internet. Every day.

yup

i have bookmarks, i very seldom look at websites that i don't use habitually except for of course links from the websites I do read. I don't click links that I don't think look interesting.

Yeah neither do I much I must admit, I only go to about 4 sites regularly apart from things I do for work :/ I'm a bit... stuck in my rut.

I miss having cable/tv channels, which I haven't had on abt 8 months, bcz if you are just fucking brain dead or stressed or whatevs it is the most passive & easy thing possible. I tried having that experience w/hulu the other day – I watched an ep of Fat Albert bcz it was around, why not, and it was boring as fuck. I felt like a dummy bcz I'd actively chosen to watch it, whereas if I had the TV channels & it came on, it wld feel really different.

Why did those kids like 'Legal Eagle'? It's worse than the worst cartoon!

Look I watch the same 237846237 simpsons episodes on DVD ovr and over and over so I cant talk heh.

I've watched the last three seasons of the Wire twice in the past two months, mainly for zoning out purposes.

my tv is on v. frequently even when i'm not really paying attention to it--i mostly chalk this up to living alone and needing hella background noise.

but yeah i def come home from work and zone out with chips and sportscenter, that's pretty much one of my things.

Ha, that first part is how I spent a year and a half of grad school writing with PBS on dimly in the background -- music was distracting, silence was distracting, Lydia Bastianich talking about broccoli rabe over generic mandolin music was perfect

(Although I think I also posted a whole lot in those days about watching Judge Mathis while getting ready to leave the house)

xp I can't have the tv/a movie on without watching raptly, even if it's something totally stupid. That's mainly why I don't watch it - even before the digital conversion when we could have gotten two or three broadcast channels. I just don't have the self-control.

my tv is on v. frequently even when i'm not really paying attention to it--i mostly chalk this up to living alone and needing hella background noise.

When I lived alone I had the tv on all of the time -- silence is too spooky, and the random city noises you hear outside of your apartment sound more sinister if it's otherwise quiet.

nabs, i leave pbs on sometimes to help me fall asleep -- the voices are calm and soothing and there isn't that jarring volume jump when they go to the ads (house ads/interstitials/whatever).

There was a time when I lived alone and did not any cable service due to erm . . . limited finances at the time. The only channel I could get with the rabbit ears was PAX which is basically a Christian family friendly channel. Because of the background noise issue/boredom/loneliness that sometimes accompanies living alone I have probably seen nearly every episode of Highway to Heaven and 7th Heaven.

(anyway, i think i mistakenly offend people when i don't call/e-mail them back right away. it's not that they're low on the priority list; i'm just lazy.)

My best friend lives across the country, does not have a cell phone and is rarely on email. She's also one of those ppl who doesn't call back immediately and is generally really hard to get a hold of. I'm used to it now and just know that it's not a reflection of anything other than the fact that she's pretty flaky. When we do talk it's usually for hours in order to make up for lost time.

I am really bad about doing this, but it is due more to my flakiness and forgetfulness. xp

TBH I'm a bit tired of the expectation to respondez to everything *RIGHT NOW* that email and cellphones has created. If my phone is off leave a message! If I dont reply to your FB event invite maybe I havent looked at FB for a few days. AAAAAAAAAARGH call me an old fuddy but it is so EXHAUSTING. I am not at everyone's beck and call 94/7. Shit, work's bad enough.

you must be really popular.

i didn't have cable when i was in law school b/c i was, you know, a poor law school student. since the reception sucked where i live w/t cable, not to mention that i was busy studying and doing other stuff, it meant that i didn't watch much TV during those years. and then when i had enough money to get cable, i put off subscribing b/c i was working too many long hours and it wasn't worth the cost. i only broke down and got cable to get high-speed internet; i still don't watch much TV even w/ more time on my hands.

i will admit to copping a superior attitude on occasion, but not usually -- and more often i felt like a total dork b/c i would have no idea what friends and family were talking about when they talked about certain TV shows.

Touche, Kerm.

I was at a party a few weeks ago, in the "smoking" room and this girl that looked very very much like Adris Hoyos sat down with us. I told my friend "Omg, she looks like Adris Hoyos!", at which point I turn to the girl, point and and practically yell "You look like you're in Harry Pussy!". Could have been worded much better (blame it on tha...)

this went on for about a minute and I eventually explained what I meant. The girl laughed at the end of it all but was not too happy when I first blurted that out. My friend reports that she rapidly responded back with some male equivalent of "hairy pussy" (she believes it was "wet dick"), but I didn't hear because I was trying to state my case. It was a good night.

Posted in the other thread but:

Saying you "don't watch TV" or "don't own a TV" w/o clarifying is only acceptable if you can honestly say you literally watch NO TV and aren't watching The Wire and Gilmore Girls and shit on your laptop. Otherwise it's OMG FRONTING for sure. imo

with certain past exceptions, i watch only 30 min of tv per week and catch up to favorite shows on dvd

http://www.sfu.ca/~stscott/pictures/dealwithit.gif

"30 min of tv per week" = The Soup

- being a touch too visibly astonished that a normal-sized adult could walk into a McDonald's, ask for "the usual," and be handed a large-size Big Mac meal

http://static.bigstockphoto.com/thumbs/6/8/3/large/386939.jpg

lol

- being a touch too visibly astonished that a normal-sized adult could walk into a McDonald's, ask for "the usual," and be handed a large-size Big Mac meal

This reminds me. The waiter at our local Italian restaurant started laughing when I ordered the same thing yet again. :-(

Witnessed this in local Starbutts coffee shop last week. They have a daily trivia question and you get a free shot or whatever if you answer correctly. Question was 'How much did a hamburger cost at the very first McDonalds in 1940'...and there were like 4 options.
SB employee asks me if I want to guess when I place my order. I guessed wrongly. So she asks the next person in line, who is an older woman, maybe in her 50's. SB girl says, and I quote: "Do you want to have a guess? I'm sure you know the answer." And the woman was all, "Excuse me? How old do you think I am?"...and the SB girl did the craziest amount of backpedalling I've ever seen. I laughed and told the SB girl she better give the woman her free shot regardless, to make up for that. LOL!

xpost I stopped going to a place I really liked when they made too much of a deal about my regular order (which through very complicated, Seinfeldian circumstances, they consistently got wrong).

here is the thing: a LOT of people work at a full-scale urban McDonald's. and there's a lot of turnover. and they serve a whole lot of people. per hour. it's almost unimaginable, the number of Big Macs you'd have to eat to just walk up to anyone and ask for the usual. the only way I can wrap my head around this is to imagine that something memorable happened between this guy and the staff that turned him into the Big Mac guy.

Maybe they gave the special sauce.

My husband recently went to the bakery for a roll. An hour or so later he goes back cause he wants to buy another roll.
The woman:"Are you coming to complain or WHAT?" in a rrrrreally aggressive tone.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I mean, WTF what is she on? All the women working there are really unfriendly but this one just tops it. When my husband asked for a sandwich with ham, she replied she didn't have it "Do you want one with cheese?" This isn't so strange except they usually make the sandwich on the spot. She was too lazy to do it. hahaahah

nabs I worked at fast food on & off over and you do recognize the regulars. There is a lot of turnover but the manager or person who's worked there years for whatever reason'll tell you on the first day, 'this guy always orders a whopper cut in half w/extra mustard & onions.' It only takes a week or two of a customer showing up the same time every day before you can tell they'll have a 'usual' thing. I realized I was this customer once at a McDonald's and that was the last time I went there. ;_;

I knew there's hella customers too but you still get a feel for people who show up every day.

They're in the minority so they're memorable.

I used to buy tons of red bean paste. The owner of the shop (annex restaurant) said to me:"You do know you get fat from that cause it has tons of sugar?" Last time I bought it. Positive outcome: I dropped weight. The woman at the fruit/veg shop asked me if I ate all the fruit I bought there. I said yeah. "Well, you can't really tell, cause you are not THAT skinny." (I was about 57 kgs, which is pretty darn skinny.)

People are fucking retarded when I comes to making comments about people's weight. They say things that they think are innocuous but are actually pretty painful insults.

Apparently while trying to help my girlfriend up today I ~made a face~ suggesting great strain.

lol

People are fucking retarded when I comes to making comments about people's weight. They say things that they think are innocuous but are actually pretty painful insults.

Haha. In Japan, it's entirely acceptable to be simply say, "you got fat." When I see my wife's family, like the first thing out of everyone's mouth is an assessment of weight gain or loss since the last meeting. This is totally normal. People seem fine with this kind of talk, but it often makes me cringe.