Thing That You Don't Understand - a top 100, coz we like lists, well I do

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1. There is this TV advert where a girl is going for a job interview and she keeps imagining people are making bad comments about her hair, which looks fine to me. She then uses some product or another and now her hair is all straight and boring looking, but now the office jerks are horndogging and bringing her cups of tea which she has to keep hiding. I just always want to tell her that her hair looked better a little messy, and I don't understand why she needed it to be all straight and shiny.

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 2 August 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

2) Fedex's email autoreply:

Thank you for your inquiry.
We received your message and are routing it to the person at FedEx
who is most qualified to answer. We hope to be back with you shortly.
In the meantime, you have several ways to get some fast answers:
· Track the status of your shipment online:
http://www.fedex.com/us/tracking
· Browse through frequently asked questions about FedEx, our service
options and more: http://www.fedex.com/us/customer/faq/
We hope this information is helpful. Thanks again for contacting
FedEx.

Which comes HOURS after my original message. THANKS WE'RE IGNORING YOU NOW! ENJOY THIS MESSAGE AND RTFM U DUMBASS!

― Typhoon is Coming!!! :O (ex machina), Monday, 2 August 2004 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

jon isn't that just pretty standard customer service stuff? you really have to call to get a straight answer (even then...)

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 2 August 2004 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't even know who you are.

NO SERIOUSLY WHAT IRKS ME IS THAT IT TAKES 4 HOURS TO TELL YOU TO FUCK YOURSELF

― Typhoon is Coming!!! :O (ex machina), Monday, 2 August 2004 18:15 (twenty-one years ago)

3) How Jel got inside my head and plucked this thread.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

4) People who live on a non-busy street and back into their driveway

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

it's illegal to back out of your driveway.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

in many countries anyway.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

4) People who live on a non-busy street and back into their driveway ???? I don't understand how you could care. Maybe they're doing it for luck or because they feel safer backing out of traffic than into it. It just seems petty to me.

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

5) When they want to be friends with someone, why can't adults say "Let's be friends!", just like kids do? Most of the times we have to go through this slow "becoming friends" process, especially if the other person is of the opposite sex. Why is that?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd guess because they remember that when people said "Let's be friends!" to them as kids, they were shitty afterwards?

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, it's rarely that easy. For instance, there's someone I'd like to become friends with, but we're both really busy, have other obligations, etc.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Did I say that I cared? Or that it wasn't petty? No, only that I didn't understand. (and no, it is not illegal here to back out)

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

because they feel safer backing out of traffic than into it.

but there's no traffic.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

It could be, I never knew it was illegal here and most people don't.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I meant 'felt safer' not 'were safer'. Maybe they've been rear-ended and they're still traumatized.

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

True, I suppose it could be, but then 95% of people could be ticketed on any given day. It just seems more difficult to back into a confined space rather than backing out into the whole world.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Tell me this: Is it illegal to go the opposite way on a street by making a left turn onto a one-way street, stopping, then backing up onto the original street while turning so that you're now facing the opposite direction? Sure, it's dangerous, especially when it's two blocks away from Wrigley Field and there's a game, but IS IT ILLEGAL?

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's not enforced, you know the way.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds very illegal, jaymc.

Driveway backer-intoers are probably looking down their noses at ME, that moron who breaks the obscure law and risks potential rear-end collisions every day.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds very illegal, jaymc.

Fine. Side with my girlfriend then.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

People also do this in parking lots, backing in between 2 cars. Now, I assume they prefer to back in between two stationary cars rather than back out and risk getting hit by a moving car, but it still seems more difficult. My friend's theory was that they're the type of people who like to get the difficult part of something out of the way first.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I knew you were wanting me to say it wasn't and side with you!

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

but really, making that turn the wrong way onto a one-way sounds illegal AND backing up around the corner sounds illegal, too.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

But I'm NOT going the wrong way onto a one-way! If I wanted to go the wrong way onto a one-way, I'd do it a block earlier!

In any event, Oops, I agree with you about backing into spaces. Part of what irks is that it just seems like a contrarian thing to do.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess I was confused by your premise. You make a left, then reverse and go left onto the street you turned from?

yeah contrarian. like THEY'VE figured out the smart way to do things and all us who do it the "normal" way are blind followers.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

There's something that I was thinking about earlier, that made me want to search for a thread about Things You Don't Understand, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was and it's bugging the hell out of me.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm still confused by the driving manouevre. Can we have a diagram?

(Do you end up travelling back where you came from, yes? If so, why do you want to do this?)

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

regrets.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

was it like a 3pt turn, performed because you didn't have the space needed for a U-turn?

― oops (Oops), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish I had a diagram. No, I end up going the opposite way:

1. I drive north.

2. I turn west but stop immediately.

3. I reverse (to the east), but also turning so the rear of my car ultimately faces north.

4. I then straighten out and drive south.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

was it like a 3pt turn, performed because you didn't have the space needed for a U-turn?

Yes, exactly. Also, because a U-turn would've been riskier.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

never eat shredded wheat

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

(A U-turn requires that there's no oncoming traffic at the precise moment you need to turn around; this maneuver means I can wait on the one-way street until there's no oncoming traffic before reversing.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, those directions are incorrect (I start out driving east on Addison), but for whatever reason, it seemed like driving north would be easier to comprehend.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 2 August 2004 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

6) why this thread isnt about things you dont understand anymore.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 00:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(hint hint, guys ;P)

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 00:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Jel - I feel EXACTLY the same way about that ad you mentioned right at the beginning. She's damn foxy to start off with!

7) Football (the appeal)

8) American football (the rules)

― Wooden (Wooden), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Wooden, I heart you for that.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Just doing my job, ma'me.

― Wooden (Wooden), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:16 (twenty-one years ago)

9. I can't figure out the moon being full, half, crescent, etc.

As the earth is rotating why doesn't the moon change through these phases in the same evening instead of taking three weeks?

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:20 (twenty-one years ago)

10. David Lynch films.

― Wooden (Wooden), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:27 (twenty-one years ago)

11. Why the fuck I'm not in bed at 3.30 AM.

― Wooden (Wooden), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

why do people include their email address in their "signature" whatsit at the end of work emails.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:35 (twenty-one years ago)

As the earth is rotating why doesn't the moon change through these phases in the same evening instead of taking three weeks?

Because the moon rotates in a fashion where one half always faces the earth, and is of sufficient distance away (and Earth is comparatively small enough) that the perspective of an observer on one part of the globe and that of someone completely opposite but both able to see the moon notice a minimal difference at most.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 01:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Ahaha gem nice one - I too have always thought that was really daft.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:03 (twenty-one years ago)

inspired by a recent ilx thread
12. casual sex

― lolitacorpus, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Do you mean how the moon rotates or revolves, Ned? Either way, I still don't get it. I've never understood what happens during eclipses either.

(I've looked at all the graphs I can. I still don't get it. And it wasn't until I flew from Sydney to Los Angeles that I finally understood how nighttime works.)

4) People who live on a non-busy street and back into their driveway

I'll tell you why I do this. Even though there's hardly any traffic on my street, there are a few cars who have to park on the street. It's better to back into my driveway and maybe drive over a patch of yard than it is to back into the street and hit a car. Even if my street doesn't have a lot of thru-traffic, there are still squirrels, parked cars, garbage cans, and children at play to look out for.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Do you mean how the moon rotates or revolves, Ned?

Or stumbles through the sky -- I'm very much delivering a NON-technical description, there's a much more accurate way of putting it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:15 (twenty-one years ago)

13.corpse sex

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I just wanted to make sure that the moon doesn't rotate. That's why there's a dark side, right?

Um, I guess this is an x-post, though it doesn't have to be.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, it rotates -- if it didn't rotate, then we would in fact see all of the moon as it moved around the earth. It just rotates more or less in sync with its revolution.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:29 (twenty-one years ago)

14. BABY ON BOARD signs

― Which Describes How You're Feeling All the Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:30 (twenty-one years ago)

hehe yeah i don't get those baby on board signs either - because you WOULD run up the back of someone's car if they didn't have a baby in there? we also had a "no crash friday" in WA a couple of weeks ago. i like the awareness raising aspect, but 'tis still completely illogical.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Did loads of people crash after midnight?

― Which Describes How You're Feeling All the Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:38 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah well they were all on a sort of invisible starting line on the freeway at 11:59pm. after that mayhem ensued.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't understand why she needed it to be all straight and shiny.

nothing wrong with wanting straight hair!

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

So if the moon rotates, how long is a moon day?

I know. As long as people like me keep making posts like this, we're never going to get to 100. This, I understand.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Im still confused by the moon issue, and thanks Ned, but moving on to #15:

What is the purpose of the after-market fat mufflers on little cars these days? I mean, other than being truly annoying?

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 03:03 (twenty-one years ago)

16. Why parchment diplomas are still given at graduation ceremonies, but marriage certificates are printed on recycled low-grade cardboard.

― x j e r e m y i n f l u x (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 03:12 (twenty-one years ago)

One's temporary?

― Which Describes How You're Feeling All the Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 03:14 (twenty-one years ago)

One of the reasons for backing into a driveway might be a driveway with a strange angle, which, when approached from one direction, scrapes the end of the car. Or that's what I thought of.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 03:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Julia, you found my house!!!

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 03:30 (twenty-one years ago)

and my house/unit too! although i park in a carpark (it's a big complex type place) it's impossible to back out in the right direction, but easy to back in and drive out forwards.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 03:33 (twenty-one years ago)

People know that they're going to have to back into/out of a driveway at some point, so perhaps they just want to get the difficult bit over with.

My contribution: Planck's Length. How can a dimension be billions of times smaller than the smallest thing? Doesn't it have to surround us?

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

the moon doesn't have a dark side. there is a side of the moon that we never see because it's always facing away from *us* (because it revolves on it's own axis as it rotates around us) but that side isn't any darker than the side we can see. (unless we lived on the sun)

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Mark: I don't really get yr reasoning there.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:07 (twenty-one years ago)

18. Why did Whitney Houston refer to Bobby Brown as the king of soul?

She should have known that this title is reserved for Ralph Tresvant

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:10 (twenty-one years ago)

19. Why is there an expression "thick as a Planck" when, as a leading physicist, Planck must have been very intelligent?

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Wouldn't "thick as a Planck" in fact describe something very very very thin?

― robster (robster), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't understand "fuck washing a hat" but I still say it because I want to be cool and funny.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:20 (twenty-one years ago)

20. Another advert where some hairdresser ponce is going on about how red hair can look dull and lifeless like this (cut to attractive woman with nice hair) but if you use Blah it can look as good as this (cut to same attractive woman with horrible shiny artificial hair)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

On a similar tack to Barry above, Don DeLillo in Underworld plainly thinks a quantum is a very small distance.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Another woman who fixes her hair for the worse in an advert: the one with dark hair who wakes up in a daze, and falls over her clothes, before putting on a white top, taking a mouthful of breakfast cereal and driving off in her smart car. The ad must either be for the cereal or the car I guess, but when her hair is all messy she is the best.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

> thinks a quantum is a very small distance

isn't it though?

dictionary.com:

quan·tum
Pronunciation: 'kwänt-&m
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural quan·ta /'kwänt-&/
1 : one of the very small increments or parcels into which many forms of energy are subdivided (a molecule of rhodopsin in the human eye can cause a response to a single quantum of light)
2 : one of the small molecular packets of a neurotransmitter (as acetylcholine) released into the synaptic cleft in the transmission of a nerve impulse across a synapse

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a thing not a distance. Also a wibbly wobbly state.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

i was in a quantum on sunday morning.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:54 (twenty-one years ago)

jel's initial post otm -- like wtf she looks better in the 'before' bit. or is that indie of me?

― ENRQ (Enrique), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Ricardo - my reasoning about superstring theory, or parking a car?

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I am gratified to find out so many people think the same thing about the girl in Jel's initial post

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree too, btw. She looks normal and pretty at first. I'd have handed in my notice if I were her.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:10 (twenty-one years ago)

20. how people can talk about the essential fairness of flat taxes, VATs, shifting the burden from assets to income & consumption with a straight face, and be taken seriously.

― g--ff (gcannon), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

21. why cigarette smoke always heads straight to the face of any non-smoker in the vicinity.

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

That's not an accident. It's because smokers hate you.

― Kenan (kenan), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

but Im a smoker! ex, that is.

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

> It's a thing not a distance.

ah, ok. i was confusing it with Quantum Leap which people (like clive sinclair who should know better) use to denote big changes.

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 14:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm glad people are agreeing about that girl's hair! We should start a campaign!

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

the persistence of both c-mang and c-mang counter-trolling

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Mark, the Planck Constant predates string theory.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 16:20 (twenty-one years ago)

22. Why I can't be more optimistic about things?

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

because it's a cold world, a cold cold world.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 22:35 (twenty-one years ago)

23. Speaking of hair, why do commercials think we'll be fooled by them telling us a shampoo has "pro-vitamins" in it? VITAMINS DO NOTHING TO HAIR - HAIR IS DEAD CELLS.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 00:14 (twenty-one years ago)

mebbe the vitameens are really meant for the scalp? i dunno.

― purple patch (electricsound), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I dont think so... only taking vitamins internally (esp B group) will help. In same regard - NO, MOTHER/ETC, DYEING MY HAIR IS NOT WHAT MADE IT GO GREY KTHXBYE.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 00:28 (twenty-one years ago)

ooh b vitameens make your hair strong?! must go get some V

― purple patch (electricsound), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 00:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefered it when vitamins were amateur too.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

24. Why this thread Errol Flynn played piano with his penis never caught on.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 5 August 2004 03:18 (twenty-one years ago)

five years pass...

my coordinator just sent me this about the marking scheme for the next assignment:

if they use the word perfectly correct and in context – 2 pts; if use the word “somewhat” correct 1 pt – what does “somewhat” correct mean? Good question – so I think that “somewhat” correct means NOT perfect and NOT totally wrong… that's the best I can do

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tHMuslIyBk8/SWAp2BUNAiI/AAAAAAAABBs/NPB7owB6S2w/s200/6689B-exasperation.gif

― Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ (dyao), Monday, 22 February 2010 04:04 (fifteen years ago)

14. BABY ON BOARD signs

― Which Describes How You're Feeling All the Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 02:30 (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Discussed this with a friend the other today. Presumably it's to alert EMS or whoever that there is another (far less visible) occupant in a car if there's a crash or something.

― lost in deming (S-), Monday, 22 February 2010 05:45 (fifteen years ago)

See, that's fine. It's the "chocaholic on board" "bored housewife on board" etc etc ones that make me want to "accidentally" rear-end someone's car.

― ailsa, Monday, 22 February 2010 08:13 (fifteen years ago)

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