Random observations

I must have a peculiar sense of humor. Twice today, at the office in the afternoon and out over dinner, I was talking to two people when I made a joke. Well, made a joke and a couple of jokes, respectively. And both times one of the two others burst out laughing, and the other just looked at me in ... nonplussment.

I guess this is how Slappy feels all the time.

Snort..

Peculiars good.
but....I think the person who didn't laugh might not have a sense of humor.

What were you joking about? I'd be really curious to know what you said.

As a defense mechanism, the reality most of us see is only the tip of the iceberg, since people usually have difficulty handling random, abstract paradoxes skittering through their lives without suspecting they are schizophrenic.

> It's a matter of priorities.
>
> A little known fact....
>
> The first testicular guard "cup" was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first
> helmet was used in 1974.
>
> It took 100 years for men to realize that the brain is also important.
>
>

Stealing a couple ...

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ALT-text: "I do not like being reduced to tears in the hygiene aisle because something feels wrong about my redesigned deodorant."

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ALT-text: "For about five minutes, this was the best idea I ever had."

One of my best friends from high school was always dating much older guys, like twice her age and more. I've been catching up with her on Facebook, and she's newly in love. I checked out her boyfriend.... he's 43. I shook my head, there she goes again.

Then I remembered we're 38.

This reminds me of last summer when I was sitting in a college cafeteria with a
bunch of geezers my age. Bill was glancing appreciatively at some college women.
I was about to remind him that we were twice their age.

Then I remembered that we were three times their age.

Oooh..

Jesus Christ, Americans are loud.

Plus, seeing this jock "debating" the couple he's out with by repeatedly shouting over them -- yelling, for example, "you're full of ****! you're full of ****! you're full of ****!" until the other would shut up -- made me realise that I guess those O'Reilly-type "talk show" hosts really do reflect a whole, you know, current of behaviour. Or did they create it, by example?

Bah. Ten tables of Hungarians chatting with their friends drowned out by these braying asses. But they're spending big time, so it's not like the guys at the bar will say anything.

And yes, some of my best friends are American, they're not all like that, etc. But when a loud American is being a loud American, he's really, really loud.

You are right that it's not all Americans, it's not even most Americans but there's a hell of a lot of truth to the "loud American" stereotype.

Down here in Costa Rica I run into more than my fair share, because of the type of folk who come here and because of how many of them become emboldened by being comparatively rich and it's embarrassing as hell to the ones here who aren't total jackasses.

my observation: try as hard as i might, life sucks alot.

another observation: jefita makes me so happy its all worth it.

Spam subject line of the day:

Sex and elephants woo voters ahead of Romnaia polls

As Idaho falls, so falls Idaho Falls.

Ha!

My random observation:

Watching Mel Brooks' "History of the World Part 1" with an 8-year-old sparks some very interesting conversations.

Was it a quiet place?

Lots of family-style restaurants in the US play loud music, and pretty much encourage everyone to talk loudly. I'm OK with it as a parent, because it keeps other folks from being disturbed if my kids are too loud.

I also have a bit of hearing loss in my left ear, so I tend to speak a little loud.

I don't shout at people that they're full of ****, though.

Could have been anywhere. Every year American tourists are rated as the loudest on earth in a regular travel survey, there's really a lot of truth to this stereotype.



As to loud kids, that's another annoying thing about Americans. In other places the kids are just not nearly as obnoxious and loud as in the US. I'd never seen such brats in all my life till moving stateside. In Japan I once saw a stranger walk up to a kid throwing a fit on a subway and knock him on the head. The mother even thanked him! That's the opposite extreme but I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do that in the US.

I went to a grocery store in Germany and you had to pay to get a shopping cart. Then when you return the cart to the rack, you get your money back. I like that idea and don't know why we don't do this here in the USA. That way you could go to a mall or store and not have shopping carts all over the parking lot.

Oh, and I just flew to Nevada in my pajamas. That might count as worst dressed

Maybe it could have been anywhere, but Nimh knows where it actually was. Which is why I asked.



As for the behavior of children, I've seen more well-behaved children than otherwise, but certainly the disruptive kids are the most prominent.

Fairly quiet I guess. Just a regular type kind of mix between bar, restaurant and coffeehouse, some electronic beats playing in the background but very much a place where you can have conversations. A little hip, not formal at all but yeah more coffeehouse than night club, maybe fifteen tables with a bench/couch lining one side, six seven tables occupied by either chatting groups of Hungarian friends or couples ... and then this group of four Americans "debating" something in, like, O'Reilly talkshow style or something, four times as loud as anyone else, like they were in a club next to the dancefloor or in a pub filled to the brim or something. I dunno.