Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[jedikaiti]

Luci45 wrote:

"Did you tell him he can get the instruction book online? If you don't want to print all that, you can bookmark it for him. He should be able to do that much even if all he does is email."

He might not own a computer.  sunnygirl described him as a technophobe and said she put all his music on the iPod and set up the playlists, so he wouldn't need anything more than a wall charger to use it.

jedikaiti wrote:

"My Captivate had a link to the Samsung website for help, and I downloaded the PDF manual onto the phone, LOL."

I must confess that I'll have to smirk privately when go to look up "Emergency Recovery for your Captivate phone".  The problem I'd have with doing this is that you'd have to have the manual open to look up some function and then switch away to do whatever you're looking up, then switch back for step 2 and so on.  I'm afraid I'd make step 4 for every function "hurl the phone away in anger".

Virg

The effort of resisting step 4 is why I now have an SIII. :-)

[ladyknight1]

The owner's manual stories remind me of my mom about 10-12 years ago. She decided she was going to get super heavy into scrapbooking, and so, because all the magazines said she should, she bought a copy of Photoshop.

She called me because she didn't know how to copy and paste or save as. She asked if I could write the shortcuts down on Post-its so she would remember.  If you can imagine, her stint with Photoshop did not pan out into a graphic design career, nor did it make her scrapbook pages look elite and professional.

Your mom and my mother-in-law must be related. MIL had no hobbies other than bird watching and watching television. DFIL had been a photographer since he was in his teens, and MIL decided to take up hobby photography, using digital cameras. At this time, she had never used a computer. As soon as they would return from a photo-taking outing, she would follow DFIL around with her camera until he uploaded the photos and got them set up for her viewing.

MIL determined that she was "the best photographer in the world" (and told us that) and came up with myriad money making projects with her pictures. Greeting cards, calendars, magazine articles, etc. We heard about it every time we talked to her for months. DFIL spent hours trying to teach her how to use Photoshop and basic computer skills. He bought her a new computer and monitors and set it all up. Now, none of this would be professionally printed, no her plan was that she would just print it up on her home printer (that she doesn't know how to use) and gift shops would start selling it. We mentioned that she might need to start her own company with the state, and talked about marketing, but all such conversations were shut down, so we stayed out of it.

It never happened, and MIL hasn't used the computer in months for more than mahjong.

[BabyMama]

The owner's manual stories remind me of my mom about 10-12 years ago. She decided she was going to get super heavy into scrapbooking, and so, because all the magazines said she should, she bought a copy of Photoshop.

She called me because she didn't know how to copy and paste or save as. She asked if I could write the shortcuts down on Post-its so she would remember.  If you can imagine, her stint with Photoshop did not pan out into a graphic design career, nor did it make her scrapbook pages look elite and professional.

Oohhh, that is an expensive mistake!

The whole situation was pretty brain-hurty. I told her beforehand that Photoshop wasn't a good idea and that there were other, less expensive programs out there, but then, "How else will I get sepia-toned pictures with colored-out parts?" She also had a very, very basic computer (think right out of the box) so as you can imagine, Photoshop took up a pretty fair bit of its limited memory. She was always asking why her computer was running so slowly, and wouldn't believe it was because of her favorite program. "It's probably because of you kids downloading music on here." Because that's what I do when I come home on spring break from college--download music onto YOUR computer 

She also (and still does to this day) never closes Internet browser windows, which also probably aided the slow running computer. Sometimes I'll have to close 15 Flamingvixen windows before I clear out the screen.

[Piratelvr1121]

Well, if you've got to have a place on your bucket list, at least it's one that will do the job right.

LOL!!! Oh you win!!

[Elfmama]

Part of the thing about extra-long pregnancies, too, is that many women's menstrual cycles vary widely.  The due date is figured as 40 weeks from the last period, but that assumes two weeks between period and ovulation - some women go as many as 10 weeks.  So it's possible the timing ends up being off by a month or two because conception wasn't when the mother thought it was.

Yeah, my cousin was supposedly an 11 1/2 month baby. (She's not, I promise.)

Her mother always had VERY long cycles. Like 2-4 months long. Not normal at all. So when she realized she was pregnant the baby was measuring between 3 and 4 months but her LMP was six or seven months, so the doctor insisted on going with that. (Yes, he's an idiot. The whole town thinks so. Not sure why he's still practicing but he's a pretty good GYN, so maybe that explains it.) When he started suggesting induction Aunt ignored him (like, avoided his calls, refused to drive anywhere near the hospital.) and when she went into labor she went to the next town over. Cousin was born 3 months after her "due date" pink and adorable.

Strange Factoid: Aunt's cycle got a lot more normal after that. Not the 28 day "perfect" cycle but more like 30 to 34 days. Bodies are weird things.

Mine always varied anywhere between 21 and 30 days, usually on the short end of the cycle, except for the 18 months between ending lactation for baby #1 and getting pregnant with #2.  Then they were clock regular, 24.5 days almost to the hour.  And after that, back to the surprise visits from Aunt Flo.

[cabbageweevil]

Not French, but I had a twitch when ordering Greek food from a little drive thru in town and the girl said "Here's your gyros!"  Pronounced "Guy-ros" Gah!  I mean I don't know how to pronounce all the items on a Greek menu but really? That's got to be the easiest one!

There are debates on how gyro is pronounced.  I'm guessing you are in the "eeee- ro" camp?  Because everyone I know - Greeks included - say its correct to pronounce it geye-ro, similar to gyroscope or gyrate, and that "eeee-ro" is a valid Greek pronunciation but not more correct, its just different (like Americans saying rat-iator or radiate- or, or cooo-pon vs que-pon).  If you ordered an "eeee-ro" form a NYC street cart or diner I doubt they'd know what you were asking for, but they sell hundreds of thousands of geye-ro's daily.

Could I please request a little clarification (about consonants, rather than vowels)? Are you saying that in your experience, a correct pronunciation is "guy-ro / geye-ro" -- first letter as in the first letter of the word "good"?  I have always thought this (and gyroscope, and gyrate) were pronounced "jeye..." -- first letter as in the first letter of the word "joke". (Hope this makes sense.)  I'd imagined that the "jeye..."pronunciation was what Piratelvr1121 had been expecting; but perhaps I misunderstood there.

Or does it perhaps depend on where you're from?  In the UK, such words are I think always pronounced with the j-sound; in America, maybe otherwise.
 

[redcat]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

Genuinely curious...

1.  Where are you?
2.  What would you like her to do?

[blue2000]

Strange Factoid: Aunt's cycle got a lot more normal after that. Not the 28 day "perfect" cycle but more like 30 to 34 days. Bodies are weird things.

My brain isn't working at quite full speed but isn't one of the things that can help PCOS pregnancy, and difficulty in getting pregnant is one of the effects of PCOS?  A nice little vicious circle there.

Endometriosis as well. A friend's doctor recommended she get pregnant when surgery didn't help. She really wanted kids, but she wasn't sure she could. She did end up having several children and enjoying the endo-free pregnancies.

I haven't seen her in years, so I can't say whether it was a permanent cure.

[cabbageweevil]

This wasn't exactly an exchange as such as I am pretty sure Ellen De Generes can't hear me through the TV screen but it did have my best friend and I going "You are doing what?! Are you totally insane"

She had a lovely old lady on her show who had given her retirement over to helping people in her community. Everyone loved her and had written into the show to see if she could be one of the people Ellen gives prizes like new cars or holidays to. So after a run down of all this woman's good deeds Ellen asks her what long held dream she had and this dear old lady mentioned she had always wanted to go to the Solomon Islands. Heck knows why because it is a dump. Ellen then annouces "Well we are sending you to the Solomon Islands for a week!" and the crowd starts cheering and going crazy.

We started going crazy too as that dear old lady was going to get herself killed. Not only is it a dump it is also one of the most dangerous places on earth at the time in the middle of a civil war had zero  tourism. Troops from Australia and New Zealand were there on Peace Keeping missions and my BF's ex who was a cop in the Armed Offenders Squad had got back from there saying it was hell on earth. They may as well have sent her to Mogadishu.

Our brains were just about exploding that no one in the production staff had even thought to do a check on where they were sending this woman, which was basically certain doom, as well as the fact the woman herself had not even thought of finding out a tiny bit more about the place herself.

Not getting into the "bucket list" conversation (btw, an expression completely new to me); but dare I venture the opinion that -- like beauty -- awfulness and dump-ish-ness may be in the eye of the beholder?  Clearly, you and people who you know, are convinced that the Solomon Islands are a nightmarish place; but there are a fair number of countries on earth where much squalid / horrible / violent / dangerous stuff goes on, but which also have positive aspects that attract some people to visiting those countries. I'd expect that the Solomon Islands have devotees, who would give you views contrary to your total dismissal of the place.

Picking up on your "zero tourism" comment: I would imagine that going to the Islands concerned as a tourist, is not actually forbidden -- if that situation obtained, it's hard to envisage everyone concerned with the show being  so clueless as to be unaware of such a fact. And do you have actual proof that the dear old lady knew nothing about her planned destination, but just vaguely fancied the idea?  I'd think it possible that she knew about the "downside" to the place, and the risks, but had compelling reasons for wanting to go anyway.

I would suggest, respectfully: that your holding a very strong opinion on a topic does not necessarily mean that all who do not wholeheartedly share that opinion, are fools or "off on another planet".

[lowspark]

Regardiing the pronunciation of the greek food, gyro, at the very best Greek restaurant in Houston (IMHO), Niko-Niko's, they pronounce them "yee-ro". I've been going there since 1980 and that's where I learned the word and have pronounced it that way ever since. Maybe it's not the only correct way to say it, but the people who run this place are definitely Greek and that's the way they say it.

[Adelaide]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

Genuinely curious...

1.  Where are you?
2.  What would you like her to do?

1. I'm in the States. More specifically, I'm on the opposite side from her in a room that can seat about 100.
2. I would like her to not violently blow her nose 4-5 times per class in a room that is otherwise silent except for the professor's voice. This isn't sniffling. This isn't even normal blowing, which might only distract the handful of people around her. This is "I am actively trying to expel my brain from my sinus cavities" type honking.

[exitzero]

Regardiing the pronunciation of the greek food, gyro, at the very best Greek restaurant in Houston (IMHO), Niko-Niko's, they pronounce them "yee-ro". I've been going there since 1980 and that's where I learned the word and have pronounced it that way ever since. Maybe it's not the only correct way to say it, but the people who run this place are definitely Greek and that's the way they say it.

I always pronounced like "hero", I also assumed that's why some places in the US call sub sandwiches "heros".

[Hillia]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

Genuinely curious...

1.  Where are you?
2.  What would you like her to do?

1. I'm in the States. More specifically, I'm on the opposite side from her in a room that can seat about 100.
2. I would like her to not violently blow her nose 4-5 times per class in a room that is otherwise silent except for the professor's voice. This isn't sniffling. This isn't even normal blowing, which might only distract the handful of people around her. This is "I am actively trying to expel my brain from my sinus cavities" type honking.

So, perhaps, sit near a door so she could quietly step into the hall if this became necessary?  She can't possibly be hearing any of the lecture herself if she's blowing that hard, so this would spare everyone the racket.

[rose red]

Regardiing the pronunciation of the greek food, gyro, at the very best Greek restaurant in Houston (IMHO), Niko-Niko's, they pronounce them "yee-ro". I've been going there since 1980 and that's where I learned the word and have pronounced it that way ever since. Maybe it's not the only correct way to say it, but the people who run this place are definitely Greek and that's the way they say it.

I always pronounced like "hero", I also assumed that's why some places in the US call sub sandwiches "heros".

But is it yee-ro, yur-ro, guy-ro, gee-ro, or gur-ro?      I've heard them all used.

[Adelaide]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

Genuinely curious...

1.  Where are you?
2.  What would you like her to do?

1. I'm in the States. More specifically, I'm on the opposite side from her in a room that can seat about 100.
2. I would like her to not violently blow her nose 4-5 times per class in a room that is otherwise silent except for the professor's voice. This isn't sniffling. This isn't even normal blowing, which might only distract the handful of people around her. This is "I am actively trying to expel my brain from my sinus cavities" type honking.

So, perhaps, sit near a door so she could quietly step into the hall if this became necessary?  She can't possibly be hearing any of the lecture herself if she's blowing that hard, so this would spare everyone the racket.

We have assigned seating so she can't change permanently, but people are allowed to leave and usually one or two people do during lecture. I wish she would, it would make a lot less noise.