Please ignore this thread

hjake

Finally after all these months people are finally ignoring this loose thread. Please don't pull it. It holds the fabric of the universe together. A really nice plaid tweed.

kyoto kid

...that muse be the reason spaceships can travel the universe at plaid velocities.

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

Sfariah D

Ooh I found this thread again!

Sven Dullah

I'm afraid, if I ignore it, the Universe will collapse.

solis

Hard to ignore these threads.

Sven Dullah

Ignore this link, I know I would, providing I knew where it would take me...

NylonGirl

Sven Dullah said:

I'm afraid, if I ignore it, the Universe will collapse.

I thought we had to do something with a quantum monkey to hold the fabric of time together. 

WendyLuvsCatz

I swear officer, I only had cottage cheese and chives on toast for breakfast

paulawp (marahzen)

How can I ignore this thread when it's at the top of the list?

WendyLuvsCatz

am I going insane?

NylonGirl's post not edited but I swore she posted something about her chives from Amazon being not chives hence my post...

 

hjake

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I swear officer, I only had cottage cheese and chives on toast for breakfast

Sorry you lost me at cottage cheese. It is my personal kryptonite.

I actually have a weird reflex response that if I smell cottage cheese it will cause an immediate feeling of nausea to the point I feel as if I will retch. This condition has existed since childhood and my mother LOVED cottage chesse with a sliced apple. I could not be in the house when she ate it and she had to air the kitchen. I have no idea why it happens.

So I say booo hiss to your cottage cheese madam!!!

 

LeatherGryphon

Mmmm, cottage cheese, mmmmm.  My mother tricked me into eating cottage cheese by making a volcano of it with strawberry jam in the "crater".  I eventually learned to skip the jam.

Sven Dullah

please ignore me while I take a lift

hjake

I heard on the news today that my etiquette needs updating according to deBretts.

https://debretts.com/the-new-rules-of-mobile-etiquette/

So now I think I must preface all my telephone calls to my nieces and nephews with an SMS.

Is this a good call warning message?

 

Dear Snowflake,

I am going to place a voice call to you. Please do not be flustered or full of dread.

Most Sincerely,

Your Elderly Uncle from Christmas past.

LeatherGryphon

Well, I'm of the old school.  I RARELY make a text.  I MORE RARELY answer them unless I'm expecting them, but I also don't answer my telephone until the caller at least starts their voice mail message, or I hear it later.  If no ID, or no voice mail, then no response, period!  (Blame it on phone spam.) No anonymous, messageless caller rates a callback.  If it's important, they'll call you back. 

And as much as I sneer at the article's policy of sending a warning text before an incoming voice call, I do. however, agree with the article's stance on not entertaining nearby crowds with your voice calls.  Additionally, burying one's head in one's lap while twiddling your fingers down there, at the meal table or in the presence of people actually wishing to engage in real speech, should be illegal, if not socially embarassing.  A simple single button push should be all that's necessary to put people on hold for your oh-so-important conversation, to when you have time IN PRIVATE to deal with them.  

When I take the time and energy to move my body physically through time and space to be in your presence, I expect a modicum of attention.

But in another 10 or 20 years, most of us "old-school" phone users will be dead and y'all can do what you want.  But until then.  if you call me, then don't expect an answer immediately, so be sure to leave a call back number.  And if you text me, out-of-the-blue, don't expect an answer at all, but call me to see if I got it.

Aaaaand this topic is probably on a slippery slope.

NylonGirl

WendyLuvsCatz said:

am I going insane?

NylonGirl's post not edited but I swore she posted something about her chives from Amazon being not chives hence my post...

 

I love these kinds of mysteries that make a person wonder if we're all in the right universe. I don't ever edit my posts, even if I notice mistakes. I do remember having a chive situation some years ago. You probably really saw it... somewhere... at some time...

LeatherGryphon

I'm in the left universe.  Well, at least that was the universe that was left when I got there.  The other one had already sailed.

kyoto kid

LeatherGryphon said:

Well, I'm of the old school.  I RARELY make a text.  I MORE RARELY answer them unless I'm expecting them, but I also don't answer my telephone until the caller at least starts their voice mail message, or I hear it later.  If no ID, or no voice mail, then no response, period!  (Blame it on phone spam.) No anonymous, messageless caller rates a callback.  If it's important, they'll call you back. 

And as much as I sneer at the article's policy of sending a warning text before an incoming voice call, I do. however, agree with the article's stance on not entertaining nearby crowds with your voice calls.  Additionally, burying one's head in one's lap while twiddling your fingers down there, at the meal table or in the presence of people actually wishing to engage in real speech, should be illegal, if not socially embarassing.  A simple single button push should be all that's necessary to put people on hold for your oh-so-important conversation, to when you have time IN PRIVATE to deal with them.  

When I take the time and energy to move my body physically through time and space to be in your presence, I expect a modicum of attention.

But in another 10 or 20 years, most of us "old-school" phone users will be dead and y'all can do what you want.  But until then.  if you call me, then don't expect an answer immediately, so be sure to leave a call back number.  And if you text me, out-of-the-blue, don't expect an answer at all, but call me to see if I got it.

Aaaaand this topic is probably on a slippery slope.

...I'll never forget the time I was at a neighbourhood pub a few years ago.  Everybody seated at the bar was in their own little bubble either on their phone texting or their mobile computer. oblivious to anything around them, even the person next to them  (as well as the barkeep who had to get their attention when their glass was empty).  After they had eventually cleared out I mentioned to the barkeep that he whole idea of a "public house" is a place to come together and converse with one another over a pint or two.  I then added they could have just as well stopped at the market got a 6 pack or bottle of wine and gone home. 

The barkeep smiled, thanked me, then drew me a pint and said it was on the house.  

So many times I see people out for dinner both paying more attention to their phones than to each other. 

Makes me wonder what will happen if when the big solar flare hits.

hjake

kyoto kid said:

LeatherGryphon said:

Well, I'm of the old school.  I RARELY make a text.  I MORE RARELY answer them unless I'm expecting them, but I also don't answer my telephone until the caller at least starts their voice mail message, or I hear it later.  If no ID, or no voice mail, then no response, period!  (Blame it on phone spam.) No anonymous, messageless caller rates a callback.  If it's important, they'll call you back. 

And as much as I sneer at the article's policy of sending a warning text before an incoming voice call, I do. however, agree with the article's stance on not entertaining nearby crowds with your voice calls.  Additionally, burying one's head in one's lap while twiddling your fingers down there, at the meal table or in the presence of people actually wishing to engage in real speech, should be illegal, if not socially embarassing.  A simple single button push should be all that's necessary to put people on hold for your oh-so-important conversation, to when you have time IN PRIVATE to deal with them.  

When I take the time and energy to move my body physically through time and space to be in your presence, I expect a modicum of attention.

But in another 10 or 20 years, most of us "old-school" phone users will be dead and y'all can do what you want.  But until then.  if you call me, then don't expect an answer immediately, so be sure to leave a call back number.  And if you text me, out-of-the-blue, don't expect an answer at all, but call me to see if I got it.

Aaaaand this topic is probably on a slippery slope.

...I'll never forget the time I was at a neighbourhood pub a few years ago.  Everybody seated at the bar was in their own little bubble either on their phone texting or their mobile computer. oblivious to anything around them, even the person next to them  (as well as the barkeep who had to get their attention when their glass was empty).  After they had eventually cleared out I mentioned to the barkeep that he whole idea of a "public house" is a place to come together and converse with one another over a pint or two.  I then added they could have just as well stopped at the market got a 6 pack or bottle of wine and gone home. 

The barkeep smiled, thanked me, then drew me a pint and said it was on the house.  

So many times I see people out for dinner both paying more attention to their phones than to each other. 

Makes me wonder what will happen if when the big solar flare hits.

 

To both your points. It is not the sending of a text message asking if you have a moment to speak or the oblivious to the world around you in specific that are my grump.

I depend on my smart phone everyday as a communications device and personal attendant.

I have observed the decline of social interaction since the Blackberry in the 1990s. It really hit home when I took customers out for lunch and they could not stop checking their phone.

In recent years, one of the most memorable events for me was at a Starbucks. It was about 8 months before COVID. I stopped at a Starbucks for a coffee since I was very early to visit a customer. Four young women were chatting with each other at the same table by smart phone. No eye contact or verbal interaction. Ofcourse my immediate luddite response was and thus did civilization end. I thought it was really silly.

Then earlier this year CBC News in Canada did an article about a young woman hired to be a receptionist but she would get flustered and full of dread if she had to answer the phone. She would let it go to voice mail then deal with the message. She was in treatment with a psychologist who was the interviewee. The psychologist mentioned that this was an increasing issue.

The young are not developing the social skills to manage unplanned encounters/events or manage conflict. As counterpart to this problem is a greater gullibility to populism. Easy answers to complex problems coupled with a lack of engagement in understanding history or civics.

For me the deBretts rules of ettiquette are just an indication that we have formalized (normalized) detachment by individuals from their societies.

See attached cat picture to finish on a positive note.

NylonGirl

Is DeBretts some kind of authority? After reading some of that article, I quickly got the impression it was an opinion piece written by a socially awkward person who was trying to convince the masses their coping mechanisms for social anxiety should be adopted by everybody so they can seem normal.

Anyway, I think even for people who don't want the phone call, calling alone is better than announcing the call with a text message. How much stress is it to have a person waiting for you to tell them whether or not you're willing to accept a call from them? And then you sit there knowing at any moment that call could come through. And it seems like it takes forever. Maybe it's not going to come through at all since you never responded to the text. But you're still waiting for it. It would have been easier if they just called and you freaked out and never answered. Or you answered it and found out it's that aunt or uncle you love and they made cookies that are cut in half so you can Frankenstein a half chocolate chip half snickerdoodle cookie.

On the other hand, at my workplace people keep telling me to "call" them through the voice call feature of our Microsoft Teams messaging. And I have found myself sending messages telling them I'm about to call, particularly because I wish I knew when they were about to call me so I assume theyd have less stress if they could get ready when I call them. But they tell me to call. I think most of them are of the generation that was before text messages. They also keep telling me to write everything down. "Write this down... write that down... I want to see you write this down". And I'm like "I have not had to write anything down in years. I am probably of the last generation who knew how to write in cursive".

I don't know.

McGyver

kyoto kid said:

...I'll never forget the time I was at a neighbourhood pub a few years ago.  Everybody seated at the bar was in their own little bubble either on their phone texting or their mobile computer. oblivious to anything around them, even the person next to them  (as well as the barkeep who had to get their attention when their glass was empty).  After they had eventually cleared out I mentioned to the barkeep that he whole idea of a "public house" is a place to come together and converse with one another over a pint or two.  I then added they could have just as well stopped at the market got a 6 pack or bottle of wine and gone home. 

The barkeep smiled, thanked me, then drew me a pint and said it was on the house.  

So many times I see people out for dinner both paying more attention to their phones than to each other. 

Makes me wonder what will happen if when the big solar flare hits.

Nothing much will change... even when people are having conversations, many conversations are people talking at each other, not to each other... When I was a kid I read articles about that as far back as the 70s, lamented how television was making people distracted and less able to hold conversations... how everyone was talking at each other and conversational skills declining... it was a often visited topic in the 80s, and by the 90s some warned that the internet was adding to it... I had noticed that very early before I ever read anything about it and throughout my life, thanks to my stupid sensitive hearing, any time I'm in public, I've always been subjected to other people's conversations... it's was like having to surf through random social media posts, but going back before social media ever existed... 

Soooo many people just talk at each other... it's like people will be talking and having two entirely different conversations. I can't tell you how many times I've heard conversations where I thought it was two separate groups sitting at separate places having conversations, but when I look, there are only two or three people sitting together... granted nowadays, they could all have earbuds in and be talking on the phone separately (or just be a group of stage actors practicing soliloquies, coincidentally sitting in close proximity), but I've noticed this decades before earbuds and cellphones existed... 

Nowadays everyone is like the internet made people crazy... not really, they were excelling at that well before... it just gave everyone a place to share their crazy... 

Well before TV, before the internet, cellphones or even radio, for centuries many writers have lamented how common it is for people to basically talk at each other... they've written parodies of characters who do it, some have even made it their signature topic... they've called it by different names, coined different expressions for it, but the end product is basically the same... I think one of oldest things I read where the writer satirized such behavior was something written in France from the 1600s... 

So I'm pretty sure if the sun gets fed up with hearing our BS and decides we need a break and sends us a huge EMP that fries the internet and cellphones... People will just go back to talking "at each other" in person like they did in days before smartphones...

But... I have a plan for this...

I'm currently training armies of rodents to randomly go out into the world to deliver pamphlets of my crazy writings and mindless musings...

In the event of a massive solar flare, the transition should be seamless... granted, at the moment you'd have to go to wherever rodents tend to congregate to receive updates and important rantings, but I'm looking to personalized delivery at some point.

PerttiA

McGyver said:

In the event of a massive solar flare, the transition should be seamless... granted, at the moment you'd have to go to wherever rodents tend to congregate to receive updates and important rantings, but I'm looking to personalized delivery at some point.

So, it's your rodent messengers that are making all that noise in my attic? 

McGyver

NylonGirl said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

am I going insane?

NylonGirl's post not edited but I swore she posted something about her chives from Amazon being not chives hence my post...

 

I love these kinds of mysteries that make a person wonder if we're all in the right universe. This is the whole reason I studied quantum physics and spent years designing and building a Multiversal Parallax Displacement Generator... it's lots of fun to go throughout the multiverse moving people's car keys into the refrigerator or swapping out posts from other universes... or even in some cases transporting people randomly into other universes and back so they are totally confused by what they just saw. It's all harmless fun and I'm pretty sure everyone enjoys this sort of thing.

Oh... that explains the whole watermelon thing on the news earlier... But I don't get the iguana thing... not the giant one that attacked New Jersey, I don't think that was you, I'm talking about the one with the little top hat in the video.  You said it was for the Arbor Day celebration, but that was in Septembruary and Arbor Day is Aprilember, and normally pumpkins are the traditional Arbor Day gift... But the video was funny and a great source of information on the history of spatulas and medieval ham fasteners... As L.J. Ackermann once said "Never going bowling on a ladder".

McGyver

PerttiA said:

McGyver said:

In the event of a massive solar flare, the transition should be seamless... granted, at the moment you'd have to go to wherever rodents tend to congregate to receive updates and important rantings, but I'm looking to personalized delivery at some point.

So, it's your rodent messengers that are making all that noise in my attic? 
 

Sorry, early beta testing is necessary... but you should check your attic for messages... there's a coupon there for 50% off a "Fun Size" sack of Kalakukko-Bites from HerringHouse™... hopefully they haven't expired yet... the coupons... not the fish pastries... I think they just taste that way sometimes...

FirstBastion

A CME can't come soon enough!  

McGyver

FirstBastion said:

A CME can't come soon enough!  
 

I await the arrival of the Carnivorous Mutant Emus as well...

The Carnivorous Mutant Emus are not as popular as the whole zombie apocalypse genre, but you gotta admit, Dawn Of The Emus, was an inspiring story of survival and courage in the face of overwhelming odds...

The way things are going in the animal kingdom (Murder wasps, angry Killer whales attacking boats, eagles dropping snakes on people and Death Otters attacking swimmers) I figure it's only a matter of time before the Carnivorous Mutant Emus come... I've already started selling Mutant Emu repellent on several conspiracy sites... it's just relabeled dollar store Axe body spray, but nobody has to know that... 

FirstBastion

There's a petting zoo in Western Alabama that's already selling the T-shirts.

NylonGirl

McGyver said:

NylonGirl said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

am I going insane?

NylonGirl's post not edited but I swore she posted something about her chives from Amazon being not chives hence my post...

 

I love these kinds of mysteries that make a person wonder if we're all in the right universe. This is the whole reason I studied quantum physics and spent years designing and building a Multiversal Parallax Displacement Generator... it's lots of fun to go throughout the multiverse moving people's car keys into the refrigerator or swapping out posts from other universes... or even in some cases transporting people randomly into other universes and back so they are totally confused by what they just saw. It's all harmless fun and I'm pretty sure everyone enjoys this sort of thing.

Oh... that explains the whole watermelon thing on the news earlier... But I don't get the iguana thing... not the giant one that attacked New Jersey, I don't think that was you, I'm talking about the one with the little top hat in the video.  You said it was for the Arbor Day celebration, but that was in Septembruary and Arbor Day is Aprilember, and normally pumpkins are the traditional Arbor Day gift... But the video was funny and a great source of information on the history of spatulas and medieval ham fasteners... As L.J. Ackermann once said "Never going bowling on a ladder".

Yes... that's exactly... yes.

I love this. This is what I'm here for. 

McGyver

I should give them a call and see if they want to carry Emu-Off... so far my sales are going strong... I've sold over two cans this month...

So far nobody who's bought any has complained... it could also be because for some reason the scent actually attracts and enrages the CMEs... 

But I suppose that's all part of the development process... you have to expect a certain amount of beta testers to get eaten no matter what your product is I've come to learn.

Write Idea

Someone built a Multiversal Parallax Displacement Generator and sent me to a universe (why is it A UNIVERSE and not AN UNIVERSE -- am I in the bad grammar universe, again?) with nothing but shrimp!  Do you know how annoying it is to be sent to a universe (why do I keep typing A UNIVERSE and not AN UNIVERSE -- I hate being in the bad grammar universe!) with nothing but shrimp!  I asked to be sent to the universe with nothing but prawns!