Small Talk: Chili's

[Glory]

That would be quite a limited career choice.  I mean, at some point, all these super-hero movies will get all played out.  PLEASE, they need to play out.

He needs to Costanza it.

 

"I'm out!" 

 

[LiberryLady]

As to Glory & frenchtoast- I saw Deadpool too. I could not believe how many children under 17 were in the theater. I think that's how it did so much business.

 

As I said on Facebook, one of my kindergarten students said he saw it.  A FIVE YEAR OLD.  I'm sorry, but I think if your kid still believes in the Tooth Fairy, he shouldn't be going to an R-rated movie.

[Kalliste]

Still haven't seen Deadpool but I know of a guy who thinks it was terrible so I guess there are some people in the world :P I found the trailers to be a bit meh to be honest. Maybe I need to know more about Deadpool as a character to understand his humour.

[Pixel]

I wasn't impressed with the one-liners in the trailer because they felt like they were trying too hard to be clever, but I saw the movie and laughed my ass off. This is one time where they did not spoil the best material by using it in the trailer, and I'm glad for that! And those lines from the trailer still felt even in the movie like they were trying too hard, but the rest of the movie was great.

[LiberryLady]

My son offered to take my husband and me to see Deadpool, and then nicely patted me on the arm whenever I should cover my eyes.  (Me = baby when it comes to gory stuff.)  So I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

[King of Birds]

Aww we can't let LL be the chicken for too long.

 

I was going back and forth with one of my cousin's kids, and she wrote me today that someone gave her a membership to ancestry (dotcom) for Christmas. (I guess it's pretty expensive, which I didn't know.  I've caught a handful of those "Who Do You Think You Are" episodes.) Has anyone here looked up family tree/ history stuff? And even chatting with her, we only share one side of the family in common, she started talking about her father's side and I don't know anything about his past. It's crazy how quickly you can expand the tree.

[LiberryLady]

Omigod, I have a crazy ancestry.com story! The LiberryLad has a roomie, K., and K.'s family decided to do that cheek swab thing ancestry.com offers. Results came back, and despite a Hispanic last name and a grandfather supposedly born in Mexico, they had NO Latino DNA. They went to grandma, and oops! Turns out K.'s dad was from a different dude. They tracked the dude down, and now they have a new grandpa. K.'s dad in NOT thrilled, but everyone else is cool with it.

[Kalliste]

Oops :P Technology these days, getting everyone in the shit.

 

I tried with Ancestory.com but i just don't know enough about my family to get anywhere. I can tell you the names of my grandparents but that is about it. Perhaps if i had a paying membership it might have been easier.

 

I have considered doing one of those swab tests to see what my background is though, they seem interesting.

[sacrebleu]

My dad was going to make finding out our family ancestry a retirement project. However, family lore is that his great grandfather was born above a bar somewhere in Brooklyn and there wasn't much of a paper trail to follow.

 

Our last name is pretty common in Ireland, and there was a well known builder and a well known criminal by that name, so we all just randomly lay claim to them. 

 

I would be curious to do a DNA test, but I'm a little worried it might turn out like that one commercial, where the guy identified as German-- but found out he had primarily Scottish DNA. It would be strange to learn that your native identity is not what you always believed.

[possibilities]

When I was in 7th grade, I sat down with my grandmother and she told me everything she knew about the family tree. There weren't reliable records available for Jews in Europe, so this was the way to get the info. And even at that, it was sketchy. My great-grandmother didn't know her own birthdate! They would just make one up after coming through Ellis Island. Stuff like that made it very hard to sift fact from family fiction. There were a lot of people whose names had been changed, not only by the Immigration officials but also by Rabbis-- they would change your name if you got very sick, hoping it would help you to get well. Thus, great aunt Oodle, whose name was changed to Malka. I also had two great Uncles whose names were "Nuchem" and "Nachem" according to what Grandma Helen (formerly Sadie) told me. Who knows how much shit she was making up and how much was true?

 

There were also a lot of people changing their names during WW2. Not only in Europe, but also over here, because of the fear of being rounded up. And that made things even harder to trace, because it wasn't always done formally. No paper trail was part of the point, and was way easier to do back then than it is now when everything is computerized and cross-referenced.

 

I drew the whole thing onto big charts on poster board for a school project, and then the teacher somehow "lost" them! I couldn't believe it. I had to turn them in for the assignment, and when I asked for them back, she said she didn't have them. She was a social studies teacher named "Mrs Reich" who taught about WW2, and told us "Hitler wasn't crazy, he just wanted to control Europe". It was a very weird year. I mean, no one had specifically asked her if Hitler was crazy, and it seemed like an odd defense.

 

Why I was doing a family tree investigation for that class is another story. It was an experimental social studies section where they were having us do independent studies in addition to the standard history curriculum. She would give us all the regular assignments, and also everyone had to do something extra for their extra research, and present it to the class to teach us how to do oral presentations and teaching. I did another one on women in Congress and one on the Vanderbilt family. I think we had to do 4 independent research topics a year and I don't remember the 4th one I did. I remember I wanted to do something about the Declaration of Independence but she vetoed it for some reason. Everyone in the class had a different research topic, something related to but not specifically part of the standard curriculum.

 

This was in the 1970s, long before Ancestry.com.

[King of Birds]

I drew the whole thing onto big charts on poster board for a school project, and then the teacher somehow "lost" them! I couldn't believe it. I had to turn them in for the assignment, and when I asked for them back, she said she didn't have them.

This pisses me off too, even ~ 40 years later!

 

And it's funny what your Grandma Helen/Sadie said / how much was she making up.  One of my aunts told me about her father/ my grandfather emigrating from Ireland in a long note, about a dozen years ago, since I asked her about it.  And I mentioned something about it to my mother, and she said "Well, S. might be mis-remembering or embellishing that."  It's almost better to ask them in a group setting since then they can argue about the past and who remembers it better.

[possibilities]

Honestly, it really was hard to know what was literally true, what was an honest mis-remembering, and what was a deliberate falsification. And as for Mrs. Reich "losing" my charts, I still get mad when I think about it. I should have made two copies, but in those days, it was not so easy to do, and I would have had to draw the whole thing by hand two times, which at that age seemed ridiculous. Now of course I would never let my only copy of anything go to anyone, for any reason, and that's the difference between being 50 and being 12.

[Kalliste]

i had a pre-employment (even though I've been at work for 14 months) medical today. I was a bit worried because there was no information on what they'd be doing but overall the worst part was waiting to be seen. About 5mins before my appointment I asked where the toilets were and was told I'd need to provide a urine sample and could I wait a few minutes until my appointment.

 

A few minutes ended up being about 45, I was sitting there busting the whole time and getting annoyed they were so behind on my appointment. On the plus side it came out fine with none of the bad stuff that could have been in it. And other than being overweight not much else was wrong. I am now cleared to sit on my arse in front of a computer all day! How unsurprising.

[Pixel]

When I show up for appointments they'll let me pee whenever, and if they need a sample they'll just give me the cup and take it even if I don't get in for my appointment for a while. That's crazy that they made you wait that long. The only time I haven't been allowed to pee is when I was pregnant, because they need your bladder full to get a good ultrasound image.

[King of Birds]

Yeah that is weird Kalliste. Since I don't have easy veins to draw blood - before doctor visits I have to like super-hydrate in the morning before I get there. Gives them a fightin' chance to hit paydirt. I used to give blood to the Red Cross but it was never easy.  So lets just say that I'm a-burstin' when I get there, but like Pixel notes, they always have a cup in the bathrooms for such endeavors.

 

To switch topics a bit- instead of making a poll (I know, now you're bummed you can't vote) what's the first thing you do in the morning when you wake?  I mean, after visiting the loo.  Check your cell?  for what- emails?  facebook? twitter?  texts?  weather reports? (that's what I figure you midwesterners have been up to this week)

Stock market? FML on a Monday morning?  (ha! a joke for two of you) Local news to make sure none of your relatives were arrested?

 

Do you still have any friends / relatives who send you those emails with like, goofy dog /cat photos?  Silly memes with photos of goofy Minions? Old magazine ads for products no longer around?  That type of thing?  Yeah... one of my neighbors started sending me that stuff a few weeks ago. I asked it to stop. I think I'm being shunned now.

[Pixel]

I check my calendar and email to see what I'm in for at work. It helps me decide if it's a jeans and ponytail day or a dress for meetings day.

I don't get those emails, probably because I made it known a long time ago I don't even open them. It's how I've avoided viruses for so long. Plus, doesn't everyone just share that crap on Facebook now?

[Kalliste]

The weirder thing was the cup to pee in was polystyrene.. It wasn't even the normal testing cup. I think I would have felt even weirder just holding my 1/4 full foam cup while waiting :P And on that topic, do you know how difficult it is to pee 'midstream' into a cup? And then only fill it 1/4 of the way! Especially when you've been dying to go to the toilet for more than an hr at that point. The good thing was they were able to do their testing straight away, I was surprised that work didn't ask for drug tests as there is a zero tolerance policy and we can get randomly tested without notice any time while at work.

 

I have difficult veins too! I went to a dr appointment once and didn't realise I would need to have blood taken and I hadn't had anything to drink at that point.. it was not a pleasant experience. I also recently started donating blood more often (the mobile van is parked outside my work every 3 months.. it's like they time it! :P) and each time they need to attempt from both arms.. this time I'm just going to suggest going straight for the left (even though it's my dominant).. I'd like to say I do it for selfless reasons but I really just like all the treats they give you (they had the best cookies last time!) and I have no fear of needles so figure why not?

 

The first thing I do after my alarm goes off is get up and take a shower, I then make my breakfast and once I'm sitting on the couch I'll check instagram, twitter and then gmail while eating breakfast.

 

And no, no forwarded emails. That all lives on twitter through Vine tweets :P 

 

It might also be that my mum doesn't know my email addresses so she can't send me that junk :D

 

On a whim I got a haircut after work today including a few foils. It's so much shorter and I'm so much happier! Long hair is the worst.

This is the "I'm bored, I can't believe i have to wait 30mins for these foils to proccess" before me.

This is the "YAY my hair is light and breezy and the hairdresser gave me little curls but I'm not going to look too excited because I'm taking a selfie at a busstop" after me

[MichelleAK]

I generally shower first thing (unless it's a weekend and I'm not going out early). Then breakfast, then makeup.  Then I check email, Facebook, etc., while watching the news.  I get up earlier than I really need to, because I like to ease into the day, so I have lots of time before I leave for work. 

 

I rarely get email forwards, especially recently.  I think all of the memes, cute pix/videos, have migrated to Facebook, so that's where I'm likely to see them now.

 

Vacation starts tomorrow!  Long flight to Phoenix, but then 8 full days of fun in the sun! Of course, it's been warmer than usual here, and little to no snow, so not the "get out of the frozen hellhole" break it normally is.  Still, it's 6 days away from work, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.

[sacrebleu]

My morning routine is pretty similar to MichelleAK. Shower first (my hair dresser tells me to let my hair air dry- so I fry it less with the dryer). 

 

 Then I make Breakfast and check emails/social while watching morning news. I used to work for one of the local stations, and my BF still does, so it's my little way of supporting him professionally. It always makes my day a little when the anchors mention him (as they occasionally talk about what the producer is telling them to do).  

[possibilities]

I check email-- except today, when I didn't bother, and of course today was when my assistant emailed me with something specific about today, that I needed to respond to right away but didn't see... luckily she thought to call me on the phone also, so that worked out.... I usually check voice mail also. Then I check my blood pressure and blood sugar, and open the curtains to let light in.

 

Before email existed, and before I was the sort of person who needed to check her medical stats, and even before that when I wasn't obsessed with getting messages in general, I would shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, rush out the door, in that order. Oh, and feed the cat, though right now I'm between kitties so I don't have to do that at the moment. I used to be able to do all that in 20 to 30 mins but now I wake up 2 hours in advance any time I need to leave the house. I move slower than I used to.

 

I used to be hard to get blood out of. I remember people gathering around and collectively looking for a vein in my ankle! But now it's pretty straightforward, and an arm will do. It helps to be hydrated, but it also helps if the lab isn't freezing cold. I don't know why it got easier as I got older, but it did. Such a relief to just get stuck once and not wind up with bruises everywhere from failed attempts.

[Kalliste]

Does anyone else find the robots from Boston Dynamics to be especially creepy?

 

 

They need to team up with the Japanese for their next model to make it look less scary :P 

 

In the future, the robots will look back to these videos of humans pushing them around and will enslave us forever.

[Too Late Kev]

Pixel: a titanium disc replacement? You're like TooLateKev, getting ever so closer to being a Terminator.  (knee-hip-pelvis replacement) Switching your name to Jamie Summers soon too?

 

Catching up, as usual. KoB, I only had a hip replacement. Knees and pelvis are still the original models. The hospital bill was something like $22K; we paid about $2K I think. I'm thankful for insurance, and the whole process was totally worth it. And was it Pixel who got a tummy tuck? If I won the big money, I'd go full-on liposuction, everything-tuck, take care of varicose veins, etc., etc. I'd leave the face and hair alone -- those would be my concessions to aging gracefully.

 

Teaching kids about the internet...there are attempts to do that at school, and each year they have to sign something about proper internet use. Other than that, it's what you teach them at home about being safe, not saying things online that you wouldn't feel right about saying in person, and how something dumb you say on the internet could follow you around and affect your chances at a job and such.

 

First thing I do in the morning after visiting the bathroom...if it's a school morning, I check if the kids who need to be up at that time are up. Sometimes I'll do that even before using the bathroom. Other than that, there's no one thing I always do.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Too Late Kev

[Pixel]

Catching up, as usual. KoB, I only had a hip replacement. Knees and pelvis are still the original models. The hospital bill was something like $22K; we paid about $2K I think. I'm thankful for insurance, and the whole process was totally worth it. And was it Pixel who got a tummy tuck? If I won the big money, I'd go full-on liposuction, everything-tuck, take care of varicose veins, etc., etc. I'd leave the face and hair alone -- those would be my concessions to aging gracefully.

 

Teaching kids about the internet...there are attempts to do that at school, and each year they have to sign something about proper internet use. Other than that, it's what you teach them at home about being safe, not saying things online that you wouldn't feel right about saying in person, and how something dumb you say on the internet could follow you around and affect your chances at a job and such.

 

First thing I do in the morning after visiting the bathroom...if it's a school morning, I check if the kids who need to be up at that time are up. Sometimes I'll do that even before using the bathroom. Other than that, there's no one thing I always do.

Too Late Kev, you're way behind! I am scheduled for a tummy tuck with lipsuction of flanks (which means my love handles, also known as everything from below the rib cage to the bottom of the hips. It should be a lovely, painful recovery. I don't care. I've hated my belly forever, and I want to have a flat tummy and a waistline even if it's only for a few years. It's supposed to last forever, though, as long as I don't get crazy and gain a bunch of weight. My weight has been pretty stable though, so I'm not worried about that.  Insurance doesn't cover this at all, by the way, so it's going to cost me 10,000. Worth every penny, I say!

 

I got rid of the varicose veins years ago. When I was working as a cardiac ICU RN we had a cardiologist who was starting to do varicose vein laser closure in his office. In order to get word of mouth out, and as professional courtesy, he did my veins for just what insurance would pay, so I didn't have to pay any co-pays or deductible or anything.

 

I totally agree with you on the face surgery. I think people look better when they just age normally. My one concession to that is blepharoplasty - when eyelids start getting hooded and make you look tired all the time, I'm ok with a little eyelid lift just so you look refreshed. Anything that starts to look pulled, tight, or catlike is a definite no-go. I don't think that makes people look younger. Obvious plastic surgery is not attractive.

[Pixel]

Death chicken!

[King of Birds]

You don't get to declare Death Chicken! It's imposed on you, like a prison sentence!  You need to get your scarf on and look out for Dementors!

 

 

LOL this is YOOOGE!

Edited March 1, 2016 by King of Birds

[King of Birds]

Hey look! Shake Shack is gonna open here in LA (not that this is close for me or LL to check out.)  What say you, people of Chilis? Should I be in line to get a burger and shake?

 

In the last few years, 5 Guys has opened a few places, and there are a few Chick-fil-A's here and there. Dunkin donuts opened up last summer... this is like, a time of fast food renaissance in SoCal.

[MichelleAK]

Hey look! Shake Shack is gonna open here in LA (not that this is close for me or LL to check out.)  What say you, people of Chilis? Should I be in line to get a burger and shake?

 

In the last few years, 5 Guys has opened a few places, and there are a few Chick-fil-A's here and there. Dunkin donuts opened up last summer... this is like, a time of fast food renaissance in SoCal.

 

"Fast food" and "renaissance"--never thought I'd see those two ideas put together.

 

I'm off on vacation in AZ.  They are having a heat wave right now; it's getting close to 90 during the day, which is about 15 degrees above normal for this time of the year.  However, it gets chilly at night (around 55), so at least it's easy to keep the house cool without having to rely too much on air conditioning.  It's so nice to be away from work!

[Too Late Kev]

I'd never heard of Shake Shack, but it looks good. I'm a Five Guys fan -- good burgers (grilled on a different grill than the buns, so I can have a bunless burger which is GF as long as they prepare it carefully) and excellent fries (also GF because of the very limited menu -- no breaded stuff fried in the same oil).

[Pixel]

Never heard of Shake Shack.

[Kalliste]

My passport has been dispatched! Now tell me, what is the process for obtaining a passport where you guys are? Over here you need to fill out an online form (well you can pick up a paper one too but pfft, who has time for that?) which you then print and you need a guarantor to confirm your identity, they can't live with you, be related to you or be a romantic partner and have known you for at least 12 months. They also need to either have a valid passport or have been enrolled to vote at their current address for more than 12 months. They then need to sight a passport photo and on the back write that it is in fact you. They sign it, you sign it and then you need to organise an interview through the post office (no idea why the post office got stuck with this type of thing). At the post office you need to provide 2 passport photos (including the guarantor one), your birth cert and any proof of name changes, your licence and medicare card and they go through checking everything is ok. If they deem it to be ok you pay them $254 and they send it off to be processed. They say it should take about 3 weeks for you to get it.

 

So I went through that on Monday and it was dispatched on Friday so that seems quite good, they gave me a call on Friday morning which I missed and I was freaking out about what was wrong with the application. My biggest concern being that my named changed when I was 8 and the only proof I have of it is a little stamp on my birth certificate with the new name... it has caused me many a problem, this is why you don't let kids make these decisions.

 

Apparently that delayed it a bit but didn't stop the process, they were just calling to say it would need to have my middle name on it... I don't even care, if they didn't tell me I would have just expected it to be that way. The service was good though, they sent me an SMS and I was provided someone's name and their direct phone number rather than having to call a call centre. 

 

Anyway, in about a weeks time I will have the means to travel overseas :D

 

tl:dr - the passport process here seems to be long and drawn out.

 

Is it similar or completely different where you are?

[frenchtoast]

When I got my passport about 20 years ago, I had to provide paperwork proving my citizenship--specifically a birth certificate and a drivers license. There are other types of ID as well, but birth certificate was necessary. (Mine was weird because my name doesn't match because my mom had our name changed to our stepdad's, so I needed that paperwork as well.) You can go to a Post Office to submit the paperwork, but initially I lived close enough to a government center so I went there. We get a picture and submit it with the money and a 8 weeks later, a passport. I also needed to get a visa because I was studying abroad, but that's different.

 

Getting the kids passport was similar, however we got a more limited one, a passport card, that allows land/sea travel to Canada, the Bahamas and Mexico. They're sort of like drivers licenses. And they've probably expired by now.

 

It does sound a bit complicated in Australia.

[Kalliste]

Oh, the passport cards sound interesting. I wonder if we have something similar with NZ. We don't need visas to travel there but seems like a passport is required (which is the main reason for getting one, planning on going there in Nov).

 

You still need to wait a bit to get it though? I recently read a book where the main character was from the UK and popped off for a trip down to London came home the same day with a passport and I thought it sounded a bit far fetched.. if it is the reality though I wish it were like that here :P

 

Also it looks like your name change was similar to mine. I was born with my Mum's maiden name and when my parents got married they gave me the choice to either keep it, hyphenate it (which my Mum did) or change to my Dad's surname.. I went with his name and given the fact that I haven't seen him in years, I wish I hadn't bothered :P

[Pixel]

We just renewed the kids' passports a few weeks ago. It's not nearly as complicated as your process. You just bring proper ID and a 3-4 page form along with a photograph to the post office, pay your $130, and sign the papers and that's it. It's still a pain, but not nearly what you go through. They say it can take around 6 weeks to get it, but ours came in 2 weeks.

Also, if the applicants are minors both parents must be present at the time of application.

[Too Late Kev]

If they're minors, both parents and the child have to be present. If they're busy kids with sports and extracurricular academic pursuits, finding a time when the P.O. is open and the kid and the parents are all available at once is tricky! Also, you have to give up your birth certificates and other information. The P.O. sends them off to the passport agency and you get them back eventually with the new passport. And yes, we do have a couple officially stamped birth certificates for our kids each, so we weren't sending off the only one, but it's still a little nerve-wracking to send those off.

 

We did this about three years ago and found it to be pretty red-tape-intensive. I don't remember it being difficult when my twins were babies, but maybe my memory is faulty! We couldn't use the passport cards because we were flying; those can't be used "for international travel by air."

 

You can renew by mail under certain conditions. Unfortunately, one of those conditions is that the prior passport was issued in the last 15 years. My prior one was issued 15 years and a few weeks before I was renewing, so I had to go through all the hoops, applying in person and using the longer form. In the future, I'm going to just keep my passport up.

 

You can get a passport faster in an emergency or for international travel coming up very soon by getting an appointment at a passport agency, like the Boston Passport Agency. My brother-in-law had to do that at one point.

[LiberryLady]

It wasn't so tricky getting a passport for my family when we got them a few years, EXCEPT for the 22 year old LiberryLad. His twin the LiberryLass had no problem, but they sent back the form asking for FIVE more pieces of identifying materials, each at least FIVE years old.  So I copied middle school yearbook photos, library cards, etc., etc. We think it was because he got his driver's license so late... evidently only terrorists wait until they're 21 to do so.

[Kalliste]

Wow, I would never send off my birth certificate and hope to get it returned. The solution (of sorts) to that here is either someone official sights it (in the case of the post office with my passport) or you have to get a justice of the peace (whose duties are different to the US version according to wikipedia) to stamp a copy advising they have sighted the document and the date they did it.

 

And it does sound tricky to get a child's passport. I assume they do that so they know both parents are consenting to the child going overseas? I got a passport as a child but I don't even remember the process, I think I was smiling in the photo too which we're not allowed to do now. My current passport photo is like the worst mugshot ever :P

[Too Late Kev]

Yes, they want both parents so they don't get into a situation with someone taking a child out of the country in a custody case. I remember way back when I was in high school when my foreign language teacher (whose husband was foreign) told us that her kid was on her passport (I guess that's how they did it then) "just in case." Even then, I thought that was messed up! Smart, maybe, but messed up, especially to tell high school kids her reasoning.

[King of Birds]

Way to go, Kev. La mort du poulet is upon you.  ;-)

 

I *still* don't have a passport. I got the paperwork etc about two years ago and never followed through. BAD KoB! How else am I gonna get to Australia and crash at Kalliste's pad?

 

Dammit I know it's been a while since I posted a poll. WAY overdue. I'll think on it tonight.  I know you're all clamoring for it. The PMs are ENDLESS.

 

ETA: couldn't think of anything for a poll, but another thing popped in my ... ear today. I was on my treadmill this morning and of ALL the songs to pop up on itunes ... well, that needs to wait for the punch line. It was a doozy. But it was still okay to jog to. An "oldie" of sorts, something from college and you know that's a while ago. I recall a roommate of mine once asked "WHY do you have this tape?"  Yes, I owned the TAPE. Remember, I was a poor college lad back then, and the album (yes album) came out before CDs. So when will I get to the point- oh yeah, but first I encourage you all to post the favorite bad songs you love, things you can't take off your lists/ itunes/ mp3s, etc.

 

Today that was

Pet Shop Boys "Suburbia." Leeeeets take a ride and run with the dogs toniiiight, in sub- burb- bee- ya! 

Edited March 9, 2016 by King of Birds

[MichelleAK]

That's a great song, KoB!  One of their good early songs.  Next to R.E.M., Pet Shop Boys are my favorite group.  I love clever pop songs, and Neil Tennant is a master at clever lyrics.

 

Here are mine. I don't know if they are actually bad songs, but they are kind of dumb:  "Little Willy" and "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet.  In the actual bad song category: "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry and, from many years later, "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis. The lyrics for both of those songs are just ridiculous, but I still love singing along. 

[LiberryLady]

I have written before of my deep, deep love for the the hilariously bad song "I've Never Been to Me," by Charlene. Despite containing the eye-rolling line "I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free," I have not only sung along to this song, loudly, but I've also teared up a leetle bit.

 

And, hey!  I say Play That Funky Music is an AWESOME song.  It's so much fun to sing!

[Pixel]

Bust a Move! That, and tons of 80's New Wave. I still play Nik Kershaw's "Wouldn't it be Good" at least once a week. Also, "Oblivious" by Aztec Camera.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Pixel

[King of Birds]

 

Damn, the musical interlude is about a minute long!  "I don't wanna be here no more..."  What an uplifting lyric

And, hey- Champagne Supernova is a good song.

But that Oblivious that Pixel noted? What a stinker.

Edited March 9, 2016 by King of Birds

[Kalliste]

I used to have things on tapes too. When I was just discovering you could buy music and it wasn't just on the tv and radio most the things I bought were on tape because vinyl was old and CDs were non existent or too new. I forget when we got a cd player, maybe the mid 90's, my Dad had bought my Mum a cd for her birthday and we didn't own a cd player *hint hint* so he went out and bought a 5 disk changer which was pretty amazing at that time.

 

My first car was a 1979 red gemini, which looked a little something like this. When I owned it in 2000 it had a tape deck and I was too cheap/poor to buy a cd player so I actually used tapes :P

It looked a little something like this:

I named it Ruby because it was a red gem.

 

Anyway, feel free to share first car stories :P I wish I had a photo of my actual one. It was pretty done up, I'm assuming the owner before me was a teenaged boy and not a girl :P 

 

In relation to bad music, I don't know.. I used to listen to BSB when I was a youngen and I'd probably still sing along to Backstreets Back.. my friend and I used to listen to the album non stop and talk to each other on the phone about which of them was the dreamiest. I liked Nick, she liked Howie.

We listened to this a lot:

 

Then there is this, his debut album was the first I ever owned. Even at the age of 10 I was in love.

and this left me positively flustered

 

Does Love Shack  by B52's count as cringeworthy? I remember singing it when I was about 5 and having no idea what they were talking about. I'd still sing it now and be happy to listen to it. In fact I am right now. You realise how long this song is when you decide to do it for karaoke, which I did when I was 18 

 

On to something I am actually listening to these days and I actually am ok to tell you about. I found this band and I think the female lead sounds great.

I listen on my way to work, it helps me to not get angry about the shitty traffic.

[sacrebleu]

Love Shack is never cringeworthy, Kalliste

 

I mostly listen to music when cleaning or working out-- so most of my playlists are upbeat. There are a few sentimental favorites that would probably get quizzical looks/ eyerolls from people.

 

The Theme from "The Magnificent Seven" totally cheeseball, but you can't quit running as long as it's playing.

 

"Blame It On Your Heart" by Patti Loveless (you may remember it from a gawd awful 90's movie "A Thing Called Love " where River  Phoenix played a country music singer)

 

there's also "On Top of the World" from the classic 90's Carpenter's tribute album "If I were a Carpenter"

[Kalliste]

three day weekend!

[King of Birds]

You made me look it up! Canberra day? Labour Day? 8 hours day? Adelaide Cup?  Ya'll are nuts about March 14.

 

We just call it Pi Day.

[Kalliste]

Hah, I've never heard it referred to as 8 hr day.. I don't even know what that means :P Tasmanian's are weird. Canberra Day for me :) and then a 4 day week at work and then the bf is whisking me away on a mystery holiday the week after for our anniversary and then the weekend is easter.. it's a good March for me  :D

 

eta: I clicked on the link and found out all about the 8hr day :P It's funny, because if someone told me I had to work a 48hr week now I'd tell them to shove it. At the moment I work the weird time of 7hrs21min a day. When our next agreement goes through (if it ever does) it'll be increased to the standard 7.5hrs but I do enjoy those extra 9 mins a day :P

[King of Birds]

Kalliste- So you punch in some time clock? That idea is just so odd to me.

 

A few of us Hateballers are going to "compete" with the NCAA brackets. A complete crapshoot! I will win or come in last place. All or nothing, that's me.

 

Now if you'll excuse me, it's Pi(e) day!  Dessert for lunch? maaayyyyybe?

[sacrebleu]

 

You made me look it up! Canberra day? Labour Day? 8 hours day? Adelaide Cup?  Ya'll are nuts about March 14.

Hey.. there's something fishy about that list of holidays. Why do Aussie's celebrate the Queen's birthday in June, September and October? I applaud the extra days off, but come on! Or does royalty age kind of like dog-years? For every year we age, they age three?

[Too Late Kev]

One of my kids has a part-time job, and they have a time clock. Mr. Kev used to, years ago, also. I think it's the kind of thing that exists mostly in factories/manufacturing plants.