Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[Lugal]

Sort of related to the glasses thing, does everybody carry a 10X jeweler's loup around with them just in case they need to authenticate some jewelry?

[kiddo82]

2 hours ago, Lugal said:

Sort of related to the glasses thing, does everybody carry a 10X jeweler's loup around with them just in case they need to authenticate some jewelry?

Always.

[Kromm]

2 hours ago, Lugal said:

Sort of related to the glasses thing, does everybody carry a 10X jeweler's loup around with them just in case they need to authenticate some jewelry?

In the same pocket as my lockpicking kit. 

[DoctorAtomic]

3 hours ago, Lugal said:

Sort of related to the glasses thing, does everybody carry a 10X jeweler's loup around with them just in case they need to authenticate some jewelry?

Related - I know a guy that uses a monocle.

A. Monocle. 

I'm an above average funny guy in my job. I love the one line jokes - take my wife. Please. 

If I see him - Hey, where's your top hat (Mr Peanut)? I want to 'harummmph' a lot. 

I mean. I can't be in the same room. 

[Leeds]

7 hours ago, Lugal said:

Sort of related to the glasses thing, does everybody carry a 10X jeweler's loup around with them just in case they need to authenticate some jewelry?

Of course.  I have one on my watch fob.

[Shannon L.]

The Count of Monte Cristo is the most popular book among prisoners.

[Lugal]

21 hours ago, Kromm said:

In the same pocket as my lockpicking kit.

You know you can use the diamond to cut though any glass you might need to get through too right (since all diamonds are perfect 58-facet round brilliants)

Although a few hundred years ago there was a fashion for scratching rings, which was just an uncut diamond set in a ring.  Lovers would scratch romantic messages into glass window panes.

[isalicat]

On 5/14/2021 at 2:12 PM, Lugal said:

Sort of related to the glasses thing, does everybody carry a 10X jeweler's loup around with them just in case they need to authenticate some jewelry?

I often have a 10X loupe with me (they are pretty small and easily fit in my purse) because I buy and sell estate jewelry BUT a loupe doesn't "authenticate" anything despite what you see on TV.  It may allow you to see very small markings (like hallmarks) on metal or to see flaws in a gemstone but it won't tell you if the hallmark is accurate (you need a metal tester for that) or if the gemstone is real (you need lots of other stuff for that). So a loupe only takes you so far...

[ratgirlagogo]

On 5/14/2021 at 9:12 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

Related - I know a guy that uses a monocle.

A. Monocle. 

What eye problem does this guy have that a monocle works better for him than glasses?

[Blergh]

3 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

What eye problem does this guy have that a monocle works better for him than glasses?

Perhaps the same one that's been bothering Mr. Peanut all these decades! 

[kiddo82]

 

[Zella]

My cousin once told me she could probably use a monocle. She has normal vision in one eye and not in the other. I don't think she ever seriously considered getting one versus glasses, but I have repeatedly urged her to do so. LOL

[DoctorAtomic]

You all have no idea the burning urge I have to piss myself whenever he puts it on. 

On. A. Zoom. Meeting. 

Problem is the guy has kind of an attitude. I'm in a tangential position of authority so discretion/valor and all that. If he was likeable I wouldn't really have a problem asking. 

[Kromm]

4 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

You all have no idea the burning urge I have to piss myself whenever he puts it on. 

On. A. Zoom. Meeting. 

Problem is the guy has kind of an attitude. I'm in a tangential position of authority so discretion/valor and all that. If he was likeable I wouldn't really have a problem asking. 

Does he have a handlebar mustache too? 

[Zella]

I'm envisioning you Zooming with someone who looks like Col Klink. 🤣

[DoctorAtomic]

Well, he does know nothing.

[ABay]

That was Sgt. Schultz. Col. Klink was "Hogannnn!"

Learn your sitcom Nazis, people!

Edited May 17, 2021 by ABay

[meep.meep]

19 hours ago, Kromm said:

Does he have a handlebar mustache too? 

Or mutton chop side burns?

[DoctorAtomic]

He does not. That at least would play up the irony for fun. He plays it straight. 

[Zella]

4 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

He does not. That at least would play up the irony for fun. He plays it straight. 

What a waste of a perfectly good monocle. 

[DoctorAtomic]

He's largely a waste of my time. 

[Haleth]

That sounds awfully pretentious.  

[DoctorAtomic]

I can't really provide context, but they're one of those people that always have an excuse for everything and I'm responsible for a decent amount of people, so if you don't want to do your work, I can't be chasing you down. 

[Stats Queen]

On 5/15/2021 at 6:29 PM, isalicat said:

I often have a 10X loupe with me (they are pretty small and easily fit in my purse) because I buy and sell estate jewelry BUT a loupe doesn't "authenticate" anything despite what you see on TV.  It may allow you to see very small markings (like hallmarks) on metal or to see flaws in a gemstone but it won't tell you if the hallmark is accurate (you need a metal tester for that) or if the gemstone is real (you need lots of other stuff for that). So a loupe only takes you so far...

My husband calls my purse “The Tardis”. 
I had a fusion of my entire lumbar spine at the beginning of March and still can’t bend to pick things up. I went shopping by myself and took my smaller grabber with me in case I needed it. Of course, I have surprised friends by pulling a bottle of wine out of my purse. Obviously, my purse did not help my back situation 

[Kromm]

[Shannon L.]

People have a good knack for rewinding a tape and stopping exactly where they need to.  There's never a couple of back and forths when they've gone too far or not far enough.

Not all parents who love their children and don't regret their decision to have them for a minute are desperate to have grandchildren. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Shannon L.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, Shannon L. said:

People have a good knack for rewinding a tape and stopping exactly where they need to.  There's never a couple of back and forths when they've gone too far or not far enough.

 

It's the same with microfilm.  They load up the reel and immediately find the article they need instead of sitting there for hours getting motion sickness.

[Shannon L.]

Speaking of rewinding/fast forwarding tapes:  I've never done that and heard the high pitched sounds of sped up audio. Has anyone heard that?

[Bastet]

4 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

Speaking of rewinding/fast forwarding tapes:  I've never done that and heard the high pitched sounds of sped up audio. Has anyone heard that?

Only on editing equipment, never on my VCRs.  Cassette players, I'm not sure - haven't heard one of those in decades and don't remember.

[Shannon L.]

It's so kind of FBI agents to attend the funeral of the person whose murder they are investigating. 

[Blergh]

Only on TV do folks have zero interest in other shows streaming- or any revivals of fave shows for many.

[Ceindreadh]

2 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

It's so kind of FBI agents to attend the funeral of the person whose murder they are investigating. 

To be fair, in some cases it's because they think the murderer might show up. 

[paulvdb]

Only on tv when you knock on someone's door and they don't answer you'll just walk into their house.

[Katy M]

5 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Only on tv when you knock on someone's door and they don't answer you'll just walk into their house.

Actually, everybody does that with one of my friends.  She will NOT hear  you knock.  You have to walk in and yell her name.

[CoderLady]

6 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Only on tv when you knock on someone's door and they don't answer you'll just walk into their house.

 

1 hour ago, Katy M said:

Actually, everybody does that with one of my friends.  She will NOT hear  you knock.  You have to walk in and yell her name.

But if the door is open and no one answers you, you do not just walk in. Someone has been killed, the house has been ransacked, and if you go in you will get thumped on the head by the killer as they rush out.

Edited May 30, 2021 by CoderLady

[Hiyo]

Even worse, someone might be taking a shower and the will step out of the bathroom naked not knowing you are there!

[Bastet]

If I'm expecting someone, and they happen to show up at a minute when I'm outside or in the bathroom and thus don't hear/can't answer their knock/ring, I'm fine if they let themselves in if the door happens to be unlocked.  I have a friend who, half the time I arrive, is in the bathroom or out back switching laundry.  She leaves the door unlocked because of this frequency, so I can come in and hang with my "niece" (her cat) until she's free.

But I think this all comes back to how many more people on TV than in real life routinely leave their doors unlocked.  I only make it a point to lock mine if I'm leaving or going to bed (and I sometimes forget in the latter scenario); when I'm home, a door I used may indeed remain unlocked throughout the day.  There are people like me, people who always have their doors locked, and even people who don't even know where their key is - we run the gamut.  But on TV, unlocked doors are easy to come by.

[Katy M]

23 minutes ago, Bastet said:

But I think this all comes back to how many more people on TV than in real life routinely leave their doors unlocked.  I only make it a point to lock mine if I'm leaving or going to bed (and I sometimes forget in the latter scenario); when I'm home, a door I used may indeed remain unlocked throughout the day.  There are people like me, people who always have their doors locked, and even people who don't even know where their key is - we run the gamut.  But on TV, unlocked doors are easy to come by.

This brings me to another thing.  Only on TV do people who NEVER lock their door happen to lock it for plot related reasons.  Cars and residences.

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, Hiyo said:

Even worse, someone might be taking a shower and the will step out of the bathroom naked not knowing you are there!

Even with the door locked, my land lady came in with me starkers. She didn't even tip for the show. 

[JustHereForFood]

I don't get that. Is it an American thing to have the door to your house/apartment able to be open from outside? In Europe we have doors that don't have doorknob from the outside, so you can only open them with a key. This has always bugged me on TV, but I assumed that it is done only for the convenience and that IRL everybody has a normal safe door.

Another thing that similarly bugs me is that people never take their shoes off when they get home and never go wash their hands, but I also assume that it is just because it would pause the story, not that people actually don't do that.

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, Bastet said:

But I think this all comes back to how many more people on TV than in real life routinely leave their doors unlocked.  I only make it a point to lock mine if I'm leaving or going to bed (and I sometimes forget in the latter scenario); when I'm home, a door I used may indeed remain unlocked throughout the day. 

I was raised in a not so great part of town so out of habit I always keep my door locked, even when I have friends or family over, as soon as I let them in I lock the door. If I lived in TV Land I'd probably be a serial killer, locking my unsuspecting victims in my web muahhahhaa, fortunately for my friends and family I am far too lazy to be a serial killer so instead they just make fun of me when they can't open the door and realize I locked it. 

Now, if I'd lived in an apartment building with a hot single guy next door I might leave my door unlocked in the hopes he would stumble in one night, the light in the hall out, or he's just a little too drunk, and mistakenly comes into my flat instead of his own, and strips down and crawls into bed and...well, you've seen TV, you know the rest! Alas, I never lived next to any hotties so my door stays locked. 

[Bastet]

9 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

I don't get that. Is it an American thing to have the door to your house/apartment able to be open from outside?

Yes, generally if a door is unlocked, it can be opened from either inside or outside.

9 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

Another thing that similarly bugs me is that people never take their shoes off when they get home and never go wash their hands, but I also assume that it is just because it would pause the story, not that people actually don't do that.

I don't go wash my hands when I get home, but I do take off my shoes.  I'm probably a bit of an outlier (especially these days!) with the former, but the latter is a fairly even split in my experience.  In some cultures it's traditional to remove shoes (and to expect guests will do the same), but for many people it's purely personal preference/habit and that varies.

[JustHereForFood]

1 minute ago, Bastet said:

Yes, generally if a door is unlocked, it can be opened from either inside or outside.

 

Wow, I would die of fright! Not only do I lock the door anyway for the night, even with the safe doorknob, I turn the key sideways, so that noone would be able to open the door from the outside, even if they have the key (which only few do).

 

1 minute ago, Bastet said:

I don't go wash my hands when I get home, but I do take off my shoes.  I'm probably a bit of an outlier (especially these days!) with the former, but the latter is a fairly even split in my experience.  In some cultures it's traditional to remove shoes (and to expect guests will do the same), but for many people it's purely personal preference/habit and that varies.

I guess so. I know a few people who let guests keep their shoes, but I would never do that. I am a bit of a germaphobe, so I would have to clean like crazy. Me and most people I know have few spare pair of slippers for this reason. 

[DoctorAtomic]

30 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

I don't get that. Is it an American thing to have the door to your house/apartment able to be open from outside? In Europe we have doors that don't have doorknob from the outside, so you can only open them with a key. This has always bugged me on TV, but I assumed that it is done only for the convenience and that IRL everybody has a normal safe door.

Another thing that similarly bugs me is that people never take their shoes off when they get home and never go wash their hands, but I also assume that it is just because it would pause the story, not that people actually don't do that.

It's typical here that doors have knobs on both sides for both apartments and proper houses. Landladies apparently need to peek. 

 

[crazycatlady58]

36 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

I don't get that. Is it an American thing to have the door to your house/apartment able to be open from outside? In Europe we have doors that don't have doorknob from the outside, so you can only open them with a key. This has always bugged me on TV, but I assumed that it is done only for the convenience and that IRL everybody has a normal safe door.

Another thing that similarly bugs me is that people never take their shoes off when they get home and never go wash their hands, but I also assume that it is just because it would pause the story, not that people actually don't do that.

I am confused, if you do not have a doorknob on the outside how to you get in? We unlock the door but you still have to turn the doorknob to enter. 

[JustHereForFood]

2 minutes ago, crazycatlady58 said:

I am confused, if you do not have a doorknob on the outside how to you get in? We unlock the door but you still have to turn the doorknob to enter. 

After unlocking, you turn the key a quarter of a turn more in the same direction and that does the same thing as turning the doorknob from the inside. At least with the type of a doorknob that I am familiar with.

[crazycatlady58]

7 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

After unlocking, you turn the key a quarter of a turn more in the same direction and that does the same thing as turning the doorknob from the inside. At least with the type of a doorknob that I am familiar with.

Thank you, one thing I like about this place is you can learn something new. 

[JustHereForFood]

3 minutes ago, crazycatlady58 said:

Thank you, one thing I like about this place is you can learn something new. 

Well, I just learned that the "open front door from the outside" was not an "Only on TV" thing as I always thought, so ditto.

[Zella]

I've only lived in one apartment complex, and I did have someone walk in. The landlord had a pest control person do monthly inspections. I was only home for it once. I was sick and heard someone knocking on my locked door, and I didn't answer because I was not in the mood for anyone and was not even entirely sure it was my door being knocked on. Then the next thing I know my door gets unlocked and some strange man walks in my apartment. And I was like WTF?! And he was just as startled to see me as I was him. My yappy Chihuahua was even shocked into silence and just gaped at him. LOL

I guess he had a master key that could open everyone's doors. Anyway, after the world's most awkward and probably shortest inspection, he scurried away. 

1 hour ago, JustHereForFood said:

Another thing that similarly bugs me is that people never take their shoes off when they get home and never go wash their hands, but I also assume that it is just because it would pause the story, not that people actually don't do that.

I think it's largely a cultural thing that can greatly vary by location and culture. Where I live, people either wear their shoes in the house or they just go completely barefoot. (I'm of the barefoot persuasion, and most of the rest of the family keeps their shoes on.) 

 

[Browncoat]

I'll keep my shoes on if I'm going back out soon, but if I'm in for the rest of the day, the shoes come off.