funny, you air grievances every other day of the year. hah!
3.
geg6
My grievance this year is with Samsung. Got a new tv and the instructions were completely worthless. Just pictures…no text, no list of tools/accessories such as types of cables required and the pictures were more than somewhat less than clear and comprehensive. Took me about 2 hours to get it going and hooked up to the satellite box. Still can’t get into WiFi as Verizon informs me my modem sucks. New modem supposed to be here tomorrow or Wednesday. Why does all new technology have to be such a pain in the ass? Why does never make life easier?
A Very British Scandal, was really good. That Hugh Grant is not a half bad actor is he…LOL
10.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
My son came home tonight for the holiday with his SO and she showed me this video because she knows I like opera and my son likes rap. I think you might get a kick out of it.
Limited mobility from the non-weight-bearing cast for a broken foot bone is incredibly exhausting… Two friends helped me ‘crutchify’ my apartment but everything takes so much time and tires me out.
And, on top of that: cancer stinks, One friend just moved out west to be near her family as she starts hospice care, and another close friend is being moved in the next day or so from the local hospital to a hospice facility for comfort care.
Not very cheery at the moment :-(
12.
Pogonip
@geg6: We still have picture-tube TVs. I dread the day they die.
I think you can hire a geek to make a house call and hook up your new technology.
Ben Whishaw is excellent. If you have Netflix, London Spy with both him and Jim Broadbent starring may still be available. Screen charisma by the bucketload.
14.
Pogonip
Cole, what has you disgusted today?
15.
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
At least the instructions weren’t in Korean. Well, I’m guessing they weren’t.
16.
lamh36
@NotMax: the entire series was really good. Winishaw was fantastic. Randomly, I swear though, I spent much of the movie I was obsessed with trying to figure out if he had on lip gloss or not during various scenes but then I googled some pics of him and realized nope…his lips are kinda rosey.
LOL
17.
ruemara
I’ve been cleaning & baking for the past 2 days and I still haven’t hit the bathroom. Holidays are stressful AF.
Oy. Now got “bakin’ in the bathroom” stuck in the head, to the tune of Smokin’ in the Boys Room.
27.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: When we get instructions in Korean, we are lucky; we can get my aunt to walk us through step by step (she has to translate in her head as she goes, so speaks s-l-o-w-l-y, but her translations are worth the wait, they make a lot more sense than the translators Samsung hires).
28.
Pogonip
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ssssshhhh! We got those TVs from a sketchy guy in a back alley…
29.
Mnemosyne
Anyone else watching A Christmas Carol on TCM right now? It’s the Alistair Sim one, so hurry up!
I scrubbed my bathroom today and then had to take a shower myself. These holidays are crazy with all the shopping, cleaning, and baking. Tomorrow morning I’m making orange coconut scones. I promised them to the kids and neighbors.
33.
Ohio Mom
@Mayim: How long until your foot is healed? Just the thought of crutches makes my arms ache.
Sorry about your friends. Hope they have easy transitions.
We just wore ourselves out with Victoria. Rufus Sewell is to die for.
35.
Gelfling 545
@Mnemosyne: I don’t do cable so no TCM for me. I do have the DVD of that version though and plan to watch it when I fininsh this round of gift wrapping. I had to stop for a bit to rest my back.
36.
James E Powell
Cookie baking marathon. Done with everything except the ginger snaps. Tomorrow is another day.
Madame got a new Samsung TV a month or so ago, so I’m familiar with the pictorial instructions. The satellite was easy to hook up(HDMI to HDMI), the old DVD player was never going to connect(no HDMI) so she’s getting a new Blu-Ray/DVD player for Christmas.
@MomSense: I’m making curry puffs as an appetizer for Christmas dinner, fortunately I don’t have cook the whole meal this year.
I spent a good 3 or 4 months on crutches after I re-tore my ACL last October, so I feel ya, believe me. They’re exhausting, especially if you lack upper body strength like I do. But don’t try to rush it or else it won’t heal right and you may get stuck having surgery on it like my mom did when she wouldn’t listen to her doctors.
if you’ve never tried it, mix a little finely ground black pepper into the cookie dough. Always get kudos for ginger snaps made that way. Swedish holiday custom, where they’re called Pepperakor.
42.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
Don’t let SC know you’ve been watching Victoria ; )
@NotMax:
Nyaker Pepperkakors (ginger snaps) are a holiday tradition with us.
45.
dww44
@geg6: This multiplied many times over. My disgust with technology and how the real change is that companies are able to use it to their advantage and make US the customer/consumer do all the work for them: Go paperless and save the company the cost of printing statements, postage, and have customer spend her time printing, storing, buying paper and cartridges.
46.
Pogonip
To be fair to Samsung, Korean and English aren’t the easiest languages to translate between. If I remember right, DOD classifies Korean as one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn. After all those years with my aunt and nephew, my uncle still can’t read or converse in Korean, though, oddly enough, he was fluent in German, the language which foxed Mark Twain, in 6 months.
I myself had trouble with Spanish. Learning Japanese by ear was MUCH easier, and I was even doing well with the syllabaries, but after falling off Mount Kanji several times I concluded I could never be literate in Japanese and gave up.
Mentioning Japanese reminds me. If you play Neko Atsume, be aware (as I wasn’t) that the Cafe Remodel, unlike all the other remodels, HAS NO INSIDE AND NO OUTSIDE. Meaning you can’t protect the expensive foods from Tubbs. He snorked down a bowl of expensive Sashimi 5 minutes after I put it, as I thought, inside, and then the cheeky fat bastard only tipped me one fish. So if you have the Cafe Remodel, stick with Thrifty Bits.
I had renamed Tubbs after Tunch of blessed memory, and I’m not changing it back, but I’m pretty annoyed with him.
That’s a Patrick Macnee (later John Steed on The Avengers) as young Marley.
48.
ruemara
@MomSense: I think I’m making red wine cupcakes for the village feast and a puff pastry dessert for the Christmas dinner. And I still have to put the garlic in the roast tomorrow and make the rice & peas. I haven’t stopped cooking for 2 weeks.
49.
Amir Khalid
@Pogonip:
Your aunt’s English is probably way better than that of a Korean-based Samsung tech writer.
Thank Steeplejack — he reminded everyone in the thread below. I’m just spreading the message.
51.
Martin
@Mayim: Yeah. I busted my foot earlier this year and it was a pretty shitty month. If there’s ever a time to splurge on Postmates and Amazon Fresh, it’s now. Lots of places offer a 30 day trial or some discount on your first month. If you expect to be back on your feet in a month, grab all of the offers and cancel when you’re off your crutches.
@Amir Khalid: You’d be surprised. I was up at the observatory a few months ago and a young woman was asked where she was from, she said Seoul. Listening to her English, she could have been raised in Pasadena.
@Pogonip: At least Korean has an alphabet. (I took a year of Korean as well as a year of Chinese.)
54.
Martin
@Baud: Porn is always the first into any new medium – video tapes, internet, VR, etc. Because the industry has so many publishers, there’s real competition to find the novelty of a new medium and make the most of it. In the case of the internet, it was immediacy, and while they had some benefit of e-commerce, it was really Apple and Amazon that cracked that one. Porn was the canary in the coal mine for publishers. Porn went ad-supported almost immediately. Again, because there are so many publishers, it commoditized. Same with the news, opinion, etc.
@A Ghost To Most: And yeah, nobody could keep up. A friend of mine was at a video hosting startup. It was 50% Disney and 50% porn. An outsized volume of the porn went to Utah.
@Amir Khalid: Could be. I don’t know if use of English is widely taught in Korea or not.
61.
Yarrow
@lamh36: Loved A Very British Scandal. The whole cast was wonderful.
Baking done for the day. Been baking since just after breakfast. Way too many cookies.
62.
Martin
@Pogonip: It is. There’s a large Korean community here where I live and I have a lot of Korean students, and English instruction is fairly common there.
63.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve always thought the ending of A Christmas Carol was bittersweet. Scrooge has seen the light but only at the very end of his life.
My kids requested a ham this year which is less work than the usual. Not sure about sides though. I bought some collard greens and carrots. Maybe I’ll make some fancy Mac and cheese.
65.
Tazj
@Mnemosyne: “I always know.”
And that does it for me. Though I’d like to continue watching,my husband insists I change the channel because he doesn’t like it. He thinks it’s too dreary but he likes to watch Forensic Files before bed. Yuck! Nightmare fuel.
At least I have at on DVD somewhere in the house.
Character actor Miles Malleson milks every last drop from his scenes as Old Joe the rag man.
Long and varied career in film as both actor and writer. Wrote the screenplay for the Sabu The Thief of Baghdad.
67.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
It’s too bad. I liked Victoria when I saw the first few eps. I’m a sucker for period pieces and historical dramas. I loved most of Boardwalk Empire, for example. I’d hope that Victoria would be able to show the negative effects of her reign on the Irish and other peoples around the globe.
68.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That wouldn’t actually surprise me. Once in a while you do run into people like that, who speak/write a language not their own way better than the typical native speaker. Some are gifted that way. The people who get jobs writing user manuals for TV sets, maybe not so much.
As someone who’s old enough to be your mother, I now find the message of “It’s never too late to do better and be happy” to be comforting. Even just a few years of being happy and loved and doing good for other people is better than nothing.
No grievance worth sharing. Things can always get much worse. At least, we’ll have adults in control of the House come January. That’s worth something.
72.
ljt
@MomSense: Do you have an InstaPot? I’ve made InstaPot Easey Mac & Cheese a couple times now (and will be making again for Christmas dinner) to rave reviews. I’ve learned to cover the vent with a dish towel when releasing pressure because the steam release is ‘starchy’.
I’ve seen appliances, for want of a better word, where you kneel on a rolling type of wheel chair. Jeez, why can’t I describe this better? No crutches, just wheel this thing around with your knee on the seat. Surprised you don’t have something like that.
One thing I liked about the Seymour Hicks version was that they showed Scrooge’s old flame, Alice, married and happily surrounded by her children and grandchildren. There’s something about post WWII-movies where the women always end up as pathetic spinsters if the protagonist doesn’t marry them (see also “It’s A Wonderful Life”).
Even just a few years of being happy and loved and doing good for other people is better than nothing.
That’s true. It’s still sad that he wasted so many years, though.
87.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The standard of English instruction in Asia is generally higher than it was a generation ago, and so is its frequency of usage in urban parts. I think I once mentioned here a guy from Cleveland, who complained to me that he never got to practice his Malay conversation because everyone here in KL uses English all the time, dammit!
88.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Stuart Frasier: It’s not even faint praise. Just completely twisted logic. It’s like giving someone credit for resolving their debts because they killed their creditors.
89.
FlyingToaster
We (WarriorGirl & I) baked the 6 dozen gingerbread cookies. HerrDoktor pronounced them “Oh, you made the ‘good’ cookies”, and then cut the tips off of all the gel decorating tubes for WG. Who can now manage about 3/4 of the tasks (running the mixer, measuring everything except the flour and the blackstrap molasses; mixing the separte parts and then combining them in the mixer). She can’t quite manage the rolling pin (I gave her the choice of the small or large pins, she fortunately chose the small), but she cut out most of the cookies.
I have to bake some “good” bread tomorrow am, which is likely to be potato bread, if it’s not Challah. Very few grievances other than we’re living in the bizarro timeline. I’d better go boil the fucking potato(es).
90.
Ladyraxterinok
@Pogonip: In the 90s German teachers in the US were told that the 1st foreign language So Koreans learn is English, the 2nd German.
Also German language teaching professionals claimed that in many countries German is taught by starting with the student’s knowledge of English (either to those with English as the native language or to those with English as an as already learned language.)
91.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok: These were language professionals in Germany, not in US. So presumably with a vested interest in finding the best way to teach German.
92.
Pogonip
@Ladyraxterinok: My uncle learned it by being abruptly transferred to Germany and having to sink or swim. Lucky for him, there were plenty of bilingual Germans holding out oars.
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rikyrah
Hey Cole.??
chopper
funny, you air grievances every other day of the year. hah!
geg6
My grievance this year is with Samsung. Got a new tv and the instructions were completely worthless. Just pictures…no text, no list of tools/accessories such as types of cables required and the pictures were more than somewhat less than clear and comprehensive. Took me about 2 hours to get it going and hooked up to the satellite box. Still can’t get into WiFi as Verizon informs me my modem sucks. New modem supposed to be here tomorrow or Wednesday. Why does all new technology have to be such a pain in the ass? Why does never make life easier?
NotMax
Funny, you don’t look pole-ish.
Baud
@geg6:
From what I understand, watching porn is easier than ever thanks to tech.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
That’s a PITA for sure, but did you at least end up getting the TV you wanted at the price advertised, after all that kerfuffle the other day?
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: You might be able to download a pdf version of the instruction booklet from the Samsung website if you have the model#.
schrodingers_cat
Isn’t everyday Festivus on Balloon Juice.
lamh36
A Very British Scandal, was really good. That Hugh Grant is not a half bad actor is he…LOL
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
My son came home tonight for the holiday with his SO and she showed me this video because she knows I like opera and my son likes rap. I think you might get a kick out of it.
what opera sounds like in my head
Mayim
Limited mobility from the non-weight-bearing cast for a broken foot bone is incredibly exhausting… Two friends helped me ‘crutchify’ my apartment but everything takes so much time and tires me out.
And, on top of that: cancer stinks, One friend just moved out west to be near her family as she starts hospice care, and another close friend is being moved in the next day or so from the local hospital to a hospice facility for comfort care.
Not very cheery at the moment :-(
Pogonip
@geg6: We still have picture-tube TVs. I dread the day they die.
I think you can hire a geek to make a house call and hook up your new technology.
NotMax
@lamh36
Ben Whishaw is excellent. If you have Netflix, London Spy with both him and Jim Broadbent starring may still be available. Screen charisma by the bucketload.
Pogonip
Cole, what has you disgusted today?
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
At least the instructions weren’t in Korean. Well, I’m guessing they weren’t.
lamh36
@NotMax: the entire series was really good. Winishaw was fantastic. Randomly, I swear though, I spent much of the movie I was obsessed with trying to figure out if he had on lip gloss or not during various scenes but then I googled some pics of him and realized nope…his lips are kinda rosey.
LOL
ruemara
I’ve been cleaning & baking for the past 2 days and I still haven’t hit the bathroom. Holidays are stressful AF.
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara:
That’s amazing. You must have camel ancestry.
Amir Khalid
May your grievances be few, that you be done airing them before the Festivus dinner gets cold.
NotMax
@lamh36
Like the actor who plays Phillip in Travelers. On close-up shots it looks as if he’s wearing Helena Rubinstein Streetwalker #9. But he’s not.
chris
Grievances? Not this happy pup.
ruemara
@SiubhanDuinne: lol, I mean cleaned the bathroom. I need a cleaned restroom and all I got to was the floor mopping and the rugs cleaning.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Pogonip:
Is that even legal?
@geg6: They do the pictures so they don’t have print instructions in a hundred languages; and yes, the pictures aren’t that good.
@Baud: This is true.
rikyrah
@chris:
Absolutely adorable ??
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
Fabulous!
NotMax
@ruemara
Oy. Now got “bakin’ in the bathroom” stuck in the head, to the tune of Smokin’ in the Boys Room.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: When we get instructions in Korean, we are lucky; we can get my aunt to walk us through step by step (she has to translate in her head as she goes, so speaks s-l-o-w-l-y, but her translations are worth the wait, they make a lot more sense than the translators Samsung hires).
Pogonip
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ssssshhhh! We got those TVs from a sketchy guy in a back alley…
Mnemosyne
Anyone else watching A Christmas Carol on TCM right now? It’s the Alistair Sim one, so hurry up!
Sister Golden Bear
2018, I’ve got some grievances about you….
Doug R
@NotMax: Ben’s the voice of Paddington. Hugh Grant is a hammy cad in Paddington 2.
MomSense
@Mayim:
Fuck fucking cancer.
@zhena gogolia:
I adore his facial expressions while he sings.
@ruemara:
I scrubbed my bathroom today and then had to take a shower myself. These holidays are crazy with all the shopping, cleaning, and baking. Tomorrow morning I’m making orange coconut scones. I promised them to the kids and neighbors.
Ohio Mom
@Mayim: How long until your foot is healed? Just the thought of crutches makes my arms ache.
Sorry about your friends. Hope they have easy transitions.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
We just wore ourselves out with Victoria. Rufus Sewell is to die for.
Gelfling 545
@Mnemosyne: I don’t do cable so no TCM for me. I do have the DVD of that version though and plan to watch it when I fininsh this round of gift wrapping. I had to stop for a bit to rest my back.
James E Powell
Cookie baking marathon. Done with everything except the ginger snaps. Tomorrow is another day.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Madame got a new Samsung TV a month or so ago, so I’m familiar with the pictorial instructions. The satellite was easy to hook up(HDMI to HDMI), the old DVD player was never going to connect(no HDMI) so she’s getting a new Blu-Ray/DVD player for Christmas.
@MomSense: I’m making curry puffs as an appetizer for Christmas dinner, fortunately I don’t have cook the whole meal this year.
Mnemosyne
@Mayim:
I spent a good 3 or 4 months on crutches after I re-tore my ACL last October, so I feel ya, believe me. They’re exhausting, especially if you lack upper body strength like I do. But don’t try to rush it or else it won’t heal right and you may get stuck having surgery on it like my mom did when she wouldn’t listen to her doctors.
A Ghost To Most
@Baud:
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
I am, thanks to you. “There’s more gravy than grave about you!”
I’ve always loved that line by Dickens
NotMax
@James E Powell
if you’ve never tried it, mix a little finely ground black pepper into the cookie dough. Always get kudos for ginger snaps made that way. Swedish holiday custom, where they’re called Pepperakor.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
Don’t let SC know you’ve been watching Victoria ; )
A Ghost To Most
@Mnemosyne:
That’s my wife’s favorite.
A Ghost To Most
@NotMax:
Nyaker Pepperkakors (ginger snaps) are a holiday tradition with us.
dww44
@geg6: This multiplied many times over. My disgust with technology and how the real change is that companies are able to use it to their advantage and make US the customer/consumer do all the work for them: Go paperless and save the company the cost of printing statements, postage, and have customer spend her time printing, storing, buying paper and cartridges.
Pogonip
To be fair to Samsung, Korean and English aren’t the easiest languages to translate between. If I remember right, DOD classifies Korean as one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn. After all those years with my aunt and nephew, my uncle still can’t read or converse in Korean, though, oddly enough, he was fluent in German, the language which foxed Mark Twain, in 6 months.
I myself had trouble with Spanish. Learning Japanese by ear was MUCH easier, and I was even doing well with the syllabaries, but after falling off Mount Kanji several times I concluded I could never be literate in Japanese and gave up.
Mentioning Japanese reminds me. If you play Neko Atsume, be aware (as I wasn’t) that the Cafe Remodel, unlike all the other remodels, HAS NO INSIDE AND NO OUTSIDE. Meaning you can’t protect the expensive foods from Tubbs. He snorked down a bowl of expensive Sashimi 5 minutes after I put it, as I thought, inside, and then the cheeky fat bastard only tipped me one fish. So if you have the Cafe Remodel, stick with Thrifty Bits.
I had renamed Tubbs after Tunch of blessed memory, and I’m not changing it back, but I’m pretty annoyed with him.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
That’s a Patrick Macnee (later John Steed on The Avengers) as young Marley.
ruemara
@MomSense: I think I’m making red wine cupcakes for the village feast and a puff pastry dessert for the Christmas dinner. And I still have to put the garlic in the roast tomorrow and make the rice & peas. I haven’t stopped cooking for 2 weeks.
Amir Khalid
@Pogonip:
Your aunt’s English is probably way better than that of a Korean-based Samsung tech writer.
Mnemosyne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Thank Steeplejack — he reminded everyone in the thread below. I’m just spreading the message.
Martin
@Mayim: Yeah. I busted my foot earlier this year and it was a pretty shitty month. If there’s ever a time to splurge on Postmates and Amazon Fresh, it’s now. Lots of places offer a 30 day trial or some discount on your first month. If you expect to be back on your feet in a month, grab all of the offers and cancel when you’re off your crutches.
James E Powell
@NotMax: \
I’m definitely going to try that. Thanks for the tip.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: You’d be surprised. I was up at the observatory a few months ago and a young woman was asked where she was from, she said Seoul. Listening to her English, she could have been raised in Pasadena.
@Pogonip: At least Korean has an alphabet. (I took a year of Korean as well as a year of Chinese.)
Martin
@Baud: Porn is always the first into any new medium – video tapes, internet, VR, etc. Because the industry has so many publishers, there’s real competition to find the novelty of a new medium and make the most of it. In the case of the internet, it was immediacy, and while they had some benefit of e-commerce, it was really Apple and Amazon that cracked that one. Porn was the canary in the coal mine for publishers. Porn went ad-supported almost immediately. Again, because there are so many publishers, it commoditized. Same with the news, opinion, etc.
@A Ghost To Most: And yeah, nobody could keep up. A friend of mine was at a video hosting startup. It was 50% Disney and 50% porn. An outsized volume of the porn went to Utah.
zhena gogolia
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Oh, she knows. I have an Irish friend who’s disgusted with me too.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
I love that! I think someone else linked it a week or so ago, but it’s a treat to see it again, so thanks!
zhena gogolia
@dww44:
You sound like me!
Mnemosyne
Ah, Ernest Theisiger as the undertaker. One of my favorite character actors, with one of the movies’ most distinctive noses.
Pogonip
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Japanese has TWO, +
kanji.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: Could be. I don’t know if use of English is widely taught in Korea or not.
Yarrow
@lamh36: Loved A Very British Scandal. The whole cast was wonderful.
Baking done for the day. Been baking since just after breakfast. Way too many cookies.
Martin
@Pogonip: It is. There’s a large Korean community here where I live and I have a lot of Korean students, and English instruction is fairly common there.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve always thought the ending of A Christmas Carol was bittersweet. Scrooge has seen the light but only at the very end of his life.
MomSense
@ruemara:
My kids requested a ham this year which is less work than the usual. Not sure about sides though. I bought some collard greens and carrots. Maybe I’ll make some fancy Mac and cheese.
Tazj
@Mnemosyne: “I always know.”
And that does it for me. Though I’d like to continue watching,my husband insists I change the channel because he doesn’t like it. He thinks it’s too dreary but he likes to watch Forensic Files before bed. Yuck! Nightmare fuel.
At least I have at on DVD somewhere in the house.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Character actor Miles Malleson milks every last drop from his scenes as Old Joe the rag man.
Long and varied career in film as both actor and writer. Wrote the screenplay for the Sabu The Thief of Baghdad.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
It’s too bad. I liked Victoria when I saw the first few eps. I’m a sucker for period pieces and historical dramas. I loved most of Boardwalk Empire, for example. I’d hope that Victoria would be able to show the negative effects of her reign on the Irish and other peoples around the globe.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That wouldn’t actually surprise me. Once in a while you do run into people like that, who speak/write a language not their own way better than the typical native speaker. Some are gifted that way. The people who get jobs writing user manuals for TV sets, maybe not so much.
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Curry puffs sound yummy.
Mnemosyne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
As someone who’s old enough to be your mother, I now find the message of “It’s never too late to do better and be happy” to be comforting. Even just a few years of being happy and loved and doing good for other people is better than nothing.
Patricia Kayden
@chris: That dog is in heaven. Too cute!!
No grievance worth sharing. Things can always get much worse. At least, we’ll have adults in control of the House come January. That’s worth something.
ljt
@MomSense: Do you have an InstaPot? I’ve made InstaPot Easey Mac & Cheese a couple times now (and will be making again for Christmas dinner) to rave reviews. I’ve learned to cover the vent with a dish towel when releasing pressure because the steam release is ‘starchy’.
pat
@Mayim:
I’ve seen appliances, for want of a better word, where you kneel on a rolling type of wheel chair. Jeez, why can’t I describe this better? No crutches, just wheel this thing around with your knee on the seat. Surprised you don’t have something like that.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
One thing I liked about the Seymour Hicks version was that they showed Scrooge’s old flame, Alice, married and happily surrounded by her children and grandchildren. There’s something about post WWII-movies where the women always end up as pathetic spinsters if the protagonist doesn’t marry them (see also “It’s A Wonderful Life”).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Pogonip: Korean has Hangul(the Korean alphabet), but Hanja(Chinese Characters) are still used.
NotMax
Hmm. Wonder if the actor billed as playing the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come is related to Steve Kornacki. Same last name.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Madame informed me that this young woman would be pretty typical of current English instruction in Korea.
@MomSense: They’re yummy.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Kevin Drum has lost his mind:
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/donald-trump-did-two-things-right-this-week/
Pogonip
Here’s a picture of Tunch, formerly known as Tubbs:
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.1YHnlPVvWn_LIJ0D3ks6-wHaEu%26pid%3D15.1&f=1
Pogonip
@pat: I had one of those when I had foot surgery. The pad you kneel on is slippery, suggest covering it with rough fabric like a towel.
Stuart Frasier
@HalfAssedHomesteader:
Surely you have heard the phrase “damning with faint praise”?
zhena gogolia
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Well, there is an episode devoted to the potato famine, but Victoria comes out as the heroine, as per usual.
Mike in NC
Donald Fucking Trump will declare the year 2019 to be when he airs his endless grievances against the rest of the world.
And why isn’t his picture yet on the $1 bill?
Steeplejack
@Mike in NC:
Puh-leeze, his face should be on the $10,000 bill!
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
The Saxe-Coburgs were never wrong. Just ask them.
;)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
That’s true. It’s still sad that he wasted so many years, though.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The standard of English instruction in Asia is generally higher than it was a generation ago, and so is its frequency of usage in urban parts. I think I once mentioned here a guy from Cleveland, who complained to me that he never got to practice his Malay conversation because everyone here in KL uses English all the time, dammit!
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Stuart Frasier: It’s not even faint praise. Just completely twisted logic. It’s like giving someone credit for resolving their debts because they killed their creditors.
FlyingToaster
We (WarriorGirl & I) baked the 6 dozen gingerbread cookies. HerrDoktor pronounced them “Oh, you made the ‘good’ cookies”, and then cut the tips off of all the gel decorating tubes for WG. Who can now manage about 3/4 of the tasks (running the mixer, measuring everything except the flour and the blackstrap molasses; mixing the separte parts and then combining them in the mixer). She can’t quite manage the rolling pin (I gave her the choice of the small or large pins, she fortunately chose the small), but she cut out most of the cookies.
I have to bake some “good” bread tomorrow am, which is likely to be potato bread, if it’s not Challah. Very few grievances other than we’re living in the bizarro timeline. I’d better go boil the fucking potato(es).
Ladyraxterinok
@Pogonip: In the 90s German teachers in the US were told that the 1st foreign language So Koreans learn is English, the 2nd German.
Also German language teaching professionals claimed that in many countries German is taught by starting with the student’s knowledge of English (either to those with English as the native language or to those with English as an as already learned language.)
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok: These were language professionals in Germany, not in US. So presumably with a vested interest in finding the best way to teach German.
Pogonip
@Ladyraxterinok: My uncle learned it by being abruptly transferred to Germany and having to sink or swim. Lucky for him, there were plenty of bilingual Germans holding out oars.