Miscellaneous Discussion Thread

Sometimes I have something that I would like to mention or discuss but it is not worth an entire thread of its own. Also some people complain about the worthless discussions. If you would like to have a short convo or just make a random comment maybe this would be the place to do it instead of making a new thread. In other words if you have just a general question and it can be answered in 1 or 2 posts then this would be the place for it.

Mods, good idea or bad? If it is a bad one then feel free to lock this up and let it disappear into oblivion.


So my first contribution is, we had breakfast at taco bell today because I had a coupon. One of the things that we got were cinnabon delights. They are so freaking good it is ridiculous.

http://www.tacobell.com/food/sides/Cinnabon-Delights-4pack

I think that I may have had a bit too much to drink last night. I'm not sure why I'm typing this, or even how.

I come up with silly random thoughts I feel like inflicting on people all the time. I dunno, like "now late in life I realize the best way to do XYZ is blah blah blah" ... I can never remember them later.... usually mundane.

I might have to carry around a little notepad and write them down for here [you have been warned]

The Straight Dope has an entire forum category pretty much dedicated to this - Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share

Perhaps all these miscellaneous discussions are grist for the DT site. I have a desire to avoid cinnamon buns though.

Quote: odiousgambit

I come up with silly random thoughts I feel like inflicting on people all the time. I dunno, like "now late in life I realize the best way to do XYZ is blah blah blah" ... I can never remember them later.... usually mundane.

I might have to carry around a little notepad and write them down for here [you have been warned]

lol I know the feeling. I can't remember what I did prior to texting. I will send some pretty random ones.

Quote: GWAE

Sometimes I have something that I would like to mention or discuss but it is not worth an entire thread of its own. Also some people complain about the worthless discussions. If you would like to have a short convo or just make a random comment maybe this would be the place to do it instead of making a new thread. In other words if you have just a general question and it can be answered in 1 or 2 posts then this would be the place for it.

Mods, good idea or bad? If it is a bad one then feel free to lock this up and let it disappear into oblivion.


So my first contribution is, we had breakfast at taco bell today because I had a coupon. One of the things that we got were cinnabon delights. They are so freaking good it is ridiculous.

http://www.tacobell.com/food/sides/Cinnabon-Delights-4pack

I like it. Collecting all the nuts in one basket. A huge family favorite at Thanksgiving, unshelled mixed nuts. Makes me miss my dad to think of it.

I used to be good at pogosticking on a shovel if that counts for anything.

Quote: rudeboyoi

I used to be good at pogosticking on a shovel if that counts for anything.

Sounds totally safe. I think I did in fact try this when I was a kid, along with jumping off a roof with an umbrella.

Quote: AxelWolf

Sounds totally safe. I think I did in fact try this when I was a kid, along with jumping off a roof with an umbrella.

Actually a friend ended up breaking his wrist lol. We would set up cinder blocks in the barn and hop from one to another. Or we would try to see who could get the most hops in a row. And if we found ourselves at a hardware store we would race eachother down the aisle until they kicked us out.

Quote: rudeboyoi

I used to be good at pogosticking on a shovel if that counts for anything.

Shovels? Always remember what the head of the Works Progress Administration said when he received a telegram that one of the construction projects had no shovels... he replied. We have no shovels either, have the men lean on each other.

Shovels are for leaning... not work.

There were so many posts about unicycling that I split them off into a new thread.

Here is my thought for the day. In that Seinfeld episode where Newman and Kramer were playing Risk, and needed to move the game to another location, why didn't they just write down the board position on a piece of paper, put the game away in the box, and then set it up again where they intended to play. This is the kind of question that keeps me up at night.

Quote: Wizard

why didn't they just write down the board position on a piece of paper, put the game away in the box, and then set it up again where they intended to play.

If they had done that... what would the poor scriptwriter have had to work with???

I have discussed it previous but I wanted to give an explanation to my moniker so I could link it in my tag line. I have been getting PMs with people thinking I am Bob Dancer or somehow connected with the radio show.

Whenever I finally decided to make a screen name here I wanted to pick something different than what I use on other sites. I used to use just my last name as a moniker but my last name is somewhat unique and I wanted to stop using it. So I went to create a name and I wanted it to be gambling related. There are so many smart people on this site and APs that I thought a good name would be gambling without an edge (GWAE). A few weeks went by and I read someone who mentioned the radio show which I have not listed to since Frank left. In the post they used the initials and then it hit me that the name I chose was the same thing. I didn't realize at the time that without and with would have the same initials nor was I real thinking about the show. Owell, such is life.

Many of you guys here don't believe in the idea of marriage and then there are also quite a few "lifers" who are very happily married and have been so for a long time.

I have a question about speaking up or holding your "peace" so to speak. Is it better for a marriage that you (as a man) rather not say what you have in mind to say just so that you won't upset your spouse or is it better to always say what is on your mind?

Also, I started my super charged diet today as I only have two months left before coming home. I need to be under 205 pounds or they won't let me back into the country :)

All the pogo sticks were ancient used by the time I was a kid but the newer pogo balls were fun. they both would be some Damn good exercise if you had them now.

Nothing beats the shovel.

What's the best joke you ever played?

I had a fake Facebook account my friend knew about. One day I decided to start talking about Jack Jones as if he was a real person. Jack Jones said this, jack Jones did this, my friend Jack wants to know this, etc. It probably was about six months before he finally said something about it saying there wasn't any Jack Jones. It was so much fun thinking he thought I lost my mind and he was too afraid to say anything.

I think I got the idea from Sunny in Philadelphia from the shhuushhy guy episode.

Quote: Tomspur

Many of you guys here don't believe in the idea of marriage

It's not that I don't believe in the concept of marriage - it's just that I'm probably too nice of a guy to ever go through with it. I can't wrap my head around making just ONE woman so blissfully happy at the expense of the deep pain, mental anguish, and loss of hope it would bring to so many others.

Quote: Tomspur

Is it better for a marriage that you (as a man) rather not say what you have in mind to say just so that you won't upset your spouse or is it better to always say what is on your mind?

As someone who has been married 19 years, my answer is to bite your tongue and if you disagree with your wife and say nothing at all. She will always be willing to argue longer than you. Easier to just keep your opinions to yourself. I can't speak for every marriage, but I've never heard of a man ever winning an argument with his wife.

Quote: Wizard

As someone who has been married 19 years, my answer is to bite your tongue and if you disagree with your wife and say nothing at all. She will always be willing to argue longer than you. Easier to just keep your opinions to yourself. I can't speak for every marriage, but I've never heard of a man ever winning an argument with his wife.

In the 5 years that we have married I have learned 1 thing. Let her win every single minor argument and let her make every small decision. When it comes to big things it gives me some leverage.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

What's the best joke you ever played?

I was working as a catering waitress during high school; I was 16 at the time I did this. Purley had this party place by the airport, mostly one big room with a bandstand, and paid so badly (including stealing the tips from the girls) that only young kids like me would work for him. We set tables, served, bussed, and did the dishes before we went home. He paid $2.35/hour, plus we got the same dinner we served. But he did run a fun place with good live music and a full bar.

Anyway, we served dinners 8 plates at once, on wire racks 4 deep with a handle on top. It was almost always steak, though a few people would have chicken. So, this one night, there's a party of 120 for Mr. Havilland's retirement, and someone in his organization sets me up, through Purley. I'm serving round the tables, and get in close to set down Mr. Havilland's dinner, and then I jump back and scream, "How dare you! You aren't allowed to touch my ass!!!", throw the rack of plates against the wall with a great crash, and storm out of the room. There's this shocked silence for about 5 seconds, and then this one guy starts to laugh like hell. Then other people start to laugh (with relief, I think). The guy, who of course set this up, jumps up and comes through the swinging doors after me, grabs my hand and drags me back in the room to take a curtain call, and now most everybody's laughing, but Mr. Havilland is still red as a beet. Then finally he starts to laugh. The last one to laugh was his wife, who in an odd coincidence, had been my 5th grade teacher some years before and recognized me. God only knows what went through HER mind before they figured out it was a joke.

We had set it up where the rack I came in with only had dinners on the top two, but you couldn't tell the rest of the plates were empty, so they made a great noise, but no food to splatter the people (it was semi-formal). So it was a quick clean-up. While I was gathering the pieces in a tub, the prankster came over and tucked a 20 in my shirt pocket as a tip. I go through the swinging doors with the tub, and who's waiting there but Purley to confiscate my tip, claiming it was meant to pay for the plates. So I got to have the memories, but not the money. It was really something, to stop a room dead.

Quote: Wizard

Quote: Tomspur

Many of you guys here don't believe in the idea of marriage and then there are also quite a few "lifers" who are very happily married and have been so for a long time.

I have a question about speaking up or holding your "peace" so to speak. Is it better for a marriage that you (as a man) rather not say what you have in mind to say just so that you won't upset your spouse or is it better to always say what is on your mind?

As someone who has been married 19 years, my answer is to bite your tongue and if you disagree with your wife and say nothing at all. She will always be willing to argue longer than you. Easier to just keep your opinions to yourself. I can't speak for every marriage, but I've never heard of a man ever winning an argument with his wife.

I've been with my wife-elect for 3 years now (we're getting married in just a few short weeks). We rarely have knock-down drag-out arguments/fights. Actually I'd say only one in our whole relationship, which was 100% my fault for f***ing something up.

But other than that, we tend to have pretty mature, open dialogues. I do bite my tongue from time to time; usually if it is something small or something I don't really care about. But for serious issues I make my opinion known and then we discuss it. If it's something that requires a decision, we often time compromise, otherwise one of us will give in. If it's just a random debate about something, a lot of times neither of us will change our mind. Since she went back to school and I started paying for everything (both halves of the rent, all the food, etc.), I pretty much control the finances, which she is fine with. We're both pretty frugal by nature, so there aren't a lot of disagreements on that front. But if she wants to buy something frivolous, I maintain nearly-absolute veto power and exercise it frequently :).

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with our communication skills. Which one would hope, since we'll hopefully be together forever!

Quote: Tomspur

I have a question about speaking up or holding your "peace" so to speak. Is it better for a marriage that you (as a man) rather not say what you have in mind to say just so that you won't upset your spouse or is it better to always say what is on your mind?

:)

Keep quiet. What ever it is, in ten minutes it will be irrelevant, as long as you shut up.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

What's the best joke you ever played?

I can't claim full credit for this one, although I was involved.

My freshman year of college, we went to Taco Bell a lot (I still love Taco Bell). At some point early in the year, one of my dorm's Sophomore Advisers (we had 2 of them on the floor) hatched a plan to fill up our Resident Adviser's room with Taco Bell sauce packets. Not because we hated him but more as a friendly prank (he was actually a great RA and also a fraternity brother of mine). We played lots of pranks that year but this was, by far, the biggest and most hilarious one.

After collecting bags and bags of sauce packets, someone ran some numbers and realized that it was going to be nigh-on impossible to actually make a dent in the volume of his room (we were all engineering nerds, so this wasn't a surprise). So the new target became his car.

Everyone contributed to the cause, and we were stocking away sauce packets in random drawers here and there throughout the floor. I never did much more than getting an extra handful with my meal, but some guys were walking a fine line of getting caught for outright theft. They had elaborate plans where one would screen the guy at the counter while putting in an order and the second would dump an entire bin of sauce into his satchel.

Toward the end of the year we put the plan into action. One of the guys who didn't have a car asked if he could borrow the RA's for a date or something (this was pretty standard practice). I don't remember the details, but the plan almost came crashing down at this point...anyway he knew something fishy was up, but the plan wasn't blown completely. We parked the car on the curb outside our dorm and succeeded in dumping all of the sauce packets in through the sunroof.Here's a picture that someone sent in to CollegeHumor.com.

He was naturally quite flabbergasted. He actually took it pretty well, and used the prank as an opportunity to raise some money for charity. All day the following day, he stood out there with a big sign saying "GUESS THE NUMBER OF SAUCE PACKETS." He charged $X for a chance to guess, and probably treated it like a 50/50 raffle or something, donating the other 50% to a charity.

As "punishment," we were required to count all of the packets as we cleaned them out of his car. As the caption on the photo above said, it was about 41,000 packets. We loaded them into the back of the truck that belonged to the SA who masterminded the plan and went through the Taco Bell drive through with one of our more hilarious compatriots buried up to his neck in the back. The worker said, in an amazing deadpan, "Oh, so that's where all of our sauce packets went."

Disposing of them became a problem. I think we distributed them to various dumpsters around campus and town. We even saw a street sweeper and shoveled out a bunch into the street in his path; they were all "collected" by the sweeper but it made a huge mess.

Quote: Mosca

Keep quiet. What ever it is, in ten minutes it will be irrelevant, as long as you shut up.

Now nobody knows my nature on here but if you did you would know that it is excruciating for me to keep quiet. HOWEVER, I have learned over the past 7 years that keeping quiet is a good and honorable way to make sure things don't get out of control.

Sometimes I bring things up later which I know I shouldn't and that when they say it really is Miller time :)

Where does that expression come from? "It's Miller time"? Is it to do with the beer or another reason altogether?

It's a long-time slogan for Miller beer (American 3.2 lager). The song goes...

When it's time to relax,
One beer stands clear...beer after beer.
Mil-ler tastes too good to hurry through...

etc.

It actually is pretty good in the Miller Genuine Draft bottle.

disclaimer: I could have the lyrics slightly wrong. But now the darned song is in my head. It's from the 70s' if not earlier.

When I was in jail, I used to gamble a lot with this black guy whose cell was right next to mine. We had some problems before so we hadn't gambled for over a month but I decided to give him another chance. We ended up having another disagreement though. We had been playing backgammon this week for an item a match. A match would go to 7pts. On this particular day I suggest playing for an item a game instead of a match and he agrees. No doubling cube but gammons counted as double and backgammons counted as triple. He quits me when I'm up 7-1 and instead of giving me six items, he only gives me one item. I throw it back at him saying if you're not going to pay me in full I don't want anything.

My nick name in jail was big bird and whenever we went to get our dinner slop he would joke around with me saying "set it on my bed bird" because I'd never eat that crap. But you're not allowed to share food like that with other races so I'd never give it to him even though I didn't eat it myself. But after this particular disagreement we had I decided to "give" it to him. They delivered the slop trays at the entrance to the pod and there was this set of stairs between the entrance and our cells. After you get your tray you're supposed to go straight back to your cell but I hung around for a bit talking to another inmate. When I see him and his cellie leaving their cell I duck under the set of stairs to head back to our cells. I quickly enter his cell and proceed to dump my tray all over his bed then quickly slip back into my cell. Only person who saw it was my cellie. Probably the smoothest thing I've ever pulled off.

As my cellie is walking back, he says to me "its on now" so I stand my ground to the entrance to my cell. Before anything happens though our cell door closes. Next thing me and my cellie hear is "oh f#$%" from next door. He sat right in it and had to call over a DO to bring him a new set of bed sheets and stripes for accidentally spilling his tray. The guy literally wanted to kill me after the fact. He was actually in there on a 2nd degree murder charge. The head of my people end up talking to the head of his people. They come to an agreement that my people would handle my punishment and my own people end up beating my ass but it was totally worth it. It earned me respect for not PCing up out of there and accepting my punishment. Plus that story was shared over and over again and everyone got a good laugh. None of the other inmates ever seen anything like that before in all the time they did.

Quote: rudeboyoi

When I was in jail

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind live it ]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Quote: odiousgambit

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind read it]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Nah. It was fun. I got to gamble and play games every day. Only nightmares I've had were about the person that put me there.

Quote: odiousgambit

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind read it]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Why do you think youth diversion camps are such failures? All that "Sir, Yes, Sir" yelling and screaming and pushups teaches kids that a jail is not all that bad. They don't have fear of the unknown anymore.

Most jails today have DUI, Druggies and Mental Cases. If you eat in the commissary you avoid the General Population violence but you gain weight eating all those crackers and pastries.

Prisons are generally segregated by race and gangs, rules are the same. Guards don't care what happens, just what obviously happens. So there are inspections where the look for facial bruises from a fight. Now in reality a facial bruise usually means you have a friend but the guards see the bruise and take you out of your cell and transfer you. Thats often how real fights are ended. You don't have to win a fight but sure as hell better not wimp out by running from one or trying to call a guard. Most molesters get hell in prison solely because they are loners and not gang members.

So someone serving a DUI or a Domestic Beef has fewer worries in prison. Gambling in prison? Heck, what else does a prisoner have to do? In Nevada jail inmates are wakened for breakfast at three in the morning. In a real prison gambling passes time better than anything. Just remember the one iron clad rule: If you is got enlightened racial views on the outside, that be cool, but inside EVERY dude be an arch segregationist or he be dead.

Quote: FleaStiff

Just remember the one iron clad rule: If you is got enlightened racial views on the outside, that be cool, but inside EVERY dude be an arch segregationist or he be dead.

Any comment on that, rudeboyoi?

As for myself, I feel quite enlightened on racial matters, usually succeeding in seeing the individual and not the race etc. But for the few times when "shit was happening" in mixed race situations, it was a stunning thing, almost eerie, to watch yourself segregate off into racial grouping.

The standard response for having a black eye was I slipped in the shower. The guards even put a sign up on the wall. Shower - 99 Inmates - 0

Quote: odiousgambit

Any comment on that, rudeboyoi?

As for myself, I feel quite enlightened on racial matters, usually succeeding in seeing the individual and not the race etc. But for the few times when "shit was happening" in mixed race situations, it was a stunning thing, almost eerie, to watch yourself segregate off into racial grouping.

Sure racism runs rampant but it runs in both directions. You hate the races that are your enemies and like the races that are your allies. And I'm sure it varies depending on what region of the country you're doing time in.

Quote: rudeboyoi

Quote: odiousgambit

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind read it]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Nah. It was fun. I got to gamble and play games every day. Only nightmares I've had were about the person that put me there.

How long were you in?

Quote: GWAE

Quote: rudeboyoi

Quote: odiousgambit

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind read it]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Nah. It was fun. I got to gamble and play games every day. Only nightmares I've had were about the person that put me there.

How long were you in?

About 7 months.

Quote: rudeboyoi

Quote: GWAE

Quote: rudeboyoi

Quote: odiousgambit

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind read it]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Nah. It was fun. I got to gamble and play games every day. Only nightmares I've had were about the person that put me there.

How long were you in?

About 7months.

A really good friend of mine is on probation for 5 years. His PO has now tossed him in jail for 90 days at a time 5 times. Each time he goes in the judge restarts his sentence or gives him a new one. Not sure how they are doing it. He has now been on probation for 6 years and still has 4.6 to go. Although I feel he needs punished for his crime at this point I think it has been rather excessive.

Quote: GWAE

Quote: rudeboyoi

Quote: GWAE

Quote: rudeboyoi

Quote: odiousgambit

Good story but harrowing just to read it too [never mind read it]. Ever have nightmares about that time?

Nah. It was fun. I got to gamble and play games every day. Only nightmares I've had were about the person that put me there.

How long were you in?

About 7months.

A really good friend of mine is on probation for 5 years. His PO has now tossed him in jail for 90 days at a time 5 times. Each time he goes in the judge restarts his sentence or gives him a new one. Not sure how they are doing it. He has now been on probation for 6 years and still has 4.6 to go. Although I feel he needs punished for his crime at this point I think it has been rather excessive.

Yah that's why a lot of convicts prefer to just do the time. Probation can create a never ending cycle.

deleted

Quote: rudeboyoi

The guy literally wanted to kill me after the fact. He was actually in there on a 2nd degree murder charge. The head of my people end up talking to the head of his people. They come to an agreement that my people would handle my punishment and my own people end up beating my ass but it was totally worth it.

Ummm, how bad did they beat you up?

If I ever hit the lottery and are rich I am going to ram into everyone whom drives without using a turn signal. I mean really, how hard is it to hit a little switch. It is a blatant disregard for law and disrespect for other drivers.
/rant

Quote: GWAE

If I ever hit the lottery and are rich I am going to ram into everyone whom drives without using a turn signal. I mean really, how hard is it to hit a little switch. It is a blatant disregard for law and disrespect for other drivers.
/rant

Funny but you won't be rich very long.

If I won the lottery I always thought about just creating a nonprofit and donating the ticket to it. This way you get more bang for the buck and won't be killed for your money taking a small salary from the charity. Somehow it would probably backfire though.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Funny but you won't be rich very long.

Or free for very long, either.

The other day I realized something: if I ever won the lottery, I'd do the same thing I'm already doing.

Quote: RS

The other day I realized something: if I ever won the lottery, I'd do the same thing I'm already doing.

You would still work? Only thing i would do diffident is get my favorite sports car, buy a place on a river in the Pacific Northwest and spend summers there.

My wife and I have had this discussion a zillion times, even thought we don't play the lottery due to us living in Vegas but every now and then when the big jackpot gets over like $500 million, we will take a drive to Primm or Arizona to get some tickets.

I won't stop working, not for at least 10 years. My wife will and she will pursue her non profit organization called Sin City opera.

I would invest in some race horses in South Africa and I would invest in some established racing syndicates here in the USA, just so that I can hopefully be invited to the Kentucky Derby before I die :)

I may buy a house in McDonalds Highlands right on Dragonridge golf course and I may even become a member of that club.

That would be it. Invest the rest and reinvest the interest for at least the first 10 years while I'm still working...............

EDIT: I would take the cash lump sum. On a $500 million jackpot, that is probably in the region of $160 million after taxes? I'm OK with that.

At 6% growth per annum, that would be around $9.6 million per year, reinvested. Does anybody know if you pay tax on a reinvestment?

If I ever won the lottery and wanted to give it to family members I would tell the lottery that they paid 5 cents for a 2 dollar ticket and so forth. That way we wouldn't have to pay taxes twice.

Lottery? The Spanish National Lottery a/k/a El Gordo is always multi million. There are no second prizes.
Tickets are sold but charitable organzations buy tickets and sell "participations" in that ticket.
Some Readers Digest (well, what else they got in a waiting room these days) article was about a town in Spain wherein all residents had participation tickets in the winning number... and life went on without much change at all.

Quote: GWAE

If I ever hit the lottery and are rich I am going to ram into everyone whom drives without using a turn signal. I mean really, how hard is it to hit a little switch. It is a blatant disregard for law and disrespect for other drivers.
/rant

Hell, shoot em all and let "god" sort it out.

If you're gonna go, go big.