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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 20, 2018 6:18:58 GMT
Watching something as innocuous as The Good Doctor this week, I found myself squirming when they pulled all of the intestines out of a kid on the operating table to look for something.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 20, 2018 6:52:57 GMT
It's always a bugger when you can't find your car keys and have to resort to disembowelling your children.
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Post by questa on Sept 20, 2018 7:00:03 GMT
That will teach the little sod not to play with the keys.
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Post by patricklondon on Sept 20, 2018 7:17:23 GMT
Reminds me of a story I once heard of someone seeing a family leaving in great jollity after a day at the beach, only to see a very red-faced child returning with a father hissing through his teeth "Now show daddy exactly where you buried the car keys". My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Post by questa on Sept 20, 2018 13:04:45 GMT
Mmm...I see a smart business opening on Oz beaches......Questa's Metal Detector Hire. $20 per hour
"You've lost the girl, don't lose the ring as well!"
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Post by Kimby on Sept 22, 2018 16:09:40 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that almost every movie nowadays contains a scene with someone vomiting? And even Masterpiece’s Victoria had the young queen hastily exiting the coach to toss her morning sickness cookies at the roadside, though we only saw retching, not stomach contents. Still, the trend continues.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 24, 2018 17:38:12 GMT
One of my new neighbours from the "student apartment" rang my doorbell this evening to borrow a can opener. God, he was so young!
Then I wondered what he could have possibly bought that still requires a can opener. Even the stuff I buy in my local Turkish/Indian/Chinese stores usually has a ring tab to pull now. I think the only items for which I still need to use my can opener are the cheap coconut milk and some tins of Senegalese tuna at the Turkish store.
Now I'm thinking it was just one of those cases where the ring tab broke off before one can open the tin. He said he would be back in 5 minutes, but it was more like 15. So I am also thinking that millennials don't know how to use a manual can opener.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 24, 2018 18:47:48 GMT
I am very bitter about the fact that tuna cans seem to be universally stoooopid ring tabbed now, since I have uses for empty tuna cans & they're no good once ring pulled. If opened with a can opener, the way God intended them to be, you have a nice clean edge. Anyway, the other day I bought tuna and was ecstatic to see that it was designed to be opened with a can opener.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 25, 2018 14:01:26 GMT
Have you all seen those can openers that separate the entire lid of the can from the sides? No ledge is left behind. My sisters both have them and swear by them. I’m still using the old can opener. And more often than not, watching the filthy lid slipping below the surface of the contents....
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 25, 2018 14:13:16 GMT
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 31, 2018 11:31:07 GMT
I do Still see some cans that require a can-opener (in my supermarket, the own-brand cheapo baked beans are in a ring-pull, but for some reason Heinz still have theirs in the old-fashioned sort of can - maybe there's a child safety angle there, I hadn't thought of that). Tinned meat and fish still seem to have the key that you have to use to roll up a strip of the can (well, it's all good exercise). But pills in a bottle? Not any more over here - always in blister packs. My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 31, 2018 13:00:56 GMT
Same in France, but I think the American system does have a few advantages -- they count out the exact number of pills you need for your prescription. In Europe we end up with all sorts of partially used blister packs because you never want to throw them away "just in case" which is absolutely not what you are supposed to do. You are not supposed to throw them in the bin either. They are to be returned to the pharmacy for destruction, but who actually does that?
Of course, in the United States there is the danger of all of your pills flying across the floor when you are violently trying to wrench off the cap. And you can all put the wrong pills in the wrong container -- I think they still use those plastic orange things for everything, no?
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Post by Kimby on Oct 31, 2018 13:46:30 GMT
Pills in the US come in bottles with “child-resistant” caps that require superhuman strength and agility to pry open.
BUT, if you sign a waiver at the pharmacy, they will give you bottles with easy pop off tops. Since we have no children in our lives, it’s a no-brainer for us.
However, a side-effect is that when we travel, I often end up having to scrape the pills up out of the corners of my toiletry kit when the caps escape their bottles in transit.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 31, 2018 15:23:24 GMT
I don't want to take the whole top off of a can -- I want the heavy rim to remain. This is a case of things being fine as they were, so why change them.
Patrick, I've bought over-the-counter pills in England, but hadn't realized they all came in blister packs. I absolutely loved going in chain drugstores in England & in the Netherlands. You can go up to anyone who works in one & say "I need such&such" and they'll not only march right over & pluck it off the shelf for you, they'll even give you advice on it if you need it.
Kerouac, too right about spraying pills across the room. This is what happens with pull-top cans, too. Some of them really have to be wrenched off at the end, splashing the oil or sauce of the contents across ones clothes. And yes, prescription medicine still comes in plastic orange containers with snap-on plastic caps. I'm a big fan of blister packs -- you can see at a glance how many are left & what they are, plus they're easy to find when they fall to the bottom of my purse. They also take up way less space than bottles. I don't take any prescription medication, so I only deal with stuff that comes in blister packs, usually.
A mild negative side effect of the demise of the plastic orange bottles and of the little rubbery film canisters is that they were so handy for saving seeds, hiding keys and any number of other uses.
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Post by mich64 on Oct 31, 2018 22:31:37 GMT
After 34 years, I had to buy a new can opener this year to replace the once I bought just after we were married. It actually took a bit of time to find the right one, finally found it at the IKEA on a trip to Ottawa. Once the winter comes, I can only get some things I need in the tin.
I laughed when I read your comment Kerouac about "they are to be returned to the pharmacy for destruction, but who actually does that?" That would be me! We get a paper bag in the mail each year printed with a message reminding people to return their unused medications to the pharmacy. We do it.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 1, 2018 7:56:16 GMT
My repeat prescriptions come in blister packs, two 28 day packets at a time. The Guardian had, for quite a while, a running correspondence of people writing in with all the different uses they had for 35mm film canisters. I used them to keep leftover foreign coins to take if/when I went back, and for my British coins while there. My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 1, 2018 12:12:12 GMT
I still use the few I have left for foreign coins.
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Post by questa on Nov 2, 2018 1:53:35 GMT
My clothes drier is attached to the laundry wall very securely but it tilts forward. 2 of the old 35mm canisters now act as spacers to keep the drier to its correct angle
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 5, 2018 19:43:04 GMT
You have an active mind, Whatagain -- that's a lot of random thoughts!
Actually, I do have that happy feeling of pride whenever I fix something. I broke the plastic shelf in the door of my freezer and fixed it with my expired Dutch museum card (like a credit card). *proud*
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 19, 2018 16:53:08 GMT
I am wondering if any country other than France uses numbers as shorthand for geographical locations in common conversation. The French talk about where they are from as "I'm from 77" or "I'm from 88" and people are able to place their origin instantly because everybody in France knows which number corresponds to which département. In the big cities with arrondissements (Paris, Lyon, Marseille), we also just say "I'm from the 18th" or "I'm from the 12th" and that situates you immediately. It is even used in rap songs more often than not.
It was considered uncouth to use the numbers even as recently as 10 years ago because why not just say the name of the place? But now everybody does it, when introducing themselves on game shows or during an interview. The only people who are exempt are the people from the overseas départements because people are not as familiar with the numbers, which use 3 digits instead of 2. 971, 972,973, 974, 976 for Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion and Mayotte. Département 975 disappeared in 1985. It was that tiny thing just off the coast of Canada, Saint Pierre & Miquelon. It had to change status to leave the EU and live more comfortably in terms of trade with its giant neighbour.
I know that other countries have shorthand like DC of DF to refer to certain places, but numbers?
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Post by bjd on Nov 19, 2018 19:12:03 GMT
I don't know anybody who says, "I'm from 31", but maybe I'm just hanging around with the wrong people. In fact, even people who don't work at the post office tend to know most departments by number -- good for playing games on long drives -- but I tend to confuse the ones in northeastern France: 54 and 57. I always have to think about them by trying to remember departments around them and working forward or backward alphabetically.
Interesting that when the French changed licence plates and got rid of the old system 1234AA31, most people still get a little sticker to put beside the licence plate to show where they are from. 64, Pyrénées Atlantiques is even a brand of clothes, mostly for surfers.
We have foreign coins in old film canisters too. But we have two can openers, one like Kerouac showed above and another more fancy one, but also manual.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 19, 2018 20:01:52 GMT
Ha ha, 54 and 57 were perhaps the first two that I learned, because my family is from 54, and 57 is just 3 kilometres away. I obviously get a lot of the southern numbers confused, but it is also a good mental exercise, especially when driving. When I see a number like, say, 48, it makes me think, okay, 49 is Maine-et-Loire so what the hell comes before that? So I start going through the numbers one by one until I find it. It's Lozère by the way, but if there were children between the ages of 7 and 10 in the car with me, I would be told within 3 seconds.
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Post by mich64 on Nov 20, 2018 3:04:23 GMT
Younger people here refer to the region they live by their telephone number area code. Example, the 416 or 905 for the Toronto area or the 705 where I am from.
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Post by bjd on Nov 20, 2018 6:06:44 GMT
When I was in Toronto in October, I learned that another area code had been added because there were too many numbers for 416.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 20, 2018 6:11:38 GMT
Since so many people have multiple phones now rather than the days when the whole family had one phone, it's obvious that more area codes will always be needed. When I lived in Los Angeles, it had one area code (213) and now it has nine.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 20, 2018 6:50:57 GMT
Fixed phones in Mexico City have eight numbers instead of seven -- seems so odd.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 20, 2018 8:05:40 GMT
Well, since I moved to France, we have gone from seven to eight to ten. Since the area codes are built into the numbers, there is no additional code to have to look up or learn.
For me, the big shock was when my family moved to California. Pacific Bell was the big monolith there, but for some reason our town had an independent company, and it was only necessary to dial five numbers inside Ventura County instead of seven. I felt as though we had moved to a small village.
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Post by mich64 on Nov 20, 2018 18:52:55 GMT
When I was in Toronto in October, I learned that another area code had been added because there were too many numbers for 416. bjd, I think that might be the reason why younger people started that trend.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 21, 2018 1:06:19 GMT
When new area codes are created, there’s not only the hassle of informing everyone of your new number, but also a potential loss in status, if you have to give up an iconic area code - 212 New York, 213 Los Angeles, 202 Washington DC, 312 Chicago, 612 Minneappolis, 414 Milwaukee - for an unrecognizable number.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 21, 2018 5:25:48 GMT
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