The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I have never been so annoyed in my life. If I ever invite my parents to come eat again, I'll just make a stew and be done in 30 minutes. Fracking hell. Next time, I'm back to making sushi for me, myself and I only, or for someone who can at least half-way appreciate it.

Decades back, I worked for a bank. One year, the annual Christmas party was a joint venture between Finance (where I worked) and Marketing. It was held at a French catering hall, and arranged by a French speaking secretary in marketing.

I found myself sitting at a table with the VP/Region Finance Director, the AVP Accounting Officer, and the AVP/Financial Controller (my direct boss.)

RFD: What's this?
Me: That's a salad with Dijon mustard sauce. It's only the best thing I've eaten in months.
RFD: What about this?
Me: That's a mushroom stuffed with crabmeat. It's even better!
RFD: I dunno. I'm a meat and potatoes guy...

I managed to not run screaming into the night, but it took some doing.

I knew from early childhood my parent's palettes were, um, limited. My mother, for instance, was British, with the stereotypical notions of cooking. Pepper was a thing of horror. Meat was to be cooked to the consistency of shoe leather. She was a wonderful baker, but a mediocre cook at best. I didn't learn anything about food till I left home and started cooking for myself. The one time I had mom and dad over for dinner, I did the meat and potatoes routine knowing anything beyond would be terra incognita for them.

I reached a point where I was the best cook in household I lived in, but at this point I've lost my hand. My SO is a gourmet quality cook who considers the Larousse Gastronomique volumes bedtime reading, so I confine myself to occasional prep work and cleanup assistance.
______
Dennis

[Freeshadow]

Keeping in mind that there are already folks out there so used to ready-meals that they don't taste anything apart from umami (glutamic acid in convenience foods) I don't wonder about nothing.
@ Katsunami & Dennis The Germans have a proverb fitting here like a T: "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, das frisst er nicht." meaning "What the peasant doesn't know, he doesn't eat"
"Eat" being here "fressen" instead of "essen" emphasizes a rather animalistic not human act of eating, hence lacking any elements of enjoyment. Just consume the food.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

We only have the one, and it's my grandson's. It spent most of it's life with my ex-DIL until she moved into a house whose owner doesn't allow pets. I think he should get it fixed, but don't look to me to pay for it.

In most places, there's a local or nearly local Vet who will do free cat spay/neuter. I know my Vet when we lived in California had done somewhere around 250 of them over the years. She set aside one day of her practice every single week for a spay/neuter drop-in clinic. No apt required. No $$ required. (Donations accepted and used to offset the hard costs of the clinic.) Check with the local SPCA, and they'll know who can do this.

[Cinisajoy]

Let me say I am proud of my mom for going back to college. I guess I should be flattered that she thinks I can tell her how to use her calculator over the phone.
I hate to say I can't help because I have never looked at the TI-84.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

We only have the one, and it's my grandson's. It spent most of it's life with my ex-DIL until she moved into a house whose owner doesn't allow pets. I think he should get it fixed, but don't look to me to pay for it.

Hi:

Well...I realize it's not (really) your cat, but your DIL was obviously irresponsible not to have done the right thing, assuming that this is a typical housecat, rather than a showcat or breeder. It's good of your son to have taken the cat, rather than abandoning her to the whims of adoption, and even more good that you've taken her for however long.

I can see why you'd be reluctant to shell out, but IIRC, as Charlie said, the local no-kills and rescues, if not the SPCA, can point you in the direction of freebie/uber-cheap spaying. Your son would no doubt thank you for it, assuming, as I said earlier, she's not a breeding female?

I'll shut up now. Not my place to tell other folks what to do, but in case you weren't aware of the free/near-free options, I wanted to second Charlie's post. I've steered a number of people with kitten rescues (those too young to be neutered at the rescue) that way out here in AZ. It's an affordable solution to a huge problem.

Hitch

[orlok]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Decades ago, I had three cats. An adult male, an adult female, and a kitten. I went away for a weekend. I left clean litter in the cat box, fresh water and dry food for them. It had not been the first time I'd done it.

I came back to discover they'd gotten to the box of catnip. I hadn't realized how much catnip could be packed into one of those small Hartz Mountain boxes until I returned to find a catnip coating a quarter inch thick on everything, with two totally blasted adult cats staggering around with "How! High are you?" expressions. (The kitten was too young to be affected.)

I shrugged, swept up the mess, and got blasted myself, after making sure the remaining catnip was placed somewhere the cats couldn't get to.
______
Dennis

Reminds me of a time many years ago when we had two Boxers. They got into the garage and broke open a whole pile of cement bags. It was like a snowstorm had hit the place. The pictures are after they were let back in the house, just their snouts providing evidence of their misdemeanour.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Keeping in mind that there are already folks out there so used to ready-meals that they don't taste anything apart from umami (glutamic acid in convenience foods) I don't wonder about nothing.
@ Katsunami & Dennis The Germans have a proverb fitting here like a T: "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, das frisst er nicht." meaning "What the peasant doesn't know, he doesn't eat"
"Eat" being here "fressen" instead of "essen" emphasizes a rather animalistic not human act of eating, hence lacking any elements of enjoyment. Just consume the food.

We have the same proverb in the Netherlands: "Wat de boer niet kent, dat vreet hij niet."

Regarding just consuming food vs. eating/enjoying it: sadly enough I know too many people who do so. I, personally, eat food one piece at a time. The only time I just 'consume food' is when eating something that is completely the same throughout, such as a stew. OK, I've tasted it. Now I still have 5 pounds of it to go.... There are however, people who do this with every type of food (including sushi, where each bite is different, and often individually prepared).

I don't call that 'eating food'; I call it 'stuffing your face', and it's maybe one of my biggest pet peeves regarding bad table (table) manners.

[Freeshadow]

Same proverb exists in Polish too, I just thought, an example from an indo-germanic language rather than slavic would be more helpful here.
But taking into account what Dennis said about british cuisine in general it's interesting to see that a differentiation (vreten/eten; fressen/essen; jeść/żreć) seems not to exist in English.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

But taking into account what Dennis said about british cuisine in general it's interesting to see that a differentiation (vreten/eten; fressen/essen; jeść/żreć) seems not to exist in English.

In English, I'd use the word "devour"; so devour v.s. eat.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

In English, I'd use the word "devour"; so devour v.s. eat.

Except that "devour" is perfectly good for a human, as well as an animal. If one is really hungry, or really likes the food, one devours it. [Or devours a good book, but that's even farther afield.]

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Except that "devour" is perfectly good for a human, as well as an animal. If one is really hungry, or really likes the food, one devours it. [Or devours a good book, but that's even farther afield.]

Devour= enjoy
Eat=what I just did with some pasta. Wasn't particularly enjoyable but was edible and I was starving.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Except that "devour" is perfectly good for a human, as well as an animal. If one is really hungry, or really likes the food, one devours it. [Or devours a good book, but that's even farther afield.]

Hm... agreed... So what would be a really animalistic way of eating, in English?

To gorge one's food? Wolfing it? Binging? When searching, I actually found "to pig out on"

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hm... agreed... So what would be a really animalistic way of eating, in English?

To gorge one's food? Wolfing it? Binging? When searching, I actually found "to pig out on"

Make a pig of one's self.

[red_phoenix]

Wolfing down food implies eating fast.

Binging, pigging out and gorging imply eating a large quantity.

[pdurrant]

I have been with my ISP for many years (since 1992 in fact!). In 1998 I signed up for an account with them that got me a free domain name, that they have registered (in my name) ever since.

Until sometime last year. When they transferred it to names.co.uk. Without telling me. Any emails from names.co.uk went into my spam folder.

So on Sunday, the domain came up for renewal and wasn't renewed. And my web site and email stopped working on Monday. I was busy, so I didn't find out until Tuesday evening.

So now this morning, once they opened for telephone calls, I've renewed my domain name (at an extortionate £29.99+VAT) for another year, and now I have to try to fix up all the DNS records that got wiped.

They even had my mobile number on file, but apart from the emails, I never had any contact from them.

Once everything's working again, I'll be switching away from them ASAP.

And, as soon as I can get it sorted, I'll be dumping my ISP too. I haven't checked yet whether my ISP sent me an email about this, but the least they could have done was send me a letter by post telling me about such an important change.

I really don't need this kind of aggravation!