start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3

the downside to the latter is if you have roommates and your stupid brother comes out singing Billy Joel at the top of his lungs not knowing you're on a call. glad I live alone now.

in theatre you have to be careful to turn mic packs off if you're going to do that.

I did South Pacific once in this troubled community theatre production, and we were having an off-night, and Billis is on stage after "Honey Bun", and the guy playing Emile Debec (who was so paranoid about messing up his hair, he put a plastic bag over his head when he took shirts on and off), apparently mistimed how much time he had. he was supposed to show up on stage to talk to Billis, who was now alone, but well, instead he opted to take a shit.

Many theatre companies entrust their actors to turn their mic packs on before going on stage, but this one didn't. They were always on, but the sliders were down until the appropriate cues were reached, then they would turn them up for that performer. So this dude's in the bathroom when he's supposed to be onstage talking to Billis, who is now frantically trying to stall by himself for about a minute. By the time the cue arrived, he'd already done his business, so fortunately THAT didn't make the airwaves, but he hadn't flushed yet.

so moments later, the auditorium of about 500 people was treated to Emile Debec flushing a toilet in surround sound, followed by someone barking at him to get on stage and him running without his shirt tucked in all the way. Billis turns to him and SCREAMs, not even in character "LOOK WHO FINALLY DECIDED TO SHOW UP'. and in Noises Off fashion, the director, who resembled Bilbo Baggins a little, came waddling backstage angrily, asking everybody "what's the distraction? What's the distraction?"

I would see that show

the "not now" button in notifications, which really means "we'll nag you every few days until you say yes":

• Would you like to turn on notifications? (Yes | Not now)
• Purchase this product/service today! (Learn more | Not now)
• Give us your phone number for added security (OK | Not now)

AVG antivirus is now basically just bragging that it exists, endless notification windows telling me it's up to date

disgraceful

the one thing stopping me going back to windows is the prospect of all the nagware/adware built into windows 10 and anti-virus apps

You want irrationally angry? It really bugs me that for years people were saying the cavendish banana was doomed, and that there was this blight that was going around killing all the plants. There were tons of articles, I want to say there were two books.

This book came out in 2008: https://www.amazon.com/Banana-Fate-Fruit-Changed-World/dp/0452290082

Here's New Yorker article from 2011: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/10/we-have-no-bananas

Washington Post 2015: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-worlds-most-popular-banana-could-go-extinct/

NPR a year ago: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/11/462375558/our-favorite-banana-may-be-doomed-can-new-varieties-replace-it

BBC a year ago: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35131751

And here we are now, with plenty of bananas. I love bananas. I don't want bananas to die. I want them to save the bananas. But how can something so common be on the verge of extinction for coming up on 10 years, with no signs of being on the verge of extinction? Maybe they are in fact on the cusp of extinction. But prices are stable, store shelves are stocked ... so what's the story, banana industry?

fake news iirc

yes we have no bananas.

bananas went extinct 7 years ago when they were replaced in stores by monster fingers

Yellow journalism

lul

uh, didn't the panic cause a lot of caution about soil and plant contamination across continental boundaries? and a lot of research in place just in case widespread contamination occurs

it's like people saying a lack of vaccination could cause the resurgence of whooping cough on a wide scale and shrugging because no one you know has whooping cough

I don't think so, since that stuff happens in isolated clumps (it happened here last year) but a crop-threatening banana blight would affect literally every store, thousands of stores, everywhere, since every store has bananas, and so far nada. Anyway, the most recent articles I cited just above - and there are a ton more - were from just a year ago. And they've been appearing regularly for almost a decade. And yet I have not yet seen the "we did it, good job everyone!" article.

Maybe bananas truly are on their way out, at least these bananas. But there have been other produce or products faced with threats or shortages, and it's typically reflected in, well, shortages, and higher prices. Like, a year or two ago, when drug war stuff in Mexico affected the lime crop? Those are limes, grown all over the place, but they were being sold for like 2/$1 one summer, or more, and restaurants were forced to do without them for budgetary reasons. But you'd think a decade of "bananas are doomed" would have some impact, but nothing so far, save a bunch of "bananas are doomed" stories.

No, it'd pop up in isolated clumps, and if those aren't dealt with, then the disease could spread. Kind of like how cities with the emerald ash borer attacking ash trees will systematically cut down all the affected ash trees -- that's been going on in my city for the last couple years.

Farms in Australia, where the banana problem has been reported, have been doing just that: destroying every affected plant to make sure it doesn't spread. In humans, we're a little nicer and go with a quarantine.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-01/industry-starts-destroying-plants-on-infected-banana-farm/7981732

so yeah, the impact is very low so far

I mean, the story is getting churn because people love bananas, but the basic premise is still true and the only update is "we're still on top of this shit"

http://www.promusa.org/blogpost381-The-22-days-that-changed-the-Australian-banana-industry

In the late 1990s, however, TR4 wiped out most of the banana plantations in the neighbouring Northern Territory

sorry, my irrational anger is tweaked when people are like "i'm told this could affect me but it hasn't, why do they keep mentioning it?" and the main thing that's kept you unaffected is people doing a shitload of work

all future bananas will be straight anyway thanks to europe

Australian bananas return to you if you throw them correctly

That's funny, ha.

"i'm told this could affect me but it hasn't, why do they keep mentioning it?"

It's not this at all. First, they've been talking about it in dire terms for several years. Second, it's never been presented afaict as "this could affect you" (a la whooping cough et al.) so much as "this will affect you, RIP bananas, nice eating you." I totally get that they are on it, and I totally get that farms have been affected. I'm just saying that for all its apparent impact it's never once seemed to affect the supply or the price. Which indicates that either a) yeah, they're on it or b) there has been no impact. (Or c) they are in denial?) Both of which counter the dire predictions. Which, of course, as predictions could still always come to fruition - fruitition? - but again, we're talking nearly a decade straight of dire predictions with no discernible effect or impact (yeah, I know, on me, which is what makes this irrational) . Whereas in the past slight or severe fluctuations in the price of, as mentioned, limes, or flour, or pine nuts, have affected me and others that I know, personally and anecdotally. But I've as yet never known or heard of someone who could not find a cheap banana.

I'm getting really tired of the men in mid 30s coupled with women in mid 20s thing. And not necessarily as a "older men date younger women" trope but the extent to which it's just normal to juxtapose those ages. I'm rewatching Gone Girl on tv and Carrie Coon plays Ben Affleck's character's twin sister. They're nine years apart in age!

I'm blanking, wasn't there some movie high-profile movie a couple of years ago where the woman playing the mother was only seven years or so older than the person playing the son or daughter?

All of them?

Not recent, but Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (6 yrs difference).

Loads and loads and loads of them.

when somebody asks "can you hold" and then puts you on hold before you can answer "yes"

"please hold" would be preferable

my old doctor's office will do it and never return to the phone. always the same receptionist that did it. would just get used to calling back and being like "hey again!"

*would do it

also hate that my old apt had the address actually tied to the specific building you lived in, making food delivery/Uber people have an easy time finding it, but current one uses the same street address for all buildings so any time I order food I have to proactively send a description of a better way to get there cos GPS will always send them to the main office and it's kind of hard to find my building since the order of them is weird.

angry more at hte numbering convention than the drivers, cos how would htey know y'know

But I've as yet never known or heard of someone who could not find a cheap banana.

Actually at times recently bananas have been thin on the ground and/or very expensive in Aus. More due to a few nasty cyclone/flood situations, but it could also be due to crop mitigation. Bananas are currently about $3.50 a kg or $8 or so for organic. I dunno if thats pricey or not, I hate bananas.

Australia (where I will be visiting family in two weeks) is just stupid expensive, period.

Bananas are currently about $3.50 a kg or $8 or so for organic. I dunno if thats pricey or not, I hate bananas.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 7 March 2017 11:53 (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they can get under $2/kg, so $3.50 isn't terrible. they were $13/kg back during the big banana crisis of the howard era.

Australia (where I will be visiting family in two weeks) is just stupid expensive, period.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 12:04 (forty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

They're about $1.50/kg here. (60¢/lb)

But ours are straight like the Europeans. One store's taken to calling them Citrus Sausages, but I'm not buying.

My bloke tried telling people we called them "queensland fingers" but no one would fall for it.

hate to say it but

this threads gone bananas

Orange you upset!

...getting coat.

Bananas at, say, Trader Joe's here are 19 cents a banana. So about a dollar and change a bunch? Or more like 50 cents a pound. At Whole Foods more like $.75 a pound.

I don't think I ever fully appreciated how expensive Australia was until I stopped living there. Coincidentally I think that's also when the prices started getting kinda nutso too so maybe it's all my fault

soz

..getting coat.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce)

Are you picking a window also?

btw, where are Australian bananas grown? On continent or also Central America?

On continent of course! We have an entire state almost given over to bananas, sugar cane, tropical fruit and insane xenophobes.

https://s1.at.atcdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2005/11/Coffs-Harbour-Big-Banana.jpg

oh I Canberrit any longer

we even call them "banana benders"

Citrus Sausages

This is deeply unsettling.

The little silence on the line at the beginning of a telemarketing call

I realize they're just doing their jobs, and this makes me an enormous dick, but I always go "Hello? Hello???? Oh! Hello! There was a silence there! Are you OKAY?????"

I also refuse to answer when they ask if it's me, I just evade and ask who THEY are. For all I know they've got a phone number and an address and want to confirm my name so they can steal my Playstation Store account or some shit