Things you were shockingly old when you learned

I went to public school up until 8th grade, so survived the hell of public middle school. My private high school had its own deficiencies– I remain terrified of math, fwiw— but we read and wrote like nobody's business. My freshman year, I wrote a 35 page research paper on the EZLN and land struggle in Mexico, and my sophomore year English teacher just had a poem published in the Editorial section of the NYTimes this past weekend.

(It was a very progressive Quaker school, and yes, I had a partial scholarship)

All that said, while I can do a lot of mental math of the four basic functions pretty easily, anything beyond that is off the table. I don't remember how to do most algebra, or geomentry, and I got a C- in trig and never took a math class again.

I once wrote a poem about President Bush (H.W.) getting lost in a mall

anything beyond that is off the table

Tee hee.

I once went on an epic rant about neoliberalism in my senior Philosophy seminar, stormed out of the class, then returned after smoking cigarette at "the corner," which was within sight of the school, but was technically off school grounds.

Good thing that teacher loved me.

pvmicc

-c

yep, some things haven't changed

I use geometry all the time (graphic design, technical drawing, even just practical interior stuff like how do we arrange our furniture). Geometry is lovely.

Algebra I can still kinda manage, but trigonometry, calculus, etc. simply never happened for me and never will

pvmicc

― Canon in Deez (silby), Tuesday, March 16, 2021 4:28 PM bookmarkflaglink

this is the way Crips post to ILX

I have quite fine spatial reasoning and use geometry in some form quite a bit, as I think many people do. But if you asked me to write out a proof, I'd be baffled

I only just realised that the (derogatory?) name for an Irishman, paddy, is from Saint Paddy. I must be a total idiot.

I assumed it had something to do with potatoes but yup that seems more accurate

I don't think it has anything to do with St. Patrick directly, it's more about Patrick being a common first name for Irishman, or perceived to be, they're also called Micks and Scotsman are called Jocks for the same reason.

The English are good at coming up with nicknames for people who aren't English.

"I can't remember that Irish guy's name". "Oh they're all called Paddy anyway".

https://www.independent.ie/business/brexit/why-isnt-he-called-murphy-like-the-rest-of-them-johnsons-alleged-remark-on-varadkar-38329476.html

Pat is short for Patrick

Paddy is short for Padraic

Thank you for coming to my pat talk

Patty is short for Patricia

(Sorry, forgot to add that)

patty is short for a burger
Gets a bit taller if you add a bun

Paddy is short for Patrick too. Then of course there's...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packie_Bonner

What's green and stays out in the rain?

Paddy O'Furniture.

thank you for refining my ignorance

puerto rico is further east than maine

i miss my business trips to San Juan so much :(

the website Pitchfork is probably named for the idea of critics coming at things with pitchforks, rather than it just being some random arbitrary word to name a music publication.

Pitchfork's pointed digs are no accident. The name, Schreiber says, came from the gangster epic "Scarface," in which Tony Montana's pitchfork tattoo is said to be code for an assassin.

"When I started out, it was about really laying into people who really deserved it,"

glad that's no longer what people think is cool

maybe being like self-consciously and self-aggrandizingly kind is a bit cringe sometimes but god

Blues Boy King

Also: 'Unchained Melody' is a cover, the original of which was released a decade before the Righteous Brothers' version.

Because I read so many old kids' books and rarely injured myself, I got to the age of 31 still thinking that if I ever had to get stitches for a cut it would be done without anesthetic. When I slammed my finger in a door and had to get it stitched, I went in prepared to grit my teeth through the pain of the stitches, and was pleasantly surprised when they just numbed my finger up.

"Ok, now listen. I know you're pretty happy with your spoons, right? Just scoop everything up and there you go. And of course, can't say enough about knives. They slice, they dice, yadda yadda yadda. But let me ask you this: What if you had a utensil somewhere in between, something you could use to gently pick, poke and prod your food -- without making a mess?"

Whatever else threw me to greenspun ilx in 01-02, it came across gen’l shit it involved with pitchfork, and i quickly learned ryan was not worth attn. how that fits the great chain of being...🤷🏻‍♂️

Just heard the Patti Page song 'Mama From the Train' for the first time, featuring the lyric:

Throw mama from the train.........a kiss, a kiss

I have no idea how I ended up thinking this in the first place, but from late 1996 until a few minutes ago I was certain that it was George Segal's voice talking about parking tickets in the middle of DJ Shadow's 'Stem / Long Stem'

when i was a child i thought that woody harrelson sang the cheer's theme song

lol, jim. They liked it so much they made him a cast member several years later!

xpost joygoat, I thought the exact same thing. Although I don't remember when I was disabused of the notion and I don't remember who it actually is. The vocal resemblance is uncanny, though.

You can clean a thermos interior with Polident denture cleaner, the plop-plot-fizz-fizz tablets... takes the tannins and stains right off.

i initially thought stem/long stem featured elliott gould

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhFK80q9Tjk

JUst finding out what a negative force timing was in the fall of the Inka empire. Pisarro arriving just as Attawalpa arrives in Qosco after getting rid of his rival for the fringe teh symbol of Inka leadership. Though the civil war that had just transpired might just mean that things were already in trouble as did Attawalpa being the son of a first cousin not a sister of his father.

Attawalpa being the son of a first cousin not a sister of his father.

Errrrrrrrr, exsqueeze me?

As I kid, I thought Nicholas Lyndhurst was singing the theme tune of Only Fools and Horses.

As a grown man of 35, David Walliams believed that Dennis Waterman wrote the theme song to Minder.

Mike Nichols had a rare reaction to a defective whooping-cough vaccine as a child that caused him to lose all of his hair, head and body, and in addition to wearing a wig even had to apply eyebrows and eyelashes every morning for the rest of his life.

OK, that's a new on me too.

In that oral history biography of Nichols from 2019 someone in it, I forget who, described him as a man who had no face. I guess because of the hair loss and the general slightness of his features.

Whoa @ Nichols news. Next thing I know you'll tell me all four of May's limbs were prostheses.

As I kid, I thought Nicholas Lyndhurst was singing the theme tune of Only Fools and Horses.

― I have no couch and I must stream (NotEnough), Thursday, March 25, 2021 7:47 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

SAME!

i feel seen

I am shockingly old and still trying to learn the proper use of toward/towards, forward/forwards, and backward/backwards.

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/10/slouching-towards-bethlehem.html