Life Itself/randomness Showing 701-750 of 1,248

[Tami]

I just read an excerpt of Jonathan Safran Foer's newest book, "Eating Animals." Not really sure I want to read it. I loved "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" but haven't read any of his others. I guess I will have to wait and see. Anyone looking forward to reading this book?

[Bárbara]

I'm yet to read Everything is Illuminated... but I have too much to read already, so it's not a priority!

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

I can't say I'm excited to read it..just because I really like his fiction work and it's not a subject matter that I really want to read about..but I guess I'm just so anxious to get my hands on anything new by him. lol

[Tami]

The style is the same even if the writing isn't fiction. :)

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

Yay! I'm glad for that! I just love his style so much.

[Tami]

Hee-Hee! I love classes in computer labs. I can pretend to be doing class work, but no..... I am on goodreads! :)

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

haha love it! That's what I always used to do in this boring night class of mine..I'd bring my laptop and just go on goodreads. It was funny because you'd look at the class and everyone had their laptops and they were all playing games or on Facebook.

[Bárbara]

Haha I guess that's why they don't let us use laptops in class in here.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

How was everyone's Thanksgiving??

[Tahleen]

I had a really nice time... I made Kimberly's pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and they were really good! And I baked a pumpkin pie :)

[[deleted user]]

it was nice, i skipped the entire dinner right to the dessert, and then the next day i spent some time in manhattan (shopping) and then here i am home

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

I'm going to have to make those cookies!!

[[deleted user]]

I have some vague idea about what Thanksgiving is, but I don't really know...what is it? What do ye celebrate?

[Lori]

Roisu, Back when the Pilgrims first landed in America in 16something or other (maybe 1624?) they had a really hard time because the land and crops in America were different. A bunch of them died. They befriended the Indians, who showed them how to plant food. After the harvest they decided to have a special meal in thanksgiving of their good fortune. It wasn't really a big huge national holiday until the 1900s, although maybe it was observed by people (I don't know).

The story, of course, ignores what happens next (the death of many Indians from disease, etc and then shipping them off to the shittiest bits of real estate, ie Oklahoma), but that's revisionist history for you.

However, I'd say that nowadays, most people don't really focus on the true meaning behind Thanksgiving and they focus on stuffing their faces, watching the Macy's parade, and all of the football games.

[Lori]

My Thanksgiving was pretty good. Good food. Once the entire family got to my grandparents' house, we lasted 20 minutes before someone said something snippy. I didn't go shopping on Friday. I did homework. And then I almost lost tree decorating privileges because my mom felt I had a bad attitude. Of course, she overlooked the fact that she caused my bad attitude and my dad's bad attitude when they were hanging the outside lights.

How was your Thanksgiving? I know you spent it with the boy.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

Mine was good! It's funny going to a Thanksgiving that is not your own family. First, it's just bizarre because you are used to your own food and your own traditions. For instance, my boyfriends family never watches the Macy's day parade. They all think I'm weird for sure because I am so insistent on watching it. Secondly, it's just funny when you don't really understand all the extended family dynamics and who doesn't like who. It's awkward but funny.

But it was good. And we were crazy and went out Black Friday shopping. We were so tempted to buy a tv. lol.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks a million for explaining, Lori! :-)

[Anna]

My Thanksgiving was great. We ended up with 4 people coming for dinner and 2 more joined after dinner for desert and games. We played the game apples to apples and for the last 1/2 hour or so there was a 6 year old helping people, and one of our guests had to explain to her how handcuffs could be sultry (he explained that sultry can mean hot and sweaty and how people are probably pretty nervous when they get handcuffed by the police so that might make them sweat) it was hilarious.

[Lori]

Roisu, Not a problem. I hope that helped.

[Katerina]

My Thanksgiving was ok. I went to my boyfriend's family for the first time. So I know what you mean, Jamie. I spent most of the time working on a paper though. Kinda sucked.

[Kimberly]

My Thanksgiving was great! I spent the weekend down at my Grandparents house. It was a small dinner compared to other years, we only had nine of us, but it was still great!

Tahleen, I'm glad you liked the cookies!

[[deleted user]]

Jamie, what's Black Friday?

[Kimberly]

Roisu wrote: "Jamie, what's Black Friday?"

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. The stores always open super early and have really good sales. They are notorious for having mad rushes of people. The stores will often open at 4 in the morning, and people will camp outside all night to make sure they are the first ones in the store.

The reason it is called Black Friday is because it is the first day that the store's income goes out of the red (meaning that they are losing money) and into goes into the black, meaning that they are making money.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

Great explanation! I'm glad you fielded that question. Your answer is perfect.

The outlets that we went to opened at midnight. It was just insanity. People were double parking people in, parking on curbs, making parking spots everywhere and anywhere, and actually parking on the nearest highway and walking down. It was ridiculous. Good thing we got there early to get a real spot!

[[deleted user]]

Thanks Kimberly. Holy crap!

I'm listening to a Ludovico Einaudi song, it's so beautiful, I've listened to it like 50 times in a row!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmxFAT...

[Tahleen]

Kimberly, I didn't know that's why it was called Black Friday. I thought it was because it was like a day of doom :P

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

haha yes..especially a day of doom if you work retail. You know, in some stores the workers were frazzled and rude but I was really impressed with the PacSun outlet. THere was a huge line wrapped around the whole store and you couldn't move but they were sooo helpful when I was trying to find something for my little sister and they were super friendly and having fun. The one guy kept coming up with a big bucket of candy for all the people in line. They were having so much fun there.

[Tami]

My poor sister. When I worked at Rite Aid back in the day, we needed help for the season. Her first day was Black Friday and she had about 15 minutes of someone helping her learn the register, then she was on her own.

I like that day. I liked being way too busy to do anything.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

There is something that really irritates me about people coming to my door to give me things like that. I don't care what religion is doing it. I'm a Christian and even if Christians came up to my door to try and witness to me..I'd really be annoyed. I just don't think it's a very effective way to try and share your religion/faith/beliefs with somebody.

Idk..I'm sure others will disagree..and that's fine. It's just something personally that doesn't sit well with me.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

Yeah, it is always awkward. You don't want to be rude but you don't want to sound overly enthusiastic because then they might try and talk to you for longer than you'd like.

[Matthew]

I made sure that some stopped coming to my house by inviting them in for tea, listening to them intently, and asking them questions...all while wearing a towel. I've since watched them deliberately skip me over.

[Kimberly]

Well I think the going door to door is effective, thought I know I'm totally biased because my religion is known for that. But we've had other people from other religions come to our door to try and give us handouts. I try to be nice, because I understand that they just want to share something they really care about, but it's annoying when they get pushy. We had some Jehovah's Witnesses (if you belong to this religion, I don't mean to offend at all!) we told them we weren't interested (We even had a bunch of guests over for a party at that time) they stuck their foot in the door when we tried to close it and tried to push their way into our house! Now that is too pushy! But I guess they were just enthusiastic. :)

[Kimberly]

btw Matthew, that's hilarious. I've had friends serve as missionaries and they've come home with stories of encountering people like you. hehe.

[Matthew]

I admit, crossing my legs may have been a little too much.

[Kimberly]

lol. At least tell me they were men? And not some poor girls?

[Matthew]

Of course they were men, if they were girls I probably would've come up with a different scheme. Perhaps an animal sacrifice reference casually dropped during conversation.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

Kimberly wrote: "Well I think the going door to door is effective, thought I know I'm totally biased because my religion is known for that. But we've had other people from other religions come to our door to try an..."

Yeah, that's type of door to door I find ineffective..too pushy does not resonate well with me. How does your religion approach the door to door? (Ps. I hope I didn't offend you with my statement..as far as door to door all I've ever seen is the pushy type and that to me is terrible ineffective)

[Tahleen]

Matthew that is awesome. You're my hero of the day.

And SBG, that's pretty funny. "We have Bibles." I think that's a good way to let them know you're all set, honestly. It implies that you know what you're doing.

[Kimberly]

Jamie wrote: "Yeah, that's type of door to door I find ineffective..too pushy does not resonate well with me. How does your religion approach the door to door? (Ps. I hope I didn't offend you with my statement..as far as door to door all I've ever seen is the pushy type and that to me is terrible ineffective) "

Oh not at all! I can understand where you are coming from. If it's not done with the right attitude, it's not going to be effective.

With my religion they go door to door, or tracting as they call it. They'll knock on the door and they have a message, "We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we have a message we'd like to share with you." If the people are interested they have pamphlets to give them, or they set up a time to come back and teach them more about our religion. If they aren't interested, they leave. I've actually been out "tracting" with some of our missionaries before, they were teaching a girl who lives near me and wanted me to come with so that when she came to church she'd know someone. It was really pretty cool.

[Kimberly]

SBG, like Tahleen said. "We have Bibles." That's funny, and it certainly got the point across! :)

Mathew. Yup. I imagine that mention of animal sacrifice would be very effective. lol.

[Tahleen]

When it comes to things like that though, SBG, you only have to SEEM like you know what you're doing haha.

[Tami]

I had a former missionary for the LDS church that I used to work with. He would invite the Jahovah's Witness missionaries in and listen to them, if they would in turn listen to him. Usually they declined. He said once he had someone accept though.

[Anna]

I have some Jahovah's Witnesses as customers and they always come in for lunch when they are on their adventures and were always really nice and non-secular (the only way I knew they were JW is because one of the kids was in my brothers class). But one day they have this other person with them and while I turn around the make her sandwich she starts talking to me about their religion. I answer with a lot of uh-huhs trying not to offend or encourage her, but then when I turn around to give her her food she gives me a pamphlet and tries to make me read it right then in case I have any questions.

[Kimberly]

I officially feel old. Today I stopped at the store to pick something up and noticed that they had those chocolate Christmas countdown calendars. I love those. So I decided to get one. When I went to buy it the cashier asked if I had a "little one" at home. Ouch. I'm only 20 and I've always been told I look young for my age, but apparently not today. I blame it on crunch week.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm]

What I would give for someone to mistake me for being something older than 15! lol. I'm 24 and I look like I'm 12. lol

[Tahleen]

I felt old when I was listening to a Beacon Street Girls book (I work at that company) and one of the characters mentioned "vintage hip-hop." I was thinking, what would that even be? And then they mentioned Salt 'n Peppa, Ice T and some other fairly recent artist that was around while I was growing up in the 90s. Seriously, what the hell. lol

[Tami]

Didn't you know anything over 2 years old is "Vintage" to those under or around 16? :)

[[deleted user]]

Hahahaha, guys, ye HAVE to check this out! It'll give ye a laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8C7ZT...

You'll have to prove you're 18, but it's not a vulgar video..(although it is a bit rude), it's just really funny!

[Tami]

I was just wondering, has anyone else applied for a Master's degree? The school up the road that I have to go to for mine needs 3 letters of recommendation along with the application. Just found out they want the name and email address of the people that will write them, and they send an email to that person requesting it. Does that sound odd to anyone else?

I can only guess that they do that so people don't write out their own, but still, it seems rude to just sic some school onto people. I guess I will just ask everyone if it is okay that they receive this request through email. Kind of give them a warning it is coming!

[Tahleen]

Tami, that was what my grad school asked for, though they accepted them if they were just mailed in. Though, when I applied for scholarships from the ALA, they asked for e-mail addresses so they could send the recommending professors (or whoever) for their recommendations. Although they sent them in and it still hasn't said they've gotten it...