Inconsequential Things That Annoy Me Intensely

[Funn3r]

On 10/25/2017 at 4:05 PM, EmmaRoid said:

Along with people who think it’s inconsequential to lose email addresses. It’s ok I’ll just get an other one *airhead laughter*. 

This site is quite tricky to sign up with if it doesn't like your email address. It doesn't like mine and I was stumped until my son told me about disposable addresses. I will be stuffed if I ever actuallly need email for anything in connection with the site.

[crashmonitor]

Michael McIntyre...words fail me, like a jumped up six year old, not remotely edgy. Who could this guy possibly appeal too other than some young BBC executive with young kids.

[crashmonitor]

Jeeze his star guest is Ed Balls..it's going off now. Usual rubbish from the Ministry of Information.

[Guest]

Breakfast cereal packets that only have the cereal name on the front and not the sides. Thus when faced with a shelf of packets at home you can't tell what's what.

People who hold sandwiches vertically to eat them rather than horizontally. 

[Mrs Bear]

Christmas 'fayre' all over the place. 

Though in fact 'fayre' at any time.  

[Scunnered]

12 hours ago, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

People who hold sandwiches vertically to eat them rather than horizontally. 

 

What???

 

[Sledgehead]

How everyone seems to have caved in to this fondant icing thing.

Butter icing is ten times nicer to eat, and royal icing can add a wonderful crisp, wafer-thin, texture contrast.Instead we get great slabs of this plasticine-consistency, overly-sweet paste, laid over diminutive quantities of cake.

Like this:

My guess is this 'icing' has tripled the calories in the "cake" above. I say 'cake', but it's really a mah-hoosiv dolly-mixture, with a small cake filling.

Moreover, when you cut the cake, the icing simply parts company. A blessing in disguise for me, as I can then just chuck it in the bin.

And why have we to suffer this? Cos it's dead easy to work with.

So now we all get to have cheapish, ready made, cake, that looks wonderful but massively disappoints when you put the stuff in your gob.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Scunnered said:

 

What???

 

I know! Saw it at a buffet lunch... Chilled me to the marrow.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Sledgehead said:

How everyone seems to have caved in to this fondant icing thing.

Butter icing is ten times nicer to eat, and royal icing can add a wonderful crisp, wafer-thin, texture contrast.Instead we get great slabs of this plasticine-consistency, overly-sweet paste, laid over diminutive quantities of cake.

Like this:

My guess is this 'icing' has tripled the calories in the "cake" above. I say 'cake', but it's really a mah-hoosiv dolly-mixture, with a small cake filling.

Moreover, when you cut the cake, the icing simply parts company. A blessing in disguise for me, as I can then just chuck it in the bin.

And why have we to suffer this? Cos it's dead easy to work with.

So now we all get to have cheapish, ready made, cake, that looks wonderful but massively disappoints when you put the stuff in your gob.

People who ice cakes even though they KNOW that EVERYONE hates it and will chuck it away. What's wrong with a lovely fruit cake!!

[winkie]

3 hours ago, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

People who ice cakes even though they KNOW that EVERYONE hates it and will chuck it away. What's wrong with a lovely fruit cake!!

Indeed....try this easy one.

I can condensed milk 397g

150g margarine/baking fat

225g raisins

225g sultanas

175g currents

175g glace cherries roughly chopped

225g self-raising flour

2 teasp mixed spice

1 teasp ground cinnamon

1 egg

18cm wide deep tin greased and lined with greaseproof paper. oven 150 degrees C.

Put condensed milk in pan, add fat, fruit,cherries.

Low heat, melt slowly, then simmer gently 5 mins. remove and cool 10 mins.

Flour in bowl add spices, add egg, pour in fruit mixture, mix well and add to tin. bake 1hour 45 mins to 2 hours.

Tip: Can soak the raisins in gin or brandy over night before using....can use mixed fruit or any dried fruit to total weight... am sure butter would also work as a replacement... can add a half teasp of baking powder if have it.

[Option5]

On 09/11/2017 at 12:18 PM, Sledgehead said:

See, if you are a thoughtful type, you again might wonder whether this is "inconsequential".

You may well get an 'inconsequential' discount on your 50p purchase ...

...

... but that 'reward' and the supposed 'loyalty' it produces is not the point of a 'loyalty' scheme.

Rather it is to profile. And not just to profile what you purchase. Rather, the data tells so much more about you. Like whether you have regular or erratic purchasing patterns (employed / not employed / zero hours). Or the times you shop (shift or regular hours). Or how  much you spend (suggesting how tight your budget is) or how little (suggesting how immune you are you offers).

In short, your 50p clubcard discount is worth far more to them than it is to you, because it tells the loyalty scheme something about you.

But you know all this, don't you? And yet you still think it 'inconsequential'. And that tells you something about the loyalty scheme.

I don't have any "loyalty" cards for the data collection reason, I do however get the person behind me at the checkout to use theirs for my purchases. They get the points I don't want and my purchases screw up the data profiling. Most of these cards are operated by a separate company who make money selling the data on.

[Riedquat]

7 minutes ago, Option5 said:

I don't have any "loyalty" cards for the data collection reason, I do however get the person behind me at the checkout to use theirs for my purchases. They get the points I don't want and my purchases screw up the data profiling. Most of these cards are operated by a separate company who make money selling the data on.

Good for you, need more people with that attitude. The only one I've got is for a cafe, just gets a stamp towards a free cuppa so no profiling going on there.

[Sledgehead]

2 hours ago, Option5 said:

I don't have any "loyalty" cards for the data collection reason, I do however get the person behind me at the checkout to use theirs for my purchases. They get the points I don't want and my purchases screw up the data profiling. Most of these cards are operated by a separate company who make money selling the data on.

+2

That's brilliant.

If only there was an easy way to let people equitably exchange their loyalty card points / purchase histories. If you could arrange to meet at the checkout with a shopper purchasing approximately the same money amount as you, you could swap loyalty cards and b*gger up the whole system.

What's needed is an app that monitors your usual spend and finds shoppers at the store with the same spending. You could use geolocation or triangulation along with a database of shoppers purchases. The app would get better the more history you built up about an individual shopper. Sooner or later, you'd know so much about them you could more or less guarantee a checkout-swap buddy. You could use messaging to send a picture of yourself for your buddy to i.d. you near the checkout.

It wouldn't be long before my app made loyalty card databases completely useless.

(and I would be left with the only meaningful data - IN THE WORLD - MUHAHA!)

[crashmonitor]

On 19/11/2017 at 10:19 AM, Mrs Bear said:

Christmas 'fayre' all over the place. 

Though in fact 'fayre' at any time.  

Don't see the fascination with looking round huts or stalls with food and gifts. Guess it suits shopping types, can't understand how these folk don't hit the boredom threshold. I'm bored after about five seconds.

[Andy T]

19 hours ago, Sledgehead said:

How everyone seems to have caved in to this fondant icing thing.

Butter icing is ten times nicer to eat, and royal icing can add a wonderful crisp, wafer-thin, texture contrast.Instead we get great slabs of this plasticine-consistency, overly-sweet paste, laid over diminutive quantities of cake.

Like this:

My guess is this 'icing' has tripled the calories in the "cake" above. I say 'cake', but it's really a mah-hoosiv dolly-mixture, with a small cake filling.

Moreover, when you cut the cake, the icing simply parts company. A blessing in disguise for me, as I can then just chuck it in the bin.

And why have we to suffer this? Cos it's dead easy to work with.

So now we all get to have cheapish, ready made, cake, that looks wonderful but massively disappoints when you put the stuff in your gob.

Hate the stuff, I get odd looks when I remove it and just eat the fruit cake.

It's cheap way for them to increase the size/weight - maybe they should sugar tax it?

[Sledgehead]

1 hour ago, Andy T said:

Hate the stuff, I get odd looks when I remove it and just eat the fruit cake.

It's cheap way for them to increase the size/weight - maybe they should sugar tax it?

... if ever there was a good reason for such a tax, you've nailed it.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure cake manufacturers are also using it in a weird way: as a mould. "WTF are you talking about Sledge?" I hear you say, "A mould? How?"

Well, I'm glad you asked that. Let me explain.

My suspicion is, cake is easier to make in larger quantities. So that's what they do. But the cakes required are themselves small. The solution is to crumb the baked cake, wet it with sugar syrup or some such, as a binder, and then compress it to the required size in a mould. The marzipan and fondant are then placed over this compressed cake to retain the shape.

I suspect this from the homogeneous nature of a small fruit cake I received  (apparently no "crust") and its watery and loosely bound consistency. Anyhow, it was a revolting experience, even w/o the bl00dy fondant icing.

[Mrs Bear]

On 20/11/2017 at 4:23 AM, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

People who ice cakes even though they KNOW that EVERYONE hates it and will chuck it away. What's wrong with a lovely fruit cake!!

I stopped icing my Christmas cake ages ago - I really hate marzipan and the icing was hardly ever eaten.  Instead I arrange assorted nuts in a pretty pattern on top, and glaze with warmed apricot jam or marmalade. Then tie a tartan ribbon around it. And very likely a little sprig of fresh holly stuck in the middle on the day. 

I'm not at all artistic but it always looks really good and people often assume I've paid a lot of money for it!  

[crashmonitor]

A modernism that is spreading like the plague is the expression yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Furst starting doing this on the Wrightstuff this morning in discussion. Everytime he cut in it was introduced with "Yeah, yeah, yeah." A bit surprising for a seasoned  political commentator

Starts to sound as ridiulous as a youth ending every sentence with" You know what I mean."

[Ash4781]

Filled in something online and it had a huge gender master list. I think it’s upto between 65-71 ish.

[Sledgehead]

23 hours ago, Venger said:

 

Count me in for that high up my list.  

Also looking at @anonlymouse and @houseface2000 and @Option5  - 2017., 2015, 2017.. here for years and years and years... with two of them 10+ years..... 2005.

First 'Ringmaster' ("How To Post" - All Opinions Equal - so post my way with politeness/don't mention trolls etc) Option5, so happy to shout 'hate and despise', but sensitive as anything to trolls being called trolls - with his equal opinion-ing, innocence of forums, closed groups, corners/attacks, vitriol -  :rolleyes@ - rather than robust pushback and vastly better analysis vs lessor analysis, and not suffering pwoperty-mad foolishness (foreverHPI haha - can't tell you why but foreverHPI hahah)

His posts on certain matters are very far from being anywhere near equal to me.

:rollyeyes:     And you know better than most @EmmaRoid just how untrue that is - you have my total respect, having encountered extreme housing/BTL financialisation (which I hold as so unfair) and then taken a measured approach to buying a family home overall, that I was fully intune with your reasoning for doing so, and only had/have respect and best wishes to you about.  

Yet Option5 'many years lurking' vs Newcomer/innocence/Ringmaster - to lurking for years and knows how forum is - not a HPIers/BTLers worshipping happy playground 'supply and demand / providing homes'.  It is polite, apart from when people continue to push it, and some disagreeing forcibly on points of logic / taking piss.

 

houseface2000 - 2015 member - Wallayat emailer convo / asks what the point of the forum even is, about from those priced out being miserable and bitter, and should instead be studying other cultures and going on holidays.

Counts himself a long-term HPCer, who bought recently, wanting victim-innocence quest for recent buyers, and gulled one HPCer - even when his own view being hyper excited for HPI, while claiming himself on HPC since beginning.

 

anonlymouse -2017 - another 10 year lurker who joins in 2017.  Can't decide whether he's renting or living with family, while getting digs in; 'Vengerjuice'.  

 

Oh, I so agree with you Mr V.

The truth is there aren't many who have stuck with this site as long as you.

I expect you can recall those early Location, Location, Location days, when Kirsty entered into a spat with the forum.

Now what was it she accused us of being like? C'mon, help me out. You must remember that, right?

[Sledgehead]

Here's another:

When you accidentally pour spaghetti down the sink, it effortlessly wraps itself, mid-point, over the plug-hole strainer, so that no amount of water will wash it away: you have to get in there with another implement and cut it free.

But take the same piece of spaghetti, boiling away in a pan,  and try to trap it on the prongs of a fork, so as to test whether it is properly softened, and the thing will slip and slide back into the water as if it were some kind of eel.

Like, WTF?

[Sledgehead]

On 11/20/2017 at 4:21 AM, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

I know! Saw it at a buffet lunch... Chilled me to the marrow.

Ah. there. You've hit on another one: high end restaurants serving up stuff that used to go in the bin and calling it haute cuisine. It's pure tight-fisted greed of the green stuff, and I don't mean samphire!

[Toast]

On 24/11/2017 at 7:12 PM, crashmonitor said:

A modernism that is spreading like the plague is the expression yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Furst starting doing this on the Wrightstuff this morning in discussion. Everytime he cut in it was introduced with "Yeah, yeah, yeah." A bit surprising for a seasoned  political commentator

Starts to sound as ridiulous as a youth ending every sentence with" You know what I mean."

Something that I do, which annoys me intensely, is to use the expression "I was like ..." when I mean "I said ...".

I have a feeling this idiom will stick, as it seems to be pervasive, and in a generation or two it will have crept in Fowler's Modern English Usage.

[Guest]

Why the effing heck has this fun thread about silly things that annoy people been turned into an argument about who is or isnt an authentic HPCer. Give it a rest guys it's getting tedious and seems to be infecting numerous threads all across the forums.

Mods please do something.

[Sledgehead]

2 hours ago, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

Why the effing heck has this fun thread about silly things that annoy people been turned into an argument about who is or isnt an authentic HPCer. Give it a rest guys it's getting tedious and seems to be infecting numerous threads all across the forums.

Mods please do something.

God knows.

Are we in the presence of some kind of bot or summit?

I've never come across anything quite like it. The closest thing I've ever experienced is this:

This site is a forgotten shack, off a dirt track, off a side alleyway, off a backstreet, off a dead-end-road of a ghost-town, off a wrong-turn, off a deserted highway, on an islet, across unmapped waters, from an outpost of a fallen civilization, who lived in the middle of nowhere, on a planet, beyond the edge of the known universe.

Who TF cares about pecking orders here? Most of us have been exiled anyhow. How small can one's mind be to worry about such things?