The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

[Cesar R M]

We don't even bother with the ones on top of the pencils any more. I buy a bag of real ones before school opens

Same, after I got an exam destroyed with these goddarn cheap erasers. I started to buy mechanical pencils AND "migajon" type erasers (the type that falls apart and are very gentle with the paper)

 

[21stamps]

Funny thing about Pitch Perfect: I used to turn it on when it came on TV, which is frequently in the US. My mom would walk in and ask me to find something else to watch. "I don't feel like watching this..." Yadda yadda.

I finally got her to sit down and watch it with me after I bought the DVD. Now I'm the one finding her constantly watching it. Anna Kendrick was on a commercial here, and she points and says "Oh, that's Becca."

I've never seen it, any of them

 

[Cesar R M]

Excellent job! I can't believe they got rid of the touchscreens at 7DMT. Maybe they broke too often, or maybe for sanitary purposes? Oh well. Next time get a food pic. Did you enjoy the stretch burger?

Probably both...
Since kids would literally clean their nose on whatever surface they found, specially shinny ones like the screens.
Plus young teenagers and aholes would have damaged them constantly..

 

[StarWarsGirl]

We took the kids to see #3 when it came out. DS LOVED Fat Amy. I have to say, Rebel Wilson does crack me up. Apparently, at least in the first movie, a lot of her things are ad libs....like mermaid dancing, and "Lesbi-honest". You can see Anna Camp trying so hard not to laugh at the mermaid dancing. But really the reason I love the movies is the music...the arrangements are just amazing and so intricate. I would LOVE to be part of a group like that...such great music!!

What she says after the whole, "I have nodes" speech is also ad-libbed...

 

[CoreNovawarAMM]

Probably both...
Since kids would literally clean their nose on whatever surface they found, specially shinny ones like the screens.
Plus young teenagers and aholes would have damaged them constantly..

Right, I’ve seen as just as many adults messing with the screens, as kids.
Although there were no fewer than 10 hands at a time handling those gemstones as we walked by...don’t really know how that will keep the germs down.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I keep getting these wrong number texts from Georgia numbers. This happened yesterday...

 

[SteveBrickNJ]

Oh you're going to give me nightmares with that stupid Dixon Ticonderoga pencil!!!!!!!!!!!!!

T needed a certain type for K... I couldn't find them anywhere, and that's the only year when I didn't order a kit. I sent him with the one in your photo, they were sent back home with him the 1st day of school, with a note informing me that they were wrong (as well as a few other items including pink erasers that were supposed to be white). Apparently other parents had issues, the school ended up ordering the pencils, taking them out of the boxes, and then selling them in groups of 2pencils for $1 lol

Sorry for the bad flashback. Here's wishing you "pleasant dreams"

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Ok, so mini-trip report time!! I will try to keep it brief with not TOO many pictures, because I took like 400.
First, we started off with a date night on the Friday night. DH's work had given him a voucher for a meal for 2 at a very fancy place as a kind of bonus for some project he worked on that was massive. They gave him a 100 Euro gift certificate for this restaurant once before and we still had to pay the difference. I was not looking forward to this meal because it's just too fancy and full of things I've never heard of, etc. But the voucher would expire that week and the employer would be informed that we had not used it. It turned out not so bad....because it was warm out, they had moved everything outside to a sort of garden seating area, and it was much more relaxed. Still fancy schmancy, but you didn't feel self-concious about the crumbs you let fall from your bread service.
It was a 5 course meal with an amuse. I didn't remember to take pictures of the amuse...it was just a little bite sized quiche-thing and it was pretty good, but I don't remember what it was. Pretty sure it involved some kind of cheese and maybe mushroom?
DH and I got different things because I requested no fish/seafood. So he got the standard menu, and I got the one without any seafood.
This was mine....it was pork belly with cauliflower puree, hazelnut puree, grated almonds, and some other cauliflower stuff. I did not really like this one much, so I gave it to DH since cauliflower is his favorite and he loves the pork belly.

View attachment 300982

I think we might have both gotten this one....it was a risotto with truffle sauce. It was very good.

View attachment 300983

This one....I had to not think about what I was eating. It was sweet breads, and I decided to keep an open mind. As long as you didn't think about it, it tasted fine, and it was kind of like chicken nuggets in texture. And then around it was grated asperagus I think? With seaweed crisps and I don't remember what the jelly was made of, and then it had dill sprinkled around it, but I avoided that, since I don't like dill.
View attachment 300985

We both got this one: Duck with a puree that I THOUGHT he said was made from the bone marrow, but DH didn't hear it and I'm not positive. and grated truffle, some broad beans, an asperagus stalk, and a few peas. It was good, though the veggies were a bit bland and that puree thing was a bit if a weird texture.

View attachment 300994

This one was hubby's. It was lobster and some sort of minced tuna cake? That green egg-shaped thing is seaweed ice cream, which hubby said was really weird, and of course it also had the seaweed crisps.
View attachment 300996

This was also DH's: It's Turbot, which is fish that I've never heard of.. Then those little pearly things were a seaweed thing with squid ink, and the bits that look like ham are apparently squid. I was so glad I had said no seafood because almost the entire menu was seafood otherwise.
View attachment 300997

This was the dessert: It was raspberry and a bunch of stuff I've never heard off. The ball things were made from the cream from the second milking of a cow...she called it biet. And that green egg thing was ice cream, flavored with Verveine, and the ball things had that as well. Then the red pearls were made of frozen raspberry and I think that pink ring underneath was also made from the "biet". The silver ball was burnt white chocolate, as was that brown dollop on the left of it....OMG you guys, burnt white chocolate is SO good. I don't even like white chocolate for the most part, but that had a caramel-like taste and a saltiness that was just so yummy.
View attachment 300998

This one I just couldn't eat. It was very pretty but it was SOOOO weird. It was a dessert amuse and I can't even remember most of what was in it except coconut and dill, neither of which I like. I want to say there was a very thin layer of custard-like stuff on the bottom made from buttermilk, and that was covered with maybe a brown sugar? And then it had some sort of fruit that is similar to lychee, but I don't remember the name and I had never heard of it. Anyway, I took the TINIEST taste of the custard, but all I could taste was coconut, so I didn't eat the rest, and the waiter noticed and asked if I'd like something different, which I declined. I was perfectly satisfied.
View attachment 301002
I forgot....they had virgin Mocktails as well, (and real ones with alcohol, but I'm not a huge drinker and I don't like champagne, wine, or beer) so I got a really delicious drink that was Orange juice with Casis (blackberry soda) and grenadine. So good!

So that was our meal that night and then we picked up the kids and we left for Germany the next morning.

It's a little over an hour drive to Cologne, which was where DH's first event was. He plays a game called Ingress and they have Mission Days where hundreds of people gather and do "missions" and meet each other. DD also plays this game. You follow GPS directions to specific places and try to take over the opposing side's land. I think. There was a van with some famous Ingress guy...maybe the maker? who would make stops in various cities to put on these mission days and/or meets. DH wanted to follow the van through the Netherlands and Germany. The Netherlands was no problem...a day here, a day there. Germany meant hotel stays and long drives and he'd be gone for a week, which meant I wouldn't be able to work because the kids would be home with me, and I'd be without transportation since DS still had a cast on and couldn't ride a bike. But taking that entire week off work meant that I wouldn't really get a VACATION...I'd have to work the rest of the time once DH returned, which meant no family time with all of us. So I made a deal with DH that we could follow the van, but on the days where there was no Ingress function, I wanted to do family stuff....we'd make it into a family vacation. He agreed.

So, Cologne: The plan was DH would take the kids to play Ingress/pokemon go while I went shopping/site seeing. Then DH said he thought I should just come with them...most of the Ingress spots are historical landmarks or places of interest...I'd get to do my site-seeing, AND if DS got bored, I'd be there to take him wherever. The reality was quite different. The first mission was fine....it was around the Dom cathedral there:

View attachment 301018

The problem was, I wanted to actually go IN, but the mission was OUTSIDE, and DH kept saying "We'll be right back...wait right here" and he'd be gone for 10 minutes and then he had to move on to the next spot. He and DD had to complete 6 missions and get to this park by noon or something. So we never got to go in or STOP anywhere....there was another historic church I wanted to see and DH was like "See? We go right past that on this mission!" And we did.....on the wrong side of the street, with buildings in between, so all I got to see was the tower over the roof of the building in front of it. I have very few pictures because there was nothing to see.....we walked several miles across Cologne to get to this park....and then had to walk back to get to the car.
There was an artist out doing sidewalk drawings. Very cool:
View attachment 301020

One cool thing was every so often there would be a grate in the sidewalk with a sort of map from medieval times...where the original city wall was, for example.

View attachment 301019

Part of the original city wall there on the corner.

View attachment 301021
View attachment 301022

Just a cool carving above one of the doors.

View attachment 301023
We got to the park, DS was bored, but we all had to walk back anyway, so it made no sense to split up by that point. We got some ice cream and then headed back. DD was having a very rough day...the missions were not very fun, and her shorts were chafing her legs, and we had grabbed a smoothie at a grocery store for her, which she put in her backpack and it leaked all over the floor and her bag at a cafe we stopped into. She felt REALLY bad for making a mess and she just started crying. And it ended up taking forever to get back and we were tired, sweaty, hungry and just all around grouchy. We couldn't wait to check into our hotel and go get some food!!

Up next: This is NOT what the picture showed!

Interesting looking dinner and I like the pictures of the city you have shared so far. That wall and the church carvings looks really cool.

 

[Songbird76]

DH had booked a hotel online through Expedia or something like it and we had looked at the pictures and it looked pretty nice for one of the cheaper places. All the other places were way more expensive and didn't look as nice. When we got there, we discovered the picture they were using of the outside was actually an assisted living facility, not the hotel.

This is what they showed....that corner bit there.


This is the actual hotel.

I had to use the flashlight on my phone just to find the keyhole on the door because the hallway was soooooo dark.
When we went in, it was just gross....the sink and shower were chipped and cracked, the floor was chipped, the door to the balcony was broken, the walls were filthy, the light fixture didn't cover the hole in the ceiling, there were nails sticking out of the armoir, there were no nightstands or anything, there was mold on the shower tiles, no hooks on the bathroom door to hang up a towel....again, nails sticking out instead. And the booking site DH had used said wifi wasn't free, but he called to ask how much it cost per night, and THAT guy said there was no charge. So when we got there, we tried to connect, but it didn't work...the network wasn't even showing up in the list of networks. So DH went to the front desk and tried to explain that it wouldn't show up in the network list and she tried to give him a passcode that would work for 1 hour. When he tried to explain that that wouldn't help if we couldn't find the network, she snapped at him and told him to let her talk, and shoved the code at him again. Needless to say, we never got internet there.

Thats our door on the left there, in the dark.


Our beds:






It was bad, but we were tired, we had already paid, and it was only for one night and only to sleep. We were hungry and it was getting late, so we went to McDonald's for DS, and then went to KFC for us....I was happy, because KFC in Germany has mashed potatoes and gravy, which KFC in the Netherlands does not. They also had free drink refills, which the Netherlands doesn't. They weren't particularly organized and my German is practically non-existant since I had to kind of let it go in favor of learning to pronounce Dutch words correctly, since a lot of the words are similar. So when I asked for butter for my corn on the cobb, the guy was rude, told me it would be a minute, then got angry when another worker asked me what I was waiting for and I told her I just needed butter. The guy snapped "IT'S ON ITS WAY!" and the woman just turned around, grabbed a pat of butter and handed it to me in 2 seconds. He apparently thought I was asking for bread? It ended up being WAY too much food for us, and I felt bad throwing half of it away, but it tasted good, and it was stuff I can't get here, so I couldn't quite regret it.

Then we went back to the hotel to try to sleep. It was so stuffy...it was in the 80s-90s all week and there was no air-conditioning in the hotel. There was a little Juliet balcony and the door is one that you turn the handle up, and it opens in from the top like a window, and if you turn it to the side, it opens like a door, and if you turn it down, it locks. Only, the mechanism was broken so it only opened like a door....so we had to leave the door open the whole night to get some air and cool it down. We had to toss everything from our bed area to our suitcases so no one could see us in the open doorway without our clothes on.

The park hotel in Cologne will not get a very glowing review from us. I have pictures of the mold, the dirty walls, unsafe looking outlets, etc, to accompany said review.

Up next: day 1....again....because Cologne doesn't count. REDO!

 

[Songbird76]

What she says after the whole, "I have nodes" speech is also ad-libbed...

Ha! Yeah, I have the DVD and it has a few outtakes from that scene. There were several other lines that she tried out. I guess they told her just to go for it and they did a few takes. I think verticle running was also an ad-lib.

 

[CoreNovawarAMM]

I keep getting these wrong number texts from Georgia numbers. This happened yesterday...
View attachment 301039

That’s kinda creepy...
I got one around Christmastime once (from an unknown number) that said something to the effect of,” I don’t know whether I slept with you or was in jail with you, but I found this number on my phone, so Merry Christmas.”
I immediately blocked it.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

That’s kinda creepy...
I got one around Christmastime once (from an unknown number) that said something to the effect of,” I don’t know whether I slept with you or was in jail with you, but I found this number on my phone, so Merry Christmas.”
I immediately blocked it.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

It’s pretty much like EMH, except only two restaurants were open, and a few attractions closed early (TTA and Mad Tea Party to name a couple). The food carts stayed open. There was some special V.I.P. merch available, but we didn’t get to the Emporium before closing, so I didn’t get to see what it looked like.

Did they offer any free treats?

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

Oh you're going to give me nightmares with that stupid Dixon Ticonderoga pencil!!!!!!!!!!!!!

T needed a certain type for K... I couldn't find them anywhere, and that's the only year when I didn't order a kit. I sent him with the one in your photo, they were sent back home with him the 1st day of school, with a note informing me that they were wrong (as well as a few other items including pink erasers that were supposed to be white). Apparently other parents had issues, the school ended up ordering the pencils, taking them out of the boxes, and then selling them in groups of 2pencils for $1 lol

2 for $1? What a ripoff! I did buy Target pencils one year though because they were cheaper than the Ticonderoga. Funny thing about those pencils, if you shook them you could hear the lead shaking inside. It was weird.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

 

[CoreNovawarAMM]

Did they offer any free treats?

Not that I saw.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

DH had booked a hotel online through Expedia or something like it and we had looked at the pictures and it looked pretty nice for one of the cheaper places. All the other places were way more expensive and didn't look as nice. When we got there, we discovered the picture they were using of the outside was actually an assisted living facility, not the hotel.

This is what they showed....that corner bit there.
View attachment 301034

This is the actual hotel.
View attachment 301036
I had to use the flashlight on my phone just to find the keyhole on the door because the hallway was soooooo dark.
When we went in, it was just gross....the sink and shower were chipped and cracked, the floor was chipped, the door to the balcony was broken, the walls were filthy, the light fixture didn't cover the hole in the ceiling, there were nails sticking out of the armoir, there were no nightstands or anything, there was mold on the shower tiles, no hooks on the bathroom door to hang up a towel....again, nails sticking out instead. And the booking site DH had used said wifi wasn't free, but he called to ask how much it cost per night, and THAT guy said there was no charge. So when we got there, we tried to connect, but it didn't work...the network wasn't even showing up in the list of networks. So DH went to the front desk and tried to explain that it wouldn't show up in the network list and she tried to give him a passcode that would work for 1 hour. When he tried to explain that that wouldn't help if we couldn't find the network, she snapped at him and told him to let her talk, and shoved the code at him again. Needless to say, we never got internet there.

Thats our door on the left there, in the dark.
View attachment 301037

Our beds:
View attachment 301038

View attachment 301040

View attachment 301041

It was bad, but we were tired, we had already paid, and it was only for one night and only to sleep. We were hungry and it was getting late, so we went to McDonald's for DS, and then went to KFC for us....I was happy, because KFC in Germany has mashed potatoes and gravy, which KFC in the Netherlands does not. They also had free drink refills, which the Netherlands doesn't. They weren't particularly organized and my German is practically non-existant since I had to kind of let it go in favor of learning to pronounce Dutch words correctly, since a lot of the words are similar. So when I asked for butter for my corn on the cobb, the guy was rude, told me it would be a minute, then got angry when another worker asked me what I was waiting for and I told her I just needed butter. The guy snapped "IT'S ON ITS WAY!" and the woman just turned around, grabbed a pat of butter and handed it to me in 2 seconds. He apparently thought I was asking for bread? It ended up being WAY too much food for us, and I felt bad throwing half of it away, but it tasted good, and it was stuff I can't get here, so I couldn't quite regret it.

Then we went back to the hotel to try to sleep. It was so stuffy...it was in the 80s-90s all week and there was no air-conditioning in the hotel. There was a little Juliet balcony and the door is one that you turn the handle up, and it opens in from the top like a window, and if you turn it to the side, it opens like a door, and if you turn it down, it locks. Only, the mechanism was broken so it only opened like a door....so we had to leave the door open the whole night to get some air and cool it down. We had to toss everything from our bed area to our suitcases so no one could see us in the open doorway without our clothes on.

The park hotel in Cologne will not get a very glowing review from us. I have pictures of the mold, the dirty walls, unsafe looking outlets, etc, to accompany said review.

Up next: day 1....again....because Cologne doesn't count. REDO!

Oh my! I can't believe you ended up staying there. I don't think I'm that picky but I don't think I could have even though I had paid for it. We got stuck in a hotel in Atlanta that was super sketchy and gross so I can relate to your trauma.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

It's a little over an hour drive to Cologne, which was where DH's first event was. He plays a game called Ingress and they have Mission Days where hundreds of people gather and do "missions" and meet each other. DD also plays this game. You follow GPS directions to specific places and try to take over the opposing side's land. I think. There was a van with some famous Ingress guy...maybe the maker? who would make stops in various cities to put on these mission days and/or meets. DH wanted to follow the van through the Netherlands and Germany. The Netherlands was no problem...a day here, a day there. Germany meant hotel stays and long drives and he'd be gone for a week, which meant I wouldn't be able to work because the kids would be home with me, and I'd be without transportation since DS still had a cast on and couldn't ride a bike. But taking that entire week off work meant that I wouldn't really get a VACATION...I'd have to work the rest of the time once DH returned, which meant no family time with all of us. So I made a deal with DH that we could follow the van, but on the days where there was no Ingress function, I wanted to do family stuff....we'd make it into a family vacation. He agreed.

So, Cologne: The plan was DH would take the kids to play Ingress/pokemon go while I went shopping/site seeing. Then DH said he thought I should just come with them...most of the Ingress spots are historical landmarks or places of interest...I'd get to do my site-seeing, AND if DS got bored, I'd be there to take him wherever. The reality was quite different. The first mission was fine....it was around the Dom cathedral there:

View attachment 301018

The problem was, I wanted to actually go IN, but the mission was OUTSIDE, and DH kept saying "We'll be right back...wait right here" and he'd be gone for 10 minutes and then he had to move on to the next spot. He and DD had to complete 6 missions and get to this park by noon or something. So we never got to go in or STOP anywhere....there was another historic church I wanted to see and DH was like "See? We go right past that on this mission!" And we did.....on the wrong side of the street, with buildings in between, so all I got to see was the tower over the roof of the building in front of it. I have very few pictures because there was nothing to see.....we walked several miles across Cologne to get to this park....and then had to walk back to get to the car.
There was an artist out doing sidewalk drawings. Very cool:
View attachment 301020

One cool thing was every so often there would be a grate in the sidewalk with a sort of map from medieval times...where the original city wall was, for example.

View attachment 301019

Part of the original city wall there on the corner.

View attachment 301021
View attachment 301022

Just a cool carving above one of the doors.

View attachment 301023
We got to the park, DS was bored, but we all had to walk back anyway, so it made no sense to split up by that point. We got some ice cream and then headed back. DD was having a very rough day...the missions were not very fun, and her shorts were chafing her legs, and we had grabbed a smoothie at a grocery store for her, which she put in her backpack and it leaked all over the floor and her bag at a cafe we stopped into. She felt REALLY bad for making a mess and she just started crying. And it ended up taking forever to get back and we were tired, sweaty, hungry and just all around grouchy. We couldn't wait to check into our hotel and go get some food!!

Up next: This is NOT what the picture showed!

Isn’t it amazing how buildings hundreds of years old can still remain standing. Albeit the ones not destroyed by war.
Beautiful pictures. I love history and can understand your frustration with not being able to really get into the buildings you wanted to see.

 

[MinnieM123]

Are you saying that if an item costs $200 then you will be taxed on $25. Still seems ridiculous and probably unfair to men who need to wear suits to work. Why can’t all clothing be tax free? I guess a lot of people may go into NH to pick up the more expensive items?

Yup, $25 will be taxed. As for NH, more people head up there for liquor and cigarettes because they're cheaper--that's been the way for years. (I could care less about either of those--don't smoke and drink very little. We don't even have liquor at home--only on occasion if we go out to a nicer restaurant, I might have a glass of wine.)

As for the residents up in NH, they get hit with the 3rd highest in the nation, property tax--to compensate for all the "other" taxes that NH does not collect. So in the end, state to state, it probably balances out -- just different methods used to get the money.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

I've never seen it, any of them

Neither have I. Still have a Grease marathon going on at my house.