I should add that I was certainly more than a little apprehensive of leaving the USA (where I was born & raised) to strike out for Parts Unknown and hit the “Reset” button on my life, (I literally bought a one way flight) without a single friend or relative, or any actual, concrete plan for starting my new life here in Eastern Europe, but I can assure you that each and every day when I get up and read the news from America, I am incredibly, overwhelmingly grateful to be an entire world away from the social and political nightmare that sadly has become 2019’s America.
Not salt, but watermelon and feta cheese rocks! I only tried it by accident ( really, who puts brightly colored spotlights over a buffet table ) because I thought it was tomato and mozzarella. But I’m glad I did.
And I can second texting, Kindles, and pineapple pizza.
One of my own, cruises. I took my first cruise because some old friends of mine were doing one as a reunion event. I thought I would hate it, I thought it would be boring, crowded and generally obnoxious. And I ended up loving it and I’ve been vacationing on cruise ships ever since.
Okay. Gotta admit… That’s inspirational. Do you work or are you retired? Language not an issue?
I could have posted this. 
Since this isn’t CS, I stayed off movies, etc before but my example here would be the recent Into the Spider-Verse movie. In a world of increasingly realistic special effects and giant budget, well-written live action superhero movies, the idea of cartoon Spider-Man (and with a pig, no less!) sounded stupid. At best niche for die-hard comic fans. Instead, it was a great movie and an excellent superhero flick and one of the top movies I’ve seen in the past year, well deserving of its Oscar for Best Animated Picture.
Martinis.
Well it was awful at first, my father insisted I have one with him when I turned 18, the legal age at the time.
I’ve come to like them, but indulge only a few times a year.
Cell phone cameras is a good one. I actually started a thread on here many many years ago about how that seemed stupid and random. Not one of my finest hours 
Me Too! I resisted at first, but after trying it decided to spring for Nevermind Prime.
[Sorry, couldn’t resist]
That’s actually a more nuanced thing than it sounds.
On one hand, the best camera is the one you have with you (in the sense of it’s better to have any camera than none at all).
On the other, you have the fact that until very recently, camera phones were distinctly inferior to good quality P&S or DSLR cameras in terms of metering, low light capability, etc… I mean, my Galaxy S5 had a decent camera, but my Canon T2i and S100 still handily took better pictures in almost every circumstance.
But my Galaxy S9 pretty much equals or exceeds the S100 in most every way, and is comparable to the T2i as far as metering and autofocus are concerned, with the main difference being in the versatility of the DSLR format- I can swap lenses and more easily adjust settings myself on the DSLR. But for most photos, I just use the phone and it’s great. Plus, I can text them to relatives right away and it automatically scales them for texting, etc…
Reminds me of a Terry Pratchett interview. He led the interviewer into his writing room (nook?) and gestured to the six huge monitors on the wall. He said (paraphrased) I know what you’re going to ask and of course the reason that I have six monitors is that eight wouldn’t fit on the wall.
I’m going to third / fourth / whatever sushi. I thought I would gag just getting near it, and the first time I was invited to a sushi lunch I almost turned it down. But I wanted to see one of the people who would also be there, so I reluctantly accepted. OMG I was in heaven! I went back on my own several times after.
Also agree about streaming. I started using Amazon Prime’s streaming service in mid-2016, but only for a couple of dedicated shows like Downton Abbey. Last year I finally caved and subscribed to Netflix. Now I understand what the fuss was all about. I’m thinking of getting Hulu Live later this year as we did away with satellite years ago.
One I haven’t seen mentioned: Keurig machines. I have always been something of a coffee snob and when I first tried one several years ago I made the mistake of buying a cheap Mr. Coffee machine. The coffee was shit and I got rid of the machine pronto. This past winter when I finally tried coffee from a real, actual Keurig branded machine I was impressed enough to go buy one. It’s not as good as French Press brew but at 5:20 in the morning it’s more than adequate.
Not a “thing” that I thought would be awful but tuned out to be great but rather an event. In 2007, the day after Thanksgiving, I was fired from a longtime job as a hospice caregiver. We had just moved to a bigger house and my wife had given birth to our second son. This was at the outset of the Great Recession and finding work was almost impossible, even in the medical field. I moonlighted doing odd jobs, from cleaning window blinds to (literally) digging ditches. I finally decided I’d had enough of that shit and enrolled in night classes at my local community college. Now I have 2 associate degrees, a bachelors, and just have my thesis to finish for my MA. I’m a teacher for my local community college’s GED program and make more money in one week than I did in a month as a hospice caregiver. Getting fired turned out to be quite fortuitous.
In terms of countries: Uganda. I mean I didn’t really think it was going to be awful; there are of course some unfortunate stereotypes that come to most Westerners’ minds when they hear “Uganda”, but I tried to keep an open mind and didn’t think it was all like that. But it wasn’t exactly on my list of places I wanted to visit, either. But then, exactly three years ago last week as it happens, I found myself laid off from my previous job, but with a rather generous severance package. Suddenly having both money and free time, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to take the trip of a lifetime I’d always dreamed of taking to eastern Africa. I really just wanted to go to Kenya and Tanzania, see the Serengeti and all the wildlife that part of the world is famous for, but when I started looking at various “adventure tour” itineraries the one that was most appealing happened to include Uganda as well as those other two countries. So I figured I might as well book that one and see Uganda as well. It was totally worthwhile. It’s a beautiful country with friendly people. And while they don’t have lions and giraffes and elephants and such, they have chimpanzees and mountain gorillas, which are equally amazing to see in the wild. And rafting on the friggin Nile.
And on the subject of travel, organized tours are something I thought I’d hate, but actually enjoy. I pictured them just as a bus full of retirees stopping and gawking at the sights for a short time, then back on the bus to the next stop. And you’re on someone else’s schedule, and cant go off and do the things you want to do. And sure, there are some like that. But back in 2010 I decided I wanted to go camping in Alaska, and unlike other camping trips I’ve done you can’t really get there by driving in the time I had, and bringing a bunch of camping gear on a plane is too much of a hassle. So I ended up booking a tour through REI, and loved it. And what I learned was that there are lots of different kinds of tour companies offering many different styles of tours, and you have to find the style that’s right for you. I found I really like the style of “small group adventure” tours offered by companies like G Adventures and Intrepid. As a single guy, I realized it’s more fun to travel with a small group of like minded people than just going somewhere by myself. And I don’t have to deal with the logistical stuff like figuring out transportation and lodging.
I thought that Disney World in Florida would be an awful, tacky, overly commercialized amusement park. Instead our family was impressed by the quality of the entertainment, rides, food and resort hotels. We first went in 2007 and returned in 2009 and 2011.
This. It boggles my mind how often I use my camera–and how rarely it is for a memory or keepsake. It’s amazing how often it makes sense to write something down by hand and then take a picture of it. Or take a picture of a product, a sign, or other information.
I would add Google Maps/GPS. I thought GPS would be the end of learning my way around, it would make me dependent and incapable of navigating. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Using Google Maps has taught me so many back roads and ways to get to familiar places. It’s also made me much more adventurous because I don’t worry about getting lost. Used to be, if I was going from one rarely-visited place to another rarely visited place, I’d take a long route to get back to familiar territory so I could get to the second place through the usual way (does that make sense?) Now, I go the most efficient way and learn how things connect up. I know my city 100x better because I started using Google Maps.
One thing I’ve found extremely useful is taking cell phone photos of the model and serial number stickers/plaques on stuff we’ve got like appliances, cars, etc… That way I have that information at my fingertips if I need to do research, or make a maintenance call.
Same here. I had an epiphany a while back when I realized I have gigabytes of free space on my phone–enough to take tons of photos–and I can easily delete the ones I don’t want. Why not take photos of notes for easy retrieval, parking signs, funny license plates, or that weird bug I want to try identifying later? Sure, most of my phone photos are of my cats, but I have enough storage to take thousands of useless photos if I want to! Such power! Very liberating for somebody who grew up in the Seventies, when every snapshot you took had to Count because they cost so much (in time and money) to develop!
You sound like me, though it wasn’t just a whim for me. I was in my mid thirties when a nurse told me I needed to start exercising, and I took her seriously.
It’s 15 years later now, and I don’t race marathons or anything like that, but I do make sure I put in the same amount of miles every week. It’s for keeping healthy and it gives me time to myself.
About a month or so ago, I got roped into going to some school event for my 5th grade granddaughter one night after work. (Her mom works late and my wife had been running around all day and was beat.) I didn’t want to go to this stupid thing, I just wanted to come home from work and relax.
It was called a “wax museum” and the idea was that each kid in the class had chosen an inspirational person, created a poster with facts about this person, memorized a little two-minute spiel about this person, and came to the event dressed as this person. They had all the kids sitting in chairs spaced around the cafeteria, with big round dot stickers on their hands. You would walk up to a kid, press their “button” (the dot) and they would stand up and deliver their spiel, then sit back down.
As Snowboarder Bo would say, it fucking rocked! I was really impressed with the selection of inspirational people, the amount of research done*, and the detail that went into some of the costumes. I had a blast!
- Except for one kid who picked Bill Gates but apparently skimped on the research. Bill Gates did not make his fortune selling PCs, especially Dell PCs.
The last movie I went to, I checked the website for tickets in the morning and found that there were hardly any taken for the show I wanted. So, I saved the fee and bought them at the theater, locked in my seats choice, and knew that I didn’t have to rush to get a good seat, or send someone to hold them for us. Easy.
When I went to see Endgame, I checked the website about a week early and saw that a bunch of tickets were snapped up. So, I ponied up the extra $5 and locked in my decent seats a week in advance. We didn’t have to arrive 40 minutes early, didn’t have to wait in line to either get our tickets or get in the theater. We arrived a couple minutes before the show, and got the seats we wanted.
I didn’t think Amazon was going to be a big deal, I may have been wrong about that.
Pride.
I went for the first time last year because LBGTQ+ rights are under so much pressure where I live that I felt it was important to have as many people there as possible, but I don’t really enjoy crowds and loud music so I was expecting it to be a bit of a chore. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the hell out of it, mainly due to the atmosphere of openness, love and support, which had me fighting back tears at various times.