Indian food.
For many years, whenever friends at work wanted to go to an Indian restaurant, I politely declined. On the one or two occasions where attendance really was expected, I went but did not eat–the aroma was overpowering and the food all was stewlike and unappealing to me.
Then I went to India for a week for work.
I had no choice but to live off of Indian food for a week and I was converted forever.
Nowadays I can’t wait until the next opportunity to have some.
…what first et a oyster’…or something like that. Raw oyster! No way am I putting that in my mouth…until I did! Dee-lish! Raw, roasted, steamed, fried…mmmmm.
Its not polite to pick your seat in public.
Ditto for me. I can’t remember why I tried the first one (as an adult, after years of thinking little could be more yucky) but I’ve loved them ever since.
I still hate texting.
But yeah, fresh salsa or even a few drops of hot sauce is great, ketchup is nasty.
I laughed at the iPad, love it now.
Yeah, amazing casting on that one.
We are a Disney family, but friends badgered me into Universal studios Hollywood. Now sure, I took the BIG Studio tour in the past, and that was fun (and it still is) but *damn! * Harry Potter land almost out-Disney’s Disney (but there’s only two rides, and one is kinda small and sad). And the food isnt bad at all.
I grew up in Gardena, so I had sushi (only the small tuna and cucumber rolls as a appetizer) since i was a kid.
McGriddle. I’m not one for mixing up pancakes, eggs, sausage and cheese. But it’s actually quite nice. I didn’t expect the odd feeling of elation I get when I eat one.
…even though I must often wait up to 15 minutes for mine if I order it for lunch.
My mom wanted to go there for her 90th birthday week. But not on any rides… we spent almost every day NOT going into the parks (and saving a Benjamin each day… which we spent on amazing food instead).
Every night was a different high-end restaurant (best steak I’ve ever had was at The Captain’s Grille, best drinks at The Grand Floridian Hotel*).
*We took a (free) boat across Bay Lake at sunset, strolled up to the hotel and into an awe-inspiring lobby with a maestro at the grand piano.
Speaking of calorie-dense foods…
The first time I encountered queso con membrillo (aged cheese* with quince cheese, now that’s an interesting combo of names), either as a dessert or in a sandwich, I thought “isn’t that a lead bomb?” It is. It’s also damn good. So is a different cheese’n’sweet combination: chèvre-miel (goal cheese with honey), which the French will have either by itself or combined with bread (sandwiches, pizzas…).
To hell with salt. Put shredded cheese on your watermelon.
When I was 18 No Doubt’s single “Just a Girl” came out, and I hated it. My little brother, then 12, liked No Doubt quite a lot, and begged me to take him to see them if they came to Great Woods. I agreed that if they did, I would take him. I honestly didn’t think they would…but in the spring he excitedly told me that they were coming during the summer, with Weezer. I liked Weezer, so I figured I could put up with a couple of hours of No Doubt…
And it actually turned out to be one of my favorite concerts. Weezer was great, as was a the opening act, a punk band called Face to Face, and No Doubt was really excellent. I left the concert a newly converted fan. But I still hate “Just a Girl.”
I ALWAYS put salt on watermelon. I won’t eat watermelon without salt anymore.
A while back the hospital where I work went to an iPhone based communication system.
Like most nurses, I’m resistant to change. The way we’ve always done things is just fine, thank you. I resent and disdain the people whose job is to sit in offices dreaming up pointless new policies and procedures to justify their own existences.
New technology tends to be especially vexing. We’re always sold a bill of goods about how it’s going to make our jobs easier, but it invariably makes it harder when it breaks down, or adds more steps and layers of complication, or just plain doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to.
I’m no Luddite. I adore my personal smartphone and you can pry it out of my cold dead hand. But at work? Who needs it? It’s just more crap to go on the fritz and handicap us.
Well, I’m happy to say that these iPhones are the greatest thing to happen in my career.
No more struggling to figure out which doctor is covering for which - that info is in the palm of your hand. No more paging the doc and waiting forever for a call - just send a text. The response time is actually much faster.
Need to relay information to your co-workers or request help? Send a text. Does another nurse’s patient want pain medicine? Send a text. Need a witness for your narcotic waste or blood transfusion? Send a text. You can send broadcast texts, or find a specific individual even if you don’t know who you’re looking for, because you can search by title. Your patient needs a breathing treatment but you don’t know who the respiratory therapist on duty is? Just start typing R-E-S-P and the appropriate individual pops up.
All departments can find out with ease who is assigned to which patient. The lab can notify you of abnormal results, the telemetry techs can notify you of arrhythmias, docs can notify you of new orders or discharges or whatever.
It’s glorious and I don’t know how I ever functioned before.
The Orville. I wasn’t expecting to like that show as much as I do. I’ve never been a Seth McFarlane fan to say the least, but it won me over pretty quickly.
Cottage cheese. Looks awful. Love it.
Goat. I’d never tried it, finally did (a few local Indian restaurants do goat instead of beef), love it.
Automated check-in and bag drops at airports. No queues, no dramas. (I mostly fly in Australia - generally, they’ve got a ton more space and bag drop spots e.g. the Qantas terminal in Melbourne has probably two dozen belts where you can check your bags in. I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait - since I’m already checked in on the app, just wander over, take one minute to check my bags in, head to the gate.)
From previous threads, he works, he didn’t speak a word of Polish when he got there, and he’s either about to get married or already married to a Polish lady (I first noticed his name in a thread asking about the paperwork for the marriage).
Smart phones in general.
I had a mobile phone, and it worked just fine for my needs: making or receiving phone calls or the occasional text (on the numeric keypad.)
And then I got a smart phone. I can do bleeping everything with this pocket sized device! Pay my bills, find an address, research the Russian crown jewels, figure out who sang an obscure song, read and respond to a message board, play a mindless game, watch Antiques Roadshow, read a book, take photos, transfer money to my kid’s checking account at midnight, etc. It’s glorious.
My favorite phone camera hack is taking a picture of the tiny print on a medicine bottle, and zooming so I can read it.
Mine’s pretty mundane, but sauerkraut.
My parents used to make cabbage rolls on occasion, and the combination of the cabbage and sauerkraut would make the house smell like a giant fart for days. Dad also liked it on hot dogs. I couldn’t imagine that something that looked like slimy cabbage shreds and smelled like farts could actually taste good. I ended up being sort of inadvertently shamed into trying it in college. I had moved off campus, and my buddy/roommate bought a little grill and said “Now we can grill up some brats and eat them with sauerkraut and beer!” Not wanting to look like a ninny, I decided I’d just choke it down.
Lo and behold, it was terrific! I’ve been hooked ever since.
Sorry, I didn’t see your comment.
To make a long story short, a few years back, I lost both of my elderly parents about a year apart from one another (they were married for over 60 years) whom I had quit my job so as to better care for them a few years previous, and then found myself in a rather novel situation, specifically without work, and soon to be literally homeless, although “homeless” with a rather substantial cushion (at least for a single guy with no debts) in various investments and the bank.
I had also not been in a serious relationship for many years, and had no realistic prospects on the horizon, so I decided that heading overseas someplace where my money would go a lot further might make sense, particularly combined with the possibility of teaching English to suppliment my finances once I got resettled. (in Salt Lake City, I taught US and World History at an alternative public high school for many years, a fate which I would not wish upon even the most vile, depraved, degenerate Denver Broncos fan on Earth)
I spent my first couple of months in Europe sightseeing, drinking and aimlessly carousing around, which was a great experience, but surprisingly, after a while it grew tiresome, a new country, a new city, a different hotel room every week or so, all while lugging around two masive bags that contained all of my worldly possessions that were not over 6000 miles away.
I had been in the Czech Republic for a few weeks (Prague, Plzen, Ceske Budejovice) as I had spent a lot of time there on previous visits in years past and from past experience knew that there was a lot of demand for Native English Instructors, especially in Prague, but on a whim, decided to go up to Krakow for a week, (just to visit Auschwitz and then check out the city) even though I had zero connection to Poland, Polish Culture or any familiarity with the Polish language.
As I mentioned earlier, that has been nearly 4 years ago, each day here is somehow magically better than the last, and I can assure anyone reading that for someone who has been somehow blessed with a lifetime of good fortune (amazing parents, a loving family, great friends, a chance to have travelled the world several times over) my last minute decision to come to Krakow for a few days was the single best thing that has ever happened to me.
…and just to put a nice little bow on my story, 2 years back, after I had been here for a couple of years already, I met a truly amazing, sweet, kind, brilliant, tender and loving woman under the most random, improbable, yet clearly perfectly fated circumstances imaginable (seriously it wouldn’t even make a decent Romantic Comedy, as it is just “too perfect” for anyone to buy into) and at the end of March, we were married, both of us for the first time each (no kids, obviously) in a stunningly beautiful, historic 500 year old church in the heart of Krakow, which is the same church were her parents were married 50 years ago and where she was baptized as a baby…
Things indeed turned out great!