-Hunting, mostly.
-Fishing, TOTALLY
-Boxing, and the culture that has grown up around it. How can there be so many movies about boxers, and so few about, say, ping pong players?
-Trends and fads and things become more or less popular. A whole bunch of people were swing dancing 7 or so years ago. Now most of them aren’t. Why? Was it fun then? Then why wouldn’t it be fun now?
I’d like to add to the list people who intentionally litter. Exactly how is the beauty of the roadside improved by you tossing your beer can or Macy’s shopping bag (empty or possibly filled with other trash) there? What is the point of dropping your soft drink cup on the ground five feet away from a garbage can? And, as all too often happens here for some stupid reason, why must you spit your gum out on the sidewalk right in front of a store entrance? Again, there is a trash can just five feet away. What horrible thing could possibly happen if you used it? Honestly, I wish I had the magical power to zap this stuff right back into your homes!
Agreed- my parents did this with me, too.
The result is- we have some really nice pictures of me as a smiling baby in exotic places, with my parents looking young and happy holding me… and lots of stories about people commenting on how cute I was in all sorts of dialects, but no memories.
I am glad they did it then, though, rather than when I was old enough to rmember but not old enough to enjoy. I’d rather have no memory of say, Spain, than remember Spain as a place that was stupid and boring and full of people I couldn’t understand
stuff I don’t get:
-
People who are aggressively lazy- who don’t flush the toilet or wash their hands, but will spend twenty minutes fixing their makeup in the bathroom mirror. Or who will duck into someone’s backyard and dodge their dogs to get rid of their trash, but won’t put it in one of the dumpsters that line the alley. (on preview, I see that the litter thing was already posted.)
-
Girls who can’t stand to be without a boyfriend or a crush, and so will kowtow to their current boy to keep him from dumping her befor she finds someone new.
-
Girls who go to football games when they don’t know any of the players just to see a bunch of boys headbutt each other. Especially since the boys are under 14 layers of padding and wearing giant helmets, so you can’t even see their face or muscles. They might as well be chimpanzees.
-
People who, upon hearing anything about you, have to tell you something negative. Usually something pretty obvious. Like if I say I’m vegetarian, the nutrition police who usually know very little about nutrition, say “you need to mkae sure you get your protein!” or if I say I want to be a surgeon/detective/ballerina I hear- you have to go to school for a long long time/there aren’t a lot of girl detectives/ballerinas have very short and competitive careers.
-
Myspace.
-
Spastic typists, especially those over the age of eleven. Both groups- the ones who use too few letters and therefore somehow suck all the inflection out of their typing (i e, “o. where r u? i m rly dprest.”) and the ones that type like they took some sort of crazy drugs (“OOMMGGGG WHHEEREEE RRRR UUUUU??? IIMMMM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DDEERPPPRPREEESSSSSSSSSTTTTTTT!!!”)
-
People who feel the need to tell you things about themselves that should be obvious. Like how cute or hot they are.
That’s exactly the point.
Rule #1 of investing: Variance goes both ways. Your house appreciated by a large margin in 3 years. Do you think it’s impossible that it will go the other way by a similar amount? The housing market in the US is already facing an interest rate crunch(that’s the Bernake guy’s job, actually. When asset bubbles start forming, he raises rates. That, at least, is kinda predictable), what do you think the prospects for house prices in Calgary will be? In other words, what kind of market volatility do you think you’re dealing with when prices move like that? Is this kind of market a good place to place your retirement savings?
Rule#2: The only thing you can do is diversify. There are a billion things that can affect the price of a house, and the majorty of them are out of your control. Institutional investors diversify away the risk by owning hundreds of properties. Can you do the same? Back to rule one, what kind of roller-coaster variance do you think a $150,000 appreciation in three years(I don’t know how much you bought the house for originally) represent? The real estate market is the same as any other equity market, when it goes up, all the right place/right time people suddenly think they’re prescient. Perhaps featherlou is a more astute real estate investor than I was and saw the run up in prices before it came, and then again perhaps not. See rule # 1.
Rule #3: If you ain’t got liquidity, you ain’t got shit. Because housing is so illiquid, if it ever came to that your choices are limited. Can you sell for a loss? Start Renting? Remember, the majority of the population tends not to buy houses at a whim, the price of housing is set at the margins, meaning a limited number of buyers who are always buying or selling at the margins will determine median prices for the entire market. If there are 10,000 loking for homes in Calgary, but 50 (institutional) buyers who are willing to pay $X, then the 50 buyers set the price at $X. It could be that the rest of those buyers would only buy at $x-200,000, in which case if the 50 buyers decide to pull out of the buying market, the price falls by $200,000. The market panics, the flippers start selling and the price falls through the floor. That doesn’t help the variance situation, neither does taking on more leverage, as you have done.
Reverse mortgaging your house for retirement income? I hope you’re retiring right NOW.
Hey, it’s all about variance. You guys made a big, risky bet 3 years ago and so far, you’ve won. Sorry if my risk appetite isn’t quite on the same level.
So…nope, still don’t get it. 
People who brag about how little they read. Um, folks? That’s not exactly something to be proud of.
Parents (and I use the term loosely) who cannot control their childen. I mentioned this in another thread in IMHO, but “He won’t eat anything but McDonalds? What can I do?” :smack:
Fred Phelps.
People who care how other people dress or wear their hair (yeah, Runs With Scissors, I don’t get it). Sure, I notice when my wife looks good, or whether someone applying for a job looks professional, but overall I neither know nor care why you have plaid pants, spiked hair, a backward baseball cap, a t-shirt in the winter, a fur coat in the summer, a frilly dress on your poodle, or a tattoo of a rabid gerbil on your left breast.
People who vote a straight party ticket. What, your party has no doofuses? You have no single issues more important to you than that “Rep” or “Dem” on the ballot? By the time I finish researching issues and candidates, every single ballot I fill out ends up mixed-party.
Car primpers. My vehicles serve a purpose. My truck transports heavy loads and tows stuff. My Jeep is fun to drive. They both get banged up and dirty. I don’t understand people who spend hours and hours every week washing, waxing, polishing, buffing, vaccuming, wiping, and spit-shining their cars. It’s just a thing that gets you from here to there with your stuff.
Women who would choose a date or a mate based on his car. Huh? Is that really the best criterion you can come up with?
Horse snobbery. Your horse trots a ring with an English saddle. Mine chases cows with a Western saddle. His runs around a track with a racing saddle. I’m sure they’re all fine animals, and they all have fine riders. Don’t get all snooty with me because I have a Stetson instead of jodhpurs.
Mispronouncing or misusing words on purpose. Why would you want to make communication more difficult? And for goodness’ sake, why would you correct me when I use the preferred pronunciation in the dictionary? Say it your way if you must, but don’t tell me I have to use an incorrect or secondary pronunciation just because you do.
Celebrity gossip rags. Why on earth do people care who Bobby is dating or whether some scumbag paparazzi got a shot of somebody’s baby or somebody’s boob hanging out of a dress? Makes no sense to me.
Spending endless hours on an Internet message board. I do it, but I still don’t get it 
Is this about things you can’t conceive or understand, or just things you don’t agree with? 'Cuz I think there is a difference. I can understand why people don’t flush the toilet or why they litter: it’s called laziness.
There’s something big that I don’t get, and it’s this:
People make assumptions about intelligence based on certain interests. For example, a slightly-above-average-intelligence Westerner can become interested in Eastern religion, and everyone else is like “oh my God, you’re so interesting, so sophisticated!” If a highly-above-average-intelligence individual starts analyzing table tennis statistics, everyone else says “ew, sports! I hate sports! Whenever I’m having my non-fact sugar-free decaf hazelnut latte, and I hear people discussing sports, it makes me sick!” It doesn’t matter that the second person’s intellectual pursuit is by far the more original, complex, and challenging; the first person is still considered spiritual, artistic, and savvy, whereas the second person is interested in ew, sports.
I don’t mean to sound bitterly anti-intellectual. I actually can’t stand anti-intellectualism. It’s just that our assumptions on what signifies intelligence are often wrong. I don’t read fiction because I don’t find it, on the whole, as enjoyable as other forms of stimulation. Yet people still insist that anyone who is intelligent must be an avid bibliophile. Movie-lovers are higher up on the intellectual food-chain than chess players, and for no good reason.
Okay, maybe I am a bitter anti-intellectual.
Girls wearing skirts or dressed over jeans. Wearing a skirt or dress over leggings is only slightly better, but still weird.
Jello. It looks kind of cool, but I don’t know how people can enjoy eating it.
Foot fetish
I can ‘see’ almost any fetish except the foot fetish.
And the Boba Fetish.
On the other hand b/c my friend had a cellphone camera, I got my pic taken with Constantine from American Idol! Yeah, I do think that those trendy cameras that do everything but wipe your butt are a little over the top…but still…
Saves on rent…and I mean I can’t afford to pay rent on an apartment b/c I’m on disabilty.
No. She’s not. She’s really, really not and if you still think she is, get out more and meet more women. And try looking at them from a new perspective instead of ‘women=crazymaterialisticwalkingprincesscomplexes!’.
Wanna know what I don’t get? Sexist little asides like this. Oh my god, a woman putting forward a reasonable point of view? How? What? Wh…? Huh? No way!
The wedding you ‘went through’ was not a cookie-cut experience of everybody else’s.
Grow up. Women differ from individual to individual.
We’re not all little princesses getting the same orders beamed directly to our tiny female brains from the mother ship.
How girls who go to a prestigious secondary school in Sydney and have shown that they have money to waste on all sorts of frivolous stuff, could choose dresses that were either; not appropriate for the event/age (this includes mothers sadly) or just did nothing for them. If you’re going to spend upwards of $200 on a dress, make sure you look good in it eh? (FYI: this was Valedictory Dinner; black tie dinner with parental units. No one to impress by looking sexy. I saw way too much of my classmates…) I wore a ballgown that I love because of the colour and comfortable cut, which cost me $200 on sale last year. I’ve worn it before as well, and I’ll undoubtedly wear it again. I love it and the way it looks on me.
Expensive shoes/purses. My boyfriend’s mum commented to him that I have expensive taste. No, I just look like I do :D. That green leather handbag that someone thought was > $150? $20. All of my shoes were on sale at < $100. I look high maintenance, but I’m really not. The boyfriend loves it :D. The only thing I splurge on is perfume. And I only have four perfumes; one from Body Shop, and the other three are designer (D&G, United Colors of Benneton and Burberry). I like to smell delicious but I would never by any of their other stuff (except for D&G sunnies - $20 off eBay.)
People who say ‘Youse.’ as in ‘hey, what are youse getting up to later on?’ Like fingernails on a chalkboard. Stabby Stabby. I also agree with SurrenderDorothy on the Capslock Love Affair or Hatred towards proper grammar in anything outside of conversations late at night with your closest friends, who know you’re not a total moron.
The parent fear of not being considered ‘a friend’ by the child. You’re not there to be their friend, you’re there to be their parent, first and foremost. If you can also be their friend, well done. My parents have always been just parents and now they’re my friends. Your kids won’t hate you for doing the best by them, they’ll grow up to appreciate it. Don’t be scared to hear ‘I HATE YOU’ from them - they don’t mean it. Stupid stupid stupid misguided mumble grumble
Child/animal abuse. And bullying. I just don’t understand how anyone could hurt another person like that.
You don’t understand someone who would want to own a car, rather than lease? And you don’t understand someone who wants to buy a really good car and keep it for a long, long time?
It’s almost always cheaper to fix an old car than it is to buy another. I have a 1995 Toyota Corolla that I’ve had no real problems with. I plan on keeping the thing until it dies. Really and truly dies. Like, the transmission needs to be replaced, blown a head gasket dies.
And if you get a really reliable car that you can keep on the road for years and years, buying may well turn out to be cheaper than leasing, even when you take depreciation into account. Don’t you think it makes some sense to buy a car that’ll probably last for ages and keep it running for as long as possible?
I he think he was using a bit of hyperbole when saying she must be the ONLY one. I see you are from Australia so there might be some cultural differences as well. I will piggyback on this one a little and just barely modify it. I used to work big, fancy weddings through college and I got to see the ends and outs of hundreds of weddings. Here is the part that I think throws people. You can pretty much guarantee that females that act like princesses in real life are going to be Bridezillas but that is no suprise. Where people get shocked is when the business executive, teacher, or everyday biker chic suddenly transforms into a insane little faux princess just for this one day. It makes quite the impression and lots of people get to see and remember it.
In this day and age, I wish the feminist movement would do something useful and stamp out that behavior. I want protests at such weddings, disgusting pamplets, and people out there spraypainting the really oppulent wedding dresses. I don’t know why some kind of perverted debutante party continues to overshadow the real event and it is considered semi-normal.
Driving home from Maryland tonight I repeatedly thought to myself that I don’t get why some people need to zoom right up on my bumper, ride it for a few seconds, and then practically take off the rear quarter panel of the car when finally passing me. The left lane is clear, you can tell that you’re going faster than me well before you’re all but in my trunk, so PASS ME LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!
I also didn’t get the DC beltway tonight: I typically go 15 mph over the speed limit on interstates, which usually means I spend most of the drive in the left lane. But tonight it’s like I was doing 55 – I can’t remember the last time I spent so much of the drive in the second lane, or the last time I was tailgated in that lane so much.
I guess it’s a good thing that I bought a used car with the intention of driving it until it dies. 
No, I don’t. Won’t you explain it to me?
The point is that your consumption rationale makes no sense to me. Did you buy it in 1994? If so, why? If you, at this point, are satisfied with a 12 year old car, why would you not have been satisfied with a 12 year old car in 1994? Are you telling me that you absolutely NEEDED a new car 12 years ago, but now you’re satisfied with a 10 year old car? If I can’t stand driving a 12 year old car now, I sure as hell ain’t going to be driving one when I’m 30.
The world is a strange, strange place. There’s a few other things about buying new cars I cannot fathom, but let’s not complicate things too much at this point.
Well, yeah, I can see your point. If I want to keep driving new cars, it makes a lot more sense to lease than buy. I’m perfectly satisfied with old cars, as long as they run and don’t cost me a fortune in mechanic’s fees. I got the Toyota a few years ago.
People who are on extremes of the gender spectrum. Men who are super macho, women who are ultra feminine. People who judge others who deign to break out of gender stereotypes.
Cell phone conversations that are not business- or emergency-related. Why can’t people wait till they’re home to call friends and family? I can understand dialing up a friend if you’re standing in line, bored, but why would you call someone just to chat while you’re driving home or shopping at the grocery store? Are they that important? Are you?
Sports.
Sororities and fraternities.
Binge drinking.
Black people wearing unnatural colored contact lenses. You look straight out of Omega Man, people. Stop it.
Tucking in your shirt when you’re casually dressed.
Showering in the morning.
Men not using toliet paper after they pee.
Running in marathons in the middle of summer.
The macaroni and cheese from KFC. It. Just. Ain’t. Right.
I do NOT get…
…the language and syntax of written laws; all that long-winded ambiguity confuses me. I’m a math/science type guy.
…why many people spend so much money on wedding celebrations.
…how people tolerate smoking cigarettes or dipping snuff.
…many trends in popular culture.
…why some people have irrational fears.