The notion, which I have heard espoused on this board more than once, that if you haven’t bolted something down or locked it away, you deserve to have it stolen.
I think we differ in our definition of “snobbishness,” and for that matter, what I meant when I said “I don’t get it.”
Snobbishness for me = A Feeling of Grand Superiority. “I am greater than you because of the car I drive/clothes I wear/country I live in/language I speak/money in my bank/blah blah blah,” accompanied by the appropriate verbal or nonverbal sneers and scoffs. I don’t get people who think that those things make them superior.
Meanwhile, when I said “I don’t get these things,” I mean…I don’t get it. I’m not deeply offended or outrageously irked, and I don’t find myself in any way superior to those (like my sister) who like expensive shoes, or those (like a good buddy) who drive an H2, or those (like my favorite band The Barenaked Ladies) who eat Mac N Cheese with ketchup, or those (like my father) who looooooooooooove their football team, or those (like half my students, it seems) who own yippy chihuahuas.
While I think several have taken this thread off in the Superiority Complex direction, my general reasoning behind the OP is to express that which just doesn’t compute with me. And heck, I’m open to explanation. The adding big fancy thingamabobs to trucks because it’s a hobby kind of thing? Totally makes sense to me. I now get it. Ignorance averted!
I’m sure there are puh-lenty of people who “don’t get” why I spend so much time and money on horses, or who “don’t get” why I don’t want fancy shoes or purses, or who “don’t get” why I actually enjoy teaching a room full of 13-year-olds all day long. That’s okay. I’m not to be gotten. Scratch your head, post to the SDMB about it, and move along. 
I don’t get Paris Hilton, but I wouldn’t have a balance on my credit card if I hadn’t lost my job. Until I can get another one, I have to keep it maxed out for the first time ever (hell, I’m keeping a balance for the first time ever).
Yeah, it bugs me that nobody likes what they have. Brunettes want to be redheads, redheads want to be blonde, blondes want to be brunettes, everyone wants to weigh less or more, nobody likes their hair or their skin or their eye color or their boobs etc. It’s tough to find someone anywhere near my age with a decent sense of self-esteem–hell, a decent sense of self.
I like them, but since moving in with my health-conscious best friend (who’s not a health “freak”–we have a deep fryer, for example, which we in fact used just tonight, and we do keep a decent stock of liquor when we have the money) I no longer see soda, red meat, alcohol, pork, etc. as necessary household items and I feel so much better. It’s nice that I really enjoy those things when I have them now, and that I feel better about myself when I eat. I really like that I can partake in any of those things without any guilt because I know I take so much less of them.
Because the stuff that does go to number 1 has been fabricated using a precalculated formula for how to sell records. Everyone likes it because they’re supposed to like it, and they buy it because their friends are all buying it, while those who aren’t consumed by the virus roll their eyes and/or gag. I used to be into popular rap, but I can’t listen to one of those stations for more than 30 seconds now without wanting to vomit. I don’t know about you, but I meet lots of people who have this notion of hip-hop music and by the time I’ve introduced them to a few of my favorite albums they’re blasting underground hip-hop all day long in their cars and homes. I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but just explaining the appeal to me of something that you say you don’t get. Fair game?
Am I the only one who snickers when I see a storefront with a huge sign sticking out over the street saying just “DRUGS”?
Also, if you travel a lot for work staying in a nice hotel makes as much sense as having a nice home. A lot of years, I’m out of my house more than I’m in it. When you travel enough you notice the difference between a nice hotel and an ok hotel.
I agree. Apart from the fact that an untucked shirt looks shapeless, I wear pullover sweaters a lot and don’t like the way a shirt-tail looks peeking out below the bottom of a sweater.
It seems to me that shirt-tail tucking goes through cycles, at least among guys. In the 1950s it was uncool, but during my high school, college, and grad school years, about 1973 through 1984, most male students tucked, and that went on through the eighties as we tucked shirts into our designer jeans :eek: Now with the 1990s and the advent of baggier clothing generally it seems nobody tucks by choice anymore, except for some holdouts like me.
I find I use less alcohol than I used to, but I still like to keep it on hand. As for carbonated drinks, I like them all right, but lately my favorite is just club soda with liberal squeezes of lime.
Same as with any other kind of item though, an expensive hotel doesn’t necessarily equal a nice one.
Two of the worst hotels I’ve been in were 5-star, with bellboys and whatnot. But bad food (nuked yet still frozen in the middle), badly made beds, carpet that looked like it hadn’t been washed since the last renovation 20 years ago, receptionists that insist in calling a taxi instead of telling me where the bus stop is (if I want to take the freaking bus, what business of theirs is it?)… is not my idea of nice.
My stay-out-of-home record so far is at 80% in 2003, yay! I broke the record of my teammate who had 70% the previous year.
The thing is, I grew up in the South Island of New Zealand. The winters there were appalling (and a large part of the reason why I moved to Australia).
It wasnt unusual for me to have to pour boiling water on the windscreen every morning so the frost would melt off, and I distinctly remember having to shovel my car out from under a snowdrift a couple of times as well.
Still, I realise that’s nothing compared a Canadian winter, but even so… I’ve come across people from all over the US who take the view that a 1995 vintage car is complete junk. I can’t imagine the winters are that fierce all over the country…
I don’t get expensive jewellry and/or handbags. It doesn’t ‘look’ any better than the cheap and trashy stuff, but costs hundreds or thousands of dollars more.
I just don’t get it.
I think you’ll find they get a loan, generally speaking. 
You’re actually wrong about the servicing with regards to warranty thing - definitely in SA, possibly in the rest of Australia. It’s been illegal for a good nine, maybe ten years or so for a manufacturer to void the warranty because you’re not getting your car serviced through your Local Mazda (or insert your brand of car here) Dealership. The only rule is that you have to get it serviced by a proper mechanic and not ‘my mate Davo who’s good with cars’. So, $80 for a service.
I’m fairly sure this is an Australia-wide ruling and not SA specifically, but I can’t state that with absolute assurance.
And, by the way, if you have comprehensive insurance there’s still no worries about anyone backing into you at the supermarket.
With regard to the rap/hip hop debate - I understand people saying they don’t get it, but let me give you my personal take on it - I’m a white, Canadian, 39 year old woman (not exactly your target audience), and I love a lot of current Top 40 music. I’m also an audiophile - I love almost all kinds of music. I can see where hip hop wouldn’t be for everyone, but that isn’t because there is no musical value to the music at all. There actually is a lot going on in hip hop music (I’ll separate out rap here - I consider rap music beat poetry, not music). The good stuff is clever, creative, and quite engaging. Plus, it’s got great beats - I’m a sucker for great beats.
I think you might be thinking of the Teletubbies. The Wiggles is four fairly conservative looking guys dressed in black slacks and coloured turtlenecks singing cute songs for kids, and Teletubbies are four (or five, I dunno) people in mutant suits with what look like bent coathangers on their heads. 
True. For me it can be very basic, but as long as there’s food on the premises it’ll do. Actually the food doesn’t have to be on the premises; I once stayed at a motor inn that didn’t have a dining room, as most don’t, but they ran a room-service operation with the help of the local restaurants. Being able to have coffee and breakfast brought up to your room is heaven.
I’m with you. In fact, I’ll say that I don’t get how anyone can completely disdain an *entire genre * of music with “it sucks”. Except maybe country. Country sucks.
I don’t get the limitless wellspring of scorn and criticism so many “comic book fans” have for the things they are fans of.
:eek: You didn’t crack the glass? I’ve poured warm water on the windshield when it’s frosted up, but I wouldn’t do boiling water. I’ve shattered kitchen glasses with overly-abrupt temperature changes.
This thread has taken a bit of a nasty turn, I almost hesitate to post to it. Almost. Anyway, these aren’t things I don’t like, or things I disagree with, but concepts that are genuinely alien to me:
I don’t understand how some people my age (early 30’s) or younger can not know anything about computers. Presumably you grew up around them, or were at least exposed to them in school. In this day and age, how did you manage to avoid using one your entire life? Not everyone is an expert, but I’d expect them to be able to do basic things like surf the web, send an email, or type up and print something in a word processor.
I’m also a bit surprised when I find out someone who rides a motorcycle knows absolutely nothing about basic maintenance. I know lots of people drive cars without knowing the first thing about what’s under the hood, but I always think of motorcyclists as tending to be gearheads.
I also don’t get grown adults who can’t cook. Most basic cooking is just mixing the ingredients together and heating it until it’s done. You don’t have to be a gourmet chef to do that.
It’s sort of been mentioned before, but I also don’t get what I call “pride in incompetence”. To go back to my last one, someone who sheepishly says “sorry, I wish I could but I can’t even boil water without burning it” isn’t as bad as one who would proudly announce “Hell, no I can’t cook! Who do you think I am, Martha Stewart?”
It’s definitely been mentioned before, but I don’t understand how being into certain things automatically means you’re intelligent, while other things automatically exclude you. Listen to underground indie music and you’re a genius. Pop music? Idiot. Read a lot? As long as it’s sci-fi you’re okay, but Harlequin romance novels or Hardy Boys mysteries and you’re a moron. Into sports? Mouth breather. Movies are cool, as long as they’re not action movies, unless they’re Hong Kong action movies. TV rots the mind, unless it’s Star Trek or Buffy.
Finally is the need of some to chime in on a thread and state how much they hate the topic at hand. If you don’t like it so much, why did you even open the thread? Some topics draw this more than others. Start a NASCAR thread and by the middle of the first page you’ll get someone saying how boring it is to watch rednecks drive around in circles all day, guaranteed.
I don’t get (most of these have been mentioned already, but what the hell):
-people (childless) who equate their love for their pet with a parent’s love for their child. Sorry, the two aren’t even in the same ballpark. Not even in the same city.
-people who start smoking now, or even within the last 20 years. If you started in the 50’s when TV commercials claimed that 4 out of 5 doctors recommend Winston over some other brand (or whatever), that’s one thing. But it’s been well known for many years that the things are unhealthy, so why did you start?
[subcategory- people who don’t believe that cigarettes are unhealthy]
-leetspeak
-the appeal of most pop music
-the appeal of According To Jim, The King of Queens, and all other doofusy-husband-long-suffering-wife-retread humor-type shows
-people who only pay the minimum payment on their credit card bills and keep a balance every month, unless you have to do it because all you charge are staples to keep yourself alive, or whatever
-people who think “casual dress” means “feel free to look like you rolled out of bed in the sloppiest clothes you can pull from the bottom of your closet”
-fast food, except when there’s no other choice. If you’ve been on the road for 4 hours and you have another 3 ahead of you, and everyone in the car is hungry and you’re pulling up to a light where there’s a Wendy’s, that’s one thing. But the family leaving the house with the specific intention of going out to “dinner” at McDonald’s, then returning home? WTF?
You just reminded me of something.
My aunt is a good cook (it runs in the family). She worked as a cook for the Air Force for years, over in Germany and also in BC. She cooked good meals for my father (her brother) when he was living alone and found it hard to cook for himself.
So where did we go out to eat one time when I went north to visit her? With her friend in the McDonalds in the Wal-Mart in Owen Sound. 
It’s not like there aren’t other restaurants or even fast-food places in Owen Sound, either. And it’s not like she doesn’t have enough money to go to restaurants either–yes, she’s on a pension, but she owns and pays for her own car and she lives rent-free with my cousins.
I just don’t get it.
No, you’re not.
Several friends of mine had a wild weekend in Tybee Island one summer. We were soooo disappointed that “Beach Drugs” was closed.