I don’t understand the difference between a mandolin and a balalaika. But then of course, so what?
Why women won’t go out with me 
Powered flight (and I’m glad to see that among the boffins there is now plenty of debate about which so-called explanation is the real one, with the anti-Bernouilli faction getting louder by the day).
The reason for having melodic and harmonic minor scales. Been explained to me a hundred times, still not a clue.
Hollywood’s ability to spend 80 million making crud.
Why anyone cultivates or eats sprouts.
Religion, and why the very people exploited by it are its most fervent defenders.
The widepsread tolerance of junk like astrology, even in ‘quality’ media.
The rise, success and domination of rap music. Uncouth and puerile shouting by insecure young men who can neither write lyrics nor create tunes, this somehow = music?
The tolerance and respect afforded to all ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ modert art, such as blank canvases or planks painted red. No, it’s not our failure to appreciate or understand. It’s the artist’s failure to produce anything to appreciate.
How the man who goes to put up new street name signs knows where they go.
How one and the same director can come up with “1941” and “Schindler’s List”.
I still don’t understand why anyone likes Tori Amos’ music.
And while on the subject of music, I still don’t understand why anyone likes Dave Matthews.
Are we allowed to answer some of these? Cuz I know some of them.
The infield fly rule is quite simple really, email me if you really want to learn it.
Goofy is a dog. IIRC correctly his original name was Dippy Dawg. Euty or Esprix, care to back that up and/or correct it?
Things I don’t understand:
How Hootie and the Blowfish were ever popular.
Why do I get lint in my bellybutton?
What is the attraction to Woody Allen films? Every one of his films I’ve seen (with the exception of What’s Up, Pussycat?) I thought sucked the giant wookie willy. The films weren’t funny and 90-120 minutes of Woody Allen whining is too freakin’ much.
And why is the speed of light an intergalactic speed limit? Just because nothing we know goes faster than that, how does that mean nothing can go faster than that? I’ve read Cosmos by Carl Sagan and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings, but I still haven’t been able to wrap my brain around that one.
I don’t know why people like you still exsist. :rolleyes:
What if I explained it to you? 
ianzin, I hope you don’t take offense that I second-guess you, but I assume what you meant to say was more along the lines of:
"How one and the same director can direct motion pictures of such disparate genres and quality as “1941” and “Schindler’s List.”
I know Spielberg wrote (came up with) “Close Encounters…”, but I don’t think he wrote (came up with) “1941”, and I know he didn’t write (come up with) “Schindler’s List” which was from a book by Thomas Keneally. I’m sorry to say that I don’t recall the screenwriters’ names from each movie. In fact, I’m gonna hem-hah and say it’s possible he had a hand in writing “1941.” I don’t know off the top of my head.
Regardless, I’m not saying this to be antagonistic, forgive me if it sounds that way. My point is this: It is probably true that I don’t give directors enough credit, whereas most folks don’t give writers nearly enough.
I’ll hazard a guess and say he could direct both because he believed in their quality (believed in “1941” at the time, 1979 or so). Schindler’s List was 1993 or so–he obviously matured in life, in his selection of material. Just my HO.
Sincerely,
Sir Rhosis
Every year the top drawer of my dresser yields two or three socks that have no match. Usually they are colored dress socks, but not always. Even though the white socks are so identically white, having seven of them is enough to let me know that some odd numbered quantity has gone missing. I have, on occasion, had to repair both the washer and the dryer. No missing socks were ever found in either one of those devices.
The first thing that comes to mind is that this must be some cosmic safety valve that keeps men, who are generally insensitive to fashion as it applies to themselves, from wearing the same pairs of socks for decades at a time. Or, perhaps, there are such things as “sock moths” infesting my dresser - some odd pack-hunting strain that eats only one sock every month or so.
The things that happen in high finance. I used to date a guy who sold debt for a living. He explained it a million times, but I still can’t get my mind around how you and buy and sell something that isn’t even a thing. I always pictured him walking around Wall Street, opening up his raincoat and saying “Psssst, buddy … wanna buy some debt?”
And junk bonds. There is actually a market for something that has “junk” in its name? You would think that would be a major tip-off for people who are supposedly business savvy.
The international date line. This wouldn’t be so confusing (I think) if the folks in Greenwich didn’t keep asserting that time begins in Greenwich. I can calculate the local times and dates for cities around the world, but I have to be careful not to think too hard on it, or I trip myself up.
Why I can use my computer for hours at a time, but my laptop will randomly crash ONLY when I have just poured out my heart and soul into a long and well-thought out post, complete with footnotes, charts, and quotes by notable world leaders.
Music is another big whoosh. At least I have an excuse for this one, I’m tone deaf.
ive always suspected that the telephone is a hoax-how can someone talk into the receiver and we hear their “real” voice on the other end thousands of miles away???
we are all in a kind of “truman show”
Where do all my socks go?
Football…
I love watching my favorite teams play, love the hype in my town about it, have been a fan since I was a kid. But I swear I don’t understand the plays, formations, downs, illegal this, punting that. As soon as I’m positive I’ve figured it all out my husband throws out some rule as to why that touchdown wasn’t actually a touchdown and I’m lost again. I swear some of these rules are being made up as we go along and only a few guys are told about it as to make them look like the all-knowing football gods that we believe they are.
The internet just boggles my mind. How can ALL that information exist in cyberspace, which is essentially just empty space?
Airplanes
The Space Shuttle
How my professional printer can print 9000 flyers for me, every one of them perfect, but if I try to print 5 pages on the color printer here at work at least 3 of them will have giant streaks across them or get stuck in the printer somehow.
Stocks, finance, all that Wall Street stuff
Cher
I’m with delphica. I have trouble with the finer points of intricate high finance.
Sadly, I was a economics major and graduated with honors. Goes to show you how far book learnin’ will get you.
Fiction.
The basic plotline is like this for the vast majority of stories out there:
The bad guys do something bad.
The good guys stop them.
EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME!
The plotlines where the bad guys win are one in a thousand, at best. We KNEW Anakin skywalker was going to survive the pod race. We KNEW Batman was going to defeat the Joker. We KNEW Tom Hanks was going to get rescued.
What was the mystery? How do they generate any kind of suspense? Why do we fall for it?
I never got Chemistry… then it came to me in a flash - Smoke and Mirrors!!! Once I figured that out, I got a B in Freshman Chem and got outta that forever.
…covalent bonds, indeed…
How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly before they’re forever banned?
And why can’t we know both the question and the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?
And along the lines of debts, junk bonds, and astrology why do we still have a stock market? Most of these people do nothing but guess at how a business will do and their guess is based off of other people’s guesses and everyone’s guesses somehow turn into reality, which, in turn, has no link to how the company is actually doing or with reality.
Overdrive…
I don’t drive as yet, and there are a lot of things I just don’t understand about cars. One of them is overdrive… a friend had an automatic car with this… thingy… in it. I kept asking “What is overdrive?” and people kept explaining it to me, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is one day to the next.
This isn’t a common experience for me. I “get” most things pretty fast. I’m not stupid. My memory is pretty good for new ideas, concepts and general learning. In fact, I have a head full of trivia. I have come across a few things that I just cannot take in, no matter how much attention I pay. This happened to me in mathematics one year, and I got a mid-year transfer to the dummy’s maths class because I couldn’t comprehend the formula they were trying to teach me. It just wouldn’t stick!! 50 lesson, would take 40 minutes to explain it to me, I’d be able to do it for 10 minutes, bell rings, leave the room… and POOF… gone. Just like that. Next class, 40 minutes to learn it again…
I can’t get my head around the concept of eternal. I can’t figure out how things like the universe could have “always existed” because there has to be a start, right? But there can’t be… it’s so very confusing I can feel my brain collapsing in on itself when I think about it. I also don’t get Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Civil Libertarians for the most part, electronics. I can’t figure out so very many things… this forum isn’t big enough for all of it.
There’s lots of stuff about music I just don’t get, mostly related to rhythm.
Syncopation is one. I love jazz and Bach, so I know I’m hearing plenty of it, but I don’t perceive it.
I don’t understand how meter works aside from the most basic 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 signatures. Maybe 5/4 if you don’t push me past “Take Five.” Once I figured out that “Money” was in 7/4 (except for the guitar solo) I could follow it. But 12/8? 9/4? Huh?
For the record, I’d love to have my ignorance beaten into submission.