1
We have an entire generation of losers coming of age.

2
But they're good at texting...and sexting.

3 I think the schools are teaching fisting these days...so there's that...

4 On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets. The ability to tweet!

5
The whole 'courting' phase of a relationship has gone extinct.

Dating doesn't even exist, anymore.

They 'hook up.'

6 Just last night I had to ask my neighbors if they had a 1/8" allen wrench and nobody had one. Why didn't I have a 1/8" allen wrench? Fuck you, that's why.

7

Only 51 per cent of women aged under 30 can cook a roast compared with 82 per cent of baby boomers.

Is this based on current numbers, or is this based on the number of baby boomers able to cook a roast when they were the same age as the Gen Y people? 

8 On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

Men can type. 

No way my dad could type. 

9

BASIC "female" skills are becoming endangered with fewer young women able to iron a shirt, cook a roast chicken or hem a skirt.

As a single guy this bothers me not at all.  I can cook well enough, and ironing/sewing is obsolete in many ways like you said.

I'm more concerned with the stridency/lack of femininity.  Attitude in other words, not skills.

10
Now which political party benefits the most from a generation without a work ethic, values, and basic skills to support oneself?

11

On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

They can post on Twitter, FB, and Myspace simultaneously, while playing WoW and watching Internet pron.

We youngins may be useless, but we can sure as hell multitask!

12 I don't care.  It's not like them being able to feed themselves is gonna keep me in Social Security checks in my dotage.  Long as they can find work, I'm okay with the rest of it.

13 Just last night I had to ask my neighbors if they had a 1/8" allen wrench and nobody had one. Why didn't I have a 1/8" allen wrench? Fuck you, that's why. Damn kids don't even know what a hardware store is.

14 Guys under 30 don't know how to fix cars anymore. They can't even identify parts. I learned this in recent conversations at work. I was stunned. In my day you'd get your ass severely reamed for not knowing this stuff.

15 The tweeners in our neighborhood are hopelessly ignorant of most things, other than tweeting. The ones with a clue are home schooled.

16 My college boy tells me that NONE of the girls he knows can cook.  And since he's a guy that grew up with a mother who could, he's having to learn to do it himself.

17 It ain't all bad. My two sons are so innately brilliant with all things technological that it makes me feel like a unfrozen caveman to watch them build their own computers because the store bought ones suck. So there is hope out there. And yes, both know how to cook and clean up after themselves.

18 When I was a kid in the 70's we would have red wagon races down a long steep hill. Our parents would stand along the street drinking beer and talking as we ate pavement and permanently marred our young bodies. Good times, good times.

19 Oh, and get off my lawn.

20

Guys under 30 don't know how to fix cars anymore. They can't even identify parts

Most men can't fix cars anymore.  They have gotten alot more complicated.

Should be able to change oil/tires though.  Basic stuff.

21 other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets

Their sexting skills are remarkably polished.

22 On the other hand, my daughter does her own brake jobs.

23

On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

Maybe some of you can fill us in on what they are, because I'm drawing a blank here.

They can send pictures of their hoo-hoos via their iPhones while simultaneoulsy downloading their term papers from a pay site on the web

24
Today girls have 'fuck buddys' and its perfectly normal.

Thirty years ago, those girls were called the 'town pumps.'

25 Young people are good with computers, you old geezers can't even work a computer properly without downloading a spyware or virus.  We know how to download HD porn for free, you're still paying for your porn or downloading viruses in your feeble attempts to get free porn.

26 About knowing how to fix cars:  they used to be made of parts.  Now they're made of computer chips.

27 Men can type. No way my dad could type.  Posted by: Y-not at January 30, 2011 07:30 PM

Now I feel old!

I'm a oft-published writer, and I can't type worth the proverbial bucket of warm spit. Hunt-and-peck all the way, baby!

But my vocabulary is larger than that of most of the yoots I know. For all the good that does me....

28 And kids today can use their thumbs like nobody's business.

29 BASIC "female" skills are becoming endangered with fewer young women able to iron a shirt, cook a roast chicken or hem a skirt.

Hey, guys are guilty of this, too.  My old man could do anything- he put an addition on the house, rebuilt car motors, electrical, plumbing...  I can do some of it....my kid can't do shit

30 Posted by: Delta Smelt at January 30, 2011 07:35 PM (A0VTZ) Yeah, true. But these guys did not know what the master cylinder is, or where it is located. I felt like fucking Gandalf.

31 Today girls have 'fuck buddys' and its perfectly normal.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Edutainer at January 30, 2011 07:36 PM (5iMvt)

OK, so the youth HAVE improved in some respects.  Let's stick to trashing them in this thread though.

32 As a 21y/o single male who can fix his car, work on his home, and shave with less than 2 blades, I would argue that the reason women can do the same tasks as the previous generation is because we don't let our kids play enough battleship. http://correctopinion.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/battleship_galactica.jpg

33 Um, I can, uh, type really fast n'stuff.

And I know all about the environment, and how important it is to, like, uh, not emit any carbon dioxide, like ever.

34 Only 51 per cent of women aged under 30 can cook a roast compared with 82 per cent of baby boomers.

Yes, but they are very well informed about tattoo care.

35 With the Obama Depression (Obama Hyperinflation coming soon!) o lot of people are going to need to rediscover these skills.
If a neighbor needed to borrow an 1/8" Allen wrench, I could lend it to him & have a couple left over.  OTOH one of my neighbors has a Sawzall, so I don't need to buy my own.

36 My daughter taught herself to bake bread and does a darn good job of it.  My son can fix basic stuff on cars and mowers.   All of us know how to iron and can sew on buttons and general low-level mending.

We are pretty self-sufficient on that type of stuff.  I am not willing to pay someone to iron or do basic mending,  and son doesn't want to pay repairmen.

On the other hand,  my brother the electrician does almost all of the cooking in their home.  His wife the attorney never learned to cook.

37 To be truthful, I would hesitate to do more than open the hood on a modern vehicle. You used to be able to see what was going on and have some space to poke around, but now there's more plumbing and wires than a nuclear power plant.

38 Apropos of nothing, if you need to pull the flywheel on a Briggs & Stratton engine, a cheap chinese steering wheel puller will do the job perfectly.

39 Not just useless at life skills, many are useless as far as any kind of ambition in the job world. Where am I hearing this, from middle aged people? Nope, from nieces and nephews in the work world. Doesn't matter whether it is basic jobs at fast food places or professional jobs done by college graduates. Many are useless, entitled brats who think they are doing the employer a favor by showing up. The other employees, take up the slack. On the upside, at downsizing time, the slackers get thrown out on their asses.

40 Posted by: eman at January 30, 2011 07:33 PM

Damn right, dude! We can get together and talk about carburetors, distributors, brake shoes and tube-amp radios and none of those uneducated young bastards know what the hell we're talking about!

Oh, wait....

41 I felt like fucking Gandalf.

Posted by: eman at January 30, 2011 07:37 PM (n0WLs)

I understand that's the way he swings....

42 38 To be truthful, I would hesitate to do more than open the hood on a modern vehicle.

Yeah, i still do the basics, plugs, oil and belts, but that's about it.

43
When I was a kid I loved taking apart old Briggs & Stratton motors that were lying around...or attached to perfectly functioning lawnmowers.

44

Most men can't fix cars anymore.  They have gotten alot more complicated.

Should be able to change oil/tires though.  Basic stuff.

Posted by: Delta Smelt at January 30, 2011 07:35 PM (A0VTZ)

Unless you have all sorts of whiz-bang computer diagnostics, you can't do much on cars yourself these days.  Anyone want to buy a timing light?

And it's not worth my time to change my own oil these days

45 20 Delta Smelt: I remember seeing a news report video about an ice storm some time back. There was a kid who put tire chains on a car. Problem was, he was putting them on the rear wheels of a front wheel drive car. The clueless kid couldn't figure out why they weren't working.

46 "The whole 'courting' phase of a relationship has gone extinct. Dating doesn't even exist, anymore." Well, in a world where hummers don't even count as sex, you can't be surprised.

47 Starting fluid is the first step in engine diagnosis.  Always have some handy,

48 Cooking is not what it used to be. My Grandmother cooked. The process involved killing a chicken and cleaning it and hauling out of the freezer some of the veggies she had canned in the Spring.

For me, cooking meant buying a chicken at the supermarket and opening a can of veggies.

For the kids today, it means popping something into the microwave, or doing blow. Either will satisfy their appetite.

49 I am so fkn worthless that I'm willing to ask if I can still get points from Roddy White's game this week!

50 Soon robots will do all manual labor until the day they wise up and say, "Why the fuck am I doing shit for your ugly ass? Get the fuck up and make me a sheet metal sammich, bitch"

51 Funny how all my FFL playoff guys are scoring now.

52 To be truthful, I would hesitate to do more than open the hood on a modern vehicle. You used to be able to see what was going on and have some space to poke around, but now there's more plumbing and wires than a nuclear power plant. Posted by: cthulhu at January 30, 2011 07:39 PM (kaalw) I can over haul that nuke power plant for you. And i can re-install new rods from the internet.

53 This sucks.  I come home from a trip, and my driveway is blocked by six feet of snow left by the plows.  No way I have it in me to dig out tonight, so even to receive the pizza I ordered I have to trudge across a good deal of snow.

Add to that my glancing to the ONT from last night and I was accused of paternity.

SHTF when I leave town for a few days. . . .

54 Starting fluid is the first step in engine diagnosis.  Always have some handy,

Posted by: toby928™ at January 30, 2011 07:42 PM (GTbGH)

Jim, Jack, or Evan.

55 Well, in a world where hummers don't even count as sex, you can't be surprised.

I don't give a damn what anyone says. The moment that fucker, Clinton, failed to bitch-slap the smart-ass at the MTV townhall who asked him whether he wore boxers or briefs, the standards for the entire nation were lowered. Who knew they could be lowered even further with the claim that a bj isn't sex-sex?

56 Oh and on a more serious note, it is perfectly fine that there are many low level tasks that younger people can't do.

I'm sure your average 90 year old would be amazed at the ability of someone from the 1600s to produce a "meal" out of next to nothing...

However, this presumes continued affluence. If the environmentalists ever get their way and seriously reduce our standards of living these skills will become necessary again...

57 Well, if Obama gets his way hard times are coming.  So maybe a little brushing up on their survival skills might happen in spite of their disdain for all things useful.

58 Yeah, you do what you HAVE to do. I remember as a young teen, my girlfriends were surprised that I cooked dinner for the family several nights a week. They didn't have to, therefore they didn't know how.

This stuff all gets sorted out in time by our old friend Mr. Necessity.

59 Today's young-uns are pretty good at technological stuff, but when the electricity goes out (or they forget to charge their phones) it falls apart. Then again, I had a student come back to visit me after spending 2 years in 'Stan as a Ranger - he was pretty good at everything.

60 "Only 51 per cent of women aged under 30 can cook a roast compared with 82 per cent of baby boomers" This goes back to our failing school systems. All it takes to cook, is the ability to read a frickin' recipe in a cookbook. Step 1. Buy a Betty Crocker cookbook. Step 2. Look up beef roast in the index. Step 3. Follow the simply written directions. THEY'RE ILLITERATE.

61 This sucks.  I come home from a trip, and my driveway is blocked by six feet of snow left by the plows.  No way I have it in me to dig out tonight, so even to receive the pizza I ordered I have to trudge across a good deal of snow.

Did I tell you yet that it was 72 deg here today?

62 Only slightly OT, I had the bright idea of getting a Papa John's pizza earlier.  Hard to believe anyone makes that mistake twice.   

63 I've got to put new rear shocks on one of my cars soon.  The tire is cupping.  To my surprise, it's a strut, not a leaf spring and shock.  Now I will have to go to harbor Freight and buy a spring compressor.  What the hell?  What's wrong with leaf springs on a front wheel drive car?

64
The Democrats are making sure that the unfair and patriarchal Mr Necessity is replaced with the fair and diverse Nanny State.

65 26 About knowing how to fix cars:  they used to be made of parts.  Now they're made of computer chips.

Posted by: FUBAR at January 30, 2011 07:36 PM (McG46)

Sad but true.  And then there's the whole "planned obsolescence" thing, which is a real bitch when you can't get a part for a tool that is still in good shape but needs something due to normal wear (I'm thinking of my Honda G35 snowblower in particular, but it's true for a lot of things.)

66 Ironing of shirts is unnecessary. I had to wash my 93 year old father's dress shirt recently. Took it out of the dryer and there wasn't a wrinkle on the thing.

67 In defense of my, er, well...me. I'm a 24 y.o. youngin' of the female variety, survived college and grad school a faithful moronette and can rock anyone's world in the kitchen. There's still hope for some of us yet...

68 On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.
 
Maybe some of you can fill us in on what they are, because I'm drawing a blank here.

I'm totally awesome with the tweets.

69 Heh, my wife irons permanent press shirts because the creases aren't sharp enough.

70 That's the best effort we've seen from a fkn Redskin all year!

71 Maybe some of you can fill us in on what they are, because I'm drawing a blank here.

Only, like, saving the earth from Global Warming™ and electing the dreamiest president evar!!11!!1. Duh.

72 Ironing of shirts is unnecessary. I had to wash my 93 year old father's dress shirt recently. Took it out of the dryer and there wasn't a wrinkle on the thing.

There's ironing to remove wrinkles and then there's ironing to apply a crisp finish. Regardless of how wrinkle free my button-down shirts are, I'm applying starch and a hot iron to them. I just think it looks smarter that way.

73 I felt like fucking Gandalf.

Posted by: eman at January 30, 2011 07:37 PM (n0WLs)

I'd rather fuck Eowyn, but that's just me.

74 It is to the point that even the mechanics at the garage can't fix the cars these days. Just had a go-round with coils and the jerk wanted to attack the fuel injectors for $650. They didn't even check the spark plugs because the computer didn't tell them to. Had to do fix it myself.

75 My 3 kids and their friends know the basics of cooking, laundry, cleaning toilets, checking tire pressure/washer fluid/oil level in the car. About the same stuff I knew at 21, but less than my husband, who was an Eagle Scout. I don't pat myself on the back for this- they seem to be innately smart and hard workers. I count our family lucky.

76

There was a kid who put tire chains on a car. Problem was, he was putting them on the rear wheels of a front wheel drive car. The clueless kid couldn't figure out why they weren't working.

Hell, at least the kid knew the chains belonged on the tires. Around here they'd be trying to figure out how to thread the chain through their cheeks and attach it to their nose. 

77
Read a recent survey that more men watched and emulated Rachel Ray and Giada DeLaurentiis than women.  It may not be the roast but it sure is a lot of T&A!

78 Thanks to the influence of celebu-sluts, like Hilton, Spears, and so on, gals do excel at such things as flashing their pantyless undercarriages for the cameras. That skill could get them a career.

79 Anybody's car leaking oil? When was your last flat tire? Cook or don't cook. Who cares? This is a stupid fucking thread. This meme is dead. No one has mentioned a single skill that couldn't be taught to a UAW or SEIU chimpanzee in ten minutes. I love the kids I know.

80 In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl and, of course, our troops serving in the ME, a little stroll down memory lane.

81 63 Only slightly OT, I had the bright idea of getting a Papa John's pizza earlier.  Hard to believe anyone makes that mistake twice.  

Papa John's - Better Ingredients, Better Pizza. 

The pizza's...okay. 

btw, I blame decadence for your deficient taste buds, Peaches, . 

82 Dryer-pressed shirts may look fine, but if you actually go ahead and iron them, they look way better.

I usually settle for dryer-pressed but if it's an occasion to look really nice I press them with an iron.

There's another thing; proper technique for ironing shirts. You can tell when someone is doing it wrong.

83 Before my son went off to school, he learned to change a tire, fish, cook, bake bread, wash & iron his own clothes, lay tile, drywall, and do basic plumbing and electrical work.

He is continually surprised that his peers can do none of these things.

84 Kids' attitude toward physical labor is completely different now than it was when I was young. I was as much an idiot as anybody, but I always appreciated the skills required to do all sorts of work. I don't think kids today see it that way.

85

On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

Maybe some of you can fill us in on what they are, because I'm drawing a blank here.

They can lecture us all about global warming.  In the same breath, they like to act all "modern" and teach us old idiots about the new-fangled ideas of bio-fuels (like the olive oil used millenia ago) and windmills.  This is progress.

And they can also tell us how America was such a shitty country full of racists and war criminals, while they are the salt of the earth ... except that salt is now classified as a Schedule I drug in the fevered minds of many of our impressionable and, thus, misguided youth.

86

@61 -

THEY'RE ILLITERATE.

And they get a High School Diploma. (Pass via matriculation or AA or ?)

 

I teach my kids all I can, My four year old Grandson is quite the Handyman.

 

It up to us to teach our own, Public education only cares about $ for  attendance.

87 I was ditched by baby boomer parents and raised by my grandparents. At 42, I'm the only person my age that I know who can cook, sew, garden, change oil/belts/sparkplugs/tires/etc., and boy, it's amazing how much money people spend on things that I do for myself and my family.  It saves us thousands a year not to have to eat out, and  dozens of other things people pay immigrants to come do..
People comment all the time they don't know how we manage on the money we make, but these same people can't sew a button or fry an egg.

88 Being a good auto mechanic is like being a good doctor, sheer repetition goes a long way.  And having fixed a problem once, makes it easier to fix again.

Case in point, my Camry suddenly stopped running, as I was leaving town on a trip FWIW.  I had it towed to my mechanic and he discovered that a fuse was blown in the ignition system.  Put in a new fuse, engine starts and promptly blows the fuse again.  Bafflement all around.  Then one of the  other mechanics says I've seen this before.  There is a capacitor attached to the ignition circuit to take the pop out of the radio.  When they go bad, they short the system.  He didn't have any available so he asked me if he could just cut that off the circuit.  Sure says I and problem fixed in 30 minutes. 

He confessed that it took hours to figure it out the first time.

89 Posted by: MrScribbler©, who could still work with eight fewer fingers

Two fingers is all it takes.

90 There's another thing; proper technique for ironing shirts. You can tell when someone is doing it wrong.

It's the one household chore I actually enjoy., It calls for patience and a bit of precision and knowing that the fat end of the ironing board is the working end.

It's relaxing and you see immediate results.

91 Cooking, sewing, washing dishes is all sexist, anti-women work, which is why today's women avoid learning those skills and thrash men who expect them to at least know how to open a TV dinner.

But they still expect men to mow the lawn and shovel the snow?

92 Darn socks!

93 We can only hope there will be enough iPod apps to keep the youngsters busy while us old farts fix things.

94 CozMark, In the sixties I had a half horse/half pony that was a complete maniac. The animal ran away with me on a regular basis, and threw me all the time. Only ended up in the hospital once. But that was okay, because I got knocked so hard in the head that I couldn't remember the fall anyway. A cousin of mine took lessons at a riding stable where she wore a helmet. We mocked her mercilessly. I truly believe that my ability, today, to handle it when things go wrong, goes back to my mom not treating me like a baby over that horse.

95 Since I'm funemployed and the wife is working, I've taken over domestic duties. Now my wife is pissed because the kitchen cupboards are beautifully and logically organized, and I've taken a methodical approach to learning to cook that has resulted in a set of 20 laminated go-to recipes on 4x6 cards that she said are better than anything she has ever made. And my pastini soup has become a new Sunday afternoon tradition.

So it's not so much a question of knowing shit, as it is throwing yourself into learning shit. The youngsters now seem so used to being spoonfed everything that they can't learn on their own.

96

Also about chains on tires...

I remember when I was a kid in the 1970s people put chains on their tires in the winter. They outlawed them because you'd have people chugging around town in the summer with the chains still on the tires.

It's important to remember how long idiocy has been with us...

97
Which elitists said this about Obama?

“I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,”
I believe he was looking at the Black Mamba and not the crease.

98 67 Ironing of shirts is unnecessary.

I like to iron.  Even my man's no-iron shirts look tons better with a bit of spray starch and an iron.

99 One last thing before I beat this topic to death. 

When my boy was getting ready to go to college, I taught him my cheap and effective techniques for bathroom sterilization.  I pointed out that I had learned that if you wanted girls to spend time at your place, having a gleaming bathroom, rather than the typical guys stank hole, was key.

Over the years, it's one of the few tips he's thanked me for.

100 Oh, and CozMark, regarding the men drinking beer. In our area, they routinely drank beer while mowing the lawn with power mowers, and that was before there were any safety features. It's a wonder more of them didn't shred their feet.

101 I'm of this beleaguered generation, and my response is that at least those of us who have inherited a work ethic are extremely good at adjusting to new technology, be it hard or software.  Give us a new information-processing system and we'll figure out how to abuse it into making lolcats while gramps over there is still figuring out "right-click."  We expect tech to change at a amazingly fast rate and have no issues with it.

Oh also, if I ever felt the burning desire to cook a roast, instructions are just a google away....

102 But they still expect men to mow the lawn and shovel the snow?

And I do it, because (cue Bo Diddly):
I'm a man,
I spell m-a-n...man.

103 Whatever I know how to do, I can thank my dad for it. When we were growing up, we were all expected to help him around the house with whatever needed to be done. I had no clue about it at the time, but that was valuable training. Maybe we should be looking at ourselves when we ask why kids today don't know how to do anything.

104

It up to us to teach our own,

I agree with this. to a certain extent it's a pain in the ass to have a kid help you out with things like cooking dinner, but you've got to have the patience to do it with them because where else are they going to learn? Certainly not in school anymore since things like auto repair, woodworking and home economics have gone the way of the dodo bird...

105 Many of them can turn a house ino an ATM machine and leave an Arizona meteor sized crater in the financial system when they skip on their payments.

106 When my boy was getting ready to go to college, I taught him my cheap and effective techniques for bathroom sterilization.  I pointed out that I had learned that if you wanted girls to spend time at your place, having a gleaming bathroom, rather than the typical guys stank hole, was key.

Posted by: toby928� at January 30, 2011 08:02 PM (GTbGH)

Please share.  My bathroom is a stank hole

107 I have an iron, it's white and still looks brand new due to lack of use.

108 This is all just hippies deflecting onto their children's generations hoping no one notices how bad the hippies have run the country into the ground. Their parents tried to teach them things but they were too busy getting high. Meanwhile the hippies we're lazy parents who didn't teach a thing and spent their self interested lives letting the television raise their children. Speaking as a member of generation X, yeah my generation is very useless but fuck look at who we came from. 

109 Practically every man I know, of any age, cooks.  They all think it's some huge deal and seem inordinately proud of it.  Of course, I don't think a single one of 'em knows how to properly clean a kitchen.  Or anything else, for that matter.

110 Of course, I don't think a single one of 'em knows how to properly clean a kitchen.

Oh, we know, but why would we want to do that?

111 My bathroom is a stank hole

Bleach, and lots of it.  I use one of those garden sprays on the shower stall and tile floors.  And always try to have white porcelain fixtures.

Cheap and effective.

These new clorox wipes also come in handy for cleaning dust and stuff off the top of the baseboards.

112 92 Cooking, sewing, washing dishes is all sexist, anti-women work, which is why today's women avoid learning those skills and thrash men who expect them to at least know how to open a TV dinner.

But they still expect men to mow the lawn and shovel the snow?

Posted by: Ivana HumpMe at January 30, 2011 07:57 PM (UqJ8A)

You don't expect ME to do that do you?

113 Oh, and CozMark, regarding the men drinking beer. In our area, they routinely drank beer while mowing the lawn with power mowers, and that was before there were any safety features. It's a wonder more of them didn't shred their feet.

Posted by: nerdygirl at January 30, 2011 08:02 PM (62TF+)

Drinking beer while mowing the lawn is mandatory, it's in the owners manual for the mower.

114 10 parts water to 1 part bleach, btw.

115

Once our glorious government takes over every aspect of our lives, we won't need to think, either.

Obama/PelosiCare is just the beginning.  Once the government takes 40% from everyone making 200K+, all personal initiative and drive will shrivel up like a cold penis.  Private industry will dry up.  But no worries - we can all get government jobs.

 

 

 

116 Posted by: Peaches at January 30, 2011 08:06 PM (zxpIo) I know how to properly clean a kitchen: If the food doesn't touch it, it doesn't matter how dirty it is.

117 More if you are just moving in, or battling the green.

118 Even thou i'm old enough to be most of you girls' great-boyfriend and with all the girly men plus metro sexual thugs about, i'll have no trouble meeting women. Sadly the mind of a young woman makes my spirit want to up-chuck. I expect to have several Clockwork events of dispatching punks to their punk god.

119

Nobody cooks anymore.

 

Except my daughters.  Funny, they embraced that basic skill.

120 I was with my daughter at college for an audition in the music department.  A young man came up to me and told me that he was also waiting to audition, and could I help him tie his tie.  I did, but wondered what kind of a putz would let his son reach adulthood not knowing how to tie a tie. 

121 Posted by: toby928™ at January 30, 2011 08:02 PM

It's cool for you to brag on your offspring but, hey we're talking about the spawn of morons, for fuck's sake.

They're supposed to be able to do shit like that. If they couldn't, if they were clueless twerplets who spend their lives playing 'puter games and believing everything they read on Wikipedia, their daddies and mommies -- unless they have two mommies, or two daddies -- would be posting over at TepidAir.

122 Thanks PC Police. 

When I was in Jr High, the boys took a year of shop, you know we built shit and learned how to fix shit.

The girls took Home Economics.  They learned to cook, sew and run a home.

I know how to fix shit, but I feel cheated, I didn't get any "diversity training".

Damn Racist ruined my life and I suffer everyday not knowing the days of Kwanzaa and shit like that.

Need a pipe fixed? Call me.

123 24
Today girls have 'fuck buddys' and its perfectly normal.

Thirty years ago, those girls were called the 'town pumps.'

Posted by: Soothsayer the Edutainer at January 30, 2011 07:36 PM (5iMvt)

They had "round heels" too.

124 To be fair to my generation (I'm 25)...  ...  well, I can't think of anything.

Most of us don't understand why anything is more difficult that getting online and ordering.  I worked in HS over the summer, but those from urban areas just sit and fuck around all summer while spending mom and dad's money.  The schools don't teach life skills, and the parents are already sorely lacking in that regard.

I can cook, sew, perform maintenance work, and build shit, fwiw.

125 Bleach, and lots of it.  I use one of those garden sprays on the shower stall and tile floors.  And always try to have white porcelain fixtures.

Cheap and effective.

These new clorox wipes also come in handy for cleaning dust and stuff off the top of the baseboards.

Posted by: toby928� at January 30, 2011 08:08 PM (GTbGH)

What concentration of bleach?  garden spray?

126 Just make sure you don't have a beige or other color toilet before you bleach it, the seats on most of those aren't bleach safe and it'll take the color right off them.

127 I was stunned. In my day you'd get your ass severely reamed for not knowing this stuff.

The pussification of the American male and the deliberate degradation of families by the left in this country has been pretty effective.  How many sons are going to be taught mechanical skills by a Dad that isn't around?  It's no accident that the beta-male nerd is the stereotype promoted in popular culture as the most virtuous and thoughtful, even though most of these goons are typically social retards with a deep-seated hatred of women.

128 14 Guys under 30 don't know how to fix cars anymore. They can't even identify parts.

I learned this in recent conversations at work.

I was stunned. In my day you'd get your ass severely reamed for not knowing this stuff.

Posted by: eman at January 30, 2011 07:33 PM (n0WLs)

Cars built today aren't exactly designed to be worked on by an amateur mechanic either.

129

#102......Instructions do not equate with ability.You little snot.

130 I am perfectly happy to agree that everyone under, say, 45 is a clueless moron and gives constant evidence of the fact (just look who the little ninnies elected President!). It is interesting to note, however, that a person who scored 100 on an IQ test when I was a lad would now be scoring around 75. If the tests weren't constantly re-normalized, the average IQ would now be around 130. This phenomenon is known as the Flynn Effect. Whatever it is that IQ tests measure, people have a lot more of it than they used to. 

131 Wifey went out of town and Tess wrote this

Dear Mom,
I just wanted to let you know that Dad's cooking is fine! Although yours is better, today we had fish sticks. So that Dad didn't have to wash any pans, he cooked on tin foil. We had fun standing up and eating off the island, and we ate our salad directly out of the salad bowl so we didn't have to do dishes (Although we did use our own forks) We also used plastic cups so we wouldn't have to wash those either.
We hope you're having fun with the little baby!
Love Tess

132

I married one of those Gen Yers apparantly.  She's pretty useless at the domestic skills that I thought were requirements.  In HS I played sports and worked so I didn't do that much around the house but even I picked up the skills to iron shirts, cook some food, hang drywall and fix cars.  Every one of our domestic spats starts off with  me cranky because she doesn't chip in on the housework or because she broke something and I haven't fixed it yet. 

Come to think of it, this stuff where girls don't learn basic skills sounds like a conspiracy by marriage counselors to drum up some long term business.

133

I can fix all sorts of shit on my '72 Karmann Ghia and it is an absolute chick-magnet.  If my wife would let me, I know I could pick up all sorts of them.  Corners like a fucking slot-car, too.  Going straight ahead... ehhh, maybe not so much.

134 I spent a few minutes comparing myself to my dad, who was born before 1930. Neither of us knows a damned thing about car repair beyond the basics of keeping the fluids topped up and changing tires and filters. We're both more than competent cooks, we're both fast typists (and it kept him out of the line of fire in WWII, so remember that, kids). He's better at gardening, I have more computer skills, we're about even on things like felling trees and building stuff.

There is one art which he is definitely better at and always will be: cocktail mixing. I don't know anything about making cocktails and none of my friends do, either.

135 What concentration of bleach?  garden spray?

10 to 1 water to bleach, through a pump up garden sprayer.  Like this.  Remember to flush fresh water through when your done or it will corrode the wand.  Or don't, they're cheap enough to get a new one every year.

136 What concentration of bleach?  garden spray?

That's 10% household bleach solution?

137 When I was in Jr High, the boys took a year of shop, you know we built shit and learned how to fix shit.

The girls took Home Economics. 

I took wood and metal shop and home ec.

138 Just make sure you don't have a beige or other color toilet before you bleach it, the seats on most of those aren't bleach safe and it'll take the color right off them.
Posted by: booger at January 30, 2011 08:13 PM

Dude, it took bleach for me to find out that the toilet in my first away-from-parents-home pad really was white and not a kind of yellowish beige....

139 When I was in Jr High, the boys took a year of shop, you know we built shit and learned how to fix shit.

The girls took Home Economics.  They learned to cook, sew and run a home.

---

I took both.  (I'm pushing 50.) 

Honestly, I learned a lot more in shop than I did in home ec.  We really didn't learn how to "run a home."  We did some cooking, much of which was sort of of the "try foods from other countries" variety and not particularly structured.  And, I think I learned how to use a sewing machine. 

Kids really need to learn how to manage a family budget, invest their meager savings, fill out their taxes, protect their identities, etc, more than the other things.  Moms and dads should teach kids how to cook, iron, make beds, fix things, etc. 

Shop class is fine because it's basic skills that are useful in a trade, but home ec is a complete waste.

140 I dunno..I didn't learn to cook dinners until after I was 30 and I'm old.  Breakfast and lunch, sure.  Roast beef is hard. I used to cook it ezzactly the right time stated in the recipe, but really you have to cook the hell out of it.   Usually everything takes longer than they tell you.

141 This probably explains why all the employment experts say that there will be a boom in service industry jobs over the next 20 years.

142 Guys under 30 don't know how to fix cars anymore. They can't even identify parts car makes and models.

FTFY

It's sad when *I* can name every car make and model I pass on the street and the guy I'm with can only tell if it's a car or an SUV.

143 I bet Obama couldn't do any goddamn thing without assistance.Thanks to the %52 he will always have it.

144 When you have boxes of Cheerios in the oven, it's very unlikely you know what the stove is actually for, let alone know how to cook a roast. I was once roped into feeding a cat for someone's 21 year old daughter. Apparently living like Sex & the City in a cramped NYC apartment (paid for by mom). No separate rooms, no storage space aside from the oven, and clothes literally hanging all over the place. Cheerios in the oven because the cupboards were filled with shoes. Um, I could not wait to get out of there. And no this is not an anomaly. I remember seeing the same shit at someone's Hoboken dump. Paying all this rent to live like a pauper. Except she didn't have shoes in the oven or cupboards, but glitter pens and craft materials. The Artist.

145 Seriously.  My fkn loser FFL team is putting up all kinds of points today.  Bitches.

146 My grandma was a home ec teacher and couldn't cook worth a darn.  I don't know that things used to be so rosy, to be honest.

Those morons here with actual skills aren't really representative of everyone.  Most people have always been useless dipshits.  Of course, the libs want to make sure that everyone is a useless dipshit by systematically destroying males through k-12 education, then university.

147

Part of it is that the younger generation in large part, never had to do with old stuff that needed repair or maintenance, and worse, never had to figure something out by themselves.   Nor did they respect their parents who could fix stuff and figure out how to do things without someone showing them.

When you think you have unlimited funding and can either pay someone to fix stuff or throw out the old and get new, you don't value acquisition of those skills.  There's also a factor of elitism that they are too good to do such things.

To make it short, I've done just about everything that remodeling and adding onto an old house requires.  Pretty much a ditto with automotive stuff, except for yanking engines and replacing struts (time and safety reasons).  Appliance repairs short of fixing compressors for A/C, freezers and refrigerators.  Overhauled small engines including a V-twin and a John Deere garden tractor transaxle.

Living in the country, we had 4-H animal projects, so the kids know about raising rabbits, chickens and swine, although I learned more than they did, I think.

And yes, I know how to fix computers - including editing the registry and removing viruses - the kinds gave me plenty of practice. 

148 I will get all old-codgerish about neckties. When my daughter was in a choir I took on the job of tie-tier for the boys because none of them knew how to do it -- nor did any of the adult women running the choir.

I can even tie my own bowtie. I am a regular omnipotent being.

149 That's 10% household bleach solution?

The stuff from Dollar General, so yeah, I guess.   It's household bleach anyway.






You made me go check.  All my bleach is 6% Sodium Hyoichlorite.

150

Cars today aren't that bad, they have a computer that tells you the problem.  For most basic issues you can get a computer code for free from Autozone or Valvoline with a top 3 causes list.  Most parts are still bolt on.  I do draw the line at engine internals but thermostats and idle airflow sensors are easy bolt on parts that make you look like a god to a commoner with no clue how they work.

 I need to thank my parents. I'm one of the handiest people I know on cars and houses and I don't know crap, but being the one eyed man in metrosexual land makes me King.

151

#102......Instructions do not equate with ability.You little snot.

Posted by: pooh at January 30, 2011 08:14 PM (47OiY)

Heh.

Now, get off of my lawn!

152 Hypochlorite.



dammit.

153 Young people are good with computers, you old geezers can't even work a computer properly without downloading a spyware or virus.My best friend who's about 55 keeps having to disinfect his family's computers because his 30-YO son keeps downloading viruses. I put together my own network, backup power, file servers, etc. I never did figure out how to iron clothes, but haven't missed it much in 30 years of living alone, wash-and-wear made it pretty much unnecessary. I can do some simple sewing though, it comes in handy for making camping gear or modifying stuff. Wish I knew more.

154 I like the comments of those who are making sure their kids learn some of these basic life skills.  But the Heinlein "Specialization is for insects" list* is  little over the top.  Or maybe I'm just rationalizing the fact I can't do several of those things (conn a ship? WTF?).
*A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

155 Practically every man I know, of any age, cooks.  They all think it's some huge deal and seem inordinately proud of it.

-------------------

Same here. However, I don't know any woman who knows how to change a faucet washer, replace a bad wall outlet, or rotate their tires, and they don't seem the least bit ashamed of it.

Most of them can hang a picture. They all think it's some huge deal and seem inordinately proud of it.

156 About the same stuff I knew at 21, but less than my husband, who was is an Eagle Scout. I don't pat myself on the back for this- they seem to be innately smart and hard workers. I count our family lucky.

I forgot to mention, Scouts still teaches boys how to do shit.  The merit badge plan forces them to learn basic skills.  Cooking, First Aid, Swimming, Camping AND the basic history of our constitutional government, something they don't always get in school.

All of my sons are Eagles, like their Dad! By the way, you are ALWAYS an Eagle Scout, FIFY above.

157 If tough times come,people will either learn to do or become a burden and/or die.

158 What's so hard about cooking a roast? 

1) Obtain haunch of some beast
2) Slather it with spice'ish stuff'n gravy'ish stuff
3) Cook until dry and crunchy (I like meat well done)

159 Schizuki, part of the reason is that most women don't have the tools to do those jobs.  The other part of the reason is that it's just plain icky what you can find when you pull the faucet thingy off or unscrew the wallplate.  And tires?  Those things are FILTHY!!

160 Can we have a thread about Bigguns?

161 Men can type. 

No way my dad could type.

It's fascinating to me watching professional women in the say 50-60 yo range having the whole "oh no I will never learn to type because then I'll only be a secretary!" thing come back to bite them in the ass.  Yes, there was some validity to those concerns but now?  Now it's a bitch if you can't type up a basic email.

And, yeah, I have this huge rant about how everyone should be forced to take shop and home ec. 

162 Forget marriage, friends, family. Nothing is more important than your relationship with your government. Little more work on art, history and God and Metro Sexual Pro Matrix Danasty will start and The Hello Kitty Danasty will end.

163 158 There ain't really no IF to it,only a question of how bad at this point.

164 It's sad when *I* can name every car make and model I pass on the street and the guy I'm with can only tell if it's a car or an SUV.
Posted by: Rum, Goddess of Doom at January 30, 2011 08:17 PM

And how far back does that knowledge go, Rum? Can you tell if a Chevy is a '55 or '56? How about picking a Studebaker, Packard or Rambler out of the crowd? How 'bout that Jeep? Is it a CJ or MB?

Just hope you don't get your head filled with all that useless shit like I did....

The only reason I'm not ordering you off my lawn is that you're a moronette.

_{And teh hawt and stuff}

165 Nerdygirl-
My dad got rear ended and it bent the frame. He and his friends (a truck driver and 2 plumbers) played cards and drank beer as they formulated their plan. About 10 pm they attached chains to the rear end and padlocked the chain around a huge live oak, dad revved the engine and held down the brake then let off the brake. Problem solved, mom was pissed but unsurprised.

166

116 all personal initiative and drive will shrivel up like a cold penis.  Private industry will dry up. 

It must be getting late, because this is how I read it:

all personal initiative and drive will shrivel up like a cold private.  Penis industry will dry up. 

167

I'm a 32nd level General in Call of Duty. That's going to look fuckin' awesome on my resume'.

Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it loser.

168 Part of it is that the younger generation in large part, never had to do with old stuff that needed repair or maintenance

Tools and appliances used to be expensive and built to last.  You used to have to replace parts.  Now, everything is cheap and disposable.  I mean really?  Microwaves for $60 and coffee machines for $12.

Effin Chinese.

169 10 to 1 water to bleach, through a pump up garden sprayer.  Like this.  Remember to flush fresh water through when your done or it will corrode the wand.  Or don't, they're cheap enough to get a new one every year.

Posted by: toby928� at January 30, 2011 08:15 PM (GTbGH)

What do you do for soap scum?

170 "oh no I will never learn to type because then I'll only be a secretary!"

I know a 40-something lawyer who believes that and hence she doesn't know how to type.

171 I can do most of the maintenance/construction stuff, but I suck at housekeeping. I suck really bad at housekeeping. I'm in Toby's school on the bleach thing, though. You don't need a bunch of different cleaners. Bleach, ammonia, Comet, Castrol Super Clean. Everything else is just fluff.

172 Best course I ever took in HS?  Typing!  It was not in the "college prep" course load, but my mother made me take it, thank God.  I was 60 wpm. They also taught shorthand, which I wish I had taken.  A friend of mine took it and could transcribe word for word his lectures in college.  He was VERY popular.

I am guessing you kids know what shorthand is.  If not read this:  http://tinyurl.com/6dhtes

173 Can you tell if a Chevy is a '55 or '56? How about picking a Studebaker, Packard or Rambler out of the crowd? How 'bout that Jeep? Is it a CJ or MB?

Depends on the models. I can tell a 94 Mustang from a 95-99 and 2000. I can usually tell a 64 from a 65 Mustang, too. I can generally guess at a 50s Chevy based on the size of the fins. And I can also pick out MGs, Triumps and a few other models that haven't been imported into the US since the 70s.

I like knowing this stuff mostly for fun and in case someone ever road rages me and I can turn their ass in.

174 Barkeepers friend is a good all purpose cleaner too.

175 172 I have a neat freak friend who almost gassed himself by combining cleaning products.

176 And, yeah, I have this huge rant about how everyone should be forced to take shop and home ec.

I've seen you post it.  It is most impressive.

I didn't learn much in my 7th grade shop class.  Every maintenance thing I know about cars or in the home I learned from my stepfather.  It also helps that he used to build mobile homes back in the day.

I still remember fondly when he surveyed the town-home I was staying in my last two years of undergrad.  Hilarity did not ensue for the property owners, . 

177 Peyton Manning's secret plan = "no huddle" and hurry the fk up.

178 Triumps = Triumphs

Apparently I cannot type either.

179

What do you do for soap scum?

Posted by: Ombudsman at January 30, 2011 08:26 PM (c1oyg)

The trick is to never get it in the first place.  How, you ask?  Before you get out of the shower, rinse off all the tiles.  Either with your showerhead dealie or just keep a big plastic cup in there.  It's pretty amazing how infrequently you need to clean the thing if you do that every day.  Any mildew starts showing, nuke it with Tilex (another fine bleach product) and rinse it off before you get in the shower again.

180

I can fix all sorts of shit on my '72 Karmann Ghia

In grad school I has a 72 Super Beetle with a warmed up engine.  Crane cam, racing heads with 3-angle valve job, lightened flywheel, dual carbs. It handled well up to about 80mph, then its non-aerodynamics made it weird.  Never took it over 90, too scary.

181 All of my sons are Eagles, like their Dad! By the way, you are ALWAYS an Eagle Scout, FIFY above.

Posted by: Kemp at January 30, 2011 08:22 PM (JpFM9)

I'm an Eagle Scout, too, and most of the valuable skills I possess I learned in Scouting.  (granted, vices, too).   It's a shame, but I'm afraid it's a relic from a bygone era.

182 What do you do for soap scum?

Mostly nothing.  The bleach will prevent it forming if you spray and wack it with a stiff brush once a week.  I spray the shower on Saturday morning and then go drink coffee or eat breakfast.  Later I take a shower and use scrub the walks while I shower.

Efficiency rules.

If its a real problem, that purple stuff or The Works, again from Dollar General will melt the crap out of it but it's harsher to get in the shower with it in there.  On the plus side, no toe jam will survive either.

183 I think of soap scum like cosmoline - ummm...it encapsulates and preserves, right?

184 30 Posted by: Delta Smelt at January 30, 2011 07:35 PM (A0VTZ)

Yeah, true. But these guys did not know what the master cylinder is, or where it is located.

I felt like fucking Gandalf.   If you feel like it, just ask. Maybe he'll let you.

185

The trick is to never get it in the first place.  How, you ask?  Before you get out of the shower, rinse off all the tiles.  Either with your showerhead dealie or just keep a big plastic cup in there.  It's pretty amazing how infrequently you need to clean the thing if you do that every day.  Any mildew starts showing, nuke it with Tilex (another fine bleach product) and rinse it off before you get in the shower again.

Posted by: Peaches at January 30, 2011 08:29 PM (zxpIo)

Now see?  This is the stuff mom never taught me.  I'm going right over to Assisted living and slap her

186 130

#102......Instructions do not equate with ability.You little snot.

Spwffft! all over the keyboard. My sentiments exactly.

Little master of the universe, these twerps.

187 I like knowing this stuff mostly for fun and in case someone ever road rages me and I can turn their ass in.
Posted by: Rum, Goddess of Doom at January 30, 2011 08:29 PM

Ah, Rum, my kinda of chica!

My ex didn't even know what the glowing red lamp on her Volvo's dashboard meant. Good thing for her I knew how to rebuild engines that had been run without oil pressure....

188

These young women need to get their bitch ass in the kitchen and bake me a pie!

189 Oh also, if I ever felt the burning desire to cook a roast, instructions are just a google away....

You are assuming that both the internet and power would be available when you most need to be able to fend for yourself. Which is, I hope you realize, the least likely of scenarios.

When you find yourself without power, or access to the ATM, and there isn't enough gas in your car to last, you'll wish like hell that you had some idea of how to fend for yourself.

Think of all the things you WON'T be able to do when and if there is no power available:

No Google
No ATM
No gas pumps
No fast food
No microwave
No hot water
No cold water
No cell service (batteries only last so long)

I suppose you have a Rubbermaid box stowed away somewhere with a portable grill and charcoal for just such an occasion, right?

How about a manual can opener and a can of tuna?

Yeah. I thought as much.

190 176 172 I have a neat freak friend who almost gassed himself by combining cleaning products. Yeah, don't mix bleach and ammonia. I like to mix up other stuff, though.

191 Now see?  This is the stuff mom never taught me.  I'm going right over to Assisted living and slap her

How often did you volunteer to help her clean the bathrooms when you were a young 'un?!?? 

192 What do you do for soap scum?

White vinegar is your friend.

193 and use scrub the walks while I shower.

What the hell language is that?

and use a brush to scrub the walls while I shower.

194 They also taught shorthand, which I wish I had taken.  A friend of mine took it and could transcribe word for word his lectures in college.

Oh man I was just saying on Friday that I wished I knew shorthand.   And, yeah, I'm sadly just into my 40's (brb putting head in oven) and the "don't learn to type because you'll be a secretary" thing extended down to women right around my age.  My mother's response was hey learn to type and you'll always have a job that's not being a waitress.  Truer words, man. 

There's also a problem now with not being able to do basic repairs.  The car thing is a case in point.  My dad, not the handiest person ever, was adamant that I knew how to change a tire before I got my driver's license.  The last three times I've had a tire go down the damn things were put on there so tight I couldn't have gotten them off on my own no matter what. 

195 I built a wall in my house, with a door. My wife was blown away.

"Where did you learn that?"

"It's hammer, nails and wood. I asked your Dad how far apart the studs should be. It ain't magic. It's more work than a blow job, but if you're that amazed, I'd be willing to call it even."

And that's what equitable division of household labor is all about.

196 If its a real problem, that purple stuff or The Works, again from Dollar General will melt the crap out of it but it's harsher to get in the shower with it in there.  On the plus side, no toe jam will survive either.

Posted by: toby928� at January 30, 2011 08:32 PM (GTbGH)

You clean your shower nekkid?  A naked woman, cleaning.  That's..... hot.

197 Oddly enough, Ombudsman, I learned this only very recently from my mom.  Who is so insanely chock-full of unsolicited and largely unwanted advice, I'm surprised I even heard it.

198 Regarding using bleach:   Make sure that you don't get any on things you do NOT want bleached!  This would include colored towels,  colored shower curtains, your clothes,  bath mats, etc.

My husband ruined several towels before I got through to him that spilled bleach should not be mopped up with navy blue towels.

A handy household tip is to buy ALL WHITE sheets and towels, They always match,  and they can be bleached.  Replacements will match the things you already have.

Add your color with bathroom ceramics (soap dishes, jars, punp bottles,  etc.) and in the bedroom with your bedspread and pillows.

199

Yeah, don't mix bleach and ammonia.

 

 

 

Unless you want to off a spouse by putting bleach in the back of the toilet and having him/her use amonia to clean the bowl.  You're one flush away from easy killin'.

200 White vinegar is your friend.

Yep.  White vinegar, bleach, and bulk purchases of baking soda.

All a man needs.

201 I'm an Eagle Scout, too, and most of the valuable skills I possess I learned in Scouting.  (granted, vices, too).   It's a shame, but I'm afraid it's a relic from a bygone era.

It is having a hard time in Yankee land, aka,Blue states, but in the Red states Scouting lives on and still builds young men, one at a time.

By the way, I only got 21 badges, the minimum, my oldest son got 58!  That would be SEVEN Palms!  He must be adopted.

202 They also taught shorthand, which I wish I had taken

I taught myself when I was about 10 years old just by picking up a book my mother had purchased. I even used it in school for a while until the teachers told me to stop.

I've since forgotten it but I guarantee you that you could learn it in no time flat.

I still remember a couple of things. Like this:

____ and this __.

Impressive, huh?

203 Man, this Pro Bowl is  a blowout.  Wish all those 'Skins knew how to make picks and score during the season.

204 A naked woman, cleaning.

Dude, I'm a dude.  Toby.  Hello??

God I can't imagine how you were picturing me, but you need to stop, immediately.

205 204 White vinegar is your friend. Yep. White vinegar, bleach, and bulk purchases of baking soda. All a man needs. Posted by: toby928™ at January 30, 2011 08:36 PM (GTbGH) Will that get urine stains out of a rug? Might come in handy, next time the wife goes off on a trip...

206 Having just tuned in, I see why there's no pro-bowl thread.

207 By the way, one of the failings of modern edumification (IMO) is that the yoots don't know how to deal with things that go wrong.

For example: every teenager should be able to safely drive a car without antilock brakes and all that modern electronic shit. They don't think any of those systems can take a dump. I've learned better....

Of course I'm an old fuddy-duddy who thinks anyone who calls themselves a "photographer" should be able to shoot, process and print film.

208 Roast beef is hard. I used to cook it ezzactly the right time stated in the recipe, but really you have to cook the hell out of it.   Usually everything takes longer than they tell you.

WEll, it depends on the cut of the meat.  Cooking the hell out of prime rib is a waste of money.  On the other hand cooking the hell out of a chuck roast is some good eating.  Meat thermometers are a great invention. 
When I look at what people spend for convenience food vs what can be had for much less - if you just 'cook from scratch' it amazes me.
 
I do think it is an age thing.  I grew up around grand parents, and learned cooking from grandma (breadmaking etc) and household repair from grandpa.  I've been known to take a crowbar to a powder room I didn't like one afternoon.  I repaired the drywall, re-plumbed for a pedestal sink, and move outlets to a more desired location. 
    

209

And the network and the league wonder why no one watches the Pro Bowl.  Good God the NFC might score 90 points at this rate.

210 The last three times I've had a tire go down the damn things were put on there so tight I couldn't have gotten them off on my own no matter what.

This is why I invested in a 3 foot long 1/2" drive SnapOn breaker bar and impact socket that matches my lugnuts.  I keep it in the trunk of the car.  Unlike the cheap wrenches shipped with cars, that SnapOn breaker bar and impact socket can be kicked hard and jumped on if necessary.

211 The last three times I've had a tire go down the damn things were put on there so tight I couldn't have gotten them off on my own no matter what.

I've noticed mechanics putting on lug-nuts so tight you need air tools to take them off.  For my tires though, I have a long make-shift "breaker bar" made some tent poles to take off the lug-nuts.  Works for my small car, don't know if it'll work for everybody.

212

On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

 

Deep throating skills are at an all time high.  T

hanks Inter-Tubes! 

213 God I can't imagine how you were picturing me, but you need to stop, immediately. Posted by: toby928™ at January 30, 2011 08:38 PM (GTbGH) A neekid guy cleaning a show... that's... gross.

214

that matches my lugnuts

 

 

 

How YOU doin?

215 Every boy should face the local bully in a straight man to man dust up and if he loses  he should pick up a stick.Every girl should bake an apple pie via momma's instruction and if it tastes like shit,both momma and pupil should be severely beaten.

216

and in case someone ever road rages me and I can turn their ass in.

O/T but this reminds me, so now I am gonna rant, I went to lunch today and in the parking lot of the burger place two cars backed out at the same time and hit each other, fairly hard. The one car pulled back in the space, but the other car kept pulling out and went to pull away. I blocked her from pulling away, rolled my window down and told her she couldn’t leave, after a couple seconds of playing dumb she said “OK, I’ll park” and I told her if she left I’d call the cops on her. So then I park and we get out to go check in with the other driver…who played totally dumb and spun this tale about how she’d just gotten there, and then she said she’d been parked for 10 minutes talking, and then she said it wasn’t even her car and the dent on the back was already there. I threw up my hands and told them both to deal with it themselves and went in to eat. Checked a couple minutes later and they were both gone. Idiots.

217 They peed on your rug, dude?

218 My dad, not the handiest person ever, was adamant that I knew how to change a tire before I got my driver's license.  The last three times I've had a tire go down the damn things were put on there so tight I couldn't have gotten them off on my own no matter what.

My dad made sure I knew how to change a flat and where all the tools needed to do so are located in my car. But I'm still calling AAA before attempting to do it myself.

219 A neekid guy cleaning a show... that's... gross.

That's bad naked. 


Stay away from the pickle jars, toby. 

220 How often did you volunteer to help her clean the bathrooms when you were a young 'un?!?? 

Posted by: Y-not at January 30, 2011 08:34 PM (pW2o

Touche.  But I'm 51.  That was still "women's work" back then.  She would have considered it an insult to me to teach me.

221 Chicks used to dig a clean bathroom.  In the otherwise stanky 70's, it would score more poon that a line of coke.

222 Boiling water?? Is there an app for that?

223 Greatest generation of fighter pilots in history.  They were flying F-15s before they were ten years old.

224 #156 I can do all of those things. I dont think hanging a picture is a big deal, but putting up drywall is a pain. My twenty year old is good at finding Taco Bells..... but he does know how cook, does his own laundry and maintains his car. I look forward to the day when he learns how to replace toliet innards.

225

Unless you want to off a spouse by putting bleach in the back of the toilet and having him/her use amonia to clean the bowl.  You're one flush away from easy killin'.

Thanks for the spouse pro-tip, Wyatt.

/made = made from

226 I was picturing an unhappy, sexually molested beagle cleaning a shower.

227 How often did you volunteer to help her clean the bathrooms when you were a young 'un?!?? Posted by: Y-not at January 30, 2011 08:34 PM (pW2o Would you REALLY wanna marry some guy that grew up wearing an apron?

228 I can totally jerk off 5-6 times a day. Top that, losers.

229

On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

Unfortunately. those skills are fucking usess.

I collect skills as a hobby. Too many to list. I won't tolerate being helpless, and I don't understand those who do.

230 A handy household tip is to buy ALL WHITE sheets and towels, They always match,  and they can be bleached.  Replacements will match the things you already have.

I don't know about handy, but I have 5 sets of white sheets. The trim is a little different on each. The room always looks fresh with white linens. I also buy white towels. And you're right, I can bleach the hell out of them with no problem at all.

231

Thanks for the spouse pro-tip, Wyatt.

 

 

 

17 years on the job, you see a lot of crazy crap from people.

232 Checked a couple minutes later and they were both gone. Idiots.

Well, the one sounds like an illegal or something (maybe driving on a suspended license).  No other reason why she wouldn't want the authorities involved. 

233 By the way, I only got 21 badges, the minimum, my oldest son got 58!  That would be SEVEN Palms!  He must be adopted.

Posted by: Kemp at January 30, 2011 08:37 PM (JpF0M9)

Now that's just showing off...  (I forget, I think I had one palm, 28 badges)

234 Hi PGiS  :-D

Hope you have a wonderful evening!!!  Be happy to help anytime.

235 " 3 foot long 1/2" drive SnapOn breaker bar " That's the ultimate. SnapOn is great stuff. But a piece of galvanized pipe that slides over your ratchet handle will work, too.

236 Nobody taught me how to cook. I learned how to do it on my own. And yes, my mother knows how to cook (and used to do it well) but her idea of "teaching" is screaming at me that I'm doing it all wrong.

I also learned how to bake on my own.

237

O/T:  I'm getting ready to un-follow Ed Morrissey on Twitter.  He is a good follow some of the time, but I hate blind messages that clutter the twitter stream like:

"Having lunch in San Diego." 

"Just got out of San Diego airport. Weather just a tad warmer than where I left..." 

"Just landed in Twin Cities. Looking forward to an early night."

Who cares?  Are there people out there who are interested in this mundane streaming diary stuff? 

238

17 years on the job, you see a lot of crazy crap from people.

Posted by: Wyatt Earp at January 30, 2011 08:43 PM (zgZzy)

I was going to ask if you'd seen that one...

239 This is why I invested in a 3 foot long 1/2" drive SnapOn breaker bar and impact socket that matches my lugnuts.

Dude, I need to do that mainly because hello there lance and/or javelin as necessary.  It's like explaining that the large mag light I keep in my car is not primarily for light giving purposes. 

My dad made sure I knew how to change a flat and where all the tools needed to do so are located in my car. But I'm still calling AAA before attempting to do it myself.

Oh hell yes.  The last time one went down I noticed it in my driveway.  It was dark, freezing rain and nasty and I was all set to change it when I realized that this was why I, as a strong self-actualized woman, paid AAA.  The AAA guy showed up, had to use the breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts and then went on a Moron worthy rant about how mechanics airgun on lug nuts too tight.  It was a thing of beauty. 

240 Aaaargghhh.  Damn fkn sock.    Unless.......

241 I look forward to the day when he learns how to replace toliet innards.

Replacing toilet guts is easy.  Draining the tank and sopping up the mess takes more time than the actual repairs.  The FluidMaster line of replacement parts are very easy to install and generally work better than the OEM's swinging arm/float nonsense.

242 Hey, guys, I'm about to take a shit.  Thinking of using singe-ply paper.

243 Just took a dump.  Corn.

244 Posted by: ParanoidGrillInSeattle at January 30, 2011 08:40 PM (RZ8pf)

Wow. Just...wow.

245 Watching TV now.  Thinking about eating another bag of Cheetos.

246 I dont think hanging a picture is a big deal,

Yeah, I don't either... nevertheless, my man is incapable of hanging them at the right height or making sure they're straight.  He was sort of challenging me on that the other day when we were hanging some pictures and each and every time I was closer to level by eye than he was. 

I didn't think matching belts, socks, and shoes to a suit was rocket science either, but apparently it, too, requires a Ph.D.  ;-) 

247 Cattle don't need skills.

248 My dog just barked.  Better look out the window.

249

Would you REALLY wanna marry some guy that grew up wearing an apron?

Absofreakinlutely. As long as he also knows how to change my flat tires and oil.

Well rounded is the name of the game.

250

I was going to ask if you'd seen that one...

 

I did.  Spouse got violently ill, but didn't die.  Almost impossible to prove intent, though, and the evidence was flushed away, so to speak.

251

Drinking a glass of iced tea now.  Hope it doesn't keep me up.

252

Andrea Kraemer

who are you?

253

My wife ran over something and the tire went flat overnight on Friday.  I changed the tire in the garage and drove to Costco Saturday to get a new set of Michelins.  The tires were installed and when I went to leave I find that the battery was dead.  I went back in the store and picked out the correct battery for the vehicle type and borrowed a wrench from the tire center and proceeded to change out the battery in the Costco parking lot.  My wife couldn't believe that I got this all done by myself over the course of three hours on a Saturday.  I can't believe there are people out there that DON'T know how to do things like change a flat or change out a battery. 

254 I've got one who feels a video game score is more important than a Spanish test.

FML

Posted by: sickinmass at January 30, 2011 08:46 PM (1rflU)

Back in the day, I was like that.  Get him to equate his test score to a paycheck.  That's what worked for me!

255 Holy shite.  42-7 NFC with 2 minutes left in the half.

Ass whoopin'

256
#160 - exactly, Peaches. Men don't mind dirt, and women hate ick. So women should do the cleaning, and men should do the ick.

My wife used to bitch that I rarely did dishes. Then one day I came up from the basement after having snaked out a clogged pipe, covered with blotches of black malodorous ooze from fifty years' worth of pipe accumulation, and said, "How many sinkfuls of dishes is this worth?"

I taught her that division of labor doesn't me we split her jobs and I get to do everything else myself. Being a sensible lady, she conceded the point.

Men should never be allowed to clean. We don't see dirt until it attacks. I think we're jaded by our messy jobs. "Dirty" means "covered in grease, grass and blood." What dirty kitchen? I don't see it.

257 A naked woman, cleaning.

Dude, I'm a dude.  Toby.  Hello??

God I can't imagine how you were picturing me, but you need to stop, immediately.

Posted by: toby928� at January 30, 2011 08:38 PM (GTbGH)

Now see?  That was a sexist assumption on my part.  I figured, what dude knows so much about cleaning bathrooms?  I denounce myself

258 I need to do that mainly because hello there lance and/or javelin as necessary.

Yea, a 3' breaker bar makes a pretty good war club if necessary and doesn't draw as much attention from the cops as a baseball bat with nails pounded into the end of it like a MorningStar.

259

17 years on the job, you see a lot of crazy crap from people.

I can believe that, which is why I stay in the country. 

I didn't think matching belts, socks, and shoes to a suit was rocket science either, but apparently it, too, requires a Ph.D.  ;-) 

Not just a Ph.D.  Being able to wear matching clothing needs at least an associate professorship. 

260 @259
These pretzels are making me thirsty. 

261 I also know how to jump a car battery. It was fun watching 2 Caltech grad students completely unable to figure out how to do it.

262

Not just a Ph.D.  Being able to wear matching clothing needs at least an associate professorship. 

 

 

 

And tenure.

263 260

Andrea Kraemer

who are you?

Posted by: ParanoidGrillInSeattle at January 30, 2011 08:48 PM (RZ8pf)

just a drunk moron thinking about that recent ont thread.  And disney torture.

264 The FluidMaster line of replacement parts are very easy to install and generally work better than the OEM's swinging arm/float nonsense.

I learned how to fix basic toilet stuff by necessity since the Bastard Ex who was actually handy refused to do anything to fix stuff at home (see re:  exness).  The Good Ex Boyfriend, while wonderful in many ways, was an utter disaster waiting to happen with home repair stuff.  This was the guy who caught the stove on fire while boiling a pot of water.  Thus, I learned.  There are now many of my friends who think I'm a Super Genius for knowing that the toilet is running like that because the flappy things needs fixed.

265 damn sock fail

266

Checked a couple minutes later and they were both gone. Idiots.

Dumbass wimmin drivers!

267 Used to clean bathrooms for money during college, mine is spotless, didn't know girls were that into it, maybe it's time to update my etchings line.

The only reason I know how to cook for myself is I took a couple years off between college and med school, but my classmates who went straight from undergrad to med school and now find themselves in a brave new mealplan-less world are flailing, living on ramen and take-out. But if a girl looks like Barbara Stanwyck in Christmas in Connecticut, I'm willing to put up with pasta for a while.

And if I'm ever in the deep south and falsely accused of murder, I'm calling Rum to be my general automotive knowledge expert.

Oh, and don't forget, a big reason young people don't know how to do a lot of these things is that's what illegals are for. You need to have an underclass serving you, but it just feels so awkward if they're black...

268 I didn't think matching belts, socks, and shoes to a suit was rocket science either, but apparently it, too, requires a Ph.D.  ;-)

Depends on the field, Y-not.  In my experience the PhD is frequently a hindrance to those abilities.

269 It was fun watching 2 Caltech grad students completely unable to figure out how to do it.

Huh?  I could jump a car when I was about 8yo

270

Who cares?  Are there people out there who are interested in this mundane streaming diary stuff? 

Posted by: rdbrewer at January 30, 2011 08:45 PM

Hell, they read his blog posts, so what's a little more drivel?

271 I got a buddy who didn't like the way the house he just bought was laid out, so he knocked down all these walls, moved the kitchen, built new closets, etc. Unreal.

272 Men should never be allowed to clean. We don't see dirt until it attacks.

My husband doesn't seem to notice the dirt or messiness as soon as I do, but he's a much better cleaner than I am, especially when it comes to floors or tile or things like that.  So that's frustrating, because I hate to ask him to clean, but when it needs to be really really spotless, he's the one.  I do the maintenance stuff; he does the deep cleaning.

I'm better at simple home repairs and assembling flat-pack furniture. 

273 Go away, George Costanza!

274 Scratched my left arm.  Thinking of looking at it.

275 and men should do the ick.


Word.  There no situation so foul I won't fix it, though I might lead my way in with the bleach sprayer, or a flame thrower.

I briefly considered a career in septic tanks or mortuary science in my youth.

276

just a drunk moron thinking about that recent ont thread.  And disney torture.

Whew, OK then, thanks!

277 5
The whole 'courting' phase of a relationship has gone extinct.

Dating doesn't even exist, anymore.

They 'hook up.'

Posted by: Soothsayer the Edutainer at January 30, 2011 07:29 PM (5iMvt)

Do you remember when Tom Wolfe wrote about this in Charlotte Simmons and all the lib reviewers trashed him and said he was exaggerating and an old fuddy duddy just making stuff up? And now MTV has Skins and when people complain they respond that they're just depicting reality.

278 And disney torture.

Did I miss this topic?

279

Disassembling the wiring harness in your grandmother's Buick while doing 75 mph on the highway is like performing open heart surgery. 

280 #277  Huh?  I could jump a car when I was about 8yo

You didn't destroy the diodes or blow up the battery?

281 I actually had a guy put the lugs on so tight that when i went to get a new tire one of the bolts actually broke when they tried to loosen the lug.

282 I didn't think matching belts, socks, and shoes to a suit was rocket science either, but apparently it, too, requires a Ph.D.  ;-) 

Posted by: Y-not at January 30, 2011 08:46 PM (pW2o

That's why I hated it when my Co. went to Business Casual.   Grey or Navy suit.  Black shoes and belt.  White oxford dress shirt.  Grab any tie, and you're out the door

283 I also wore an onion on my belt, which was the style in those days.

284

and men should do the ick.

I always take the wet spot.

Who am I kidding.  When I'm done with you, it's all a wet spot.

285 Hell,the world is all fucked up.They want gays and women to be combat infantry.

286 287 And disney torture.

Did I miss this topic?

Posted by: Rum, Goddess of Doom at January 30, 2011 08:53 PM (YxBuk)

Bebe said you had some plans for my visit home.  "Disney Torture."  Her words.  Things that make me say hmmm...

287 Sometimes I am disappointed in my own kids. Lazy, me thinks. I've got one who feels a video game score is more important than a Spanish test.

Posted by: sickinmass at January 30, 2011 08:46 PM (1rflU)

I'm with your kid on this one.  Pretty much anything is more important than a Spanish test.

288 It was fun watching 2 Caltech grad students completely unable to figure out how to do it.
-----

The Caltech grads I've known (and there have been a few) have been really unable to improvise or kluge anything mechanical. 

My hubby built a mass spec with spare parts scrounged from the attic of our little liberal arts college "science building" (yes, we only had one) as part of his physics senior project.  The Caltech physicist in one of my postdoc labs couldn't trouble-shoot an oil diffusion pump. 

289

Dumbass wimmin drivers!

I am assuming one was clueless and the other illegal or unlicensed.

What I don't get is that they hit hard enough they had to feel it, what did they think that sudden jolt and then the fact their car stopped moving backwards meant?

290 Men should never be allowed to clean. We don't see dirt until it attacks.

Boy BFF is seriously OCD about cleaning stuff.  I may, possibly, have been known to go outside and walk in the dirt then come back in and walk through his kitchen just to watch his eye twitch.  He does not seem to believe me when I say I am helping him via aversion therapy.

In my defense, this is the same Boy BFF who PUTS SPIDERS ON ME to "help" me get over the spider thing.  He so deserves anything I do to him. 

291 Nanny politicians are now seeking to put controls on E-cigarettes.

292 Remember the car batteries that you had to put water in?  My first car was a 1966 VW Squareback that had an oil bath air filter.  You could almost take the whole motor apart without using a wrench or screw driver. 

293 Bebe said you had some plans for my visit home.  "Disney Torture."  Her words.  Things that make me say hmmm...

Ohhhh, that kind of Disney torture. Why yes, yes I do.

294 Hey, anybody see my Couric video?  It's going viral on youtube.

295 Uh.  Fkn. Oh.

And yet it sounds like fun!!!  :-D

296 Every man should own a dremel, if they don't have an actual grinder.  And a bench vice.

297
Question -

I have a set of snow tires on rims. Every fall and spring I swap 'em out and rotate them. I put a little film of lithium grease on the lugs so they don't rust on. Is that OK? The lug nuts have never been loose when I've gone to change them, so I don't think it makes them too slick.

298 303 Your an intertube sensation!!

299 My three sons (yeah, I know - it's a bit of a cliche) have all learned to cook, do laundry, and do basic stuff around the house (my youngest - 18 - is quite the chef). My oldest has specifically asked Mom to show him how to sew buttons, iron shirts, etc. so that he can save money on tailoring and such things while off at school. They're all also VERY adept fisherman. We've always believed in self-sufficiency. The kids picked up the basics. -Tom PS: I'm an IT lifer, I do woodwork, calligraphy, I fix stuff around the house. Never learned a darn about auto-mechanics except how to change a tire although I do know how stuff works. Never got my hands dirty. Just wasn't common growing up in NY in the 60s-70s.

300

Hey, I resent this hatred for us youngin's.

 

Us men under 30 can find free, non virus filled, porn in under 20 seconds on the internets

301

What I don't get is that they hit hard enough they had to feel it, what did they think that sudden jolt and then the fact their car stopped moving backwards meant?

They probably both decided to get away from there--where I live, if there's a parking lot fender bender both parties get cited.

302 Lugs don't have to be insanely tight.

303 Men should never be allowed to clean. We don't see dirt until it attacks. That's the way I am. I wish I cared more about dirt for the sake of my visitors' comfort. Sadly, it just doesn't bother me.

304 43 38 To be truthful, I would hesitate to do more than open the hood on a modern vehicle.

Yeah, i still do the basics, plugs, oil and belts, but that's about it.

Posted by: booger at January 30, 2011 07:40 PM (9RFH1)

New cars still got all that stuff?  Last time I popped the hood all I saw was hoses.

305 Yay!

Geraldo is on with a two-hour special on the situation in Egypt!

306 Remember the car batteries that you had to put water in?

Wait, what?  They don't need the distilled water anymore?  When did that happen?

307 We don't see dirt until it attacks.

Dirt?  Or filth?  I don't care about disorder, but I don't like skrunge.  I keep my stuff in piles.

308 Hey, don't generalize the younger bunch. My 29 year old is a teacher, can cook, clean, sew and knit. My newly married 24 year old can cook, clean,bake up a storm, sew some and works her tail off as does her new husband of 26. My girls had a fortunate childhood but it's a mother's job to teach them what they need...

309

Men should never be allowed to clean. We don't see dirt until it attacks.

That's the way I am. I wish I cared more about dirt for the sake of my visitors' comfort. Sadly, it just doesn't bother me.

I'm the opposite. My house is freaking spotless. Even the spots no one else cleans. The top side of ceiling fan blades and tops of door frames.

I clean every sunday religiously. heh.

 

310 Hey, I resent this hatred for us youngin's.

Ben, dear, you are clearly an exception. After you took down the pricks at the art thread a couple of weeks ago, you're my hero even if you never cook a meal in your life.

311 109 This is all just hippies deflecting onto their children's generations hoping no one notices how bad the hippies have run the country into the ground. Their parents tried to teach them things but they were too busy getting high. Meanwhile the hippies we're lazy parents who didn't teach a thing and spent their self interested lives letting the television raise their children. Speaking as a member of generation X, yeah my generation is very useless but fuck look at who we came from. 

Posted by: Drew in MO at January 30, 2011 08:06 PM (ltqwL)

This.

312 Egypt has illegal Mexican's too?


You kill me.  Care to join my family for our next holiday meal?

313 My dad, not the handiest person ever, was adamant that I knew how to change a tire before I got my driver's license.

25 Years ago I hired a kid straight out of UNC-CH, you know we all make mistakes.

The second day he calls in and say he's got a flat tire, who should he call.  I had bought him a car.  I told him if he couldn't figure out how to change the fucking tire, he was fired.

Funny how quickly he learned.

314
And a bench vice.

----------------------

In the history of the Internet, has "vise" ever been spelled correctly?

315 Egypt has illegal Mexican's too?

I was their country first!!!!

316

# 310 That's already been established Ben.What else can you do?

317 241 " 3 foot long 1/2" drive SnapOn breaker bar "

That's the ultimate. SnapOn is great stuff. But a piece of galvanized pipe that slides over your ratchet handle will work, too.

Posted by: Bugler at January 30, 2011 08:45 PM (VXBR1)

Not necessarily.  I broke a socket AND a socket wrench in November putting snow tires on the truck.  I am definitely going to get a long breaker bar & an impact socket for both the car and the truck.

318 Geraldo is on with a two-hour special on the situation in Egypt!

Up next, The View takes a look at CERN accelerator.

Later, Regis and Kelly dissect the Steelers zone blitz tactics in advance of the Super Bowl.

319 "Dirt? Or filth? I don't care about disorder, but I don't like skrunge." I'm not understanding your terminology. Is it "skrunge" when it starts changing colors regularly?

320

Hey, I resent this hatred for us youngin's.

Ben, dear, you are clearly an exception. After you took down the pricks at the art thread a couple of weeks ago, you're my hero even if you never cook a meal in your life.

heh thanks.

Also, I can cook some things. I love to garden, so I always have vegetables which means I make  Chili, Stew, Salads, etc in the summer when the veggies are plentiful.

However, I can't cook anything complex. If it has more than 6-7 steps, its beyond me.

321 #307

That grease is probably OK.  This is what you should use.

http://tinyurl.com/6chtoyn

322 Posted by: CDR M at January 30, 2011 09:02 PM

Jerry Rivers just pronounced El-Baradei a "great guy" whom he knows personally.

Why didn't this clueless, muck-raking fuckstick take Keefums' slot over at MSLSD?

323

PGiS, I'm surprised their airbags didn't deploy or did they?

The one car was too old, the other one I'm kind of surprised it didn't.

Oh the best was, the one driver said “well everything was just sort of black because I’m wearing my sunglasses.” WTF?

324 Egypt has illegal Mexican's too?

Dude, don't fuck with Egyptian border guards.

325 Here's what I have to wonder, and let me apologize to the ladies here in advance for any offense.  Why would a guy in his 20s get married?

The women he went to school with got mostly low-value skills in college.  Low economic value, anyway.  They don't  want to stay home and take care of children, but on the other hand they're gonna make half what he makes and expect a joint account.  They don't cook or sew or do any of that traditional stuff.

What's in it for him?  He doesn't need to get married for sex.

326 In the history of the Internet, has "vise" ever been spelled correctly?
Posted by: schizuki at January 30, 2011 09:06 PM

Maybe when "lightening" strikes, the ability to spell goes Tango Uniform.

327 Also, I can cook some things. I love to garden, so I always have vegetables which means I make  Chili, Stew, Salads, etc in the summer when the veggies are plentiful.

So, your my ghey hero, huh?

328 337 Nothing.Women ruined it for themselves.

329 Ben I'm betting if you can tend to a garden for a whole season you can cook a meal more than seven steps. Just sayin'.

330 Jerry Rivers just pronounced El-Baradei a "great guy" whom he knows personally.

Bani-Sadr.

Bing it.  I'll wait.

331 Maybe when "lightening" strikes, the ability to spell goes Tango Uniform.

I'm certain I've made that mistake at least once.

332 @341 But that's a lotta damn work!

333 269 I also know how to jump a car battery. It was fun watching 2 Caltech grad students completely unable to figure out how to do it.
I stopped to help two young ladies trying to jumpstart one car from another, but uncertain how to hook up the cables.   In the spirit of "treach a man to fish", I told them I would coach them through the process.  Everything went fine and the dead car got started.  I had the one girl remove the cables from the battery, and turned my attention to the other one to get her to remove hers.   But the first young lady was so excited attheir achievement that she clapped her hands together in joy.  ZZZAAAPP.  She got hot sparks all over her blouse.   I accept responsibility for not giving complete instructions, but in my defense I want to mention that I burned my lips quite badly snuffing out the sparks on her bosom.   (...much of this story is actually true.)    

334 #337 The guy's meeting the wrong women....

335 Watch Geraldo.  The stache is on.

336 he second day he calls in and say he's got a flat tire, who should he call.  I had bought him a car.  I told him if he couldn't figure out how to change the fucking tire, he was fired.

Posted by: Kemp at January 30, 2011 09:04 PM (JpFM9)

That is pathetic.  I think a lot has to do with money, though.  When I was a college kid, I didn't have a pot to piss in.  So if the car didn't work, it was either fix it myself or walk.  So I learned.  My '71 Pinto was like a big erector set.  Being a '71 Pinto, it broke all the time.  Wheel bearing, tune ups, valve adjustments, brakes, water pumps.  I remember laying on my back in the driveway, aligning a new clutch with a broomstick handle.

337 Here's what I have to wonder, and let me apologize to the ladies here in advance for any offense.  Why would a guy in his 20s get married?

Regardless of what a woman takes away from college, WTH would a guy in his twenties get married anyway?

338 We're speaking in general here,of course there are exceptions.

339

 310 That's already been established Ben.What else can you do?

As far as what was listed by Laura.

I can cook some, as i stated above. I am good at gardening, vegetables, flowers, yard maintenance. I thoroughly enjoy yardwork unlike most people.

I can't sew, however, as stated by laura, shirts are so cheap that there is no point mending clothers. Why take an hour of my time to sew a rip when a new shirt is like 10-30 bucks?  That doesn't mean its a good skill to know, its just that there is no need to me to know it.

I can't change a car tire. I understand the concept, however I have this irrational fear that I will f^ck up using the jack and kill myself. And being crushed by my own car isn't on my top ten list of ways I want to die.

I think I could change my own car oil, but I've never tried. It doesn't seem like a complex process. I do maintain my car with the easy to refill fluids: Windshield, powersteering fluid, etc.  However, cars are so complex these days, I can't really do anything else.

As I talked about some time ago(maybe 6 months or so), I wish I knew how to do wood work or work with electrical equipment. I went to a liberal arts highschool, so while I took Physics, I never really learned practical application of it. I can't change an outlet, or replace a light fixture.

I will admit that there are a lot of practical things I am unable to do.

340 Here is how a household should be divided.

Women do the cooking, minor cleaning (countertops, floor, table and carpet) and a few minor other stuff.

Men handle repairing the dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, refrigerator, water heater, heater, AC and cars. It works out in the end as a man's job can take up the whole day.

341 346 #337
The guy's meeting the wrong women....

Posted by: Whippet at January 30, 2011 09:11 PM (KTSqp)

Well, sure, but they can't all marry the same 10% of the women.

342 Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at January 30, 2011 09:10 PM

I must be missing something here. Is there some connection between a sleazy Iranian politician, a sleazy Egyptian politician and Jerry Rivers?

Or are you just saying they're all power-mad clueless fucksticks?

343 Regardless of what a woman takes away from college, WTH would a guy in his twenties get married anyway?

Maybe he wants a family without needing a fertility clinic?

344 So I learned.  My '71 Pinto was like a big erector set.  Being a '71 Pinto, it broke all the time.  Wheel bearing, tune ups, valve adjustments, brakes, water pumps.  I remember laying on my back in the driveway, aligning a new clutch with a broomstick handle.

Posted by: Ombudsman at January 30, 2011 09:12 PM (c1oyg)

ha, I used to have a Trimuph TR6, the little trunk was just big enough to carry all the tools and spare parts you needed to go for a drive.

345 356 Ha!British cars.

346 I think a lot has to do with money, though.  When I was a college kid, I didn't have a pot to piss in.  So if the car didn't work, it was either fix it myself or walk.  So I learned.

That was me, too.  My fist car needed new u-joints.  "New whaaaa?", I asked myself.

347 "I will admit that there are a lot of practical things I am unable to do." Ben, here's the truth. Nobody knows how to do everything they need to do. Many things, though, are very easy to learn just by doing. If you need to move an outlet, cut the power to the circuit first. From then on, there are no safety issues involved. Just do it.

348 Bani-Sadr.

Bing it.  I'll wait.

Yessss? And your point?

349 ha, I used to have a Trimuph TR6, the little trunk was just big enough to carry all the tools and spare parts you needed to go for a drive.

This is a lie.  You could not have fitted an entire replacement TR6 in the trunk.

350

Ben I'm betting if you can tend to a garden for a whole season you can cook a meal more than seven steps. Just sayin'.

You would think so, wouldn't you?

It's not that I can't follow directions. It's just that is never seems to turn out right.

I've come to understand that I know what I can do in terms of cooking and I stick to it.

Besides I live alone with my dogs, so I rarely have any reason to cook anything more complex than a chili.

351 Here is how a household should be divided.

And if the guy is a better cook....? Or if the woman likes to fix stuff around the house.....?

352
#337 -

Guys are pretty good at assessing risk/reward. Not only do women today devalue themselves by being muffin-topped slobs, but they make themselves positively risky through sexual harassment laws, divorce laws that usually screw the man, domestic violence complaints that favor the woman's word over all, child-support laws that in extreme cases even stick him with the financial responsibility for her pre-existing bastard, and oftentimes a massive credit-card balance he's unaware of until the late notices start coming.

Compared to that, a life of video games and Internet-porn masturbation is safe and reasonably content.

353 I don't bother changing the oil in my or my wife's vehicle. It costs about $12 for parts & oil from Walmart/AutoZone or I can just take 15 minutes of my time and pay $17 to have some flunky try to up-sell me on everything they actually make a decent margin on. At least I do have the skill should it be actually required, that's something I guess.

354 Ben you can't change a tire?  It's not that hard.  If you're scared about crushing yourself, then get an inflatable jack that plugs into your cigarette lighter, it is a lot sturdier than the one that comes with the car.  The worst that ever happened to me is that I scraped my knuckles when turning the jack and my hand scraped the ground.

355 Bani-Sadr.

Bing it.  I'll wait.

Yessss? And your point?

I'm just feeling all 1979.  I think I'll go listen to some Molly Hatchet and watch "Dallas" on the tube.

356

ha, I used to have a Trimuph TR6, the little trunk was just big enough to carry all the tools and spare parts you needed to go for a drive.

Posted by: robtr at January 30, 2011 09:15 PM (hVDig)

was the TR6 the one shaped like a doorstop?  or was that the 7?

Triumph and MG- high on the cool factor, but more high-maintenance than my ex-wife

357 #351 

I think I could change my own car oil, but I've never tried. It doesn't seem like a complex process. I do maintain my car with the easy to refill fluids: Windshield, powersteering fluid, etc.  However, cars are so complex these days, I can't really do anything else.

Once you find the oil pan and figure out what screw to loosen, its relatively straight-forward.  However, since most oil changes are, what, 20 bucks (and you get some good synthetic oil and a 3-5,000 mile guarantee) its easier to pay somebody to do it for you.

Besides, the fact that you check the fluids regularly puts you light-years ahead of many people in our age-group. 

I will admit that there are a lot of practical things I am unable to do.

Still, you can do quite a lot and you know where to look to get information on the things you are unable to do at the moment. Take a bow, Ben, you're a better man than I am, . 

358

Uh...maybe they know what "4G" means. I sure don't.  Is it power, wi-fi connectivity....what?

Anyway, my 19-year-old daughter is very bright, but she's befuddled by the process of sewing on a button, or ironing. She can't cook anything that requires more than microwaving.  And this bothers her not at all. She CAN set a proper table, do laundry, write a prompt and polite thank-you note, and jumpstart a car battery. Luckily, she's very pretty and has.....

... her boyfriend, who is in the Marine reserves and going to college to complete his degree in awesome computer-y-ness. (I have no idea what it's officially called.) He lives in an off-campus apartment and he cooks, bakes, irons, cleans, repairs his own car, helped his dad build a dock at their vacation house last summer and pretty much does all the other stuff you'd expect an Eagle Scout-Marine-type to be able to do.  Plus he's been working as a computer tech since he was 15 and has quite a bit of money put away.  This kid paid his own way through Catholic high school because he didn't want to be a burden to his parents.

He's not perfect, but he's hella close.  I can't despair of the next generation when I know there are still kids out there like him.

359 365 Here is how a household should be divided.

And if the guy is a better cook....? Or if the woman likes to fix stuff around the house.....?

Posted by: laceyunderalls at January 30, 2011 09:17 PM (pRm7H)

I would agree there's no set division of labor, but things seem to work out better if the chores are divided into "my sphere of control" and "your sphere of control" than trying to alternate everything.

360

"I will admit that there are a lot of practical things I am unable to do."

Ben, here's the truth. Nobody knows how to do everything they need to do. Many things, though, are very easy to learn just by doing. If you need to move an outlet, cut the power to the circuit first. From then on, there are no safety issues involved. Just do it.

 

There is a light fixture in my unfinished basement. It's basic as can be, but a part fell off and it doesn't work anymore. It's the type you can pickup for 10 bucks at walmart. I know I can shut off the power, and I know I can probably replace it, however I am not so confident in my abilities that I would be willing to risk burning my house down in an electrical fire.

It's not getting juiced that concerns me(well it does but I know how to shut it off), I am concerned that I won't put everything back together correctly. And then when I turn the lights on, zap!

361 >>Wait, what?  They don't need the distilled water anymore?  When did that happen?

You are kidding, right?

Actually, I wasn't.  But, living in LA, my cars rarely last long enough to require any kind of major maintenance or replacement parts (they get stolen or wrecked -- none of it my fault, I hasten to add).

362 When I was younger, my mom became an expert at fixing everything because dad was out of town so much on business. If she was unsure of how to do something, she either experimented, called someone for advice, or read a chapter in a book.

363 And if the guy is a better cook....? Or if the woman likes to fix stuff around the house.....?

The first happens all the time (including Chez Circa).  The second?  Not so much.

364 It's not that I can't follow directions. It's just that is never seems to turn out right.

YES.  I don't get it.  This is the same problem I have.  So I don't want to take a $10 cut of meat and waste it on some complicated recipe and it will just turn out like crap.  So I stick with the ground beef/turkey recipes.

365 Ben, reminds me of a Dennis Miller line: "If I could have one super-power, I would select Paula Deen's ability to add ingredients without measuring."

366 190 130

#102......Instructions do not equate with ability.You little snot.

Spwffft! all over the keyboard. My sentiments exactly.

Little master of the universe, these twerps.
 

Search Google, 50,000,000 + entries  all day, we would have been fed and in bed by now...

367

was the TR6 the one shaped like a doorstop?  or was that the 7?

The 7 was the door stop the 6 was more boxy, bigger than the 7 so you could haul more tools.

368

I will admit that there are a lot of practical things I am unable to do.

Posted by: Ben

You can do just about anything you put your mind to. All of the stuff you mentioned has plenty of information available.

369 I'm just feeling all 1979.  I think I'll go listen to some Molly Hatchet and watch "Dallas" on the tube.

Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at January 30, 2011 09:19 PM (GZITd)

Ah, yes... Gator Country...a little bit of that chomp chomp...  and back when Victoria Principal had that hot little bod and actually looked, you know, human

370 #351....My advice to you Ben would be to learn one practical skill,concentrate on that and everything else will fall into place.I am a carpenterand I have been doing it for so long that my skills are second nature to me and can be performed with my mind completely elsewhere.Any practical application is only a step above common sense and with practise anything can be accomplished well.Persevere at learning one skill and your brain will adopt a practical mind set and other skills will follow smoothly.

371 ONT up.

372

Still, you can do quite a lot and you know where to look to get information on the things you are unable to do at the moment. Take a bow, Ben, you're a better man than I am

 

heh. I wouldn't go that far. Also on changing oil. I've never bought oil from a store. Is it as expensive in auto stores as it is a jiffy lube. Oil changes always end up costing me like 70 bucks. The labor is like 15-20 bucks and the oil is like 50.

373 I can't change a car tire. I understand the concept, however I have this irrational fear that I will f^ck up using the jack and kill myself. And being crushed by my own car isn't on my top ten list of ways I want to die.

Ben, you don't need to get under, in front of, or behind the car to change a tire. You will not get crushed. Unless the Hulk picks the car up and drops it on you. In which case your skill with a jack would hardly matter.

And if you like to garden, you probably would love woodworking. Power tools are fun. Start with some small item that you'd like to build and go from there.

374 Still, you can do quite a lot and you know where to look to get information on the things you are unable to do at the moment.

That's where the kids today have a big advantage.  You can just hop on the web and find out how to do just about anything these days, complete with step-by-step instructions and warnings where your intuition would lead you astray.

375 Ben, reminds me of a Dennis Miller line: "If I could have one super-power, I would select Paula Deen's ability to add ingredients without measuring."

Hunk of butter and "sugar" are actual quantities.

376 my dad tried to change the oil in my first car - he ended up draining the brake fluid instead!  good thing he noticed before I went for a drive

377 (they get stolen or wrecked -- none of it my fault, I hasten to add).

Posted by: Peaches at January 30, 2011 09:20 PM (zxpIo)

Heh.  That's right, it's SOCIETY'S fault!!!

378 There is a light fixture in my unfinished basement. It's basic as can be, but a part fell off and it doesn't work anymore.

No matter what the light fixture looks like, there's only two wires to hook up and the new fixture will have the instructions telling you which wire goes to which, you could do it in 2 minutes.

379

Men (Single Men) -

Learn to cook!!

Seriously. Master at least three to five technical meals.

Your date will find creative ways to thank-you!

Trust me on this.

380 Here's what I have to wonder, and let me apologize to the ladies here in advance for any offense.  Why would a guy in his 20s get married?

Posted by: Ace's liver at January 30, 2011 09:08 PM (QgI7g)

I'll go one further - why would any man of any age want to get married to a woman in the US?  It's a sucker bet.  The entire legal system is rigged, making it nothing more than a mechanism for transferring wealth from men to women.  It's best to just ignore any fathering instincts and just look out for your own best interest.  You can retire expat in the 3rd world where nubile young ladies will actually be grateful to be with some rich old duffer who'll rescue them from abject poverty.

I recently visited the Domincan Republic.  Met a guy - 80 years old - formerly a Canadian auto worker.  He went down there 5 years ago.  Now has 2 kids with his lovely 20-something bride.  The oldest kid is about 3 years old.  He's happy as a clam.

381 Ah, yes... Gator Country...a little bit of that chomp chomp...

Maybe it will bring gator out of hiding.

382 I can't change an outlet, or replace a light fixture.

-----------------

Step 1 - turn off circuit breaker. Make sure there's no power going to the outlet/fixture.

Step 2- get a screwdriver, take the cover off, pull the fixture out. Look at the wires. Put them in the same place on the new fixture.

All you need is one screwdriver, one needle-nose plier, and two eyes. You can do it.

383 The key to fixing new cars. Get the repair book. You can get your hands on the manufacturer repair book or a repair book printed by a company like Chilton's. They are illustrated with simple instructions. With the correct book, you can do anything to your car.

My first  car was a 1993 Dodge Neon. It had 160K miles on it. The thing was awesome to teaching tool for me.

384

Only 51 per cent of women aged under 30 can cook a roast

Roast what, tofurkey?

385 Posted by: Ben at January 30, 2011 09:20 PM (DKV43) First, you're right to be cautious about it. Work slowly and methodically. But if you replace the fixture and it works fine when you turn it on, it's done. You won't burn your house down.

386 Household repairs. Go to Lowe' or Home Depot. There they will have a book on basic household repairs of things like the Dryer, the Refrigerator, and Water Heater. It does not matter the make and model, they are pretty much the same.

387

@384

Thanks Pooh. I've been puting it off for ever, but I need to sign up for a class on basic electrical and carpentry work.

I've been wanting to build a nice tiered garden, I don't really know how to use tools very well.

I am good with a hammer, screw driver, ax and hatchet. Other than that, I'm a total novice.

I'm the type of person who learned by watching and through repetition. I sometimes tune into HGTV, but they often edit out the parts i need to see. They show the unfinished project, then the finished project.

1. house in disrepair

2.???

3. Show awesome fixed house.

I need to see step two and practice it.

388 lacey, do you have a suggestion on a good technical meal to master?

389

Posted by: Ben at January 30, 2011 09:20 PM (DKV43)

First, you're right to be cautious about it. Work slowly and methodically. But if you replace the fixture and it works fine when you turn it on, it's done. You won't burn your house down.

Yeah, i need to go out and get a class C fire extinguisher first.

390

However, I can't cook anything complex. If it has more than 6-7 steps, its beyond me.

If it has that many, I'm either too tired or too frustrated to eat it when it's finally done.

Ha, Soap, or ever worse, I've been snacking through each step that I'm not hungry when its done!

391 Wait, Ben, you live in Pittsburgh, right?  That means your house is built on the side of a hill.  Don't bother fixing it, because in a few thousand years it will wind up in the Monongahela River anyway.

392 Why don't guys in their twenties want to get married?

Because we saw how that worked out for our fathers and want none of that business.

393

Step 1 - turn off circuit breaker. Make sure there's no power going to the outlet/fixture.

Step 2- get a screwdriver, take the cover off, pull the fixture out. Look at the wires. Put them in the same place on the new fixture.

All you need is one screwdriver, one needle-nose plier, and two eyes. You can do it.

there are three wires right? isn't one a grounding wire? Is it supposed to be capped?

I've only owned the home for 16 months, so my concern is that i take the fixture down, and replace it the exact same way i found it, only to find out later it was installed improperly.

\

394

Wait, Ben, you live in Pittsburgh, right?  That means your house is built on the side of a hill.  Don't bother fixing it, because in a few thousand years it will wind up in the Monongahela River anyway.

Heh. I live on the Allegheny, but that is probably good advice. If I fix it up it will just make a great home for the mutated carp when it falls in the river

395 Ben, The "1-2-3" series of books published by Home Depot are great, IMO. You get general information in the first book, "Home Improvement 1-2-3," then buy the more specialized books as you need them for any projects you want to tackle. http://goo.gl/fbWwS

396 Ben, HD and Lowes have books on basic wiring as well.  The repairs that you want to do are pretty straightforward, and you should be able to do them easily.  Bugler is right just work slowly, carefully, and methodically.

At least you know that turning off the power is the first step!

Good Luck.

397 there are three wires right? isn't one a grounding wire? Is it supposed to be capped?

No, the ground will be the bare copper wire, just twist them together. The other two will usually be color coded black and white and those are the ones that need to be capped.

398

Thanks Hrothgar and Bugler.

I will probably pick up a book and give it a shot. I really need to fix it because it was the fixture I hooked up to grow lights. I start growing tomato seeds in my basement in march-april, that way they are ready to plant and I don't have to worry as much about the diseases you can get from Lowes and Home Depot tomato plants.

I'll probably try it after next weekend. On the off chance I do kill myself doing it, I want to make sure I see my steelers win one more superbowl before I keel over.

399 I don't believe in this ageist crap, and always say so, so consider it said.

Having said that, I do happen to notice that all the "non-user-serviceable" stuff that the current generation just can't seem to service was designed by the Boomerz, whose parents bitched the same line about them. Are we complaining that our kids are living in the world we made for them?

None of this applies to my kid, who teaches combat survival at a service academy, overhauls cars with his friends, and designs computers.

Yon Boomerz could never toughen up enough to cut their parents off Social Security. That's one skill the next generation has mastered. So who's smarter huh?

400 I'm of the younger generation. I don't have a Facebook or tweet. I talk to people in person. I can build a deck and paint a house and put up drywall. I can grill whatever and that's enough for me. However I've tried to learn how to fix cars and I have to say that doesn't lend itself to amateurs, especially the cars of today. Most people I know couldn't tell A hammer from a wrench nevermind build something. Manual labor and work are now foreign concepts to a majority of the younger generation. It's very sad.

401 Breaking: Baby Boomers Are Useless As Parents

fify

402

This is why my husband and I taught our kids these things, plus basic survival skills.  We taught all of them, with no gender bias -- boys can stand to know how to cook and sew; girls how to fix basic mechanical, electric, and plumbing...you never know when you may just have to shift for yourself

403

@417

Yeah, pretty much, lol.  We spent our money on French lessons and other improving shit when we should have been teaching her to peel potatoes.

404

@244

Not ME, total bullcrap. Unsubscribe......

405 Now I will have to go to harbor Freight and buy a spring compressor.

If you value life and limb, there's no way in hell you will ever trust either to a cheap, flimsy Horror Fright, made-in-the-Chinese-laogai spring compressor.

My local tire shop has a fat scar on the (concrete) wall where a high quality spring compressor that was being carelessly used by the 19-year-old new guy let go, with a fully compressed spring in it.

If that thing had hit said new guy in the face, he would not have had much of a face left.

Exactly the same thing would and will happen to anyone who uses a cheap spring compressor properly but has the thing fail. The amount of potential energy thus contained, and instantly released, is considerable.

406 Hmmm.  Having been born in 1980, I can tell you that one of those skillsets I will never develop is called "collecting social security which I just spent 40+ years paying into".  Thanks, Boomers!

407 "WTH would a guy in his twenties get married anyway?"

Because he's as loser who found a girl dumber and uglier than he is, and still couldn't get laid without promising marriage?

Just one situation.

408 Not that that there's anyone like that in my family, lying on the sofa watching the Pro Bowl right now.

409 I am sad for all of the young people who are thinking marriage is all about physical things.

That is nice,  but what you are doing when you get married is assembling a team.  It's you and the other person against the world.

My husband put me on the gurney when the shift change left me without nurses and my daughter was on her way.  And he got people to come take care of me by yelling at me like they were a mining crew.

I worked at a catalog order place and he worked loading mail when he lost his engineering job.  We saved our house and made it without declaring bankruptcy.

Now he's working in Africa because there were no jobs here,  and I have an eBay business.  We have 3 grandchildren and look forward to getting the house paid off and retiring so that we can putter in the yard together.

I miss him.  And I am sorry for all of you who don't understand what marriage is all about.

410 I've come to accept the fact that the majority of women now days are not even worth the thought.

411 407 Why don't guys in their twenties want to get married?

Because we saw how that worked out for our fathers and want none of that business.

Posted by: supercore at January 30, 2011 09:33 PM (ZUFNn)

There's a lot of sadness & truth in that.

412

@426 -

What?

I met a women so abused and stepped upon, that became the love of My life. 

 

How do they get that way?

 

I am in tears.

413 They didn't even let the punter kick the ball one more time.  Fuck the NFL.

414 Well, the older I get the better I was.

What I miss was the women that when they got married, they wore the white dress, that way they matched with the kitchen appliances.

Okay, I am going to run away now. LOL

415 Ironing a shirt isn't a "female" task.  As a 22-yo male paralegal I ironed my own shirts.  As a 47 yo lawyer I generally send them out.   However, occasionally one has to be ironed, and I do a better job than anyone else in the house (don't tell my wife).

416 Uncle Cranky and I are both 45 and the perfect team.  We both had to learn to cook out of necessity due to living with single working mothers who enjoyed hanging out at happy hour rather than home.  He has a very strong construction background and can build anything.  He can even work on cars.  I am the original (albeit female) McGuyver as I taught myself to fix things around the home as a teenager.  I was known for sewing vacuum cleaner belts back together.  Speaking of sewing, I made my first wedding dress (shut up).

All 4 of my kids started doing their own laundry once they were tall enough to reach the controls standing on a step stool.  By age 9 they were expected to be able to cook the entire family breakfast (pancakes, eggs, etc.).  They scrubbed toilets, dusted furniture, cleaned floors, did yardwork, and helped out with the vegetable garden.

In return they got a mother who made everything from scratch, sewed Halloween costumes, had time to volunteer for school and scouts, and is now receiving kudos from a few fiances who are grateful I taught them how to do stuff.

I had many a parent tell me that it was borderline abusive.  These are the same ones that are now still supporting the useless, whiny "emerging adults" they helped create.  My way was better.

417 "Ironing a shirt isn't a "female" task.  As a 22-yo male paralegal Sergeant I ironed my own shirts."

FTFY

418

@432 -

Yes, do all you can to teach them and show them love.

I'll probably get razzed for this comment, but what do they know?

419 @422 O bullshit Flash, you've got absolutely no intention of paying into that for 40 years, or for 20. It's not in your genes jeans djinns.

I got no dog in it, not on SS. But the altruisme, she does not fit you.

420 That is nice,  but what you are doing when you get married is assembling a team.  It's you and the other person against the world.

But that's the point.  When you assemble a partnership both the partners need to bring something or it's not going to work out.  I'm not saying every relationship needs to work the same way.  Just that there's no reason for a guy to marry a woman who can't do anything.

421 If I could opt out of paying into SS I would.  But this weird thing called them taking the shit straight out of my paycheck keeps getting in the way.  And this going broke in 2041?  When my retriement age is 2047 ( I think, unless it gets adjusted again)...  FAIL, government.

422

Why should I know anything about a car?  I live in an overcrowded city, and between insurance, fuel, registration/fees and never being able to find a FREAKING PARKING space, owning a car is quite possibly the most irresponsible thing I could do outside of molesting a tiger at the zoo.

 

Why should I know how to cook anything more than the basics?  I work all freaking day, I come home dog tired, and I just don't have the time or energy to throw in a roast chicken.  Better for me to grill up some cutlets and make a nice grilled chicken salad.  Takes about 10 minutes, tasty also.

 

Why should I know how to fix stuff?  I live in an overpriced apartment.  If something breaks, THE MOTHERF**KING SUPER BETTER HIGHTAIL HIS A$$ UP HERE AND FIX IT.  I pay for this crap, so I expect service.

 

All that said, if I owned my own home I'd learn this stuff.

423

When I was a teen in the early 70s, my parents were divorced, and my mom worked full-time.  My sis and I knew how to cook, clean, and entertain ourselves.  We also knew how to get into and out of trouble before Mom got home.  And we knew how to irritate the hell out of her stupid boyfriend.  All very useful skills!

424

"Affluence obviates the need for domestic skills"

I don't think that word (obviates) means what you think it means....

425 Maybe it's just me, my parents were always taking care of things themselves. I did learn to cook from scratch, set the points and timing on ignitions, basic carpentry and sewing. I do most of the maintenence on my truck myself. I can't say the same for my fiance, she only cooks. These days, I spend a large amount of time fixing other peoples computer problems. I don't waste my time trying to send picture messages from my phone, but I can fix driver problems, correct registry errors, the stuff that keeps computers running. My dad can't do that. And still, I'm pretty useless, cause none of that will help me get a job.

426 I'm mad I'm so late to this conversation Anyways, I'm 22, and didn't really learn how to cook, clean, sew, strip and clean a Glock, or build anything from my parents. I used the internet and trial and error to train myself. Why did they not feel like passing on these skills that they probably should have developed growing up? Well, my father was raised by a single mother who barely made enough to get by. With no father figure in his life he didn't really learn any of the boyhood basics unless someone at the YMCA or a neighbor took the initiative to show him some tips. Being the only white boy on the street didn't help either. However, he is far superior to my mother when it comes to keeping the house clean. My mother came from an immigrant family that was making a generational transition from farmers to city dwellers. Even though they still kept a few sheep and goats in the backyard, they were working in hospitals, factories, and cafeterias. They scrimped and saved to send her to Catholic school, purposely as far removed from their background as possible. So why did my parents see no need in teaching me handy daily life skills? Because they either didn't learn them when they were young, or they connect them with poverty. There are still foods that my parents won't allow for dinner, because they remember when times were tight and that was the meal they had for every day for weeks. There was perhaps an unnecessary shame they attached to their background, and because of that, they separated themselves from skill sets that used to identify their families as poor. Now, they've raised five kids in a high income lifestyle. Other than anecdotal stories of massive bus commutes, horrible hand me downs, or repurposing furniture someone else put out on the curb, we've never really had to go without the basics. Of course, there are still some things they are uncomfortable spending money on, but frugality never hurts. The funny thing is, at least three of the five of us have decided to learn the skills that our generation lacks. My sister seems to be training to be a ranch hand, even though my parents are determined she's going to college. My brother follows around our family company's maintenance crews, his friends' dads, or anyone willing to let him tag along in order to learn how to build, fix, or modify anything he's interested in. I'm at an Ivy League school (okay Cornell A&M), but since my freshmen year I've taken every free cooking, auto repair and sewing class offered at the local community centers. It just seems like since these skills are not common in my age group, it's a great way to differentiate myself. TL;DR? Don't worry, some of us are keeping domestic competency alive. If you want to know what new skills generation Y is developing, I suggest sites like Lifehacker.com. Sure, you can change the oil in your car, but your kid might be able to make a Hack-intosh.

427

This generation was told they were perfect, trophies for everyone. Its no wonder they don't want to take a chance, might be less then perfect. So Sad

428

On the other hand, the young have grown up in a new world and have other, brand-new and marvelous skill sets.

Maybe some of you can fill us in on what they are, because I'm drawing a blank here.~LauraW.

They suck dick better.

429

When I married my wife in '83(still a virgin), she could not only cook but could knit(carded and spun the wool she used for the knitting).  She sewed her own silk wedding dress.  This coming November will be our 27th anniversary.  Today she is a professional who brings in a low 6 figure income(we own our own consulting company re. oil business accounting services)

Neither of us has any college degrees but we both read voraciously and we live debt free without any help from friends or family and we never inherited a dime or ever will.  We just worked hard and didn't blow our money on foreign junkets or new cars or keeping up with the Jones's.

(we're Christians but Christians are so passe', right?)  

just sayin.   I'm not proud, but I am content.

430 Can't cook a roast?  For gawd's sake, sear it for 30 seconds a side, throw it in the crock pot on high for three hours and it's done.

Being single until I was 34 and not having a lot of money during my 20s, I had two choices as a man:  Learn to cook or eat shitty food.  Same with ironing, laundry and anything else that needed to be done around the apartment, duplex and now the house.

And my wife?  I teach her as much as possible - where the electrical panel is (and the labels), where the outside water turn-off is (and where the tool is to turn it off), how to start a chainsaw and use it safely, how to use a drill press, split logs and start a fire in the woodstove, change a tire ... just basic stuff.

I couldn't live with myself having to rely on other people to do things I should be doing.

431 My 21 year old niece learned how to alter and hem her pants because she can never find any that fit her the way she wants. Similarly, mending is a good skill if you like the clothes you have and don't want to replace them with something else. Cooking is an even better skill if you get tired of eating out or can't afford to. Fortunately, young people know how to use google where they can find instructions for roasting a chicken should they ever desire to do so. As their parents and significant others refuse to pay for their cars and clothing and as they learn how to get along on minimum wage jobs, the gen yers will learn cooking and sewing and mechanical skills cause they will figure out that paying a mechanic 25 dollars to change the brake light on your car is really not worth it.

432 322 Hey, I resent this hatred for us youngin's.

Ben, dear, you are clearly an exception. After you took down the pricks at the art thread a couple of weeks ago, you're my hero even if you never cook a meal in your life.

Posted by: Florida, I understand how you feel at January 30, 2011 09:03 PM (piMMO)

Hey, Ben, Florida, I doubt either of you are still on this thread, but if you are, I'd appreciate being pointed to this art thread.  It sounds like an interesting read.

 

Thanks.

433

Meh.  I'm late to the party, but I learned how to cook and do laundry when I was in high school.  I also learned the basics of sewing, since you never known when you need to repair a button or quickly sew a tear.

My automotive skills suck, but hopefully I'll have time to change that in the next couple of years.  In the meantime, I built a bed for myself, and know basic carpentry work.  More importantly, I know how to read up on the things that I'm not familiar with.  That is where most people suck.  They don't know how to do something, and they don't try to learn.

434 Carhop aspiratons unrealized at 15, only opening,frycook.I smelled like my fragrance was freesia-n-fries, but the worst gig was cleaning very hot large grill and lifting 40lb vats of boiling oil to pour into a drum. I stuck it out praying for a carhop opening, one day my Dad came to pick me up, he witnessed me haulin the hot grease and 86ed that job that day. I then went for the summer to Long Il. NY on family vac. My Uncle owned a Motel
/Rest.I stayed over and worked 7days ,0500-1300., plus room cleans for early checkouts. My cousin (my age) and I had all evenings and most weekends to swim&play. She often would help me with a quick room turnover.
The lower24 units were leased by the feds for public housing. There aren't words to describe the conditions inside; family of 5, in one room, Who all had "maids".They was sure "Impotent"!My uncle was so good to me though .Kept my paychecks in safe ,giving me all10 wks worth as I was boarding my flight home. He gave my cousin and I all the spending money a young girl could spend.(gubmint paid him handsomely to open rooms for needy;(his std.daily rate.) Free-market Capitalism at it's best. Once I was back home,Dad would call uncle Lenny & chew him  out for spoiling me. He was active duty AF32 yrs. Loud barken no bite,cornhusker.. that had a really committed work ethic.Sure miss the UNREGULATED  nonintrusive small gubmint...freemarket days of "penny candy"& five-n-dime stores!!

435

If you want your kids to have skills, send 'em to an Adventist school.  Work is a blessing and everyone gets blessed whether they want it or not. 

My hubby and his bro went to Adventist academy.  In addition to the 3R's, they learned how to fly a plane, worked in a laundry, did basic repairs and lawn service.  By graduation they had done roofing, cafeteria work, lawn maintenance, pool care, installed sprinklers, dug ditches, and had been employees in a successful school-supporting business . . . in short, they had mad skills. Like most of their peers, they went on to college degrees as well.  

Some academies run dairies, small farms or furniture-making businesses.  Most kids also have the option to go on a mission - often to build a school or put in a well in a third-world country. 

If you marry an Adventist academy grad, you get a guy who can fix anything. 

I went to public HS.  Meh. The only non-academic things going on there were underage sex and cocaine.

436 I don't think that word (obviates) means what you think it means....

You're right.
Oops.

437 Now now...let's not be dissing our future source of Soylent Green.

438 They are being programmed into reliance upon the government bread line.

439 Guilty as charged on not knowing "guy stuff", but at least I have the excuse that my Dad doesn't know how to do any of that either, so I never really had a chance.

Dad was super impressed that I replaced a blown window-regulator on my car.  After being raped by the garage the first time, I downloaded instructions from teh intertubes and replaced the next two to fail.

440

This cycle is self-correcting.

Not knowing how to cook, replace/upgrade a basic electrical fixture, build a shed, etc. is a fast way to going broke - and we're seeing it all around us.  A great many people are "house poor" simply because they are too stupid or lazy to mow their own lawn - or maintain a lawnmower.  Or because they eat out for EVERY meal, which is expensive (and unhealthy).

These people will learn that it's not what you make; it's what you keep.  When they see an "uneducated" neighbor living in a better home, they will realize that they are losing the race.

Very few of them will recover.  Most of these people are doomed.

The only question: can immigrants and other "work their way up" carry the economy?  Because these "affluent" kids are going to be broke soon.

441 As a young girl, my mother taught me to cook, iron, and sew, and still teaches sewing to girls in 4-H and gives lessons to adults too.    I'm shocked by how many women do not know how to do some of the basics of these things on even a simple level.   It is one thing to understand the concepts, but you also need to "practice" and learn from doing them rather than paying someone else to.  The money I've saved through doing it myself is substantial.  I don't buy the whole "don't have time to do things" excuse.  If you have time to watch TV, you have time.  I do alot of these things with the TV on in the background.

I also know how to drive a manual (that's all we had to drive when I learned).  Not real strong on mechanics, but I know the basics such as checking fluids, tire pressure and how to change a tire. 

If you want to get depressed, just watch the news results after a big storm that has people house-bound for a few days.... these people who can't cook for themselves are the ones out there getting in accidents and getting stuck because they just HAVE to get out for food and supplies.

442 I can iron and mend.  I don't.  It's boring and my time is worth more than that.

443

If the youth can't do something it's their parents fault for not raising them right. So I guess the " Greatest Generation" weren't such great parents..

By the way I'll take a girl with fantastic BJ skills over kitchen skills any day. Priorities

444 My aunt told me the story of how she went to a dorm for 4 college boys who complained of the tub not draining fast enough.
.
.
.
She found a cap to a shampoo bottle stuck in the drain and fished it out with her finger.

These boys are studying to become engineers.

We are doomed.

445 altın çilek - fx15 - leke kremi - yudali - zayıflama hapı - ozon yağı