Absolutely Anything Else

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Wow WiFi on the fridge, washer, etc.
You guys crack me up!
We have gone old school here, just the basics.

yeah i just like the basics too. A microwave oven, patently you only use it for microwave popcorn and defrosting things, it does not need to have 101 programmes on it that you never use. In my dialect, the slang for a microwave oven is a "ping", oobviously, because it goes "ping" when it is finished and you just "ping" things in it (in English there is no noun that cannot be verbed) but really all it needs is an "on" button, it is not as if you use the microwave oven to do anything fancy.

obviously one of the necessities is to have an american-style side-by-side fridge freezer that makes its own ice. That is just a basic necessity, ma'am.

Thoreaux said "simplify, simplify". The problem really is that all these machines nowadays have an electronic control unit instead of a mechanical clockwork timer or whatever, and it is just too tempting for a brand, to give brand distinction,. to have it do more features than the next brand. And when the ECU goes bust then you have to buy a whole new one, when it was mechanical you could usually repair it yourself. I think that is what makes me a good software engineer, that I fi]hate[/i] needless complexity, added features that nobody ever actually uses.

You get those microwave combination ovens that if you tell it your chicken weighs 3kg it will work out how long it will take to cook. No it won't. And anyway I know how long it takes the chicken to cook so now I have to kinda do back-arithmetic to convince it that the chicken is only 2.4kg because I want it to cook for two hours, again jusdt needless complexity.

What you really need though is a Bachelor griller (and the picture on there is of my bachelor griller, which I still have. They are great.)

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

We have gone old school here, just the basics..

I have a set of kitchen scales well a balance that you have the weights and so on when you need to measure things. The real fun then is that the weights are pounds and ounces, and the missus has never got used to that, and is constantly asking how much is a quarter of pound (it is 113 technically but well, you don't usually have to be that accurate, "about a hundred grammes"). For added fun, half my measuring jugs are in US Customary where a pint is sixteen ounces and the other half are in British Imperial where a pint is twenty ounces, just to keep her on her toes She got so fed up with themő she went and got a digital balance at Rossman, but then you have to plug it in, tare it, etc etc.

SimonTrew wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

Ours sings to us when its finished as wel

Ours just turns itself off, for energy saving etc, so there is always a bit of uncertainty of whether it has finished or has just given up. It has a little LED display with cryptic error codes and for some reason Media Markt did not supply the manual that has the Hungarian or English instructions, only the one that has French, German and various other languages.... this is fine for me because I am quite good at French but the missus doesn't know any French at all, there is a weird thing that it has four or five programmes but the rotary dial you can rotate all the way round so you can set it on programmes that do not exist then the microcontroller gets a bit confused and just puts ":" on its little LED display. Now I have discovered that, it is easy, make sure the programme control knob is actually on a programme not on a non-programme, but the missus did think for a while that it had somehow got really broken and nothing in the manual warns you against that, there is no kinda Troubleshooting section at the back of the manual as you might expect.

And this is Bosch, not some cheap Chinese import. I try to treat it nicely, I plumbed in its own water feed and wastepipe and it even has its own dedicated power socket, so you wouold think it would behave itself but it seems that its elektronik brane sometimes is too clever. I hate technology.

Its little LED display does tell you how long it has to finish as hours and minutesd, the missus must have put it on before going to work as it said 0:58 when I just went in the kitchen, but then when it does actually finish it turns itself off so you have no kinda visual indication that it has finished.

I get my manuals online these days, when they do give booklets they tend to be small I want something I can read. But saying that lots of products give you a link to get instructions.

SimCityAT wrote:

I get my manuals online these days, when they do give booklets they tend to be small I want something I can read. But saying that lots of products give you a link to get instructions.

Well that is kinda the point, now you have to have an internet connection to read the instruction manual... and the large display is not in the same room as the dishwasher, you want a paper manual so that you can read it while looking at the dishwasher, do you not? With all these online manuals, well I am glad they are available but really sometimes you want a legible user manual, on paper, I tend to print out the online manual,. somewhat defeating the supposed purpose of saving paper. (THe only paper they are trying to save is of the financial variety)

"If all else fails, read the instructions"

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Wow WiFi on the fridge, washer, etc.
You guys crack me up!
We have gone old school here, just the basics.

Oh pretty much every device now can be operated by wifi. Even Microwaves and kettles. Kettles so you can switch it on when you are in bed so its boiled by the time you get to the kitchen!

SimCityAT wrote:

Oh pretty much every device now can be operated by wifi. Even Microwaves and kettles. Kettles so you can switch it on when you are in bed so its boiled by the time you get to the kitchen!

yeah just one more thing to go wrong, when the wifi is out for some reason now you can't make a cuppa while you investigate the problem. Are you really that impatient that you cannot wait for a kettle to boil? Or is your bedroom just a very long way from the kitchen, do you live in the Palace of Versailles or something?

In the UK they advertise this brand alled Quooker, no idea how much it costs because no doubt expensive, and it is some gadget you have as a kitchen tap that instantly boils the water. OK, that is vaguely handy, but also extremely dangerous. No doubt somehow legally it is safe, but the idea that you can turn a tap on and boil the skin off your hands with scalding water seems a ridiculous idea to me. Where I used to work, the company insisted that we carried boiling water in a thermos flask from the kettle to the desk. This is because boiling water is an extremely corrosive liquid and is I think classified as such under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations (COSHH). Quite right too. Boiling water is quite dangerous stuff.

I rarely use the kettle as I only drink coffee, and we have a coffee machine. But the kettle we do have, you can change the temperature it boils to, and in doing so it changes colour.

2 summer ago my cousin from Conn. and his Thai wife came to Budapest.
Hadn't seen him since I was 4 years old.
Even without looking for a white man with an Asian lady, I knew who he was the second I saw him step off the train at Keliti.
They were here for about 4 days that trip.
He asked my husband to take him somewhere to wash and dry a load of clothing. They were doing a 3 week thing in Europe and wanted to do some washing while they had a chance.
The guys went out in the early morning to Bubbles where they have dryers and can do large loads all at once.
The day before I told his wife how much I liked her white jeans.
She has a perfect little figure and the jeans fit like a glove, didn't look like a cheap pair of jeans.
So my cuz did the wash and surprise , he had washed the colors with her white jeans.
They were a shade of pink.
I felt terrible for her really. no way to fix them.
This is the same cousin who spent $8,000 on a fridge for his home. Not sure it has Wi Fi or not though....
I only hand wash my better clothing pieces or dry clean them.
My husband is in charge of running the washing machine.
Fine with me, that is his one household job and he does it because he says I waste too much water.

Can't really mess up sheets and towels, those are the only items we wash at home in the machine.
Speaking of jeans, my niece and her friends wear a brand of jeans that  cost a min. of $175. USD.
Some sort of "magic" jeans I suppose. Come with bottom lifting sown in or something that takes off 10 lbs.
Allot cheaper to just do some squats.
See they have you covered  even if you are lazy these days.

SimCityAT wrote:

Oh pretty much every device now can be operated by wifi. Even Microwaves and kettles. Kettles so you can switch it on when you are in bed so its boiled by the time you get to the kitchen!

A Rube Goldberg machine:  the "proper" way to use your cell phone to make coffee in the morning.....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=909a1yWP0NM

SimCityAT wrote:

But the kettle we do have, you can change the temperature it boils to, and in doing so it changes colour.

now that is genuinely useful, because coffee you want at about 80  degrees C and tea you want next door to boiling, so to have a kettle that not-quite-boils is actually genuinely useful. I suppose technically they haven't reinvented the boiling point of H20, pure water boils at 100C by definition, at standard atmospheric pressure, but I get the drift, yeah, that would make sense. This Quooker thing, that you get boiling water from your kitchen tap, just seems to me an accident waiting to happen. they don't say the price but I bet it is expensive. I will gues 400 GBP and now I will try to find out how far I am out.

.... I seriously underestimated. I went to their website and yoou have to buyz a tank (basically a miniature boiler) which they dont say on the adverts, I selected basically at random and so far I am at 1600 GBP. I can add a stainless steel soap dispenser for 290 GBP or a scale (limescale I presume() control for 245 GBP or a mounting bracket for 95 GBP (WHAT? FOR A BRACKET?)

Er i think I will stick with the kettle, thank you, and when it gets a bit scaled up I will go to EuroFamily get some citromsáv (powdered citric acid) and descale it for about 300Ft.

Please excuse me while i try to pick myself off the floor, 750.000oFt for a kitchen tap?!

SimonTrew wrote:

when the wifi is out for some reason now you can't make a cuppa while you investigate the problem.

Good point.

Actually, I know a lot of people who have morning coffee made by wifie.

Not here. I am the one who makes the coffee in the morning, and I bring it to her. 

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

So my cuz did the wash and surprise , he had washed the colors with her white jeans.
They were a shade of pink.
... snip ....
My husband is in charge of running the washing machine.
Fine with me, that is his one household job and he does it because he says I waste too much water.

Yes, we men will sometimes put the colors in with the white to save water and money. Sometimes we ain't as smart or cost effective as we think we are. Especially when one must buy new cloths (or learn to love pink).

P.S. Is water really that expensive in Budapest to worry about "wasting" water in a washing machine? I know in CA it was certainly something to watch. But when our entire water bill for a year here is less than $50, I don't really worry too much about running a few more loads. Especially with fitted sheets, which can bundle up other things in the machine, get out of balance in the drum, and damage the machine. In our case, my wife says it is a waste of water to wash just sheets, and I say, "Sure, but a new washer costs 80,000 HUF. So we are going to spend the darn 8 forint on water and wash that sheet separate!"

SimCityAT wrote:

wifi

Upon first arrival, it took me a while at first to know what Hungarians were talking about when they mentioned WiFi, since they seem to pronounce it "wee-fee".

I have, out of fear, never asked how they pronounce "GIF".... That is a kettle of worms enough just in English.

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

when the wifi is out for some reason now you can't make a cuppa while you investigate the problem.

Good point.

Actually, I know a lot of people who have morning coffee made by wifie.

Not here. I am the one who makes the coffee in the morning, and I bring it to her. 

Well what you could do perhaps to save your diurnal peregrinations is have some kind of moving kettle.... perhaps something like this?

It is only a prototype but on the back you can already see we have incorpoorated a biscuit barrel....

We have a Whirlpool washer here that seems to take hours and does about 3 fill ups if I just set it and walk off.Not so much the cost but the electric going and going for hours for some sheets is a waste.
My husband has it down to his "system", all good gives him something to do.
Not going to buy another machine here, if this one goes we will probably try Bubbles once a week until we either move elsewhere or break down and buy a another machine.
Been going now for 12 years although in total it's probably been used only 8 years.

My cousin just got sloppy with his wife's white jeans.
He could of used a second machine for whites but didn't think it was a biggie....
Guess back home he never does any laundry. He let her sleep in while he did the wash, sometimes it doesn't pay to let someone do you a good turn after all.
I did the dumbest thing ever once, was sloppy and too lazy to check the pockets of a old pair of blue jeans my husband had.
We had just moved to another state and had not opened up a new bank account in that state.
I washed his jeans in the machine and when I opened the top up I about had a heart attack.
He didn't tell me he had $10,000 worth of 100 bills in the pocket!
Had them drying all over the place on the floor.
Got an ear full for that one!
Lesson learned, check all pockets!

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

We have a Whirlpool washer here that seems to take hours and does about 3 fill ups if I just set it and walk off..

The front loaders that are common in Europe take forever to do a simple wash. I had where I used to live i n the UK an American top loader that came out of a launderette/washeteria and that did indeed just have two buttons for "white things" and "colored things", perhaps it was a Southern US washer so that the whites and the coloreds had to be separated.... that was a Phiolios/Whirpool but it would do a whole cycle in 24 minutes and I still had the coin-op on it so that was rather good as the missus had to find a 50p piece before she put the washing on.

So it became a bit of a piggy bank as well. (Yes I could have taken the coin-op off but by Christmas I had about 25 pounds in 50p pieces).

The really weird ones are the Hungarian ones that are top loading but have a rotating drum inside them, in the X axis, ie the spindle is horizontal,  that just seems the worst of both worlds. American top loaders are much better than European front loaders, really, because with a front loader the poor old drum is always fighting against gravity, it makes far more sense to have the spindle, rotor, rotating around the Z axis ie skywards where it is not always fighting against gravity and the wetter and heavier the clothes are the harder it has to work and usually you have to replace the bushes on the drum every coupkle of years which is not expensive but a bit of a fiddle to do, especially when you have seventeen and a half pairs of pink socks,  three slightly pink bras, and one green sock that you don't remember ever buying its other one,, and the missus is going to be home soon....

YOu are not allowed to have electricity in wet rooms in the UK so you can't usually put a washing machine in your bathroom in the UK, there are rules of how far away it must be but basically if you can touch an electrical point while you are in the bathtub it is illlegal. So the washing machine tends to live in the kitchen hence get a front oloader so it fits under the counter. But really front loaders are rubbish, top loaders are much better

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

......
I did the dumbest thing ever once, was sloppy and too lazy to check the pockets of a old pair of blue jeans my husband had.
We had just moved to another state and had not opened up a new bank account in that state.
I washed his jeans in the machine and when I opened the top up I about had a heart attack.
He didn't tell me he had $10,000 worth of 100 bills in the pocket!
Had them drying all over the place on the floor.
Got an ear full for that one!
Lesson learned, check all pockets!

So you became a money launderer!

The other thing to check for is packets or single tissues.  Last thing you want to do is spend hours picking off the bits from your clothing.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I washed his jeans in the machine and when I opened the top up I about had a heart attack.
He didn't tell me he had $10,000 worth of 100 bills in the pocket!
.....

Got an ear full for that one!

Seems to me you did him a favor. Up to 3,000 different types of bacteria can be on any bill. You were just lovingly taking care of his health.

fluffy2560 wrote:

The other thing to check for is packets or single tissues.  Last thing you want to do is spend hours picking off the bits from your clothing.

The missus does that all the time. Hungarians seem not to understand the concept of a cotton handkerchief, they always have these packets of disposable tissues. The washing machine is her kind of idol, and I am in trouble if I go anywhere near it. I

When she is working away from home I just select the "bloke mode" program on a sixty minute cycle and everything comes out just fine, but when she is in Hungary, well, I would be in big trouble if I went anywhere near it.

Also she always leaves the door of it open.- Why? Just so that if I can walk past it I can whack the door off its hinges as it breaks my thigh?

SimonTrew wrote:

..... especially when you have seventeen and a half pairs of pink socks,  three slightly pink bras, and one green sock that you don't remember ever buying its other one,, and the missus is going to be home soon....

YOu are not allowed to have electricity in wet rooms in the UK so you can't usually put a washing machine in your bathroom in the UK, there are rules of how far away it must be but basically if you can touch an electrical point while you are in the bathtub it is illlegal. So the washing machine tends to live in the kitchen hence get a front oloader so it fits under the counter. But really front loaders are rubbish, top loaders are much better

I seem to remember you can get  a special wash for the machine which will remove the pink from clothing.  So long as it hasn't dried, these special washes will get it out.  I don't recall seeing them here but maybe at the Euro Family discount store - they have stuff like that.

I quite like the frontloaders - you can see what is going on.  Even better are the Asian designed machines with very large doors at the front and more importantly, direct drive motors (with no belt to break).   However, we've had several Asian designed machines, like  Hyundai or something but they broke down the same as all the others.  We've got an Elektra Bregenz washer at the moment which we bought in Austria.  We thought this was a "quality" Austrian brand but we've found out it's actually Turkish (company is Arçelik) and made in the same place as Beko machines (these have a reputation of catching fire!).

We don't bother fixing the washing machines now, it costs too much to get people to come and do it.  It's not very PC or green, but we might as well just go and buy another one with a 3 year guarantee.  Shame really. 

I've got a large 23cm angle grinder which has a defective double action safety switch in the handle.  You have to press two buttons in sequence to make it go.  Works fine apart from the switch but can I find the switch anywhere?  No, course not.  The switch might cost 3000 HUF but I can buy a new angle grinder for 30K HUF in OBI.  It's been a faithful servant, cutting stone, paving slabs and larger chunks of metal.   Stupid if I have to throw it out.  I'm holding out hope of finding the replacement switch.

SimonTrew wrote:

but a bit of a fiddle to do, especially when you have seventeen and a half pairs of pink socks,  three slightly pink bras, and one green sock that you don't remember ever buying its other one,, and the missus is going to be home soon....

  That is funny.

But seriously, I stopped buying any white underwear and socks about 30 years ago to avoid the entire pink thing ever happening. That includes my bras.....   

SimonTrew wrote:

YOu are not allowed to have electricity in wet rooms in the UK so you can't usually put a washing machine in your bathroom in the UK, there are rules of how far away it must be but basically if you can touch an electrical point while you are in the bathtub it is illlegal. So the washing machine tends to live in the kitchen hence get a front oloader so it fits under the counter. But really front loaders are rubbish, top loaders are much better

Lived for years with top loaders in the USA. A real pain to reach in and down to get out cloths. Prefer the front loaders myself to just dump out cloths. You can also vertically stack a washer/drier so saves floor space, they use less water (if one cares about that), and less damaging to cloths (I have read). Yes, they take longer. But I don't watch my cloths wash, so I could not care less how long it takes.

The top drum loaders in Hungary are intended as horizontal space savers as not everyone has space for a wide machine or wants to stack. I consider them compromises for space saving realities mostly. Considered that design when we were remodeling, but then went to look at some and was really unimpressed. The design means opening the drum, and there is bare metal there to reach your hand in and pull (up -- ew) and out cloths and I could expect something eventually catching on that somehow. That design really has a lot of problems. But again--- if one has no other space option it is the way to go I suppose.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I've got a large 23cm angle grinder which has a defective double action safety switch in the handle.  You have to press two buttons in sequence to make it go.  Works fine apart from the switch but can I find the switch anywhere?  No, course not.  The switch might cost 3000 HUF but I can buy a new angle grinder for 30K HUF in OBI.  It's been a faithful servant, cutting stone, paving slabs and larger chunks of metal.   Stupid if I have to throw it out.  I'm holding out hope of finding the replacement switch.

Curious --- what exactly is broken about the switch? Could it not be re-fabricated as a DIY project?

Fluffy2560 wrote:

I've got a large 23cm angle grinder which has a defective double action safety switch in the handle. ... I'm holding out hope of finding the replacement switch.

Hmmm.,.,. it is possible that Lomex Electronics near Lehel Piac in Budapest would do it. For that kind of hardware, also there is a shop on Baross utca in Budapest near the 24's tram depot, it is on Orcy utca. Gsearch is giving me results for "Orcsy Household Appliance Service & Parts" in Rakospalota which is where I live, which may be the same outfit or maybe not, you know how Google tries to second guess you, I know where the shop is but cannot find a link online They don't just do spare parts for that, I imagine you would be able to pick up not the switch cover but the underlying switch from one of those two.

127 Baross utca, the tram stop is orcsy utca on the corner and it is about o100 metres from there. I guess but don't know that the one in Rakospalota is the same outfit, as I have never been to that one and was unaware until now that it existed.

I agree it is a shame to have to throw them out for the sake of a contact switch or whatever.

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

but a bit of a fiddle to do, especially when you have seventeen and a half pairs of pink socks,  three slightly pink bras, and one green sock that you don't remember ever buying its other one,, and the missus is going to be home soon....

  That is funny.

But seriously, I stopped buying any white underwear and socks about 30 years ago to avoid the entire pink thing ever happening. That includes my bras.....   

SimonTrew wrote:

YOu are not allowed to have electricity in wet rooms in the UK so you can't usually put a washing machine in your bathroom in the UK, there are rules of how far away it must be but basically if you can touch an electrical point while you are in the bathtub it is illlegal. So the washing machine tends to live in the kitchen hence get a front oloader so it fits under the counter. But really front loaders are rubbish, top loaders are much better

Lived for years with top loaders in the USA. A real pain to reach in and down to get out cloths. Prefer the front loaders myself to just dump out cloths. You can also vertically stack a washer/drier so saves floor space, they use less water (if one cares about that), and less damaging to cloths (I have read). Yes, they take longer. But I don't watch my cloths wash, so I could not care less how long it takes.

The top drum loaders in Hungary are intended as horizontal space savers as not everyone has space for a wide machine or wants to stack. I consider them compromises for space saving realities mostly. Considered that design when we were remodeling, but then went to look at some and was really unimpressed. The design means opening the drum, and there is bare metal there to reach your hand in and pull (up -- ew) and out cloths and I could expect something eventually catching on that somehow. That design really has a lot of problems. But again--- if one has no other space option it is the way to go I suppose.

Why are top loaders so popular in the States?

Front loaders are so more practical, just put the basket in the front open the door........

SimCityAT wrote:

Why are top loaders so popular in the States?

Price. They are cheaper. Americans want everything to have a super cheap retail price, then only buy it when it is on sale.

SimCityAT wrote:

[
Front loaders are so more practical, just put the basket in the front open the door........

Oh to an extent I suppose. I am five foot eleven that is what 178cm or something in new money so that to reach in to a top loader I can see your point, it is not a problem for me, but the missus is only five foot two whatever that is, about 155cm iI guess, so it would be a struggle for her, I see the point.

And anyway the washing machine is next to the sink in the utility room and the basket belongs under the sink cupboard so iot is really easy, with something almost approaching planning the washing machine door opens on the left side, cupboard door on the right siode, and so can open both at the same time without any particular claim of ambidexterity, out, in, out in the garden to dry.

When I lived in Texas I was in an an apartment complex and I would put my clothes on the balcony to dry but the management complained and said I had to take them in. I asked them where am I supposed to dry my clothes then? In your dryer. WHAT? It is 130 degrees fahrenheit and I have to put the clothes into the dryer and waste electricity?  I mean it was just a clothes horse on my balcony but nope, you are not allowed to dry clothes in the sunshine, you have to put them in an electrical clothes dryer. Ridiculous.

My first house was a maisonette (that means that it was two stories/storeys wioth someone else living in a flat below me)  which had underfloor heating. I was single at the time so just used to lay the clothes out on the floor and put the underfloor heating on, that worked quite well too. Still better to dry your clothes in the sunshine but if it is raining all week, put them all on the floor and that will dry them out. Of course you can only do this if you are a bachelor beause for some reason women do not fall in love with you when all your boxer shorts are arranged in rows on the floor of your living room...

SimonTrew wrote:

When I lived in Texas I was in an an apartment complex and I would put my clothes on the balcony to dry but the management complained and said I had to take them in. I asked them where am I supposed to dry my clothes then? In your dryer. WHAT? It is 130 degrees fahrenheit and I have to put the clothes into the dryer and waste electricity?  I mean it was just a clothes horse on my balcony but nope, you are not allowed to dry clothes in the sunshine, you have to put them in an electrical clothes dryer. Ridiculous.

Welcome to Merica.... Or maybe to Texas. Because they are at times not the same thing.....

klsallee wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I washed his jeans in the machine and when I opened the top up I about had a heart attack.
He didn't tell me he had $10,000 worth of 100 bills in the pocket!
.....

Got an ear full for that one!

Seems to me you did him a favor. Up to 3,000 different types of bacteria can be on any bill. You were just lovingly taking care of his health.

Yes, literally doing money laundering!
At least I can now swear that they do use fine great quality paper to print money with.

As far as leaving the door open with the washing machine, probably a good way to air it out although, yes, I can see where it could be a danger to walk into.

Dang, have done so many dumb things over the years, sometimes I think my life was an episode of ,"I Love Lucy" I can seriously see myself and Lucy with my  own Desi, poor thing always having to clean up after my mistakes.
Instead of a Cuban accent it's a Hungarian one, " you ARRR darivng me crrazzy"!

Money is filthy, as a dealer I washed my hands so many times during the day after touching money and checks( chips) that I thought my hands would go raw.

SimonTrew wrote:

My first house was a maisonette (that means that it was two stories/storeys wioth someone else living in a flat below me)  which had underfloor heating. I was single at the time so just used to lay the clothes out on the floor and put the underfloor heating on, that worked quite well too. Still better to dry your clothes in the sunshine but if it is raining all week, put them all on the floor and that will dry them out. Of course you can only do this if you are a bachelor beause for some reason women do not fall in love with you when all your boxer shorts are arranged in rows on the floor of your living room...

That is funny.
When I met my husband and went to his flat/apt. his towels had been washed with so much soap that the stood on their own, so rough and stiff.
At least I hope it was from too much soap!

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....
That is funny.
When I met my husband and went to his flat/apt. his towels had been washed with so much soap that the stood on their own, so rough and stiff.
At least I hope it was from too much soap!

You want to experience rough clothes?  Try 1980s British Military standard issue green "hairy shirt" used for day to day duties.  Like someone had made it out of sandpaper.  When you got a new one, it was wash it several times and plenty of fabric softener.  I think they must have made them out of old sacks and cardboard.

fluffy2560 wrote:

You want to experience rough clothes?  Try 1980s British Military standard issue green "hairy shirt" used for day to day duties.  Like someone had made it out of sandpaper.  When you got a new one, it was wash it several times and plenty of fabric softener.  I think they must have made them out of old sacks and cardboard.

Nah, it was before the days that men were expected to "exfolliate" with poncy creams and stuff like that-

I like my towels to be really rough, when they come out of the hotel when the missus permanently borrows them, they are far too soft, sometimes she can hardly close the suitcase, they take ages to get nice and rough,

And what is this fabric softener of which you speak? Now I understand why you are called "Mr Fluffy"....

klsallee wrote:

Welcome to...Texas.

At that time when you got out of the intercontinental airport,. going into Houston was a sign saying "Welcome to Texas. Drive Friendly". I was forevr wanting to get a magic marker and add ith a vinculum "il" so that it would say "Drive Friendllily" as it should do of course (In my British English). It is creeping into  british English, thios business of using adverbs as adjectives. It is absolutely right in American English, but in British English it is wrong to say "fly right" or "stay cool" and things like that. Divided by a common language, as Wilde said, but he was Irish so what would he know?

"Don't Mess with Texas" was absolutely brilliant slogan  and people did not drop their litter/trash like they do in Budapest, absolutely brilliant.

Texas... Takes days to drive right through that state.
Going cross country by car as a kid we would celebrate everytime we crossed a state line. By the time we crossed Texas the game was stale .
Some of my best buddies have come from the Lone Star state, cool, straight forward people.
My first step-dad kept his Army blanket, itchy olive green, very warm but we kids never wanted to use it, made ones skin itch so much you couldn't fall asleep.
That's probably done on purpose to keep the military on their toes at all times.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Texas... Takes days to drive right through that state..

i remember the sign as you come into Texas on Interstate 10 back from Louisiana, "Welcome to Texas. Houston, 110 El Paso 867" (miles),

The worst day in Texan history was 1 January 1959.... that was when Alaska became part of the US (the US having got a bargain by paying the USSR two cents an acre and texas was ono longer the largest state in the Union. I loved living in Texas, they do consider themselves a bit separate from the rest of the US and they still have the right to recede from the Union whenever they feel like it.

Louisiana is weird for me because I speak French French quite well nd my ex is Canadian French and half her family speak French and the other half English, but cajun French is really hard for me.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My first step-dad kept his Army blanket, itchy olive green....

In British English we call it "Olive drab", and your uniform are your "drabs". you get "grey drab" in the navy etc, "battleship drab" and so on, this is mostly a military term. Back in the seventies, one paint manufacturer managed to come up with a  paint colour for home decorating called "drab" I can imagine the conversation, "Well,. Fred how shall we redecorote the place, what colour shall we do it... oh let's do it all drab...".

When I was growing up you could tell where people worked from what colour their car was or the colourof their living room. As they would permanently borrow a bit of paint from wherever they worked. If they worked for the British Royal Mail, their car would be painted Post Office Red, for example. The roof in my country hovel is sheeted with rubber tiles permanently borrowed from the baggage conveyor belts of the old Terminal 1 at Ferihegy airport, and all the floor tiles in the kitchen have a remarkable resemblance to the floor tiles in that terminal.... (this was not my doing, this was many a year ago)

I note that the CIA World Factbook still has (as it has had for many years) the United Kingdom's comparative size as being "slightly smaller than Oregon"

It is a bit of a backhanded compliment by the CIA that we "brits" are only slightly smaller than Oregon. Couldn't they have picked a more interesting State and say we are half the size of Cailifornia or about the same as Florida? What ever happens in Oregon? Is that where all the oregano originates?

Although at least now it also says "twice the size of Pennsylvania" which makes me feel a bit better, at least William Penn was British

I live near one of the larger cemetaries in Budapest,. and it is a continual hazard to me that the flower sellers block up the pavement with buckets of geraniums and other vegetation when I just want to walk past.

I have complained about this to the polgarmeister, the district mayor, but he says he can't do anything about it and I need to speak to some bloke called Hugh.

Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist foyers.

SimonTrew wrote:

The worst day in Texan history was 1 January 1959.... that was when Alaska became part of the US (the US having got a bargain by paying the USSR two cents an acre and texas was ono longer the largest state in the Union.

As you brought up Alaska, I bet Russia kicked itself after they sold it in 1867. Because in the 1890's they found gold and then oil & gas, but they still didn't too badly getting $7.2 million ($110,000,00 today value) So the critics who said the area had nothing to offer had to eat their words. Not something I would have thought of buying, extreme temperatures, over 100 volcanoes and roughly 5000 earthquakes a year!

Alaska,
I once was cutting a ladies hair and she mentioned she was visiting from Alaska.
She mentioned she was single and visiting her mom.
To make conversation I told her I heard the odds of finding a husband is Alaska were good.
I just about cut a hole in her hair when she made me laugh, she said to that commnet,
"Yes, the odds are good BUT the goods are odd"!
Funny but probably true, not everyone
wants a mountain man with a 3 foot long beard and a axe in hand at all times...

We know a Hungarian Gypsy guy who lives in Hawaii and is married to a Inuit women. Talk about an odd couple!
He is a super nice guy but seriously the laziest person I ever knew.
Got a piece of land in a drug deal maybe 30 some years ago and doesn't even have a paper on the place to prove it's his.
Never bothered putting in plumbing or electric, just put up a wood shack that has open slats in places.
Ok, they can live anyway they wish to but they raised two boys in that shack. No toilets, no showers, just a water catchment in the yard.
Near a large forest area which gives them plenty of WC space!
My husband made me laugh hard by my having a mental visual seeing them all jump into the old half running car.
He said sometimes they will all pile into the car and drive to the mall to have a family day out and be able to use a real WC!!!
I went to their house/shack just one time before we moved away to say goodbye to them.
Sort of depressed me because mom was passed out from eating mushrooms half way through the dinner of burnt beans on the fire.
I felt bad for those kids, who knows though, they may become perfect citizens and do well in life??...
The first time I met that inuit women I decided to not be close to her at all,the thing is my husband and they were down at a local beach and I drove my car over to met them all.
My husband has a van at the time. The women was sitting in the back of our van drinking wine out of a gallon jug.
Hey, I like wine but gallon jugs? She could do what she wanted with her life but what really got to me was she was a good 6 to 7 months pregnant with her 3rd kid. Not good, not cool.
She lost the baby, well no wonder really.
Another time a HU lady we knew there and her HU husband were driving along one of the lonely mountain roads in the Puna area of Hawaii.
They saw a body in the road, right smack in the middle of the roadway.
They stopped and got out, it was the Inuit women passed out drunk in the road with her dress up to her waist and she was going commando style!
People ask me why I ever moved away from Hawaii, well I have to say it is a odd place like Alaska is. Either you fit in or you don't.
I lost all respect for that women as a mother and a women.
Sad because she probably has some issues and needed a friend.