Help Me Stop Being a Jerk?

Samir Mehta | October 21, 2015
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Steve West | October 21, 2015
I suspect a large number of people utilize these scooters for pain relief. Some disabilities have associated pain such as arthritis, other joint issues, etc. Some diseases make their sufferers bear chronic fatigue such as MS. And others make mobility itself an issue like polio and Parkinson's. I try to bear the scooters as I can thinking of how these folks must be in some type of pain which I know nothing about.

My pet peeve is people who park in Handicapped spaces because their car has a sticker on it but it's a car borrowed from someone who is actually handicapped.

Samir Mehta | October 22, 2015
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Scott Hardie | October 22, 2015
Even for people who are merely obese and don't have other disabilities, I don't judge scooter use. I can attest that once you weigh a certain amount, it's really difficult to keep standing (let alone walking) for long periods, and if you weigh much more than that, it becomes impossible. Imagine strapping five hundred pounds of rock to your body and walking around with that. These people know that they should walk more and should lose the weight; the irony is not lost on them. Somebody who is only somewhat obese and still able to get around, who is being lazy and taking the scooter, that person might deserve derision -- but there's no way to tell for sure who is whom.

Steve, does your pet peeve cover able-bodied people taking delight in parking with a handicapped companion so that they can get the good space? Kelly and I used to take her mother around town and use her handicapped placard ("Pat's Preferred Parking" as we called it). Even though she was with us and needed it, it still felt a little bit like we were getting away with something.

A cultural blind spot for me that makes me feel like a jerk is not sharing joy in holidays or other cultural events. It used to be that holidays were a single day, with perhaps a few days of excitement leading up to it. Now they seem to go on for weeks. As soon as October 1 came around (I noticed the date at the time), up went the Halloween decorations in my neighborhood, and Facebook became a stream of Halloween posts, for a holiday that was still five weekends away. I feel like a jerk, because I'm supposed to go to a costume party this weekend, but I feel like costumes are for children and I don't enjoy wearing them. If you're out of grade school, I don't understand what you're supposed to get out of it. Another big cultural happening right now is Star Wars: We seem to be drowning in constant Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars everywhere we go now. Walk the aisles at Target or check your Facebook feed and see if you can go a whole minute without something from Star Wars. Sure, I'll see the movie when it comes out and probably enjoy it, but I don't share any real excitement about it months beforehand, and I also can't escape the feeling that it's for children, so I feel like a jerk, at risk of becoming a crotchety curmudgeon. Am I one?

Samir Mehta | October 23, 2015
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Scott Hardie | October 23, 2015
Good points and very good attitude. I'm prepared to be in the quiet minority.

I should maybe clarify that I do enjoy the holidays themselves: Halloween is fun on October 31, and Christmas is fun on December 25, and Star Wars will be fun when I see it, and so on. I just tire of the marathon leading up to each. If I were forced to name an upcoming cultural event that I was even a little bit excited about, it would be this.

Samir Mehta | October 23, 2015
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Scott Hardie | October 24, 2015
Sorry, but I'm not the person to ask. I merely dip my toe into the world of video games; there are so many titles I've never heard of. I have The Last of Us since it came with our PS4, but I have yet to play it. :-\ Maybe somebody else reading has better advice.

My favorite games are Bethesda's RPGs (Elder Scrolls and Fallout), which are best played on a PS3 or PC, at least until more next-gen titles come out. It's possible to play as a pacifist or a variety of other ways; I once seriously considered playing through Fallout: New Vegas by letting my companions do all of the fighting while I played a smooth-talking charmer. I like those games because they're insanely immersive and epic; you can disappear into those worlds for many months or even years and still not do everything there is to do. I recently played Grand Theft Auto V which was spectacularly realized but disappointingly short; it was great but over in a month. I crave long-term commitments of six months or more, where I feel like I'm really building a character and shaping the world around me instead of just following a script.

If you want fun, cheap, mental-puzzle games that you can pick up and play any time, for a few minutes or a few hours, try the Mystery Case Files series. Each game is $3-10 depending on whether the website is offering one of its frequent sales. The site lists them in reverse order; Huntsville is the first and most primitive, but they get better and better with each title, and some are sequels to others so they're best played in order. They offer a variety of puzzles and challenges, but the primary activity in each game is searching a room for hidden items, like "I Spy."

Scott Hardie | October 24, 2015
I don't expect my above recommendation to be persuasive, but if you do decide to play the last-gen Bethesda games, the ideal order is Oblivion and Fallout 3 first, followed by New Vegas and Skyrim. The latter titles are superior for a number of reasons, but the former titles do a much better job of introducing their worlds and getting you accustomed to the gameplay.

I do enjoy small games too, if they're cheap and easy to learn. I just enjoyed getting to 100% completion on the fun little Lego Marvel Super Heroes, and I like some of the downloadable games available in the PlayStation Store like Goat Simulator and Super Meat Boy and Hotline Miami. I have no idea how to recommend more; I find these by remembering what titles friends mention and by browsing the discount shelf at Target if I happen to walk past it.

Samir Mehta | October 24, 2015
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Scott Hardie | October 26, 2015
Imho your best bet is the device you're using to read this -- either a phone or tablet that runs game apps, or a PC/Mac that can download games. Plus you already have it so you can't beat the price. :-)

If it must be a console, I'd suggest a PS4 despite the cost. It will have the longest life of any option besides maybe the latest Xbox, there's a wide variety of games available on disc and for download at a wide variety of prices (I've found good PS4 games at Gamestop for $10), and it makes for a pretty solid media server if you want Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, etc on your TV and don't have them already. Nintendo's systems are cheaper but have much narrower selection. Xbox is very similar to PS4, the main difference for us being batteries versus rechargable controllers ($$$). Previous generation systems are cheaper, but it will get harder and harder to find games for them (inexpensively anyway) as time goes by.

Scott Hardie | October 29, 2015
Getting back to the original discussion...

What bugs me: People ordering the same dish every time they visit a restaurant.

Why this bugs me: I can't imagine only ever choosing one option over and over when I'm presented with a menu of many options. The thought of it pains me. I have certain favorites that I revisit sometimes, sure, but I like to try many different things and sample nearly everything on a menu once I've been to a place enough times.

Why I think I'm being a jerk: What should I care? If my dining companion wants the same item for the hundredth time, that's their preference.

And yet: If we've eaten at the same place enough times for me to notice that my companion keeps ordering the same dish every time, shouldn't that be time to move on to other restaurants and get out of our rut?

So what I want to know is: How can I stop being irritated when I see someone order the same dish I've seen them order many times before, never trying something new?

I (mostly) keep my mouth shut about it, so it's not really about my manners. It's about getting over my own feelings of annoyance, because the people who do this are not going to stop. :-)

For what it's worth, I think I have some kind of need to share experiences with people. I write reviews and online recommendations for movies and other media. I take people back to attractions and vacation spots (and of course, restaurants) that I've already visited so that they can try it. I loan my books and DVD and games to friends. I think this problem is related: At any given restaurant, I have tried a half-dozen good dishes that I'd like my friends and loved ones to experience, and it seems like they're missing out on good things by choice, and that bothers me.

For the record, I'm talking about several different dining companions, each of whom does this at every restaurant that we visit. It's not one restaurant or I'd think little of it.

Samir Mehta | October 29, 2015
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Scott Hardie | October 29, 2015
I hope she liked the one dish at least, if it was that great of a place.

A compound pet peeve related to this is the way that some friends will reject a restaurant completely after one visit and refuse to go back. Even the best businesses can have an off day or plain bad luck that ruins your meal; try again a couple of times to see if that bad experience was a fluke. Indeed, I've taken friends to some well-reviewed restaurants, had them dislike the one meal there (which in some cases happened to be the same meal they order everywhere), and declare the restaurant "terrible" and refuse to go back, to the point that when the restaurant comes up again in conversation, they make a lame pun out of its name, along the lines of "Taco Hell" or "Pizza Rut."

Come to think of it, now that I write all of this out, its becoming pretty obvious that what I need are friends who have better taste and more maturity. :-) Really, of course what I need to do is stop caring about my friends' opinions and experiences, but that's what I'm trying to figure out how to do.

Lori Lancaster | December 10, 2015
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Scott Hardie | December 11, 2015
Great points. I was being a curmudgeon, and I intended to come back and say that "I don't understand what you're supposed to get out of it" was too harsh. Whenever I think that a costume is an awful lot of work for something that you only wear for a few hours (on Halloween) or a couple of days (at a convention), I need to remember that the acts of planning and making the costume are just as much fun, if not more, than wearing the costume.

Kelly has indeed opened my eyes to the pleasures of crafting things. In Gothic Earth, we played a voodoo storyline set in New Orleans, during which we spent an evening crafting voodoo dolls based on our characters. Only Kelly was into it at first, but everybody was laughing and happy about it by the end of the ninety minutes or so. One of the players remarked about how much he enjoyed making his doll: He said that after a terrible day at work, he had been filled with such frustration and tension, but now he was relaxed and happy. Kelly said that this was part of the joy of crafting: It gives you something calm and creative to do with your hands, and relieves you of all stress (unless you're crafting against a deadline or something breaks, I suppose). That's a great way to look at it.

Steve Dunn | February 2, 2016
I'm notorious for always ordering the same dish at restaurants. I'm risk-averse in many ways.

Aaron Shurtleff | February 2, 2016
I think I fall somewhere in the middle, as far as restaurant food ordering goes. I like to try different things, but I feel like you can't judge the quality of something you are too unfamiliar with. For example, I think I was with you, Scott, when I tried haggis because I saw it on a menu and I was curious. I liked it, but what else can I really say? I have no frame of reference as to how good it was, just what I thought at the time. I could have eaten the best of worst haggis ever, but without anything to judge it by, I will never know.
However, if I am trying to judge a restaurant, I will tend to get things I know I like, because that is something I can base a comparison on. Like when I try sandwich shops for the first time, I almost always get a BLT. It's simple, and I like it, so I think it is a great way to tell the quality of a place. The flip side, of course, is that I eventually try new things and house specials once I know that I enjoy the food I will get.

Steve West | February 3, 2016
I have a favorite local restaurant (Christopher's in Crofton) that I'm able to indulge in about twice each year and although they have an enticing menu, the veal medallions are so superb that I can't seem to stray from ordering it although I tell myself that I will every single time. My problem is that I only order the veal there and nowhere else because Christopher's puts all other veal dinners to shame. So I experiment at other places but not there and am always happy that I did. The grouper will have to be purchased elsewhere.

Scott Hardie | February 4, 2016
Steve Dunn: So it's about risk? That you might get something disgusting or unpleasant and regret it? Does this stem from a specific bad experience?

Aaron: I probably have the facts wrong, but I seem to recall you eating hákarl on vacation and being sick for months afterward, so perhaps adventurousness is overrated. :-(   I, too, sometimes go with a staple, like chicken fried rice at a Chinese restaurant, when I'm sizing up a new restaurant that has potential to become a regular haunt for me. But most of the time I just order what I feel like, and my culinary muse wanders all over the menu.

Steve West: You make that place sound appealing. If I'm ever in your neck of the woods visiting, remind me to try it.

Aaron Shurtleff | February 4, 2016
Yes and no, Scott. I did have the hakarl, and it wasn't the best thing I ever put in my mouth, but my general malaise/illness was caused by a totally different non-food related issue.
And everyone knows you judge chinese restaurants by the hot and sour soup! :D