Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

I had to pay to get rid of my stone crabs [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
<font color="white">can bad jokes be in this thread too?</font>

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone have any good book recommendations? I've read 15 books the last 15 days at "work" and now I need to go buy some more. What I've read: (I've enjoyed them all)

Jose Saramago - Blindness
JD Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Gino Segre - Faust in Copenhagen
Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway - In Our Time
David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
Tim Weiner - Legacy of Ashes
Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun
Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
Jose Saramago - Seeing
Goethe - Faust

anyone have anything along those lines?

[/ QUOTE ]

Steinbeck - Log of the Sea of Cortez, Cannery Row, anything else

Jack London - Seawolf

Graham Greene - anything - The Heart of the Matter for example

random: Now and on Earth by Jim Thompson

short stories by JD Salinger
Franny and Zooey
Raise High the Roof Beam
Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

Thanks for the recommendations guys, I will definitely grab some probably tonight on my way home.

Further question: does anyone here write? I've been writing, and I have some specific and some general questions, and I was wondering if there was someone/someplace I could send/post random paragraphs, etc for general review from time to time. Subforum? Thread in this forum? Some forum on some other site? No such thing exists?

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

mbillie,

a recent book (from last year) that I've been raving about:
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
http://www.amazon.com/Special-Topics.../dp/067003777X

The Amazon reviews are pretty good, except that the people who don't like it are dumb. They're right that it's long and "pretentious" and weird, but I thought it was also great and hilarious and brilliant and from what I know of your online personality I think you would too. (I'd also guess you've probably heard of this book already, so I'll stop now.)

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

Possibly slightly TLDR random whatever spot:

My girlfriend and I were at a wedding last month, and the groom's family paid for dinner in a real nice restaurant right by the Red Square. There was always plenty of alcohol on the table, but water bottles didn't get replaced right away. Since my gf was thirsty and didn't feel like getting all wasted, I went to the bar a few times and asked for water bottles.

At some point, another section opens up, which is kind of a night club, and strangers start coming in. A little after that I made another trip to the bar for some water, but the guy from our section wasn't there. So I just walked over to where the night club was (same longass bar), and asked for three bottles of water.

The guy handed me three bottles (12oz or so) of water, but I had to pay close to 20 bucks. This was the same water that was distributed freely all night, and that got taken away if someone seemed to have abandoned a bottle. I wanted to say 'I'm actually with that group over there', but then my drunk ass thought WTF that just means the groom's father will have to pay for it. He already paid for all your other probably over the top expensive [censored], you can pony up $20 yourself, you stingy bastard.

By the time I got back to my seat, I realized that it was very unlikely that they counted each and every water bottle and charged them over $6 for it. I decided that it was too late to be a bitch about it though, and just ate the loss. But I still feel kind of owned by the restaurant to this day.

To add insult to injury, there ended up being a dance performance in another room shortly after, and by the time we got back, the one bottle we hadn't opened, but paid for, was gone!

Given that I already made the mistake of walking away, what could I have reasonably done about this without making an ass out of myself?

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

[ QUOTE ]
I realized that it was very unlikely that they counted each and every water bottle and charged them over $6 for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

no, they probably do count all the bottles, but yeah, they probably do give him a discount... don't worry about it... hope you had a good time, try thinking about the fun stuff you did lol

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

mbillie,

You should start a new book recs thread - it has been a little while since we've had one active. I've read a few decent ones recently.

Also, a writing evaluation/critique/sharing/etc thread would be good, feel free to start that too.

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

El D,

will do, I'll do the book recs first since it involves less terrifying sharing of my probably awful writing... lol

later tonight

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

Dale,

"Given that I already made the mistake of walking away, what could I have reasonably done about this without making an ass out of myself?"

The first time? Not all that much, though if you really wanted to you could go back and say, hey I was charged $20 for the waters but I'm with that party - was I supposed to have to pay for them? or something like that.

The second time, after they took one you bought, just go up and say, "Hey, they took one of my full bottles of water off the table" and I'd expect they'll give you a new one. Then again, I have no idea how they'd react in Russia, maybe they'd just shoot you.

Re: General life questions / observations / random whatever thread
 

nvm i'm an idiot