Can someone please explain to me the appeal of those house makeover shows? I don't get it.
I recently moved to a middle class neighborhood full of ignorant white people who don't value education but are crazy about their kids' participation in competitive sports. Natives have a noticeable mean streak, and are standoffish around newcomers.
I love it. It's just like the Cleveland suburb where I grew up. I've spent too much of my life below the Mason-Dixon line, where people are too nice for my taste.
1.1: New starts, fresh beginnings.
This post makes me wonder whether the show where they flip houses is still on, what with the state of the housing market. [googles] It seems it is.
I like lantana a lot, including the (not-sweet) smell of it. I used to do "he loves me, he loves me not" with lantana. (He didn't love me, despite my crush on him from 3rd to 6th grade. It was his gold-rimmed glasses, and the fact that he was the best at dodgeball that made him so irresistable.)
4: I'll bet the gold-rimmed glasses are precisely what made him so good at dodgeball. And yet he was blind to your love. So poignant.
Is 1.3 meant to suggest that 1.2 could not describe places below the Mason-Dixon line? Because you must know different Southerners than I do.
Soil like gray, fine beach sand.
In Miami, too! I'd forgotten about that.
Dude, just throw the ball at his face. What kind of kids did you go to school with?
I throw the ball at his face and then he loves me?
Then he's no longer the best at Dodgeball (because his glasses have been knocked off, how could the kids not figure this out) and needs to seek solace in your love. But perhaps you only loved him for his worldly success, not his true heart.
I loved him for his appearance in his gold-rimmed glasses. I saw him again much later, in high school, and he had stopped wearing the glasses. He was not the god he had been.
I am starting to understand why you are an engineer.
Had you been wondering why I'm an engineer? Do I seem better suited to something else?
What I mean is that you seem entirely well suited to your calling. However, that is not inconsistent with the theory that a libidinous attraction to those in gold wire-rimmed glasses helped smooth the transition into your chosen profession.
Sadly, when I actually got to engineering school, there were no glasses to be seen. Lots of pretty, pretty ag boys, but none who matched my preferences for asian-am boys who play dodgeball in glasses.
And who boldly wears gold-rimmed glasses now, I ask you? Where shall I find this man?!
You could always date Hu Jintao.
He doesn't look prone to playing dodgeball. Although I suspect that if he played, he'd play to win.
but none who matched my preferences for asian-am boys who play dodgeball in glasses.
You know, if you ever met my cousin [Buck's real first name], I bet you'd be smitten. Korean American, about your height, skinny, rugged looking, and ferociously athletic. Sadly, he's a cold-weather animal -- doesn't like getting too far from a ski slope. So unless you find yourself wanting to move to Vermont, I won't bother introducing you.
Back off, LB, she's going out with my man Hu.
Our relations with China are at stake.
Hey! I live close to mountains with snow! Send him over.
Although actually, my cousin doesn't wear glasses. Contacts, possibly, but not glasses.
Megan likes guys who wear contacts and glasses. Redundancy, you know.
We could get him a set of empty frames for special occasions. (AITYD)
If he shows any signs of leaving VT for the West Coast, I'll tell him you make good pie.
This LB-cousin-set-up scheme is all going to come crashing down when the cousin tells Megan he thinks they might be Seoulmates.
I like guys whose eyes are actually on the lenses of their glasses, like in the cartoons.
It is true. It would be over when that happened. Then he'll regret moving all the way across the country. Although he won't regret the much improved skiing.
If your shoes match, are they soulmates?
31: No, but they might be solemates.
You know, I actually stopped and looked twice at soul to make sure it was spelled like the joke needed.
Also I got stuck today second-guessing whether or not February actually contains that first r or if I was being overly complicated.
33.2: Did you got to the libary to check on the correct spelling?
And of course, it happened on a Wendsday.
You know, there are whole small liberal arts math departments where I'm thought of as a good speller. Also whole families.
36: You're a mathematician, heebie, not a spelltician.
38: If it's just a magic parlor, it's a spelltician. If it's a salon, then they get called sorcerers.
Regarding the OP, I feel the same way regarding majority-brown hills with intermittent scrub, such as one frequently sees in the ever-receding hills around my suburban home.
Fortunately, we also have landscapes like that in norcal!
It is less the sight of the flora of my home, and more the smell of chaparral on a sunny day. Instant nostalgia, instant love. Unsurprisingly, I also loved southern France.
the Cleveland suburb where I grew up
Have you we talked about this?
While it's spelled correctly, I have to believe that this reviewer doesn't know the actual definition of "pusillanimous".
I was struck by the similarity between the Adirondacks and northern Alabama. And they had such pretty bridges down there.
Then we continued driving. Southern Alabama didn't give me any nostalgia whatsoever.
Can someone please explain to me the high concentration of Unfogged commenters/lurkers (hi!) who are Cleveland-area expats?
My ex-wife grew up in North Olmsted. Do I get an honorable mention?
46: Not everyone can be from Minnesota.
46: Sure, no problem. In the year 1989, a group of Unfogged commenters and lurkers set off on fool's errand to play baseball professionally in Cleveland. There was a movie about it and everything. (N.B. Charlie Sheen was actually a lurker back then; it was just a coincidence that he appeared in the movie). True story.
And here I was speculating on the high level of brain drain from Cleveland and the surrounding suburbs correlating with the number of good universities within the Northern Ohio area. I like the baseball/fool's errand story better--god knows that Cleveland baseball continues to be a fool's errand for those who both love and play it.
Nah, the academic standards have gone straight downhill since the glory days of M/chelle Malk/n.
Some of us got transplanted to Cleveland!
It's a little known fact that the character "Pedro Serrano" was closely based on Nosflow's life story.
46: In any given population, there will be more Cleveland expats than you'd expect because so many people have left Cleveland. Unfogged is no different from anywhere else in this respect.
56: That is silly. The emphasis isn't on the expattiness, it's on the Cleveland Connection.
Someday we'll find it, the Cleveland Connection.
56: Ahem, that's Pedro Cerrano. </nosflow>. And the real shocker was that neb went on to shill for Allstate.
Is bad to steal Nosflow's shtick. Is very bad.
Have you we talked about this?
I don't think so. I'm generally aware that you've got some Cleveland roots/relations, but I haven't heard the tale of how you escaped, nor have I seen you discuss the scars that you no doubt still bear.
57: I can tell you're not from Cleveland.
Well, now I just feel inadequate.
It's okay, heebie. Not everyone can be from Cleveland.
Yeah, but I thought I was passing.
It's not that easy being Brown.
I was from Cleveland on two non-consecutive occasions.
The Cleveland Connection is Dorothy Fuldheim (may not resonate with the young uns among us).
I've been to Cleveland, but I've never been to me.
All the little chicks with their crimson lips
Go "Parma socks!", "Parma socks!"
The Parma Sock is one of Achatz's greatest culinary/fashion triumphs.
They're interesting, but ultimately bland and provincial. Not something I would mock every day.
Have you guys seen Parma's Gehry building? It's amazing.
The Parma Sock is really tasty, I just hate the part where Achatz comes out wearing it and then peels it off and throws it in the center of the table.
Parma redemption. (Mentions Ernie Anderson of Boogie Nights dedication fame.)
74: True, and precisely where he was wearing it wasn't innovative at all. The Red Hot Chili Peppers did that years ago.
78: This is a terrific comment. You said exactly what I was thinking but phrased it much more elegantly and graciously than I ever could. Thank you so much for writing it!
77: Just don't get mixed up and put red hot chili peppers there.
Harrumph to the Cleveland bashers. I quite like Cleveland. Were it not for 1) cold winters and 2) the fact that my family lives 1,000 away, I'd be all over that like cheese on toast.
Interesting recent article (by a friend of mine) about Cleveland.
77 - many years ago I saw the RHCP do that and it wasn't as exciting as I'd thought it might be.
The neighborhood I grew up in was once the foreign imports section of the colonial-era Moon Nurseries. We had a Southern Magnolia and a Japanese Maple in our front yard, and there was a towering Giant Magnolia with leaves the size of dinner plates around the block from us. A friend of mine referred to my neighborhood as "the place with all the trees."
I quite like Cleveland.
My mom grew up on the outskirts of Cleveland (well, in Lorain), and for a long time my grandparents lived in Rocky River. I have always thought Cleveland was completely and totally awesome, but I've never had to live there. Also, my mother's maiden name is Br/own, and for a long time I had an amusing misconception (furthered by my grandfather) that the Browns were named after us.
Real men wear steel codpieces Or at least offer them up to their hunting dogs while wearing fashionable tights and furs.
