You know how to can get turned off of eggs if you get the egg ick.

I don’t think I do know actually. But here’s an attempt at answering this question anyway:

And bonus, anybody know why that happens?

We are usually very quick at relating sickness or even discomfort to the food we ate at the time or slightly before. This is a very valuable trait to avoid food that is unhealthy or even poisonous. But it’s only based on correlation, so it can turn us off food that is not actually causing the sickness but we just happened to eat at the time.

I’m sorry, I never can resist poking the bear.

It must be unbearable for them.

You’re doing neither yourself nor anyone else a favour by being overly shy and reticent. You yourself will enjoy life much more when you are yourself and while not everyone will like you, the ones who don’t often don’t stay in your life long and it’s easier to find people you vibe with if they can see you for who you are.

Granted, I very much did not take this advice as a teenager and even now I’m occasionally too shy. But looking back it was good advice and I really wish I hadn’t wasted so much time and energy on not being negatively noticed by people I didn’t really care about then and who haven’t been in my life for years.

I’ve wondered if there is any way to get an US library card as a non-citizen for a while and this thread got me to finally do the research. The Queens Public Library apparently issues cards to non-US-residents for 50$/year. I have yet to look into it more thoroughly and check out the catalogue. But considering the number of Audiobooks I listen to, it seems like a good deal.

• Fall of Civilisations
• The Thing About Austen
• Revolutions

Hoot hoot!

Also: cleaning. I’ve had flatmates who managed to take the same time for cleaning the bathroom or the kitchen and yet it somehow still wasn’t clean.

When I’m stressed, I like to soak a washing cloth in hot water and then press it on my face with both hands, covering eyes and nose and slowly and deeply breathe through it. I don’t know why I find almost waterboarding myself comforting but it’s incredibly relaxing.
Also, lying on the floor in the middle of my apartment.

Carcassonne is also on Board Game Arena. One of the players needs a premium account, but that’s 5€/5$ for one month. Much cheaper than buying a game you might not like.

Well, it depends… Germany as one country isn’t very old. So the roots of the education system are certainly older than the country. But I’m not sure which parts should be included in this calculation. The education system was very different in different states that are now part of Germany. Then there are Universities that were (at least partly) German back in the day but are not located in today’s Germany. I’m sure the Romans had schools when they hung out here but that’s probably a bit of a stretch. But where exactly are we supposed to draw the line?

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Smoking around kids is terrible without question and the good driver argument is of course bullshit. But she is on to something with the seat belt. Many woman have trouble even with average sized boobs. For some the seat belt slips up and crosses the throat which is not only very uncomfortable but I imagine not exactly safe. But those boobs are for looking at not for taking into account while designing safety features, amirite?

This is what, the twentieth time this year he is rumoured to be (almost) dead? I’ll take this with a packet of salt.

I have a poster from here with the text of one of my favourite books arranged as a picture. It’s quite the conversation piece. If books aren’t your thing, you could always go with the first million digits of Tau, the Streets of Portland, the Constitution of Dalaware or the Kama Sutra.

My friend group discovered BGA during the pandemic and frankly we haven’t had any reason to look for an alternative yet. One of us has a premium account and we split the costs, so it’s a very fair price for the value.

I feel LLM created texts often use rigid structuring along with the fitting linking words and phrases – “on one hand…, on the other hand”, “furthermore”, “in conclusion”. Like a high school student writing an essay. Also the content may or may not be correct and is mostly just stolen from several sources and patched together without any thought and care – also like a high school essay. So I’m gonna go with that.

Stepping on single fallen leaves on the sidewalk. I’m also more disappointed than I should be when they are not crunchy.

Yes, tourists sometimes think it would be funny. But this did not happen at the Oktoberfest in Munich. It was an Oktoberfest in a village in Saxony with about 2500 inhabitants (actually a collection of several villages). I would bet the chances of tourists being present are very close to zero.

And I think you are underestimating how much of a deeply ingrained taboo the nazi salute is for the typical German. You are right, some people can be very stupid, especially drunk. But no German who has not been in some way socilized among nazis would be stupid enough to ever casually do a nazi salute. You just don’t do it.
The only exception I might allow besides actual nazis are very stupid or drunk (or both) teenagers trying too hard to be edgy. And even then most people would find it hard to believe that they’re not at least right leaning.