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If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
IJBM: being aware of and taking care of loose ends that one produces is not "being anal".
It is "taking responsibility for the consequences of one's actions and presence".
Comments
unless this is somehow not about him
LOL
He actually never directly accused me of being anal, but I was just taking one thing he said one time and extrapolating an argument he might make based on a comparison of how he does various other things versus how I do various other things.
To be honest, if anything, the initial reaction isn't that important. It's not that hard to work out some common ground regarding how we do our cooking, and he's likely bringing up more of his own cookware this weekend. What's more interesting to me is the thought processes that go into the actions that each of us take.
Like, for example, when he wants to eat something, he'll just go and start making it, and if he runs into issues along the way (such as lacking ingredients), then he just thinks of what to do at that point. On the other hand, I start making a meal by observing whether I have space on the drying rack to put the dishes after I wash them (and if I don't, I start wiping dishes dry). As a result he frequently has a pile of utensils in the drying rack. Of course, I'm not going to help him with this, as long as he doesn't overflow to my side of the rack.
To be fair, my way of doing things isn't always the best -- he takes more risks and, in the case of relatively low-risk activities, probably gets more done than I do, solely because he just jumps right in without thinking too much about it. Though sometimes it means making a bigger mess.
But what I'm thinking of in this thread is mainly his trend of doing stuff and then just dealing with or ignoring the consequences later. Cooking is probably the most prominent example, but it also applies to his approach toward trash -- such as not flattening boxes and throwing out perfectly reusable things like bags.
And to be fair, it's not just him. This is typical of the usual developed-country stereotype of "use and toss" thinking. But that sort of thinking is precisely what I don't like and feel ought to change about the way we live.
It's not just about my roommate. It's about being aware of what things we use, what things we toss, what things we buy, what things we eat, etc., and asking how we can use these things better.
Like, it's about thinking of using grocery store plastic bags as trash bags rather than just treating them themselves as trash, and it's about not throwing out those extra unused paper napkins but saving them, and it's about using less detergent by squirting it onto the sponge rather than the water in the pot, etc.
Yeah, one can say that I think like this because I'm cheap, or because of my race, or because I'm an environmentalist, or something. But really? Does one need an extra label to justify why I just like saving money and am conscientious about what stuff I use and buy and toss? Do I really need to justify wanting to not leave any of that delicious scrambled egg on the skillet? I don't think so, and I think everyone should be more like this. It's not anal to want to eat all the egg, or all the cheese, or all the whatever, even the scraps. It's just less wasteful.
Naturally, you'd see more of this "cheap" behavior from immigrant families in the United States, who have less financial resources to waste than well-off whites, hence the stereotype here in the US of it being associated with recent immigrant groups like Asians.
Incidentally: on a scale of 1-10, how bad do you think it is that I thought it could be made into a gender issue? Like, the notion that a man should be able to fix stuff instead of just throwing it out and buying a new one, is yet another societal harm caused by the patriarchal oppression.
The other quick question could be, on a scale of 1-10, how easy would it be to actually turn it into a gender issue (assume the use of Tumblr as a platform). But I'm not sure if it's good for one's sanity to dwell for too long on that.
I actually have some thoughts that are (marginally) closer to topic, but I'll save them for later.
Of course, if you're looking to force it as an issue just for trollface purposes, then you could run it either way, obviously.
I have some ideas on how to pull it off, but the last time I trolled for teh lulz it felt, frankly, unfulfilling. Thought it would be funnier, now I'm pretending it's all according to plan. Perhaps I'm not cut out to be a professional troller.
Concerning the on-topic stuff: in general, I prefer to spend a while jury-rigging my stuff, than bothering with going out and buying it. The more so if it mostly works, apart from some quirks. The exact proportion of laziness to cheapness depends on the case under discussion.
I was gonna give him a game on Steam. It was a bundle key that I could turn into a giftable link. I sent him the link. He didn't redeem it then and there, and this was a few weeks ago. Then I was looking back through my stuff and I was like, wait, he still hasn't redeemed it yet.
I pretty much lost all interest in joking about Tumblr around that point.
^ For a while I thought, except for "the Wonder Dog". But then I realized it's actually much worse than many other cases.
Anyways I've got a couple of things to say at the moment, with a better or worse relation to the topic. I guess I'll keep them to myself until I'm sure they add something meaningful.