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12 November 2005
I really do love Metafilter sometimes.→[More:] Maybe it's because I've had very little sleep and I'm all hopped up on iced tea but the comments on this one had me giggling like a madwoman.
I think it's partly because (similar to nicwolff's recent outburst), the "What's This?" phrase makes me think of a red-faced, mustachioed Bobby violently brandishing an unidentified mushroom in the direction of a frightened young cashier.
MiHail has been added to my list of MeFartheads. She claims she didn't mean the thread to look down on people or to be snobby. She probably thinks she's not a racist because she owns an Outkast album.
At first, I felt a little sorry for the treatment MiHail received, but that turned to disdain as I realized sadly, the education of the posters of metaphiltre is declining in more than one way.
I felt a bit bad at first. But then she started trying to justify her behaviour with more snobbery. I spent most of my early years toiling in low-end retail and sales jobs and encountered quite a few people with a similar nasty attitude. So, she can go screw. I am grateful to her for inspiring such a beautiful thread though.
I'm sorry I don't share everybody else's amusement -- for me, the fact that threads like Mihail's get 200+ comments is part of what's seriously wrong with MetaFilter, not part of the beauty of it
Well, matteo, you're certainly entitled to your feelings. I wouldn't like it if every thread turned out that way but for me personally it was nice to see a long funny thread where no one was being nasty or screaming at someone or arguing politics or beating dead horses.
I'm right there with LeeJay: What I enjoyed about it wasn't the class warfare in the middle, but the absolute surreality of 1) The link: just picture of a mushroom, followed by 2) the comment made, surely, with the assumption that identifying portobello mushrooms is a common and universal aspect of even the minimally educated, followed by 3) a "More Inside" that just had me imagining what other pictures of produce or complaints about clerks it could be (assuming, as I was, that since the best links go in the main post, and additional links in the MI, the MI links would be less good than a picture of a portobello mushroom), followed by 4) people being far, far funnier than they usually are.
MiHail's got a point: there are too many posts crucified unfairly. However, that isn't the same as saying all posts deserve to be treated with reverence, and this post was (for me) an extremely funny example of one of the exceptions.
And it had nothing to do with politics or religion to boot.
Hey, don't judge her on just one post. Did you see the chemo mention?
Speaking as one who has issues herself, occasionally it is the tiny things in life that send one over the edge. And what an amusing edge that thread turned out to be, I must say.
where no one was being nasty or screaming at someone or arguing politics or beating dead horses.
exactly -- what's MetaFilter without that???
;)
t is the tiny things in life that send one over the edge.
of course. but you'd post that to your personal blog, not on MeFi's front page. to me, it was mostly a "flag it and scroll past it" post. MeFi doesn't do funny well, I think that MetaChat does funny much better than MeFi. MeCha is also much less nasty, it's just a different vibe
It just keeps getting better. It's like when I went to see Bob Sagat do stand-up, and some shmuch in the audience admitted that he shaved his balls "to make his penis look bigger". MiHail walked into it and doesn't know when to leave.
I was late to the pile-on -- I'd just started reading the thread this afternoon when I got pulled away -- but I think there's only one song to listen to while reading that thread. Shatner - Common People
And that took me 20 minutes to upload, not counting three abortions. Damn free file-sharing websites.
Wotta wimp! When I first moved to Greece, the checkout women made me cry they were so mean. If you tried to slip a Portobello mushroom by them, they'd whip out their sharp knives and be feasting on your liver before you could even say "PLU code".
Now I'm an awesome checkout warrior: I can stand basket-to-butt with the person in front of me so none of the Grannies can interpret the 1.5 inches of space as an invitation to barge in front of me; I can bravely hand over a 50 Euro bill and calmly affirm that no, I really don't have exact change without piddling the floor in fear; I can bag all my own items so quickly that by the time they are handing me my change I'm not dropping it all over the place as I try to get those last items in the bags, the money back in my wallet and the bags collected off the counter all at the same time under a withering stare of disdain.
Holy Hell, I miss Metafilter for one day and miss out on the 447 comment Portabello Mushroom War of '05.
A checker that can't identify a particular shroom is so nothing-- Mihail obviously doesn't get out much. I routinely cook with fresh produce and I can't remember the last time I got checked out without helping the checker. "What's this?" they routinely fumble through their price rolodex while trying mightily to match picture to produce in record speed.
Last summer I went through the Battle of the Onions were for a straight 10 weeks or so-- they would get the price wrong every frickkin time. I always bought the yellow onions that were the cheapest and every week they were changing the prices around. Vidalias 59 centslb and they charged me the jumbo yellow price. Jumbo yellows on sale 99 cents lb and they charged me the small yellow price. I was ever vigilent, but damn it grew annoying.
Don't even get me started on the Italian parsley vs. the curly parsley vs. cilantro!
Yeah, MiHail handled herself alright, eventually. And the thread was a classic. I feel bad for her situation, but oh well.
Oh well. I stepped in it pretty bad when I first signed up as a Five Dollar N00b. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, made a couple of credible posts and comments, then went back to being my idiotic self. But at least I was an idiot with some small level of credibility. MiHail will either live it down or disappear. Either way, the world goes on... both for MiHail and MeFi.
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