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05-08-2010, 02:01 PM
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#1
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 920
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Cannot do
There are some things, that no matter how much I wish to be skilled at them or at least not poor, I cannot learn. So, this thread is dedicated to that skill which you have been unable to master despite reasonable dedication/desire to do so. I'm curious what other people have in the forever unchecked "learn" list.
I've got two right off:
1. Play chess. I'm no dummy but I just suck at chess and it pisses me off. I've read enough books to know most openings but by mid-game I've always done something stupid. The mind is a strange thing, and mine cannot grasp chess.
2. Fillet a fish. I see those guys who can take a dull knife and come out with a cartoon fish bone thing and two beautiful fillets, I cannot. I get shreds, I get bones, I get fish nuggets, I get wasted fish. Arggghhh.
Carry on.
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05-08-2010, 02:15 PM
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#2
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Austin
Posts: 1,142
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Play the piano. 
__________________
Start by admitting
from cradle to tomb
it isn't that long a stay.
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05-08-2010, 02:20 PM
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#3
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 606
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I'm not proud of this but I'm a disaster when I try to drive a car with manual transmission. I've learned how to drive with a stickshift several times, and know what I'm supposed to do, but have just never been able to master it. And I finally gave up. 
I'm sure there are other things, but this is the one that comes to mind first.
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05-08-2010, 02:23 PM
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#4
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: minnesota
Posts: 13,228
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My hand-eye coordination is terrible. Can't catch anything people throw to me.
__________________
.
No more lawyer stuff, no more political stuff, so no more CYA
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05-08-2010, 02:28 PM
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#5
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 13,146
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I can't drive around without a GPS. My sense of direction is terrible.
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05-08-2010, 02:39 PM
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#6
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 5,596
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Same here. I even took lessons. My piano teacher was very happy when I finally gave up. 
__________________
I purr therefore I am.
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05-08-2010, 02:51 PM
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#7
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Texas: No Country for Old Men
Posts: 50,021
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 Quote:
Originally Posted by tiuxiu
Carry on.
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I can't carry on, not even in a bucket.
__________________
Numbers is hard
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05-08-2010, 02:59 PM
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#8
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2004
Location: SW Ohio
Posts: 14,404
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Learn another language. I've tried to learn Spanish and Russian, and I was able to learn vocabulary at a fair rate, but putting proper sentences together was not something I found easy to do.
. . . which might be because I never mastered English grammar. Yes, I learned the basic parts of speech and how to diagram sentences at a primitive level, but I couldn't identify an infinitive phrase today if it bit me. As a kid I read a lot of good novels, which helped me recognize when sentences were put together right and when the proper form of a word was used. This allowed me to write well enough, and made up for my shortcomings in formal knowledge of grammar.
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05-08-2010, 03:07 PM
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#9
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Illinois
Posts: 16,600
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I cant play golf - the last time I played I shot around 130
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05-08-2010, 03:10 PM
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#10
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Boise
Posts: 7,882
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Play bridge.
Avoid getting lost in the mall.
Succeed at being married to my first wife.
Understand electricity (capacitance, voltage, amperage, inductance, resistance...whatever!).
2Cor521
__________________
"At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may in fact be the first steps of a journey." Violet Baudelaire.
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05-08-2010, 03:23 PM
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#11
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Gone but not forgotten
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 6,924
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Write legibly.
__________________
"Knowin' no one nowhere's gonna miss us when we're gone..."
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05-08-2010, 03:42 PM
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#12
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Where the stars at night are big and bright
Posts: 2,847
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Dance. At least not while sober.
__________________
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it. - Andrew Jackson
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05-08-2010, 04:02 PM
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#13
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Collin County, TX
Posts: 9,296
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__________________
There's no need to complicate, our time is short..
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05-08-2010, 04:11 PM
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#14
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 12,657
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Office politics. I never see the knives before they stick me.
A.
__________________
If you understood everything I say, you'd be me ~ Miles Davis
'There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.’ Christopher Morley.
Even a blind clock finds an acorn twice a day.
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05-08-2010, 04:28 PM
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#15
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 12,657
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Well, if you are an electrical engineer, this is bad news. If you aren't, the big thing is never to complete a circuit with yourself! 
Amethyst
Quote:
Originally Posted by SecondCor521
Understand electricity (capacitance, voltage, amperage, inductance, resistance...whatever!).
2Cor521
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__________________
If you understood everything I say, you'd be me ~ Miles Davis
'There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.’ Christopher Morley.
Even a blind clock finds an acorn twice a day.
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05-08-2010, 05:23 PM
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#16
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 388
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Successfully combine work/relationship/hobbies/adequate sleep.
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05-08-2010, 05:27 PM
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#17
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 1,934
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Iron a collared, long-sleeve shirt and leave it with no wrinkles. It's the most frustrating thing I've ever tried, and I've never gotten it right.
__________________
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know.
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05-08-2010, 05:33 PM
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#18
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 3,323
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Like Kahn, can't write legibly if my life depended on it.
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05-08-2010, 06:20 PM
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#19
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 920
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I've learned the hard way that if something is tossed to my wife her instinct is to bat it to the floor so there is minimal risk to her personal safety and object can be retrieved at her leisure. It's quite strange as my instinct is opposite you could throw me a cartoon-style bowling ball looking lit fuse bomb and I'd attempt to catch it to see what it was.
Also strange = of our two dogs they are the same, one will catch anything in her mouth while the other likes to use two paws to trap stuff against the floor.
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05-08-2010, 06:48 PM
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#20
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 47,500
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Apparently I cannot fly, at least not so far. I know that because I tried it many times as a little girl. (Having at least a little common sense, I jumped upwards rather than out of windows, thank goodness.)
I also have not yet managed to solve a Rubik's cube without cheating. But I don't know for sure that I cannot do it. Maybe this is more in the "have not yet done" category than the "cannot do" category.
In 2000, it seemed far more likely that I would be able to solve a Rubik's cube while flying, than that I could ever retire. And yet I did retire and in doing so, accomplished something that I previously thought I could never do. HA!!  Anything is possible. Anything.  Just not everything.
__________________
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. - - H. Melville, 1851.
Happily retired since 2009, at age 61. Best years of my life by far!
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