First world problems! Share them here!

[OneMoreYear]

My key is getting stuck in the lock in my office door. Facilities put some lubricant stuff in it, and it works somewhat better, but now I need to turn the key exactly right, the push the key in exactly right to get the door to open. And every time I use the door, my fingers are covered it lubricant.  Getting into my office should not be this hard.

[Hibush]

Re people's HVAC woes, I read a couple of articles on heat pumps recently:

They are expensive up front to install, but cheaper and much more energy efficient to run (so the articles say), and many states have incentives or rebates.

My first-world complaint is that I had to pay too much to get a split system heat pump installed in my lab and office. But now I have a comfortably temperature any time of year or day, regardless of what the 1930's control system decides to do.

I remember there being a lot of interest in home heat pumps during the great energy crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s, when I was a kid.  Not everybody who got them then seems to have been satisfied with them.  Maybe they've gotten better over the years.

But for the foreseeable future we're stuck with this legacy HVAC system, which could not be more high-maintenance and inefficient if they'd deliberately engineered it to be that way.

They are super efficient, quiet and have smart programming to keep you comfortable. The first-world problem with that is that the units are smarter than the people controlling them, who will set the temperature way lower than they need.

[The Future]

The cable box went out in my game room.  The other two in the house are working.  I called XFinity and they are sending a tech out this weekend - hope it gets fixed.  I checked all of the connections, and they already sent new equipment, but it is still not working.
I remember someone on the last Forum was talking about how their sister or sister-in-law watches the television "like her oxygen is tied to it".  To this day I still think about that post and start laughing! ;) 

[Dismal]

There is no coffee to be found anywhere near my office. There used to be a couple of nearby on-campus coffee shops - now shuttered with signs saying "coming soon."

Pre-Covid, we used to have a coffee station with hot water for tea on the floor where my office is - now we just have water (not hot).

[Hibush]

Pre-Covid, we used to have a coffee station with hot water for tea on the floor where my office is - now we just have water (not hot).

Post-covid our coffee machine suffered the same fate, now neither the coffee machine nor the water cooler have the requsite people nearby from whom to obtain gossip.

[secundem_artem]

My lunchtime banana was over-ripe.

[apl68]

My lunchtime banana was over-ripe.

Makes me shudder just to read that....

[mamselle]

Yes. Time to make banana bread...if you can stand to.

I never could...

M.

[pgher]

What amazes me is thinking about how green bananas must be when harvested, to still need ripening when they reach us in faraway places.

[jimbogumbo]

We have two currently being used for banana chocolate chip muffins.

[the_geneticist]

We put squishy bananas in the freezer. Great for banana or smoothies.

[ab_grp]

I sometimes put older fruit like ripe bananas in a "detox" (not really) smoothie that I found somewhere.  It's just two bananas, a peeled apple, a cup of spinach or greens, juice of a lime/lemon/orange, and as much water as is needed.  I chop or cut the fruit into reasonable pieces before blending.  It lets me use up old fruit, tastes fine, and doesn't require ice or anything fancy.

[secundem_artem]

What amazes me is thinking about how green bananas must be when harvested, to still need ripening when they reach us in faraway places.

Some fun factoids:

The bananas that we usually find in the grocery store are all the same cultivar - Cavendish.  This cultivar is extremely consistent in the time it takes to harvest, ship overseas, work it's way to the grocery shelf and ripen to the degree that we like to eat them.  Unfortunately, this has (no surprise) led to a monoculture as to the bananas grown for commercial sale.  And that's a problem because Cavendish bananas are quite susceptible to a fungal disease - Black Sigatoka - originally seen in Fiji (I was in Sigatoka about 10 yrs ago).  The fungus can reduce yields by up to 50%. 

Spraying with antifungals requires multiple applications and is beyond the reach of small farmers.  Developing resistant cultivars is in the works, but they may not (1) taste the same as Cavendish (2) have the same ripening characteristics as Cavendish.

Last fun factoid - Some of you may have tried an old fashioned penny candy "Circus Peanuts"  They are shaped like an unshelled peanut and usually sorta orange in color.  They are flavored with artificial banana flavoring.  I am told that artificial flavor resembles what bananas tasted like before Cavendish became the banana that we know have in the stores.

And thus endeth the lesson.

[Parasaurolophus]

Cavendish bananas taste like crap compared to most other cultivars, however!

[ergative]

What amazes me is thinking about how green bananas must be when harvested, to still need ripening when they reach us in faraway places.

Some fun factoids:

The bananas that we usually find in the grocery store are all the same cultivar - Cavendish.  This cultivar is extremely consistent in the time it takes to harvest, ship overseas, work it's way to the grocery shelf and ripen to the degree that we like to eat them.  Unfortunately, this has (no surprise) led to a monoculture as to the bananas grown for commercial sale.  And that's a problem because Cavendish bananas are quite susceptible to a fungal disease - Black Sigatoka - originally seen in Fiji (I was in Sigatoka about 10 yrs ago).  The fungus can reduce yields by up to 50%. 

Spraying with antifungals requires multiple applications and is beyond the reach of small farmers.  Developing resistant cultivars is in the works, but they may not (1) taste the same as Cavendish (2) have the same ripening characteristics as Cavendish.

Last fun factoid - Some of you may have tried an old fashioned penny candy "Circus Peanuts"  They are shaped like an unshelled peanut and usually sorta orange in color.  They are flavored with artificial banana flavoring.  I am told that artificial flavor resembles what bananas tasted like before Cavendish became the banana that we know have in the stores.

And thus endeth the lesson.

I've heard about this before. It's one of those situations where, intellectually, I know I should probably worry about the State of the Banana, but I've never, ever cared for bananas, so I can't bring myself to be concerned. Indeed, I sometimes want the Cavendish to hurry up and die already so I can see if whatever variety replaces it is more to my taste.