This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
She left out the “bowel”.
Good afternoon all and sundry. It is a stunning spring day here in the very western mountains.
rq – I didn’t ask about pruning roses, but that was some great information. I have some mystery plants beginning to bud here that may in fact be roses. I’ll let you know.
Portia – our fridge is used for science experiments. We are unsure of our methods or hypotheses, but alien life forms appear all the time. I’m waiting for one of them to talk to me.
Welcome zacharysmith. You never know what you’ll find in the lounge, but I guarantee it will be interesting or amusing or enlightening or all the above.
A Jesus Shot!? Maybe it is misnamed. It is a “God Shot” and that’s how Mary got preggers. No?
I got to hold and cuddle and kiss my Honorary Grandbaby yesterday. Swoon. Why do brand new baby people smell so good?
Because they’re fresh!!
(Sorry, morgan (and Hekuni Cat!), about the comment mix-up. I have no idea how that happened. Reading for incomprehension, I suppose.)
morgan:
^_^
I have poured a few science experiments down the toilet today :D
–
Apple cider vinegar/water is doing a great job on the scum in the bottom of my fridge – one of my jars of ACV had stringy things in it. It was old.
Portia,
Ha! You know your fridge has gotten desperate when the ACV goes bad. :D
In response to the many posts about roses on the previous page of this Lounge thread, I’d just like to remind Pharyngulites to wear pruning gloves.
http://voices.yahoo.com/rose-thorn-disease-1047099.html
:D
Wooo-hoo, I think I might do without painkiller today!
morgan
Funny thing, but apparently Evolutionary Psychology has not bothered to look into this.
I think it’s to make us want to snuggle them and to keep us from killing them for the meager meal they provide.
morgan:
No kidding! :D
It’s funny because I didn’t even know it could go bad. Because…vinegar, by definition, is “bad”, …right?:)
Portia:
Let’s make this our next grand fridge experiment. Get a small bottle of apple cider vinegar, stick it in the back of the fridge and see what phases it passes through, over the years, on its way to becoming a solid.
Tee hee.
I need someone to give me permission for afternoon wine consumption during house keeping.
*gives rq a meaningful look*
Lynna
Thanks for that. I hate wearing gloves because I don’t like not feeling things (I don’t weed with gloves either, or stack firewood) but that article may force me to take precautions. Or invest in a lot of antiseptic (I wash hands in hydrogen peroxide after pruning. :P Small measure, I know.).
Portia
DO IT!!! It helps. You can always say you ran out of vinegar (if someone questions your ethics) and went for the next-most-gone-bad item on your shelf. ;)
The beauty about asking rq is not mentioning the time and, presto! Sure! It’s after dinner, so why wouldn’t you?
Portia,
Prosecco, (Italian white fizzzy dry wine) (yummy) is a perfect accompaniment to house cleaning. I recommend it highly regardless of the time of day or night.
rq:
I love the rationalization ^_^ S is the only one who will discover me, and he wont’ judge. What he will do is drive over to my aunt’s house for dinner if necessary :D
CD:
That’s an excellent point – time zones for the win!
–
I went with the last bits of a bottle of Shiraz I had sitting around. Hopefully it’s still good-bad, not gone bad-bad. :D
morgan:
Mmmmm I do love me some Prosecco.
*makes note on shopping list*
edit: that is to say, he will drive me over there for dinner, if I am wined beyond safety. :)
CD
Exactly. Exactly! You understand. Globalization for the win!
Alright, time zones be damned, but I’m off to bed. ‘Night!
(And have S drive, Portia – it’ll just be simpler!) ;)
*hugs* for everyone!
Night rq!
Sweet dreams
(He usually does drive, I don’t like to if I can avoid it and he’s nice like that)
Hello all!
There are time zones?
I just though everyone here was easily distracted for half the day…
I think this Shiraz has become bad-bad. On to the malbec.
Life is too short to drink bad-bad wine…
gobi:
Exactly ^_^
Oh dear, news reports are coming in the the missing Malaysian airliner had two passengers travelling on stolen passports. Might just be unrelated criminal activity but disturbing…
cranberry orange cookies are a success! :D
Hungry now…
We got a pressure cooker – deciding between goulash or risotto for dinner tonight but it’s not even lunchtime here yet :(
Cookies, mmmmmmmmm….
Risotto is always good :)
*hands gobi a cookie*
Anyone like sukiyaki?
Thank you for the cookie :)
Trying to learn how to cook food in a Venusian atmosphere ( substituting steam for corrosive gasses )
I have always been a bit scared of pressure cookers. In the ‘olden days’ you could always tell when a pressure cooker had been used in a kitchen by the dents in the ceiling above the stove…
@chigau:
I just like yaki –
you could deep fry dirt & I’d love it.
Though these days I am not sure I eat any suki. My family cooked a dish called sukiyaki when I was young, but it always included meat and I was never sure which part of it gave it the name “suki”.
Tonight I get to make the chicken paprikash sauce (the chicken is already cooked). But first, have to finish making the Redhead’s bed as I washed the bed linens today….
I have tasted dishes like sukiyaki so I am sure I would enjoy it :)
Besides, almost anything cooked in soy and mirin sounds tasty…
Oh, why does it take a long time to make the Redhead’s bed? The total number of pillows (hence pillow cases) needed prop up and support various problems, which is over a dozen, give or take.
This just in from the Receipies You’ve Always Wondered About desk:
The “Jesus Shot” contains but one ingredient and it is always available to everyone, to wit:
—Just put your lips together and blow.—
*the precedeing brought to you by your Department of Redundancy Department sponsored by Ralph’s Spoil Sport Motors, the makers of Be Bop Aroobob Rhubarb Pie and Rhubarb Pie Filling and Colorado’s Best Weed Emporium who remind you that it’s neat, discreet and a little goes a long way.*
@Crip Dyke (#531)
Sukiyaki, rather than being fried, is a stew/hotpot type dish characterized by a sweet broth. Parts of it might be stir fried, but “yaku,” the root for “yaki,” is more of a general cooking term. You can put pretty much anything you want into the dish, though beef is generally the meat most people would associate with it nowadays. Apparently duck, serow, and whale meat all used to be traditional. The “suki” part means “spade” and some people believe the dish got that name by being cooked in one, like this. So yeah, definitely don’t try to eat a “suki” unless you have a few extra sets of teeth to spare.
Earlier I mentioned that NASA is flirting with a really wonderful idea. A mission to Europa. Looking closely at that world has the potential to rewrite all that we know about how life manifests in this universe. Our acceptance of how that works has, up until now, been severely restricted, depending upon the notion that life on Earth is the only way to do it.
The fate of all missions rests upon the arcane algorithms that our elected officials (are those the guys with the stripes down their pants and the epaulets?) who we pay to mete out the dollars that are dedicated to expanding our understanding or just who the hell we are ?
Links to explain include, but are not limited to, the following:
Casey Drieier is on top of this.
The Planetary Society website is a font of good stuff for folks like me who have stars in our eyes.
Sometimes, really pretty often, people’s names are a kind of music. Have you noticed? One name that is musical and delightful to say out loud is Emily Lakdawalla. Emily Lakdawalla. Roll that around on your tongue a time or two. Then check out this how the solar system got bigger once Pluto was demoted
Now, Phil Plait is unfortunately not so melodiously blessed. Nonetheless he posts stuff that is embigifying. That is, if you take the time to look you are enlarged. case in point
We are going to go. As certainly as the Vikings sailed to Greenland, as surely as Polynesians found Hawaii and with the certainty that Armstrong left the first footprint on an other world.
Our children will go. Their children will consider going routine.
And, yes, you should prune roses in the spring. See http://whyy.org/cms/youbetyourgarden/.
To Giliell, blf, Crip Dyke and Portia many thanks. :) I hope you don’t mind me shortening some of your nyms because it is a lot to type out otherwise.
I love cheese, but am careful not to overinduldge. Is it ok to give hugs to someone I think needs them? Nerd of Redhead, I think you need one, especially if your spouse(?) the Redhead isn’t capable of giving them. May I ask what disability he/she has? Anyway, here’s a big one for you: HUG!
zacharysmith
Welcome in. Customarily, portions of ‘nyms that follow a comma can be dropped when addressing someone. Further contractions vary by individual and nym; check first.
Bronchitis sucks.
We’re in the “purge the lungs” stage, and, well… it’s disgusting.
Worse, I can expect up to two more weeks of this. (Please, for the love of Bast, just put me out of my misery.)
Worst of all?
NO SMOKES. *stab stab stab stabbity stab*
I suppose, on the brighter side, if I’m feeling well enough to whinge about it… that’s an improvement.
I totally read that the wrong way. Hello, morning!
Hello, gobi!
I must have missed your entrance yesterday. Nice to read you again!
Why is oil-pulling so popular all of a sudden?? Other Very Good Friend has decided to jump on the bandwagon… Why? Do these people not have brains??? I don’t want to be all You suck! but I think I’ll find a nice article refuting it and send it to her. No sense in wasting good oil on this activity.
Aaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaaaa, somebody likes bone broth! And bad science, too.
Strictly no elephants. Sadly, this means Youngest would also be not allowed, as his favourite squeeze-toy currently is a very ragged elephant. A small one, but still an elephant.
Then there’s Eeyore. I never thought about him that way. I think Oscar the Grouch is a similar case. Grouchy as all heck, but he still gets to participate.
Portia!
You were in my dream. We were in a weird comic-superhero-steampunk kind of world and we had to fight some evil doodz who were superheros and we weren’t but we were doing a pretty good job of it. It was kinda neat!
Don’t you know, there are already human colonies on the moon and Mars? At least, that’s what your counterparts told us was absolutely certain to be the case back in the 1960s!
zacharysmith:
Seconding everything Dalillama said @539.
If I can add a little more advice (offered as gently as possible):
I would frame the above differently. Only Nerd (in this case) knows what he needs, so if I want to convey support for him, I’d say something like this:
Obviously people will express their support in different ways, but I find it preferable not to speculate or guess at what others might need.
The other thing I’d add is that people here have varying levels of privacy. When I first began commenting here (it was The Endless Thread-or TET-at the time), I wanted to know things about people, but learned in short time that some folks don’t discuss their personal lives at all, while others will, but to a limited extent. Since there’s no way to know what degree of privacy others have, I avoid prying and usually respond only to what others have shared.
It took a long time to compose this comment bc I’m really, really trying to not come across harsh and hope I haven’t offended you. I really do think your comments were thoughtful.
Link Time!
This is a good thing. Too many people have been harmed or killed by hazing.
This is such good news!
This judge is a fucking asshole.
Fallin said she wanted to honor Native Americans. This wasn’t the way to do that.
Hello rq!
Things have been a little busy so I am limited to drive-by comments at the moment – and, as previously noted, these time-zone differences can be a real pain at times.
Things would be easier if the world was a disc atop a giant turtle….
gobi
You know, if I knew a place where someone was posting loads of fresh new kittens every day at the same time…
zacharysmith!!
Before I forget! You have not yet answered your Initiation Question(s)!
Therefore, I proceed:
1) Since you asked about ‘nyms, I return the question to you: is there an acceptable way in which you like your ‘nym to be shortened? May we use it immediately or would you like us to get to know you better? (This question has no right answer, it’s all you.)
2) Please elaborate your opinion on:
(a) horses;
(b) peas;
(c) cheese.
Much inforation will be gleaned from these answers, and possibly used as insults against you at some future date, but none are meant in malice (for instance, cicely’s cry of “Horse Lover!!” I accept with dignity and pride).
(There are several right and/or wrong answers, so choose wisely. And remember, we are a hivemind!)
Bonus question: How good are you at Pictionary and/or charades? We have a few international championship stars here who would no doubt love to test your mettle!
+++
A propos of nothing much at all, I am happy: Youngest has discovered the joy of pooping in the toilet! Last week he had a bit of an Aha! moment, and it seems to have stuck. Yay! *happy dance*
Ah, advancing development, you are wonderful.
rq:
Yes, the world champion is a delightful queer shoop, and he’s held the title for the last 5 years. There exists, in all the world, only one other who poses a significant challenge to the queer shoop’s title. However, she has yet to best the champ at PictiOnaRy; ThIs mAy change in time (if she’s lucky).
(cue diabolical laughter…)
Tony! Thankyou for your gentle correction. Oh dear I have put my foot in it already. Instead of reading more and getting to know things better I had barged in. Please accept my unreserved apology. To Nerd of Redhead, I am sorry for prying.
To rq, you and others can call me zachary :)
Regarding horses, I love them. My sister had ponies and horses when we were growing up, but she wouldn’t let me ride. :(
My dear mother was actually quite a terrible cook and would present us with boiled brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower which I hated along with some other horrors. Luckily though I liked potatoes, carrots and peas!
My favourite cheese is jarlsberg, yum yum. I haven’t haven’t played pictionary or charades for ages and wasn’t very good at it anyway.
zachary
Hmmm… Likes horses, check. Likes peas (*gasp!*), check. Cheese… good choice, check.
I think it’s safe to say you have incurred the wrath of cicely. As for me, I approve of your horse-loving but not your pea-eating, but last I heard Portia was even fond of pea popsicles. So it sounds like you’ll fit right in!
And you may shorten my ‘nym to… oh, wait. Never mind. :)
What’s your timezone, if you don’t mind answering (feel free not to)? You seem to be posting during a usually-silent time of day, especially on a Sunday (Tony’s an aberration in that sense, I don’t think he keeps any kind of a regular schedule.).
Spellcheck, popsicle is so a word!!
Tony
I think there are a few people who would dispute your version of recorded history. 5 years? Really? I hear trouble a-comin’…
Nor had I. That’s … wow. Eeyore is iconic – certainly to some generations (and maybe even now, still?) which makes this really amazingly useful. Thanks for the link, rq!
opposablethumbs
I’ve always liked Eeyore, and Oscar, but mostly because I have a thing for bad-tempered characters. *ahem* I was sometimes rather envious of them having more friends than I, though. :)
rq I’m in the land downunder, the same country that gave the US Rupert Murdoch, Helen Reddy and …….Ken Ham.
ButcheringPruning roses is easy: Just sprinkle with cheese, and then wait in the bomb / tornado shelter, or better, on another planet, until the noise stops. The cheese will be removed, and you’ll have a mulch of former rose plants, with a few penguin footprints.zachary
Nice. I guess it’s not just the snakes that are poisonous down there. ;)
I can safely say my current country never gave the US anything. At all. That I know of…
Unless contributing to Levi’s jeans counts?
We* did give London the Siege of Sydney Street, but that was in the UK and also well before my time, so I absolve myself of all collective cultural responsibility of that one. :)
*For a very extended perception of ‘we’, where I lump myself together with all monolithic Latvians everywhere anytime (not usually a good idea)!
blf
I’m trying for a method where at least some of the rosebushes survive. So the chainsaw will have to do this time.
And what a waste of good cheese.
*sigh* Do we ever stop being 15 inside? Or maybe it’s just me?
Some friends of mine had a party. I was not invited to said party. This is perfectly ok! Not everyone can be invited to every party. Sometimes particular constellations of friends make more sense than others. Sometimes you like to think about your space limit and someone has to not make the cut. Sometimes you just feel like hanging out with certain people. I had a prior commitment that would have meant I couldn’t have gone anyway, and said friends throwing the party knew that, so may not have invited me specifically because they knew I couldn’t come. I know that there is absolutely no reason to care about this whatsoever, and the amount they like me has nothing to do with parties, and it is totally fine.
But, when another friend who didn’t know this assumed I was going and asked about ride sharing, it made me sad. To my credit, I was at least mature enough to just say I had the other commitment without throwing an “I wasn’t invited” pity party, but I still had one in my own brain. Stupid juvenile jerkbrain.
carlie
*hugs*
And now I realize what I did was threw that pity party for myself all over the Lounge! Fucking jerkbrain. In any case, does this ever go away, people who are older than me?
(aso welcome zachary!)
(but I will take rq’s hug anyway :) )
Women having fun. On Women’s Day here, or at least the Saturday closest to it, they do a women’s street rally type thing (more like a vehicled treasure hunt), just for women – with tasks and checkpoints covering a fairly large area. Whatever else, it looks like a lot of fun, what with all the dressing up of selves and cars!
carlie
I hope it stops sometime, but I don’t have much hope for that. Sadly.
I had a pity party for a similar reason last week, too – Friend was visiting from Canada for about 3 days, couldn’t make the time to make it out to see us but warned me too late for me to make plans to head into the city, and of course I took it personally, even though this person had a hectic schedule even without trying to stick me somewhere in the middle of it. Jerkbrain indeed. Ah well.
(Rising early; pre-sunrise. Notes fantastic herringbone clouds scudding eastwardly. Feels significantly jump started for the day)
“stripes down their pants” has its genesis in the notable lexicon of a friend who is also notable for coining the phrase “pika stooge” which was actually an endearment endowed on his younger brother. (so many stories, so little time).
Among other legends and twisty sayings was his occasional reference to “new officials” who were those that could be identified by a stripe of shiny, but color coordinated, material that followed the outer seam of their trousers. Some people confuse trousers with “slacks” which is incorrect.
One wears trousers; they are the devices meant to hide ones lower parts. Slack is what you cut me when you find my trousers unfashionable. Fashionable is a phony standard of acceptability that is subject to frequent and illogical modification which is why I don’t wear slacks. If you were to inspect the lower drawer of my dresser you would find zero slacks. You would find some number equal to or greater than one pair of blue jeans and khakis.
A dresser is not a lackey who puts the pants on me. It is, rather a box with slidey boxes accessible from its front that I use to store my drawers. Confusingly, these slidey boxes are known as drawers. I have know idea how that happened, but, there you go . . .
Belated welcoming noises and waves to zacharysmith. Your advent has caused the Lounge to expand its inner volume by some positive cubic measure. Observed from the outside, no change is detectable. Some time traveler has stolen this mundanity and is unfairly accorded accolades for being so clever. *sniff*
Interesting only to you and I, Smith is actually my real surname in meatspace. I find it amusing that there are so many of us. I keep waiting for the coded message signaling the start of our massive invasion/takeover of everything. Err . . . you haven’t heard any message like that, have you?
The sky has brightened encouragingly. Beyond my door several species of small, feathered dinosaurs are going about their early rituals. Notable are the cat birds* which, in pairs, of course, are once again chasing one another through the now bud laden branches of oaks. They have highly contrasting white stripes on their wings. The better to keep track of one another, I reckon.
*cat birds? like rat snakes?
Do cat birds like rat snakes? Or vicey versy?
Only English majors know.
Are there English leftenants? English privates? (sniker) English corporals? Perhaps there are indeed English generals. I only say that because I speak English, generally. Other languages are beyond my pay scale but, much to my delight, others speak those other languages and thus my life is pleasantly embellished. Thanks, strangers.
rq, that “no elephant” picture you linked to is achingly cute. That is, I haz soar chiex frum lookin two long.
*stamp stamp stamp stamp*
I love this part of work.
Jerbrain is the school bully. carlie and rq, *hugs* if wanted.
I wanted to clean my work table, which started with removing several layers of things from it. While I was at it, I did the same with the other little holding thing under the table.
Then I remembered our new couch has a storage underneath and there is a bunch of stuff a friend who moved left with me, and some is crowding my room. I decided to put it in the couch storage compartment. Since she left quite a number of things, we stashed them all around the place for a lack of a single large enough space. I figured I could move everything into the storage compartment. So I gathered it all and put it down there.
But there was still space left!
So I gathered some of all that stupid things from my childhood/school that I keep because I have a difficult time throwing things away, and put them in the storage.
There was all this lovely empty space in the closet now!
I could fill it with stupid shit that I kept in boxes beside my bed. And bags which seem to multiply by themselves because I could swear I buy a new bag maybe once a year.
But there is dirt where those boxes and bags used to be! I have to clean that!
…
…
Those things I moved from the table are still in disarray. I just cleaned the table, gathered things into two piles, put one on the holding thingy underneath and the other on the table.
I’m going to pretend that’s ordered now.
I mean, there is a lot of free space on the table now. I never had anywhere to put my elbows before.
*sigh*
And I just wanted to clean up the table.
Pizza has been eaten, wine has been drunk and movie watched too…
Some music then bedtime.
carlie, it’s not a party if you aren’t there :)
G’nite lounge, take care of the day shift! (Time zones… How the fuck do they work?)
Clumsily. That’s emblematic of most of the things we do to try, mostly poorly, to put order to things we have no control over. We flatter ourselves that we do but, well, that’s where the clumsy thing kicks in. We’re highly adept at disguising the fact but it takes an act of will to acknowledge it.
Beatrice’s adventure with simply arranging/storing/hiding/saving things is emblematic.
It’s how we cope.
There is no intrinsic sense within existence.
We impose tentative sense on apparently random inconveniences on an experimental basis.
Some experiments yield useful results.
Some don’t.
Teasing out the difference is the test, the hard part.
So, Billy Pilgrim, how is this day for you?
For me this day is so far most satisfactory. Said opinion is, unsurprisingly, subject to change. The day is young, you see. By the time it grows old and yields to another dawn, current experiments my have to be discarded.
Happily, there is this place where I feel comfortable celebrating the wonder of it all; in contrast to the assumptions of regularity; in celebration of the changes with which novelty conspires to warp my brain and how my heart is widened by the sweetness of it all.
Y’all are wonderful. Full of wonder. Wonder fuels us. Our name is Curiosity. Curiosity defines us.
Such curious people happily we are. =)
To your dictionaries a new word add:
wonderfuel; noun: [insert your definition here]
Would it be an instructive, or at least, amusing exercise to insert your definition here?
Wonderfuel would be that part of looking again, double taking, having a novel thought that you might normally throw away but, due to no particular circumstance, decide to pursue. Only for the sake of doing something you have never done. Or, perhaps, that you are in the habit of doing only for the sake of trying to find order in disorder or something else as complicated or as simple . . .
Does the word hold water? Given that air does, why not this word? The two are similarly tenuous.
Tenuous: in English; thin, flimsy, weak, unsubstantial, tentative
Dansk (Danish)
adj. – tynd, fin, svag, spinkel
Nederlands (Dutch)
zwak
Français (French)
adj. – fragile, mince, précaire, faible (un argument)
Deutsch (German)
adj. – dünn, unwesentlich, schwach
Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. – αραιός, ισχνός, λεπτός, ελαφρός, δευτερεύων, επουσιώδης, σαθρός
Italiano (Italian)
tenue
Português (Portuguese)
adj. – tênue, delgado, frágil, sutil
Русский (Russian)
шаткий, слабый
Español (Spanish)
adj. – tenue, sutil, enrarecido
Svenska (Swedish)
adj. – tunn, fin
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
纤细的, 贫乏的, 稀薄的, 平淡的
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. – 纖細的, 貧乏的, 稀薄的, 平淡的
한국어 (Korean)
adj. – 얇은, 희박한
日本語 (Japanese)
adj. – 薄い, 細い, 乏しい
العربيه (Arabic)
(صفه) غير كثيف, رقيق
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. – דק, עדין, דליל, קלוש, חלש, לא משכנע
Innit woderfuel how many noises we make?
I cannot speak to this wonderfuel word. Much like chemicals with too many nitrogens it seems too volatile, too short lived, too libel to disappear in a puff of the mundane to be readily examined.
But I will say this: I am indeed a wonderfool. Make of that what you will.
Damn. I see by my watch that I be a sleepboy. Night from this frog chorused kludge of a timezone.
From the Freedom To Engage Wonderfuelly Basic Rights Which May Also Be Seen As Privilege desk: this, from this morning’s New Your Times.
Jefferson’s flip flop seems to be similar to current practice. What was free of censure a moment ago is not so now because [insert personal concern here].
As if one person’s vanity is so preciously valid as to embargo popular opinion, even popular illusion.
Fuck daylight saving time
Ever vigilant FossilFishy notes that, concerning “wonderfuel:
You are no doubt correct. Just like the peach edged clouds of the most recent dawn have vanished.
Must be this pesky wind that just slammed shut my open door.
Ah, so. Life and language goes on. In both cases there is little hope of accurate prediction except in the broadest view.
Details, how the hell do those work?
I know what you mean. I’ve been trying to save it for a long time. Got nothing to show for it. My location is only illuminated for the period of time that is regulated by celestial mechanics.
Show me how to cease rotating and I’ll show you how to hate the light.
Wow. And when you first said “wonderfuel”, my only thought was “chocolate”. :)
Thanks, gobi and Beatrice. :)
Beatrice – straightening stored items is a depressing task, because the only possible result is a higher chaos level than when you started, once everything is out of confinement. I hope it feels cleaner now!
addendum to my #579:
Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall”.
From the pfft of perfect understanding which, in my world, is the ground underfoot which, as has been observed, is not stationary but gives the illusion that it is, except in the case of earthquakes, a constant comfort:
Here is the linky to the Wikipedia entry if you are wonderfueling about it.
Cats. That’s all.
There are just under three million Smiths in the US.
I knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith.
What was the name of his other leg?!
What a strange name to give to one’s wooden leg.
Beatrice
Boy, I can relate to that. It’s about to describe the rest of my day as I go from one cluttercluster to the next : )
–
rq and Tony:
We all know who the real Pictionary Champion is. And it doesn’t rhyme with Schmony.
^_^
–
I have a headache – migraine type. But I oddly do not mind. I am cuddled on the couch (which I oddly rarely use) and sipping coffee and resting my neck on an icepack and enjoying the sunshine (also odd for during a migraine). I think I want to make more cranberry orange cookies. Maybe muffins instead, today. : )
–
I have to take the Christmas tree down today. : p It’s still as green as the day I put it up. …three months ago. I’m also going to assemble the antique bed my mom gave me from her house since she’s moving next week. It lived in this house when my grandmother lived in this house. It will be neat to have the same furniture up in the garret loft that was here when it was my playroom as a kid. I love this house.
–
carlie
*hugs* I doubt it ever stops feeling that way when those things happen. But I’m glad you came here for your pity party. *hugs*
–
S was shocked when I showed him the fridge. Then he took out the 35-lb trash bag for me without me even asking ^_^ Teamwork.
–
zachary:
I don’t think you’ve stepped in it. : ) You’re doing just fine. Especially now that you have joined the Petulant Pea-Loving Protestors. Our ranks are few, and we are beleaguered, but we remain phaithful to what we know to be true: Phreedom to Pleasantly Pop Peas in our mouths is a Phundamental Phreedom.
Thanks for the reminder. Now, where’s my watch so I can reset all those non-internet timekeepers? Can’t find watch. Remember hearing a thunk by the wastebasket yesterday. Look in wastebasket, find watch.
I looked at my alarm clock and saw the time.
I went to the bathroom.
I came back to the bedroom and picked up my cell phone and saw the time.
For a split second, I thought it took me an hour and one minute to go pee.
Been there.
oh and rq
I love that we were underdog crime fighting partners kicking ass together. That is really awesome :D
You gave me a scare there, Americans.
We’re doing the time change at the end of the month.
Was I reading Ender’s Game the other day. Essentially there’s these alien villians who are essentially a hive-mind and they follow a queen. The individual aliens aren’t sentient in any real sense.
Card kind of contrasts this to humans as individuals with genetic potential. I was surfing around and I saw some anti–abortion advocate , who was saying the life begins at conception because it is at this moment it has the genetic potential to become a human.
Is this a coincidence ? Or is “genetic potential” some long running thing that I just never heard of?
Also are alien bugs who follow a queen a thing? Or is it just Ender’s Game and Starship Troopers?
From what I heard in Starship troopers the ‘bugs’ are supposed to represent how communist societies follow their heads of state.
Portia and Beatrice: :)
Signal boost: someone I’ve known online for a long time (knitmeapony) is doing an indiegogo for nice-looking LARP/con badges here.
New theories about Stonehenge, it’s a xylophone.
Link.
Kroos Control, please confine your abortion arguments to that thread, or the Thunderdome. They have no place in the lounge.
Kroos Control
Answered in the Dome.
Sorry It wasn’t really an argument. I just wanted to know if this was a concept that was used elsewhere than in the Ender books.
Not looking to start an argument here.
Really? Some folks try to use the politeness here to not be exposed to the vitriol they deserve on other threads, like the thunderdome. I suspect you are one of them.
Playing a slab of wood (tree rings) like a record:
http://gizmodo.com/5877479/this-is-what-a-tree-trunk-sounds-like-on-a-record-player
In other interesting technology tidbits, here’s a map of the undersea cables on planet earth:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/04/tech/gallery/internet-undersea-cables/index.html
After writing a completely absurd scene in the novel I’m currently working on, it occurs to me that it’s quite strange I make any income at all off of the romance genre. I seem to be able to keep myself in check for shorter stories, but once I go over 20k words all bets are off.
Out of the six novels and novellas I’ve written in the romance genre:
Five have involved one of the main characters covered in blood at least once.
Three have had protagonists who have directly and purposefully killed people.
One begins with the murder of the heroine’s best friend.
One has the hero and heroine kill someone together.
One has the heroes attempt to kill one another on the battlefield, before they fall in love.
And the current romance novel I’m working on deals with Stand Your Ground laws, racism, PTSD, environmentalism, and the first manned trip to Mars.
No.
Have your read Ender’s game btw?
Kroos Control, take your questions to the thunderdome. They have no place here.
Heya
carlie
No, we never stop. Especially when you always think that you’re actually unlovable. It’s parties you know you could never have gone to. Hell, it’s the fucking RPG group I have no time for anyway and couldn’t attend if I had because of the kids.
*hugs*
Daylight Saving Time
End of the month here as well. And I passionately HATE it and said hate has increased exponentially with every year since I have kids.
+++
Speaking of kids: *proud parent moment* #1 has figured out how to read silently. She seriously rocks
Thanks, Giliell. :)
I just started singing the “shit, those are wet spots on the ceiling” blues. They are all clustered at a juncture, so hopefully we’re looking at some flashing repair rather than an entire replacement.
Ugh. Chicago Fire just used rape as a plot device. The main male character’s sister is the victim, so it’s a big drama conflict for him. Yep, that tired old piece of shit storyline. I’m just about done with this show.
Anybody want a crafting kit for a paper yak? #1 has invented one and is now producing them by the dozen….
Portia, Chicago Fire lost me with “You will be mounted.” Because every lesbian prospective mom’s first response to being unable to afford artificial insemination is to have sex with a man. And a guy who is excited to have sex with a woman who stated she will cry afterwards is a Good Friend.
::shudder::
It’s called a dixie cup and a turkey baster. Look into it.
TMM:
Ugh. Wow. I guess that scene didn’t really register with me – or at least not quite how horrible it really was.
I wish it was better. I’d really love a fire show that was also a Chicago show that was watchable.
Allo all!
I am having wine for breakfast. It is 2 pm.
I had 2 final exams last week. I passed both of them.
One of my final exams quoted Winnie the Pooh, a phenomenon I never thought I would see in college.
Esteleth:
*high five* for day drinking :D And congrats on the exams!
My law school exams referenced lots of pop culture. So did the bar exam.
Ex: “Lily and Marshall decide to rob a bank. Ted waits outside in the getaway car. While Lily and Marshall are inside the bank, the shoot a teller, Barney. What crimes could Ted be charged with?”
Well, this exam quoted Pooh going on about how he had a “rumbly in his tumbly” and then asked what the medical term for this phenomenon is.
This is the same exam where I speculated that college students might get sick a lot because alcohol suppresses the immune system.
Tony! @545:
In re: Arkansas Judge Fills Message Board With Helpful Info on Sluts
I must say this: this is one time when you really, REALLY want to read the comments. So. Much. Win.
Lena Dunham making fun of Scandal for the racial diversity of its characters is…just…I can’t.
(On SNL)
@Portia:
Oh, ugh.
One of the things I love about Scandal is that real PoC are in real positions of power and that love isn’t defined by color.
That said, I’m not caught up (just finished season 2) and I’ve gotten to loathe the relationship between the Prez and Olivia b/c while the rest of the story progresses (problems come up, they develop, they get solved) there relationship is just a series a reasons why they can’t be together (or don’t want to be) interrupted briefly by Olivia jumping back in bed with him and making googley eyes at the ceiling after he leaves. She doesn’t need to be that pissed at him when things are on the outs when major fuck-ups and/or disappointments and/or fights are so predictably common – their relationship is a frickin’ sine wave with a period of 2 episodes. She’s too intelligent to make googley eyes at the ceiling for him just because they smooched again. It’s the one part of her character that is completely unbelievable. Sure, she falls in love with the prez. Sure that creates interesting backstory and drama. Maybe once or even twice she gets together with him again. But the whole 2nd season is back-and-forth and she’s too smart to act like every things a surprise, and she’s too experienced with the disappointment (and with getting over it!) to believe that every relationship setback is the end of the world.
Argh!
If there’s something to criticize in Scandal, that’s it.
CD:
I completely agree. What bothers me is she takes so little shit in the rest of the world but we are to believe that she tolerates his abuse (and I do think it’s abuse) because he gives her pants-feelings?! There have been episodes where I would classify Fitz’s actions as rape, too. I think just this week there was sexual assault.* And somehow we’re supposed to be on board with that? Or are we not supposed to, at this point? It is frustrating, the whole plotline.
Trigger warning
.
.
.
*”Don’t touch me. Do NOT touch me. NO.”
*Fitz kisses her*
*Olivia swoons and returns his kiss*
@Portia:
I agree that Fitz is abusive and willing to rape. I think that the writers want us to think that it’s all okay because he’s not actually a rapist because after he ignores her no she always comes around (at least to the end of season 2).
It is not okay with me. I was pretty shocked by the resolution of the assassination attempt story line, but I kind-of got it. It’s not like the practical consequences of Fitz’s actions were huge, given the situation of the other party. Morally huge, but people rationalize all kinds of crap.
And I watch shows with bad people all the time. I just don’t watch shows where the bad folk are treated as if they are good persons. Not that those shows don’t exist all over the place, just that I don’t normally watch them. Sadly, I’m taken with Scandal for other reasons. I just wish like hell some Fitz-assassination would succeed so we could get on with the rest of what makes the show good.
I know that my sample size in this scenario is n=1, but to my knowledge it was not done with PIV.
Yay for Esteleth
I got 100% on an exam as well but wine out of the question until I’m standing firmly on my feet again. BTW, how’s your elbow?
YES.
Same here.
Extra YES.
Hello Giliell!
*waves*
The arm is at about 95%. I can fully bend and extend it, and can pronate and supinate it all the way. Strength is not fully back yet, though. At the moment my arms are at about equivalent strength – an issue because the arm I broke is my dominant arm and has always been the stronger of the two. But it’s getting better.
At the moment, my chief complaint is that it aches in a deep-down itchy sort of way. Which – intellectually – I recognize as a sign of bone remodeling, but it is driving me up the wall.
SNL lampoons MRAs.
I’ll add another n to Giliell’s. I was once asked by a friend if I would donate sperm so she could have a baby with her lesbian partner. This friend of mine is bisexual and even then there was no question that I would not be involved in the actual insemination. I had to point out to her that while I was flattered that she deemed me a worthy genetic specimen, I have bad eyes, bad teeth, a history of depression, and alcoholism is rampant in my family on both sides.
Esteleth:
Good news about your elbow. Hope the itchy feeling passes soon
–
I have the ACV out again – cleaning ALL THE THINGS.
Giliell
FossilFishy
Just for clarification: I was being sarcastic. If I ever conceive a child, it ain’t happening through PIV.
On the show, Shay (the lesbian character) jumped straight to telling her man friend Severide that she was going to “mount” him after finding it too expensive to do AI through a doctor. She also said she would cry afterwards and he got all giddy. The quoted price was something absurd like $10,000 for every attempt. I got the feeling the writers had done zero research and just lumped in things they had heard about IVF with AI. If the quoted price was because she needed any sort of expensive fertility treatments, the price would be in no way alleviated by having sex with a man. It just made no sense, except as a bad plot device.
I was offended by it. I felt like the writers were trying to create a situation in which Shay and Severide would consider having sex, and things like logic and orientation were thrown out the window.
urgh
Too much time spent arguing with forced birthers. They’re creeping into my language again.
Giliell
Was that a serious question?
If so, I’ll trade you for some pictures of Fantastic Cars.
+++
TV shows with bad people portrayed as good people…
So where on that list/scale are shows like Breaking Bad and Dexter?
I don’t think I’ve seen a single whole season of Dexter, and nothing of later seasons, but is he actually portrayed as a good character?
I thought he just started (?) a trend of bad characters driving a show instead of just being the counterpart to the main good one.
I don’t know about Breaking Bad, but I think that Dexter is more of an anti-hero than a “he rapes because he loves” sort of guy that Fitz is. Might be a distinction without a difference, but I don’t think so.
You could say that they are some bigger problems with Dexter in the sense that the series is romanticizing violence, but at least it’s pretty obvious Dexter is the bad guy and the show is tempting us into liking him regardless.
With “nice guys”, or what you call bad characters portrayed as good, you have people who are obviously supposed to be a hero. Possibly with some grey mixed in there, but that’s at most some questionable honesty or something like that, not anything as serious as rape or assault. The assault that kind of character commits when he disregards a woman turning him down is not even supposed to be one of those greys in his white characterization.
Remember those old romances where it was inevitable that the man would forcefully kiss the woman, she would resists, ineffectively push at him and then melt into him?
I guess we haven’t come very far after all.
Mm, but the idea of creating a really popular, glorifying show around a bad character and a lot of supposedly potentially justifiable crime… I don’t know, I don’t like it, but that’s my personal feeling, which is why I’m asking how those measure up. I may be missing something completely here.
That. Game of Thrones does similar things with some really repulsive characters.
On the one hand, I can understand presenting people as multi-dimensional beings with both good and bad choices made. But I wonder if there’s a line somewhere.
Maybe not.
Maybe that’s the whole worshipping-heroes bit that we shouldn’t do, because we’re all human.
Don’t know.
rq,
What I’m getting at, and I think so is Portia, is that these are two completely different problems.
I don’t think you’re missing anything. I can’t remember where, but I’ve read a really good article discussing precisely what you say regarding Dexter.
Possibly.
I think I’m just tired.
Good night!
night rq!
Hah, worshiping heroes isn’t such a good idea either, I agree.
I think I’ll go to bed too. I’m contemplating posting a moderator note on the abortion thread, and I’m not sure how wise that is.
Some good news seems appropriate:
California *improves* abortion access by adding early abortion providers
Backed by this study, which required a huge fight to even conduct, showing that not only are nurses and assistants qualified to perform aspiration abortions, but that the procedure’s even safer than previously thought.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673521/
Look at that title. Just look at it. *admires*
iOS doesn’t recognize “menstrual” as a word. WTF.
Interesting introspection: and boy howdy can I testify!
There are probably more ways to deceive one’s self than there are possible distributions of the little lights in the sky.
I’m feeling bummed.
I’m already signed up as an organ donor (everyone should sign up! It’s the right thing to do!) and I decided that the thing to do was go and sign up to be a bone marrow donor too.
So I go to the relevant website (Be The Match) and read the criteria.
And I am ineligible because I have had a cancer diagnosis. Once you’ve been diagnosed with cancer of any type (the exceptions being so-called “stage zero” cancers, the in situ pre-cancerous abnormalities), you are permanently banned from donating bone marrow.
I mean, I knew that this was likely. And I ABSOLUTELY understand why they have that rule.
Still.
*morosely eats chips*
Daylight Savings Time is a human rights issue. >.>
A small one, but it is.
Someday I hope it becomes the most pressing one.
Meh. Seems like a reasonable way to describe a wanted pregnancy since that’s the planned outcome of a process, but I get what you mean.
I watched Frozen this afternoon. I was not expecting all the feels that came with it.
From the article I linked to in my #638:
In my own life I have found a positive value in pessimism; good things do actually happen even to the glum and dispirited. The surprise and joy is enhanced by virtue of their being unexpected or even doubted.
My ultimate take away message is that it’s OK to hope for the best as youth does and it’s OK to be an old fart and expect the worst. Shit will happen of it’s own accord.
What one makes of that is, well, that is the difference.
______
Just had birthday cake with birthday boy son in law. Shared a hug with him. He is still growing and is really trying to shed bad habits. I am simultaneously deliriously happy and embarrassingly chastened. I’ve been too scornful of him. I didn’t allow for his humanity. Henceforth I must. I once walked a similar path.
______
How ’bout that for a confluence of stuff all in one short go?
I have created a hive mind of evil, magic using prairie dogs for my players to deal with. They dig their tunnels in the shape of vast magical glyphs across the prairie, inside which the only plants that will grow are a poisonous thorny scrub that spreads via chemical warfare. Animals born/hatched inside these areas are adapted to the poisonous ecology, and develop spines on their bodies and larger natural weapons, the strike of which inflicts wounds that bleed without clotting. They are also filled with a malignant cunning that manifests as a talent for avoiding traps, destroying crops, and getting where they’re not wanted, and a violent hatred for all other forms of life. It should be a laugh watching them try to figure out how to get rid of all of it, as plants and animals alike breed true and can spread outside the circles that created them.
Rick Santorum says Tony Abbott is someone he can learn from…
Rick Santorum…
Rick.
Santorum.
Said that.
…Rick Santorum can learn?
644 & 645
yup
makes sense
™
Rick Santorum thinks he can learn…
If anyone is interested in background on Tony Abbott, PM, just google “Tony Abbott 28 seconds”.
All you need to know…
My current method™ of studying 漢字 (Japanese ideographic writing):
.
stare at it long enough and the meaning will become clear
.
is not working.
rq:
No worries. Extra *pouncehug with chocolate* gladly accepted.
My roses wouldn’t withstand such a vigorous treatment, but it is tempting at times. :D
How come Portia gets invited to all the cool dreams? :D
Portia:
This had happened to a large bottle of white vinegar at my Mom’s last year. I had no idea it was possible
until I pulled it out for a similar cleaning project.
Yay! Enjoy.
I’ve finally admitted that mine needs to come down this week too. Great minds think alike. Or is it procrasinators think alike? :D
Lynna – Thanks for the warning about always wearing your pruning gloves when tending roses. I had
never heard of Sophorix shenckii, aka rose thorn disease. Now I always do wear gloves, but I have
occasionally been pricked even with them.
carlie – *hugs* I’m probably 15 years older than you are. Unfortunately, you can feel left out at any age. For most people, it’s always nice to be asked, even if you cannot accept the invitation.
Esteleth – I’m glad your elbow is improving.
Crudely Wrott:
Seeing yourself in others is sometimes the most difficult thing of all. You know (or at least think you do) all the strengths and weaknesses of the other person. It is easier for your judgment to be cloudy even when you think it isn’t. Your ability to grow and move past your perceptions inspires me. When faced with comparable situations, I can only hope that I will demonstrate as much wisdom and determination. Also, *pouncehug with chocolate*
Dalillama:
Excellent! *evil DM laugh* I look forward to hearing your lecture on the topic at the next Evil Dungeon Master Conference. I think it is under Mount Erebus in Anarctica this year.
Crip Dyke says @617:
I’ve been following this conversation (though I don’t watch the show), and your comment re-awakened a curiousity in me.
In your opinion, what are the qualities that make a tv show good?
I realize the answer will be subjective–that’s actually what I’m looking for. I’m curious what makes or breaks tv shows for other people.
(and please, anyone else–chime in if you want)
Azkyroth:
How is that?
(no snark, I’m genuinely curious)
@ Hekuni Cat — *ricochet pouncehugs with leftover b-day cake frosting stuck to my mustache!*
Thanks for the love. Every little bit helps.
Did you notice that the three sentences from my post that you quoted, read by themselves without context, could just as easily belong to one of Dalillama’s worlds of imagination?
_________
Apropos of Cosomos’ second incarnation, and to test the scrolling skills of old time horizontally scrolling game players, if the moon were only 1 pixel demonstrates the “heartbreaking” distances between bits and drabs as good as anything I’ve ever seen.
I made it all the way to Pluto. Took a nap somewhere beyond Uranus. Thankfully the inky nothingness in between the bits have surprisingly well written commentary about space and its almost complete lack of places.
*hugeses*
Gmail Notifier hasn’t been working for me, so I finally looked it up. It’s no longer supported? WTF?
Google, you’re doing it wrong.
Tony Abbott is a learning experience? Yeah, in how not to govern a country (see also: Stephen Harper).
My cousins have been complaining all over Facebook for ages.
Otter baby!
rq, Best Picture Ever!
Good, strong mothers are so necessary. We, each, come from them.
Thanks for sharing.
*pic now saved and I pass on chigau’s hugeses — thanx chigau, you are hugely cool!*
Hungry bear!
Apple juice can make you forget yourself.
Double positives. But I doubt sarcasm counts. :)
An opportunity is coming at comment 666 for a truly evil laugh.
I read PZs previous post as “today is my birchday”.
Makes me wonder, can you do evil genetic stuff with birches? Maybe starting with the fennoscandian carnivorous birch (a distant relative of the triffid, but slow and easy to avoid). BTW our alpine drop bear is a case of convergent evolution, it is not related to the Australian species.
— — — —
WTF? Several people in Malmö were injured by knives as a group of Neo-Nazis were going berserk. Were the hell do those guys hatch out?
Oh dear I’m completely exhausted.
What did I do? Take #1 to the doc, take myself to the doc, get condescended at.
Really, some people. So, while my sister delivered #1 to school, I went to my bank, which is on the way, so my sister could pick me up on her way back. Since my sister took a bit longer than expected I sat down on a concrete steele and waited, because standing a lot fucking hurts. Some 60ish woman took it onto herself to inform me that “I would not be able to pee tomorrow and I shouldn’t complain about it!” WTF?
+++
How can you tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly? Well, if you climb a tree to escape them the black bear will climb after you and the grizzly will shake you off the tree…
+++
Also, otters are the best.
Cutest. Animal. Ever.
+++
My hugs don’t pounce atm, but they are plenty
Best museum sign… ever!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fivefotos/13057115114/
What you can’t see in the photo was the wind was blowing and the tentacles were waving.
Uh, is that what it sounds like??
Also, recently in China, a group of knife-armed men attcked a train station, killing (I think) 27. Must be a trend – they want stronger knife control!
The Australian drop bear is smaller than the alpine drop bear but nevertheless extremely dangerous.
Also, hoop snakes…
Gotta watch out for hoop snakes.
Giliell
*hugs*
Yeah, that whole ‘sitting on cold concrete’… I’ve been warned against that, too. Hasn’t bothered me yet.
I’ve also been told not to put my children on the ground in spring. In warm sunny weather with not a flake of snow in sight. Where else am I supposed to put them??? Carry them until midsummer, and then, oh look, it’s too cold to put them down again? :P Parenting – you can never do it right.
haha, Love the phrase about bears. Not going to test that anytime soon, though!
Get well soon!
gobi
Not enough tentacles on that squid. :D
Yes, China.
gobi
Hoop snakes? What do they do, roll across the desert angled against the sun in order to cast no shadow and appear invisible?
Hahahaha, I see that they do!!
Also, the drop bear is so real, youtube says so.
The drop bear story is a standard… exaggeration… that Aussies tell tourists.
You can be almost certain that when describing them to a new incredulous visitor you can turn to any random Aussie nearby and they will swear they are real :)
… Of course now that I have broken the code and revealed the truth I will be hunted down…
gobi
Don’t worry, I don’t believe you, anyway!
Heck, jackalopes are real enough (photographic evidence!!), so there’s got to be at least one drop bear out there…
While we’re at it, unicorn…
The rare and elusive photoshopalope…
Actually, I think that one’s pretty common and all over the place.
*sigh* Yes, sunshine, I’m going back outside!! Plus, the roses are calling. *hack hack*
Spring ♥!
gobi’s sockpuppet’s meatpuppet @ 672
I’d be careful, if I were you.
I knew a guy who broke the code, and when he woke up the next morning his pillows were covered in vegemite.
Brrh.
Gross.
“… Of course now that I have broken the code and revealed the truth I will be hunted down…”
-By the sinister super-bat in The X-File?
The hoop snake might be able to fly, like that toroidal thingy Xena likes to throw.
— — — — —
I just finished reading Warren Ellis´”Gun Machine”. He managed to make all of Manhattan feel sinister in a Lovecraftian sense, full of references to the extinct indians who lived there.
Also read wossname, old author based in Louisiana, he usually writes about a detective called Robicheaux. He has also a couple of books about a protagonist based in Montana. Vigilantes, corruption in high places, feds with a hidden agenda, even batshit-crazy killers not connected with the other killers. Multitasking required, mystic shit happens. It has fewer bodies than a Schwarzenegger film but it feels like more.
Mmmmmmmmm Vegemite, yum :)
Vegemite on buttered toast.
Most people I have met that have a problem with Vegemite have troweled it on in a thick layer, rather than spreading it thinly. It’s not a paste people!
Yeah. A thin layer with butter on dry toast is delicious, but you have to go sparingly. It’s certainly not meant to be used like people use peanut butter.
The only known defense against drop bears (Ursus stillabunti) is a hat. One with a sharp point on the peak. Say, a Wizzard’s hat?
Never seen a hoop snake. Seen a Sidewinder, but never a hoop snake. Or even a Shoop snake.
Well, it sure as hell ain’t food. Quite good for achieving a chipped paint look on a model tank, though.
Hi, all.
Threadrupt.
Hello Ogvorbis :)
Smearing yourself with vegemite is the only known repellant for drop bears.
Good night Lounge!
Hi Oggie!
Hello, Ogvorbis!
Good night, gobi!
Drop Bears? Jackalopes? Hoops snakes? Clearly, where you live, people have no imagination. Where I live we have Elwetritsche
It is said that once a flock of geese and chicken fled into the woods to escape slaughtering. They fell in love with the elves that lived there and thus the Elwetritsche were born.
Hi Oggie *hugs*
Yes but Giliell is it dangerous??
rq
You can fall over laughing and hurt yourself.
Once you’re down they will eat you up
As long as there is enthusiastic consent . . . .
The Elwetritsche is obviously related to penguins…
So I had a bit of an irritating whining sound in one ear after the car accident and now it’s graduated into a pulsating thump. Could it be tinnitus from a whiplash injury? Eesh. I’m really glad I’m going to the doctor tomorrow.
Good luck, mellowmonkey.
“Cray cray of the day: Jurassic age pyramids at the heart of Ukraine dispute” http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/03/cray-cray-of-the-day-jurassic-age-pyramids-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-dispute/
Ed Brayton: “I know this is going to shock you, but the Republicans are wrong about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It isn’t because of Benghazi or the Keystone pipeline or Obama’s weakness or even voter fraud or Obamacare. It’s because of pyramids in Crimea built by aliens during the Jurassic period that may be a real-life stargate to other worlds.”
I considered linking to Monthy Python’s “How Sweet To Be an Idiot” but it could be seen as ableist. Is this kind of wilful…*something* a subset of idiocy? Must we invent another terminology for this level of weird?
(and a bit further down):
“Back in the 1920s the Iraq StarGate was uncovered in Baghdad. This StarGate was surrounded by the “Green Zone” during the Iraqi War and was the whole purpose for the war. Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s) were an excuse.
Having control of the StarGate was the goal of the Bush Administration as well as Nazi Germany. This was a repeat of when Hitler and Nazi Germany went to Iraq to fight against the British as both wanted control of the Iraq StarGate.”
Yum!
For one thing, it fits into a general pattern of microaggressions against people with the “wrong” chronotype – pretty exclusively micro-, but pervasive. For another, there’s a well-documented increase in accidents and injuries in the week, and especially the Monday, after, and its claimed benefits are dubious.
No. That would be stupid.
I’m pulling back again. Thought I had the spoons to come back but am apparently incapable of reading. Sorry.
Have hugs, Oggie.
Take care of yourself.
Let us know you’re OK every once in a while.
OK?
Hugs to Ogvorbis. Of course you should pull back a bit if you are overwhelmed. Recognizing what you need to do, and when you need to do it, is a skill.
*hugs* for Oggie
Best wishes for MM, hope the medical treatment goes well.
I have changed zero settings on my browser, but am suddenly getting autoplay ads I never have before on this site. What the heck?
TRIGGER WARNING
And, in the past hour, I have now gotten fourteen emails — random, throwaway email accounts, different numbers, different names, identical text — telling me that I am a serial child rapist and the only decent thing to do is kill myself. This happened last week, and I was able to drop in a spam filter based on the text. Did the same today. Not sure how xe got my work email. Tiring.
Post-weekend up-catching, as per usual.
The campaign wrapped up, with Our Heroes parked on the dark side of the moon *cue music* in a Spaceship of the Ancients, orbiting an Alternate Earth.
Perhaps, some day, we can burn shit down and blow shit up there, too!
“Omega Team—you can generally tell where we’ve been!!!”
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*returnfuzzypouncehug with chocolate&mint-optional* for Hekuni Cat.
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zacharysmith, are you new here? If so, Welcome In! *hugpile* to your right, *chocolate mountain* to your left; *boozes* all other directions.
:)
(Later)
Horses and peas? *tsk*
If One of Them doesn’t get you, the others will.
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Aspirating corn muffin is a Bad Thing. Really ill-advised.
*gag, hack, wheeze!*
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*pouncehug* for the Walton.
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Ground up wafer in grape juice. Duh.
*eyerolling*
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Who knows what eeeeeevil lurks in the back of my fridge?
(Apart from the Horses who put it there, of course.)
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*hugs, or other acceptable gestures of support* and sympathy, Nerd.
If you leave multiple pillows on a bed, sooner or later they multiply.
It’s Biology.
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*scritches* for WMDKitty, and a hope for a quick recovery.
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Oggie
I’m sorry, my friend. I wish I could help.
Oggie
That is fucking horrible.
Is there anything we can do?
Ogvorbis –
I am so sorry for you. The coward who is harassing you should be found and stopped. You did a good thing by sharing here. I’m very glad that you have someplace where you feel you can talk about it.
Tell us more whenever you feel it might help (or you feel we might be able to help).
Ogvorbis
This is horrible
*big hugs*
That person is a horrible lying asshole
Ogvorbis,
I’m so sorry.
There probably isn’t anything I can do, so this is an empty offer… but if you think of anything I can do, just holler.
Ogvorbis, fuck I’m sorry some shit-for-brains is pulling this crap. I’m so, so sorry. You are one of the very best of the good people we have around here, even when you are feeling subterranean-low.
Shameless self promotion/signal boost:
L and I have started an Indiegogo fund to try to get better equipment.
*hugs* Ogvorbis *hugs*
Please take care of yourself. If there’s any way to help, please let me/us know.
Be well. ♥
*hugs* for carlie.
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Crudely, I’m afraid that no amount of sky-brightening or cloud-scudding is going to overcome the Overwhelming Sense of Mondayness with which I am afflicted. Plus, Daylight Saving Time, also and too.
*hoooorrrk & spit*
Shorter cicely: Bah! Humbug!
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Fuck it sideways.
Fuck it running.
Fuck its heirs and assigns.
Fuck it to the nethermost depths of world-slime, and beyond!
*grand, all-encompassing gesture of negation and revulsion*
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Kittehs!
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Dalillama:
…and the rest….
I like it!
*high-five&sinister-laugh*
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Giliell:
O.o
o.O
Makes no sense.
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I have deployed hoop snakes, in my time. Drop bears, too.
:D
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Ogvorbis!
*fuzzypouncehugwithchocolate*
(Reading later)
Shit.
Shit sent by shit.
*moarhugs*
Take care of yourself for us, ‘kay?
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I thought sitting on cold will give you a bladder infection. Old wives’ tales are confusing.
I thought sitting on cold was supposed to give you ‘piles’.
chigau,
you mean sitting on hot?
Og:
I’m so sorry. What a righteous shitweasel. *hugs* if you want them.
Take care of yourself.
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Thanks to everyone who has given to the Horde Fund this round. If you’re able, the goal amount has risen a little. Thanks, all. You are a credit to the species.
Beatrice
Nope. Cold, according to my Granny.
Tea Party politician, Joe Miller (Senate candidate), has some, um, interesting ideas about which groups the constitution protects.
Bolding is mine.
According to my granny, sitting on cold will give you bladder infection and/or ovarian inflammation.
That sitting on hot gives you hemorrhoids is just common knowledge. Or something from some movie? Dunno, I heard that somewhere.
My Granny was a Hungarian peasant who also believed in witches and demons.
I didn’t always heed her advice.
My granny didn’t believe in witches or demons, but she did believe in God. The Catholic one. And she believed grandpa’s friend who told her she had strong healing and prophetic energy.
Sitting on cold concrete will give you piles. I didn’t know sitting on anything hot was bad.
I know that sitting in draughts can do everything from change your luck to give you fatal pneumonia.
My granny believed in healer-witches, because one time, she had a stye on her eye and her mum took her to see a healer-witch who spoke some words over a pile of sugar and salt and she had to eat some every day until it was gone and then the stye was gone too. True story!
Well, Scott Lively is now running for governor of Massachusetts, so this renewed look at Lively’s past activities is timely:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/scott-lively-anti-gay-law-uganda
Okay, we’ve got all kinds of advice and beliefs of Granny up-thread, so I’ll add mine to the pile. My granny thought that Commies were brainwashing us through the television. I think the cure or preventative was to watch only black and white TV tuned to Lawrence Welk.
How much water does it take to make cheese for deranged penguins?
chttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/california-water-suck
50 gallons for two slices. Also, looks like Greek yogurt may be bad for the environment.
Well, my gran’s an atheist, but she believes that showing your midriff will give you a kidney inflamation and that eating warm cake will make you sick, although I always thought that the latter was a cheap excuse to keep us from eating the cake as soon as it was out of the oven.
+++
Do you know that situation when a particular actor played a role which you hated and then plays a different role and you instantly hate that character, too?
My best IRL girlfriend just had no-reason flowers delivered to my office, all in my favorite color, and the lilies are a bulb that can be planted. I could just cry.
Yay for Portia!
Flowers = good.
Even good for the flowers in this case, if they get planted!
So get planting – a!
Oooooo, I’m such a bad girl.
I should probably be spanked.
I’m equal parts bemused and amused.
Ogvorbis, please accept a mountain, a forest, a sky-wide heaping helping of love and sympathy. You have given me great amounts of happiness. It is so unfair that you have such trouble. Please be as strong as you can, dear friend. We of the Lounge stand with you. We do love you and are increased by your presence among us.
Cicely, may a hundred kittens give you nummy nummy pad pad pads until you get all kinds of giggles.
______
I am having a hard pain day. Loving on you Loungelings helps some. So glad that you are all here.
______
*and FUCK Scott Lively!! and ignorant slobs that bother my friend Oggie!! and what ever damned thing makes my body hurt!!*
Oh, yes. But mostly it’s because I don’t like the actor playing those roles. I can think of several.
Portia
Yay for flowers! :)
Crip Dyke
Yes, but would you like to be spanked? I offer in-sauna services.
Chuck Norris is 74??? The fuck?
We did have a Spanking Parlour around here at one point, didn’t we?
So sorry, Oggie. Let us know if there’s anything any of us can do. I doubt you’d be allowed to let someone else have your work password to clean up the trash before you see it, but I’ll volunteer if it would help.
*hugs* to Crudely.
And yay for Portia, that’s so nice! You deserve some attention.
I never learned anything about places you sit and bum effects. Suddenly I feel so unprotected.
Meanwhile, animals on capybaras.
rq
Nah, it’s the actress who played Susan(?), Inspector Lynley’s wife and I hated that character. I was actually glad when she finally got shot. And now I’m watching Inspector Barnaby and she’s playing a role and I hate her as well, even though it has nothing to do with the actress (or the character)
Portia
Yay for nice things
Could you shoot me a mail because of help for JAL? I finally managed to find out that yes I can chip in a few bucks
carlie
Carry a pillow with you AT ALL TIMES!! Because you never know when those buns will be in danger of a random sit-down on an unknown surface.
Giliell:
If I had your email, the possession is past tense. You can get me at bravo[nym] at the googly one
And always wear an undershirt.
And don’t sit in draughts!
(That means you can’t open doors/windows on opposing sides of a room, or even next to each other, because that will automatically create a channel within which air may move, and thus cause a draught and you’ll catch a horrible chill that not even wool socks can mitigate.)
It doesn’t actually matter if there’s no wind and it’s 35°C outside.
@rq
Lucky me – spanking AND a sauna …
…in Latvia.
Meh, I’ve had less realizable fantasies.
No, it doesn’t. In fact, summer’s the worst time to sit in a draught, because your immune system is not en garde. !!
Portia:
does that mean you’re beamused?
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Ogvorbis, please care for yourself. That’s some serious shitweaseling.
And you’re already hot and sweaty, so when that draught finds you it’s instant pneumonia time.
Crip Dyke
Meet your massage aids. :) I’ll be expecting you… eventually.
Beatrice
You got it. Inevitably fatal pneumonia, that can only be cured by a miracle, every single time.
There are also diseases to be got from going barefoot.
chigau
Especially during months whose names do not contain the letter R*. ‘Strue.
(But yes, you’re right.)
* Possibly applies only to the Latvian language.
I thought that was eating mussles
Oh yeah, and you catch cold from having cold/wet feet. Somehow water must be contagious
In my home, “wearing thick socks” counted as barefoot.
no slippers -> death by pneumonia
It was nice reminiscing all the ways you can get pneumonia by not listening to your gran, but it’s time for me to sleep.
Good night, all!
chigau (#747)
Well, yes. Infection by fungus, hookworms, theadworms, chigoe flea, scabies mite. Also complications from wounds, like tetanus, sepsis, etc. Not that all of those are limited to the feet, of course. But they can be caused/acquired by going barefoot.
A. Noyd #751
You’re not getting into the spirit of this Granny said thing.
;)
Nah, I’ve just listened to too many parasitism podcasts not to side with Granny on that one.
Ogvorbis @701:
I am so very sorry to hear that. Whoever sent those emails is a shitty human being. I wish there was something I could say or do that could make things better for you.
Please take care of yourself. If that means not coming around here much, we will understand (though hopefully every once in a while we’ll hear from you, just to know you’re ok).
WE CARE ABOUT YOU.
Please never doubt or forget that.
More *soft and careful hugs* for Crudely. I’m sorry. Wish I could help.
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‘Night, Beatrice!
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Ok, the answer is probably something mundane, but for the life of me, I have no idea what you all are referring to with the discussion of sitting on cold/hot. *What* are you actually sitting on?
Good morning Lounge.
Tony! : any hard surface that can be cold / hot.
Sitting on cold hard surface = piles
It’s a fact.
rq – is that felt hat-looking thing what you sit on so that your bum doesn’t get too hot?
Sitting on a hot sauna stove gives you scorch marks on your arse. *truthingrandmotherlywisdom*
It’s lovely to step outside for a smoke or just for entertainment, now that I’m at my parent’s. There’s very little light pollution, so I can just walk outside and pinpoint Mars by the reddish colour only.
I didn’t catch the moment when Jupiter appeared closest to the Moon, but it’s still remarkably close. Moon -> brightest point of light next to it = the most enormous planet in the whole solar system. Fancy that.
And I can see some of the Galilean moons with my sister’s bird watching binoculars. Squee!
Hi, Weed Monkey! Nice to have a fellow “looker-upper” at hand. =)
I’ve been watching Jupiter for a couple of months now. Last night was good seeing (relative to the usual near vacant sky here in east North Carolina (near vacant compared to the Wyoming sky I used to stand awe-struck under, that is). Got a peek at three moons through 7 x 35 binocs. I’m always amazed by the sight.
By looking a bit to the south of ol’ Jove you can watch the Orion Constellation as it slides ever closer to the west. I miss seeing it in the summer sky but, hey, Scorpio!
Dang, that reminds of Dah YooPee air. Lots of stars, and Aurora. Funny how the number of stars in the sky lessened when I moved to Chiwaukee….
. . . anyone see a vagrant close parenthesis? I could swear it was just here . . .
I wanted to put this on the ‘underwear on head’ thread but it’s waaaay to frivolous.
There has been a movie made of my (大好き) favourite!!!!! mangaPervert Superhero
I was told to swing by and update on snake breeding… good day to be so commanded!
Sorry I haven’t been around much. These 10 hours days are absolutely killing me, and the fact that I agreed to pick up 3 extra days making for 50 hrs/wk, plus overtime on the regular days has had me in perpetual zombie mode. But I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Last year was an unmitigated disaster for my sweetcorn project; only 2 eggs from the founding female made it to hatching. One was severely kinked/deformed and died while trying to eat, and the other never ate. The male was throwing bad sperm that year.
This year I have a new male and the… er… ‘leavings’ look eminently fertile. He’s a gorgeous, HUGE anery at 5’6″ long and he is probably the most docile of all the snakes I own. I’ve taken him to both a pet expo and a furry convention and he was really relaxed and chill even after being handled by dozens of different people. Hopefully they will make me some excellently tempered babies to hold onto.
The start of the season was incredibly frustrating because I missed the timing on 3 different females because none of the males were interested in breeding! The females were flagging and and throwing ‘come hither’ looks and the males just sat there like idiots. I was despairing of having any breeding occur this year at all!
I am must needs go to bed now however. Work beckons tomorrow.
I hate the spring time change. I should have been in bed an hour ago, but I wasn’t tired. By the end of the week, I may be playing a zombie.
I hate time change.
Fucking stupid, useless.
carlie
The felt hat is to protect your hair if you don’t want to get it wet, the heat in the sauna can actually cause heat damage.
The felt mitten, on the other hand…
Seriously, y’all, none of my grannies ever warned me about sitting on hot stuff! I feel so left out!
good morning rq!
Hi, Tony!
Heya!
I took a shower. I know, that doesn’t sound like much of an achievement to you, but I have to get into the tub and out of it using only one foot….
MM
That IVF / PIV and lesbians getting pregnant discussion we had way up: So, basically, those writers are so hopelessly clueless that they don’t know that IVF is what happens when good old PIV doesn’t get the desired results and not an alternative for people who don’t want PIV? And they are allowed to write TV scripts on the issue? And then people laugh when some guy in India didn’t know that periods only happen once a month…
Giliell:
Speaking of women’s health, I recently had a bit more of my male priviledge chipped away. A few days ago, I noticed that V (one of the women I work with) was in some discomfort. When I inquired if she was ok, she told me that her breasts ache and she gets terrible cramps on her period. I realized as I stood there that I knew *nothing* about menstruation. I didn’t know that discomfort or pain can precede or accompany a woman’s monthly cycle. V filled me in on several other things that I lacked knowledge of such as what a tampon actually does (I feel like such an ignoramus having just typed that sentence) and what a pap smear is ( I surprised her during our chat bc I wasn’t grossed out by the talk of menstrual fluid or how a pap test is performed).
On a somewhat related note, later that night I had a chat with a guest who ordered take out. During the course of our chat, she mentioned that she was well into her 30s before she and her husband decided to have a child-and that she was happy they did. She expressed that she *wanted* to be somewhat selfish in her 20s, and not have to have the responsibilty of parenthood. She also wanted to finish her schooling and pursue a career before becoming a mother. She talked about how she attained her goals and *then* chose to have a child. At this point, she was beaming. It was almost as if you could see the joy she felt. She was thrilled to have her son and talked about how they do so much together (they had just left the gym together and she’s taking a trip to DC later this month and he’s going with her). As she left, I remember thinking that it was awesome that she had the freedom to exercise her reproductive rights in the manner she chose.
Shining a light on one’s privilege may be uncomfortable-initially-but over time, I’ve come to appreciate having my blinders removed.
NEW THREAD.