Allow me to be the first to ask if there still may be a Boston meetup in late October.
Westward the course of empire takes its way.
Regular Oakland or the one in California?
I am very unlikely to make it any time next week. So that's the end of that.
How about Thursday, then?
For location, I suggest Tribune Tavern, new spacious place by 12th St BART.
I'm going to block a vote until I'm assured that nobody gets subsidized health insurance until 2015.
7,8: I think the outstanding question is if Ttam can make it.
6: Thursday at Tribune Tavern would probably work for me.
Well this is sort of ridic but I'll know tonight whether I can make it or not. I don't so much have a job yet but I may have the weekly commitment of a choir, for which I am auditioning this evening. I think the most likely thing, though, is (if they are into me) I won't start up with them until after their next concert. So probably all this is just dithering.
If this is the any-old-meetup thread, I'll be in Chicago with the entire family from next Thursday (the 10th, I think?) through Sunday. I don't think I'll have the time or energy, surprise surprise, for a traditional meetup but would be glad to see people if there are people who'd like to be seen and we can somehow make it work. Email is motherissues on gmail.
6: Thursday at Tribune Tavern sounds like it would work for me too.
So, yeah. Absurdly, I can't make it Thursday. I didn't quite expect this, as I have been here six days and don't have a job and stuff. Apologies.
Thursday being choir rehearsal night? Tell us more! You haven't joined Chanticleer, have you?
Wednesday's fine if it works for everyone else.
I actually have a friend who's in Chanticleer! No, this is a Russian choir for normal people like me who can sorta sing a bit. I was in a Russian choir, or more precisely a shouty Siberian folk choir, in grad school, and though the director was one of my least favorite people, I really loved the music and I missed singing my entire time in New York (except when I was at Marie's Crisis, but it was so hard to convince them to do the song of Stenka Razin there.)
The Mister Smearcase cross-country move checklist:
1. apartment
2. location of nearest bus or train stop
3. russian language choir
4. meetup
5. job or whatever
Noooooo I would like a job very much. I just am not having spectacular success on that front.
Might be able to make a Wed meet-up if it is in SF, but Th is out.
The NEW director of the shouty Siberian folk choir Smearcase mentions in 20 is, however, a great person.
Smearcase, is this also an Old Believers-style choir, because if so I am so there.
Weds works for me, Oakland or SF or whatever.
Also, I think 21 is missing
2.5 opera.
19: Wednesday should also be fine for me.
I am hankering for an answer to 24.2.
I don't think I know what 24.2 would look like is why I'm not with the answering.
The shouty Siberian choir you were in sang music in the style of the Old Believers.
Continuing, by "I am so there" I meant "I am interested in attending performances".
Oh, that's right. I have come to just think of it as Siberian folk style.
So, I actually don't know. I basically showed up and sang a few scales and got plonked down at a music stand with a guy who sings the same range and handed some music. The next concert is all Rachmaninov, mostly liturgical. I prefer the shouty folk stuff but I guess they/we sing that, too. Just not this upcoming concert. Once I am not the new guy I may see if contributing rep is a thing that's done, since I do have a few of my faves in a folder that is in a truck that is arriving tomorrow.
Wait, now I need to know the name of the choir you were in before. And I am virtually certain that we are at two degrees of separation, choir-wise. Ask your fellow singers if they know about Cappella Romana.
I have no idea why I feel the need to googleproof but G/olosa. A bunch of them were in other choirs but I don't know about that one.
"I am interested in attending performances"
I think it's time for you to get some playing experience. Not so much in choirs though as in the team sports.
Wed in SF at someplace accessible by train and on the early side is my preference. How about that place near the 16th station the name of which escapes me? With an outdoor space in the back. At 6?
How about that place near the 16th station the name of which escapes me? With an outdoor space in the back.
Not sure which place you mean. We met at Rosamunde awhile back, and that has outdoor space and is near a BART station, but it's the 24th St. one, not 16th. (Or maybe you mean Zeitgeist?) Still, that would be fine by me (as would anything near BART in the east bay, such as the aforementioned Tribune Tavern).
Rosamunde or Zeitgeist, either is fine - it was someplace smaller, but the name totally escapes me. Prefer SF myself, couldn't make the EB.
Wed early in the Mission is do-able for me.
dq: You may be thinking of Sycamore from back in April?
DQ is totally thinking of the Sycamore. Which would be a good choice. (I'm bummed this is happening while I'm out of town!)
Sycamore would be great for me, though I feel like perhaps there's something to be said for having the "welcoming Bave & Smearcase to the bay" meetup be on the side of the bay where they actually live.
Why not hold it in every bay imaginable?
I would also like to give Beavercase some veto power. (As an East Bayite.)
Totally makes sense to have it in EB, will just wait for next SF opportunity. Not poss to make it across the Bay mid-week, is all.
I thought we were Bearcave.
I'm actually unemployed at the moment which means on the one hand I am all free time, and on the other, if it's somewhere I can walk to I don't blow $6 on BART.
It's awhile yet till bears hibernate. A cave belonging to a well-fed bear might be worth visiting but I would stay far away from the other kind.
Oh, I didn't notice there was already a collective noun. I considered Bearcase but thought it incorporated too few phonemes from Bave.
Sister Mab has a nice ring to it but I don't think it has staying power.
I guess I slightly prefer Oakland but could easily do an SF location if that's better for more people.
What 53 says. What, we live together now. We have to have identical opinions on all things. We spent a few hours hashing it out and now I love noise music and he won't get on a plane.
Wednesday can work for me, though I'd prefer later than 6. East Bay preferred.
55: Your menstrual cycles have probably already aligned.
Am I the only one to take the initiative and summarize?
There seem to be more people who prefer the EB than SF, but with DQ it's not a preference but a requirement. Is there anyone who _wouldn't_ make it if it were in SF?
"requirement" sounds so harsh! I'll just catch you guys next time its here in SF, work and family commitments allowing. Politeness wins out over convenience, more important to welcome Bay Area-ns.
OK, got it.
So Tribune Tavern, Wednesday 10/9... does 6:30 sound good, taking Dave W. into account?
Hey I might actually try to come to this. Wed. Oct. 9?
Sounds good, though I won't get there till around 7.
And sigh, I guess a sweep would have been too easy. Well fought, Rays. [/baseball]
Sounds good. I will probably be there closer to 7, although now that I have an exciting lawyer job there's always the possibility that some crazy thing will come up and I'll have to work late.
I will also be there around 7 by the looks of it now. Get a load of me with actual things in my schedule.
I'll probably be there at a similar time if I'm not wallowing in the slough of despond (likely).
I'll try to be there at 6:30 - I have to pick up dry-cleaning.
64 was me.
As if there could have been doubt.
Will you be bringing a date, Nosflow?
Consult comment 65 and ask yourself that question.
Oh, sorry about that. I was super sleepy last night when I read that, and it didn't really register.
Wallowing in the slough sounds kinda dirty to me.
Somebody at this meetup is going home with nosflow!
"Why doncha come back to my slough, baby," he will say. "Okay!" some as-yet-undetermined commenter will respond.
I can never remember -- slough rhymes with dough, with cough, or something else?
Betjeman pairs it with "cow" and "now".
Just change the phrase to "Who wants to sex Nosflow?" and be sure to ask it of every single person who enters the Tribune Tavern.
Great, there was a meetup planned down the street from me for a chemistry blog I read, but then Instapundit mentioned it and now we're going to get a bunch of whackos there.
Honestly, it's near a Starbucks so I wouldn't be surprised if some of them brought a gun.
I always say slough (meaning small waterway/ditch/etc) as "slew." Now I'm wondering if everyone has been laughing.
(Also, condolences, nosflow.)
That's how I say it too, Parenthetical.
Slough, as in despond, is apparently pronounced the same as the place in England.
88, the only one I've ever discussed is Elkhorn Slough, which is "slew."
Sorry about the despondency, nosflow. Bet alcohol will make you feel better.
I think I have only ever seen slough written and never heard it pronounced. In my head, it rhymed with enough.
I used to think it was the sluff of despond, but no, it rhymes with cow.
Alcohol will probably make me feel worse, in fact. I'm actually really quite upset/saddened/depressed/etc. about this.
94.1 -- Looks like the Western US pronunciation is slew. For the noun, not the verb.
Whoa, "slough" doesn't rhyme with "cough"? I've been saying it wrong for years.
"ough" is the stupidest fucking letter combination in English. I remember when my daughter was first learning to read getting many "Why, daddy, why?" questions about how to pronouce "ough" words.
"sloughing off" is pronounced "Sluffing off", I'm pretty sure. Never heard it as a noun.
Go back far enough and folks said "thruff" for through and the like. Furlough comes from the Dutch verloff.
Yeah, there's three slough pronunciations. Sluff, slew, and slauw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_(orthography)
I always thought it was pronounced "slew/sloo" especially "slough of despair." No idea why.
If you're going to rhyme that creek in Yellowstone with either cuff or cow, you may as well put on that dude get up Bob Hope wore in Paleface.
ms bill, originally from California, says "slew" for where a creek near her childhood home ran into the Pacific.
Right. "Slew" for the noun referring to a swampy body of water. "Sluff" for the verb referring to shedding an outer layer.
Yorkshire folk pronunciation: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Books/FolkTalk/B.html
scroll down to "bargh" for hill, pron. "barf" -- through, though and plough all have sounded ffs (ffs)
Dress like Jane Russell, though, and you can say it any way you want.
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/62/a9/a6/62a9a63375975eab84c97aaad3da3731.jpg
I think I knew the British town was "Slauw" I think because the British Office was set there.
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
^^^Betjeman, cheekily rewriting "Slough now brown cow"
He wasn't from 19th century East Yorkshire.
This thread eliminated two potential spelling errors I might have made, but has left my estimated vocabulary one word smaller.
It also solved the mystery of why nosflow was listening to Tom Waits.
Slough of Despond is a lipogram for a and i. But "wallowing in" ruins everything.
It also solved the mystery of why nosflow was listening to Tom Waits.
There's nothing mysterious about that.
Slough creek sloughed off a slew of sediment.
Sometimes, if it seems like alcohol will make you feel worse, what you need is a lot of it, to get that out of your system.
Persons in the slough of despond have been known, like Gorey's WANTON, to smear kohl about their eyes.
I am in South San Francisco, at a Starbucks, waiting for the person from a staffing agency who might be able to hook me up with temporary work in undesirable settings, though* I think she may have some illusions about my certification. I passed Daly City on the way here and it does look like little boxes. But why are BART trains always suitable for Bikram yoga? I sweated through my shirt.
*thuff? thew? I don't knough.
I give up! Nosflow, why are you in the slough of despond? I'm so confused.
125: Not normal, but not infrequent. I'm told in many cases the next car will have air working.
Seeking confirmation: where are we meeting? Tribune Tavern?
Tribune Tavern charges waaaay too much for their clear creek eaux de vie.
I believe so. Apparently they also serve not-super-cheap food.
I think she may have some illusions about my certification
Are you coming on to her to get a job or something?
124: On Sunday afternoon they saw Titus W.Blotter in his shirtsleeves fleeing into the Great
Trackless Swamp.
In Hiccupboro they counted the cannon balls in the pyramids on the courthouse lawn.
Ummmm is that the Willowdale Handcar?
At sunset they entered a tunnel in the Iron Hills and did not come out the other end.
Sorry to hear that nosflow. (Nosflough? Nosfluff?) I hope tonight is cheery.
For some reason my parents--whose tastes did not generally run to the absurd--owned that book. I spent a fair bit of time as a kid flipping through it trying to puzzle out something about what I was missing about them, the book, or life in general.
On my way -should be there around 7.
I have arrived at the Tribune Tavern, and snagged the big table by the door.
This concludes your regularly scheduled liveblogging.
On my way but I think I'm 45 minutes away.
147: MORE! SHOTS THEN LIVEBLOG! LET'S DO THIS WOOOO!
Ok I was only 30 minutes away.
Some persons have ordered food. Others have waited.
133: Those prices look pretty reasonable, but that's presumably because I live in NYC.
Now I want a pork trotter crepinette.
I guess I am finally going to one of these things, if I do not die qhile blinded by a touchscreen in the dark.ETA 8 or later?
I always say slough (meaning small waterway/ditch/etc) as "slew."
This is definitely how it's always pronounced in Alaska, where they are numerous.
Those prices look pretty reasonable, but that's presumably because I live in NYC.
Yeah, I had a similar thought, for a similar reason.
Many more persons have ordered food now.
And drinks? Have they been ordered by persons?
Almost every person has ordered a drink, and some have ordered more than one drink.
Almost every person has ordered a drink, and some have ordered more than one drink.
X. has extracted my tale of woe from me.
I hope you were properly anesthetized before the extraction. 160 and 161 suggest so.
Today my son came home from school saying that at recess the girls were capturing the boys and kissing them to make them die more quickly. I'm not sure if that was in reference to the rules of some game or if he's just that quick on the uptake.
They have a cocktail that claims to have saline in it. And an egg.
But there was nothing with "lady" in the name so I just had some version of a mai tai.
Someone has introduced government by lot, and it's not trapnel.
Back at Meetup Daycare, we used the Nobel Prize contender "Owl Babies" to calm the 2yo's anxieties about her absent mother and she went right to sleep. I am drinking prosecco by myself.
Government by Lot? I think the incest scandal would sink that idea.
Well, presumably he would only be governing his own offspring, so they probably wouldn't care.
Trapnel's idea of good conversation when in a hot tub: regurgitating Tom Slee.
Everyone is dispersed. You are all lovely people and I have a very poor tolerance for alcohol. I judged it unwise to finish one (1) beer.
Wait, the meetup was in a hot tub?!
Or maybe that was just the trapnel-neb private afterparty.
My fantasy that everyone in California has a hot tub has proven false, to my unending sorrow.
p.s. you're all very nice! And I only had one drink, so it may be true.
My in-laws have a hot tub. Come on by! I feel like you would appreciate them. They were born in 1945 and 1948 but Mrs. K-sky has been told by therapists that she resembles the children of Holocaust survivors.
This thread reveals that I have never read Pilgrim's Progress and would have vastly mispronounced the name of the English town (but that's par for the course).
Glad to know that my knowledge of backwards waterways fits in with the rest of my Californian/Western brethren.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, even if I number among the few.
He IS Spock. I always suspected it.
It was good to meet you, and good luck with relocations.
179 is a little obvious for you, ajay. I expect better.
I certainly hope that I've managed to keep what you expect of me at manageable levels.
177: Due to the width of the browser window and scanning the thread too quickly, my brain read this comment as "Mrs. K-sky has been told by therapists that she resembles a hot tub of Holocaust survivors."
181 is bracingly complimentary in a sort of backhanded way.
183 made me laugh very loud. Maybe a new phrase for "more fun than a barrel of monkeys?"
