The last time I was in Los Angeles (4 years ago this month), there was an outdoor ice skating rink set up in front of one of the decadent rich people hotels on the Avenue of the Stars in Century City. It was 70 or so and people were just skating around on it, big as billy-be-damned.
There is no limit to the depravity of rich people.
They set up an outdoor ice skating rink on the roof of Whole Foods in downtown Austin every year. I have never seen this ridiculousness in person.
Skating rinks are stupid. I don't want to go in little circles. I want to skate free, across the open country.
Maybe the Pentagon could use it to resurrect Project Habakkuk.
Or the Saudis could realize their old dream of supplying drinking water from icebergs.
BTW, how many "football fields" are there in a "state"?
I want to skate free, across the open country.
Did you forget to add "on acid", or were you just being uncharacteristically discreet?
BTW, how many "football fields" are there in a "state"?
That's like comparing apples and oranges orgasms and self-righteousness.
I've never skated on acid, god forgive me.
Outdoor ice skating on a grand scale during the golden age of Los Angeles.
"Ice is civilization!" - Allie Fox
I've never skated on acid, god forgive me.
I had a disastrous canoe trip, once. We sunk the canoe like three times, and one time it got totally lodged deep under some logs. I had the time of my life.
Mary Catherine will be by shortly to tell us about the Something Canal, where Ottowans can skate for miles.
Leon Edel disapproved of Henry David Thoreau's show-offy way of ice-skating, along with a lot of other things about Thoreau.
Thoreau, like Kerouac, was bilingual and a Canuck of the lowest sort.
Why would you need to? The point of a Zamboni is to be able to use the same ice twice because it has to be resurfaced after you cut it with your skates. If you have a rink the size of CT, there's no need to go over any particular patch of ice more than once.
Actually, 3 is correct- skating on a big lake, where you can just keep going for miles, it way cooler than skating on a rink. Lakes also make weird sounds when people skate on them, even when the ice is plenty thick to be safe.
11: wouldn't there be loose snow and crap on the sheet? You'd need to zamboni it first before it was skatable. The antartic ain't black ice.
crap on the sheet
True, there are all those penguins like in the movie. I think that stuff would jam a Zamboni, though.
14: hell no. Zamboni is the all-destroyer.
If you have a rink the size of CT, there's no need to go over any particular patch of ice more than once.
But the ice near the hot chocolate stand will certainly be all cut up.
Mary Catherine will be by shortly to tell us about the Something Canal, where Ottowans can skate for miles.
The Rideau Canal. I hate that they now call it a Skateway.
Hot chocolate spiked with acid will cost extra.
Once in Minnesota the ice froze transparent. I believe this only happens when warm water is suddenly frozen. It was like walking on glass, below it was eerie with a sort of greenish glow.
In other news, I just saw a partridge type bird in my front yard which isn't in my bird book. It must be an escaped pet or commercially-raised bird. Seeing that sort of bird in town is unknown, even for the native species. It's amazing how much some small novelty like that can bug you.
Nearly verbatim recent conversation:
me: So the pathology report came back, and it confirmed that the tumor was benign, and that it measured 4.4cmx2.2cmx1.2cm.
Mom: well, that's a relief. [pause] So, it was about the size of a golfball?
me: A squished one.
Apparently sports equipment and fruit are not only the common measure of tumors, but more accurate than centimeters.
You'd need to Zamboni the ice shelf because it wouldn't start out flat, but why stop there? We could carve Connecticut into it and have an Ice Capades reenactment of rush hour on I-95.
19: I think that happens when the ice freezes without any meltings and refreezings along the way. Awesome to skate on.
Zamboni is a great word, all destroying or not.
Just wait till a meteor the size of a Volkswagen hits it.
I saw that Project Habakkuk shit on the History Channel. My god, the Brits were unhinged by Hitler.
Click through, those of you who don't know about the Brits' plans to build a GIANT AIRCRAFT CARRIER OUT OF ICE.
Love the Wiki article:
Much of his article also contained extensive derisive comments about the properties of ice as used for ship construction.
Ya think?
Okay, this is actually the best line from the Wiki article:
The experiments were carried by Perutz and his collaborators in a refrigerated meat locker in a Smithfield Market butcher's basement, behind a protective screen of frozen animal carcasses.
An ice shelf the size of Connecticut
Connecticut is not a valid unit of measure, Rhode Island is. It's an ice shelf 3.5 times the size of Rhode Island.
Google should really make such conversions available as part of their calculator function. I want to be able to type in "1 Minnesota in football fields" and get an answer.
Connecticut is not a valid unit of measure
Unless you're using SC units (système connecticut).
The ice shelf can be used for national-greatness purposes, but will have to be painted with "dazzle" patterns so Al Qaeda doesn't recognize it as it approaches their destroyers.
Which country's part of Antarctica was this in, anyway? because that country now has some mobile ice, suitable for dragging with tugboats to wherever it is most needed.
This comment should probably have been before #30.
Anyway, the reason the Connecticut is a discredited unit is that it is almost exactly 2/3 of a Wales. Why not just use the Wales?
Unless you're using SC units (système connecticut).
Go back to France, commie.
In the 1920s the Ford Motor Company owned Fordlandia, a rubber plantation in Brazil that was the size of Connecticut.
C is currently obsessed with . You could probably get rich people to pay to drive the 4x4s up and down the ice roads.
God I'm stupid today.
Ice Road Truckers
Some highlights on the results of this search at Google:
Things the size of Connecticut:
A dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico
A mysterious glowing zone in the Indian Ocean
An underwater canyon off of New York City
A Bark beetle infestation in Alaska
Kosovo, Montenegro and Northern Ireland (Lebanon is 70% ... Connecticut seems to spell trouble)
A Martian lake
Some visible features on Io and Jupiter
Logged area per year in Indonesia
..and Brazil
Size of windfarm to power New York City
Parking lots in the US
Area levelled by the Tunguska Blast
That iceberg is small potatoes (how many small potatoes is left as an exercise for the reader). Ohio State's hockey team apparently plays on a rink nearly twice the size of Minnesota, nearly three times the size of Michigan. From this we can infer that one Michigan = 2/3 of a Minnesota.
Tow other items items
French Polynesia noted as approximately 1/3 the size of Connecticut a numer of times (I'm sure there is a single original source), which just happens to be "a little bigger than Rhode Island".
And this article: Rhode Island is the size of a Karl Rove iceberg.
The paper of record knows how to properly describe the size of a disintegrating ice shelf.
21: Cala, maybe you've mentioned this on another thread, but is this your tumor being discussed? I'm happy to hear it's benign, whoever's it is.
Ditto to what Sir Kraab said, Cala.
||
I just had a phone interview in which I pre-emptively turned down a job. I was so excited about the organization's work and the fact that they wanted someone with French language skills that I put in an application for something I wasn't really qualified for. The workload was absolutely overwhelming.
|>
A benign, even generous and helpful tumor with a positive, fun-loving attitude!
Were there a hailstone the size of Connecticut, would its size render it an iceberg, its substance render Connecticut a piece of equipment for a large and unknown sport or am I simply over-thinking it?
I am also endorsing Sir Kraab's sentiments, Cala.
The paper of record knows how to properly describe the size of a disintegrating ice shelf.
That just goes to show the advance of global warming. The day *before*, it was the size of Connecticut. Tomorrow it'll be the size of Manhattan.
46: Not as big as Connecticut, but a grim tale of 5 parachitistist turning into "human hailstones":
After a series of lifts and falls they literally became human hail stones.When they finally reached the Earth, they were all frozen stiff , only one survived.
That is how hailstones form, successive accretions of ice around a condensation nucleus caused by falling and rising on updrafts in a storm.
NOAA Spotters Hail size guide:
Object Diameter
Pea 0.25 inches (6.4 mm)
Dime 0.75 inches (19 mm)
Penny 0.75 inches (19 mm)
Nickel 0.88 inches (22 mm)
Quarter 1.00 inch (25 mm)
Half dollar 1.25 inches (32 mm)
Walnut 1.50 inches (38 mm)
Golfball 1.75 inches (44 mm)
Tennis Ball 2.50 inches (64 mm)
Baseball 2.75 inches (70 mm)
Softball 4.50 inches (114 mm)
43: Oh, this was a couple months back, and there was only a 1% chance that the lump wasn't benign. (Oddly, a 1% chance does nothing to calm down a worried mother.) I traded a little bump for an inch-long scar, so now I am tuff.
49: so now I am tuff
Hot! (or at least hot at some time in the past.)
Hot at some time in the past is, regrettably, becoming a very plausible description of me.
52: You forgot Connecticut itself.
Shit, you're right. I always do that. IDIOT!! I'm so stupid!
I recently found out I have a 10 cm cyst in my spleen, which is the size of a frickin' grapefruit. There was a slight chance it was a tumor, but turned out not to be. I tell you this mostly because it's fun to say "splenic," as in, I have a splenic cyst but not a splenic tumor, so I don't have to have a splenectomy or join a splenic support group.
52, 53: Only of the standard Connecticut in Connecticut can it be said that it neither is, nor is not, the size of Connecticut.
"If you're walking on stilts, sporting glowsticks on your head or wearing an Afro wig the size of Rhode Island, the more smiles you generate, the better the experience."
32: Anyway, the reason the Connecticut is a discredited unit is that it is almost exactly 2/3 of a Wales. Why not just use the Wales?
Yesterday the BBC taught me that 3.5 Standard Rhode Island Units is roughly equal to 1 Northern Ireland.
(But it said nothing about Kosovo or logging.)
According to Google, nothing is approximately the size of Sardinia, Botswana, Bhutan, Guam, Mali or Celebes. St. Kitts-Nevis is approximately the size of Malta.
A neutron star having the mass of the Sun will have a diameter of about 10 km - approximately the size of Hong Kong Island!
nothing is approximately the size of Sardinia
"Between August 2002 and August 2003, 23,750 square kilometers [of Brazilian rain forest] (more than 9,000 square miles) -- covering an area of forest the size of Sardinia -- was destroyed."
See, Pop? Not "approximately" the size of Sardinia, but actually Sardinia-sized.
The sheer improbability of which indicates that there is a God, and that she is Sardinian.
Minnesota is not a unit of area. It's a measure of whiteness.
I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
NOTE: this is post 3.5
I recently found out I have a 10 cm cyst in my spleen, which is the size of a frickin' grapefruit.
You know what I always wondered? Where the hell in the average human body is there 10cm of space just waiting to be taken up by a cyst? There's always these grapefruit and golfball sized lumps described, and I just find it bewildering. How are these things fitting in?
Most things in there are pretty squishy. Like bags of sand.
Still, it totally freaks me out that the average person could have fit a grapefruit in her abdomen and not notice.
(I got nothing on the 'bags of sand' line.)
Not all people are average, Cala. Almost none, actually, depending on the margin of error.
It's how the 40-year-old virgin described melons breasts when he was trying to bullshit about having had sex.
No, I get that. I was trying to think of a joke, like 'proof that ogged has never hugged a pancreas!', but I got nothing.
67: Yes, we're all unique individuals, just like everyone else, but it's still a friggin' grapefruit.
66: You'd notice if a grapefruit happened to arrive suddenly inside your abdomen. OTOH, if it sneaks in all that squishy stuff will slide out of the way.
Some of us just don't have these phobias about large fruit lodging themselves in our bodies. I've been in the 5th month of pregnancy or so since 1984, carrying around a grapefruit or so, and do I complain? Yes.
freaks me out that the average person could have fit a grapefruit in her abdomen and not notice
It's not called an abdominal cavity for nothing. A average-sized dinner has way more mass than a grapefruit, and it goes in no problem.
And extremely premature infants are measured in volumes of carbonated drink containers.
I probably ate at least four grapefruits-worth of lunch today. Now my belly is perfectly round.
A average-sized dinner has way more mass than a grapefruit
Way more?
You got me! Half a pound of pasta definitely has way more mass than a grapefruit. Actually, I'm off to guzzle no doubt multiple grapefruits of soup and crackers.
A average-sized dinner has way more mass than a grapefruit
Ah, the Southern Diet.