I hate you for making me read those comments.
Por lo menos están en inglés, huevona.
And yet most countries do have an official language. And in most cases it doesn't stop them providing official and semi-official information in other languages which are widely spoken.
Not all of 'em.
Though I suspect the comments I couldn't read wouldn't have pissed me off. Damn natives, depriving me of solace!!
From the article, Yup'ik does seem a rather irritating language to work in, though. The fact that the same word in different dialects can mean either "seal" or "brown bear" in particular. If I were a hunter-gatherer in Alaska, I would be keen to make a clear distinction between "Look! A seal, coming towards us!" and "Look! A brown bear, coming towards us!" It's as though Arabic had the same word for "oasis" and "venomous snake".
In summary: stupid native Alaskans.
"We don't have our head in the sand. We want to make improvements," Growden said
in Yup'ik, the word "sand" presumably means "snow", except in coastal dialects where it means "ass".
5: But think of the upside. You could be telling all the people from your tribe/village, "Run away from the bear!" while telling the people from your despised neighbouring tribe/village, " Mmm, tasty seal over there!"
Is this my opportunity to show I'm better than those stupid racist rednecks in Alaska?
MY SNOWMOBILE IS FULL OF EELS.
Is this my opportunity to show I'm better than those stupid racist rednecks in Alaska?
No.
I hear the Yup'ik have about 40 goddamn words for "asshat".
6: Thanks to globalization, the language of cliche is now universal.
It's only been about 300 years or so since the aliens and immigrants landed on our lands here in Alaska; shouldn't you be fluent in one of the Eskimo, Athabaskan, Aleut, Tlingit and Haida languages of Alaska by now?
Indigenous people 1, imperialists 0.
Is this my opportunity to show I'm better than those stupid racist rednecks in Alaska?
Yes. It would be totally okay to steal their bikes.
Also, there appears to be a translation error in 9. Up there they call them snow machines.
14.2. This page gives you the Inuktituk, but sadly no Yup'ik.
Up there they call them snow machines.
Yep, that's what the members of the Alaska State Snowmobile Association do.
Yes. This is the Key to the language of America.
Indigenous people 1, imperialists 0.
For decidedly nonstandard values of 1 and 0, perhaps.
16: The ASSA is clearly out of step with the people. The posts on its very own website use "snowmachine".
Just like the NAACP rarely uses the word "colored" anymore.
18: Yeah, I should have clarified that I meant only the "Oh, snap!" factor, not that whole genocide and land-stealing thing.
|| Bave Dee needs to get into this publication ||>
9: In that 9000 part post-election Newsweek article, there was a hilarious exchange between two reporters and Todd Palin that went something like, "So, you folks call them snowmachines up here, huh?" "They're snowmachines." "Not snowmobiles?" "They're snowmachines." "But why do you call them snowmachines and not snowmobiles." "'cause they're snowmachines."
All chiseled pectorals and tanned thighs, he is playing Captain Moroni, a battlefield hero in the Book of Mormon who rallied troops with the Title of Liberty banner.
Where are enterprising comic book artists when you need them?
I really hate the use of "all" in the way quoted in 24. As soon as a writer uses it, I stop reading. It's an almost foolproof heuristic for detecting pretentiousness.
Unless he actually consists entirely of pectorals and thighs, which could be the case.
OT
Weren't RSS readers originally touted as offering 2 key services: aggregation and offline reading? Because almost every damn thing I subscribe to requires me to go to the publication's website to actually read the article. I know -- they want to drive traffic to their site for ad revenue, etc. -- but it's driving me crazy. Embed ads in the articles; I don't care. Either let me read the thing or don't pretend to have an RSS feed.
/venting
All chiseled pectorals and tanned thighs
I just think of fried chicken. Mmmmmmm.
I don't get racist watermelon and fried chicken jokes, BTW. Wobegon is the whitest place in the world, and that was our special summer picnic meal.
At least this is stupidity from commenters on a newspaper article, not legislators; and they're calling for people to acquire English skills, rather than change their names. So I can't console myself about Texas by feeling superior to Alaska.
Anything really stupid happening in Mississippi these days?
I'm all in favor of a national language. You really can't have a functioning democracy if people can't talk to each other. Given that people in the US have a wide variety of native tongues it'd only be fair to use a language that is new to everyone, an artificial language like Esperanto or Volapuk. My choice would be Lojban, since you get a twofer: A common language and a test of the Sapir-Worf hypothesis.
This goes to an issue I never saw addressed during Palin's brief national career: how does her government interact with the sovereign communities within her state?
I'm guessing that the translation errors---which one of the comments noted hadn't been a problem before---might arise from a program being cut, or staffed with incompetent political appointees.
Palin's relationships with them were especially bad, and there were numerous reports of offensive behind the scenes jokes and insensitive public statements and actions.
Emerson, would you be able to point me in the direction of some of these reports? I'm still a little hazy on the details of how the native communities and state government interrelate, and because they control so much of the land territory, I've always been curious about how the native Alaskan community politics work.
The semi-canonical rendition of Captain Moroni.
"Beefcake" is a word that has never been used to describe my body.
This one, with the impossibly ripped 12-year-old, both disturbed me and gave me a not-unpleasant tingly feeling when I was a kid.
I always thought the one in 34 should be the first part of a series, "Moroni drops the Liahona into the sea".
27: I don't get anti-Midwest Jell-O salad and mayonnaise jokes. I'm from New Jersey and -- oh, wait, those are disgusting.
PGofHSM, did we know you were in Texas and/or from Texas? Whereabouts?
You know, though, in the 70s there was a sort of national moment for the Jell-O salad. I never ate one, but I do remember there were semi-savory variations with like celery and nuts in them. How perfectly foul.
19: The posts on its very own website use "snowmachine".
That was kinda sorta what I was alluding to.
38: All the crowned heads of Europe delight in the subtleties of a good aspic.
national moment for the Jell-O salad
40: A good friend of mine is from an uber WASP RI family and belong to a ridiculous fancy beach club. One of the menu items there -- and this is something you can have delivered to your cabana as you enjoy your sea and sun -- is jellied madrilene. I am morally certain that it consists only of College Inn chicken stock with a packet of Knox gelatin thrown in. Shiver. Additionally, I don't think anyone orders it. I think it's kept on the menu to reassure the members of their absurd WASPery with its connotations of 1950s era "posh" "continental" "cookery."
You're a step ahead of me as usual, Stormcrow.
Vermonters also use "snowmachine", while everyone in between AK and VT apparently uses "snowmobile". Explain, linguists!
42
morally certain
Does this merely mean "really, really certain"? Or does it mean "certain, because I'm morally superior to these people"? Or something else that escapes me?
44: An attempt at humorous hyperbole? You're familiar with the idea of "moral certainty," yes?
44/45: But yes, a goof on really, really certain.
re: aspic
I've eaten quail's eggs in aspic.
Oxford college high-table dinners are exactly like you'd expect.
If you asked me what I expect of an Oxford College high-table dinner, I would stare blankly at you.
Apparently you should expect quite a lot of aspic, assuming you knew what a high-table dinner is.
assuming you knew what a high-table dinner is.
That assumes too much.
I suppose that second phrase was superfluous.
Do Oxford students still have to wear gowns to class? My entire knowledge of Oxford comes from the Brideshead Revisited mini-series and Dorothy Sayers novels.
48 - yeah, that's what you get, a lot of blank staring.
High tables are attached to high chairs, so I'd expect, yeah, aspic and mashed-up veg.
I had to google to see what aspic was. The picture Wikipedia uses brings to mind the 'nutriloaf' that they feed prisoners who throw food.
51 - no. When I was a student, many moons ago, I had to wear my gown if I went to Second Hall - the second sitting of dinner, which was the one where the Fellows would be there too - but there were usually a few round the back of the bar that you could borrow.
And then for these things called Rector's Collections, which was a quick end-of term report on you, from your tutors, to the Rector (head of College), whilst you sat there, probably hungover (mine always seemed to be on the Saturday morning after the last Friday of term) and wishing you were elsewhere.
And then for university exams. In which case the full sub fusc was worn.
These days they've probably followed the example of the Brownies and it's all fleeces and hoodies on all occasions.
51: What always puzzled me about the Dorothy Sayers novels was how literally the words "rabbit-skin hood" should be taken. Really? People are wandering around Oxford with rabbit-skins on their heads (or were in the 30s)? I suppose it could be some fabric term I don't know -- sharkskin suits aren't made from peeled sharks -- but it worried me.
Theoretically, I think you could get aspic by scrapping the glob from the side of a lump of Spam, heating it, and skimming the fat. Chill what's left and you have aspic.
57 - the hood doesn't go on your head, of course! It has a fur edging, which is where the rabbit comes in - see the ones in the corner of the first picture. A Davy Crocket hat would look good though.
re 56 - I only ever had a commoner's gown - stupid little half-length thing.
59: I remember a student in Gaudy Night saying that she was going for a First because she wouldn't be caught dead in a short commoner's gown.
51/56/57: I've always loved the character in Gaudy Night who says she made sure to earn a first because the second-class gowns were just too terrible to wear.
45: I have to admit I wasn't familiar with that idea. I googled "morally certain" before posting 44 and saw that the phrase actually is relatively common but I had a meeting like two minutes later so I couldn't hang around to figure out what it meant. It kind of rubbed me the wrong way because it looked like yet another example of overuse or misuse of modifiers ("intellectually dishonest," using "literally" for emphasis).
I'm just advertising my ignorance all over the place today.
57: "Hoods" are the same thing in the States -- those velvet or satin or what have you things worn over robes that hang down the back. The colors depend on the school, the degree, and the discipline.
61: oudemia, sometimes I worry that we're the same person.
63: Well, I do overuse modifiers, so there's that.
"The colors depend on the school, the degree, and the discipline."
So always use Cheer with Color Guard. If the colors fade, it will look like you went to Kansas State.
65: Just remember, you're 114 (yes?) and I'm 105.
68: Also, I don't know ancient Greek.
I lived about halfway between 114 and 109. Right about here, in fact.
Stanley, should I be alarmed that you've memorized the GSP exit of my childhood?
Oops, here, actually. (They've renumbered the street since my day.)
This level of precision is provided for the convenience of my biographers.
71: Also I am very short. And from roughly here.
72, 73: Would either of you like lessons in how to work a gas pump?
71: I recalled yesterday that you and eekbeat were both from near Edison, when oudemia brought up the exits.
I SWEAR I'M NOT STALKING YOU F'REALZ.
I don't get the jello hate! My mom (Ohio born and bred) makes the best jello ever. There's orange jello with shredded carrots and crushed pineapple. Cherry jello with giant bing cherries. Strawberry jello with mashed banana. And the one she never made but I always loved, lime jello with ginger ale.
Aspic, on the other hand, generally revolts me.
I like mayo, I like jell-o, but not jell-o salad, and I've never had jell-o shots. I also love hot dishes, pasta salads, and desert bars, especially when they're all lined up -- in crock pots and tupperwares -- as they are at every family reunion. Midwest pride, I suppose.
||
Does anyone know what Friedman or others mean when they say that torture prosecutions would "rip our country apart"? I'm not being slick, I guess I just don't understand what would happen. Conservative and liberal street fights? Military/CIA coup? Or just more bitterness and "partisanship"? Because, I have to say, I don't think I could despise the pro-torture people any more than I already do. *spit*
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77: I assume they mean someone might not invite them to the best dinners.
You can make something like aspic from boiled chicken carcasses and bones. Sometimes I skim it off the broth and eat it straight.
I like jello fine.
Does anyone know what Friedman or others mean when they say that torture prosecutions would "rip our country apart"?
Republicans would scream bloody murder and rouse up the Beck-Limbaugh Corps. The legals would do lawsuits, propaganda, and speeches in Congress, and the illegals would disrupt and sabotage. Civil disobedience and a law higher than human law.
One of the many Reoublican charges against the 1968 hippies is that they were weenies whose disruptions were wimpy.
Justice Kennedy was the swing vote in the 2000 presidential election decision, and he justified his vote on grounds that the US couldn't stand an extended controversy. The Republican goon squad had already disrupted the recount, and you had to know what Kennedy meant. He knew that the Republicans would tear the country apart, and he knew that the Democrats wouldn't, so he gave the election to the Republicans.
74: Huh, New Jersey doesn't allow people to pump their own gas either. Gas station attendants here tend to freak out when foreigners out-of-staters even try.
80: Corzine tried to change the law last year and the good citizens of my home state freaked right the fuck out at the thought.
80: I thought NJ was the only place that outlawed self-serve gas. During the only time I ever drove into New Jersey, I walked straight to the pump and got yelled at.
Oregon outlawed self-serve when I was last there.
Are you fucking telling me that on this snoot snooty snooteriffic foodie fetish blog we have a anti-aspic constituency? I suppose vichyssoise is unpopular as well?
max
['Soup is BAD STUFF!']
On aspic, I figured that if somebody could tell me why I was wrong in 58, I'd give it a try.
Wiki:
New Jersey banned self-service gasoline in 1949 after lobbying by service station owners. Proponents of the ban cite safety and jobs as reasons to keep the ban.[8] Likewise, the Oregon statute banning self-service gasoline lists seventeen different justifications, including the inflammability of gas, the risk of crime from customers leaving their car, the toxic fumes emitted by gasoline, and the jobs created by requiring mini service.See, at Oregon gas stations you don't see the burning, assault and asphyxiation so common elsewhere in the country.
84: Who doesn't like potatoes and cream? Meat Jell-O on the other hand . . .
79: Kaplan in "The Accidental President" quotes Souter paraphrasing Kenned thus:
"He thought the trauma of more recounts, more fighting -- more politics -- was too much for the country to endure," Kaplan wrote.
Bullying works. Violence works. It got the Republicans a President.
What the hell? There are places where self-serve gas is ILLEGAL? I've never driven into a non-self-serve gas station in my entire life.
Meat Jell-O on the other hand . . .
When I pulled the tub of my most-recent turkey soup out of the fridge the next morning, it was almost immediately clear that, properly chilled, I had unwittingly made turkey jello. It was, in fact, quite delicious.
FYI Jersey Girls:
Floor seats to see Bruce at JPJ. Be jealous!
92:
No. He is just moonlighting as a barefoot glassrunner.
Friedman, Souter, et al. are mistaking themselves for the country, again. Once you get used to thinking "the interests of my economic class" are the same as "the interests of my country", it becomes really easy to move from "I couldn't take that" to "the country couldn't take that." The fact that "I couldn't take that" really means "I would feel stressed out, and maybe have to take a nap," while "the country couldn't take that" means "the Union would dissolve" doesn't occur to anyone.
These days they've probably followed the example of the Brownies and it's all fleeces and hoodies on all occasions.
Nah, Oxford still forces people to wear gowns for exams, which is why we Tabs made fun of them. Poor bastards getting molested by tourists with cameras while trying to rush to the classrooms.
Apparently protocol moved back toward formality in Cambridge, since my (currently 40-something) cousin remembered going to formal hall (our second sitting) in jeans and shirt with a gown thrown over, but we had to wear a suit under the gown at every college where I ever had formal hall.
95: helpychalk and I had to wear gowns for exams. (For all of two hours, but still.)
94: Right, but it was Kennedy. Souter was the leader of the Justice who didn't want to enthrone Bush.
Also, this sounds delicious, Parenthetical:
And the one she never made but I always loved, lime jello with ginger ale.
However, I have never had lutefisk, which my father abhors (I think my grandmother made him eat it as a kid). Or aspic (I didn't know what it was until today). I think I once tried spam when I was much younger, though my mother swears she never would have served it. I suspect that I was curious about what it was ("Meat in a can?") and asked her to get me a can, which she probably did and forgot about.
79, 88: I see. I wonder if people think that the situation can last in its current state -- where, supposedly, the citizens are one controversial political move away from being at each other's throats -- or get better. We seemed to have the whole "national healing, come together time" after 9/11, but it didn't last.
Maybe the hippies* were wimps, but there are some pretty cool folk in the enviro movement (ELF, ALF), tho I'm not an enviro myself. Also, the WU had the guts to bomb depeopled buildings. What with the impending economic doom, swine flu, enraged ditto heads' parties, 2012 on the horizon, etc. ... these are some pretty interesting, kickass times. I can't wait to wake up in the morning and read the news!
*I've never understood the general disdain for hippies, especially among my peer group. Drugs, free love, peace and compassion, checking out of the career-oriented rat-race, greater interest in music and the arts... This all sounds like epic win to me. (Note: Because I'm Generation Awesome, I don't know if this is what the hippies were all about or if it's just a caricature, but it sounds delightful either way.) "People are strange."
Jello with ice cream is a lot yummier than it sounds.
The aspic stuff looks sort of like the goo you see on top when you open a can of cat food.
*Shudder*
Sorry, I got confused by the third hand quotation in 88.
Republican civil disobedience involves long-range sniper rifles, automatic weapons, dum-dum bullets, and light artillery.
And if a Republican militant comes along and reads this, he'll furiously deny everything and then say something like: "No, we don't do these things, and it's slanderous to suggest that we might. But if we were to do those things, we'd know how to do them up right. And I don't think you'll be too hard to find."
I really love the aspic or whatever it is that congeals on top of refrigerated chicken broth. I can't stand to hear anyone say a word against it. Just shut up, people.
Isn't that geleé or something? I thought that an aspic had to be a dish, rather than the substance that made up the dish.
76: My mom (Ohio born and bred) makes the best jello ever.
Yes, someone who understands. There are a lot of Jell-o salads that I still like (nuts OK, most of the veggies ones not) and they were a staple of our milieu growing. I certainly do accept that my tastes may have unnaturally shaped by the "better living through chemistry" era during my youth. It was a bit of a "joke" (ha-ha ...) at my Midwestern WASP/New York Jewish wedding (although it helped that my wife's immediate family were about the least culinary-advanced Jews in the Bronx/Bergen County metroplex—although they did have the "fighting over containers of Chinese food in the kitchen" part down pat*.)
*...and the don't keep melons in the fridge part as well.
105: Yeah, true. McVeigh, Oswald, etc. were military bros. Lame. That's why a direct leftist assault wouldn't work -- you'd need to do some infiltration, counter-ops stuff. When I was younger, I thought about going up through the NSA/CIA, to acquire valuable life skills, but I realized that I'm not a good enough bullshitter to make it w/o being found out.
"Snowmachine" is pretty cool, but I still like "snowmobile" better.
The Flamingo Kid was not a great film, but one of my favorite parts is when Matt Dillon after having had a taste of the good life complains, "and why don't we ever have aspic?" to his Mom.
108: Ah, didn't know that anyone in the U.S. had to do that.
What really nailed the Oxford kids was that exams are in late May, early June. At that time, all the tourists are in town enjoying the lovely weather, so the students really do get stopped in the street sometimes when wearing the full academic regalia. The heat thing tends to not be an issue, but I can't imagine the suit and gown are very comfortable during the few years it breaks 75 degrees during exam time (I doubt their university halls are much newer and more advanced than our own were).
114: Tabby cats. Street criminals who preyed on Oxonians.
Tabs would often use sexual favors to gain access the the Oxonians' vast stores of wealth and knowledge, of course. Though the Oxonians peculiar sexual demands often sent the Tabs off shrieking in horror.
112: We were spared such indignities, partly because we really did only have to wear them for two hours, and so you would change in the anteroom to the exam room, but even if we didn't do that, the middies across the street are always going to be more interesting to the tourists.
||
Oooh. We just got an e-mail about contingency plans to deal with final exams and graduation, in case the university closes due to swininess.
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in case the university closes due to swininess the aporkalypse.
114: It's the derisive term used by Oxford people to refer to Cambridge folk. I'm not going to deny Emerson's 117, either.
No one yet knows the eextent of the hamdemic.
120 wins all swine flu threads that have been written or will be written.
re: 59
I have the best gown ever. It's the Glasgow MA gown and a fairly luxurious/expensive one [bought second hand from a friend]. It has the effect of making my shoulders look like I am wearing some superhero costume [like the sort of plastic muscles they stuck on Michael Keaton for the movie or the cape/exoskeleton affair in the Dark Knight]. It swooshes in a nice dramatic fashion, too. It's the perfect thing for looming across cobblestones in the moonlight.
I can't really be arsed with a lot of the traditional stuff, which is usually just a load of snobbery and puffery, but there is something quite pleasing about the gown. I may never wear it again, of course.
The aspic stuff looks sort of like the goo you see on top when you open a can of cat food.
That's because basically it is.
125: Yes, but does it taste good (assuming you find a non-cat food preparation).
Oddly, the WHO has raised the swine flu alert to 4 out of a possible 5, but the story isn't on the front pages any more.
the story isn't on the front pages any more
Arlen Specter single-handedly saved America from the swine flu.
It's the top story in the Guardian and Dagens Nyheter.
124: Shouldn't you be in some fancy-pants PhD gown now with the squares on the sleeve and strings in front and all that?
At times I miss my old undergrad gown, which I lost sometime in the third year. But then I realize I'd have no use for it other than going as "That Kid Who Gets Beaten Up All The Time" at Halloween.
No one yet knows the eextent of the hamdemic.
When people panic at the prospect of infection, their actions become rasher.
Helpy-chalk, I enjoyed 94 a good deal. (And clew's 77.)
When people panic at the prospect of infection, their actions become rasher.
Panic seems reasonable, when people don't know what links they have to the infected.
Moby Hick: Theoretically, I think you could get aspic by scrapping the glob from the side of a lump of Spam, heating it, and skimming the fat. Chill what's left and you have aspic.
Yes. Any cooked meat preparation that includes stock or meat juices is going to produce some form of gelatine when chilled. This includes pâté, SPAM and yes, cat food. If it's part of the dish it's aspic (LB is right).
Di: it was almost immediately clear that, properly chilled, I had unwittingly made turkey jello. It was, in fact, quite delicious.
Yes. You could, in fact, make a nice chunky chicken soup, degrease it, pour it into a mold and chill it. And then unmold it and eat it, particularly during the summer. That's good stuff.
126: 125: Yes, but does it taste good (assuming you find a non-cat food preparation).
And now we have the secret: those jello salads and SPAM and catfood are BAD, not because they involve jelly but because they involve untasty or nasty things.
Pâté and a well-made aspic and port wine jelly with (real) whipped heavy cream on top are all awesome.
max
['Moral: do not make or serve bad stuff.']
I actually like the canned corn beef they sell here and also in Britain and Scandinavia. I buy it once or twice a month. It's got a bit of aspic in it.
136: That stuff is effectively currency in Samoa.
(A loosely translated Samoan love song: Oh, my honey,
My primary honey,
I compare you to a can of Hellaby brand corned beef,
Or the very best corned beef
Or a biscuit cake from Fiji,
Or Chinese chopsuey with tomatoes and peas.
In the original (as best I recall -- the spelling's probably butchered beyond recognition):
Oka oka lau honi
Lau honi fa'asilisili
O te faatusaina
i le apa Helapi
Po'o se pisupo sili
Po'o se masi keki mai Fiti
Po'o Sina sapasui,
Ma ni tomato ma ni pi.)
re: 130
No, I still don't actually know if I've passed. I had the viva a year or two back, the result: they wanted some revisions [largely to cover a key piece of literature that I (and my supervisor) had somehow contrived to completely overlook]. It's been resubmitted, but there's been no word yet. These things can sometimes take a while.
Samoa: that's funny.
|| BTW, Bybee speaks!:
But he said: "The central question for lawyers was a narrow one; locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct."
Other administration lawyers agreed with those conclusions, Judge Bybee said. [Larry, Moe and Curly agree: A-OK! - m ] "The legal question was and is difficult," he said. "And the stakes for the country were significant no matter what our opinion. In that context, we gave our best, honest advice, based on our good-faith analysis of the law."This dude isn't having it:
Karen Greenberg's book, Least Worst Place, gives us a very compelling answer. It's found in a passage in which Will Taft (who emerges from all of this as a minor hero who genuinely believes the values that he articulates) relays a discussion he had with John Yoo. He didn't understand why there was such ferocious pushback against the Geneva Conventions--why not just accept and live with these standards? America had done so for fifty years. The room got quiet, and Yoo said, "We have an Article 17 problem." [Yes! Yes, you do.]
That was a key point. Article 17 says, "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war," and John Yoo and the others did not want to have to agree to that. Taft understood what was going on, and he fought back. The State Department team wrote a memo calling Yoo's opinion "seriously flawed" and "fundamentally inaccurate." They were saying that John Yoo's lawyering was incompetent.
max
['Article 17 problem, indeed.']
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Best academic gown ever: my old head of department, who appeared at graduation ceremonies and the like in a red and white creation that looked too much like a sexy Santa outfit. It was officially Aberdeen University, PhD Strategic Studies.
Sir Kraab @ 37,
I grew up in East Texas. Graduated from Lufkin in the interval of their football greatness (before they won the state championship). Also before the desegregation court order was lifted, which I guess the judge thought was safe to do once it was clear that the desire for a great team would outweigh racism and maintain a unitary district.
Oh jesus, canned corned beef is the invention of the devil.
Mmmmmm. Canned corned beef. Tasty, good for you, and maintains its value.
My dad loves all sorts of disgusting food (e.g. he thinks milk is a good mixer drink. With anything. Such as cherryade.) and he's got my 8 year old hooked on Spam.
Corned beef hash is good.
Wall Street looting pension funds
Spam is okay, in a secret yukky way. But I still remember the horror of ordering a corned beef sandwich in the UK and getting that canned shit on bread. Yeeeeaaauuuuggghhhh.
145: I was thinking maybe there should be a special symbol for off-topic pitchfork items.
& Psi [note the capital P, lower case psi ψ is similar but not quite as pitchforky] is probably the best—Ψ.
Could just put it at the start of an item, but a nice "resume" would be & #10970 which is a downward-pointing "pitchfork with a tee top", but I don't know how many browsers/computers render it correctly.
This is it: ⫚
Ψ
Outrageous Item
⫚
I grew up in East Texas.
Is this my opportunity to show I'm better than those stupid racist rednecks in East Texas?
All kidding aside, do you ever make it back to Texas, PGofETX?
We know what to serve B at the meetup. Hint: not Spam.
Spam: not so bad, fried, in a pinch. With, like, canned baked beans. Hell, go ahead and make some fried potatoes, too. (This is maybe for camping under the influence of a ravenous appetite and bracing air. You might want to be prepared for a bathroom call, though.)
Aspic: yucky.
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Having finally gotten access to the Unfogged Flickr pool (with way too much help from Armsmasher - how he puts up with idiots like me is beyond me), I must say you are all a dashing lot. And PGD was right about teofilo.
Also, Stanley and I apparently have the same cat. I wonder how it manages to be on both coasts at once.
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152: You're supposed to praise the Heeblet, who's a notably sharp-eyed little thing.
I already did that, didn't I? For I saw pictures at the Heebster's blog.
But yes, Hawaaian Punch is completely and totally adorable.
DRIVE THAT SNOWMACHINE OVER HERE!
Wow. I like all kinds of disgusting foods, such as Chicken McNuggets and pork roll, and even I don't like spam.
135: Thanks. I may try it (aspic, not Spam aspic). Like 151, I only enjoy Spam cooked on a fire.
If I were in Oxbridge, I would wear a gown ALL THE TIME. I would get a nice soft one (made of natural materials, of course) and would wear sweatpants underneath. I loved loved loved my djellabah when I had one, but it wasn't really acceptable streetwear anywhere around here.
156: Wow, pork roll - brings back memories of Sunday breakfasts when I was a kid. Loved it then. Now I'll have to try it again - it's been years. For some reason I think it's regional to the mid-Atlantic region? I also love scrapple FWIW.
161 - I hate to burst your bubble JM, but a gown isn't actually acceptable streetwear in Oxford either. Though perhaps you could join the throng of adorable hobos and be Gown Lady. (Oxford has far more than its fair share of the homeless. I was surprised when I moved here and there were only 5.)
Also, Stanley and I apparently have the same cat. I wonder how it manages to be on both coasts at once.
Its position was indeterminate until you observed it on the Flickr pool. Now you've probably killed it.
161, 163 - Also, until you graduate, they are pretty much a thin layer of black polyester that does not do up at the front. And there are bits that hanging off that flop into your dinner if you're not careful. Or are drunk. Luckily, apart from University exams and matriculation, we never had to wear them at my college.
165: True. A commoner's gown is basically a sort of baggy waistcoat. A scholar's gown is a bit nicer.
At St Andrews University, a bleak, golf-ridden outpost on the east coast of Scotland where the climate is imported in bulk direct from the Hardanger Vidda, the gowns are fleece (as in: fleece jacket, but thinner). The undergraduates use them as extra blankets or draught excluders. They are worn at different angles depending on what year you're in: bejants (or bezantines, if they're ladies) wear them up round the neck, semi-bejants wear them a bit further down, tertians wear them off one shoulder (right for scientists, left for artists) and magistrands off both shoulders, hanging back off the elbows.
156/62: Pork roll! Oh how I loved a cheese and pork roll sandwich, back in the day. NJ's great contribution to world cuisine. (Now of course NJ produces artisanal pork roll that gets written up in Saveur.)
re: 163
Yes, Oxford is hoaching with the homeless. Some of them I've seen almost every day for a decade now.
Between 166 and 168 I've increased my Scottish vocabulary fivefold.
M/tch M/lls of Austin @ 148,
I make it back to Texas at least twice a year. I'm going home in June for a religious ceremony (my aunt passed away last summer) and then again for Thanksgiving or Christmas. My parents got Madoffed by their stockbroker and are kinda broke now, so I can't see them unless I visit. I'm hoping to get to ACL this October, too.
Though perhaps you could join the throng of adorable hobos and be Gown Lady.
Would there be WiFi?
My bejants were hoaching with the tawse. Begorrah, faith and begob.
171 - Given the lax security of many wireless networks set up by students/crazy, libertarian departments (no subjects mentioned, of course...), I'd say yes.
And when I haver, well you know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the one who's havering to ye.
Haud yir tung, ned, or ttaM will be compelled to gie ye the malky.
174: Goddamn you and the earworm you rode in on.
170: If you wanna, give Sir Kraab and I a shout the next time you're in the Austin vicinity and maybe we can arrange a meet-up of the UnfAUged peoples. Who knows, maybe even the geeblet could be there!
Wait, the Proclaimers are known outside the UK? How embarrassing. Now I know how Americans feel about Rob Schneider.
You know, we have so much to be embarrassed about internationally that it never occurred to me that we have to be embarrassed about Rob Schneider too.
Its position was indeterminate until you observed it on the Flickr pool. Now you've probably killed it.
OFE wins today's clever and funny award.
177: Will do. Am hoping to make it Oct. 2-4. The geeblet should hear the B-52s while they can still hear themselves.
DEAD CATS ARE NOT FUNNY!!!11!!
OT:
It's always sad realizing how vain I am. At oral argument today, opposing counsel said (meaning to be respectful and appeal to our common professional expertise) "Between the two of us, we've been working in this area for a long time."
And, you know, well meant and all and I'm not holding it against him professionally, but he's off my Christmas card list.
179: well, so do we, of course, as any historian will tell you, but things like the Opium War and the suppression of the Indian independence movement at least make us look impressively evil and ruthlessly efficient, while producing (and, worse, liking) the Proclaimers just make us look ridiculous.
When I go abroad I tell everyone Rob Schneider is Canadian.
I had to sleep in a room with a dead cat recently. Well, the smell of a recently-removed-but-dead-for-quite-a-while cat. Our friends said we didn't *have* to sleep there, but we thought it would be more fun to be able to berate them for the next 20 years about the time they made us sleep with a dead cat.
The #5 Google result for "faith and begob" is the following blog comment:
U ija, Nice, Lisbon, Croatia... Jigifieri Sharon favur li l-Kroazja tidhol fl-EU? Favur l-integrazzjoni ta' iktar pajjizi vittmi f'dan il-federal superstate? Faith and begob, ma nafx x'naqbad nghidlek, Kevin. Qiskom id-David Copperfield tal-politika intom it-tnejn - l-illuzjonista, mhux l-iehor.
Finally, I apologize for inconsistent use of "you" and "ye".
186: an option not, alas, open for use with the Proclaimers. We could always tell everyone they are Irish, but I think that, what with Frank McCourt and Bono, the Irish have already got a fairly heavy load to bear.
Has anyone else ever got confused between Roy Schieder, Rod Steiger and Rob Schneider?
Does anyone else not understand what the problem is in 184?
191: LB doesn't like it to be know that she's a lawyer, Ned. Duh.
191: Opposing counsel implied that the merest glance at me reveals that I'm a grizzled veteran of many a long year of courtroom combat. Which, probably true. I'd just been cherishing some vain hope that I was passing as fetchingly precocious.
I am, of course, being an idiot here, and opposing counsel said nothing wrong. I'm just pouting about it.
189: Not only that, but even though only that one song made it over here, it came along with a lot of THE PROCLAIMERS ARE SCOTTISH publicity. So you're basically fucked.
193: Thanks for clarifying. LB, think of it as not as a slight but as an excuse to update your wardrobe. "Why, yes, your honor, I have been to Forever 21's pre-summer sale!"
I own not one but two Proclaimers CDs, and ISTR their concert last year at the Birchmere was very well received. But they got their most notice in the states almost five years after "I'm Gonna Be" came out, because it was used in the soundtrack to Benny and Joon. I remember being confused as to why the song was all over the radio the summer after the movie came out. I don't think very many people realize they're still around, though.
184: I'd about kill for a comment like that, actually. I find myself more likely to get the "when you've been practicing a bit longer, you'll understand" type of remarks.
197: I'd say "Don't worry, they'll come. No one looks young forever." But that sounds gloomy.
(I'm mostly hamming it up for comedy effect. If my hair would just go gray a little faster, rather than hanging around with the smattering of gray I have now, I could think of myself as looking surprisingly good for a middle-aged woman, rather than as depressingly approaching middle age. Perhaps I should dye it gray.)
196: I saw them on the Graham Norton Show semi-recently. David Tennant was on too and he was sooooo excited to see the Proclaimers. (The episode wherein Graham placed ads in the back of Blue Boy-esque magazines about being "the Doctor" looking for "the Master" and making DT call the one fellow who answered.)
Further to 196, everything I know about Scottish accents came from the Proclaimers. "Thot that ahhhh was hoppy / gonna be so hoppy / levin' life aloon an' nevar sheerin' anythan!"
The title track on "Sunshine on Leith" is beautiful. It's one of the better albums by any band from the late 80s, I think. Plus there's that whole two-part harmony thing, so if you're driving with a passenger the two of you can pick a part and sing along.
Like fedward, I'm fine with the Proclaimers, and was familiar with them before "I'm Gonna Be" made it big in the States and got so ridiculously overplayed. Last I heard of them, they were really big into Scottish nationalism.
To clarify, Parenthetical, it's possible you have re-adopted that cat. He went missing from my house like two years ago. Going forward, I'm going to tell people he "went west".
If my hair would just go gray a little faster, rather than hanging around with the smattering of gray I have now, I could think of myself as looking surprisingly good for a middle-aged woman, rather than as depressingly approaching middle age.
Bah, I'm not gray and I've decided to make this shift. Not that I've completely done so yet, but I have my moments.
If my hair would just go gray a little faster
I've somewhat deliberately stopped coloring my hair for this reason. "Look! See?! I'm totally going gray! That just proves I have YEARS of experience!" But it doesn't help because they're too busy checking out my cleavage*.
* Not actually true, in most cases, as it's not terribly impressive. I'm just having a grumpy, unappreciated day and figured while you were griping, I would too.
I'm sure you're cleavage is plenty impressive and appreciation-worthy, Di.
I'm just having a grumpy, unappreciated day and figured while you were griping, I would too.
You want grumpy and unappreciated? My meetup thread has slid off the front page and no one's responded in days!
198
... If my hair would just go gray a little faster, ...
At least you still have hair.
In all seriousness, hope the rest of your day goes better, Di. You too, LB.
You want grumpy and unappreciated? My meetup thread has slid off the front page and no one's responded in days!
That just goes to show:
Greater Austin Area Commenters > Chicago Area Commenters
Better at meet-ups, and also meatier and more uppity.
You want grumpy and unappreciated? My meetup thread has slid off the front page and no one's responded in days!
I'll offer to show off my cleavage at the anticipated meet-up if you think that would help.
I'm sure you're cleavage is plenty impressive and appreciation-worthy, Di.
I'm not even going to snark at the M/tch's grammar error because I'm more interested in continuing the vanity/aging discussion by admitting that one of my biggest aging anxieties is developing the godawful leathery-cleavage look that too many women in the southwest have, and that for this reason I have gotten really conscientious about sunscreen on my chest (as well as the backs of my hands, for similar reasons).
That you're/your mix-up is all part of the Dumb Guy act I was putting on. Yeah.
212: Makes sense. It's typically the Dumb Guys who are impressed/appreciative of the cleavage.
Di thinks all men are dumb! Sexist.
211: I'm actually growing increasingly disturbed by the bags under the eyes and saggy cheeks thing.
I'm probably willing to concede 214. Idiots, the lot of you.
I'm a little worried about getting jowly, but am okay if they are jowels that reveal an underlying good jawline rather than making me look like a bulldog--which it'll be remains to be seen. But for me it's the age spots and sun damage, at least for now....
Di thinks all men are dumb! Sexist.
No, after reading that I thought "Well Chicago isn't that far away". So she is about right.
I'm getting a single deep crease on either side of my nose. I think it comes from making snarling faces a lot.
I only look at women's cleavage for the articles.
219: Heh, I'm getting vertical creases between my eyes from frowning. Parenthood is awesome, isn't it?
221: Indeed. Had to give Rory lyrics to "one of my favorite songs" last week so she could analyze it for English class. I picked REM's "She Just Wants to Be." Rory reports back, "I can see that the song really fits with your mood, because you are cranky alot."
Rory reports back, "I can see that the song really fits with your mood, because you are cranky alot."
Then she said, "But at least you've got really nice cleavage, mom."
To clarify, Parenthetical, it's possible you have re-adopted that cat. He went missing from my house like two years ago. Going forward, I'm going to tell people he "went west".
And apparently he switched genders and de-aged in the process (mine's female and not yet 2). I guess all them gray cats just look alike.
193: see, I read it the other way: as in, experienced opposing counsel looks at obviously young and inexperienced lawyer and says "well, between the two of us, we've been working in this area for a long time."
Rather like whatever Western it is (very vague memory) with the old experienced Ranger and the cocky young guy, and someone asks before the big gunfight "Are you going to be OK?" and the cocky guy answers sure, no problem, we'll be fine, and the old guy adds "yeah, remember, between the two of us we've killed seventeen men".
