BX, fb V bayl jngpurq gur ynfg svir rcvfbqrf, ohg urer vf zl gnxr ba vg: gur jubyr raqvat vf onynaprq ba gur bar zbzrag bs pnyz orsber nyy uryy oernxf ybbfr. Gbal naq Pnezryn naq N.W. ner va gur pnsr, jnvgvat sbe Zrnqbj, jub vf nobhg gb jnyx guebhtu gur qbbe. Vg'f gurve unccl snzvyl raqvat, ng yrnfg sbe gur erprag hacyrnfnagarffrf. Naq N.W. unf whfg dhbgrq uvf sngure ba "Erzrzore gur tbbq gvzrf," bs juvpu guvf pyrneyl vf bar. Nyy gur crbcyr va gur qvare, gurve fvghngvbaf, ner erpncvghyngvat gurzrf bs grafvba naq ybatvat, cerwhqvpr naq qnatre, ybir naq snzvyl... naq gung qhqr, gur bar jub whfg jnyxrq vagb gur zra'f ebbz? Ur'f nobhg gb jnyx bhg naq xvyy Gbal, whfg nf Zrnqbj jnyxf guebhtu gur qbbe.

Jr'er va zrqvn erf, be jungrire gur grez vf jura lbh'er raqvat naq abg ortvaavat, naq jr'er va gur tbbq gvzr, gur bar gung N.W. fnlf Gbal gbyq gurz gb erzrzore.

Naq bs pbhefr vg'f nyy tbaan unccra. Jung ryfr qvq lbh rkcrpg? Frr nyfb gur erzvavfpvat nobhg gur pbairefngvba va gur obng; vg'f abg yvxr gurfr thlf zbfgyl yvir gb evcr byq ntrf.

Gurer. Gung'f zl gnxr.

I pretty much buy that.

That was a remarkably tense final few minutes, particularly considering that abguvat rkgenbeqvanel jnf unccravat. Gura: gbgnyyl oynax fperra, sbe frireny frpbaqf. Gura fvyrag perqvgf.

Vg unf orra cbvagrq bhg nf jryy (gunax lbh, Cngevpx) gung Cuvy jnf xvyyrq va sebag bs *uvf* snzvyl....

Snagnfgvp.

Vg jnf gur ynfg rcvfbqr. Vs gurl'q fheivirq vg, gunaxf gb gur zntvp bs gryrivfvba, gurl'q or fvggvat va gung qvare gnyxvat nobhg gur tbbq gvzrf _sberire_. Vs gurl'q qvrq, gurl'q (boivbhfyl) or qrnq sberire. Vafgrnq, jr trg n fgnex erzvaqre gung gurer ner ab arng, gvrq-hc raqvatf, whfg na hapregnva shgher. Gurer'f pnhfr sbe ubcr, gurer'f pnhfr sbe srne, ohg jr whfg qba'g xabj.

So, when *does* he wake up to find himself married to Suzanne Pleshette...?

The text does support this reading (spoilers, needless to say) as well.

What I definitely don't buy is Ezra Klein's reading, because whatever the hell it was that I just watched, it wasn't a "jnez-urnegrq fvgpbz".

And here I figured Tony would wake up to the sound of running water, and then Dumbledore would come out of the shower.

ryvfr vf crefhnfvir. SJVJ, V qvqa'g ernq vg dhvgr gur fnzr. V ernq vg nf zber abapbzzvggny nf gb jurgure Gbal jnf tbvat gb or xvyyrq va gur arkg 5 zvahgrf--ohg, sbe ubjrire zhpu ybatre Gbal unf va guvf jbeyq, gung'f uvf pbaqvgvba: nyjnlf ba gur iretr bs orvat ivbyragyl xvyyrq, cbffvoyl va sebag bs (cbffvoyl nybat jvgu) gur erfg bs uvf snzvyl. Gur arkg thl guebhtu gur qbbe pbhyq or gur xvyyre. Naq, ba gur bss punapr ur ryhqrf ivbyrag qrngu, gur orfg ur pna ubcr sbe vf n yvggyr zber gvzr bs crnpr jvgu gur snzvyl orsber gur srqf vaqvpg uvz.

Bs pbhefr guvf unf nyjnlf orra uvf cerqvpnzrag fvapr ur orpnzr gur urnq thl, naq bs pbhefr ur'f yrnearq gb oybpx vg bhg bs uvf zvaq fb ur pna shapgvba. Ohg Punfr erzvaqf hf, nf ur pybfrf gur qbbe ba Gbal'f fgbel, jung uvf yvsr ernyyl vf.

(Vg erzvaqf zr bs gur byq Fgrcura Jevtug wbxr: "Lbh xabj gung srryvat lbh trg jura lbh'er yrnavat onpx va n punve, naq lbh nyzbfg snyy bire onpxjneqf, ohg gura lbh whfg pngpu lbhefrys va gvzr? V srry gung jnl nyy gur gvzr.")

...it's hard to get the value from previewing in rot13. I hope that's not (really) gibberish.

Did Tony shoot JR? Because there is a crossover that needs to happen.

Juvyr gung jnf gbgny naq hggre ohyyfuvg, naq gurer ner zvyyvbaf bs crbcyr va Arj Wrefrl evbgvat evtug abj, ng yrnfg vg yrsg gur qbbe bcra sbe "Fbcenabf: Gur Zbivr"...

Right. Time to fire up the browser with a rot13 bookmarklet.

I like this ROT13 bookmarklet:

javascript:inText=window.getSelection()+'';if(inText=='')%7Bvoid(inText=prompt('Phrase...',''))
%7D;if(!inText)%7BoutText='No%20text%20selected'%7Delse%7BoutText='';
for(i=0;i%3CinText.length;i++)%7Bt=inText.charCodeAt(i);if((t%3E64&&t%3C78)%7C%7C
(t%3E96&&t%3C110))%7Bt+=13%7Delse%7Bif((t%3E77&&t%3C91)%7C%7C
(t%3E109&&t%3C123))%7Bt-=13%7D%7DoutText+=String.fromCharCode
(t)%7D%7Dalert(outText)

(recombine lines)

Why not just declare the thread full of spoilers? Seems like it'd save lots of time.

i liked the scene where rirelbar oebxr vagb gur ovt qnapr ahzore naq znqr sevraqf.

Sharyn gets the special version of HBO.

I have little interest in gangsters and don't like seeing people kill each other/be evil to each other as a plot progression, except maybe in someting I'm writing.
'
Thanks for the information, I have a ROT13 translator bookmarked so I can use it easily.

"I have little interest in gangsters and don't like seeing people kill each other/be evil to each other as a plot progression"

I'm about as interested in gangsters as I am in vampires, which is to say, not. I had to be dragged into giving The Sopranos a chance.

Granted, I do have some tolerance for "seeing people kill each other/be evil to each other" as storyline, which is why I like, for instance, Shakespeare. The Sopranos isn't Shakespeare, but it has the same unflinchingness about life's meanness and the same cast-iron focus on--simultaneously!--moral consequence and the randomness of the world.

Firefox extension: LeetKey

Set it up with a shortcut key for ROT-13. All I have to do on my browser is highlight the text and press a simple key combination.

Vg nyfb yrgf zr glcr qverpgyl vagb na rqvg obk nf EBG-13 vs V jnag vg gb.

So there.

Sharyn gets the special version of HBO.

i like my version of hbo!

Watched an episode Saturday night. Five more to go. Think there will be any surprises left for me by the time I get to them, at one or two a week?

V unir abguvat gb nqq, ernyyl, V whfg jnagrq gb fnl gung guvf vf zber ebg-guvegrra va bar guernq guna V'ir rire frra va zl yvsr, V guvax.

Mike Malloy #8: I wonder if anyone else here besides me is reminded of the opening chapter of The Golden Bough, about the rex Nemorensis, the king of the grove of Nemi.

Apparently, per Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle, the ending had people calling their cable carriers to ask what happened. I'm wondering what the cable people said.

V qba'g jngpu Gur Fbcenabf, ohg V yvxr gur jnl ebg13 ybbxf.

(Bxnl, gung jnf n ehqr tnt, ohg V uheg zl onpx naq nz tbvat bhg bs zl urnq jvgu oberqbz. Fvapr fbzrbar pregnvayl chg guvf pbzzrag guebhtu gur fbegre, abj V jnag gb fnl fbzrguvat hfrshy. Cbfgzbqreavfz! Qnyrxf! Ncevpbg oenaql!)

Kate @ #12 (or anyone in need of a Rot-13 bookmarklet), it might be easier just to find one that's already bookmarklet-ready which you can drag into your bookmarks/favorites bar. There's one in this thread and this thread.

I would have just pasted it in again, but it appears that something in the comments check keeps it from getting through the filter.

And then I went and verified those two posts, and found that no, while those bookmarklets once had content, they no longer do. So, I've reposted the Rot-13 one over at my own blog. If you wasted time look for them, my apolgies.

I saw it the same way that Mike Malloy #8 did. Gurfr ner gur sehvgf bs Gbal'f ivpgbel va gur zbo jne. Rirelbar ur frrf zvtug or gur Srq jub'f nobhg gb ohfg uvz sbe gur ynfg gvzr, be n uvg zna jub'f nobhg gb xvyy uvz. Gur ernfba vg'f gur raq bs gur fubj vf gung Gbal'f tvira hc fgehttyvat sbe nalguvat ryfr. Ur'yy ubyq bss gur raq sbe nf ybat nf ur pna, ohg ur xabjf gung ur'yy tb bhg va bar bs gubfr jnlf, naq cebonoyl fbbare engure guna yngre.

Er, "as Mike Molloy", sorry. (All that rot13 in my post, and of course the typo's in the clear.)

I feel like I'm in R'lyeh.

Jon #29: E'ylru? Where's that? ;-)

As to the show, my first reaction was, "dammit, Tivo!"

After that, I'm pretty much on board with Charles Miller #4 (and probably with others -- I admit that I lost the patience to cut and paste everything over at rot13.com after a while).

Aside: Has any ROT13 post ever had to be disemvoweled?

#30 Adam: The second sentence of the second paragraph of #4 made me think for a moment of Oybpu'f fgbel "Gung Uryy-Obhaq Genva." It's not a match, but it did make me ponder where it is we fix our consciousness, or our emphasis, or find meaning or justification or something. Well, OK, it was more coherent inside my head than it is here, but anyhow.

(Incoherence as unintentional but effective spoiler prophylaxis? Heh.)

Dori @ #26: good point. I've added one that works in IE at at my blog, though it's not as useful. The one you & I posted works in Opera & Firefox.

I hardly watched the show after Adriana got whacked three years ago.

We also quit HBO after Rome ended because there was no original programming we wanted to watch. We got Showtime briefly, because we had high hopes for The Tudors, which were dashed after one episode (though I watched two to see if it got any better. It didn't). And while I found I enjoyed Weeds, I think I'm more likely to rent whole seasons from Netflix in the future. So, for the first time in 27 years, we have no premium cable stations.

asd sdfww0er sdkwk dkeb dhsadd kso "kasd" dkh uw!!

I watched the Tonys last night, which was surprisingly badly directed. It was worth it, though, to hear Julie White, Frank Langella and David Hyde-Pierce's acceptance speeches.

My mother doesn't have HBO, but asked me to e-mail her immediately last night's episode ended to inform her what happened. I told her lots of people would probably react as you felt they did. But haven't each of the last seasons' plotlines ended pretty much the same way?

Elise #31: I hadn't made that connection before, but now I'm unable to get it out of my head.

Laurie #33:

We get Showtime (actually, pretty much everything but HBO, although the only other premium network that we really watch is Sundance) with our digital cable package, and I've found a few shows I enjoy there (Masters of Horror, The Tudors (guilty pleasure), Dexter, and Weeds). But I'm most looking forward to their next show, Meadowlands, which has a nice surreal look to it.

As for HBO, the quality of John From Cincinnati (which I haven't watched yet) and season 2 of Big Love will be big factors in whether we continue with it, as well as Flight of the Conchords (the quality of The Wire is a given).

Wow -- spoilerphobia has gotten to the point where you have to find some ridiculous javascript in order to participate in a discussion. Charming. Until this post, I'd never heard of ROT13, and I still don't know, after reading as much of this thread as I could, how to make it apply to my browser.

I'll pass. My desire to cater to the needs of spoilerphobes took a hit when people started bitching at me for "spoiling" the endings to Titanic and Apollo 13, and died the final death when I got yelled at for saying someone was guest-starring in an upcoming episode. I'm sorry, but that's not "spoiling" anything, and the mania for spoiler avoidance has gotten to the point of absurdity. With occasional exceptions like The Crying Game, knowing plot details doesn't "spoil" anything, since the execution of the plot matters the most.

Keith --- rot13 is a very old internet tradition; it was on use in bulletin boards in the 1980s. It's one of those things that old geeks tend to unfairly assume everyone knows about.

www.rot13.com provides a text box that you can paste rot13ed text into to get the unrot13ed version, or vice-versa.

Keith -- you're really not familiar with ROT13? It was a staple of Usenet (in fact, Wikipedia claims it originated there), and I tend to assume that anyone with a net presence from pre-2K has dealt with it.

Which isn't to say that I love it on web forums; part of what I liked about it in the Usenet halcyon days was that Tin had a built-in one-key ability to ROT13 text (and why anyone would use a newsreader other than Tin is beyond me). On the web, folks need to either have scripts installed or cut-and-paste stuff to a site that converts the text.

Personally, cut-tags, white-on-white text, or old-fashioned "spoiler-space" warnings usually suffice for me (with the knowledge that RSS breaks the first, and many browser settings break the second).

I do think a reasonable argument can be made for at least not spoiling the events of a tv show for a few days after it airs (although all three examples you cite of folks yelling at you are, indeed, examples of people being idiots). In the Tivo age, I certainly don't assume that everyone has watched the most recent episode of Heroes or The Sopranos, and if it's true that quality programming holds up to repeated views, it's equally true that the first experience of encountering a plotline is vastly different than subsequent ones.

Also, Rosebud was a fyrq. ;-)

rot13 is a very old internet tradition;

Actually, it goes all the way back to Julius Ceasar, though I think he used different shift values for encode/decode, rather than 13. Maybe he didn't get the memo? Or maybe the memo was in latin?

Heck, I even knew Rosebud was a sled before I watched q,e5ocjs akek because Peanuts "spoiled" it. Still a good movie anyway.

The Sopranos ending was given away in multiple news headlines today, so I guess you'd have to not read news online either.

Mr. DeCandido, I've enjoyed the fiction of yours that I've read - glad to meet you.

You don't have to install any Javascript stuff to read or write text enciphered in rot13. rot13 stands for "Rotated 13": it's a simple cipher that rotates letters 13 letters forward (or backward - it's the same thing!) and is useful for posting information that you want humans to have to take some effort to see. Spoilers, names or phrases that you'd rather Google not pick up, comment spam (an alternative to disemvowelling), etc. I've been following this discussion by putting text in the converter at:

http://rot13.com

I personally wouldn't mind if this thread were simply marked "full of spoilers!" and people were free to post spoilers in plain text. But people come across ML comment threads in lots of ways -- searches for commenter names, for example -- that don't involve "full of spoilers!" informed consent.

"With occasional exceptions like The Crying Game, knowing plot details doesn't "spoil" anything, since the execution of the plot matters the most."

How occasional, though? Suspense is a pretty important component in the entertainment aspect of narrative -- maybe it's not something you can experience over and over again, so it doesn't stand out as much when you study a classic as art. And the chronology of disclosure is part of the execution of the plot. Right?

My condolences that jerks made you think badly of spoiler disclaimers. Please don't let that deafen you to the reasonable desires of your peers.

I actually know someone who can just read ROt13'd text as though it's plaintext. He converts it instantly, in his head. Good thing he doesn't watch that many popular TV shows or movies!

Nope, never heard of it, and I've been 'net enabled since the early 1990s when I was on GEnie, back when monitors were monochrome, 9600 baud was impossibly fast, and we walked uphill in the snow backwards both ways.

Never assume everybody knows everything. *grin*

Sumana #42: Oh geez, call me "Keith." And thanks!

And it took me a while to realize that, while posting on my LiveJournal, I should use cut-tags for spoilers, as I was annoying some of my readers. I have no problem with spoilers, generally, and I forget that others do, in part because of the extreme examples I mentioned.

Anyhow, I put my own thoughts about the finale on my LJ.

Laurie: whatever you're using to encode, it doesn't seem to be rot-13. Can you tell me what it is, please?

Dave Fried #18: I like the Leet Key 1.3.5 extension for FireFox as well, which does a lot more than translate rot13.

KRAD, sir: my patience with spoilerphobes has been chipped away over the years by absurdities like posting a link to a fannish picture post on a spoiler site and having several layers of skin removed by a flaming posting board admin, but the final straw was when someone wrote to NPR complaining that one of their programs dared to spoil the ending of Anna Karenina.

I'm amused by the fact that (according to a secondhand source) the author of the novelization of the film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was forced to go to 20th Century Fox's offices in L.A. to work because they wouldn't let the script out of the studio lot. Apparently they were worried about spoilers getting out on the 'net -- never mind that this movie is an adaptation of a comic book that was published in 1966......

Keith @ #44 - I'm with you. Not only am I also ROT-13 unaware in spite of having been on the net since 1991 (and living with a mathematics PhD candidate in Berkeley, which should be enough geek in one place to give me an honorary Erdos number), but this time last month I didn't know enj euhoneo jnf cbvfbabhf, naq V'q arire urneq gur fbat 'Cnvag vg, Oynpx'. Clearly there are plenty of Things I Still Don't Know.

Dorothy #50: I was completely unaware of the first of your two ROT13-encrypted items as well. The latter, however, is one of my favorite songs of all time. I shudder to think that I went almost a third of my life before I heard it.

Grerg @40: fair enough. I hadn't been aware of that; my first encounter with the technology was on usenet.

Sometimes it seems though there is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.

Adina, I'm joking, I didn't rot13. Message 33 has a purely random line and message 41 should be reasonably clear from context.

The Oscar nominations for that year gave away the "spoiler" for The Crying Game!!

Hmmm, I was also unaware of Dorothy's first rot-13'd item, and ate some just yesterday (with no effects that I can notice). This seems like the sort of thing that people would be glad to be spoiled about, so here it is in plain text.

WARNING -- POST CONTAINS A SPOILER FOR YOUR NEXT SNACK: raw rhubarb is poisonous

My other discovery of yesterday -- chop two stalks of rhubarb finely and cook on low heat with a spoonful of honey and a couple spoonfuls of cider vinegar. The result is apple sauce like in texture and sour in a very tasty way.

Eater has a post up about Holsten's, the diner where the finale took place. Apparently, the show's props department did Holsten's a disservice in their portrayal of the place's onion rings.

Well, when I saw Pirates of the Caribbean they showed a trailer for the new FF2 movie, and I was surprised that a certain large antagonist was going to be included in the movie; we had figured the SS would be some enigmatic person with a completely different origin.

Now, if they DO have this certain large antagonist in the movie, I'll be interested in seeing how close to the original comic they follow (seeing how they messed up Dr. Doom so much).

Regarding rhubarb: what I had always heard is that the *leaves* are poisonous, but the stalks aren't. This is confirmed here, and also (if you can call Wikipedia confirmation) by Wikipedia.

Laurie @ 33--I thought Frank Langella was particularly gracious, although Julie White was adorable. The Tonys really dragged this year.

Laurie @ 33--I thought Frank Langella was particularly gracious, although Julie White was adorable. The Tonys really dragged this year.

Laurie @ 33--I thought Frank Langella was particularly gracious, although Julie White was adorable. The Tonys really dragged this year.

Laurie @ 33--I thought Frank Langella was particularly gracious, although Julie White was adorable. The Tonys really dragged this year.

Ack! What the hell just happened?

Ack! What the hell just happened?

minor glitch on the cloner machine. We'll be sending out teams to hunt down and eradicate the extra clones. Please have some means of identifying yourself as the original, non-cloned, person*.

Madeline Robbins @#62: Ack! What the hell just happened?

I figured you just really hated the Tonys...

Multi-posts explained: If you post something on Making Light, then you either refresh/reload to see what else has been posted, or go somewhere else in the browser (e.g. follow the link to the Making Light home page) and then navigate back using the back key, that causes a form submit request from the browser which will repost the content you just posted.

Firefox will ask you if you wanted to resubmit the form, and hints that the answer should be "No", but I believe some browsers just redo it with no such warning. As I recall there's a general fix on the server side (it involves doing a 301 redirect from the form post result page to the page for the site) but I have no idea whether or how that could be put into Movable Type.

Skimming through the first half of this thread feels like a similar experience to reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol2 #1 without prior warning, as most of the dialogue vf va znegvna.

I think we should post all spoilers in rot26.

It's OK, Madeleine, stuttering happens.

I love awards shows, I often watch them and thought this year's Tonys was one of the worst-directed awards shows I've ever seen. They even made the Emmys look good.

I couldn't remember where I'd seen Julie White before (I recognized her immediately, but couldn't figure out from where at first). Interestingly, she's mostly been a TV actress and won a Tony anyway.

Laurie @ 68

It is not for nothing that IMDB is my browser's startup default. Julie White is one of those actresses who has done all sorts of TV--familiar face, but no immediate identification: Law and Order, Arli$$, Touched by an Angel, etc. She's apparently in the cast for ABC's Cavemen series for the fall (I expect that will allow her to get back to Broadway rsn).

I love award shows too. Particularly (and this is where I display my age and morbid temperament) the "these are the people who died this year" section, which always gets me.

Oh dear.

I assume this is ROT13, which my browser doesn't translate. Is there a mac app for it?

Ronald Moore has a good take on the whole thing.

um, as a number of you have already provided. Sorry. Carry on.

Ron's post rather misses the point that this is a story. That whole nonsense about "narrative tyranny" is just that: nonsense. Comparing it to real life is a tired cliché at this point, and one I've succumbed to in the past, but the fact of the matter is, this isn't real life, this is, in fact, a story. By definition, stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Chase copped out on that last part.

Keith @ 73

I'm not sure that's fair. The entire series has been the story of Tony Soprano trying to keep the dark at bay by clinging to the cosmetic trappings of normalcy when he clearly craves and embraces the dark, whatever the effects on his family might be.

We were left with Tony and his family putting on a show of being a nice normal family while they balanced on a razor's edge. That seems fair.

Boy, I was thinking I could just skim this thread because I've never seen The Sopranos and don't particularly want to, but there's an interesting discussion on ROT-13 and when we knew it in the middle. I can't remember when I didn't know about it, so a long time ago. I only got the Leet key last year, though.

Whenever I see a page full of Rot-13 I think of an old Ellison line about someone being all "mad eyes and spittle."

I wish you all Viseine and a dental suction tool.

Well, I have to say, I thought that whole subplot with Tony stealing the tank was pretty lame, but the ending where he looks down from the helicopter and sees that Paulie Walnuts has lined up all the rocks to say "GOODBYE" really put a lump in my throat.

I got on Usenet in 1989, and I learned about ROT13 very shortly thereafter. rn and its descendant trn will also do ROT13 with a single keystroke. (Why wouldn't someone use tin? Because they're using trn.)

On the larger matter of spoilers, I learned while watching Buffy regularly that my enjoyment of a given episode was enhanced by not watching the previous week's trailer. I was thus allowed to have the reaction, "Whoa! Giles got turned into a demon!" rather than having a continuous undercurrent of, "What's going to turn Giles into a demon? Is it going to happen now? Maybe now? Aha." I find the former more fun. I've generalized this principle.

vi Sopranos_86.txt

:% s/lady/meadow/g
:% s/tiger/trucker/g

Ron Moore, BSG's producer and creative lead, loved it (spoilers) and says he wishes he'd thought of it first.

Don't you dare, Ron Moore! Don't you dare!

(FWIW, I've never watched a single episode of The Sopranos...I really don't care for gangster stories...my favorite gangster movies are The Freshman and Johnny Dangerously.

)

Dammit.

I watched first and second season recently... the finale made many references to early episodes, some obvious and others less so. It was like a knitter picking up dropped strands and re-weaving them into the work.

V sbhaq gur arj fuevax naq nyy gur bgure arj guvatf gb or pbasvezngvba gung gur raqvat vf gehr gb gur erfg bs gur svany rcvfbqr - gur byq vf tbar, We. vf snqvat vagb gur onpxtebhaq bs gur byq sbyxf' ubzr naq uvf qrzragvn-evqqra oenva unf yrg tb bs gur cnfg, Fvy naq Cuvy naq fb znal bguref unir snyyra gb gur jnlfvqr, naq gur arj NW naq arj Zrnqbj ner fvggvat qbja jvgu gur fnzr byq Gbal naq Pnezryn. NW unf rfpncrq Gbal'f sngr nf n zbofgre gb gur tenir, ol sbphfvat bhgjneq ba gur jbrf bs gur jbeyq naq gur yvsr bs n fbyqvre sbe gubfr pnhfrf. Zrnqbj unf rfpncrq Pnezryn'f - fur'yy or n ynjlre npghnyyl qbvat guvatf gb svtug vawhfgvprf fur frrf, engure guna dhvrgyl fvggvat ol serggvat naq znxvat cnfgn qvfurf sbe gur zra va ure yvsr. Gurer'f gur arj fuevax - Gbal jvyy or sberire pbasbhaqvat n flzcngurgvp fuevax juvyr Pnezryn ebyyf ure rlrf naq gbyrengrf uvf ohyyfuvg jvgu bppnfvbany gvenqrf ntnvafg vg, ohg ab erny npgvba. Gbal jvyy nyjnlf fvg jvgu na rlr ba uvf fheebhaqvatf naq gur arohybhf thazna va gur funqbjf jvyy nyjnlf ubire whfg bhg bs fvtug. Guvatf ner qvssrerag. Guvatf fgnl gur fnzr.

Harold McGee writes in On Food and Cooking that rhubarb stalks are okay, but the leaves are toxic, nominally because of their high concentration of oxalic acid but probably due to other compounds as well. Whether they are raw or cooked doesn't change anything.

He also notes that, perhaps unsurprisingly, the popularity of rhubarb only took off with the rise of cheap sugar.

I can personally attest to the yumminess of eating raw rhubarb from the garden, dipping the end of the stalk into sugar before each bite.

Gluon #82: I agree with a large part of that assessment, but we most definitely disagree when it comes to the subject of the kids.

NW, nyernql jvgu uvf funer bs qeht vffhrf, vf abj va n cbfvgvba gb or onaxebyyrq ol uvf qnq gb znantr naq bja avtugyphof. Funqrf bs Puevfgbcure! Ur'yy arire or n znqr zna, ohg ur'f nalguvat ohg serr bs gur fcurer bs vasyhrapr bs Gbal.

Nf sbe Zrnqbj, ure yvar nobhg orpbzvat n ynjlre orpnhfr fur frrf ubj gur pbcf gerng Vgnyvnaf vf na rrevr rpub bs gur jnl Pnezryn naq Yvivn gnyxrq qhevat gur rneyl frnfbaf. Fur'f nf pnhtug hc va qravny nf ure zbgure vf.

Re: rhubarb, I have no science to back it up, but my parents always said not to eat the roots either.

debcha, my mother eats her rhubarb dipped in salt. If I could, I'd dip mine in sour patch kids.

Evan #77: you made me snarf my iced tea. Bravo!

For many years, my news reader (and for awhile there my webbrowser) was emacs, and that's why I didn't use tin. After all, emacs is a rot-13 translator, a text editor, a programming language, and a floorwax.

A.J. Luxton @ 24

Fbeel gb urne nobhg lbhe onpx. Sebz ybat rkcrevrapr jvgu onpx cnva, zl erpbzzraqngvba vf gb yvr qbja va nf pybfr gb arhgeny cbfvgvba nf lbh pna ba n pbhpu be n orq jvgu n tynff bs erq jvar naq fbzr pubpbyngr. Gur jvar vf n zvyq narfgurgvp, naq jvyy uryc gur oberqbz, naq pubpbyngr vf nyjnlf n tbbq vqrn.

Alex R @ 57 - thanks for the clarification. I only 'knew' this from someone telling me it on the internet. I guess I shouldn't automatically believe things people tell me on the internet - wait....

Ken Levine (who knows first-hand of what he speaks) notes how the ending would have gone if The Sopranos aired on network television.

After reading a few descriptions of the ending. I'm reminded of how the last episode of Blake's 7 ended. There's a lot of differences, but....

Adam @ 84:

V jngpurq gur rcvfbqr ntnva - V zhfg unir tbar gb gur xvgpura qhevat gur NW tbrf Ubyyljbbq cbegvba naq zvffrq vg gur svefg gvzr guebhtu. V guvax gur jnl vg ernyyl jrag vf zber pbafvfgrag guna gur jnl V gubhtug vg jnf. Ur unf ab vagebfcrpgvir novyvgl qrfcvgr nyy uvf zbcvat naq rzb-xvq fghss. Ur'f uvf qnq, fcraqvat nyy gung gvzr va gurencl fnlvat jung frrzf evtug ng gur gvzr naq abg trggvat sne.

Naq abj gung V guvax bs vg, Zrnqbj'f batbvat zvaq-punatvat nobhg juvpu nygehvfgvp pnerre tbny fur jbhyq chefhr vf cneg naq cnepry... fur'f zber yvxr Wnavpr, gelvat ba nalguvat gung fbhaqf tbbq yvxr purnc fubrf ng Cnlyrff (jurer abguvat svgf dhvgr evtug naq riraghnyyl lbh whfg unir gb frggyr sbe fbzrguvat).

Rhubarb: I didn't know you could eat it raw. I've been baking it it pies for years and discovered I liked the taste of the pies better with less refined, "chunkier" sugar (possibly it is absorbed less well by the stalks, retaining more of the sour flavor I love).

It's the leaves that are poisonous, not the stems--although I generally cut off the last inch or so of the stem where it was attached to the ground just because it cooks nicer and looks better. The cookbook I was reading today (America's Test Kitchen's The New Best Recipe) advocates cutting off the outer layer of stem, but I think that's ridiculous, especially as the only rhubarb I can get here in the city is often skimpy enough without cutting more of it away. (I grew up spoiled by huge home-grown stalks of rhubarb, and plenty of it; now I go to the store and buy out the whole basket. It's nearly enough for one pie.)

A word to those of you with a rhubarb jones and an in-sink disposal: don't feed your disposal the ends, no matter how small they are chopped or how robust the disposal. It will clog impressively.