3. is pure, distilled wisdom.
1. is perhaps not nearly so universal, these days.
2....ahh, what I wouldn't do...
My own father, though in certain circumstances known for earthiness of words, is far too large to ever be called gnomic. I feel I have missed out, a bit.
Oh son of a...
I just did it again and figured it out.
Someone tell me I'm not dumb...cause I sure feel it.
This reminds me--Jim, that card trick on your webpage...Where'd you find that? Or did you program it yourself?
It baffles the heck out of me, and I love it.
Serge @ 259 et. al.
In reference to the XKCD strip in question, am I the only one who thought "Ah, fear of a black hat is automatically trumped by fear of two black hats!"?
the film in question.
Though I may be utterly wrong...
Sing! O mod, the rage of OED
Son of Murray, at vile
Seizure of venerated role.
Many lov'd words were sent
Into the maw of low lyric,
Their meaning prey to Evil
Pun and base Rhyme.
Yeah, I mostly think Oklahoma is the south, too. I was just wondering about y'all. Except for Tulsa, which has definite Damned Yankee tendencies.
#74...Ok, that's weird. Mine too. I grew up in Southeastern Kansas, my dad was born and raised there, my mom was born just across the border in OK.
And I have to be perfectly honest--except right on the border, there is a difference.
My mother uses "Bless his heart" as Caroline and TexxAnne describe it--the positive way. Which is why I could never use it; I would always feel like I was mocking mom. And I could never, EVER do that.
If my mom ever used it in a negative way, I'm sure it is very much a "if you can't say anything nice about someone..." thing, because she takes that quite seriously.
I don't know if she's southern. Does Oklahoma count?
In Re: the two spaces after a sentence.
What the hell? When did that go away? I have typed that way ever since High School, and I have never heard otherwise. I knew that it wasn't like that in Britain, but since when has it changed in the US?
Oh Man.
Now I feel all...epistemological crisis-y.
I hate when that happens.
#61, Jim MacDonald.
Yes, that's what I was thinking. For some reason, I often incorporate elements of the Fibonacci sequence in my passwords.
It's been stuck in my mind since I was a little tyke watching Square One on PBS on the tiny black-and-white in my room after school.
To Cogitate and To Serve!
Xopher, just to say--out of pure curiosity I looked at more than a dozen descriptions of the origins of the heart, and none of them mentions the testes. There was mention of aspects of the female body, and of a vague resemblance to the bovine heart, and the silphium seed (a picture of which is identical to the heart symbol) but no testicles.
Do you have a source? I'm just wondering.
Also, as Saturnalia wasn't a fertility related festival, it seems odd to be distributing sex-organs to lust objects. Are you sure you don't mean Lupercalia?
Hey, reading the thread at the end of my weekend, I get the feeling I might have instigated a bit of Anti-German sentiment.
Tut mir Leid, Joerg.
I didn't mean to imply that all Germans were cutlery fetishists. Just, you know, generally a bit more serious about it than some countries.
And, for those of you wanting to see Germans eating with their hands, just look for the doener.
God, how I miss doener...
#693, lee
That is awesome. As a Kansas son, let me wholeheartedly support him. (Though Johnson county is not my favorite place in Kansas, being full of wealthy uppercrust snobs. grrr grumble snarf.)
Go Sean Tevis!
You know, all this talk of table manners reminds me of a story my friend told me when we were studying abroad in Germany, I guess it must have been around 1998.
There was a group of 8 or so students from my Uni all doing an exchange program in this nasty little town called Siegen (I'm sorry, but Siegen is NASTY. Ask anyone who's been there, they'll agree. Ugh.) My friend's guest family decided to help him feel at home, so they made a big fried chicken dinner. He, being the good Oklahoma boy he was, delightedly picked up a piece of chick and started chowing down. The parents, primly holding their knives and forks, watched in horrified fascination until the father put down his utensils and calmly said,
"Du isst nicht, du frisst."*
Ah, Germany....
*Essentially, "You don't eat like a human, you eat like an animal."
Let me add my sympathies, abi. That's a tough spot.
Good luck with it.
#633, R. M. Koske, cf. Rikibeth #630/631
I think you've exactly hit on why I'd refuse an American but am willing to switch for Chinese custom.
Really? That explanation would never have occurred to me, as I wasn't even aware that there was a "continental style" until I'd been there. And then, when I was there, I took on that style as an accession to cultural differences. When I read your post, R. M., I just imagined that, as in my case, the assumption is that for non-American ways it qualifies as "Culture" and for American ways, it's just habit. So, another American asking you to do something is butting in, but a Chinese person is asking you to respect their ancient traditions.
I've found that culturally sensitive people will tolerate all kinds of behavior from other cultures that they would never, ever tolerate from their own; mostly because, you can never tell when you're facing an actual cultural difference, or an individual peccadillo--and you certainly don't want to be culturally intolerant. I'm in no way saying it's a bad thing, mind you, just amusing in little ways like this.
#617, Caroline (and any others thinking of trying the recipe) I think you'll want to shake the container up real well, or stir the cukes up, once a day or so to respread the mixture around a bit. It settles. Also, YES on the washing.
Lightly rinse the cucumbers to remove the remaining mustard/sugar/salt paste before serving. You don't want to eat that. It makes things cry. Like your throat.
Off Thread Goodness:
For the kitchen inclined, I have a nifty, easy recipe for you.
Japanese Spicy "Dry Pickles".
1 Kilo Cucumbers
100g sugar
50g Salt
30g Karashi Powder (Hot Japanese Mustard-handle with care. Seriously, wash well before you touch anything place on your body after handling. I know this now.)
Cut the Cukes into your favorite size/shape. In Japan, people prefer to deseed the larger ones-cut lengthwise, and scoop the soft flesh around the seed out with a spoon. Do what you feel.
Mix the sugar, salt and karashi well, then pour over the cukes.
Mix well with your hands, giving the cuke bits a nice massage so the powders work into the flesh and start to draw out a little moisture. You should end up with a gritty yellow paste covering everything.
Seal tightly and pop in the fridge for three days or so. The paste should mostly disappear, if it's too excessive, slight washing should make for a nicer product.
The results are scads of a very, very nice summertime pickle with no brine. Very good with beer. Sweet and spicy and sour, but not overwhelmingly so.
Yummmmm.
My wife's coworker's mother made some, and we ended up with a bunch. I begged for the recipe, and my batch is in the Fridge as I type.
#559, Diatryma,
In general, when I was a grad student at UI, I felt pretty darn comfortable. Of course, I lived in Coralville, where housing costs are much lower than in central Iowa City, but living together with my girlfriend, pooling our resources, with that fantastic health insurance? Yeah, we had no worries.
But not having saved a cent of it? Bad idea...it was a pretty false sense of financial security.
When I think about it, savings, liquid assets, are far more important a measure of financial security than quality of life, which is where I think a lot of Americans go wrong. I know my father always felt happier when we had a couple of new cars in the driveway, and could show his coworkers that he had the money to pay for that kind of thing--but he didn't have a cent of savings to show for his years of backbreaking work. We lived a very comfortable lifestyle, but one without any solid base--and I don't think my family is that unusual, in that respect.
I guess my point is, in rural Kansas most people probably thought we were rich, because we drove new cars and had new clothes and took trips to Branson, Mo. But that's all we had...
#15, J. K. Richard, I seem to remember a nice big liquor store on the corner of 51st and Lewis...Fikes Parkhill, I think. When I lived there, they had a good selection of imported beers including Trappists, with Duvel and Gulden Draak on the shelves. I also got a bottle of Optimator there--12% ale.
I could never get into the high percentage beers, myself. For me, beer is a refresher, and the high oc stuff is far too syrupy sweet.
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