A mammogram saved a 36-year-old I know. No family history either.
Adding condolences for SylvieG, and thanks to all the rest for the advice that I will be using if/when the day ever comes that I can give a couple of kitties a happy home.
They always discount the ones I'm not interested in.
Some eons back, I was riding past the Seattle Central Community College building, and their sign said "SCCC MUSIC IS NOTEWORTHY" and someone had stolen the E.
A couple more come to my mind. "Despite all that had happened, we kept control of our elves" --when the narrator meant "ourselves"--from some Lovecraft pastiche. Then just a while back, I was using a voice recognition program to write in my journal, and I made some high-flown statement about some situation that included a reference to rogue elephants, and what came up on the screen was "robed elephants".
If you gaze off into the horizon will it gaze back into you?
Tv-less, I didn't watch the news 20 years back. Now, thanks to your links, I did. I cried too.
Yes. Chocolate soymilk, here.
Don't have much to add that really fits in. I hope that your Europe continues to thrive, even if over here in the US it all goes down the tubes.
I remember hearing about it [don't have a tv.] I remember thinking,as the new decade began, "now we can have peace, now I can go to sleep w/o nagging worry that I might be vaporized by someone who never even knew me."
Now, of course, I wonder. But I can't ever help but be glad when hearing that people who want to be together, can be together.
#586, Bruce and the rest--archery = tension and release; onagers = torsion and release; and trebuchets, I guess that would be prose of some gravity.
I apologize for any upset or confusion caused by my inserting comment about trebuchet parking right after the one about dragon/car slash.
I'll try and make it a little clearer next time right at the start.
[Picks up pieces of own head that exploded after 1st microsecond of thinking "dragon/trebuchet slash"]
Xeger, Bruce, TexAnne et al: I'm still trying to visualize the look on the meter-person's face--and hope they will be too busy wondering what that thing is, to inflict a ticket.
Trebs should be parked 1] so as not to interfere with the parking of other items, 2] protected as best as possible from the monkeying-with hands of strangers in the owner's absence, 3] with a sign identifying the owner including a picture so that said owner can be tracked down nearby to answer the questions of serious enthusiasts. How to help said enthusiasts find the owner without tipping off simple pests, that I don't have an answer for. I am thankful that my trebs are little enough to park either in my pockets or my arms.
Xander, #4: It's been quite a while since I read Frankenstein, but I think you just nailed it.
The more powerful or dangerous one's creation, the more need to keep an eye on it, ride herd on it, maybe even destroy it if you have to, to protect your neighbors. (Of course, if your creation happens to be sentient, then you have a responsibility to it as well. Ask any kid who's ever been abused.)
Technology having unintended consequences, and the downfall of hubristic/short-sighted inventors and promoters thereof, that does fit in with this interpretation. Sometimes.
I've never been to Edinburgh; that might change some day. I did once pick up an SF novel beginning there--an alternate history in which Christianity had never displaced paganism. I think it was called "The Fire-Worshippers". A glimpse inside suggested colorful pageantry and so on. Well, once I got any way into the thing, it became clear that either a knowledge of actual pagan customs or alternate-history-building was not the author's forte. Instead, he had dealt me a pile of pedophile porn. It was all fiction, but still. I wound up wishing for a bucket of brain bleach--it wasn't even plausible, let alone well-written. As thrifty as I am, I traded it in somewhere rather than corrupt an innocent landfill. But I decided to steer clear of that author henceforth. (I forgot his name.) From now on, when I see fiction that looks interesting, I'm going to do a little background research first.
On a happier note, 131 was the number of steps in a stairway in a tiny remote settlement I once lived in when young. It was a wooden stairway that went straight up a hillside, and it had these...flats on either side of the steps, inside the handrails, on which a wooden box of whatever was needed could be hauled up the hill. I don't know why they didn't put wheels on it, but at 12 I thought that was just the coolest thing ever. I was one of those more interested in things than people and that's just how it worked with me.
Now, the settlement is deserted--I am a ghost-town survivor--and I don't know how much remains of it, if the stairway is still there. I recall wondering what would become of the place in 100 years, and I never guessed its story would end in my lifetime.
I don't know if I will ever make it out there again to complete the closure. But I might see Scotland some day, and if so I will have to get out to Urquhart Castle (sp?) to see the big trebuchet that is one of the ancestors of my own.
Most of my minority demographic qualities are not physical, so I haven't been ignored a lot, but then I don't go to Home Despot either. At Lowe's I have had folks ask me if I need help when I only mean to snag a few paint cards for future collages.
I am very fortunate in having a local hardware store, McLendons, just a few mins away. They know what they are doing and they don't treat anyone shabbily that I am aware of. Not even in the cases where I have to say dealie or whatsit instead of sounding more knowledgeable. My only problem with them is they have stopped carrying 1/4" split rings [you know, like they make keychains with only smaller] and the other places I called didn't have them either. They didn't even have the solid kind of steel ring in that size. I expressed my displeasure as politely as I could, and hope that this will be rectified in time, as these items are indispensable to a builder of tiny trebuchets.
It was one of the big chain stores, I forget which, that I called some years about something else and they knew less about it than I did.
Social aspects--as a lone wolf type I myself am not the best at paying attention to others, and am working on my manners. Still I relished the tales of slighted customers' vengeances.
Maybe if I built you all a BIG treb, you could get their attention...
Does anyone know offhand, in Pugetropolis, if over 50 and sleep apnea qualify a person for the H1N1 shot? [will check local sources in a while]
--'Scuse me, but am I supposed to hit enter twice to make my paragraphs/spacing look like everyone else's, or what?
Sometimes a person can't help hating their family, for whatever reason, no matter how short life is. In that case, life is too short to stay around; find or make a new family.
Physical--hitting me, clear up into my teens; gouging up my skin because of some supposed abnormality in my complexion; one instance of sexual abuse that was swept under the rug, even though the offender knocked it off after spouse's warning; moving and dragging me along to a region beset with violent storms as well as earthquakes and not teaching me how to deal with these safely; using pot while having a dependent [me] as well as letting guests bring in other drugs [I steered clear, and was the only clean/sober person in that town.]
Emotional--years of finding bogus things wrong with my body, and failing to make doctors and p.e. teachers find some good ones to offset the (real) bad ones; grilling me and making me feel abnormal about body functions; telling me to worship a god they themselves didn't believe in, hypocrisy; each one pretending the other was doing nothing wrong to me even when it was right before their eyes; and the occasional attack on my being "too" interested in things/ideas, and "not enough" in people; blaming me for all school/learning problems for a long time, although I must admit no one else had heard of ADD then either.
And the unending shame of thinking it was all my fault, and then the shame of not having been able to defend myself better, after hearing of kids who hit back, ran away or otherwise secured respect. [The only reason I didn't run away was I had a lot of books, journals and posessions I could not bear to leave.]
Over the next 35 years, a lot of this has been apologized for by them when I confronted them, and things are much better, as they were smart enough to listen, eventually. But one parent still seems to think my only way to success in the world is to starve msyelf thin instead of fight for the rights of people of all sizes, and the other just stands there and nods. I am just coming to terms with the world's worst case of body-hatred. The other parent keeps trying to lump me in with the autistics, although getting a bit better--maybe--at shutting up. Add in some (now) real disabilities, and a messed-up educational and career trajectory, and no other friends (who have any power, that is.) (Other relatives, the few that there are, don't care about me much.)
Now my parents, who have as I said mostly wised up, seem to be my closest and perhaps sole allies in the struggle to get back on my feet. I have not been ever broken all ties with them, and currently glad of it. But I would not presume to say whether anyone else should or should not do so.
I would say get professional help on this if you can--if it causes you any problems now--but don't just settle for the kind of "help" that tells you to just get over it, or sits there and parrots back to you how much your life sucks and adds nothing that can help, or thinks this or that drug will fix all. Don't listen to anyone who tells you you have to reconcile--or to anyone who says you never can; either of them could be wrong.
But I know folks here aren't asking for advice so I'm done with that. I must say that my parents did some singularly good things for me as well--letting me help switch the generators in the settlement's powerhouse; letting me help cast jewelry; subscribing to Musical Heritage Society and letting me get hold of a Dover Publications catalog; lifelines while we were so far from civilization. All right, the last two were inadvertent, but still, like I said, they have wised up over the decades since. And in this I am fortunate, and will not presume to say what another should do, or at least I will try not to...
I got me a bike just about a year back, and while I don't ride as much as I think I should, I still find it a great help for some store and library trips, not to mention dumpster rounds. I have bad knees and walking can be problematic. Sometimes the traffic can be intimidating but I am dealing with it. Sometimes. There's a nice trail or two but some nasty crossings on the way thereto. I just hope that when/if I get a job again that it won't conflict with my riding time and places.
It would help if my town was more bike-friendly, beyond the nearest quiet streets. Even sidewalks can be a problem if they are narrow or blocked by various objects including the miniature mountain ranges generated by tree roots, something I had never had a problem with before.
I wish I could come live in a sane country, if one could be found. But I am disabled, out of work, and ill-trained, having fallen into some bad work situations.
Is Carousel the one with the walrus among the characters?
How many dimensions are involved? Are some connections possible only in even or odd numbered dimensions? Is knowledge of topology useful here?
Actually sounds like more fun and less mess. But in addition to Serge's concern, I hope there's a backup power supply. Whether "penetration" is figurative or not, and whatever entities are involved. [Now that I am fully awake, I guess I'll actually read the Gibson article]
Thanks all. I knew there was a reason I wasn't that anxious to track down Wright's books. No, really, as a leftist who can't stand Fraudian theories (of repression or anything else)--Gaaaaaahhh. (I forget already which commmentator adduced the Fraudian reference, but the whole mess left a bad taste in my mind.)
(--Stegosaurs, anyway...HOW??)
Now, my real question--does anyone know of a program or an app that will turn music into an oscilloscope display on your monitor? I had a real scope once but it conked out just before I got my 1st CD player. Now I don't even have dancing equalizer-type bar-graphs.
The link adduced in post 275 must have been an epic fail all right; it yielded only an error message. Is it something someone here should go and investigate, or is it best not to get into it at all?
I don't know about plums, but when I stay in the bathtub too long, I tend to prune up.
Maybe next time have the con at the Alpha?
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