Fun stuff -- word related or not, ramblings, junk, whatever.

[bwt1213]

You see the Subway "Yard long" sandwich commercial? I seriously thought it was a new item

I found it, I think. But it was just an ad, labeled "April Fool's". I also found a story from Singapore, where someone said that if Subway made a yard-long sandwich, he'd eat it all by himself. So Subway told him "challenge accepted" and posted a picture of the guy with the yard-long. Yes, it was clearly impossible for the guy to eat; it was extra-wide as well as being three feet long. I'd post the link, but I know that would not fly.

[bwt1213]

My daughter and her boyfriend are driving to southern IL for it, hoping for decent weather. It will be about 300 - 400 miles, so they go with my best wishes.

[John13verse34]

Anyone have fun plans for the eclipse on Monday? My husband and I are driving to Dallas this weekend for it. Frustratingly, the forecast is for clouds Hopefully it will still be worth the trip!

[bwt1213]

I didn't see it. I'll have to see if I can find it on line. Sounds like a real hoot!

[RussDNails]

You see the Subway "Yard long" sandwich commercial? I seriously thought it was a new item

[bwt1213]

Rather late in the day, but I was reading what were supposedly the funniest April Fool's Day pranks ever played. And they missed my favorite. It was from the BBC, who (on the first of April, quite a while ago) announced that there had been a severe late season frost in Italy, which severely damaged the spaghetti trees and their crop. So it was going to be a lean year for spaghetti this year. And a whole lot of people fell for it, too. Spaghetti trees! The BBC even produced (doctored) pictures to support the gag. To me, that was probably the funniest April Fool's gag ever. Do any of you have one?

[dannyb]

Happy Birthday! Hope you have many, many more.

People are living longer and longer on the average. When my wife's great grandfather died at 68 he was the oldest resident of Bristol Rhode Island. Just two years ago my aunts mother passed away at 113. She was a bit hard of hearing, but she still was pretty sharp.

[bwt1213]

I had a busy day yesterday, and that's my excuse. But the 13th was my birthday, and now (barely) it's the 14th. So it's my un-birthday. It's also the first day I am 77. I never thought I'd live this long. Really, I didn't. And when I was in my 20s and saw an obituary for someone aged 77, I'd have thought they lived a good long life. And so I have. But at least I didn't make the deal Faust did, so I get to keep living -- for however long that might be.

[JohnAkaMrP]

Naboka - you're post made me smile! :O) For a second, I thought you said catapult instead of cantaloupe! Also, I had what looked suspicuously like volunteer raspberry plant in the corner of our house's lot, but your post about your volunteer plant made me realize that I never checked it after that. Sadge (apparently a word-meme that our youngsters use).

[2cute]

This doesn't qualify as "fun" in any other sense but being sarcastic, but I'm currently sitting in the "relaxing room" of a spa, waiting for my daughter's toe to stop bleeding. She managed to cut it open on the edge of a floor tile and the medic who helped disinfect it said it's too small to do anything about it, but it's too deep and bleeding too much for the spray-on bandaid to do anything. So she needs to elevate her feet for the next couple of hours and wait for it to stop. This happened about 10 minutes after we arrived and paid for half the day. What fun.

Ouch!

[crazykate]

This doesn't qualify as "fun" in any other sense but being sarcastic, but I'm currently sitting in the "relaxing room" of a spa, waiting for my daughter's toe to stop bleeding. She managed to cut it open on the edge of a floor tile and the medic who helped disinfect it said it's too small to do anything about it, but it's too deep and bleeding too much for the spray-on bandaid to do anything. So she needs to elevate her feet for the next couple of hours and wait for it to stop. This happened about 10 minutes after we arrived and paid for half the day. What fun.

[2cute]

It's been a week since the last comment. And now I'm looking for the thread in which Penzey's spices were discussed, and I wanted to know how they'd turned out. I can't find the thread, so this looks like where it should have been. I own no stock in the company but I like what they do and I was just wondering. I hope they turned out well for everyone, but that's probably impossible. My wife and I have been brought out of retirement and asked (begged is more like it) to help the rescue with a golden retriever with behavior issues -- panic attacks at loud noises, separation anxiety, doggie nightmares, and weird reactions to common medications, and more -- and we have a reputation for being able to handle such dogs (even 90 pound ones) and so here we are, and have been since August 25. Hence the lower number of games played. ANYWAY, we're going to the local farm stand for their end-of-season stuff and will likely buy a kohlrabi (about 6 - 8 pounds) or two, some winter squash, maybe some end-of-season tomatoes if they have any good ones left, some eggplant, and whatever else looks nice (potatoes are high on the list). And, of course, all will be cooked and seasoned. So, any suggestions? Vegetables and seasonings are what I'm asking for, but pairings with meat/eggs/fish/cheese etc. are certainly welcome!

Wow, what a loaded question.

Off the top of my head ...

Eggplant is good as Baba Ganoush & healthy. Here's one recipe: themediterraneandish.com/baba-ganoush-recipe/ I removed the https and www so I wouldn't get flagged as spam when I post this.

Tomatoes are good in all kinds of dishes. Alone with basil or parsley in a sandwich, in a BLT, or you can also add cold cuts if you like, if you can only find the over ripe ones, you can wash & cook them into a sauce & enjoy them over pasta, on bread or as the base for a homemade pizza. Seasoning tomatoes varies depending on the dish, though adding a little salt (teaspoon is enough) brings out its sweet & tangy flavor, its also good w/basil, tarragon, parsley & oregano. Not all together. Choose one or two for a single dish. I've even eaten tomatoes as a salad. You just slice it on a plate, pour a little (less than 2 tablespoons) olive oil over the entire tomato, little salt (teaspoon or 2 depending on size), basil or oregano-dried or fresh, put a little less if dried. If you have some crusty Italian or French Bread to soak up the extra juice that even adds more depth.

Aww, the doggie sounds cute & cuddly. Its great you gave him/her companionship.

[Naboka]

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Basic concept is twisted/reversed symbols.

(Thought it prudent to post the word first for those who don't care for TLDNR.)

As is often the case with this game, ran across an unusual word that came up recently.

The wife teaches kindergarten, which means teaching the basics of reading. And I mean basic from the ground up. From nada to ability.

The school has adopted the Heggerty curriculum this year. Next year or one following, that will change. The district will suddenly discover that not not everyone is reading at expected levels and desperately seek another cure-all to fix the problem.

Whatever. She always manages to teach most of them to read above level regardless.

Problem is, not everyone is alike.

Problem also is, why can't some children learn?

They've learned their names. They know what a tree is. They've learned all sorts of stuff. So it's not really that they can't learn. But...

Thus far, she's introduced the kids to the letters/sounds m, s, a, i, n, t, p, f. So we help them practise to gain fluency. One on one if possible.

Which brings this: she was working with a sweet little boy. Laid down cards with each letter. So, she'd remind him that this is the letter s and it makes the ss sound. He'd get it, repeat it back, but... couldn't get it a few seconds later. I sat there, fascinated, trying to understand how his brain was processing by watching his eyes. Why couldn't he get these single sounds when some of his fellow students were already starting to put the sounds together to spell, to write and read simple sentences?

The mind is so mysterious.

And every word here (even the seemingly fake and stupid ones) represent concepts that minds have conceived.

For years I've watched kids twist and warp things that they're trying to learn. They see it, then their brain somehow twists it around and...

Still trying to figure that one out. Still studying it.

When strephosymbolia came up, part of me imagined other players encountering the board, seeing the word and thinking it's just a ridiculous/fake word that no one could possibly know. Nor find.

Fortunately or not, that isn't the case.

Life's so full of opportunities to learn and experience. Words are like souvenirs for our experiences. Traveling the world of thought. Lots of memories.

ps: wish I could post stuff anonymously. I'm sure there are players tired of seeing my symbolia and would love to strepho my neck.

Such is human nature.

[bwt1213]

It's been a week since the last comment. And now I'm looking for the thread in which Penzey's spices were discussed, and I wanted to know how they'd turned out. I can't find the thread, so this looks like where it should have been. I own no stock in the company but I like what they do and I was just wondering. I hope they turned out well for everyone, but that's probably impossible. My wife and I have been brought out of retirement and asked (begged is more like it) to help the rescue with a golden retriever with behavior issues -- panic attacks at loud noises, separation anxiety, doggie nightmares, and weird reactions to common medications, and more -- and we have a reputation for being able to handle such dogs (even 90 pound ones) and so here we are, and have been since August 25. Hence the lower number of games played. ANYWAY, we're going to the local farm stand for their end-of-season stuff and will likely buy a kohlrabi (about 6 - 8 pounds) or two, some winter squash, maybe some end-of-season tomatoes if they have any good ones left, some eggplant, and whatever else looks nice (potatoes are high on the list). And, of course, all will be cooked and seasoned. So, any suggestions? Vegetables and seasonings are what I'm asking for, but pairings with meat/eggs/fish/cheese etc. are certainly welcome!

[2cute]

So I'm sitting here on break. A break from cleaning the garage. A break I bartered with the wife:

for every half hour of cleaning, I can play one game.

Harsh but fair.

My packrat ways have caught up with me, and the wife, having watched Swedish Death Cleaning has put her foot down, taken a stand, manned the bastions, yada yada.

But, that's distraction. The real point of this comment is that I'm eating cantaloupe.

"So what?" you might ask.

Well, I didn't buy it, didn't plant it. It decided to grow on it's own. One in the front, one in the back. The front one has 7 (was 8) large melon almost ready to pick. The back one has 4 (less sun?). Plus lots of little ones promising a future crop. Both are growing like crazy, sending vines over everythig in their path. They're growing over bushes, up the front porch, up the back deck, over everything.

But, it's sure good melon, so...

We have a habit of sitting on the front porch eating such things as cataloupe and watermelon, then seeing who can spit seeds the farthest. Cantaloupe seeds aren't large so they tend not to go far. (But, it's more the spitting and less about distance.)

Which is probably the origin of the volunteers.

Anyone else have any good garden stories?

(Guess I'd better head back. Played my allotted games. But there was no clause about posting. Anything to extend those breaks,--while remaining somewhat responsible and marginally ethical about a contract I was forced to sign. After all, she's at the beach in Florida for a week, so maybe I should just...

get back to work.

LOL Yes, those are seeds, so your 'front' garden must be like an abstract painting, melons growing all over w/o any arrangement.

That's a good idea, then you don't play too long & you get something accomplished too. I do that, except most of my clutter are folders in my file cabinet. Old tax files, financial data, closed accounts, previous employer info ... and recently I found articles I had once read & thought they were useful to be kept. I haven't looked @ them since. Not so useful I guess. I always say I'll organize them in the winter when its too cold to go out but then its too cold to do just that. Shivering & organizing don't mesh. So these tasks have become its too hot outside to venture out task. This has worked out much better.