in aid mercenary drama club news, the psychiatrist unsurprisingly heavily sedated him and gave him anti-psychotics just like I said, and he is a happy man at the moment. he's surprised/upset to be implicitly psychotic; dude you've been planning to kill everyone you know and love, endlessly, in meticulous detail, with a total inability to think about anything else, wtf did you think that was, depression?
Your friends have a patriotic duty to hook up with the Marines.
wtf did you think that was, depression?
There are atypical presentations.
2: agreed.
3: really? I'm glad they went in there with the heavy-duty anti-psychotics. though maybe he's bi-polar actually, they are considering.
Since there is an obvious way to troll this thread that will happen inevitably, and be boring, I will preemptively do it as inoculation. "I doubt you would think it's OK to bring older single men to dinner if you were hosting a party for two nineteen year old girls.". Response: shut the fuck up and wake up to reality. Troll guard completed.
5: god I hate having a fever, 3 days now. when I am half asleep I think I'm kicking drugs, famously not a fun experience. I feel guilty and stupid. and hungry for junk in my lizard brain. fuck this.
5: thanks for the pre-empt. yes 19-year-old girls blah something. hey, they might be, they let girls be marines now, you know.
4.2: Atypical depression is an actual diagnosis and it isn't really that atypical. But, it doesn't really have anything to do with what you're describing in comment 1.
What if the 19-year old girls, by distracting the older single men, would stop a trolley from crashing into a baby?
Or the trolley is about to lose its public subsidy because of budget cuts and the girls are wearing very thin tops.
8: I think the current thinking is that atypical depression may be a variant of bipolar disorder. This would fit with Goodwin and Jamison's characterization of manic-depressive illness as "bipolar disorder and recurrent depression." Psychotic depression obviously exists too.
The drug companies are always pushing antipsychotics for everything. "If your depression hasn't responded to an antidepressant, consider abilify." Not saying that they can't be useful but they're way over-prescribed for off-label purposes.
Is using abilify for depression off-label? They're advertising it, so I assume they've got some studies.
Abilify has been fabulous for my daughter. Love Abilify!
Is using abilify for depression off-label?
No, it was approved in 2007 to use *in tandem* with anti-depressants in patients that weren't getting sufficient relief with anti-depressants alone.
And if that doesn't work, being set-up with a lonely Marine is the last option.
The fact that we're up to our eyeballs in Afghanistan makes these grandiose proclamations about exiting Iraq ring a tad hollow.
The fact that we're up to our eyeballs in Afghanistan makes these grandiose proclamations about exiting Iraq ring a tad hollow.
Yes, but that's because people have been (deliberately) led to forget that there actually was originally a casus belli in Afghanistan, whereas there never was in Iraq.
20 me. For some reason Firefox has lost all my cookies; I shall have to try to reconcile myself to Chrome.
it is kind of a bit hinky though, and the "patriotic duty" thing would be a bit weird even if Afghanistan was a noble war of liberation and/or self defence.
We're having the office Christmas holiday party in a couple hours, so I'll have a huge pile of cookies.
The fact that we're up to our eyeballs in Afghanistan Iraq makes these grandiose proclamations about exiting Iraq ring a tad hollow.
Also, where applicable, happy חנוכה .
nah, the people americans have a patriotic duty to hook up with are he actual navy seals that took out bin laden. you'd need to do a lot of verifying, needless to say, but then, you'd pretty much have to put out. I think your spouse would probably be like--for real, those navy seals? aw, fuck it, we're cool.
hrrm, still a bit ick IMO. This reminds me of the time when myself and the missus were playing that party game where you have to come up with a "list" of half a dozen people you would expect to be forgiven if you were unfaithful with, and she got annoyed because her list was made up of Daniel Craig, Bryan Ferry and things, and mine was just six of her friends.
My wrangler-wearing, Justin-booted, country student named Col/ton who wrote his name in such a way that I called him "Cotton" a half-dozen times friended me on Facebook and turns out to be refreshingly liberal. I love it.
27: How many were in the room at the time?
it is kind of a bit hinky though, and the "patriotic duty" thing would be a bit weird even if Afghanistan was a noble war of liberation and/or self defence.
It's extremely hinky by now, but I don't really see how it could ever have been avoided [Yes I do - deploying enough special forces with enough intelligence to take out OBL and his entourage within a few weeks and then going the fuck home, but it's likely that the intelligence wasn't available]. It would have been to demand more than human restraint to expect any US government not to retaliate in 2001, but equally, once it was clear that they were proposing to go in with no exit strategy, it was also clear that they were going to be stuck there forever.
28: Is this the one who's foot was falling off?
31: We knew he was in Tora Bora, and just listening to NPR gave me enough information to guess that relying on some locals with no real interest was not going to keep him contained there.
We gotta fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here!
Sorry, thought 22 was to 19. Forget 31.
31: tbh, the "going the fuck home" bit could have been done at pretty much any stage.
I really think that if the Navy Seals who etc etc came into my house wanting to take liberties I'd give them a square go. A thousand to one I'd just get beaten up, but you never know your luck and at least I wouldn't have to live with the knowledge I'd given up.
(I have been street fighting again! This time a proper chest-pushing match outside a pub! Which ended up with the offender pleading guilty on a charge of inconsiderate cigarette management and sloping off!)
25: HOW DARE YOU? Oh wait that one's mine.
OP: Hey, as of last year, you may just have to give them a few drinks and a little privacy and let them get down with their bad gay 19-year-old marine selves. This is exactly how it happens in many a filmic opus I have enjoyed over the years, except for the part about visiting you for dinner.
Also, things may have gone better had we not gotten distracted after a couple years to go fight a younger, sexier war.
15 and 17: Right, Abilify is approved, but the practice isn't limited to Abilify. A lot of other atypical antipsychotics are used in the same way.
I'm not against using antipsychotics for stuff like this. I just think that they get used in kids too much, for example (not making a comment about Will's situation) when other drugs might be combined with psychosocial interventions. The drugs can be life-savers, but they're not without risks. Diabetes in the case of the atypicals, TD with the older ones.
I mean, I think Clozaril is absolutely fabulous for treat ment resistant schizophrenia and bipolar, but the risks with that one are high enough to require weekly blood tests.
There was the saddest thing ever in some BBC special on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. A now very old woman (who in the day was one of those young women who pushed the little tiny airplanes around with sticks) burst into tears recalling how her fiancé (dashing young RAF pilot) wanted to get busy the night before he left on a mission and she wouldn't let him. He never came back. She said it was the thing she regretted most. Then she started smacking herself on the knee and saying, "Stop crying, you silly old cow!" Gah.
See there, dsquared? Avoiding a fight might not be the worst regret you could have.
where applicable, happy חנוכה
Latkes tonight! (Firefox doesn't recognize "latkes" as a word. Spread the word: Mozilla is anti-semitic!)
Golly, I love latkes. May Hashem bless the potato in all of its forms.
36 -- so this one actually involved physical contact, as opposed to last year's exciting "run away and stand where a bouncer can protect me" tale of combat? At this rate a punch might get thrown in 2034. I'm putting my money on the Navy Seals, go USA.
To the OP: it's your version of Mrs. Henderson Presents.
A thousand to one I'd just get beaten up
So if I bet $100 that a team of Navy Seals could beat you up, I'd win $100,000? I'll take that bet.
A navy special forces dude worked out in my gym for a while before deployment, and he was basically a superhuman in terms of fitness. Put the Army ROTC guys to shame.
#44: since I know you're still working on the screenplay of my life, you can shift some dialogue into the climatic Navy Seals scene which was actually from a similar stand-off situation with some rugby players in the college bar, viz "Look, you c**t, you can knock me over and I'll call you a c**t from the floor. You can knock me out, and when I come round I'll be calling you a c**t. Even if you actually kill me, you'll still be a c**t".
The man I was speaking to has apparently grown up and devoted his life, successfully, to the organisation of vaccination programs for children in the third world.
So if I bet $100 that a team of Navy Seals could beat you up, I'd win $100,000?
other way round you twit.
The man I was speaking to has apparently grown up and devoted his life, successfully, to the organisation of vaccination programs for children in the third world.
Wow. What a c**t.
49: Still, probably an entertaining couple of minutes to watch.
I know. I'm basically no longer able to tell the story because the bastard has grown up into such a saint. But he really was a bullying toerag when he was 20, and I'm glad I headbutted him (SPOILER ALERT). I keep hoping against hope for some sort of Greg Mortenson "Three Cups Of Deceit" scandal to blow up so I get my fucking anecdote back.
(full disclosure - it's not actually a vaccination program, it's something else equally charitable. I am googleproof like a fox).
Oh, you can probably adjust the anecdote so that all he needed was one strategically delivered headbutt to see the error of his ways, and then take credit for any subsequent good works.
One of my good college friends was into bar fighting. It was mostly a game of crazy staring and preening, but he kept a pool ball wrapped up in a sock for an emergency weapon. It was quite a sight to watch that thing come out at a fraternity party swung like a helicopter blade and wreaking havoc on the bros' beer related tchotchkes.
Way to ruin the subtext, LizardBreath.
It was quite a sight to watch that thing come out at a fraternity party swung like a helicopter blade and wreaking havoc on the bros' beer related tchotchkes.
surely this needs to be the mouseover text for something.
other way round you twit
This is probably why I don't gamble.
he kept a pool ball wrapped up in a sock for an emergency weapon
Is this the worst of all possible emergency weapons? Did he keep it inflated or deflated? Or do you mean a billiard ball?
full disclosure - it's not actually a vaccination program, it's something else equally charitable.
Obviously he's bringing chickenpox-infected lollipops and measles-y rags to the world's poor.
I am googleproof like a fox
Best phrase of the day.
I hesitate to ask, but where did he carry this blackjack?
In an attractively European-styled handbag?
mr. smearcase, you'll notice I left 26 gender-neutral for this reason. but the same applies generally.
FWIW, by the way, I think that thousand-to-one is ballpark right for the odds of me vs Rambo in a fairish fight, just on the basis that one time in five hundred, someone is going to just slip over and smack his head on the pavement by accident. If there is a whole team of them, I think I get mullered with near certainty, whereas if it is one-to-one in a situation where I get a chance at a dig with a kitchen knife before he knows a fight has started, I might get closer to 150-1.
Ok, "billiard ball," Lord Snootypants. He would keep it in a coat pocket; surprisingly compact. I still view him as a good guy and a force for justice, although some of his combat victories included "beating up pleasant Dutch graduate student to steal his coat" and "dragging homeless dude [who admittedly assaulted him] from a moving taxicab while throwing down punches.". What can I say, the mid 1990s were a different time.
I used to keep the pestle of my huge mortar and pestle by the bed when I was nervous about intruders. I called my "honduran blackjack." it would have fucked somebody right up. and I'm glad to hear derauqsd is brawling again. keeps things lively.
I used to keep the pestle of my huge mortar and pestle by the bed when I was nervous about intruders. I called my "honduran blackjack." it would have fucked somebody right up. and I'm glad to hear derauqsd is brawling again. keeps things lively.
You also have the advantage that Rambo is a fictional character and you are not.
As for the whole team issue, you might actually have better luck than you expect, due to the Inverse Ninja Law.
67: Me too. I really hope urple was totally, totally serious and thought halford's friend bopped his enemies on the bean with a beach ball.
Where I'm from the pool-ball-in-a-sock thing would likely have ended badly.
70: The Scottish take their beer-related tchotchkes quite seriously.
70. Flimsy European hosiery really is frustrating.
69: After excusing himself to hurredly inflate the thing.
re: 66
When some of the ned arseholes on my scheme were in an ongoing feud with my neighbour [they tried to burn him out of his house, among other things], I used to sleep with a fire-poker by the bed. It was about 3 ft long and was dense enough it felt like it was made of depleted uranium.
I keep forgetting that you can't just walk into a Walmart and come home with a bag of guns and ammo.
72: You insult the proud heritage of Argyle.
Although in these envirnomentally conscious times, you really should bring your own bag.
"My huge mortar and pestle" is going in my personals ad.
re: 75
Yeah. When a 'friend',* owed the naelP boys,** £800 quid for some speed that he'd taken on consignment, flogged and then shafted them on the money, they sent a guy after him. He still turned up with a machete, rather than a gun. I expect in the US those things get firearm-y much quicker.
* he was a fucking dick, but, what can you do
** shitty former mining village, hard bastards.
At first I disagreed with urple's description of a beach ball as "the worst of all possible emergency weapons", but if your goal is to stop a fight it might not be too bad. It takes a hardened thug to keep fighting a guy armed like a clown.
Somebody just brought me a whole bag of Swedish Fish and gummie bears (green). Holidays are great.
Somebody just brought me a whole bag of Swedish Fish and gummie bears (green).
Put them in a sock and go bust up a frat house.
"My huge mortar and pestle" is going in my personals ad.
If you have the mortar AND the pestle, what do you need an ad for?
Those things don't just work themselves, you know.
I have a bunch of chicken fat that I want to fry latkes in, but I am extremely likely to have a vegetarian guest. Quaere, can I use the chicken fat anyway?
86: It doesn't count as an animal product if it makes something taste great and you can't see the flesh.
can I use the chicken fat anyway?
You could put it in a sock.
86: I don't understand the question. Obviously, you can't feed schmaltz-latkes to a vegetarian. So, yes, you can use it if (a) the vegetarian isn't coming (b) there's something else equivalent for them to eat or (c) you dislike them and will be entertained by watching them go hungry.
Is there any food equivalent to potatoes cooked in animal fat?
Quaere, can I use the chicken fat anyway?
If you have an alternative pan and utensils which you can use to fry additional latkes for your veggie guest as well, then fine; otherwise not.
Quod erat faciendum.
Can't you just fry a few in vegetable oil, and then switch?
A roll of quarters is easier to explain than a billiard ball. A roofing hammer also can be explained.
I can't fight at all, so my perceived options are avoidance, cringing, flight, and escalation.
You all are taking my question more seriously than I expected.
95.1: Parking meters around here need $1 for an hour. They don't take cards or bills. You need a roll to get through a day.
they were proposing to go in with no exit strategy
They were planning to eradicate Evil from the earth, for all time. By showing Bush's will and Cheney's dick. OK, so they figured out they'd have to do it a second time for it really to work, but that second one was the easiest thing in the world, what with a populace sophisticated enough to know they're supposed to greet our soldiers with sweets and flowers. (And I'm sure the Iraqi women were expected to find our Marines irresistible as well.)
Just use vegetable oil, but make a point of apologizing during the meal and explaining to everyone (including the vegetarian guest) how much better the latkes would have been if you hadn't been forced to accomodate the vegetarian's dietary restrictions.
Actually, the parking meters have achieved an enviable freedom from both need and want. It's the parking enforcers who have yet to achieve transcendence.
Mmm. I'm making goose again this year, which means buckets of goose fat to cook with for the rest of the winter.
There's a restaurant here that frys all their french fries in duck fat, and they're fucking delicious.
Yeah, usually I just roast potatoes in the goose fat, but it does spectacular things to them. I don't quite understand why they're so good -- it's not as if there's a goose flavor to them -- it's just better fat somehow.
95: A roll of quarters is easier to explain than a billiard ball.
I'm just glad to see you.
102. The correct approach, if you're not accommodating vegetarians, is to roast a duck on Christmas eve, so that you have a ton of fat for the roast vegetables on Christmas day. This can be extended to any other holiday on which roast vegetables are required.
I don't quite understand why they're so good -- it's not as if there's a goose flavor to them -- it's just better fat somehow.
Surely Harold McGee has explained this somewhere.
Even chicken fat improves roasted potatoes drastically.
Somebody else gave me a small pouch containing a disposable CPR shield with one-way valve. To bad there's no way I could use it as intended by keeping it at the ready on my key chain. It looks too much like a reusable case for a 1/2 sized condom.
Well, you can ask the vegetarian guest if they care about the frying in chicken fat. It's my experience that the term "vegetarian" can mean pretty much anything at all. But if you are seriously asking if it would be "ok" or maybe hilarious to feed seekrit chicken fat to an actual strict vegetarian, well this vegetarian would be pissed off at you. I'd consider it pretty much an aggressive act of dickery. But you know, if you told me in advance you were totally married to cooking your latkes in chicken fat, I'd be perfectly happy to fend for myself or go elsewhere.
105: Fish on Christmas Eve. Roast the meat the next day with the potatoes under the meat.
Somebody must have linked this already? It's very unfogged (and somewhat nsfw, tho' fully clothed).
Guys, I am perfectly aware that it would be an aggressive act of dickery. The logical form of my comment was that of the petulant whine, not that of the question.
You all are taking my question more seriously than I expected.
Not me.
Even "whine" is putting it too strong.
Perfectly rendered goose fat makes unsurpassable short crust, but it melts so easily that I had to work in an outdoor shed & I have cold hands. I think it's a Hungarian tradition; don't know how they manage the cold.
The war against terrorism in several countries in the Middle East or somewhere was completely successful, because it established the principle that an American President can go to war any time, anywhere, and went a long way toward moving the US into a permanent state of emergency.
I've argue with Charlie about how seriously the most recent attack on habeas corpus should be taken, and apparently we are about two steps away from complete abolition, which I don't find very comforting since over the last few decades we've been watching steps #1-#8 being taken.
Iraq is a worse mess than before, Afghanistan might be slightly better off, and we're probably somewhat less vulnerable to terror.
Afghanistan might be slightly better off
Given the baseline it started from, that's kinda like being the tallest midget in the circus.
The groupies go for the smallest midget.
Why isn't it a patriotic duty to sleep with peace activists? This killers r hot thing is like the vampire craze.
Peace activists seem better equipped to find their own partners than soldiers, who get stuck overseas in largely sex-segregated environments.
When I was in the Peace Corps, some kind of US Navy ship with about five percent of the total population of Apia on it stopped for a weekend, and there were a whole lot of confused sailors trying to have fun in a city not well equipped for it. The volunteers of the Peace Corps did go out dancing that night out of a generalized feeling that we should make an effort to be entertaining, although I don't think any sailors actually got laid. I did dress in a culturally inappropriate fashion, though.
Shorter: they're already making love not war.
115 -- I don't think I'd say two full steps. Although it still depends on where they jail you: it you're somewhere where your case can be outside of DC, you've got a decent chance. If the SC takes and affirms Latif, though, it's one hollow protection.
On whether Afghanistan is better off, I think you'd get strong opinions each way from different people. I was surprised to see how the Kabul women dressed and met a few, and I didn't get the impression that there was any interest at all in a return to Taliban rule. And plenty of fear what will happen when we leave.
I would have paid good money to see a fight between D-squared and Christopher Hitchens. For the quality of drunken insults, not so much the chest bumping and possible awkward flailing.
That probably could have been arranged during the Iraq war.
121. Kabul has, I understand, always (well for generations) been a relatively cosmopolitan island surrounded by rather different cultures. I bet you'd notice the difference in Kandahar.
123 -- Oh, absolutely. And I'm only talking to English speakers willing to talk to an American, and mostly people who work at a place where I'm the lawyer. Not remotely representative.
I did expect to see more burkas, on the streets anyway. Under 10% I would say. I'll bet that is very different in Kandahar.
avoidance, cringing, flight, and escalation.
I imagine Emerson trying to make a quick escape via escalator. "You'll never catch me now!" he cries triumphantly, as he slowly, slowly ascends...
"Hold on, can you give me a few minutes' head start?"
You know what would be a good name for a band? "Kevin Drum and the Sex Cymbals"
I sometimes muse on the fact that a generation ago thousands of European and North American youth in VW Microbuses thought it wise to drive across Afghanistan en route for India, wearing bizarre and revealing clothes, carrying little money and no means of defense, and speaking not a word of Pashto or Dari, even in the unlikely event that they'd ever heard of those languages. And, for the most part, the Afghan people treated them with kindness, hospitality and, I suppose, compassion. But what the fuck did they think?
But what the fuck did they think?
Amused sense of superiority?
A roll of quarters is easier to explain than a billiard ball.
I was shocked to discover that brass knuckles are illegal, and yet a billy club and a firearm are legal. Somehow that doesn't seem right.
127: I think the wandering troubadour poet youth is an older rôle in Islam than Christianity, but I can't remember tle names.
127: Yeah, my mom had a friend from college who was sort of the quintessential California sun worshiper who ALWAYS wore shorts, and she hitchhiked through Afghanistan in '70 or so with no problems.
Also! My friend's book got reviewed in the New York Times! Yay!
A guy I know traveled that route (the Hashish Road), became fluent in Persian Turkish and Arabic, became a smuggler, quit while he was ahead, came back to the states, converted to Islam, got a job teaching Persian to Arabs or Arabic to Persians, I forget which, converted to Islam, and then became an Sheikh and then an Imam. Quite an exceptional guy whose path was completely irregular.
131: Your guy is the book about the whale?
ship with about five percent of the total population of Apia on it
I initially read this as five percent of the total population of Asia and couldn't quite make sense of it.
132: So the trick is to convert twice, eh? That's good to know.
131 Yay to your friend! That's cool/groovyl/awesome/brilliant/whateverTheLatestSlangTermIs
133: No, silly, the one about growing up in Mpls.
Could somebody reässure me about 138?
But wait, that's not all! Another friend had her first piece in Vanity Fair!
I've really got to step up my game.
140: I haven't heard it yet, and you know how closely I monitor the pulse of current slang.
That's good. I don't want to have to start hating young people for at least seven more years.
128 gets it exactly right, if I can trust my paternal relatives' memories and stories. (Plus the whole guests-are-sacred thing.)
Cosma is occasionally willing to be an indigenous informant.
And had been looking very prosperous since spring of last year ...
48: and I'll call you a c**t from the floor
And no matter how awkward your posture, how pained your joints or points of contact, you know you've eluded serious injury, you've cheated the perils of gravity when you've reached the floor.-- Tibor Fischer
145: If you have questions about the folkways of suburban Maryland, or the vicious tribal feuds of my corner of academia, sure.
149: suburban Maryland is sordid. My uncle had to repair the crotch seams of the slacks of the secret service agents who endeavored to save George Wallace when he got shot (splitting, in the process, their pants).
cosma are you in suburban maryland? I'm just going to save myself the trouble of arranging an unfoggedc meetup next time I'm there by having everyone to my mom's house in takoma park. it's totally safe now, we're all fine. ish. heavily armed, sure, but only with shitty sks's and stuff. and a bunch of handguns.
I had friends from online to our annual xmas party one year very early on (yggles still in school, I think? no, maybe one year out) and had to explain to my mom that I had never met any of these people, nor had I gamed with them for hundreds of hours in a mudd. "you just talked about politics with them? I don't know...not one quest or anything?"
my husband is in charge of xmas shopping and I have been bedridden for days and days now, before which I was working really hard, and we don't have nearly enough presents. are they wrapped? I scoff at you. remember how the children need to give gifts to one another? to their grandparents? who, why did they think thiswas a good week for a trip to burma, as opposed to say, any of the time they will be here until jan 23? stocking presents? how to get you all to fully comprehend how much I care about individually wrapped stocking presents? FROM SANTA. I wish my real family was here. [pauses to consider implications]. fine, I wish my brother and sister and mom were here. it's my favorite time of year and I'm missing it by being in my stupid bedroom, which I had intended to clean before my in-laws came, before I injured my back, so I didn't, and it has boxes of disorganizes stuff in it, and it has all the supplies for this really great art project (shadowbox) but piled into a huge pile, and I can't to anything about any of it. THIS WOULD BE A STUPID THING TO SET OFF AN EPISODE OF MAJOR DEPRESSION SO I'M NOT GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN. with my unstoppable will power. we know how that works.
OK, I've decided out eastern orthodox brethren are right and the real christmas season is dec. 25-whenever the fuck the feast of kings is. problem. sizzolved.
I was shocked to discover that brass knuckles are illegal, and yet a billy club and a firearm are legal.
the issue is that it has no civilian uses. A pistol, you might be recreationally target shooting or plinking at rats. A baseball bat is obviously sports equipment and a knife could be for whittling, but a knuckleduster is purely a weapon.
nobody plays baseball with a billy club. is it legal to have those extendable things the cops fuck people up with so bad?
Not in the UK, they're specifically banned. Might be different in places where you can buy guns. And "foot claws" (really) are right out.
is it legal to have those extendable things the cops fuck people up with so bad?
Depends on the locale. But the ASP isn't that great. Bad weight distribution, not enough impact. The Germans make the Camlock which is way better but it's like 180 bucks and I think in the U.S. it's only sold to law enforcement. The Monadnock polycarb batons are wicked stuff.
ow. that link just says ow to me. something about blunt force trauma to the head, I just never learned to like it. this is partly why I thought it was funny that chrisy (?) and/or other knifecrime islanders were horrified that a cop would have a knife. jesus, you're going to give the man a baton like that and a 9mm, seems odd to get all little bitchy about the knife. granted that it doubled as brass knuckles IIRC. but anyway, brass knuckles do too have other purposes, namely, fashion, as multi-finger rings, am I right?
UK weapons laws are strict. Someone I know teaches the Frenchy stick-fighting martial art, and specifically the more historical/practical non-competition stuff. He quite often carries a cane. He does have a dodgy hip/knee/something that would just about justify him using a cane, but I expect the law would frown quite severely on any self-defence use of his stick.
'So, you are an expert in several martial arts that involve beating people up with sticks? And you are carrying a stick, in London, and you expect us to believe that stick is not an offensive weapon?'
||
I have never experienced anything quite like the feeling of having just performed a terrible, terrible improv comedy show in front of a friend and his much better improv group.
(I suppose it would be one thing if the friend was a good friend who could then mock me with abandon, but it's one of those not-too-close peer relationships that really heightens the awkwardness.)
There may be whisky.
|>
granted that it doubled as brass knuckles IIRC
Heh, no.
Multi-finger rings probably pass because a knuckleduster has to be "designed to cause injury" to be one for the purposes of the act, and most multi finger rings I've seen lack the bit that goes into your palm which is what actually makes a knuckleduster into a weapon. I suspect that if Officer Dibble was in a bad mood you could get picked up for one though.
Another tip for the holidays, don't each a bunch of coke out of someone's ass, even if they're family.
I hope it's Ok with mom that I love candy canes. Because I LOVE THEM!!!
152. Grumpy Xmas in bed with a sore back and unfulfilled control tendencies sounds like an AWESOME Xmas and I am tempted to emulate it.
Though I would feign the injury rather than actually hurt myself. Because I'm a feminist.
151: No, I'm staying in Pittsburgh for the holidays this year, but I grew up in Bethesda and my parents still live there.
165: we can swap then. I want to be downstairs correcting my children's application of silver dragées to sugar cookies.
163: south carolina in the house! kicking the crazy up a notch every single time. the older brother must feel like shit now, making his younger brother take the loss like that. I wonder what's the maximum amount of coke you could eat and not die?
161: again, ow. I was thinking of the ones where the hilt has got holes for your fingers? I don't know how that's supposed to work, honestly. yours looks better. where by better I mean, "ow."
Every once in awhile a balloon pops in a smuggler's stomach and kills them. I'm inclined to think that the lethal dose is less than an ounce.
yeah, weirdly not much info online. suggestion that bioavailablility by this route was 20%, but no indication of what would make a lethal dose. less than an ounce, it appears. people getting killed when the balloon pops in their stomach was generally heroin, I thought, and easy to see how that could go south fast. wouldn't have to be a very full balloon.
The lethal dose is apparently extremely variable from one person to another, and not to be messed with:
Lethal dose: Although this drug has been in use for more than 5000 years, the toxic dose or the amount of cocaine that will cause death or some significant medical consequence is unknown. The average lethal dose by the IV route or by inhalation is about 750-800 mg. This is subject to significant individual variation because deaths have occurred in doctors' offices with as little as 25 mg applied to the mucous membrane or the snorting of a single line in recreational use where the average dose of 1 line is 20 mg.
deaths have occurred in doctors' offices with as little as 25 mg applied to the mucous membrane
Clearly, I've been going to the wrong doctors.
I'm guessing an ounce of caffeine would be lethal for most people. An ounce is a great for anything like that.
173: I've been informed that snorting pharmaceutical-grade cocaine is the emergency room treatment for stopping a stubborn nosebleed.
The lethal dose for ethanol isn't that high.Chugging a fifth of 90 proof can do it, as I understand. That's only about .36 qt. of absolute alcohol.
Chugging a fifth of 90 proof always felt like it would have killed me for sure, if I hadn't vomited up 90 percent of it within 20 minutes. I'd think you'd need a pretty strong stomach to die from it.
(What the hell was wrong with me? That was not fun at all. And yet I did it again and again.)
177: You ingested something questionable? Color me shocked.
I knew a woman who drank a fifth of Southern Comfort on a bet. She was already drunk enough to take the bet and she didn't throw up as far as I remember. But she made a lot of money. I can't believe nobody stepped in to stop it, but, you know, twenty.
She made twenty currency units, or most people there were around twenty years old?
deaths have occurred in doctors' offices with as little as 25 mg applied to the mucous membrane or the snorting of a single line in recreational use where the average dose of 1 line is 20 mg.
christ, what a bunch of pussies naturally sensitive individuals. it's a real wonder I never killed a guest by mistake.
179: have we met? IIRC it was wild turkey, and I made a damn sight more than $20. the odds were both on could I do it and additionally on whether I would puke, which is where I really cleaned up, so to speak. again, someone probably should have stepped in there, but, graduate students.
70 proof or 100 proof. This is important for science. Also, body weight.
they have both? had to be 70 proof. weight: 126. prior level of drunkenness: sufficient to think this was a good idea but calculating enough to see that I could fleece a lot of linguists and law students. so, let's say, a bottle of wine.
but, graduate students
My schooling was really woefully inadequate.
OTOH, I had professors who complained that we didn't serve cocaine at our parties, whereas back in their day, etc.
My advisor didn't even drink, so hopefully I can at least increase the mean alcohol consumption in my field. I'll try to push any precocious students who come my way in the direction of cocaine, though.
Is it really possible that Randall Munroe is unaware of Repo Man?
At a family gathering the other day it emerged that all of my older relatives think that the way one orders whiskey at a bar is to ask for "two fingers." None of them have other done this, but they think it is what one does. Also a few of them are under the impression that the correct way to drink scotch is mixed with Coke. Somehow one expects more whiskey awareness in this state.
It's becoming tempting to pull a Sifu here but I really have nothing to say.
sifu never lets that stop him! reach deep inside you, essear!
I just read this thread backwards. I think that's the first time I've ever literally done that with an Unfogged thread.
181.2. I don't think we've met, though it's possible. But this was definitely Southern Comfort and also I suspect it was before you were born.
Is it really possible that Randall Munroe is unaware of Repo Man?
It's possible. I know about the branding stuff only from conversations here. (Also: I didn't realize till just now that Munroe attended a neighboring high school. Two years my junior, but I knew some people there. Small world...of relatively privileged white suburbanites.)
I don't actually think we've met either, I was just being funny. and I've got to say, while I could drink the bottle of southern comfort, I'm not so sure about keeping it down. southern comfort is nasty.
Or possibly Randall is aware of British supermarkets' "no frills" product lines.
I think I mentioned this, but in Taiwan there were bar girls whose specialty was defeating men in chugalug contests. They would be hired by the man's frenemies to humiliate him. In her previous life Alameida could have made a pretty penny.
189: I've drank with folks who ordered 2 fingers of whiskey.
But never would I drink with a Scotch-and-coke drinker. It's a waste of a good Scotch, and if it's not a bad Scotch you're better off with a bad Bourbon, Rye, or dareisayit Rum and Coke.
On second thought, I withdraw judgment, having never had a Scotch-and-Coke.
Drunken live-blogging was my interpretation.
Huh! I figured it was starting a fight with a troll.
He was considering filling up the sidebar. Or possibly encouraging people to abandon New Orleans.
Ohhhh. Well that does make sense.
190 meant filling up the sidebar, yes.