No, they can't; and they can only play in certain keys too.
Apparently their bagpipes can't be tuned, so it wouldn't sound right.
But your band can't re-tune?
2: I don't know why that wasn't an option, but the 'pipers seemed to think it wasn't. I ended up playing along with them on the drums, so that was fun (because I got to do marching-style stuff, which I don't get many occasions to play).
The only problem with this bagpipe metal is, not enough bagpipes.
That's not so much a problem with this bagpipe free jazz, which also features hurdy-gurdy. Yowza. I'm all hot and bothered just thinking about it. Great album title, too.
Play it? I'm trying to figure out how to get its skirt off!
I am awed -- awed -- that you have never been to an unfun wedding and if there was any chance of my family having a wedding in the near future, I would definitely want to get you invited, just so I could expand your horizons. Fortunately, I think we're basically done for this generation, so I don't think that's an option, but picture a bunch of introverted Puritans (okay, technically Methodists, but really Puritan is far more descriptive) trying to cope with an influx of bizarre traditions (alcohol? Dancing? Really???) and strangers and you'll have a vague idea of how awkward and unfun a wedding can be. I love my family, but we do a lot better with all reading books in the same room and calling that togetherness.
I've only been invited to five weddings in my whole life. The pastor's daughter got married when I was nine, my brother got married when I was 18, and three friend weddings.
Not fun, hideously unfun, mixed feelings, wildly awkward until drunk, and insanely fun.
Pretty much the whole spectrum, then.
All straight though! I want to see the whole spectrum over again in rainbow.
Fun weddings: hippies, artists, the very rich.
Not fun weddings: devout Christians, pregnant teenagers.
As with most things Scottish (the sole significant exception being whiskey, I'd say), bagpipes have their merits, enjoy a somewhat unjustified public profile, and are clearly inferior in nearly all respects to the Irish version.
Not fun weddings: devout Christians, pregnant teenagers.
Serious intersection between those two sets there.
...and are clearly inferior in nearly all respects to the Irish version.
How, exactly?
Uilleann pipes are also bagpipes—for all we know, the sort present at the wedding. 15 betrays self-hatred.
Uileann pipes can be played both sole and as part of an ensemble, something that doesn't seem to be the cae for bagpipes. Personally I love the sound and I've yet to hear a bad piper on that instrument.
I think whiskey and whisky have gone their ways sufficiently to be considered different things at this point.
Is the contention here that Highland pipes aren't played solo, or aren't played as part of an ensemble?
There's a bagpiper who occasionally plays in my work neighborhood. I like bagpipes, but I have to admit that 3 straight hours of them tests even my patience.
Show me a Scottish piper who can rock like Davy Spillane in the glory of his youth, and I'll reconsider my prejudice for the Uilleann pipes.
So it's a long way to the top (if you wanna rock like Davy Spillane).
I think it is generally accepted that Bill Millin rocked pretty hard.
In a rather different way, sure. I'm quite happy to accept the Scottish pipes as a powerful weapon of war.
I love weddings. I try to never go to any of them though.
And if you do go, not to give a business card to the groom.
You left out the edge cases - pregnant teen hippie wedding, very rich devout Christian wedding? I'd say the first could go either way, the second double-plus not fun.
I'd say at least half of the weddings I attend I find uncomfortably fraught. Generally not so much to do with the *quality* of the ceremonies/receptions themselves (although aspects of them do often highlight more significant underlying issues).
May I take this thread for my own purposes? Thanks.
So, my dad broke a bunch of ribs yesterday. He's coming home from the hospital today and will probably make a full recovery (barring pneumonia, etc.). Anyway, I am looking for suggestions for things to keep him busy in a very low-energy sort of way for the next month.
Computer games? He has never liked games that required fast reflexes, and multi-user games are probably out. He already owns Age of Empires, which my sister gave him a while back, but he hasn't seemed to have played it much. If there's a good "graphic adventure" game for Mac system, that would be perfect. He liked Syberia recently, but I get the sense that people aren't making many of these any more.
TV series? He has Firefly, which again, he should like, but hasn't gotten past the premiere, which my sister and I forced him to watch. He likes silly movies, crime, or history. Nothing too pretentious.
Any of the Ken Burns's drone fests better than the others? Baseball would probably bore him, and the Civil War one might cover too familiar ground.
Any ideas, o Mineshaft?
Hope he gets better soon. My dad listens to lectures on history, economics, and that kind of stuff. He gets them from some website and listens to them on the only non-Apple MP3 player ever purchased. I've had no luck getting him to watch a new tv show, but hulu has a ton of old movies and that is what they watch. As for computer games, it's not his thing, but Facebook Scrabble does happen occassionally.
Samorost and Machinarium are very nice computer games.
The Rome TV series was good, season 2 gratuitously violent though. Deadwood if he tolerates cursing, BBC retread Sherlock Holmes.
What are his interests more generally? Should you drag him over here?
35: History of Rome podcast? It's free on iTunes, and amateurish but very detailed; there's got to be a couple of hundred half-hour episodes on Roman history from 1 A.U.C. to the late fifth century. (And when I say amateurish, the guy knows a lot more than I do, it's just clearly some lunatic in his basement rather than someone who gets paid as a historian). I listen to them commuting and was amused.
BBC Sherlock Holmes is good--we showed him the first episode, not sure if they picked up the next ones. Thanks for the game references. Those both look like decent bets!
He and my mom are halfway through a physics course taught via DVD lectures. My mom was all "Dad was looking forward to the quantum mechanics lectures" (that's basically his PHD field), and I was all "that was before the morphine."
Should you drag him over here?
No.
He's a master putterer (he took early retirement and has seemingly developed no hobbies). He likes hiking and skiing and meddling in his children's lives. He's interested in history and economics without ever really studying them seriously. He likes hard science and mapmaking and slapstick comedy.
Quantum physics + morphine = sociology.
some lunatic in his basement
You...say that like it's a bad thing.
Been there, solved that. In that vein seems to be good for him, though.
42: Terry Pratchett, if he hasn't read them already? There are enough of them to last most people well over a month.
If 46 to 45 then seconding Samorost here (and from the looks of it Machinarium which I hadn't known about and am now eagerly looking forward to).
Yikes, JM, that sounds unpleasant! My first thought was the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency dvds. Hmm, I'll think about this.
He's interested in history and economics without ever really studying them seriously.
There's that Connections series of tv shows that came up in some thread a while back.
He's a master putterer (he took early retirement and has seemingly developed no hobbies). He likes hiking and skiing and meddling in his children's lives. He's interested in history and economics without ever really studying them seriously. He likes hard science and mapmaking and slapstick comedy.
Can you send him to live with John Emerson?
He likes hiking and skiing. These are not hobbies?
Maybe he likes them in theory but doesn't actually engage in them.
They aren't tennis, or philately.
The hiking does seem to be a major time-suck, in that time not actually spent hiking is spent planning hikes or looking at maps of hikes or downloading and labeling photos of hikes. Still, it's not exactly something that takes the place of an entire workweek. Skiing is too expensive to do more than a few times a winter--and HE'S OBVIOUSLY NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER (slower on his skis, yes, which is nice for me).
He and Emerson would probably get along well, until the first vicious argument.
Terry Pratchett is one of those things, I found, that takes a little while to warm to, and until you do, the slavering fandom and number of books can be offputting. He might enjoy them okay, but I shouldn't expect more than a mild chortle. Of course more than that would probably be painful with broken ribs.
And of course there's the problem that the first couple in order of writing are weakish.
It's a long shot, but if you can get him to bite on Dwarf Fortress, problem solved.
The IT Crowd for television, recent BBC series about the monarchy, narrated by David Starkey. (bonus: drinking or family game: shout or drink when Dr Starkey adopts one of his two non-neutral facial expressions).
Has he ever read Borges? WG Sebald? Italo Calvino? Geores Perec? Physicsts (OK, ex-physicists, hi) often like fiction that does general scope and abstraction well, not easy to find. The Sadlon translation of Svejk is not bad for slapstick, and most of Jim Carrey's early work.
Is there a decent version of SimCity for the Mac these days?
Yeah, box sets - The Wire, The Killing/Forbrydelse , etc. Or Gibbon! What better time?
61: No, it's nothing but smut. I won't have it in the house.
How did he break his ribs? Anything fun?
I wonder if my parents don't have Gibbon around somewhere.
The Wire is a terrific show, I love and inflict it everywhere, but I just don't know if my dad is ready for it.
Breaking Bad, I could see better: chemist goes evil.
Anything fun?
Hardly. He was trimming a tree in the back yard and the ladder collapsed under him.
re: Irish v. Scottish
I have a strong preference for Scotch whisky. Most Irish whiskey I've had tastes like watery pish -- I'm sure there's really great Irish whiskey, but I haven't had any.
Uilleann pipes over the big Sottish pipes any day, yeah. Although there are Scottish bellows-blown pipes used in ensemble playing, too.
Man, I loved the Sharpe books: the endless saga of a man wandering around the Peninsular war trying to get his hands on a pair of pants that fits. The death toll among French officers that were Sharpe's size was grisly.
Most Irish whiskey I've had tastes like watery pish--
True dat. Advocates of Irish tell me that it's triple distilled whereas Scotch is only double distilled. This tells me that the Scots know when to stop.
I'm sure there's really great Irish whiskey, but I haven't had any.
This stuff isn't bad. But I can think of half a dozen Scotches I'd rather drink.
The Wire is a terrific show, I love and inflict it everywhere, but I just don't know if my dad is ready for it.
You could test the waters with a DVD or two of Homicide: Life on the Street, and based on his reaction to that you could go with more of the same or "upgrade" to The Wire.
TV series? . . . He likes silly movies, crime, or history.
Leverage? It's inconsistent but it sounds like he might be the ideal target audience.
Computer games? ... He already owns Age of Empires, which my sister gave him a while back, but he hasn't seemed to have played it much.
What about one of the older Civ titles (I may be biased because I loved Civ II, and never really got into any of the later versions)?
How did he break his ribs? Anything fun?
paging Urple
Sure, paging Urple is fun, but can you really break your ribs doing it?
I enjoyed Civ 3 for way too many hours until I got burned out on it. I don't recommend Wire if he's hopped up and in pain. For that situation you want some decent quality mindless entertainment. Homicide would be good. A stack of whatever genre fiction he might like would be good too.
Master and Commander books? There are lots of them but they're an acquired taste for some.
BBC's A History of the World in One Hundred Objects podcast if it's still available.
SimCity.
He's a master putterer (he took early retirement and has seemingly developed no hobbies).
This will totally be me.
He seems to have an endless supply of black-belt sudoku puzzles. My mother plowed through the Master and Commander books (twice, I think), so those are definitely in the house if he wants them. I can't picture him sitting still and listening to podcasts, unfortunately, though the BBC History of the World in 100 objects sounds terrific.
Thanks, all of you, for your suggestions. They helped keep my mind occupied during what was a pretty grim and stressful day (this all happened yesterday and I learned about it this morning). I'm waiting now to hear that they've arrived home from the hospital.
If he does sudoku, and doesn't do kenken yet, try him on kenken. They're similar enough to be attractive, but different enough to be a new challenge.
BBC History of the World in 100 objects sounds terrific.
It really does, doesn't it?
It's hard for me to judge whether Braid is too twitchy, but it's a fantastic puzzle game.
Fun weddings: hippies, artists, the very rich.
True. The best wedding I went to was of my earthy artistic friend from a very rich family.
What about Foyle's War, JM? Big hit in my parents' household.
Sorry to hear about your dad, JM. Hope he gets pain free quickly.
NMM to Obama's opposition to gay marriage.
Woohoo! Biden pushed him over the edge, you think?
Who wouldn't want to marry Biden?
I suspect it was mostly choreographed, but who can really tell.
That never seems less strange with every passing year.
90 has been my impression all along. The whole thing sort of came out of left field.
92: I saw an explanation that made it make perfect sense -- stupid, but you can see what happened -- back in '08. Apparently the Kinnock thing was part of Biden's stump speech, properly framed -- "Neil Kinnock tells this story about his ancestors, yada yada yada, I too have some similar kind of story (which he did on some level)." And after delivering it right a couple of hundred times, he started streamlining out the frame, until he was delivering it as if it were about him. Stupid and thoughtless, but seems like the kind of screw-up you could make.
Why did he steal speeches from somebody who couldn't out charisma John Major is what I wondered.
Because it fit -- the Kinnock story was pretty close to something from Biden's life (I can't remember exactly how.)
Here's a story on it, but it doesn't have the bit that explained why Biden was using the Kinnock thing at all: what Kinnock said isn't true of Biden, but something pretty close is, which made the original version of Biden's speech where he quoted and credited Kinnock's language and then linked it to his own experience make sense.
That still seems strange. Being the first in your family to go to college isn't really that much of a unique experience for people in Biden's age cohort. Not that I mind Biden saying whatever he wants to say. It's always more fun that way.
Biden was from anthracite coal country (Scranton) and had a past relative who had been a mining engineer. But I don't think he turned out to have been the first to go to college.
Being the first in your family to go to college isn't really that much of a unique experience for people in Biden's age cohort.
I'd have thought it would be the norm, if you did go to college in that generation, that you'd be the first in your family unless you were old money.
Was Biden blowing a dog whistle that he wasn't old money?
There really wasn't much old money running in 1988. Gore and Bush (HW) were of course from connected family backgrounds.
Pierre S. du Pont IV was running in 1988.
I can't find a story explaining it, but the similarity between the Kinnock speech and Biden's family was close enough to make quoting it very reasonable sounding. Not, obviously, close enough to make everything Kinnock said about his family true of Biden, but enough that drawing the link was reasonable.
80: If he likes advanced sudoku puzzles, you might want to look into this series, which I saw in the store the other day. They get harder with each book, with the promise that by book four you will encounter puzzles that require multiple levels of seriously advanced techniques to solve. Book one lists itself as puzzles that only require basic techniques to solve, while still being harder than the typical hard/challenger level newspaper puzzle. If he knows what an X-wing or Swordfish pattern are, but has rarely encountered puzzles requiring them, this might be the series for him.
Thanks, Dave. I just ordered one of those for him.
Foyle's War is also a really good suggestion.
Update on my dad: he's moving around, already seems in better spirits, and is determined to heal quickly.
I don't know what you're swearing about.