Word.
Once and once only was I in an airport where you had a baggage slip corresponding to a tag on the bag/s, and a security guard checked it at the exit. I forget where that was, now. Maybe I dreamed it.
I, too, have been at such an airport.
Shhh! You're giving the terrorists ideas!
I just got back from Ecuador, where they (apparently) check baggage claim tags. Which is a problem, because I have a habit of claim tags on planes....
Whatever. When I get off my plane, I run down to the baggage claim before the bags start coming out. And I stand near the chute, or near enough that I can see it, and I watch what everyone else is picking up, to make sure it's not mine.
It's not that it's not policed, it's self-policed.
isn't this just the result of generalizing from a knowledge of the contents of your own suitcase?
i mean--so i could swipe someone else's dirty clothes. big whoop.
someone else's dirty clothes
So steal the luggage off the flight to Las Vegas, not the flight back home.
6 -- right, just bring one of those fancy uniforms, climb back behind the check-in counters when no one's looking and ... profit.
i heard the ideal disguise is a gorilla suit.
(or was that before y'all's time?)
Sometimes they do at LAX. Sometimes at PDX, too. Frequently at EUG.
Houston is the only place I've had someone check the tag (and of course, I had misplaced the tag.)
They don't check at the border between U.S. and Canada! The terrorists could steal my underwear!
I get 8.
They also do the baggage claim ticket thing at Union Station in DC if IIRC.
As to the stealing of bags, yes, by all means, do so; then time how long before they have your image from the CCTV up on the local news.
8 -- as long as all the real workers are busy counting the bags.
That's why you don't pack anything valuable in your checked baggage (even without this issue, aren't people still scared of getting things stolen by the TSA? I had a friend who had jewelry stolen). Or you only bring a carry-on. Personally I am waiting for teleportation, at least for my bags, but until then I am just annoying the hell out of other passengers with my large rolling carry-on.
I always had my tags checked in Beijing. Figures.
You know what never ceases to amaze me? The fucking lunacy of commercial air travel. Supposed to go to DC, through ORD. Cannot, due to terrible weather in midwest. Airline informs me that because I am flying on a miles ticket, they are unable to rebook me to another airline. Because I am a good customer, people, with thousands and thousands of miles, I cannot be helped.
Sounds like getting warranty repairs.
Also, I have thought about this baggage claim issue before, and is it not the case that everyone is certain enough of a panopticon of security devices/cameras in airports to assume that even if they got home with a stolen bag, somehow, someway, it would be found out? That's how I've vaguely figured it, anyway.
People: the panopticon is your soul. Surveillance technology is just gravy.
This is not so much in response to 17, because Sybil and I love one another now, as it is to people's general misgivings about surveillance technology.
To be even clearer: 17 is not a wrong use of panopticon. Using Foucault to talk about public surveillance misses the real horror. I'll stop now and unpack Beck's luggage. Excuse.
In Japan, they check to see that the baggage stub on your ticket matches the bag you took.
Speaking of Japan, anyone want to come to my wedding after-party in Tokyo? 8pm, Sunday Sept. 16. Free open bar till 11. Email me for details.
It's true, we've never been closer.
But right, exactly, my point was more about people being certain of the surveillance rather than there being surveillance. One can just say 'panopticon' and everyone assumes one is talking about Foucauldian disciplinary subjectivity, no?
And maybe I was using Bentham, anyway.
I recently got bumped from an overbooked flight, and my luggage went ahead without me. I was able to pick it up just by telling them my name as I grabbed the bag; no tags were checked, but it's admittedly unlikely that a random would be able to read or guess the right name for one of those half-dozen bags.
Speaking of Japan, anyone want to come to my wedding after-party in Tokyo? 8pm, Sunday Sept. 16. Free open bar till 11. Email me for details.
If you paypal me some money, we can do a live webcam Unfogged meetup. Your treat.
OT: Odd moments in shiny new secretary -- she's never done a Table of Authorities for a brief before. She's not new in the firm, just new to me, so I don't know how that can have happened.
On the other hand, her first shot at it wasn't that far off, and she listened attentively as I explained how you do it (take out the pin cites and so on). So, still delightful, assuming the next version of the table actually incorporates what I told her.
And congratulations on getting all the wedding planning under control, GB!
Seriously! Congrats! And stay in Japan! U.S. immigration is crazy-making!
Congratulations, indeed.
I'll go further than Cala and say, hey, give up your U.S. citizenship (and right to vote) while you're at it!
OT: 27: Remember that if Shiny New Secretary is really Shiny, she will want to hear any changes or improvements that she needs to make.
O Unfoggers, do not lull your secretaries into false senses of security while secretly being full of rage and disappointment. As a class, we are low-paid and often bored; it is difficult to be motivated to be all pro-active and innovative and go-gettem-tiger under those circumstances; hence a little feedback/ direction giving/ prompting is often better than just expecting us to be as engaged and motivated as, like, a commodities broker.
31: SNS listened to everything I said, and came back fifteen minutes later with a perfect piece of work-product, barring one spot where I hadn't given her guidance and she made a reasonable, but wrong, judgment call. She's absolutely great. I can't figure out why she'd never done this task before, but clearly not out of incapacity.
Maybe she's newer than I realized. Come to think of it, the partner she was working for when I got assigned to her had a different secretary last year, and I'm not sure when she left. That would explain SNS being low on specific experience.
Heh. Work for me for another couple of months, and I'll have her either on track to becoming one of the partner-secretary-dragons who knows absolutely everything, or quitting to go to law school.
While we're on the OT, I can tell you all that our union just had a strike vote and 72% voted to reject and strike. Which I support, without totally agreeing with every single thing the union has ever done. One email seems to have gone out from someone high up in the administration saying in effect "well, strike if you want to; we'll do without you" (I didn't see it but know someone who did). But of course, there may be a last-minute negotiation, which I wouldn't mind atall.
Now I'm all freaking out, even though (and here, SCMT, is the second-guessing-plus-soldiering-on, should you want an example) I've been doing union support stuff recently and I believe in unions and I know that the university has been offering a series of really crummy contracts these past few times and we haven't caught up from a wage freeze and I know, historically speaking, that unions supply the wage floor and that you can't let management push you around because they'll always take a mile. So I know I'm going to do strike support stuff (should it come to that) and be out on the pickett line and do the whole routine. I know I'll do it because I've done it before and because I know that my first loyalty in this instance is to the union.
And yet I'm really conflict-averse! I like the university! I don't want people to think I hate them because I'm on strike (and Americans think all kinds of stuff about strikes, most of it inaccurate). I'm afraid I'll lose my job! What if they fire us all? (I know that's really unlikely, not to mention mostly illegal.) What if I lose my insurance? What if they decide after I've been gone that they can do without me?
Augghhh!
Inside my shell of left-wing steel is a core of squooshy marshmallow.
That's what solidarity is for, Frowner. Left to our own devices, we are all marshmallow. But together, there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun, especially if you imagine us forming into Lafcadio's marshmallow suit.
Solidarity, dude! Your general competence and work-ethic will be an advertisement for the goodness and usefulness of union workers, even the ones with the temerity to strike.
Yes, I know. It was either K-Punk or maybe Lenin (the Leninology one) who said something about how what you do really truly alone is worthless (if doing something really truly alone is even possible). And I do feel enthused about the union and the solidarity stuff. People survive strikes; they survive losing their jobs. I have job skills; I have friends; I know about dumpstering and all that stuff. It's only money; it's only life; it's only death.
I had never heard of the lion book and now I want a copy! Not til after the contract is negotiated, though...
And while I can't think of what it would be, anything useful I can do from NY in a strike support capacity, just email. It'll decrease the chance that Mom will feel required to haunt me.
35 and 36 get it exactly right.
I like the university! I don't want people to think I hate them because I'm on strike (and Americans think all kinds of stuff about strikes, most of it inaccurate).
Hopefully the point of a union is to prevent it from becoming an individual conflict. When the strike is over you should be able to say, truthfully, "I like the University, I don't hate you, I support the Union which has voted to go on strike." When the strike is actually happening I don't know how strongly you are obligated to take the position that the University's offer was insufficient and that the union was correct to reject it and go on strike. It depends on who you are talking to I suppose.
I hate to drag it back on-topic, but I recently had a flight segment from Dallas to Tulsa canceled. There were 2 remaining flights but this was the second one canceled that day, so I went straight to the rental car counter. After a 4 hour drive, I returned the car to the Tulsa airport just as the second flight arrived.
Half of my luggage had arrived on the previous flight and was just sitting there on the floor next to the conveyor belt, unattended, along with hundreds of other suitcases. In case the rest was lost, I decided to earn some goodwill with the one employee present, who was removing apparently-unclaimed bags from the conveyor belt, by helping her out. No men offered to help, but they probably didn't realize why there were so many extras. Most of the passengers who checked those bags were still in Dallas. The rest of my stuff arrived on the second flight. She was way too busy to check the tags of anyone who took bags and left.
I could have walked off with anything. The owners weren't there to say, "Hey, that's mine." When they arrived and realized their stuff wasn't there, the first guess would probably be "still in Dallas" rather than "stolen by last night's passengers." And you can barely tell black suitcases apart when you're picking them up--a black and white video wouldn't have helped. I didn't arrive on a flight, so they wouldn't have even had my name, much less a photo on file.
As for the decision to make a 4-hour drive when the flight was canceled: I was the 3rd person to hit the rental car center in Dallas. Only Avis was willing to rent one-way. The first guy got a normal car, the second got a 4-door pickup, and I got a Lincoln Town Car (gypsy cab to my kids) for $150. I think they had only 2 cars after mine. Gas was $45. I was not reimbursed by the airline for the car, but since I was traveling with my husband and 3 kids, the refunded segment at $60 each * 5 tickets actually gave me a decent profit. An individual would have been screwed unless s/he was willing to ride with a group of strangers and share the cost.
If I has stood in line at the counter, I would have been booked on a flight at 10am the next day and my kids at noon, according to the customer support rep who re-booked the rest of my trip when I noticed that I couldn't check in on their website. Also, I had to mail in copies of the boarding slips and it took about 3 weeks for the credit to be posted.
Frowner, if your address should find its way to my email. a gently used copy of Lafcadio will surely find its way to your picket line. I cannot promise a marshmallow suit.
I had the good fortune to attend college amid much TA unionizing, so when the service workers went and struck there was already a lot of theorizing and dramatizing going on. We moved classes to a nearby church, and my American Studies professor did a special strike lecture. "Modern work has no narrative," he said, a preacher's son speaking from the pulpit. "But the strike tells a story."
Back to the off-topic: I'm a nurse and my union was threatening to strike last year. I appreciate that I get 4 weeks of vacation, full family health insurance with no co-payment, and time-and-a-half for overtime, in a middle-class profession requiring only a bachelor's degree. However, I have serious issues with the concept of leaving a hospital poorly staffed.
I'm just in labor and delivery, and most of our patients would be better off giving birth at home anyway. But women are emotionally invested in their choice of a doctor and hospital and would be frantic if they got shuttled somewhere else, and the somewhere-else would be overloaded. Now think of the sick people...
I was really glad that they agreed on a contract before I had to decide which stand to take.
And remember that a true Frowner has never been afraid, of goons and ginks and company finks, and the deputy sheriffs who made the raids.
Wouldn't a rational actor have picked up and extra piece of luggage or two?
I appreciate that I get 4 weeks of vacation, full family health insurance with no co-payment, and time-and-a-half for overtime, in a middle-class profession requiring only a bachelor's degree. However, I have serious issues with the concept of leaving a hospital poorly staffed.
OTOH, you're all that's standing between the patients and gradual understaffing resulting in a deterioration in patient care. Not to tell you what your union was striking over, but my understanding of what's behind a lot of nurses' strikes lately is protesting staffing practices that make it impossible for them to care for patients adequately. During a strike, patients will be on notice that they have to go someplace else. If understaffing becomes a norm, they'll have noplace else to go.
The union doesn't have any control over staffing.
Right now, on my shift, 3 nurses are on vacation, to which they are entitled. One is on maternity leave, to which she is entitled. The nurse manager, a scrub tech, an aide, and a clerk are on vacation, to which they are also entitled. Even the on-premises supervisor, "assistant director of nursing," was a per-diem fill-in some night. These vacations were granted back in March, so there was ample time to plan. No plan was made.
The union can guarantee that if one of us is able to come in for overtime, they get paid extra. If we don't get our break, we get paid for that hour. But they can't force the hospital to plan for vacations by hiring temps, for instance--who would not be union members. For all I know, the union is probably against the use of travelers for that reason.
You know, teachers' unions say they are for smaller class sizes but they're really for higher teachers' salaries. Doctors' trade organizations say they're for patient safety but they're really for higher doctors' incomes and lower risk of liability.
In fact, scrub techs and aides are a different union and the nurse manager and ADN are management--all under completely separate contracts.
I assume that the union will eventually file a grievance at some point, after the fact, with all of the complaints that we had staffing levels of 6-7 and no support staff when we should have staffing levels of 8-9. But that doesn't help when 2 simultaneous cesarean sections pull 4 nurses into 2 OR's, leaving the remaining 3 nurses watching 8 patients. You could be one of those patients.
I know perfectly well that if we were paid less money, the hospital could afford to hire more of us. But then again, most of my colleagues don't live in Manhattan and have long commutes because the salaries (starting at about $75,000/year) don't cover living expenses here. Many also have 2 jobs.
Anyway, if I think of a solution to all of the world's problems, I'll let you know.
You know what never ceases to amaze me? Restaurants. You go in, you sit down, you ask for food, and they bring it to you. Do they ask for a deposit, or a credit check? They do not.
47: And when you dash after your meal, they only chase you for like five blocks tops. It's a crazy world.
Dashing is so unrefined. Just go to the loo, and then keep walking.
Or do an Astaire; burst into song just outside the restaurant, and keep on dancing.
Fred Astaire never paid in restaurants, yet always left the stiffed staff feeling they'd got their money's worth from his hoofing.
Fred Astaire's shoe leather cures cancer.
Too bad he has never cried.
Fred Astaire danced a dance to end poverty, banging out in Morse code the secret to human happiness.
Ginger Rogers really did do everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in a dress. Mealtimes were disgusting.
I've experienced tag-checking, mostly picking people up as I haven't flown in about six years, (with no need to) about one time in 4, which seems much higher than anybody else in the thread. O'Hare and Midway.
I remember in the early nineties or so, when the bag tag thing was pretty new (I think), routinely having to show the tags at different airports (Houston, Detroit, I think maybe Istanbul, probably some other places). Not so much any more.
The topic for this thread is now Fred Astaire facts.
In the privacy of his home, Fred Astaire did everything Ginger Roger did, backward and in a dress.
Mailboxes used to amaze me, and still do in some ways, but less so after a few of my parents' neighbors reported stuff stolen from their boxes. They had to change a few cards.
54 is awesome. Although I believe it's "in heels", as "in a dress" doesn't really complicate dancing that much, unless you're concerned about people seeing your underpants.
I enjoyed the Marvel "Secret Wars" series, when Fred Astaire and Chuck Norris were flown to a patchwork planet and made to have a dance/punch-off.
Fred Astaire used to get his mail by mental telepathy, and sent telegrams by blinking his eyes.
Although I believe it's "in heels"
Shit, you're right.
Fred Astaire had been using ties as belts for years before learning their intended mode of wear.
Where Fred Astaire falls, mandrakes grow. That's why they shriek when you pull them up.
He also used belts to tie up throughout his career.
#30: Thanks for the kind suggestion, B, but I believe I've spelled out my position on using my right to vote quite clearly here.
Frowner, don't worry about people thinking you hate the University. Anyone who thinks that is ridiculously foolish.
"in a dress" doesn't really complicate dancing that much
Not for normal people, no. But I bet for the dance performers it does, since a big part of performance dance often seems to be showing off the dress or using it to extend the dancer's movement. Which has gotta be pretty tough.
Fred Astaire frequently admitted in his later life that he felt the presence of God neither in his heart nor in the eucharist.
66: Well, shit. Oh well, congratulations anyway.
"Fred Astaire" was actually played by the Francis Bacon, who we know for a fact wore heels.
Fred Astaire once danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.
Fred Astaire kilt himself a bar when he was only three.
Fred Astaire kilt himself in a bar when he was only three, and after three days he was resurrected.
Fred Astaire was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas.
Fred Astaire went to Denmark on a family vacation when he was young, and managed to obtain the very pair of red shoes about which Hans Christian Anderson wrote his story. He put them on and danced them into submission.
Whatever happened to Fred Astaire, honest ol tricky ol Fred Astaire who sold shoes to the footless an danced for the legless an befriended the friendless, the oppressed an the short throughout the land?
Fred Astaire had hisself a mule, name of Sal.
Short people ain't got no reason to live
— Fred Astaire.
Once Fred Astaire saw lying on a table a pair of silver shoes.
"I wonder if they will fit me," he said to Toto. "They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out."
He took off his old leather shoes and tried on the silver ones, which fitted him as well as if they had been made for him. And so he started on his journey.
Fred Astaire is the rightful heir to the Ottoman Empire, and would be the Sultan today if not for WWI.
Fred Astaire didn't just have his first successes as a dancer with his sister.
I don't get it.
I fell short of my own expectations, which is something Fred Astaire would understand. Deep in his heart, he always felt he could dance a little faster.
You know when my baby told me we were through, and said she was gonna walk out on me, it was Fred Astaire who talked her out of it.
Fred Astaire is the rightful heir to the Ottoman Empire, and would be the Sultan today if not for WWI.
The dancing young man of Europe.
All of Fred Astaire's dance moves are alike, but all of Ginger Rogers's dance moves are hers in their own ways.
(It's a miracle they managed to dance together at all.)
Fred Astaire put his pants on both legs at a time.
Fred Astaire taught Cary Grant how to whistle.
Fred Astaire and W.C. Fields were an item. Fields was the bottom.
Why aren't you young people off satisfying your carnal desires?
Without a few disastrous relationships you will never be able to understand my message.
Fred Astaire once danced over the border from Mexico. At Customs, he informed the officer that he was a smuggler. Astaire was strip-searched, but the customs agent could find nothing. Several months later, Fred Astaire danced his way over the border a second time. Again, he informed the official that he was a smuggler. Again, after many intrusive searches, Customs could find nothing. Astaire repeated this many, many times over the years, and when the Customs agent retired, he finally broke down and asked Fred, "After all these year, can you tell me what it is you were smuggling?"
Astaire replied, "Tap shoes."
Fred Astaire had hundreds of relationships, all of them happy.
Disastrous relationships and unsatisfied carnal desires frequently go hand in hand.
Not to mention like 31 goddamn dicks.
Fred Astaire is married to Goldberry, the daughter of the river.
Above all, his relationship with the submissive, masochistic Fields.
Actually, I associate disastrous relationships with satisfied carnal desires.
Zombie Fred Astaire has hired a lobbying firm to gain support for his coup in Iraq.
Are anyone's carnal desires ever truly satisfied for more than a brief, fleeing moment? If only Fred Astaire were here to tell us.
Actually, I associate disastrous relationships with satisfied carnal desires.
The lesson of yin/yang disharmony, as propounded in Natsume Soseki's unfinished novel Light and Darkness. (Fred Astaire penned an ending to it, but it was never published.)
That's a lot of whiskey and women, Devil-Man.
Fred Astaire sold his soul at the crossroads in Rosedale, Mississippi.
Satisfying the carnal desires does increase the amount of disaster possible, but recovering from the aftermath can put a crimp in one's style.
Should I drink beer, or this crazy nepalese rum my sister's boyfriend gave me for christmas, that comes in a bottle in the shape of a knife?
Everyone loves Fred Astaire, 'cause the tricks that he does are ever so dare
Ing.
107: If you don't have to go to work tomorrow, drink the crazy rum, man.
Crap, that's pwnage. Bitch is correct, drink the rum.
That's the shit. While we all know Fred Astaire's abilities extend far beyond the dancing for which he is famous into such varied fields as metalwork and analytic philosophy, I wonder what exactly the Nepalese know about sugar cane.
I am skeptical. But I'm also off to find a glass. An experiment, in the name of science.
I, myself, am drinking a nice 10-year old single-malt.
Skeptical? Hand that bottle over here, son, you don't deserve it.
I'm having an extremely nice bottle of wine I bought months ago that Mr. B. finally took the initiative to open.
Jake, Khukhri rum has won several awards.
The oldest rum in Nepal.
Is still not very old. That has been produced for only 40% as long as Brugal, say.
Obviously therefore it can't be any good. Jake, you and Nick can go drink beer and leave that rum for me and Ben, kay?
Luckily, the bottle is in the shape of a dagger of the type favored by the infamous Ghurkas, so I can slit the throat of anyone who would attempt to steal it from me.
I'm not sure what one would mix it with; spiced rum doesn't make a good mojito and I don't have any coke. Taking a sip of some that I poured into a coffee mug.
One is allowed to drink rum neat, you know, even from coffee mugs.
I prefer to taste all my liquor neat; at least in the first encounter.
False alarm. This bottle is very difficult to open. Some plastic plug either came off the cap or was placed in the neck. Need to go get needlenose pliers from the garage.
Water, possibly ginger ale (especially if you can get actually good ginger ale), citrus juice. Though what's wrong with straight?
Neat, with a li'l lime zest, I bet, would be good.
Whoa. Definitely rum. Not bad, either. Maybe on the rocks?
124: Yes please, I shudder to think of Canada Dry or Schwepps mixed with rum. Too sweet.
We're all envious, Jake, you bastard.
There's some brand of organic ginger ale that's delish--tastes like actual ginger.
Send your sister to Nepal and have her find a boyfriend who needs to buy you presents. Might work with the genders reversed if you only have a brother, but I'm not sure.
This stuff is actually surprisingly not bad to sip on. Wonder if it's going to give me a hangover.
Blenheim's is well-thought-of, no?
Audrey Saunders' ginger beer recipe (non-carbonated).
10-year-old single malt is probably pretty good as well. Not to mention good wine.
Note that in this version, the ginger flavor is much stronger than you're likely to encounter in any ginger beer on the market. You probably won't want to drink this straight, unless you're accustomed to sipping on bottles of Tabasco sauce.
Fred Astaire was accustomed to sipping on bottles of Tabasco sauce.
133: I'm about to pour another couple of fingers. I'm liking this Balvenie.
It's matured in oak vats for at least eight months.
I don't like the sound of that.
Had a friend who used to make these crazy vodka ginger beer concotions. Sadly, I don't have any available.
I've been drinking Leinenkugel, a relatively good local beer, but I'm through.
136: How else you figure he had the flair? The spin, the pizzazz?
I like hot stuff, but I still can't figure the people who pour Tabasco on their food. Perhaps I'm too prissy.
The original recipes for both coca-cola and root beer are now illegal to use, since they incuded an ingredient which is now a controlled substance. Fact.
Ginger ale cannot say this.
Astaire pioneered the tabasco enema. His sexual partners did not appreciate being talked into getting one, but he was extremely dominant.
As an insect... countermeasure? Not exactly a repellant.
140: What? Out of it, or never let yourself be led to purchase said beer?
144: That's some nasty looking pizza.
My brother used to stretch his skin so that mosquitoes couldn't withdraw their proboscises. Mosquitos get blood by capillary action, not suction, so they can't stop filling up and eventually explode.
Lots of things to do around here, if you're resourceful.
Or, maybe bored. Never tried that one myself.
Rum and Coke is an offense against the sacred Coca Cola.
Not a lover of rum, clearly. Do you put anything in your cola?
Also, if it's spiced, it's meant to be drunk straight.
150: Ice, preferably. Both lime and lemon work. Ice, lime, and a torn coca leaf for teh win.
Hard to find, coca leaf.
Reminds me of the story of my mother coming through customs in the Dominican Republic. "Anything to declare?", goes the standard line. "Coca, said my mother, carrying with her a bag of very nice cacao. Fortunately, they had a sense of humor and knew what she meant.
Dark rum and ginger beer (not "ale," wussy-types): the "dark and stormy": awesome.
Tabasco on food: delicious! Tabasco straight: not bad!
Sifu drinking: a Rusty Nail, and not the evening's first. Although I opted not to polish off the Lagavulin in mentioned context. Thriftiness currently being called for.
Hard to find, coca leaf.
Yeah, you might have to use the powdered form instead.
Tabasco is great. I buy it in the big restaurant-size bottles.
Mmm, sounds good. Don't think I have any Drambuie around the house.
As far as Tabasco, I like it. I was pointing out that I don't understand those that pour it on their food.
Lagavulin is, hands down, my favorite scotch.
The coca leaf you have to import yourself. It's not difficult, as long as you are white and stinky. My appearance demands the closest scrutiny from airport officials, yet they are quite credulous when it comes to vegetable matter. I packed almost a pound of coca in my tobacco without incident.
P.S. Don't try this in miami.
76--
that's modeled on that brilliant fafblog piece on benjamin healy, right?
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2004/08/legend-of-benjamin-healy-whatever.html
(god i miss fafblog).
but what was the b. healy piece modeled on?
i mean--i concede the limitless fertility of fafblog's invention.
they could have made it up from nothing.
but i also concede the limitless reach of their parodistic bent,
and it has the ring of parody.
sources?
158: pound s/b oz.. And "in miami" s/b ever. Stupid young me found a way to make waiting for customs exciting.
I'm enjoying a delicious schweppes soda water right now. full of delicious bubbles. scrumptious, not-intoxicating bubbles. being sober is the greatest thing ever (I am serious).
160: I've known people who drove 90 miles an hour the wrong way on the freeway, and they lived to tell the tale, but it's not a recommended practice.
Fizzy water is in fact delicious. I wish I could quite feel that way about regular water.
163: I'm pleased to find that I'm not the only person who calls it fizzy water.
I wish I could quite feel that way about regular water
I wish I could quite feel that way about regular water
Still water tastes of the minerals dissolved in it, and how much you like it depends IME on where it comes from for that reason. Even in this little island there's a tendency for people raised on the hard, chalky water of the south to dislike the soft, peaty water of the north and vice versa.
The people who bottle the stuff always seem to choose the blandest sources they can find, which says as much about mass marketing as it does about taste.
164: My family, after my daughter's fashion, also call it fizzy water. Abbreviated on shopping lists as FW.
My daughter fell in love with it from the start, around 7-8 months of age. She prefers it to flat water.
Fred Astaire used to fuck fish in it.
(Sorry, I'm just pissed that I missed the "Astaire facts thread.")
Fred Astaire exists outside of time.
OK, Mr. Smart Guy, if fizzy water is FW, what is flat water? Gotcha there.
that's modeled on that brilliant fafblog piece on benjamin healy
Yes. I believe Fafblog was brilliantly riffing on the Paul Bunyan / Pecos Bill / Davy Crockett tall tale (as were we, here).
Fred Astaire wrote Fafblog. Why do you think it was called FAfblog? But he got bored with it.
what is flat water
Sans gaz, mais naturellement.
Fred Astaire could have turned wheat into marijuana, or sugar into cocaine, or vitamin pills into amphetamines, if he wanted to.
wheat into marijuana, or sugar into cocaine, or vitamin pills into amphetamines
Breakfast at the Astaires' was quite lively.
Fred Astaire could have turned flat water into fizzy water.
He could have turned fizzy water into flat water! He could have turned Heineken into Hamms! If he wanted to.
172--
agreed. and you can find parallels in the tales of cuchulainn, and heracles' exploits. even in antiquity, those often became comical in their exaggeration.
so i agree it was generically in the tall-tale/folk-hero/exaggerated exploits genre.
i was just wondering if there was one particular source-text they had employed.
(and i still miss fafblog. come back, fred astaire!)
The Paul Bunyan stories had some influence from Rabelais.
Even I can turn fizzy water into flat water.
He could have turned Heineken into Hamms! If he wanted to
Could have taught the bear some new steps, if he wanted to. The jealousy of entertainers...
With a soda siphon, you too can turn flat water fizzy.
I can turn bubbly bubble wrap into popped bubble wrap. With my bare hands.
I can create a comment number 185 out of the ether, by sheer willing of my fingers to type.
I hope everyone knows that I'm being forced to be productive against my will, because my confederates of procrastination here on Unfogged are all mysteriously AWOL. I hope you're all happy with yourselves. I hope you feel zero guilt at making me suffer.
We're all out following Ken Barry's example and finding our inner Fred.
That clip's a revelation to someone like me, whose only association was F Troop
Emerson gets a job in the tech sector.
i still miss fafblog. come back, fred astaire!
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Heebie, people are off satisfying their carnal desires.
Not here, no no no! People here are home earlier than they'd planned, and trying to finish the beer in the fridge.
BO-RING
But at least this thread is not as boring as the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy". I have no idea why I rented that last night. I might very well be the only person under 30 in the entire world who has seen this movie. It reminds one that the demise of "prestige pictures" is not to be entirely mourned.
Heebie, people are off satisfying their carnal desires.
Lepers for dinner again?
I hope everyone knows that I'm being forced to be productive against my will, because my confederates of procrastination here on Unfogged are all mysteriously AWOL.
I was reading in a park.
According to wikipedia, Fred Astaire actually detested the top hat and tails getup.
Not here, no no no! People here are home earlier than they'd planned, and trying to finish the beer in the fridge.
So invite someone over to help finish it, and then satisfy your carnal desires.
(Though really, "carnal desires" ought name a wider category than those which are merely sexual; the pleasures of gourmandise are fleshly.)
Every time Fred Astaire stopped dancing, a camera somewhere started to.
How about some nice leper con carne?
Highly spiced dishes are often a means to cover up the "off" flavors of putrefying flesh.
How about some nice leper con carne?
Oh, the humanity!
I was just thinking I should have written, "Mmmm, the humanity!"
This is my body; these are my toenails.
The weather is lovely up here today. Netsurfing is a joy when the weather is good.
I've got some lovely fleurescent lighting flickering above me, in this jolly windowless computer lab.
fluorescent + pleurisy = pleurescent
Don't be disgusting, Ned. Heebie meant that she has flowery lights, probably some really artsy Georgia O'Keefe-esque lamps with bulbs enveloped in soft labial/petalesque forms.
That is one swank computer lab.
Don't be silly, boys, I just misspelled a word. Sometimes I hit the wrong keys, because it's dark in this womb.
Fred Astaire never misspelled a word. Not even while chewing on a mouthful of leper.
Don't be silly, boys, I just misspelled a word.
Never admit to having made a mistake, heebie.
194: Well, I've seen it, but I just turned 30. So maybe you're right.
But yeah: not good.
194: Well, I've seen it, but I just turned 30. So maybe you're right.
But yeah: not good.
What a coincidence. Two different 30-year-old Blumes saw the Agony and the Ecstasy a minute a part. Tell me that God doesn't exist.
dammit, how did that happen? My borrowed wireless connection in the u.s. is better than the connection I pay for in Berlin.
One saw Agony, the other saw Ectasy.
No, Emerson, what happened is that they turned thirty a minute apart. They don't say when they saw the film.
Probably twins.
Maybe the Blumes just live somewhere with continuous time zones, and one is slightly west of the other.
One in the kitchen and one in the living room.
One of the Blumes is red, the other blue. If you look at them through 3D glasses, they turned thirty simultaneously.
I thought Blume was somewhere in Western Europe, where it should be midnight. Maybe it had something to do with the sweep of the sun.
I prefer to believe that God did it, you secular motherfuckers. Not everything can be explained by human reason.
Sure, it should be midnight. But things don't always happen as they should. Fortunately, Blume is on the case, bottle of beer in one hand, flashlight in the other.
God, sun, same thing. You must be one of those radicals who wants to overturn the time-honored religion of Egypt.
Let's pray for Heebie to be allowed escape from her lovely computer lab. If god can produce two 30-y-o Blumes, he can liberate Heebie from slavery.
For all her flaws, Heebie has the best lepers.
I hate this paper. I wish it would go away.
No cough syrup. But they do have this wonderful stuff at the Apotheke called umckalaobo.
Put your faith in Fred Astaire, Heebie. You're still relying on your own powers. No good can come of that.
Perhaps you should take back your old job cleaning carp out of ditches. I'm sure that you were one of the best, and that they'd be glad to have you back.
If anyone has seen "The Agony and the Ecstasy" please make it known. I want to know what possible tie to contemporary culture inspired me to randomly get it from the library and watch it.
Maybe it's just that the title is pretty cool.
Aw, poor Heebie. I feel for you.
You thought it was MDMA, right?
I want to know what possible tie to contemporary culture inspired me
Isn't that the film version with Charlton Heston? Shouldn't be too hard to put this one together.
(I should add that the original novel, by Irving Stone, is really quite good. I recommend it.)
I'm pretty sure I watched it because I remembered my 8th grade English teacher talking about it. Though she probably meant the book, and not the movie.