Had a nice drive today despite the crappy weather and the bumper to bumper traffic from NJ onward. Don’t know how anyone puts up with that shit year round- it would make me mental. But it was nice catching up on phone calls and driving in silence and just thinking. I did listen to Little Feat- Waiting for Columbus and Pink Floyd- Animals, continuing my streak of playing those albums on every 8 hour plus car ride I have made since I dunno 1992 or so.
My hotel has a bunch of LARPers in it- apparently a literary society roleplaying books, which as far as I am concerned, removes one of the best aspects of books, which is that they work great without other fucking people. Really solid solo activity, I think. To each his own. Tomorrow, I get to meet this guy:
Handsome fella!
piratedan
good thing you got the music out of the way first, in case he turns out to be talkative, you may be in for a long conversation on the way back.
NotMax
Fingers crossed that whoever may be dressed as Tarzan is at least semi-fit.
Tarzan: The Retirement Years don’t cut the mustard.
:)
Mike in NC
The best years of my life were living in Newport, RI from 1986-1989. Met the woman of my dreams in Providence, but shortly thereafter my entire office got laid off and I got relocated to corporate HQ in Rockville, Maryland. Shit happens.
Westyny
That is one charismatically handsome cat.
zeecube
chill cat.
CaseyL
Ooh, the new house panther!
That slitted-eye expression – looks like he’s been taking lessons from Tom Levenson’s Tikka.
Eljai
I think that cat is an old soul. It’s like he can peer into my very essence. It’s as if he sees through all my pretenses and says “you cannot hide. do not try.” You’re in for some trouble, Cole.
eclare
A magnificent beast!
Amir Khalid
Ooh, he’s handsome.
HumboldtBlue
Regal
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Great lookin cat!
Hope the drive was good Cole.
Rose Weiss
A beautiful creature to add to your family.
laura
Dapper kiki is dapper!
different-church-lady
Animals is such an under-rated album.
Odie Hugh Manatee
So that cat loves you five pecks, which is 40 dry quarts. Who says that you can’t measure love? Congratulations on the new darkness that stares back at you!
Beautiful eyes…
Ida Slapter
So sleek! So splendid!
So happy for you, Cole.
Origuy
I have Sirius XM in my car. I got tired of listening to the Classic Rock Hits station, Classic Vinyl. It plays the same things over and over. The next channel over is a station called Deep Tracks, which plays the other songs on the albums, along with a lot of artists who never got high in the charts.
Chris T.
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Geez, I thought I knew all the stupid measurements, but I didn’t know there were wet vs dry quarts…
Omnes Omnibus
@Origuy: That’s my dad’s favorite one on satellite radio.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Chris T.:
I spent a lot of time in class staring at a Pee-Chee until my eyes glazed over so I have that crap memorized. That and modifying the artwork in disturbing ways were my bored in-class means of amusement.
twbrandt
That’s one handsome cat!
I am currently crashing on my friends’ couch because a winter storm has yet again knocked out power in SE Michigan, second time in a week. DTE (the local utility) needs to get its shit together.
HumboldtBlue
On your way home you can swing by CPAC, they’re asking for people to be audience members, $7-12 per hour. You could be rich before you got back to the holler!
ATTENTION: CPAC LOOKING FOR PAID VOLUNTEERS TO FILL IN FOR THE MISSING CROWD
NotMax
@Chris T.
Only Miss Adelaide knows the score.
;)
Mike in Oly
Looks like a Bombay. A most excellent type. Very personable and people oriented.
AlaskaReader
@Origuy: Pretty sure all those artists in the charts got high.
Another Scott
@HumboldtBlue: Heh. That rate probably wouldn’t even pay for parking over there at National Harbor. It’s ridiculous.
Cheers,
Scott.
JWR
@HumboldtBlue: Wow. Bet they didn’t have to pay anyone to see Ronnie Raygun
lie his lying a** offspeechify.BYW, if anyone’s up for some genuine ear-bleed, here’s Aaron Rupar’s account of the day’s events, including Nikki Haley, Matt Gaetz, and MTG, all whining the whine of the true anti-wokesters. (And f*ck Haley for her “Woke” has killed more people than any ol’ pandemic schtick. )
Redshift
Dang, if I’d caught up on the blog earlier, I would have kept an eye out for you! I’m at the larp convention.
opiejeanne
@Redshift: What book/author are you LARPing? One of the most fun things I ever did was a Discworld convention. Both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman were in attendance at the one in Madison, WI.
opiejeanne
@Chris T.: If you bake you find out that there is a difference between dry and wet measures. Most of the time it won’t matter, but sometimes it really does. Your measuring cups are for dry measure, like flour. Measuring pitchers, like the Pyrex ones your mom used, are for wet.
Chris T.
@opiejeanne: Some years ago, I worried that this might be the case, so I tested measuring 1 cup of water with a dry measure and with a pyrex cup, and they both declared the same volume of water to be “one cup”. So the distinction is lost in modern-ish (1990s and later) cookware at least.
piratedan
@Origuy: you might give Little Steven’s Underground Garage a try, a mix of older artists and their deeper cuts and newer artists that don’t suffer from the usual woes of overproduction.
Sean Nuttall
If you love Animals, please watch Us and Them on Prime. Great versions of Dogs & Pigs 3 different ones. I went to this show & consider Dogs the best single tune I have ever seen live.
satby
Safe travels back John! Hope the brunt of the winter storm is over by the time you head back.
HumboldtBlue
For the early morning music listeners, there is always Daryl’s House.
Chris T.
I should also add that the fact that “wet” and “dry” measuring cups measured the same volume is, I think, what convinced me that there wasn’t any difference here. But apparently there was once, just as there’s now a difference between an Imperial gallon (4.546L) and US gallon (3.785L) (both values rounded to 4 significant digits after conversion to sane units).
The fact that powdery stuff like flour packs is why recipes should use grams (weight) measures, not volumes. But that’s an entirely different hill of, er, stuff.
raven
Damn, five years since the of my Vietnam Unit’s 50th Anniversary reunion in Providence!
sab
@Chris T.: That is why you are supposed to sift flour and confectioners sugar.
p.a.
RI rolled out it’s signature weather for John: snowrainsleetslush.
oatler
@different-church-lady:
“Dogs” prompted one of the great censored-for-music-rights bits on WKRP.
eclare
@raven: Why did you meet in Providence?
NotMax
@oatler
“Booger!”
eclare
@sab: And that is why although I love to cook, the only thing I bake is cornbread, which is a sloppy batter. The measurements have to be so precise for baking.
raven
@eclare: My unit for the last half of my tour was the 107th Signal Company, Providence RI National Guard. They called up the guard in the wake of the King assassination and federalized 8 of them and sent them to Vietnam.
eclare
@raven: Thanks. Where are you in the photo?
NotMax
@eclare
Cornmeal: white or yellow?
The debate rages on.
;)
raven
@eclare: 6th from the left, partially hidden by the guy in front of me.
eclare
@NotMax:
https://www.deltagrind.com/product-page/delta-grind-corn-meal
No debate in this house!
eclare
@raven: Gotcha!
NotMax
@eclare
Have become partial to this stuff when making loaves of corn rye in the super duper bread machine.
sab
@eclare: British recipes do everything in grams. Do they weigh ingredients rather than measure them?
I made a cake in college 40+ years ago that fell with a big bang. It was supposed to be angel food but instead had the texture of cheese. So I quit with pastries, and only baked bread and rolls after that.
Made my first cake in many many years last month. Chocolate sauerkraut. It was fantastic, but big. I will do it again, but only as cupcakes.
eclare
@NotMax: Wow that brand goes back a long time!
NotMax
@sab
British baking = when in doubt, call it a scone.
:)
eclare
@sab: The people on Great British Baking Show measure everything. They are amateurs, but very experienced, so I don’t know how representative they are.
Does the chocolate sauerkraut cake include sauerkraut? I can’t picture that.
prostratedragon
@eclare: Ah, Water Valley, my paternal grandmother’s home. Most or all her family decamped to Iowa with the rail yards.
kalakal
@sab:
Yep, unless it calls for extra precision when we use pinches, sprinkles, touches, and the ever reliable “a bit”*
American measurements confuse the hell out of me.
* If you’re middle class a soupcon is another standby
NotMax
@kalakal
Like unto the difference (and there is one) between a drop and a dash of Angostura Bitters.
;)
kalakal
@opiejeanne: The best fictional LARPing has to be in Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels.
I really don’t know how to describe other than hilarious them so
I’ll let someone else do it
SteveinPHX
And I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me; weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign
I’ll be willin’, to be movin’
-Lowell George
Safe travels, Cole.
NotMax
@SteveinPHX
Up until today have always heard that as “weed, rice and wine.”
;)
Wanderer
@JWR: Friday fun fact: Howler Monkeys are much more enjoyable to watch when they are in a tree canopy. Once they are in a confined space there is just boring stares and even their howls are joyless. I learned this from watching them in the wild vs in a zoo. Fun fact, the call of the Howler Monkey is one of the loudest natural soundS so even a very few of the make a deafening racket. It’s interesting to listen to the vocalizations briefly but the decibels make it impossible to listen for any length of time.
Wanderer
@JWR: Friday fun fact: Howler Monkeys are much more enjoyable to watch when they are in a tree canopy. Once they are in a confined space there is just boring stares and even their howls are joyless. I learned this from watching them in the wild vs in a zoo. Fun fact, the call of the Howler Monkey is one of the loudest natural soundS so even a very few of the make a deafening racket. It’s interesting to listen to the vocalizations briefly but the decibels make it impossible to listen for any length of time.
Gin & Tonic
@HumboldtBlue: If they are paid they are not volunteers.
kalakal
@NotMax:
@SteveinPHX:
Heh, the place names caused me problems back in England
Tehachapi to Tonepah
became Tehachapeka torn apart
and I always heard it as weak white sand wine
opiejeanne
@kalakal: I’ve read several of those books and they were entertaining. .
sab
@kalakal: Huh? Tehachapi is California, high in the mountains. Tonopah is Nevada, near Las Vegas, wants to secede from the state and the country.
sab
@kalakal: Jamie Oliver’s butter measurements utterly confuse me. My mom absolutely loved butter, but even she found British butter usage excessive.
ETA How much is a “knob” of butter? I would guess a tablespoon, but not being a Brit I might be way underestimating.
Kristine
@opiejeanne: I was at that convention! There were some excellent costumes.
OverTwistWillie
@piratedan:
One of their few channels that doesn’t suffer from meh curation. Music Choice is far better in quality and quantity, and even has blurbs for esoteric subjects like champagne orchestra leaders. Unfortunately their curated streams are only available with a cable or sat TV subscription.
Mark
@sab: You need to read the recipe carefully; there’s a critical difference in weight between a “cup of sifted flour” and “sift a cup of flour”.
Mark
@sab: It’s generally 2 tbsp (1oz)
SteveinPHX
@NotMax: Whites were were also called white crosses because they had lines across the tablet to facilitate splitting into quarters, if necessary.
Kept truck drivers and adventurous college students who knew where to cop, awake. At least, I think that’s how I remember it!
dnfree
King Arthur flour recipes weigh dry ingredients.
ETA that my scale has a button to select pounds or kilograms.
sab
I do hope Cole keeps that cat inside for the first few weeks. Also too: Steve will be pissed. Maine coons don’t like other cats. They like people.
sab
@eclare: It does include sauerkraut, very drained. I couldn’t picture it either, but it was excellent. Very moist and not sour at all. Also, used regular flour not cake flour. Hint to me that not that difficult.
sab
@dnfree: My scale is a retired postage scale. Sort of a dinosaur.
ETA Not accurate at all.
sab
@Mark: Thank you.
ETA Underguessed by 100%.`That’s a lot.
Lehrjet
Have fun John. I was born at the naval base in Newport.
Steeplejack
@sab:
Yeah, based on watching Jamie Oliver grab a knob of butter, it’s way more than a tablespoon. 😹
Sandia Blanca
@kalakal: my husband and I love Thursday Next. We are planning to attend the JodiWorld convention in Coventry this June, where two of our favorite authors, Jodi Taylor and Jasper Fforde will be in attendance. Sort of a meta LARP event!
Steeplejack
@OverTwistWillie:
Kudos for the mention of the Music Choice channels on cable. The ones I have listened to are surprisingly good.
SiriusXM is up and down. Some channels are kind of bland, others are very good. My metric is a good mix of the channel genre’s “hits” with deep cuts and overlooked relics. For channels that aspire to be all deep cuts—e.g., Deep Tracks and Underground Garage—the bar is higher, of course.
Not a popular genre here, but Willie’s Roadhouse is good for country.
sab
@Steeplejack: Jackals at night like country when we are not slicing and dicing the newbies
ETA Our blogmaster is in WVA after all. Being from Ohio, we laugh at West Virginians because they are so much like us.
Steeplejack
@sab:
👍
ninja3000
John, that’s one beautiful cat, looks like he could take Steve two falls out of three. BTW, go back to Rhode Island in the middle of summer when it’s the greatest place in the world.
karen marie
I hope John Cole takes advantage of being in Rhode Island and fills up on delightful foodstuffs. Grey’s Ice Cream in Tiverton is a dream. Don’t get me started on the mom and pop bakeries. And the clams – I miss them dearly.
RevRick
Hey John, I don’t know which route you took to get to Rhode Island, but DO NOT take I-95 through NYC. Instead, get off 95 at Milford CT (about 10 miles past New Haven) and get on the Merritt Parkway. It’s less likely to be bumper-to-bumper, no commercial trucks are allowed, and it’s a helluva lot more scenic. From there get on I-287 west, circumnavigating NYC, going over the Mario Cuomo Bridge (formerly the Tappan Zee). About 10 miles past the bridge 287 separates from 87 again and heads south into Jersey and 40 miles from there you can pick up I-78 west to I-81 to the PA Tpk in Carlisle.
Of course, you may already know this, but I know GPS directions often insist on taking you through NYC, which is insane. My when my SIL and BIL come to visit us in Allentown from Maine, I always have to correct his directions which want to take him thru NYC.
ninja3000
@karen marie: As a former resident of Little Compton, Gray’s has been a regular treat for me for… decades! For clams (and clamcakes!), it’s always Evelyn’s.
Quaker in a Basement
I’m not afraid to say it: Chonky!
karen marie
@ninja3000: My only regret is not going more often when I lived in Fall River!
AnnaN
Awwww, man. Almost two years ago I moved across country from RI to CA. Would have loved to meet up with you on this cat-fetch and treated you to some awesome Italian food on Atwells Avenue in Providence.
AnnaN
@RevRick: I cannot okay this enough. I drove plenty of times from RI to Frederick, MD and skipping 95 was imperative, as was the Cuomo bridge route and avoiding NYC altogether.
Kayla Rudbek
@RevRick: co-signed on taking the Tappan Zee/Mario Cuomo bridge and avoiding NYC. On our last trip back from up north, we got turned around after coming across a bridge in NYC and wound up heading back north on the NJ parkway, and stopped at Palisades State Park for lunch and to turn around.