I was so jealous of Tamara’s pictures that she posted earlier today. I just love being snowed in, and unless it happens in the next couple of weeks, I will miss it this year.
Finished rewatching Game of Thrones, and I have to say, the final season is not as terrible as people claim it is.
Oh yes. The annual reminder that if you are gifted a fruitcake this holiday season (or baking some and find extras you do not need), let me know and I will paypal you the shipping and you can send them right here to my fat fruitcake loving self.
Also, you should have done this weeks ago, but it’s time to turn the direction of your ceiling fans to clockwise.
Full service blog. Fuck Baud.
dmsilev
Except in Australia.
Baud
Jesus, I just finished setting my clock back.
Nominated!
Urza
Who actually uses a ceiling fan in winter to help keep a room warm?
Jackie Ogburn
I would be delighted to make you a fruitcake, from my grandmother’s recipe.
Raoul Paste
@Urza: I do, and it helps
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Happy pre-Festivus to all.
Been reading up on the displacement of Native Americans and the destruction of their land, families, cultures, and economy. I know some before but holy shit.
Rose Weiss
When I was a kid, my auntie made fruitcake from scratch several days before Christmas, then soaked it in rum until time to serve. Truly delish!
Scout211
We tried that and it didn’t work for our great room. The ceilings are vaulted and are 20 feet high on one side. The ceiling fan is at about 10 feet and never brought down the heat like it’s supposed to do. It just felt like a cool fan making us feel cool.
Or maybe we were doing it wrong. That never happens. 😉
SpaceUnit
I don’t have ceiling fans, but here on the Colorado front range the transition from summer to not-summer means going from continuously running your AC to alternating between running your heat to running your AC on an hourly basis.
It’s currently 20 degrees so heat. Tomorrow who knows. I haven’t looked.
persistentilluion
@SpaceUnit: If you’re in the south Front Range, 17 degrees tomorrow. Wear all the clothes on your walk.
Ivan X
Final season is fine. It’s not amazing or anything, but it’s closure. Better than GRRM could do, apparently.
Urza
@Ivan X: He could do better, he’s just chosen to be a screenwriter/producer rather than finish the series before he dies. Hopefully he leaves detailed notes for someone like Robert Jordan.
zhena gogolia
Reposting from down below: Nobody told me that Colin Firth appears in Barbie! 😂💜😂
Leto
@Urza: I’m sure you’ve read that he’s adamant that the series won’t be completed when he passes away. I don’t know if his heirs will honor that, but I’m in the camp that the tv series is the only ending we’ll get.
MattF
@dmsilev: FWIW, I’m the principal author of the USENET Physics FAQ item on whether the way your bathtub drains depends on whether your tub is in the northern or southern hemisphere. Spoiler: it does not.
There’s actually a little subtlety in the answer— putting in reasonable numbers shows that you are in a low-Reynolds number regime. See Ed Purcell’s famous lecture for what happens there.
Nukular Biskits
A relation sent a fruitcake last year.
I was the only one to try it.
SpaceUnit
@persistentilluion:
I just looked and it’s going to be around 40 degrees here. Sunny and very little wind.
Shorts and a hoodie.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
I’m jealous of the enmity towards you!
LOL!
Urza
@Leto: No I hadn’t. I was hoping he might do it eventually. After Robert Jordan dying I stopped having much hope in old authors that write meandering tomes so I wasn’t paying much attention. I just know it can’t end like the tv show given how different the novels are.
Ripley
Took the dogs out quick before a grocery run and crapola… a dusting of snow on the ground. That basically means the end of the bike season, for safety reasons. I don’t mind the cold, but I won’t ride in slippery conditions.
Might be a few 40+ days next week, so won’t bench the e-bike if the streets are clean, but it’s almost time to put it up for a few months.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s clear and cold in Tracktown, USA tonight. And happy, as the Ducks took out the Beavers. Meanwhile, the entire nation celebrates the demise of THE Ohio State University.
Nelle
Snowing all day in Wichita, KS, where we are visiting my sister. I didn’t see my niece, as she and her husband as they were sitting on the turnpike in heavy snow, waiting for an accident to be cleared. My nephew made what is usually a three hour drive in six or seven hours. So much for coming south for warmer weather.
Betsy
I know I’ll be seen as a humourless broad by some for saying this, but I get riled when I hear people mock any kind of homemade food, especially when it was given as a gift by some generous soul, and especially when it’s a thing that is 95% likely to have been made by a woman on her day off.
It’s graceless those three ways at a minimum, and reeks of misogyny.
My mother makes stollen most years and let me tell you, if some despicable recipient does not appreciate that, they deserve I cannot say what
But in general it seems an ungrateful, overfed, boring type person that mocks food and makes a stink of boasting about how many foods s/he finds disgusting and distasteful.
Leto
@Urza: I feel the same way, that we need a proper novel ending, but we’ll see.
Bill Arnold
@MattF:
On a (safari) trip to Kenya about 17 years ago, near Mount Kenya we crossed the equator several times. There was an entrepreneur at the equator line demonstrating (for a fee) how water swirled one way, then the other way when they went 10 meters, over the equator. Then a hundred meters down the road, another guy doing the same (a different equator line…).
Rose Weiss
@Nelle: I feel so fortunate to live in what is for me an almost perfect climate – the south Oregon coast. We have a dusting of snow about every 5 years, just enough to be gorgeous decorating the fir trees. After a couple of days it’s all melted and we go back to 55 degree winter days. Some people can’t take the rainy season though because it can be dark and wet for a week or two at a time. I just light candles and find indoor entertainments.
Glidwrith
@Rose Weiss:
@Nukular Biskits: I make killer fruitcake each year. Relations go to war, battling over who gets a taste.
John, I would be honored to send you some. The recipe takes 2-3 weeks to complete and should be ready next week.
The email I list for BJ is live, just let me know where to send it. No PayPal necessary.
Brachiator
Disagree with you on this. There were some great set pieces, but you could see where writing was rushed and feel that they were just trying to get things over with. Characterizations that previously had been finely layered were now flat, with actions and motivations out of left field.
I don’t know if Martin will ever complete the saga. I wonder if he has let the story sit for too long. He might not feel for the characters as he originally did, or even care about the story.
I read some of the later novels and began to see divergences and flaws in the story. Some of these flaws were apparent, in a different way, in the final season.
Still, I am glad that I watched the thing. It was mostly very well done. I went back and watched the first season, and really appreciated how well things were portrayed and foreshadowed in the first episodes.
mrmoshpotato
@Urza: My steam radiators keep my place plenty warm!
karen marie
@Betsy: Hear hear!
coin operated
Um…I’ll happily take any excess fruitcakes should you jackals find yourselves inundated.
MattF
@Brachiator: Martin claims he has written half of the next volume, so there’s some chance that will be published. Eventually. Any more than that is very doubtful, IMO.
Urza
@Leto: He’s apparently 1,100 pages into the 6th book with only 1 book after that. So, maybe?
1,100 pages into it and probably not ready till 2025……. It’s like some authors just skip the writing classes about breaking things into manageable chunks.
eclare
I don’t understand why fruitcake turned into a joke. All we had growing up was the store bought Claxton brand, but it was perfectly fine.
Also the making of fruitcakes and sending them as gifts is a plot point in one of my favorite short stories, “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote. It is exquisite.
persistentilluion
@SpaceUnit: Lucky sod. I’m already tired of wearing everything I own to walk the dog. Who insists on the walk. She’s a good dog in spite of that.
narya
@Betsy: Someone who does not like/mocks stollen deserves to never ever have any ever again. Which reminds me I should find the recipe from the bakery and go ahead and make some this year.
schrodingers_cat
@JohnCole
Didn’t know that you two were an item.
SpaceUnit
@persistentilluion:
Well, she’s a very lucky dog to have you. Stay warm.
schrodingers_cat
Art supply update. I got myself two large mixed media pads (11X14 inches) it was a Black Friday deal. My charcoal pencil set arrives on Monday.
Nukular Biskits
@schrodingers_cat:
A few weeks ago, was in New Orleans. There was a caricature artist on Jackson Square who did his work on some kind of thick 11×17 paper … using a black Sharpie.
And, yes, I had one made.
Brachiator
@MattF:
@Urza:
If he’s done 1,100 pages, it may be that he desperately needs a good editor to help him shape the material.
But if he is seriously trying to finish the work, more power to him.
HumboldtBlue
Betty Cracker must be cussing at the TV, Florida State just won the game.
Also, it’s a crime against sporting history and college football that in a few minutes we will watch the final Pac-12 game in history. It’s infuriating that it’s come to this sad fucking end for a key pillar of collegiate athletics.
Ripley
@Betsy:
I get what you’re saying here –
I was, literally, an orphan before I was adopted at a young age. My new parents fed me well, but I was always hungry and would eat almost anything. I loved vegetables as a kid! I love food and not being hungry, which is something I got from my parents.
But I don’t care how much gratitude those good people tried to instill in me, fuck watermelon.
eclare
@Ripley:
Watermelon? Wow. I love watermelon, so refreshing on a hot day.
Rose Weiss
@eclare: Now that I live in a cooler climate, I have no interest in watermelon. But I grew up in Memphis. On summer afternoons, cold watermelon slices for all the neighborhood kids was a delight. We’d be shooed into the backyard to eat it of course.
RevRick
@Betsy: Preach it, sister!
In my first year of ministry in 1975, I made a point of visiting families of the congregation in their homes. Every single home I visited, I was directed to the special chair and immediately handed a homemade dessert.
I always said yes and made sure to let them know how much I enjoyed the dessert. Of course, the downside was I gained 17 pounds that year. But you are absolutely right about how ungracious it is to turn your nose up at something someone has made an effort to prepare.
One of the most important biblical virtues is the practice of hospitality, but that also demands a reciprocity of gratitude.
eclare
@Rose Weiss:
Yep. I live in Memphis, so I get plenty of hot days!
CindyH
@HumboldtBlue: I know – still can’t fathom it
eclare
@RevRick:
Heh…the special chair. Sounds about right.
Jackie
As someone who has a ceiling fan plus a standing fan going 24/7; even during the dead of winter only use a sheet for covers while sleeping, I don’t reverse the ceiling fan. The only thing I change is swapping pajama shorts for pajama pants during the winter.
RevRick
@narya: In my last church, a parishioner would give me a Christmas stollen made by his son’s company. We served it at our Christmas breakfast and it was eagerly gobbled up.
I enjoy fruitcake, but my favorite Christmas treats were Pfeffernusse and an Italian anise cookie, made by our good neighbor, Rose. My sweet wife found Pfeffernusse at our supermarket. I’ve disciplined myself to only eat two each day.
Betsy
@Ripley: Fair enough. Sure seems like you came by it honest.
HumboldtBlue
@CindyH:
It’s absurd. It’s infuriating.
Chris T.
@MattF:
But my bathtub is the size of the Atlantic ocean!
(ok, so I never fill or drain it in the first place)
LiminalOwl
When I lived in California, I sometimes visited a Catholic monastery on the coast, just south of Big Sur, and there I learned to love fruitcake. (The monks earned some of their income from baking and selling the cakes, and vistors got samples.). The place also had gorgeous views of the coast and the ocean, and one of the monks told me he could sometimes watch whales from his cell.
RevRick
@HumboldtBlue: It’s all about the TV $. The end result is an ouroboros.
Ealbert
Regarding fruit cakes, according to my mother, in church there is a reading around this time of year (it may have already passed – I haven’t been to church for a number of years) that starts “stir up oh Lord…” which was a signal back before everyone had calendars for women to mix up their fruit cakes so that they had enough time to age before Christmas. I don’t know if there is any truth to this, but I could see it being true (or at least someone realizing that the timing worked out well).
HumboldtBlue
@LiminalOwl:
Valyermo? Saint Andrew’s abbey? I had a Junior College professor who had close ties with the monks there, in fact I ate dinner with four of the monks at her and her husband’s house in Camarillo.
There were at least five doctorates, including one medical doctor, at that dinner table, and I for sure didn’t even own a degree. I visited the abbey three or four times, spent time with the abbot and my professor and her friends. It was fascinating, wonderful people.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I saw over at the Great Orange Satan that Devin Nunes and TFG have added wine to their portfolio of offerings from Dear Orange Leader. I guess they had to add glycerin to it to make it somewhat palatable to humans. They should have included a paper bag to drink it from.
Devin missed the chance to bottle his own brand with a cow and a barn on the label then calling it Nunes Farm…lol!
Rose Weiss
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
*waves* hi, neighbor! If you don’t recall, I live outside of Brookings too!
Ruckus
@LiminalOwl:
Been a patient in a Catholic hospital and attended a Catholic all boys school for freshman HS year and have never visited that Catholic monastery but have traveled up and down PCH many, many times and that view is one of the amazing views in the world. And I’ve traveled to Canada, 46 of the states, several countries in southern and northern Europe, been a few hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle – in winter, stood on the very southern tip of New Zealand and walked on the glacier on Mount Cook. IOW I’ve traveled a bit and have seen some absolutely amazing bits of the earth. The California coast highway is one of those world’s great views.
Ksmiami
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team: Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Blood Meridian, is scary, violent, visionary, haunting And mostly historically accurate.
thruppence
@LiminalOwl: That’s probably the New Camaldoli Hermitage. They make great fruitcakes and date nut cakes, but I read that a lot of the monks are aging out, and they don’t make them up onsite anymore.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Rose Weiss:
Howdy again neighbor! Do you know about the head honcho over at our local big box store possibly being fired over unaccounted for merchandise that is missing? There’s a bit of a story to it all and it’s not out for general consumption yet, but I’ll fill you in on the details once I know that it’s safe to talk about it.
While it’s nice during the day here it’s fucking cold at night. We hit 39 at the house last night and we live just back from the bluffs on the north side of the river overlooking the harbor.
Athenaze
I have fruitcakes curing right now, and will have an extra to share with you, John. Just tell me where to send it. I’ll be mailing them out in a week or so.
Miss Bianca
*Blink*…*blink*…
What did Baud do?
brantl
@Scout211: The fan needs to be up where the heat is, which yours wasn’t.
Ramona
My name is Ramona and I like fruitcake too!
captain toast
GOT is pretty poor. The hype was from killing main characters off and sex. The story itself is maybe michener level