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Re: Ana's idea
Sounds worth a shot. It's vaguely worrying, but I think that's just because it's different and any idea for a new place would have that.
Whatever we end up with, I'll show up and comment. (Probably not make new posts, as I'm terrible at starting conversations. Often I can't even bring myself to say to Mom "Listen to this neat thing I just read!" and have to conspicuously laugh or make "Hmm" noises trying to get her to ask about it.)
Closing time soon
Since the last monthly fee will not cover the entire month of October, we're setting October 15 as the day we'll freeze this place. If you want to establish your new space together, we suggest you either set something up by then or chose somebody's blog as an interim meeting room to finalise plan...
Nenya: Alternately I suppose we could use the existing Facebook group, but FB isn't really set up for actual long conversations (which are what I love about this place).
Not Facebook. I can't even see Facebook through Dad's firewall (he distrusts them), let alone take part. Besides, I thought Facebook was a legal-name-only sort of place. (I could be wrong.)
Time For a Re-Think
We set up this place at the request and with the agreement of the community when Fred Clark left to go to Patheos. The understanding was always that it would be a 'group blog', with content provided by volunteers from the community. At the time of writing this, it looks very much as if the pl...
I've always viewed autumn as a time of rest and fun. Similar, I gather, to how children who don't get fall vacation view summer, only with better weather and more pumpkins, apples, and Halloween candy.
This year, for the first time in as long as I can remember (possibly ever), I'm beginning school in September rather than ending it. It's disorienting.
Turn, turn, turn
For those in the United States Labor Day has become the semi-official celebration of the beginning of a new school year and, every four years, a near official opening of the final campaigning push to the Presidential election. What does Labo(u)r Day mean for you and how much has that meaning ...
Froborr: A superstition I've found appears to be unique to my family: Never, ever name a child after a living person, because one of them will shortly die.
I was told that was a general Jewish thing. Or at least, there was something about not naming kids after living people. Not sure what the reasoning was.
The folks round here do say...
What local customs or superstitions have you found to be unique to where you were born or live now? The Board Administration Team (hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)
I try not to listen to songs too often after the third mix CD Mom made. She's played it over the car speakers dozens upon dozens of times over the decade or so of its existence. At first, there were some songs I liked, and some not so much. After so much exposure, though, everything evened out. I couldn't really like or dislike any of them anymore; they were just background noise. I don't want that to happen again.
For a while when I was younger, I liked "Look Through My Eyes", but eventually I decided it wasn't worth having it stuck in my head for a week afterward and stopped listening to it.
There's been a couple other songs like that, too. I was surprised when I didn't mind having "Never Let Me Go" stuck in my head for a week, and didn't dread the thought of having it happen again.
Turn the Record Over
Certain songs become maddening after only a few hearings, others (maybe most) get maddening if they're repeated a lot, but others seem to stay good even if you hear them over and over. What songs do you find bear repetition? What qualities do you think make a song bearable or not bearable for r...
Nenya: Another is describing really tasty food as "edible"
The greatest and only compliment my dad can give food-wise. (The rest of us are unsure if there are different levels of liking he doesn't distinguish in speech, or if to him the only categories of tastiness really are "edible" and "inedible".)
Private Slang
Many families and other close-knit groups seem to develop a private set of slang that can seem baffling to outsiders. (For example, the designation "Real True XXX" and the welcome "Please don't kill us with sheep" that originated on this site.) What are some of these expressions that you have e...
Majromax: Worse than Buckley's? That's saying something.
I've never had Buckley's. Why should I buy something that prides itself on tasting terrible when there are other options? (I couldn't be raised with it, since I didn't move to Canada until I was thirteen.)
Drugs and Medicines, Good and Bad
Whether legal or illegal, chemical substances can be potent things. What's the best/worst drug or medication experience you've had? And what laws or principles do you think would best serve everyone's interests as regards that drug or medication? The Board Administration Team (hapax, Kit ...
Kirala: And that is how Biaxin (antibiotic) caused me to have a bout of nausea and lightheadedness that culminated in unconsciousness.
I don't think I had any particular side effects (I might just not remember; I was only eight or so), but liquid Biaxin is the worst-tasting substance I have ever had the misfortune to ingest. My parents had a hell of a time getting me to take it.
Afterwards my mom rubbed her finger on the residue so she could know what it tasted like. She told me she completely understood now why I fought it so hard.
Drugs and Medicines, Good and Bad
Whether legal or illegal, chemical substances can be potent things. What's the best/worst drug or medication experience you've had? And what laws or principles do you think would best serve everyone's interests as regards that drug or medication? The Board Administration Team (hapax, Kit ...
chris the cynic: The argument presented after that is, "Either my absurd claim is true, or your best friend thought it was worth it to tell a third party about that in order to get you to let me inside."
Or a telepath, which is still far enough outside known reality to be worth further investigation.
Favorite and Un-Favorite Tropes
Is there a theme or trope or type of character in a story that you find irresistible, even though everything else about that work is terrible? On the flip side, what themes or tropes in books, movies, and other media will keep you from reading/viewing/playing something that you think that you w...
I thought chili chocolate roulette was taking turns eating from a set of six chocolates, one of which is painfully spicy. The game described here sounds like a mixture of that and Chomp.
Hey, I Know A Great Game
Chili Chocolate Roulette is a slightly sadistic but mathematically pleasing pub game that you can win with advance knowledge. The way it works is this: you lay out a plate with thirteen[1] chocolate candies and one chili pepper. Two players take turns to eat the chocolates: you can eat either o...
I remembered reading it and specifically which site I read it on. With that it was easy.
Included or Appropriated?
Portrayals of non-neurotypical people have been growing more popular in the fiction of recent years. Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, for instance, featuring an autistic teenage boy, is currently rehearsing a stage adaptation for Britain's National Theatre, and i...
Do you remember how said author pulled this off?
You can find out yourself, if you like.
Included or Appropriated?
Portrayals of non-neurotypical people have been growing more popular in the fiction of recent years. Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, for instance, featuring an autistic teenage boy, is currently rehearsing a stage adaptation for Britain's National Theatre, and i...
Otherwise the whole press campaign leading up to the movie was nothing but massive false advertising.
There was a press campaign? Why did nobody tell me?
(I haven't actually seen any of the latest trilogy, so there's not much I can say about it. I didn't even know until I saw people referring to TDKR as "the third of the trilogy" that it was a trilogy. I'd been under the impression Batman Begins was a prequel to the previous Batman movie series.)
OCCUPY WAYNE MANOR!
Christopher Nolan's phenomenally successful Batman series has recently screened its third installment. Critics and fan reactions alike seem to read wildly different opposing political and economic messages into the movie's theme. What do you think are the social implications of the movies' su...
Well, my first thought was those angels shaped like wheels, but they don't appear to have specifically nine spokes. Maybe they do in one of the depictions under "Ophanim in popular culture", I don't know.
Get well soon, Slacktivite.
Open thread AND Board Post, July 27 2012
Irregular Business Treat this as an open thread. If you want to discuss the new policies, please wait till the appropriate thread reopens. Regular Business Don't forget to send in items that you want included in This week in The Slacktiverse July 28/29 2012. The three sections of the we...
Laiima: Because I couldn't bear to find out that perhaps *everybody* I liked here really wanted me gone after all.
I must remember to refresh more often, because I can say that I don't want you gone. I like having you around.
@Kirala
Thanks.
At Patheos: NRA: Marchons, marchons!
Fred Clark has posted a new post, NRA: Marchons, marchons!, at Patheos.com. This week Fred writes about pp.24-33 of Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist Excerpt: Yet New Hope Village Church hasn’t been closed down and they haven’t had to take their operations underground. They’ve been allowed t...
Kirala: I've never understood why spammers don't read this insightful Dork Tower comic and be done with certain methods.
What insightful Dork Tower comic? The link is broken.
(I can't really think of anything to say regarding the main discussion, and in any case I can't remember the last time I got into an argument and didn't regret it.)
At Patheos: NRA: Marchons, marchons!
Fred Clark has posted a new post, NRA: Marchons, marchons!, at Patheos.com. This week Fred writes about pp.24-33 of Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist Excerpt: Yet New Hope Village Church hasn’t been closed down and they haven’t had to take their operations underground. They’ve been allowed t...
*hangs up "Happy Birthday!" banner*
The question of Susan
Opposition is true friendship, and on no subject are Kit and hapax more opposed than C.S. Lewis. Loved and hated, uplifting or corrupt depending on who you talk to, Lewis is a writer who is, if nothing else, always provokes strong feelings in his readers. Here's how we come at Narnia: hapax...
TRiG: The other standard game was "wall-to-wall". We all line up against one wall. The person who's "it" parades no man's land in the middle, between the two walls, and calls out a colour. Anyone wearing that colour could proceed safely to the other side; anyone not so fortunate was at risk of being caught as they tried to cross.
I played something like that once at Girl Guides. You were supposed to pick a colour arbitrarily in your head (I suppose you could base it on your clothing if you wanted) and only run to the other side of the room if the caller picked that colour. (They trusted you not to wait until after the calling and pick your colour accordingly, and explicitly stated relatively obscure colours like periwinkle were not allowed.)
I never actually ran, because nobody ever chose black. ("Black's not a colour!" "Yes it is!")
What makes the long vacation special?
I was thinking today about what made summer/the long vacation so special to me as a child. It wasn't just the length of the time between the school semesters, it was an amalgam of other things such as: not having to do homework; more relaxed bedtimes since we didn't have to get up to go to scho...
kisekileia: It's one of the many, many things that are just sort of there in popular culture, but that I've never really understood because nobody ever explained them to me and/or I wasn't exposed to the appropriate media enough to learn them.
I know the feeling.
@Froborr
So what did boys play? I'm guessing lightsabre-duel, but what else?
What makes the long vacation special?
I was thinking today about what made summer/the long vacation so special to me as a child. It wasn't just the length of the time between the school semesters, it was an amalgam of other things such as: not having to do homework; more relaxed bedtimes since we didn't have to get up to go to scho...
Izzy: There was also some kind of non-painful but excessively *weird*...thing...that involved wiggling your fingers up and down the other person's back while chanting. I don't remember most of it, except that it was bizarre, but the "chorus" was something like "Concentrate. Concentrate. Concentrate on yellow. People are dying, children are crying. Concentrate. Concentrate."
And you're sure you didn't dream that?
What makes the long vacation special?
I was thinking today about what made summer/the long vacation so special to me as a child. It wasn't just the length of the time between the school semesters, it was an amalgam of other things such as: not having to do homework; more relaxed bedtimes since we didn't have to get up to go to scho...
Long vacations aren't quite as special as they're made out to be, in my opinion. Autumn breaks are just like weekends, only much longer.
Having the break in autumn instead of summer has worked well up until now (better weather, less competition when going to amusement parks and such), but Mom's pushing me to have a much shorter or nonexistent break this year to have a standard September start in university. On the one hand, the online course I'm starting off with allows you to begin at the first day of any month. November's just as good as September to them. On the other hand, I suppose it has to happen sometime.
What makes the long vacation special?
I was thinking today about what made summer/the long vacation so special to me as a child. It wasn't just the length of the time between the school semesters, it was an amalgam of other things such as: not having to do homework; more relaxed bedtimes since we didn't have to get up to go to scho...
Lonespark: There's a pirate museum in Salem. It's quite fun. There used to be a World of Witches Museum, but unfortunately the economy got them.
Oh, they closed the witch museum? I liked that one! (I liked the pirate one, too. Went to both of them in the same day back in 2008.)
Mike Timonin: baby sitting has become hugely lucrative since I did it as a teen; $20 and $30 an hour.
Huh. I always thought babysitting was the kind of job where you were lucky to get minimum wage. (Mind you, I have no idea what's going on in the world of babysitting. I've never done it, my friends never do it or use it that I know about, and my parents never used babysitters back when they had kids young enough to need them.)
Fostering strong communities
In a 1995 essay Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital Robert Putnam expressed a concern about declining involvement in the kind of activities that fostered in-person social engagement with other members of one's community. He hypothesized that without the bonds formed from such inte...
I like the "our home and cherished land" version. More accurate, for one thing.
Happy Canada Day!
--mmy The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.
Why are the comments on the Canada Day post closed?
Unequal Rites
The Arlington County Court refused to grant me the right to perform marriages in Virginia, apparently on the grounds that my "congregation" does not own a building. I presented my certificate of ordination and documentation of the 501c3 status of the Order of the White Moon, which ordained me...
I suspect most Americans would say L.A. or San Francisco is the capital of California for the same reason.
The word "Sacramento" popped into my head. Hmm.
...
Ha! Apparently knowledge of the capital of California is in fact buried deep within my mind. Now I know that I know.
Unequal Rites
The Arlington County Court refused to grant me the right to perform marriages in Virginia, apparently on the grounds that my "congregation" does not own a building. I presented my certificate of ordination and documentation of the 501c3 status of the Order of the White Moon, which ordained me...
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