The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[ChloeTzang]

That's... One of things that sounds weird, but I really want to try.

Cream cheese icing is delicious and really easy to make too.

four ingredients: but you can skip the vanilla extract, and the butter if you want low fat, and use low fat cream cheese to.
· 8 ounces Cream cheese: Of course, you'll need cream cheese!
· 1/2 cup Butter: softened butter.
· 2 teaspoons Vanilla: Vanilla extract enhances the flavor. Not really needed if you don't have it handy
· 4 cups Sugar: Confectioners' sugar easily dissolves but really, any sugar will do. I always use brown sugar anyhow. anyhow, it's sweet. LOL

Beat cream cheese, softened butter, and vanilla together until light and creamy. Then Beat in sugar.
It's that easy. Yummy too - I made some last weekend for a cake.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

That slayed me when I saw the history of the BV - I could just imagine what would happen if every US tanker refused to get in their tank until a microwave oven was installed so they could heat up frozen burritos or make popcorn. Do the Brit tankers still stop every day for tea at four? And how did the Wehrmacht not catch on?

Easy there, Air Force! I toured one of your C-5A Galaxies, the flight crew area up top lovingly fitted out with a Coke machine…

Oh, the pain of it all!

 

[MrPixel]

Easy there, Air Force! I toured one of your C-5A Galaxies, the flight crew area up top lovingly fitted out with a Coke machine…

Which evokes a memory... I worked at Coca-Cola world HQ in Atlanta for two years in the '80s. The folk rumor when I was growing up was they had drinking fountains on every floor that dispensed Coke, not water, where you never had to walk more than 100 feet to consume the product.

In real life? Totally false. They were full dispensing fountains with a choice of at least six products, including Minute Maid OJ. There was a staff that patrolled the halls daily to keep everything stocked and functioning. In areas where the fountains were impractical, there were chest coolers with a selection of most of their canned product - even flavors not yet available to the public. We could take home up to six cans for free, every day.

It was the madness of unrestrained consumerism at its worst.

 

[Rustyoznail]

That slayed me when I saw the history of the BV - I could just imagine what would happen if every US tanker refused to get in their tank until a microwave oven was installed so they could heat up frozen burritos or make popcorn. Do the Brit tankers still stop every day for tea at four? And how did the Wehrmacht not catch on?

And mess with tradition? The Poms have been stopping for an afternoon break for over a thousand years...

 

[Rustyoznail]

And Chloe - I could eat a bucket of that. Don't care if it made me sick as a dog..

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Quiet in here. Folks must be busy...

Started a pot of a nice medium roast, left some donuts.
Oh, and there's a big jar of sun tea brewing on the back porch, should be ready in a coupla hours.

Now I'm going back to avoiding the news.

 

[Duleigh]

Mmmmm Sun Tea! My favorite brew, thank you Belle.
I found that the best way to avoid the news is to pull an old story out of the files and re-write it. Instead of headlines you'll spend the day saying to yourself "What the hell was I thinking?"

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Quiet in here. Folks must be busy...

Started a pot of a nice medium roast, left some donuts.
Oh, and there's a big jar of sun tea brewing on the back porch, should be ready in a coupla hours.

Now I'm going back to avoiding the news.

The sad thing about trying to avoid the news is that the news generally insists on being discovered, one way or another.

 

[Duleigh]

The sad thing about trying to avoid the news is that the news generally insists on being discovered, one way or another.

but the very best thing about avoiding the news, is that it's generally not news. It's usually someone's opinion.
The nice thing about my stories is that there's no news. It makes my artificial worlds very harmonious.

 

[MrPixel]

Thanks for the donuts, BC. That was nice. C is scowling at me, tho', "I thought you were trying to lose weight!"

Today's - and probably tomorrow's - project is replacing the garage door at the guest cottage. It jammed in a track when our kid was closing it with the remote, and the opener overrode the safety, crumpling the top panel. My fault, it was a replacement door in the first place and I tried to use the original track. So I'm doing it properly this time and using the track that came with the door. Lotta work ahead.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Can you blame your grandparents? I mean Kumquatqueen isn't the easiest thing to spell.....

Heh. Start with a consonant, end with I or y, scatter some other consonants, add an equal number of c, z and y to taste, and you've got my grandparents' generation. And the great-grandparents. The census-takers in 1901 and 1911 clearly couldn't be bothered with yet another large Polish family, so most of the page is just P......I or C......Y, and the adults referred to as Mary and Joseph and most of the children similarly named at random.

The previous generation are scattered across Russia, Prussia, Polish Republic etc depending on year, the census-takers and registrars were equally bad at spelling, only they also Germanised or Russianised the spelling. You can usually figure out towns, but the inhabitants? Half begin with a K sound and half don't, and goodness knows which of the first lot are my great-great-great grandparents, because that gets us to the 30 Years War and Wikipedia summarising a town with "The church was burned down multiple times during this period." There's a family story that we're related to a mildly-famous family, but there's no records to prove it one way or the other - but they lived close enough together that it's feasible. About 20 miles but a good road even in 1820.

On the other side, my family were equally bad at spelling (four versions of my surname just in the last 3 generations), but at least they really were all called John and Mary and didn't go anywhere for hundreds of years. Of course they all had the forenames they were known as, which were totally different...

I should register as Cumquatkweene on some websites, just for a bit of variety.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

but the very best thing about avoiding the news, is that it's generally not news. It's usually someone's opinion.
The nice thing about my stories is that there's no news. It makes my artificial worlds very harmonious.

I remember getting a primer on how to read the news (vital for public officials!)

Xxx is expected to say yyy - not news.
Analysis of what it will mean if Xxx says yyy - not news.
Analysis of what it means now xxx has said xxx - not news.
Xxx actually says yyy - depends on whether you actually makes something happen - news - or is just their opinion - not news.

Xxx happens - only news if it doesn't happen regularly.
Xxx appears in court - not news until we get a verdict.
Etc.

Managed to cut your average broadsheet down to about 5 articles!
I used to have a press summary service at work, but now we just use Google - enter certain keywords, last 7 days, see what gives.

My stories are definitely more harmonious that real life, though bits of news or politics sneak in. Characters get shaped by the worlds they live in.

 

[litfan10]

but the very best thing about avoiding the news, is that it's generally not news. It's usually someone's opinion.
The nice thing about my stories is that there's no news. It makes my artificial worlds very harmonious.

I was required to take journalism courses as part of my writing major in college. I swear that ninety percent of the given news would fail those courses from forty plus years ago for being poorly written/presented.
So much of what I was told to never do for being poor journalistic practices is all they are doing today.
Years ago I lost my temper with the local news channel for horrible grammar, syntax and punctuation in their reports presented written on their website. They basically, and not politely, told me to get off their backs as, for cost saving measures, interns wrote the majority of their news and that was the best they could do. I replied how those poorly written documented reports available to be viewed worldwide represented themselves and our area for being ignorant, flawed and basically stupid.
They never replied but the articles never improved.
Now I see these same type of errors at the national level on CNN.
I give up.

 

[Duleigh]

I was required to take journalism courses as part of my writing major in college. I swear that ninety percent of the given news would fail those courses from forty plus years ago for being poorly written/presented.
So much of what I was told to never do for being poor journalistic practices is all they are doing today.
Years ago I lost my temper with the local news channel for horrible grammar, syntax and punctuation in their reports presented written on their website. They basically, and not politely, told me to get off their backs as, for cost saving measures, interns wrote the majority of their news and that was the best they could do. I replied how those poorly written documented reports available to be viewed worldwide represented themselves and our area for being ignorant, flawed and basically stupid.
They never replied but the articles never improved.
Now I see these same type of errors at the national level on CNN.
I give up.

I had a similar experience. Reading an article in the Denver Post was like reading a Middle School assignment. The grammar was horrible, the spelling was pathetic, the paper was unreadable. It's like there's no such thing as an editor anymore.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Our local, independent paper still takes pride in their work, which is nice.

Some of the larger papers love filling the "news" void with stories about Onlyfans models and superrmarket articles padded out with customer comments. Lazy.

 

[litfan10]

Our local, independent paper still takes pride in their work, which is nice.

Some of the larger papers love filling the "news" void with stories about Onlyfans models and superrmarket articles padded out with customer comments. Lazy.

Sadly our local paper isn't independent anymore; it's been bought and sold three times so far to bigger national conglomerates only interested in profit.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Sadly our local paper isn't independent anymore; it's been bought and sold three times so far to bigger national conglomerates only interested in profit.

Ours is one of the few left. Most others are now part of the Murdoch Empire.

 

[Duleigh]

Our paper here in Mayberry is incredibly local. It covers the events here in Mayberry and over in Pixley, and sometimes in Hooterville but it doesn't cover the big towns like Yulee or Mt. Pilot. It's mostly high school sports scores and obituaries (one of those towns I mentioned really exists) It did cover the opening of the new Wawa, which was big news, I guess we've arrived!

Coffee is ready and the tea kettle is almost boiling!

 

[ChloeTzang]

Heh. Start with a consonant, end with I or y, scatter some other consonants, add an equal number of c, z and y to taste, and you've got my grandparents' generation. And the great-grandparents. The census-takers in 1901 and 1911 clearly couldn't be bothered with yet another large Polish family, so most of the page is just P......I or C......Y, and the adults referred to as Mary and Joseph and most of the children similarly named at random.

The previous generation are scattered across Russia, Prussia, Polish Republic etc depending on year, the census-takers and registrars were equally bad at spelling, only they also Germanised or Russianised the spelling. You can usually figure out towns, but the inhabitants? Half begin with a K sound and half don't, and goodness knows which of the first lot are my great-great-great grandparents.....

LOL. My dad's side of the family is Polish from outside of Lvov, so my real surname, before I married, is Polish and I know exactly what you mean. c's, z's, y's, i's LOL. My nickname was Alphabet, because no one could ever pronounce my surname right. LOL.

 

[ChloeTzang]

......Coffee is ready and the tea kettle is almost boiling!

Ahhhhhh, fill up the bag please

 

[Kumquatqueen]

LOL. My dad's side of the family is Polish from outside of Lvov, so my real surname, before I married, is Polish and I know exactly what you mean. c's, z's, y's, i's LOL. My nickname was Alphabet, because no one could ever pronounce my surname right. LOL.

Yup, not far away. When I said the census takers had written C.....i and P....y, thats not me seeking anonymity, that's what they wrote down! Both the US and Polish/Russian/Prussian ones. Only in small townships of about 200 people, it's still obvious which family is which.

 

[litfan10]

Yup, not far away. When I said the census takers had written C.....i and P....y, thats not me seeking anonymity, that's what they wrote down! Both the US and Polish/Russian/Prussian ones. Only in small townships of about 200 people, it's still obvious which family is which.

I'm the exact opposite. My dad was in the middle of the herd with four sibling either older or younger than he. Being one of nine growing up affected him a lot. He only wanted two children at most himself.
Another issue he had was his first name was Robert but everyone even his family called him 'Bob.'. He HATED that but had given up and rarely said anything, but internally was hatred.
He insisted and my mom agreed that their kids would have one syllable first names and there wasn't a corresponding nickname. The other very quirky rule he had was the first born male, my older brother by default, had to have the same initials as him. In fact my brother even has the same middle name first initial and all.
So my first and last names are both four letters long. What kills me is I guess it's too simple and people are constantly messing it up and misspelling my last name by adding unnecessary letters.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

his first name was Robert but everyone even his family called him 'Bob.'. He HATED that but had given up and rarely said anything, but internally was hatred.
He insisted and my mom agreed that their kids would have one syllable first names and there wasn't a corresponding nickname.

A friend's parents had a similar issue. They didn't want their boy to be called Bob or Bert, so decided to name him Robbie, so he'd be called that or at worst Rob.

But then the perverse English wordplay humour kicked in. By age six he was known as Obbie and from age 10 no-one's called him anything except Ob...

All my cousins are in families of 8 or 9 kids. None of them have more than 3 children (and even those are when there's been one stepchild). In my mum's generation she had nearly 100 first cousins, plus about 20 more who didn't reach age 5.

 

[Duleigh]

LOL. My dad's side of the family is Polish from outside of Lvov, so my real surname, before I married, is Polish and I know exactly what you mean. c's, z's, y's, i's LOL. My nickname was Alphabet, because no one could ever pronounce my surname right. LOL.

I come from a VERY polish neighborhood, the sweet old lady across the street from me only spoke polish and I spoke none, but we communicated quite well. I would shovel her driveway and she would repay me with Kolaczki (to me it's just not Christmas without at least one Kolaczki) To celebrate my Buffalo heritage I try to include the polish heritage where appropriate (like NOT in northern Minnesota) The fans love my imaginary family, Paul and Andi Jarecki. I have had readers ask how Jarecki is pronounced and I always answer, "You're the reader, pronounce it any way you want or any way that feels comfortable, but in Poland it's pronounced yer-ET-ski

 

[MrPixel]

Large families? Mom was #3 of eight, and I'm the oldest of five, b-g-b-g-b. No kids for any of us. The only "children" among the five of us are our two boys who adopted us while in their teens.