The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[Kumquatqueen]

We live in the (much) greater St. Louis metro region.

I've only been to St Louis once. Got as far as going "that arch is shiny!" being jetlagged and having some adequate tacos and being not allowed into a casino because we didn't have ID - UK driving licences didn't all have photos yet. Cool to see the Mississippi, though. It's wide even at St Louis.

 

[MrPixel]

Cool to see the Mississippi, though. It's wide even at St Louis.

Too thin to plow, too thick to drink.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Too thin to plow, too thick to drink.

Is that a classic saying about the muddy one? Sounds like something Pratchett might have said if he'd created an Americanesque continent.

 

[MrPixel]

A quick search says it's been applied to a lot of US rivers, but most frequent seems to be rivers of the Platte River network, which then dumps into the Missouri River, which in turn flows into the Mississippi just north of STL. The Platte River is notably shallow for most of its transit, so I could easily see it as earning the ire.

There is a small one south of us which is officially designated the Big Muddy River, but I'll bet there's a "Big Muddy" in nearly every state.

 

[NotWise]

A quick search says it's been applied to a lot of US rivers, but most frequent seems to be rivers of the Platte River network, which then dumps into the Missouri River, which in turn flows into the Mississippi just north of STL. The Platte River is notably shallow for most of its transit, so I could easily see it as earning the ire.

There is a small one south of us which is officially designated the Big Muddy River, but I'll bet there's a "Big Muddy" in nearly every state.

Here, "Big Muddy" translates to "Rio Puerco" and we have two of them--one tributary to the Rio Grande and the other tributary to the Little Colorado.

The "Too thin to plow, too thick to drink" description used to be said about the Rio Grande, but now with all the dams upstream the river is often clear.

 

[MrPixel]

Here, "Big Muddy" translates to "Rio Puerco"

My Spanish is pretty weak, but I thought "puerco" translates to "pig", so "Rio Puerco" would be "Pig River". The online translators claim mud translates to "lodo", so "Big Muddy River" would be "Rio Gran Lodo". Is there an alternate meaning of "puerco" this gringo doesn't know?

 

[TheLobster]

US brands like (…) Budweiser.

Budweiser is not an American brand. It’s a Czech brewery that someone in the US has pirated the brand of and used it to sell its own kind of tepid pisswasser. The original is sometimes sold in America under a different name.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Toilet was running.


I caught it though.

Just got me thinking. I caught it because I heard it. Very faint sound of water running in what should have been a quiet room.

I've caught leaks before by hearing the dripping enough to let me track it down. Each case COULD have gotten expensive over time.

How would a deaf person know if water was running or dripping somewhere like that?

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Hearing is weird. I can have trouble making out what someone is saying to me in the kitchen and then hear a cat walking across the carpet in the living room. Any of you folks as old as me can remember manually tuning the radio in the car and you can barely make out the station and then you somehow recognize the song and it suddenly sounds like it's coming in clearly because your brain is filling in the missing information.

There's a fresh pot of coffee brewing and the teapot is hot. There are soft drinks in the 'fridge. Donuts and a plate of bacon are on the counter for the varied diets everyone is trying after the New Year.

I'll be over in the corner working on my new story. I switched to the story my Muse is bugging me to write so I got a few words down after doing some interesting research ...

 

[NotWise]

My Spanish is pretty weak, but I thought "puerco" translates to "pig", so "Rio Puerco" would be "Pig River". The online translators claim mud translates to "lodo", so "Big Muddy River" would be "Rio Gran Lodo". Is there an alternate meaning of "puerco" this gringo doesn't know?

As an adjective rather than a noun, it means "dirty." In the context of a river, it means muddy.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Any of you folks as old as me can remember manually tuning the radio in the car and you can barely make out the station and then you somehow recognize the song and it suddenly sounds like it's coming in clearly because your brain is filling in the missing information.

Oh, yes.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

How would a deaf person know if water was running or dripping somewhere like that?

That's what the spouse is for. Mostly, such things are visible.

I'm pretty sure I'm not missing much. I got new hearing aids about 25 years ago, returned to work, and realised the hissing noise was someone pissing in the cubicle next to me. Had to wait until I stopped laughing before I could leave.

I'd only recently learnt that farting makes a noise. The things they don't tell you in mainstream schools...

 

[BeechLeaf]

Too thin to plow, too thick to drink.

As a description of a person, that is one tempting plot bunny.

 

[MrPixel]

Budweiser is not an American brand. It’s a Czech brewery that someone in the US has pirated the brand of and used it to sell its own kind of tepid pisswasser. The original is sometimes sold in America under a different name.

You mean Budweiser Budvar? Never heard of it. Yeah, Adolphus Busch was a minor Golden Age robber baron, but he established a base of community-oriented philanthropy lasting until Inbev crapped on everything. And many of the non-Budweiser formulae were not totally disgusting, but I was already into regional breweries even before I was legal, before they were called microbrews.

 

[old_prof]

It's not been so cold out this weekend, which is nice. I would like some more sun, but not in this part of the world.

My knee continues to make progress. I'm starting to walk more and more, and using my cane less. According to my phone, I took more steps yesterday than all but two days in December, which is all pre-surgery. Overall, I'm about where I was pre-surgery, which is pretty good for twelve days out. And I;m still notably improving day by day, which I hadn't done at all for the previous 8 months.

I submitted my VD contest story. It't not going to win a prize, but I'm proud of the work I did on it. This was the most substantial (and most effective) revising I have ever done on a story. An important milestone in myself as a writer, I think. Now I have an even more substantial rewrite to do on my NYE party story.

 

[ICantLeafYou]

RPing with a friend tonight got the writing muses to wake up and I'm making a bit of progress on my 750 word project entry. Up to ~550 words. It's all planned out except for the ending which I have no idea what to do with...

Actually, as I type that, an idea comes to mind.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

It's another cold morning but we'll be getting some sunshine today. I'll be going to the DMV Thursday to renew my driver's license. Oh, joy. They've re-instituted eye tests this year for people over 70 and I hear that the waiting line for that is excruciating. Also, I'm upgrading to RealID so the paperwork for that is incredible. Luckily, I have a valid US Passport so I don't need to find my birth certificate (I'm not sure they even had a written language developed when I was born).

I've got a fresh pot of coffee brewing and the teapot is heating up. There are goodies on the counter. The technician is here to fix the jukebox, so, hopefully, we'll have tunes available later today.

I'll be over in the corner working on my story. My Muse is all excited about it but I'm not sure if I can pull it off the way I want to. I guess we'll see ...

 

[ColtonWrites]

I remember a parasitology prof, two minutes into the opening lecture, asking those present to raise their hand if they were also taking microbiology. Some of us did. He then asked who was also taking mycology (fungi, if you didn't know). Some hands went up.

He sadly shook his head and remarked that he pitied those who were taking all three. By the end of the year, he said, such poor creatures would be afraid to eat or drink anything not from a can or bottle and wouldn't be able to make themselves touch a doorknob. "As for your love life..." he muttered.

The entire concept of microaggressions is like that. There is absolutely nothing that some individual in any group cannot find upsetting and the more we scratch at it, the more people find themselves micro-traumatized. Which, of course, only proves the need for more lessons, more guidelines and more HR drones.

I think the answer is to treat individuals like individuals.
I didnt really mind the elevator being the unheated freight elevator - buildings can only be so accessible. But when I ask for an elevator and get blank (or astonished) stares, it gets annoying.
I dont mind that the group packed lunch cant accommodate my allergies. I mind when I ask if they can, I am told yes so I dont bring my own food, and then I cant eat the lunch.

 

[MrPixel]

I'm upgrading to RealID

Maybe because we don't fly I've not really paid all that much attention to the RealID brouhaha, so I'm curious. What can you do with a RealID that you can't by holding a current passport?

I thought I was going to get a break from my writing having all but finished Barstow, but writing a traumatic recollection into the epilogue spawned a plot bunny. I'm writing a horror story based on one of the FMCs from Barstow. For the life of me, I never for a second thought horror was going to be a genre I'd ever touch, yet there it is.

Is it me, or has the 1-bomb thread sucked the oxygen out of AH? I'm also noticing here and on other completely unrelated forums elsewhere that the snark has been turned to 11, as has the trolling. Even I've been affected, and that's just not my style.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

@MrPixel - The RealID is basically a nationalized ID and is equivalent to a passport so if you have a valid passport, you're good for traveling. The only reason I'm getting it is that it's good for six years instead of four years for a regular driver's license.

We're expecting another freeze and may get some snow heading into the weekend. I'm not looking forward to it ...

I've got a fresh pot of coffee brewing and the teapot is hot. There are pastries and fruit on the counter to go with your beverage of choice.

I'll be over in the corner working on my story. The research I'm doing for it is interesting and I'm going to make good use of Grok in doing it.

 

[NotWise]

Maybe because we don't fly I've not really paid all that much attention to the RealID brouhaha, so I'm curious. What can you do with a RealID that you can't by holding a current passport?

A passport doesn't let you drive.

The RealID lets you get around with one document instead of two.

 

[NotWise]

Is it me, or has the 1-bomb thread sucked the oxygen out of AH? I'm also noticing here and on other completely unrelated forums elsewhere that the snark has been turned to 11, as has the trolling. Even I've been affected, and that's just not my style.

I hadn't noticed, but I don't participate in a lot of the threads and in none of the other forums.

 

[HyunnaPark]

Is it me, or has the 1-bomb thread sucked the oxygen out of AH?

I was feeling oxygen deprived before then.

 

[old_prof]

Sorry to keep boring people with my knee, but it's kind of my excitement in life right now. I walked about 2200 steps, which may not sound like much to many of you, but it's the most Ive walked in 4 months. And I started walked up stairs more or less normally, alternating leading foot, for the first time since the surgery. Later this week, I'll try doing it down to, that still hurts too much right now.

I think I may be prouder of my current story (Oh Sweetie appeared prematurely yesterday evening). It's far from my best story, but it was an unpublishable story when I first wrote it. It's really the first time I've been able to substantially rework/fix a story, which is one of the skills I felt I was missing. Some of it I did on my own, but both my wife and @THBGato gave me invaluable feedback. Now to fix even more of a disaster, based on @HyunnaPark insightful comments.

 

[Duleigh]

I'm upgrading to RealID so the paperwork for that is incredible

When I moved to Florida all new licenses were RealID so I wasn't prepared for the question: "Passport or Birth Certificate?" I've never had a passport (why should I? I've got so much of the USA to investigate first) and my passport was lost over the years of moves. Getting a certified copy of your birth certificate out of New York was a nightmare, and I cursed my parents for not sneaking off to Pennsylvania or Ontario to have their kids.

Is it worth it? I don't know, I don't travel.