The Last Word

[L. Marcus]

"Popcorn at a ballgame is a travesty. I want a hot dog!"

[Bazza]

Or a meat pie. 

 

http://www.foodiful.com.au/section/spring/articles/525/aussie-meat-pies-are-confusing-the-hell-out-of-americans

[tkdguy]

That looks good!

[Bazza]

Aussie tradition. As the hot dog is to American sports the meat pie is to Australian sports. 

[Pariah]

Yeah, that looks all right. Much better than a hot dog.

[Cancer]

11 hours ago, Pariah said:

Baseball on television is one of the more uninteresting things about American life.

 

Baseball in person is actually a pretty great way to spend an afternoon or evening.

I have to think about the former, since I haven't done much of that in a couple decades.

 

The latter is true, assuming you know anything (or want to know anything) about the game.  If you don't know the game and are willing to pick some of it up, sitting with a knowledgeable baseball fan can gain you a lot.  "Knowledgeable" here doesn't mean player names and stats from years past; instead it means strategy, the physical challenges in the various plays, and so on.

[L. Marcus]

5 hours ago, Bazza said:

Aussie tradition. As the hot dog is to American sports the meat pie is to Australian sports. 

But the Meat Pie Floater is just a myth.

[L. Marcus]

18 minutes ago, Cancer said:

I have to think about the former, since I haven't done much of that in a couple decades.

 

The latter is true, assuming you know anything (or want to know anything) about the game.  If you don't know the game and are willing to pick some of it up, sitting with a knowledgeable baseball fan can gain you a lot.  "Knowledgeable" here doesn't mean player names and stats from years past; instead it means strategy, the physical challenges in the various plays, and so on.

I have been told, having never had the experience myself, that baseball, like F1 racing, is the perfect hangover TV.

[Cancer]

Another reference to an inexplicable item in a different thread ...

 

Another famous set of literal last words is: "It's a boo- ..."

[Lucius]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 8:29 AM, L. Marcus said:

Never go full mad. Unless it's mad with power.

 

Have you tried being mad WITHOUT power? It's boring and no one listens to you.

 

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 4:23 PM, Cancer said:

On a fine enough scale, it's more like the loopy side of Velcro.  With kinks.

 

What's most disturbing is that I'm half convinced you know what you're talking about....

 

 

 

 

And I wish I had a meat pie. Or two.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

In a Lucius Alexander post the last word usually goes to a palindromedary

[L. Marcus]

Dallassallad.

[Cancer]

Design flaw on the hummingbird feeder: this morning, the snow on top of the feeding ports was thicker than a hummingbird is tall.

[Pariah]

How often is that really an issue where you live?

[L. Marcus]

No such problem for us; we have no hummingbirds. 

[Bazza]

You have birds that can't hum? 

[L. Marcus]

They tweet and screech, but do not rattle nor hum.

[Cancer]

8 hours ago, Pariah said:

How often is that really an issue where you live?

 

This is the first time in my direct experience, but we only started setting out a hummingbird feeder last summer.  It's sort of a coin toss in any given winter whether we'll get a snowfall such that the snow lasts 24 hours or more.  This current snowfall is now about 32 hours old, and fresh stuff stopped falling about 6 or 8 hours back, and the fallen snow will probably last into tomorrow afternoon, which is when the maritime air is predicted to reassert itself and we get rain again.

 

There is a population of winter-resident hummingbirds in the urban centers here.  Cities do warm up a couple of degrees over the surrounding countryside, and humans do provide food over winter.  It has been the case around my house for years that the hummingbirds (at least some) winter over here ... I hear their song and bickering all times of year when I go out in daylight, unless the rain is miserable.

 

It isn't clear to me whether overwintering hummingbirds have always happened here, or if it is merely the birds taking advantage of 20th-Century human modification of food supplies. Rufous hummingbirds migrate north aggressively (even into the Alaska panhandle, far from any human settlement), arriving before any flowers bloom; they actually compete against the nectar-eating insects, and being on station early gives them an edge.  They can survive on tree sap at least for a while, waiting for the spring flowers.

 

I know the crows, at least, have clearly adapted to urbanization, and their population in the city far exceeds that in an equal area of more-or-less human-free coastal forest.  The resident pairs (as opposed to unpaired gangs) will develop understandings with friendly humans and their pets; they recognize individual humans (and dogs and cats) and react in predictable ways.  The pair whose territory includes our house recognizes our calls, and reply vocally and come when we call them (and we call them when we set stuff out for them).  Of course, if they are lurking on the wires overlooking the yard when we set stuff out, there's no need for calls on either side.

[L. Marcus]

I hear that year-round stationary birds are smarter than their migratory counterparts. 

[Cancer]

You are more likely to see interesting behaviors from residents than transients, though, simply from greater opportunity.  

[Bazza]

Watching Conspiracy Theory. I thought Jean-Luc was a good guy. 

[Pariah]

It was 57°F (13.9°C) in SLC today, December 30th.

 

This should not be so.

[Bazza]

In Boston  they are having a heat wave with today the temperature's -3 F rather than -6 F. 

[L. Marcus]

Ah, baseball weather.

[Cancer]

Got up to 47 F or 8 C here today.  Unremarkable.

[L. Marcus]

-7° C here today, a clear crisp winter morning, and after breakfast I'm off to bed.