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Basil

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  1. Answers & Questions

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Answers & Questions

     

    A - You lost me at 'peanut butter'.

    Q: Go down this street, turn left at the second traffic light, then right at the peanut butter, right again at the third stop sign, and it's on the left about a mile down.

     

     

    A: But the jelly ran off with the fisherman.

  3. My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

     

    The guards in control of the penal colony are aware that they too have no hope of returning to Earth' date='[/quote']

    Why? :confused:

     

    There have been several takeover attempts by prisoners in spacecraft en route to Terminus. Only one came close to succeeding while passing through the Jovian system; the ship's captain elected to crash the ship on a Trojan asteroid' date=' killing all aboard.[/quote']

    Do you realized the Trojan asteroids are (on average) as far from Jupiter as the Sun is?

  11. Del Monte Hero - Reaping the Grapes of Wrath

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Del Monte Hero - Reaping the Grapes of Wrath

     

    The Alligator Pair: These twins are danger with a capital Dentition. Fast, strong, and with a penchant for odd weapons (incl. their trademark "teeth-swords"), they have teamwork so good it's almost like their minds are linked. As well as their profession, they're known for their avocadotion; raising crocodiles.

     

    The Enig-Maw wonders if they'd be tasty.

     

     

    The Enig-Maw is a product of Basil's Twisted Imagination, Ick. All rites preserved

  12. Obscure Research Help

    in Pulp Hero

    Posted

    Re: Obscure Research Help

     

    Thank you all for the links.

     

    To clarify one point, when I talk about "exchanges," I'm probably using an American term. It used to be, when you picked up the phone, you got the operator and asked them to connect you to the desired line (as some of you noted above). A person's number was their "exchange" (a menmonic for a two digit prefix, which later became the three digit prefix we dial today) followed by a four or five digit number (depending on the period) that represented the specific subscriber line.

     

    Very, very early on, at least in some places, you didn't ask for an exchange, as there was only one place that had a patchboard; or, in other times/places, you asked for the town/neighborhood you wanted, by its common name.

     

    Oh, and I know of one area (the one I live in, in fact) that used to have a single digit as the exchange, and that followed the use of the first letter of the exchange name (which wasn't the town name). This is in an area 30-40 miles east of Seattle; it was originally covered by a telephone co-op, but that couldn't make ends meet so they sold it to a utility company.

     

    When the company went to the by-then standard 3&4 structure, they simply tripled the "original" single digit. So there's a 222, and a 333, and an 888 exchange around here. Yes, 888; confuses newbies at times. :eg:

     

    BTW, for those who don't know: it used to be there were 3 letters for each of the numbers 2 through 9; no letters for 1 or 0, and no Q nor Z. There used to be, 40+ years ago, advertisements than told you to call "Zenith 9-XXXX"; this meant call the operator and ask for that number; it was some kind of special hookup that gave businesses a decreased rate. That, or it was a forerunner of the WATS line system, which was the ancestor of the 1-800 (1-888, 1-8XX) system. I've never been clear on that. :(

     

    So' date=' for instance, Microsoft's main Redmond number would translate to "Tuxedo-8080." Oddly, if you call the operator today and give them a phone number in this format they can theoretically still connect and are supposed to (though it might annoy them: "sir, why don't you just freaking dial the number?!"). So, while I go through all these links, if anyone comes across the Budapest mnemonics for neighborhood prefixes, let me know.[/quote']

     

    That's what I figured you were after. Unfortunately, I still can't find anything like that. :(

     

    Thanks again!

     

    You're welcome! Glad I was of some help. :)

  13. "Neat" Pictures

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Space Flower?

     

    Is it a Space Flower? A blurry angel with a garish color sense?

     

    No, an aurora!

     

     

    The Mallard ponders its significance anent the Omicron Hypomagi while the supersonic telepathic mechanical penguins with laser eyes make crude suggests about what it "is." The Bacandforthtrian, however, worries it might be a sign of the alpacapla-lypse, and Dr. Infamous is grateful it isn't the Enig-Maw

     

    You know the drill by now, I'm sure

  15. Answers & Questions

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Answers & Questions

     

    A: While I appreciate the effort it took' date=' I can make my own lunch thank you.[/quote']

     

    A - No' date=' bigger! BIG-GER! What part of that are you not getting?[/quote']

     

    Q: I made you two guys a 20 foot long submarine sandwich for each of you. What do you think?

     

     

     

    A: About 6 inches shorter than advertised. Thank goodness.

  17. your pcs might be OVERPOWERED IF...

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: your pcs might be OVERPOWERED IF...

     

    ...you compensate for the fact that your new home world doesn't spin by simply turning the sun on and off every twelve hours.

     

    Too much detail work to keep track of. Just tell the sun it's going to turn on and off every twelve hours, and it'll obey. ;)

  18. NGD Scenes from a Hat

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

     

    NT: If Shatner had gotten the part of your favorite sci-fi character ...

     

    Well, there are two related possibilities:

    #1

    "There..is...no way...I'm...going to fit...in this three legged...costume!"

     

    #2

    He'd have snagged the sexy gal, traded insults with a huge, dangerous alien, and hung out with a weird looking alien.

     

    And say, "It...lookslike...a...ribbon...in space!"

     

     

     

    IOW, either Nessus or Louis Wu of Ringworld

     

  19. Obscure Research Help

    in Pulp Hero

    Posted

    Re: Obscure Research Help

     

    http://july.fixedreference.org/en/20040724/wikipedia/Telephone has the first telephone exchange in Budapest being opened in 1881.

     

    If you go to http://www.archive.org/details/developmentoftel00webbuoft and d/l the PDF file (or one of the other formats if you prefer), you can get a British book from ~1910 that has a brief mention of the telephone situation in Hungary (esp. Budapest) at that time.

     

    I haven't found anything else about exchanges or what-have-you, but I found I reprint of a Scientific American article about the "telephone broadcast" (which actually considered itself a "telephone newspaper")

     

    http://earlyradiohistory.us/telenew5.htm

     

    BTW, the "exchange(s)" mentioned in the example daily schedule would be stock and commodity exchanges.

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