Ahh, sounds like a recipe for a syndrome - "IBS"Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Good luck wit that Paul.
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Ahh, sounds like a recipe for a syndrome - "IBS"Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Good luck wit that Paul.
New Years Eve will be our annual holiday get-together. We'll have some friends over for the evening served with the traditional German sauerkraut and pork, an Italian Christmas Chili, various Hors d'oeuvres, a generous selection of truly fine beers, stouts, and ales... complete with Champagne for the midnight toast.
Haha. It's no problem for me being a veggie, though my brothers are both meat eaters. With the recent horsemeat scandal here in the UK - where people found out through DNA checks of ready meals etc that they were eating horse rather than beef, lamb and pork - I wonder why they don't just come clean and have "anymeat" as a cheap alternative. They've probably been eating anymeat for years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
We're having a curry - a take away. The Mother in Law and Brother in Law will be drinking wine probably. I'll have wine/ port/ beer whatever. We often don't make 12 o'clock - everyone else feeling too tired. I usually end up on the computer - though this year I might have a go on GTA5 for my xbox, unless my son decides to have a beer with me. He's had to get up before 10am this morning, so it is uncertain whether he will last the night.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
(I don't mind his sleeping habits - he'll be working for the rest of his life and following the rigid working patterns we all follow - unless he's lucky).
Horsemeat is good, healthy, low-fat stuff, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I don't understand why it's illegal to eat it. Is it the thought that that bet you lost on last week might be Sunday's roast?
I'd enjoy carving the sucker under those circumstances!
We went to the local Greek place for New Years eve. We were glad to see Theo the chef/owner and his wife had mellowed a bit since the last time we went - that's what Grandkids do to a man/psychopath. (Or perhaps he had forgotten the incident with the halloumi)
Anyway we had the Greek feast, where food just kept arriving, olives, feta, tzatziki, salmon, salad, pitta, meatballs, spicy pork, lamb and potatos, more salad. Being from yorkshire we had to eat everything we'd paid for, we were absolutely stuffed.
When we were leaving me and Theo fell on each other like long lost brothers, hugging, back slapping, hand shaking. I announced that the Salmon was the best I had ever tasted (it was) and he gave the ladies of our party a kiss and a tangerine each. It was as though a breath of warm Greek air had wafted up the Calder Vally and affected us all. A very good night.
The sign of a True Englishman!Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
That sounds intriguing.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
I used to work with some Irainian chefs in a Pizza Restaurant at Newmilledam. They would all be shouting and gesticulating at once at various times during the day - I never knew what the problem was - but they seemed to settle down just as quickly. I got the impression they were a bit highly strung - but it may just have been their way. They were still a laugh.
So long 2013
We carried out the annual Gurgle ritual of sending the prior year up in flames.
This year we added a new twist inspired by our Viking brethren, only we were unable to find a Viking horned helmet, so we settled for Roman, not to mention the Levi's were a bit out of place.
I constructed the crematory long boat from found parts laying about in the shop. However the 4 inch diameter PVC pontoons just barely had the buoyancy to stay afloat. My brother is the pyrotechnics expert, he is seen preparing the black powder packets. In addition to black powder, he added a few mortars, about one thousand fire crackers ( see the bandolier ) and several sparklers.
One of the mortar explosions had enough force to blow the helmet off and topple the assembly, thus soaking the clothing. We quickly up righted the assembly before the straw stuffing got wet. Eventually it burned down to the steel skeleton.
The one photo shows my son on left eating some smoked turkey, his friend and my brother on the right.
Here's to a happy, healthy, successful 2014:
(Click on thumbnails for larger image)
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps4a2a6d38.jpg
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps91a003c8.jpg
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps3f84fe1b.jpg
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps04de4fe4.jpg
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...psd0e78ba8.jpg
That's a party with class!
Hahaha
Light your hair on fire and be somebody!
Being from California, I rarely say the word "cold". Or "ale". Or "bloke".
Perhaps this isn't the best place for me to look for some paternal/masculine influence in my life?Quote:
Light your hair on fire and be somebody!
That's ok, the English drink their beer warm.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Kid
And maybe it is!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Kid
And I see you live in SF.
You couldn't call it a warm climate.
Samuel Clemens once said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".
Haha, Bob's yer uncle!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Kid
- I refuse to grow up. I tried it once, but it didn't take.
San Fran is one of a very few US cities that's GREAT for walking. And it warms right up out there going up and down those hills.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Actually I live here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_CaliforniaQuote:
And I see you live in SF.
You couldn't call it a warm climate.
Samuel Clemens once said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".
It's considerably much larger and warmer (!) than San Francisco, despite its proximity. It's also much less famous, and disgustingly more unequal economically.
Samuel Clemens was a genius, and quite witty, though I think his novels are slightly worse than the rest of his writing.Quote:
Samuel Clemens once said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".
He was spot on here about San Francisco, though. I once met a girl on an airplane from San Francisco to Boston. She was visiting during what happened to be a warm spell, perfect weather where I lived, absolutely beautiful. But when I told her this, she was surprised, and said it was still cold. I mean, a New Englander thinks California is cold? But alas, it was one of those famous San Francisco summers, which does feel like winter. Not where I live, though.
Yeah, but everyone knows the way there.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Kid
Ahh yes, that :) Of course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
We were a little disappointed in the results, but again, it was the first time we tried this on water. In previous years we carried out the auto de fe in the bonfire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
I'll guarantee better success at the end of this year.
Probably not , all you'll find around here is worn out testosterone scattered about.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Kid
Look, there's some slouched over the bar.
More petrol required I think, and rockets - plenty of rockets!
Great pics Gil. I agree - more rockets. It looks like a cold day. Did you get hit with the arctic blast recently?
My brothers and I are having a curry in Sheffield at the weekend Mick. We've been anticipating it virtually since we came up to Huddersfield. The trouble is, we're having difficulty finding one open in the afternoon. We may need to settle for a pub curry - which will be ok I'm sure.
Sounds good paul, Hope you, the quiet one and the chatty one have a great time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
We were hit with the tail of the "polar vortex", however it was nothing as compared to the northern states.
Yes rockets!, I believe both of you are on to something there.
How about White Phosphorus? That'd give floaty-lake man some pizzazz. You could name him Willie Pete. Hmmm, what are the fuzing options? Hmmm, gonna need some type of mechanical delay on an implosive projectile to detonate William Peter. Wait! How about a home-made Piezoelectric shell fired at him from a twelve gauge? That'd be pretty cool.
I like the projectile idea - it gives a nod to the Viking way - mourners throwing their flaming torches onto the funeral bark as it drifts up the fjord. Or was that a Kirk Douglas/Tony Curtis film?
This activity takes place in East Texas, whereby life and intelligence takes on a less sophisticated approach. I'm afraid that piezo business would go over our heads higher than a Loblolly pine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
I should clarify we do use projectiles to ignite the effigy in the form of "Roman Candles", but I am intrigued by this type of rocket:Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...psaa894365.jpg
This was 2012's effigy -note the Roman Candle fire ball streaks:
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...3/IMGP2915.jpg
You're a very bad man!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
I like that in a bloke.
Yes, that was Vikings, although other cultures burnt the boats as well. For Vikings, see also, Mare of Steel:Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps15763ce2.png
I do a bit of rocketry, but re-usable rockets with engines. They look amazing at night, and you can units that will go up to a mile high.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
They're a little on the expensive side, but if you want to make a splash, try one. Just accept that a night launch means you're going to lose the rocket - they parachute back down.
Perhaps one of the space shuttles will be available cheap.
We had a great time in Sheffield. It's a nice city full of stone buildings. The pubs were good though all the curry houses didn't open until 5.30. I also tried a strawberry and lime cider. Very nice and a pure strawberry flavour.
They're cheap enough, but hell to move.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Off to find some of that immediately.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Okay, I'm thinking a homemade, shotgun delivered, piezoelectric fuze, designed to cook off Willie Pete the floaty-lake man may be a little ambitious for the typical home pyromaniac. So how about a fertilizer-bomb* floaty-lake man? We could call him F-Bomb man. All we'd need is a couple of sacks of ammonium nitrate, a couple of jerrycans of diesel fuel, and maybe a few M-80s with an extra long fuzes. Oh yeah, and a cigarette lighter. Then if everything goes as planned, the people standing on shore, watching F-Bomb man detonate, will start dropping the F-Bomb left and right: "Holy F! Did you see that F-ing F-Bomb man blow up? That was fan F-ing tastic. I'm going to go home right now and build my own F-ing F-Bomb man, uh, just as soon as this F-ing ringing my ears goes away." And so on and so forth.
*Literary tie in: In Ed Abbey's novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, the Gang's plan was to drain Lake Powell and reclaim Glen Canyon by blowing the Glen Canyon dam with a fertilizer bomb. They were going to load a houseboat with ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel and then drive it up the Colorado River and anchor it at the base of the dam. Then it was going to be party-time, ecoterrorist-style.
Paul, a year or so ago I had the chance to eat at a wonderful restaurant in the "Curry Mile" section of Manchester.
Atheist, we're getting reports of seismic activity out there in your neck of the woods. Please tell me you guys aren't working on the F-bomb. We don't want to get into a cold-war style F-bomb race, do we?
Seriously, did you feel the shake?
I've heard of it but not had the pleasure yet. The brothers and I may take a trip up there yet. There's a similar phenomenon in Birmingham called the Balti belt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
Are curries very popular in England? I've never tried one myself, but word spreads fast about good Indian food in this area. There are lots of Indian or Indian-descended people in this area, mostly related to the boom in the tech industry, thus the popularity of Indian cuisine is growing here. Perhaps I simply need to eat out more.
Or is there a non-Indian curry? Excuse my ignorance please.
Curries are very popular in Britain, and a whole social popular culture has grown up around "going for a curry". If you get a good one they are delicious, and the best ones are not necessarily the hottest, a good curry has all kinds of subtle flavours. Most people have fast food type curries from supermarkets and takeaways, and to be honest they are not bad - until you try a proper one.
The Boy used to spend alot of his student loan money along the curry mile in Manchester when he was at Uni there. He went with his flatmates at least once a week, The challenge was to eat at every place along it while you were there, I think he managed about half of them in three years. He spent his work experiance year in Bradford, another curry hotbed, so he is quite an expert.
Haha! Yeah, quite a good shake that was, but it was down the island a bit from us, so I'll have to check up on my lower North Island associates.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
Tragic consequences of the earthquake - one shop lost over 100 bottles of wine!
Thai curries, and they're more on flavour and less on heat than a lot of Indian ones. Very popular.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Kid
We have the rough equivalent of your curry mile here in Chicago. Not far from me, a roughly mile-long stretch of Devon Avenue and adjoining streets is home to a large Indian population, with lots of restaurants, clothing stores, groceries, etc. Once while looking around in one of the grocery stores, I got to watch (maybe "got to" isn't quite right) one of the staff behind the meat counter divide a goat into its component parts with a table saw.
I'm guessing the goat-on-a-table-saw grocery wasn't run by the Hindus.
We've been having a bi*** of a winter. I got today off (teacher) the third time today due to extreme temperatures: -14 to -17 ° F (-25 to -27° C). I spent the day preparing for a predicted blizzard with 40-50 mile per hour wind gusts. We dug out the electric blanket, taped off the windows, did grocery shopping for the week... including a slew of good coffee and good beer. Now I'm several beers (average 10% alcohol by volume) to the wind and sitting back listening to the wind howl... along with Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Muddy Waters, and the Stones:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6e164c46.jpg
Right now I've moved on to Dylan's work of absolute genius: (Thank God for spell check!!!!)
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/image...bb832210.L.jpg
"Because something is happening here... but you don't know what it is... do you... Mr. Jones!!!???
Nice & warm in Alaska, though! http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir...er-48-21627640Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Glad to see you're keeping the internal warmth up.
Yes... they cancelled the Iditarod dog-sled race in Alaska. Should have moved it to Illinois, Michigan, Ohio. Wisconsin, or Minnesota this year.
http://mygggo.com/wp-content/uploads...test-hits1.jpg
I'm about as blitzed as I I want to be. Jack Daniels on top of all the beer I drank. I'll take a hand-full of baby aspirin and lots of coffee tomorrow as the blizzard hits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
I pulled a few random selections from my morning after, hair of the dog medicine bag that should help sober you up:Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Harry Nilsson
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbgv8Pk...%3DTbgv8PkO9eo
George Jones
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyns0Fqxg1E
Ernest Tubb
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qnEMOQTh27s
And for those of us looking forward to warmer days:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W3NU6hUYRo4
It's been very wet here this January - the wettest since records began apparently. There's been a lot of "since records began" stats for the weather here.
I've had two punctures this week, so today saw me pushing the old chariot the last half mile to work and then at dinner time, the half mile to the bike shop. (I've been outside there with the upside down bike a few times before). It was nice to roll down into the town then for a coffee.