BS: The Mother of all BS threads

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 08:32 AM

Ah well, I am sure that is reciprocal, Monsieur Hack. But I apologize, a night's sleep has done wonders and I feel much more aimable this morning. I am off on to the dark and foggy waters, adieu.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 10:00 AM

Since Amos feels "aimable" does that mean there is yet another WMD in SoCal?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 10:14 AM

He's a torpedo! "Aimable" through the wine-dark sea...what else could he be?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 01:57 PM

He would be aimable if tied up and inserted into the barrel of one of those huge circus cannons...or the cradle of a large medieval catapult.

I like the idea of the latter! We could catapult him through the windows of the Oval Office and right into George Bush's lap. Bush would think it was a terrorist attack.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 03:25 PM

AImable is a French word meaning friendly or likable.
I am also feeling more amiable, an English word roughly translated as "aimable".



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 03:50 PM

"Almable" is a nearly extinct word meaning "worthy to receive alms."

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 10:30 PM

I almost bought it coming in today, Mom. I was doing everything perfectly when a wave doubled up behind me and the second half roared by and turned me broadside to. With a lot of luck I torqued my little craft around stern-to before the next one caught her or I'd have been rolled up like a salt-water tamale. I had a loverly time along the caves, although it was a bit windy and choppy--the benign mornings of summer are phasing out--and am definitely noticing an improvement to my mussskels.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Sep 08 - 11:02 PM

Good catch, Amos. It ain't cool be be caught in the trough. Stem or stern on, but not amidships.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 12:44 AM

Just as I feared, Amos!

I insist that you give up these dangerous aquatic adventures at once and engage in something safe and sensible instead, like...

knitting
mime
collecting butterflies
doing standup political comedy at local cabarets
varnishing and refinishing old furniture
dressage for gerbils

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 03:03 AM

Ah, no, good Hawk, your plea on deaf ears must fall. I would no more leave the sea than I would leave my firstborn. Nothing touches the soul like the endless and bottomless embrace of the salt ocean, mate. Nothing.



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 11:13 AM

Do you have a skirt on that little craft to keep the water out? Or will it just glug glug glug slosh if you go over?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 01:15 PM

It's a sit-on type, not a sit-in. It is not covered. It is formed with several wells and footrests and two hatches covering storage bins. If it goes over, you fall off, swim over to it and right it, and climb back on. There is a gunwale of sorts-that you sit lower than.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 02:55 PM

He must go down to the sea again
To the lonely sea and sky
And all he asks is good kayak
And shore to steer her by.
--------
Sunset and morning star
Are one clear call for him,
For there will be mourning in the bar
'Cause the next round was on him.
---------------
Amos drove with a curse
The wild drake and the duck
From the seal-infested shores
And screamed, "Now what the f**k!
"I only lifted my kayak
Off the roof of the car
And now I am doomed to a rupture
Now and forever more!
Never again to put into the water,
Never again to paddle the seals,
To pit muscle and skill 'gainst the ocean
Until after the incision heals!
At least six weeks a landlubber,
Six weeks on the old terra firm'
Six weeks without a roll-over
Where I wallow in sewage and germ!
There's naught now for me but the rocker
Or to hang 'round the barnacled docks
An old salt just dreamin' of kayaks
And how he used to crash on the rocks.
There's naught for me now but The Bowline,
Where I can sit and tell salty lies
About kraken and whalefish and mermaids
And Zeroes that streaked from the skies.
And the women in Papua, New Guinea
Or the girls 'round the docks in Shanghai
And Liverpool Lou who told me to "Shoo!"
When she found out I had not lost an eye.
Oh why did I take up kayaking?
Or buy one as heavy as lead?
For now I think I am ruptured
From my toenails up to my head.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 03:16 PM

LOL! Oh, what grand doggerel!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 03:23 PM

I must go off to the Getaway,
By the distant West River shore.
I am called by the call of a thousand souls
The guitar, and the banjo's roar,
For the Getaway's cal is a pure, high call,
As clear as the smell of a skunk,
To spend three days in the Muses' ways,
Picking, and singing, and drunk.

And the songs they sing are the fine old songs
From when songs were writ in the soul.
Long before the days of rap, or punk,
And the crash of rock and roll.
When a man could sing to the stars on high,
His guitar as his only aid,
And folks would nod, and smile and hum
Knowing every song he played.

No, I must go back to the Getaway,
And the Getaway songsters true,
And all I ask is six sound strings
And a fifth for to see me through.
For the hugs of friends, and the jamming hours
Make a bond, which you may not free,
Until I return to the Western shore
And put out again to sea.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 03:52 PM

Nobly stated, Amos! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 04:03 PM

One word of caution, Amos. This passion you have for going down to the sea is very stirring and all that...but if it mutates at some point into an obsession about hunting down and killing a Great White Whale or some other aquatic leviathan...seek counseling at once and "go to sea no more"!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 06:46 PM

It's called "the rupture of the deep."

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 06:47 PM

If I could even get one of the buggers to come up and pass the time of day I would be too honored to think straight, LH. As the season wanes, the passing of the whales on their way to their Baja breeding grounds starts up and runs from October to February.   I might just get myself a new wet suit and go out in winter.



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 06:50 PM

Leviathan in Mexican Waters.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 10:30 PM

In the Log of the Sea of Cortez John Steinbeck remarked that the gray whales are stinky. They have bad breath.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 11:30 PM

So do most large animals.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 12:49 AM

And so would you if you eight three tons of anchovies a day and lost your toothbrush..


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 09:17 AM

I can't lose my toothbrush. I had my nose pierced and tied a string through it, and the string is tied to my toothbrush. Not only can I brush my teeth anytime I want I'm no longer bothered with those annoying dried boogers.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 09:34 AM

eight=ate.

Stilly would never do suxch a thing--it's not very ladylike, if you take my meaning.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:50 AM

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the biggest current laugh in the Quilting World!! Fresh from no less a source than Dissertation Abstracts:

The traveling quilter: An exploration of the influences on
travel behavior
   
   
      Author(s): Drais, Christine Y.
   
   
      Degree:    M.S.
   
   
      Year:      2007
   
   
      Pages:    00064
   
   
      Institution:   Clemson University; 0050
   
   
      Advisor:    William C. Norman
   
   
      Source:   MAI, 46, no. 03 (2007): p. 1323
   
   
      Standard No: ISBN: 978-0-549-34510-7
   
   
      Abstract: Quilters have been traveling to regional, national, and international symposia since the beginning of the quilt
revival in the 1970's (Bonesteel Films, (Producer), 2005, The Great
American Quilt Revival, UNC-TV). These events have attracted large crowds, mostly women, yet there is little data about their travel behavior (L. Brodsky, Country Heritage Tours, personal conversation October 29, 2007). In response to the lack of information on quilting travel, this research was undertaken to determine if quilting experience, skill level and level of serious leisure predict quilting travel behavior.
      
This thesis examines experience use history in quilting (i.e., number of years quilting, number of days per month, number of days per week, and number of hours per day), quilters' skill level, and level of serious leisure as predictors of quilting travel behavior (i.e., number of day trips, number of overnight trips and number of destinations visited for quilting). Data were collected from participants (N=199) of the Quilters of South Carolina (QSC) fall retreat. A survey instrument was used to examine experience use history, skill level, and serious leisure using the 54-item short form Serious Leisure Inventory and Measure (Gould, 2005) as predictors of the travel behavior of quilters over a two-year period.
      
The results from the analyses revealed that experience use history and skill level and serious leisure dimensions failed to predict day trip and number of destinations visited, but skill level was a significant predictor of overnight trips.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 12:03 PM

Was that funded by an earmark?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 12:54 PM

Well, let's see:

1. It only investigated quilters in South Carolina, and then only once, so it is not by any means a definitive study;

2. It ignores purposes other than "quilting" for which quilters might travel, such as shows (which are not quilting, but art exhibits);

3. It ignores such quilt-related reasons for travel as fabric study groups and the American Quilt Study Group, both of which are HIGHLY academic.

So yes, it has all the earmarks of an earmark.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 12:59 PM

If I "eight" (to quote you, Amos) three tons of anchovies in one day, I would die.

That is, I am assuming you meant to say "ate"?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:08 PM

See my last post, nasty lad.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 02:41 PM

Rapaire,

Blame the graduate student's committee for letting such a flimsy project go through. They should have exerted control on the research. I'm assuming you picked up the abstract once the document had been approved, the degree conferred, and the thesis published?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 04:32 PM

I didn't; I just forwarded what my friend Mary, Associate Dean of Law at a major...well, middlin'...midwestern university, sent.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 04:34 PM

I'd like to see the one on "Pre- and Post- Menopausal Attitude Changes in Drosphilia"--I think it was funded by the Reagan administration...


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 06:17 PM

I have two research projects I'd like to get funded:

1. "Money can't buy happiness." You fund me with about 15 million tax-free dollars and I'll write you a report in ten years or so.

2. "There are no atheists in foxholes." You go out and take a poll and report your findings to me. NB: For better validity the foxhole should be under active attack at the time the survey is taken.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 06:20 PM

Actually, there are some atheists in foxholes. Just not as many as usual, that's all.

Some people, after all, would rather die than give up their atheism or whatever else it is that they put their faith in.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 06:48 PM

Yeah, but I want the money for the survey.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 07:05 PM

When is this Getaway thing that Amos goes off to--next weekend? Are there enough of us here to keep MOM afloat while he gets sloshed and sings up a storm?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 07:23 PM

It starts late this coming Friday, Still, and runs until early the following Monday. Perhaps a total of 62 hours? Of which at least four will be devoted to sleep.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: MMario
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 08:31 PM

depends on whether or not I have net accdess - I'm off to a fambly wedding; which means I had to forgo getaway.

Amos - you forgot to mention those possible four hours of sleep are TOTAL, not CONSECUTIVE.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 09:17 PM

Let's see: tomorrow I have a capital campaign meeting.
Wednesday I have to be in Idaho Falls, first for a Consortium meeting and then for the first of the Idaho Library Association.
Thursday I'll check out of the motel, attend the ILA meetings and the Awards Banquet and drive home, arriving about 10 p.m.
Friday I have to attend a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
Saturday I have the "Big Read" kickoff in the evening, where I have to give a short talk to folks who include a Pulitzer prize winning author, the Mayor, the wife of the Governor, and the head of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Of course, yesterday I was down at the Library at 9 a.m. to investigate and repair the front door that had been shot out and in the evening had to tell the Masons how I could rebuild the town with a little water, a piece of string, and my mind (and why they wouldn't have to go through all that trouble).

Gee, I'd like to Getaway. But unlike Some People We Know, I have some real work to do....

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 10:26 PM

Yes, alas, I shall sing my songs alone, alone and unheard by any but the coyotes, the wolves, the pumas, the bears, the deer, the elk, and the stars which sweep across the night sky like a cascade of lights falling and dancing like a brook that winds its way singing and skipping over stones to the sea.

No Getaway for me again this year. Again this year I shall sit here in my mountain fastness and let my soul chant the melodies of the Universe and sing of the vastness of that which is Human:

Please don't burn our shit-house down,
Mother has promised to pay.
Father's away on the ocean wave
And sister's in the family way.

Brother dear has gonorrhea
And times is fucking hard;
So please don't burn our shit-house down
Or we'll all have to shit in the yard.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:11 PM

Indians didn't have that problem. They shat fairly much as animals do, when and where the moment required, and the whole natural world was the "outhouse". No Indian was so stupid as to make a little tiny building that you go in to shit because that concentrates all the shit on one tiny piece of ground, and that's not good. You just end up with a hell of a mess there eventually when you do that, and it doesn't benefit the general environment...it often poisons the water supply. Shit needs to be spread around some on the surface ground, not concentrated in one little spot.

They did, though, have a lot more open land available than we do. I'll grant that. And it wasn't all divided up into little bits owned by this or that person. It was all in effect public land. That's natural socialism for you! ;-) No wonder they were regarded as an impediment to "civilization". You can't get rich buying and selling land if it's owned in common by everybody, can you?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:44 PM

LH, there is an essay I want you to read in Gathering the Desert, by an acquaintance of mine, Gary Paul Nabhan. It discusses food production and where people go. In the same essay. Has to do with scouring the hulls off of cactus seeds with whatever intestinal tracts were available. If you get my drift.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 12:33 AM

I'm not entirely sure I do get your drift, Stilly, but it sounds interesting. I think people in the present culture are mostly far more squeamish about their own bodily functions than they need to be. Some people are downright obsessive about it, matter of fact. I don't know what the problem is, but I suspect it goes back to their toilet training or something.

To put it bluntly, they can't deal with their own shit, because they're so afraid of it! ;-) That can be interpreted either literally or metaphorically, needless to say.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:43 AM

There was a desert culture in Sonora, Mexico that after eating the cactus fruit everyone took care of business in a certain area. And after a while it was dried enough to be sifted through for the seeds.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:44 AM

Which were then ground for flour and made into bread.


25500

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:49 AM

My brother and I always wanted to re-enact night soil collectors in a restored village.

A cart, a couple of barrels partially filled with...night soil..., a couple long handled shovels, and a certain business odor and we'd be all set.

Just picture the tourists at Colonial Williamsburg, say, coming out of the restaurants on Duke of Gloucester Street, their bellies full and them full of good cheer, being greeted with a noisome cart being pulled by two filthy, stinking, guys crying, "Night soil! Night soil! We'll take all the shit you can give! Clean out yer privy, guv? Only tuppence!"

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:58 AM

IT is a major omission in most period movies, as to how these matters were dealt with. I noticed how surprised I was watching a film about aristocrats in Sicily at the time of Garibaldi's uprising. There was a fancy dress ball going on, and one shot followed a gentleman into the restroom where he was prettying himself up. Over his shoulder you could see into a back room which was lined with lovely tall china collection bowls, each of which was brimming with human urine. It was a shock to realize what you were seeing.


Thank god for flush toilets.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:49 PM

Stale urine was used extensively in the past, Amos. "Chamber lye," as it was called, was used as a cosmetic face wash, a shampoo, and even in the making of saltpeter for gunpowder.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: MMario
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:52 PM

not to mention bleaching of fabric; dyeing, fulling, as a laundry additive to remove stains