The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[NotWise]

That appliance is called a "Japanese Socket Set" It's mostly used when you have knuckles that are not bruised.

Spanner brings to mind this
View attachment 2338964
Which is actually a caliper but measures the span of an opening

Not the subject at hand, but digital calipers are one of the great inventions of the digital age.

The weather service predicted two straight days of high winds, single-digit relative humidity, and blowing dust, starting about now. They've backed off from that a little, so now today might be lousy, but tomorrow should be just breezy.

For today, I'll move the potentially damaged plants to the porch before I go to the office. Tomorrow they can deal with it on their own.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

Welcome, CBj. There's your first lesson - we have a habit, bad or otherwise, of referring to each other by initials. The shorthand saves keystrokes better spent on authoring.

Second thing to know, but most importantly, is our congenial leader (and operator of the coffee shop), @TxRad , is MIA at the moment. He has quite recently taken ill and many of us are on pins and needles here out of concern. So excuse us if we express our worry from time to time.

Again, welcome. It was D who suggested your presence here? Hmm. We won't hold that against you. Unless you want us to.

If being referred to the group by D puts me in the "Dangerous" crowd, then count me in. I enjoy being one of the rebels.

As for TxRad... Here's hoping that all is well and all goes well for them!

 

[MillieDynamite]

Amen!

As for TxRad... Here's hoping that all is well and all goes well for them!

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Spanner brings to mind this
View attachment 2338964
Which is actually a caliper but measures the span of an opening

Spanner brings to mind "You spanner, Rodney!"from Only Fools & Horses (and your bog-standard wrench, of course, on the correct side of the pond).

Or the Operation Spanner case, if people want something a bit more Lit-appropriate...

I have a daft injury to my thumbs so am back to typing with just 1 thumb and finger. Autocorrect is mostly v helpful.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I could see how an adjustable wench might tighten a few nuts.

Which leads to the joke about swimming in spanner water - it tightens your nuts.

 

[colddiesel]

I did know that. It was one of a number of shows aimed at getting more people to watch colour TV.

Ronnie's great, but there's other contenders.

My dad got me into watching the odd bit of snooker with him. He liked Steve Davis. So one night he agreed I could stay up and watch the fourth session of the World Snooker Championship final at the Crucible, to see who won.

Yes, it was 1985 and the match that went on forever, or rather, was won 18-17 with a 63-minute final frame. It still holds the record for a post-midnight UK TV audience (18.3 million, so nearly 1 in 3 of the country watched it).

One of my great regrets was that I missed that final (was in the USA) which, indisputably to my mind was the greatest ever. Played between two great characters it is easy to forget that Dennis Taylor was never ahead of Steve Davies in the 36 frame match until the final black ball of the final frame

 

[NotWise]

Taco Tuesday came on Monday.

I had a sudden curiosity about what happened to Telstar -- the US communication satellite launched in 1962. Don't ask me why, I just did.

It's still out there, but it was decommission just about seven months after it was launched. Why? Depends on your source. One said it was because its electronics were damaged by Van Alan Belt radiation. The Wikipedia article says it was damaged by a US high-altitude thermonuclear test codenamed Starfish. Either way, it stopped working.

That caused me to remember Telstar the hit single instrumental from 1962 recorded by The Tornados (a British band). Here's the video. I guess it was the first instrumental to hit #1 on the US top 100 list.

My wife didn't haven't any recollection of it at all, but she's a few years younger than I am.

 

[MrPixel]

That caused me to remember Telstar the hit single instrumental from 1962 recorded by The Tornados (a British band).

Instant earworm! Wow! Love that little ditty.

I tend to go with the EMP story. Fits well with the general technology carelessnesses and sweeping-under-the-carpet of the '50s and early '60s. "Duck and cover" anyone?

 

[Duleigh]

What an earworm. It used to be EVERYWHERE!!!!!(yes, that's five)

Coffee is on! Pardon my tardyness but I was celebrating my town getting off their butts to fix the damn streets. They're gravel roads, how hard is it to hire a road grader!!!!!(yes, that's five also) I'm also celebrating launch of another discworld story The Assistant Librarian It's only about 8k words and is a quick, silly read. It's an On The Job event entry but if you want to read it now, I'll let you.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Done. Ook!

 

[MrPixel]

With taxes filed over the weekend (all refund!) and the On the Job story done and alive, there has been a fantastic burden lifted from my chest. I feel free to play with other things. Such as...

...downloading music composition software and getting to work on a Mahler transcription I've been wanting to do for years. Making some headway already, but I suspect it's going to be an all-summer project. This is much to C's chagrin since my hours to work on it are, so far, 2300-0200. With her foot in an ortho boot from surgery, she and the dog are nonstop interruptions (if not demands) during normal waking hours. Being alone with my thoughts is a big challenge right now.

Quoting C's friend, "I can sleep after I die."

Thanks for doing the coffee, D. Need to pour myself a second cup.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Ah, Telstar!

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

I guess it was the first instrumental to hit #1 on the US top 100 list.

"The Happy Organ," an instrumental by Dave "Baby" Cortez, was #1 in 1959. I remembered this (yeah, I'm that old), but just looked it up to confirm it.

 

[NotWise]

"The Happy Organ," an instrumental by Dave "Baby" Cortez, was #1 in 1959. I remembered this (yeah, I'm that old), but just looked it up to confirm it.

"The Happy Organ?" Jesus help me. They couldn't have meant what I'm thinking, could they?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Morning peeps, how's the world treating everyone? Have we heard from TX yet? I'm doing Carmel Cream (why do they call it that? There's only cream in it you put in, and I don't).

 

[orangecurious]

"The Happy Organ," an instrumental by Dave "Baby" Cortez, was #1 in 1959. I remembered this (yeah, I'm that old), but just looked it up to confirm it.

Telstar was the first US #1 by a UK band.

 

[NotWise]

There might not be an end to the things I can stumble over in my writing.

How would a Japanese ghost sound? I've established that Hector hears English while Shizu (my ghost) speaks Japanese. I don't have much trouble dropping the subject (now and then), articles, and plural nouns to give her a distinct voice, but I think I'm going to balk at writing her in subject-object-verb order.

With, “I don’t speak English, Soto-sama. Perhaps English you hear,” I have no trouble ordering the second sentence as subject-object-verb, but when I do that with the first sentence it becomes "I English don't speak, Soto-sama."

That could be too much getting in the way. (That in the way could be too much getting.)

 

[Duleigh]

How would a Japanese ghost sound? I've established that Hector hears English while Shizu (my ghost) speaks Japanese. I don't have much trouble dropping the subject (now and then), articles, and plural nouns to give her a distinct voice, but I think I'm going to balk at writing her in subject-object-verb order.

It's a ghost, of course she speaks Japanese. Rather than "hearing English" why not try saying "Even though Hector speaks no Japanese, for some reason he understood what Shizu was saying to him." Problem solved, start the ghost-bang.

 

[NotWise]

It's a ghost, of course she speaks Japanese. Rather than "hearing English" why not try saying "Even though Hector speaks no Japanese, for some reason he understood what Shizu was saying to him." Problem solved, start the ghost-bang.

The part where Hector understands Shizu despite the language barrier has already been established, but there's a lot of dialog, and Shizu needs her own voice--or at least I want to give her her own voice. The banging starts later, like after Hector decides that he hasn't gone fuckin' nuts.

The cat is making little noises and tapping my arm. I think I'll go feed him.

 

[Duleigh]

Morning peeps, how's the world treating everyone?

Super busy. Trying to publish a few stories and they really need a clean-up first. This is where a hobby becomes a job.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

"The Happy Organ?" Jesus help me. They couldn't have meant what I'm thinking, could they?

The title referred to the keyboard instrument that produced the music. There was surely some snickering in 1959 about organ happiness. Perhaps this could have been averted if the tune's title was "The Happy Mighty Hammond B-3," but the record label's sales department might have objected. Also, the payola scandal was just about to bubble into public awareness, so maybe it was decided that rumors of taking money under the table from Hammond would be worse that everyone thinking that the title was dirty.

 

[Duleigh]

@NotWise and @JuanSeiszFitzHall - thanks for the memory. I did not know that "The Happy Organ" was the name of that ear worm. I remember every piano student playing that back in "the day". It's clearly in the Top Ten of Earworms followed closely by Rinky Dink (Someone should have had a long talk with Dave "Baby" Cortez about song titles)

The coffee is on, fresh and hot and 100% Arabica! DM me and I'll let you know how meaningless that title is. The work continues, Andi's Dream Chapter 10, Captain Scarlett Episode 3, and the overall clean-up and editing so I can dump them all on Laurel and say "here, repost everything I've written in the past four years."

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Any idea how to close out a LinkedIn account? Without going into the reasons, I just want off. I've tried what is suggested, but it will not accept the final icon-push. Thanks.

 

[Duleigh]

Any idea how to close out a LinkedIn account? Without going into the reasons, I just want off. I've tried what is suggested, but it will not accept the final icon-push. Thanks.

I've been trying for years, I've closed up everything I could find but I still remain in their database and harass me with reminders that I used to be a functioning part of society

 

[NotWise]

I hunted up "The Happy Organ." It isn't familiar to me. I would have been five years old at the time and I don't recall spending any time with the radio until a couple years later. Time crawls by when you're that age, but when I look back at it, everything happened quickly.