Watercooler 0: Nothing Is A Problem For Me

Oh god, my face is burning with shame.

Best insight: One student, writing about Shakespeare's Sonnet 20 (the one in which the speaker bemoans the fact that his beloved--a man--is, in fact a man. The speaker suggests that nature fell in love with this creature, and so wanting the beloved for herself, makes him a man by adding "one thing".), noticed that, unlike the majority of the sonnets, this one has 11 syllables a line (instead of the usual 10). She theorized that the extra syllable at the end of each line represented that "one thing added". Brilliant!

I remember looking around the hall at my fellow uni students on graduation day, and wondering who amongst us would go on to greatness of any sort in the future (answer = none, really!)

Just a thought: if this thread breasts 1000 posts before ILX3 goes live, will it be replaced with Watercooler Thread -1?

Ah, that sounds great, Gooblar - though reminds me of something Ian linked to on my blog, ha ha.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39205

you couldn't have said "reaches", could you?

OTM

I retry.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/Rainbow.jpg

I want a boat.

And who on earth left a message on the band MySpace saying I was "dreamy"? Come on, fess up. No one in their right mind would say that unless they were taking the piss.

From Jersey, apparently, but no idea.

My school physics techer said this was rubbish and it was better to just shout ROY-G-BIV! He would come into class in the morning and shout "YOUNG ROY-G-BIV RULES!" - it sounded stupid at the time but it obviously worked as I remember it some 20-odd years later.

Why do we bother with this "indigo-violet" nonsense anyway? Look at the rainbow - it's quite clearly red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-more purple. "indigo-violet" is just poncey pretentious rubbish, the kind of colours you only get in clothing catalogues where they think "blue" sounds too common so they sell you "azure" jeans.

Weird.

The "indigo" was added by Newton I think because it was the thing at the time that all natural things should come in 7 - like the known planets at the time. It was just one of those "magic numbers".

Azure.

Some day I will meet someone with Azure Eyes, that would be the coolest thing ever.

(It's almost my favourite colour, as well. Except that is actually Cobalt, which is close, but darker.)

How does sugar arrive at the Docklands? Like, in what form? It obviously needs to be refined, but is it solid, liquid, super saturated sludge? Or big hunks of sugar cane and/or beets?

http://www.tateandlyle.com/TateAndLyle/our_business/about_our_processes/about_refining/default.htm

Once harvested, the cut canes must be processed as quickly as possible to conserve the sugar and to prevent microbial degradation.This first stage of processing is carried out in factories close to the growing area. The canes are cleaned, crushed and shredded, then sprayed with hot water to extract the juice. The juice is filtered, concentrated by evaporation under vacuum, and crystallised, before being removed from the remaining mother liquor by centrifuge.

Once the economic limit of extraction of sugar from sugar syrups is reached, we are left with the remaining mother liquid, known as 'molasses'. This is a useful by-product which may be used for fermentation processes or animal feed. Bagasse, the residual fibre from the cane, is mainly used as boiler fuel at the factory.

At this point, the sugar is partly purified and in a concentrated, crystallised, microbiologically stable form suitable for bulk handling, storage and transport to refineries around the world.

The raw cane sugar is despatched by bulk carriers to refining plants usually located close to deep water terminals such as at Tate & Lyle Europe's refinery in London. The storage shed at our Thames refinery can hold up to 70,000 tonnes – sufficient to supply the refinery for about 20 days of normal production.

Mmmm, molasses.

"Western Brass" (what I did last night)

I think it's coffeetime.

Either that or I'm going to run away and join the Gypsies like Maggie in the Mill on the Floss.

Let me tell you what isn't fun - manouvering a flight case on a crowded rush hour train. Bah.

It makes me mad, what with cnutish idiots rambling on complete gobshite about how there aren't actually any shoegazer guitars in Shimura Curves and I only say there are because I'm "rockist". Like, WTF do you think is in this case? An Uzi? I wish it were coz I'd gun your sorry ass down like a tarrantino.

Pot, kettle, etc?

God, he's *SUCH* an idiot.

Even my mum thinks that he looks like my brother. She said "PLEASE don't go out with him, Kate - think what the children would be like!"

As if. Hah ha hah.

Rockism is an ideology of popular music criticism, originating in the British music press in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The fundamental tenet of rockism is that some forms of popular music, and some musical artists, are more authentic than others. More specifically, authentic popular music fits the rock and roll paradigm; it is made using the basic rock instrumentation of guitars, bass guitars and drums, and fits the structures of a rock and roll song.

...a fine insult from someone dismissing Britney Spears for being inauthentic.

The term is sort of malleable though, isn't it? As in, it can be used to run down any music you don't like by criticising the process behind its creation (or something).