why i gotta type more?
gbx, safe travels to UK (mmmm curry; I’m super jealous). And “enjoy” Hastings. I will be there tomorrow. Kids want to go to children’s liturgy mass with their cousins; my mother is thrilled. A. and I... not so thrilled...
i might be able to swing the bierstube, but time is tight with last-minute shopping (thanks Bozeman PD!) and trip preparations. i may also be heading into the city for some stuff, we’ll see.
thanks Bozeman PD!
?! Story here?
i got a $200 Crimestopper reward!
Wow—what did you do to get that?!
(Also, how was your semester and are you done with orgo? Important questions must be answered!)
GBX, as far as music goes there are two Momus shows on the 4th and 5th in London—the latter is at Tate Britain. Other than that, not so sure. Shows slow-going that time of January but what I do recommend is drinking in bars like Prague and The Foundry in Shoreditch because they are cheaper than your average scenester places but still full of challenging haircuts. AVOID fri/sat nights because of lairy people from outer edges of town. Eating there also cheap because of good Vietnamese. Try Cay Tre on Old Street or Viet Hoa on Kingsland Road. Spitalfields market has been semi-gentrified but is still well worth visiting for vintage and trendy clothes by small producers—not terribly expensive. Also, the sales will be on and you could maybe visit the Comme des Garcons etc. temple known as Dover Street Market in Piccadilly (hilariously it is right across from an Orvis store, just to make it easier for outdoorsy MN types to find). They have a top-floor cafe that is worth it for a treat.
For curry I always send people to Shampan on Brick Lane, Diwana (veg, Sunday = paneer day) on Drummond Street, Kastoori (vegetarian) in Tooting or you should just amble on down to Southall for the Asian Suburb experience and choose any restaurant—although I prefer the Punjabee. They have a good Sri Lankan on tghe way from train station to the Broadway there.
SRC: the details of my crimestopping have been posted before, I think? me and my buddies intervened when some guy was getting savagely beaten on someone’s front lawn. EMT skillz. Orgo: gotta B because the prof only hands out full grades. which means that my B+ has been lowered and my classmate’s B- got bootstrapped. i wouldn’t normally be so petty about things like that, but i’m trying to get into medical school, and the difference between a 3.5 and a 3.0 is not insignificant. bitch bitch bitch.
suzy: sweet. i’ll have to cut and paste that. i’m definitely into cheap. we’ll be staying in W2 (i think??), if that means anything.
Huh, I must have missed those details—good job, gbx. I know where to go if I need a bodyguard.
Argh on your prof, that sucks about the full grade thing. When will you be doing your med school applications? (I have an ex who is doing it now—at age 38 or 39. I’m pretty sure your orgo grade is better than his was, too. Plus he took that class in, like, 1988 or something. Not much doubt in my mind that both of you will get in, actually.)
doing apps this summer, for fall 08 matriculation. i think as long as i bring up the orgo grade next semester i’m fine (and i got As in everything else), but it was still a bit of a bummer.
Ah, that means you’ll definitely have to go to Southall. You will be near Paddington and commuter trains go from that station—Southall is in Zone 4 so get a Z1–4 pass that day. W2 dining options are Khan’s (proper curry) near the corner of Westbourne Grove and Queensway, and the best Dim Sum at Royal China on Queensway. There are also lots of middle eastern/lebanese/turkish places there—try Ranoush for pre-faddy juices and smoothies and mezze.
Help, everyone: my mom has a headcold and is getting mean! I brought her the best matzoh ball soup in the Cities and she is being a total fucking bitch, still. Not even a thank you, which is a hanging offence when she doesn’t get one. She accused me of not speaking English and I was this close to telling her to get fucked, and was that English too difficult for her etc. KILLKILLKILL.
However also from this deli: proper corned beef and black-as-night pumpernickel.
I’m not much for Bodyguard material.
I’m more Hitman material.
I once many years ago considred that as a profession. Very briefly.
Like, 10 minutes.
gbx—You’ll be fine, but still, I’m annoyed with your prof on your behalf. Have you done the MCAT yet?
Ugh suzy, so sorry about your mother. Slip her some kind of cold medicine that will knock her out for many hours. Also, where did you get the matzoh ball soup? That sounds awesome.
just started studying for the MCAT. waiting for my diagnostic results to come in.
suzy: heard the lebanese stuff up there was the jam. will have to cross-reference w/our friends that live in the hood for optimum eating efficiency
GBX—they must live awfully near the Edgware Road, which pretty much goes mezze hookah joint deli juice bar hookah hookah hookah mezze juice kebab kebab mezze deli tagine mezze hookah. And just near Edgware Road Bakerloo station, Mandalay, the Burmese restaurant which is cheap and LOVELY.
ooooh, hookah joint!
Sadly no joints, Leb or otherwise, at the hookah places.
Sarah, it’s Crossroads Deli at the Minnetonka/Hopkins border. My mother now in Sinutab coma of her own devisement so reprieve for another few hours. Next: wrapping declassé presents for my little cousins like pink or purple clothing and EZ Bake Oven and utter crap I would never give on ‘turns you into a total cracker, pregnant at 12’ grounds. I love wrapping when it’s not all my sister’s stuff that she’s just dumped and said ‘wrap this’.
Thanks suzy! Someday I shall check it out.
Wrapping: only one thing left; the 285 piece Magnetix set I bought for my husband. Contemplating pain of going to store to buy a gift bag and fighting crowds vs. pain of attempting to wrap something really awkward. Hmmmmmm.
If your sister makes you wrap things, you should do it badly so that she doesn’t dump things on you anymore...
Oh, I need a photocopy of a 4 year degree to put my name on so I can get a Japanese Visa.
With luck i might be staying there and mailing the souveniers back.
John’s is my first choice, because while no employer cares if you have one, the Visa people do, and on the off chance someone asks me what my favorite philosopher is, I can just say Wittgestein and then BS my way though the conversation(No one understands him, and a big part of his thing is philosophy is a big waste of energy, so if I side with that...).
However, I’ll take anything.
They don’t call the schools or anything, which is hilarious, but convenient. People do it all the time.
I would count that as 5 years worth of awesome xmess presents, which I would return in kind with a portion of the money made employed there.
I will find the irony delicious when my USA 1.24 high school GPA ass is teaching in Japan and doing a good job. Yeah.
Putting spite to good use for the good of mankind...orsomething.
Do 4 year degrees even have your major on them? I don’t remember! Hmmmm, I’m not sure I’d even know where to look for mine.
Hmmm. I dunno.
They might just say Bachelors Degree of Arts and Science or something.
Funny note: Guy at Primerica who should be doing about 100k/yr right now saw that and said “What? I was studying for an Advertising Degree!”
He’s since thrown it away, because it had nothing to do with any of the money he’s made.
If only I’d known I’d have had use for it... but then does a degree from River Falls count anywhere in the world? ;)
River Falls?
Yeah, he went to UW River Falls. Alot of people at that office went there, and there’s alot of derogatory humour about it there.
I should stop up there, come to think of it. Say hi.
I’ll do it before I go.
I’d have ordered this by now, but why pay the insane shipping when I can stuff it in my luggage.
I’m probably going to come back with twice as much as I came with.Hell, I might leave some clothes!(if i come back....)
John, or anyone who’s ever thought aobut playing a violin:
??????????????/
John, your mother’s family was just like everyone with their first recording device.
Though listening to a 78 at 45+10% makes a baby crying very frightening.
This is now incredibly cute.
I killed the big pops with a limiter set just above the threshold for the actual max vocal volume.
I will now Megaupload the WAV file to you, and burn two copies just in case.
Maer Xmess.
Thank you so much for that. My mom is also incredibly excited to hear it.
You rock.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
I overate today and also discovered for sure that my husband is an unbelievably brilliant plotter. In a good way. :)
Why aren’t bars open for us god-hating heathens?
^^^^ FOR REAL
gettin drunk at home.
I’m not god hating, just not a fan of YHWH or whatever. Well, more the followers of the second-wave.
In any case, who’s doing things on New Years Eve. Because I currently lack plans, and want to be drunk that day.
I wish I knew how to get surround-sound ot like...work properly. I have six mono wave files and 9.2 WMA file, which isn’t something I know what to do with. i can’t even TEST this shit without more speakers.
Anyone have reciever with 5.1 analog inputs/the ability to play surround-sound music files? All I ask is I send you big files and you tell me what happens when you play it.
All I have as yet is an intro file. I have to devote a whole day to creating the rest of the song. mess of wires, hours conscructing a drumbeat from samples created in a purely digital environment...
I’m not looking forward to this, but I have the song stuck in my head and I must spit it out...
Thank you for allowing the preliminary rant that this song shall become the sequel to.
Oh, and in regards to that record:
That was a fucking ORDEAL. not to like, make it seem like I deserve any kind of extra-credit something or anything.
It’s just that dealing with damaged vinyl is not something I want to do again too soon.
Step one: clean(FUCKBEANS that thing was dirty!)
Step Two: drench with water, but you need to put some kind of surfractant on the platter or in the water. I used up half a bottle of vinyl cleaner to do that. Also, I’m glad that record players are passive. *KRZZAPP* would have been the bad bad sound.
Step Three: Penny on the head. Double-sided tape is nice.
Step four, CRANK the anti-skate, because I think it might have had an error in the ‘pressing’ that caused an error right before the all-family chourus of ‘jingle bells.’
Step FIVE: watch/listen to the thing constantly because you’ll need to MANUALLY CORRECT at times. I had to push the needle through a skip in Jingle Bells.
Before the digital speed-up it sounded like a conglomeration of samples from Severed Heads/Fantomas Sessions.
I had to do it twice because apparantly I had an echo bus set up in Reaper without knowing it so when I hit ‘Render’ the result was the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard(not really).
Oh, and a fellow named Davy Graham obviously listened to alot of Kottke.
Did an album with Shirley Collins, which I am now listening to.
After listening to alot of Kottke commentaries during his shows, I think the insane descritpions of his songs are true on some level.
After playing Busted Bicycle: “I saw that bicycle... I was with*insert musician’s name* on the roof of his apartment building. He was...rather proud of the new bicycle he’d just bought, and pointed down at it, chained to a lightpost. At that moment, a car came down the street and ran straight into it. Utterly destroying it.” Paraphrased, but yeah.
He’s awesome.
Write a song about being pissed off at girl scouts who tanted him for being bad at canoeing....ok....
I just realized that I was within miles of gbreduneketc. tonight. MOMENTOUS HSTNGS EVENT!
Does it count as momentous in HSTNGS if everyone involved survived to tell the tale?
wait, you were? where?
On a side-note, the Triple Rock has invited me(and...well, anyone on their myspace contacts...) to come there tonight and...drink.
I’[m inclided to accept.
Anyone else in?
Wish I could; oyster stew awaits me in HSTNGS. It seems clear that you will need to have the drink I would have if I could. (At this moment, I would say a Bloody Mary, but then again it is before noon...)
Have fun!
Unfortunately, I’m not sufficiently jaymc to know for sure, but I thought you lived out by the ancestral Justen family home...I’m of Red Wing blvd extraction, myself. EIther that or as I drove through HSTNGS trying to figure out why there’s a Panera bread company there, and what the fuck they did to my old middle school :/
xxpost.
Might be able to make 3 rock, might not...
On a vital note, when DO liquor stores open back up? Someone must want to capitalize on Xmas family woes.
Liquor stores should be open tomorrow; I’m pretty sure House of Wines Hastings will open at 9 am. Not sure about the Red Wing stores. Or anything in the Cities. But yeah, still a huge season for liquor stores until closing time Dec. 31.
Okay, it freaks me out to drive past where the junior high was, too. (I still can’t say “middle school” automatically.) Did you find Panera? It’s by Target, across 55 from where the new high school is.
Have fun tonight, whatever your plans guys.
Arg I’m out of it. Why is there a Panera in HSTNGS? To provide bagels and soup. It’s sort of mediocre, but the people who work there have been good-humored about the Widows’ occasionally loud antics.
Every time I read Panera I first see ‘Pantera.’
Then Beavis appears in my head and says something like “Pantera’s in Hastings? WHOA!eheheheheheh...”
Yeah, if ones of triple rockings are goings call my phones.
I’m sick of this room.
PS, John, want some COIL?
I downloaded a ton of it on a whim.
It’s INSANE... but then i’m working from reputation and memory.
OH YEAH! This is ACTUALLY Hastings related! That stoner-run hole of a record/guitar store on main st. or whatever in downtown Hastings has a copy of Horse Rovorvator on vinyl.
That’s quite possibly INSANELY undervalued there.
Whoever gets it can have the profits. I’m the plague when it comes to risky investing.
This is why I’m gonna get a copy of a degree, get a stable job in Japan(teachers don’t get fired, they quit) and invest in Legg Mason mutual funds.
My kids will live like I did when I was a kid: Poe(phonetically, not metaphorically) Folks.
I wanna be like, RICH by the time I’d 45 but the kids getting all PISSED that they don’t have any game systems that aren’t ANTIQUES that i’m constnatly fixing. Then when some kid calls them poor in school, I’m gonna GO UP TO THAT KID and show them my statement.
“See that, kid? Ask your dad how much he’s got in liquid assets when you get home. His/her high school is already payed for, how are they gonna pay for yours?”
Not literally, because it’ll be in Japanese, not only in language, but syntax and ...symbology(...NAMEOLOGY!!).
If I tried to do that in English or a literal translation, I’d end up like my dad with the pink around my eyes turning red, my face quiverring and VEINS popping out...
To be fair, replacing the old junior high/middle school with condos and coffee was probably the best thing they could have done.
Dan, it’s not that I think they should have kept the middle school up; it was not really usable any more. I just feel like I can still see it the way it was (with the library across from it). A lot of the changes in town strike me that way. (Hell, I just spent a day at my parent’s new house, which will never feel like a home to me. I miss the house on Louis Lane, dammit. Most of my memories were there.)
Newport+Fancy walkways=BUH?
Come comes down next to some fancy sign and foliage(one block from a garbage plant), the other next to gravel, semi trailers and an ugly square building.
My Japanese mom will laugh at the manga I will buy there, as the ones I’ve decided “Yeah, i need to buy that” are either pervy, deal with androgeny on various levels, or both... I just noticed that about 2 hours ago.
Her husband will make faces at some of them, but he’s kind of a perv to begin with, and he’s a big geek. He’s a geek in denial.
Happy Boxing Day, HSTNGS Thread dwellers!
Who do I get to hit on boxing day?
Canadians?
I think that’s up to you, John. (And I can say that since—although I’m French Canadian on my mother’s side, I’m a good, safe distance from St. Paul.)
IF I GET TO HIT CANADIANS, I HAVE A NEW HOLIDAY FAVORITE.
Let the dream be true.
Think it’s time to deal with those anger issues, John? Oh, what the hell, it’s a holiday. We should just let you enjoy it.
WHY U BRAEK MY CHARMING ATTRIBUTES?
Just trying to protect you from more distortions of your skeletal system. And the attendant medical bills.
Have you ever met a Canadian? They’re frail, wispy people...
We need to invent a slur for Canadians. “Nucks” has already been coined by David Foster Wallace, but I think that HSTNGS can do better.
THEY ARE AMASSED ON OUR NORTHERN BORDER, PEOPLE! THE TIME FOR ACTION IS AT HAND!
John, when you’re arrested for instigating an “international incident,” I’m not bailing you out this time.
Also—I am not frail or wispy, and I never have been. (I will admit to possibility that this is due to Irish/German/Norwegian heritage on other side).
I went to Canada on my honeymoon. I don’t remember thinking that the people there were frail or wispy. But I might have been distracted. LOTS of good food in Winnipeg. For one thing.
ALL CANADIANS LOOK LIKE THE KID FROM “RUDOLF THE RED-NOSED REINDEER”. THIS IS INCONTREVERTIBLE FACT.
They also hate freedom, which is why we now call it “freedom bacon”.
John, it may be time to revisit whether taking those drugs in college was such a good idea. Or possibly it’s just time for a visit to the optometrist. You make the call.
I suggest that we call them “Hermeys”, courtesy of the aforementioned elf-boy.
No matter what you say or do, I don’t think you’re going to get to replace John Bolton at the UN, John. Not even if you imitate the ridiculous mustache.
Furthermore, since when are you surrounded by “frail, wispy people?” P3rry alone looks like he could throw regular sized people across a room.
I regularly give the Fench Canadian portion of my heritage a beating.
Thing is, it always just rolls over and takes it, but whines about it later.
I just spent like 20 minutes of 2 tracks of a drumbeat.
I think I may move that into a drum machine program as opposed to torturing myself in constructing it manually. It’s in 4/4 and everything.
Problems come in that I want to wang on metal objects for one track and I’m without good overhead mic(s) currently.
That and syncing. I figure if I give myself a decent lead time I can correct, so long as both playback and recording are digital.
I’ll get that platter to you tomorrow John, along with 2 CDs with the same WAV file on them.
Note: The cleaning and watering process lostened the label on one side.
Did I ever tell you guys about how one of the kids I was driving the summer I worked as a van driver for Dakota County’s bad bad chilluns summer program was the living embodiment of “The Bad Seed” who was in the program because she tried to burn down the old middle school? She was 13 and her mom dressed her like one of those creepy dolls but she talked and acted like Regan from “The Exorcist”. I bet she loves those new condos (they look more flammable, for one thing).
Canadians are about as wispy as Minnesotans, in my experience. They also tend to smell like sasquatch pie.
Dan, seriously. Your autobiography in 2007. I think we’d all enjoy that. (Plus, what summer did you do that?!)
What the hell is sasquatch pie? When did you start sniffing Canadians?
i saw a football match on boxing day. well good.
hi dere, i am in england
gbx are you having fun? I’m jealous!
“Winter break” from school is too long.
Hi Sara!
I’m just sitting here getting ready to see my dad for lunch. I PH3AR he will try to take me to Country Buffet (remember, my dad = Homer Simpson). So not gonna happen...I’ve already told him I would rather eat a urinal cake.
Giboyeux, how’s the LDN?
not in LDN yet — still oop north
Hi Suzy!
I am sitting here, accomplishing exactly nothing. Um, except downloading cds to my computer and hoping my kids will behave.
Country Buffet? I’m with you. Good luck...
I want to know if gbx is eating curry everyday, as promised.
Yorks or Lancs, G?
Curry is a distinct possibility oop north, like. Also for surprisingly good curry in the TC, Sara, there are these veggie curries in Byerly’s Indian section for $3 a sachet or thereabouts which are super-spicy. I had a “cottage cheese and peas” one (mutter paneer) and found it good enough to satisfy my craving. I suspect it will be much better than other TC options which tend to not restrict their curry purveyance to Indian subcontinent.
Mmmmy Byerly’s. I had no clue they had those, thanks for the tip Suzy! I looooove super-spicy stuff. Northfield has two Indian restaurants now—Chapati (good, but pricey) and Kurry Kabob—which I can’t bring myself to enter because the name is so goofy. I’ve had good take-out from Sambol in Eagan, but can’t speak to authenticity because I’m clueless on that level.
It is depressing me now that I’m probably just going to have a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch.
Lancs. Forgotten how much I like a northern accent. It’s well good. Especially from the mouths of babes — I’ve got a grip of iddle second cousins now, and they’re unstoppably cute.
Had curry for dinner last night! And a samosa for lunch today.
Which Lancs?
SRC, Indian place closest to me has too pan-Asian a menu and has beef dishes, WTF? Real Indians don’t kill cows, even for Minnewegians. Kurry Kabob will be Pakistani/Punjabi so I’d say get over there, it’s probably going to be better than you’d expect. Clue: if they allude to meat in the restaurant’s name you’re probably looking at a North Indian. Sambol just guessin’ is south Indian.
I want a samosa now.
Hmmmm, maybe I can overlook the Kurry Kabob name. It is the “K”s that have been driving me away! What is it I always get from Sambol... some kind of cheese in a creamy sauce that is spicy and colored orange. Palak Paneer maybe?
Okay the thing with the beef is really weird.
That’s palak paneer. Byerly’s has that *and* saag paneer and muttar paneer.
The other weird thing is that the Indian place had no lamb dishes.
Why do I live in a godforsaken place, so far from Byerly’s?
I’m starving now, btw.
No lamb dishes? :(
I am trying to find a way to get a few boxes of wild rice soup through customs.
It’s a prescription... you have to have the wild rice or you’re mysterious illness will return and you’ll DIE.
Okay, clearly time for me to go eat something, huh.
i am in clith3r03
twenty minutes from blackburn. mom’s got old friends from the south over and we’ve been talking about horses all night.
Did You Know: a horses shoulders are called ‘whithers’?
I know nothing of teh horses! Are you just discussing horses or are you going to go ride them or pet them or at least see them, too?
Unless my sister goes into labor tonight, I must go to HSTNGS to my niece’s birthday party. I suppose I should go wrap her gift.
gbx, you spelled “clitoris” wrong, but congratulations on your location nonetheless.
Unless your location “in clitoris” is connected to your new-found horse info, in which case you’re on your own.
Call me conservative, but I kind of hope he’s on his own anyway in this case.
Yes I knew that about the horsies.
Lunch with my dad was classic; we went to a restaurant on the former site of the amusement park in Excelsior which closed when I was 5 or 6; however the carousel from said park moved to Valleyfair.
Fun lunch! I love amusement parks. Roller coasters!!! However, I think the last time I was at Valleyfair I was a junior in high school. I have to take A. there sometime. (Also, I had no idea there was ever an amusement park in Excelsior).
Mia’s b-day party was pretty good, considering. Swimming pool, hot tub, pizza... why do 3 year olds get better parties than I do, though? Unfair.
My dad loves going out to Excelsior and giving the nostalgia tour: “Here is where I did my paper route on horseback. This is where I used to stable my horse. I had about a dozen forts built around this bay. Real good ones. Here is where Danceland used to be; I saw the Rolling Stones there and across the street is the gas station where they peed on the tanks.”
See, there’s a reason I know about the horsies.
“If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.”
Fuck, I need to call my old boss so I can photocopy his degree and use it with questionable legality and ethics.
One way or aonother it’s getting done.
Will I eventually have my own 4 year Degree? yeah.
I just refuse to go into debt for it.
Dad’s love the nostalgia tours, don’t they. I still live in fear that mine is going to insist on taking me to drive on a frozen pond to “teach me to drive on the ice”—doubtless the same one he learned on. I try not to be in Cannon Falls at the same time he is. Sadly, he never had horses... that would have been preferable.
GZeus, I’m going into debt and I won’t even get a degree, just a certificate (okay, well, and allegedly I’ll be able to be an RN after I finish, assuming I can pass the boards). I already have the B.A. Still going into debt. Madness!!!!
“Helen E. Nebeker’s essay, ”The Lottery: Symbolic Tour de Force“ in American Literature (March, 1974) reveals that every major name in the story has a special significance:
By the end of first two paragraphs, Jackson has carefully indicated the season, time of ancient excess and sacrifice, and the stones, most ancient of sacrificial weapons. She has also hinted at larger meanings through name symbology.”
I actually have to consider whether or not to read the rest of this review because he wrote ‘symbology.’
Sara I am now so bored I am annoying Willie the Poodle by staging photos of him using my computer.
Do not read reviews of old short stories. Cuz that’s just silly.
Suzy, it is too bad you are not closer to Northfield; I could sneak out the window and we could... uh... go to the Rueb, I guess. Instead, you must photograph poodles and I will be forced to fold laundry. The horror, the horror!
I will have a photo of Willie posting to the HSTINGS thread before vtoo long but it’s too dark to get much of a good’un.
Promises, promises...
One I just did was too dark but it’s amazing what I can accomplish with small pieces of Xmas prime rib leftovers. Yes, this is the world’s most spoiled dog, but is not a show-cut poodle and follows the commands SIT! SMILE! DANCE! and the classic DEAD DOG!
I would in fact feed him leftovers forever for soaking my sister by pressing every single power window in her Durango while going through car wash that one time after traumatic visit to dog groomer. That’s one of his more specialised tricks.
omg, that is hysterical. Not to mention that I’m sure I’m going to have a crazy dream about poodles tonight now...