2D8HP's extended mea culpa and Random Banter #218

[Peelee]

Has anyone ever actually seen Super Mario and Ron Jeremy in the same room together?

BLASPHEMY! You besmirch the name of Captain Lou Albano, good sir!

[Bartmanhomer]

We're almost there to 50 Pages for this random banter thread. I called dibs on the next random banter thread.

[Peelee]

We're almost there to 50 Pages for this random banter thread. I called dibs on the next random banter thread.

I'd put my quarter on the machine right beside yours, but it's just a tad too early for that.

[2D8HP]

Why am I so tired??

Too much carbon dioxide in the air where you sleep?

[Peelee]

Why am I so tired??

It's the sleep apnea!

I kid, but if it's a constant thing you should maybe look into a sleep study.

[Mith]

Too much carbon dioxide in the air where you sleep?

I don't know where in Canada Zodiac's from, but I know I'm feeling the smoke from BC fires, and I am in Edmonton. So being closer will definitely not help.

[Kyrell1978]

I'd put my quarter on the machine right beside yours, but it's just a tad too early for that.

I never got that custom. It always seemed to me like a good way to get your quarter stolen.

[Peelee]

I never got that custom. It always seemed to me like a good way to get your quarter stolen.

That's how I felt too, even when doing it, but it always worked as intended. Kids respected the quarter.

[Anonymouswizard]

You should post the joke. I need a new joke before my coworker gets back from vacation...

Bare in mind that I only have the punchline so far, as it requires either the very specific situation I was in or a very long setup. So if you end up in a half-decent situation make up your own setup (although the joke is much more suited to a standup routine).

Spoiler

Show

So the main bit of important information is that I work at an old folks home. In the kitchen personally, but my job involves a lot of walking about to make sure food and equipment is where it's supposed to be. This includes making sure reception is stocked with everything besides decent coffee (they have the only coffee maker in the building, so decent coffee is always sent there and not to the kitchen).

Unfortunately many of our residents don't get frequent visitors for one reason or another, and it can take time for them to move beyond reception if it's a busy period.

Now, by some weird coincidence, the only people who work reception are attractive young women. So I'm sure you can guess what the punchline is.

Spoiler: Punchline, warning really bad unless you're in exactly that situation

Show

So is the theory that a pretty woman on reception will attract more visitors?

Unfortunately a garbled delivery made me completely ruin it, although the recipient still found it funny. Also it could have so easily come across as inappropriate.

Also: I discovered that 2 of my single colleagues are extremely shy, to the point that I am the one joking with the really cute waitress even though I set up several hooks for them to join the conversation and informed them beforehand . Might be caused by the fact they both like her and I am not invested in the situation. EDIT: Yeah, I feel stupid for trying to set them up. Should just leave things like they are.

Also may have discovered the reason why the third colleague is single.

I've been in that situation. Also been the one person in the group to not recognise when girls are hitting on me.


Also when I started this job I had to spend weeks convincing people that I didn't have a girlfriend, partially because I tended to spend a lot of my free time messaging people (mainly friends in China), partially for god knows what reason.

[AuthorGirl]

*peeks around door*

Well, hi to everybody, I have no idea what's going on for y'all.

Life has been relatively good lately and I get to start a creative writing course at the local high school (as in, physically attending said course) in September. So that's something to look forward to

[Peelee]

We decided on grilled cheese tonight. And in our way to get the necessary ingredients, stopped into a different kind of store on a lark and wound up spending more than any sane people should ever spend on a grilled cheese dinner (to be fair, we also got dm tomorrow's dinner and at least a weeks worth of lunch, but the point still stands).

*peeks around door*

Well, hi to everybody, I have no idea what's going on for y'all.

Life has been relatively good lately and I get to start a creative writing course at the local high school (as in, physically attending said course) in September. So that's something to look forward to

Woohoo!

[2D8HP]

*peeks around door*

Well, hi to everybody, I have no idea what's going on for y'all.

Life has been relatively good lately and I get to start a creative writing course at the local high school (as in, physically attending said course) in September. So that's something to look forward to

That's AWESOME!

Somewhat related, my 13 years old son who's been homeschooled this last year started a Spanish class at Berkeley City College this week.

[AuthorGirl]

That's AWESOME!

Somewhat related, my 13 years old son who's been homeschooled this last year started a Spanish class at Berkeley City College this week.

Ooh, that's exciting! Spanish is all kinds of brain-breaking (as evidence, I present the fact that I never finished learning it), but fun. Hopefully he finds it more fun than frustrating.

[Peelee]

(as evidence, I present the fact that I never finished learning it)

If that can be entered into evidence, you have no idea the kind of cases I can make!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Ooh, that's exciting! Spanish is all kinds of brain-breaking (as evidence, I present the fact that I never finished learning it), but fun. Hopefully he finds it more fun than frustrating.

...

Other than the absurd number of verb conjugations (which mirror French's, though, so if you know one, you kinda know the other), I found Spanish much, much, much easier to learn than English.

Heck, the fact they have only 5 vowels and any given consonant can be pronounced in no more than 2 ways (and the vast majority can only be pronounced in one) means I can figure out how a word will sound in Spanish just by reading it. Do you know how many years I thought that "chaos" was different from the word everyone pronounced as "keos"?

So, yeah, I'd like some of that brain-breaking evidence.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

...

Other than the absurd number of verb conjugations (which mirror French's, though, so if you know one, you kinda know the other), I found Spanish much, much, much easier to learn than English.

Heck, the fact they have only 5 vowels and any given consonant can be pronounced in no more than 2 ways (and the vast majority can only be pronounced in one) means I can figure out how a word will sound in Spanish just by reading it. Do you know how many years I thought that "chaos" was different from the word everyone pronounced as "keos"?

So, yeah, I'd like some of that brain-breaking evidence.

Grey Wolf

As a monolingual English speaker, I readily admit I envy diacritics. Every letter should be pronounced one way, and if there's a different way to pronounce it, throw a diacritic to show that. And don't even get me started on silent letters. Though that's a sin that is shared by many, many more languages as well.

[Knaight]

Heck, the fact they have only 5 vowels and any given consonant can be pronounced in no more than 2 ways (and the vast majority can only be pronounced in one) means I can figure out how a word will sound in Spanish just by reading it. Do you know how many years I thought that "chaos" was different from the word everyone pronounced as "keos"?

The key to understanding English spelling is to interpret each letter as roughly equivalent to a brush stroke of a fully hieroglypic language, and the spelling of the words equivalent to a hieroglyph.

Names are a little better behaved, but then the stuff I was able to pull with my own screen name (and just name, in my case) is a pretty good indication that it's not much better.

[LaZodiac]

*peeks around door*

Well, hi to everybody, I have no idea what's going on for y'all.

Life has been relatively good lately and I get to start a creative writing course at the local high school (as in, physically attending said course) in September. So that's something to look forward to

Good luck!

God I've gotta get someone to kick me into gear so I can finish editing my novel to send to a professional editor.

[Algeh]

I'd put my quarter on the machine right beside yours, but it's just a tad too early for that.

I never got that custom. It always seemed to me like a good way to get your quarter stolen.

That's how I felt too, even when doing it, but it always worked as intended. Kids respected the quarter.

I somehow missed this convention entirely as a kid (we had both computers and video games at my house when I was a kid, and there were no arcades within walking/biking distance, so I didn't really go to arcades, and when I did I always played the claw machines to get toys, which didn't tend to have a line), and got the incredibly awkward experience of having it explained to me by a bunch of middle school kids when I was in my 20s and going around playing Dance Dance Revolution at arcades with my fellow poorly-socialized 20-somethings. Kudos to those kids for being willing to stand up to adults and explain the norms of a space, but boy, was that awkward.

The key to understanding English spelling is to interpret each letter as roughly equivalent to a brush stroke of a fully hieroglypic language, and the spelling of the words equivalent to a hieroglyph.

Names are a little better behaved, but then the stuff I was able to pull with my own screen name (and just name, in my case) is a pretty good indication that it's not much better.

You must have one of those names that people have heard before and have a guess as to how to say. I am SO TIRED of correcting spelling/pronunciation/ethnicity assumptions about my (traditional/common in my family) name. It's to the point that I make up goofy nicknames for things like calling out my name when my food is ready because I am tired of it. (Just for fun: common ethnicity guesses based on hearing my name spoken rather than written: Hawaiian, followed by other Pacific Islander, followed by African-American/urban culture (not sure how to refer to this - actual member of that culture referred to it as "that's a ghetto name" when he first heard it). Actual ethnicity of name: Swedish. That's basically the entire other side of the globe from what people are guessing.)

I mean, my dad's name is Michael and the only reason anyone knows how to pronounce that is because everyone already knows a Michael or five. I was the only [my name] at Worldcon this year somehow (at least who had pre-reg'd - the person behind the reg desk told me this when I was picking up my badge), so people are often trying to sound out my name from first principles.

[enderlord99]

You must have one of those names that people have heard before and have a guess as to how to say.

I think his name is "Nate."

[Stuebi]

We got a puppy about a month ago, after our previous dog died. At first I was not looking forward to it, since taking care of the little guy would mean extra "work" at the end of the day, and my days are long enough as it stands.

It's been great though. There's just no way to not adore him. First of all he is, obviously, just so incredibly cute, but the aspect I like most about dogs is how incredibly excited they seem to be about basically anything.

"Oh my god you are home, I missed you so much, and now you're petting me and this is literally the greatest thing that has ever happened to me... CAT CAT CAT. Sorry, there was that cat and I had to be a dog at it for a second, regulations you know. But now I'm back here and I wanted to make it clear how awesome that pet just now was. What's that in your hand? BALL BALL BALL. I got it, it thought it got away from me after I ran face first into that wall, which by the way seems very unfortunately placed, but I got it, and now I brought it over, which as we both will agree, deserves more pets!"

The only issue at the moment is getting him properly trained to conduct "business" outside. And maybe don't assault me when I'm trying to conduct mine. I love the guy, but he keeps trying to climb up my pants.

[Teddy]

Oh, I see. Yeah, research is often difficult like that, and I'm sorry to hear that it lead to an unfinished report. I think it's been about three weeks - any updates on overthrowing the status quo?

Nothing yet. I'm still running on post-vacation energy reserves, so things have not yet gotten tough enough to move me to action. Also, our management situation looks like it's going to get a bit confusing for the upcoming pair of months, so that's an obstacle as well.

Also, what was the scientific question you were trying to answer, if I may ask?

I was to implement a framework for parallel computing in a programming language specialised towards parallel computing which was under development by one of the research teams at my university. The scientific question was pretty much whether this framework would outperform other techniques for achieving race-free parallel computing, and whether it would be easier to program in.

Plus, you know, the biggest issue in my life being 'I can't talk to attractive people without becoming a gibbering mess, also what is flirting anyway I never actually learnt how to do it or recognise it only that I should do it with pretty girls and boys' really puts the world into perspective. I mean there's people out there without anybody to talk to, and I'm worried about being nervous around cute people.

Perspective is overrated. It generally doesn't help you solve any problems, nor feel any better about your own issues.

We're almost there to 50 Pages for this random banter thread. I called dibs on the next random banter thread.

It's traditionally been considered poor form to call threads, especially this far in advance. Nowadays the risk of running into the scenario outlined by rule 15 of this thread is fairly small (I mean, it has done a pair of 2 page jumps overnight, but I'm European, I sleep when the Vespucians are the most chatty), but as a de facto oldtimer of this thread, I still think traditions should be upheld and the next thread go to the first eligible person to set one up once we hit page 50.

That said, I've actually broken rule 15 myself once when stepped in on page 51 on a thread and said I was working on a piece of art for the next thread if I could get it, but that it would take another bunch of hours to finish it. To be fair, though, that wasn't as much me calling dibs as everyone else just agreeing that I should get it because they wanted the art.
Sadly, that picture was hosted on Imageshack, so now I think it only exists on a harddrive back home with my family.

Ahh, I miss the time when I had the time and energy to make random art and scribbles. My early university years had heaps of issues on their own, but there was always room for me to escape into this active digital social life with lots of people you recognise and who recognise you. My social life in the physical world has developed a lot since, but I still feel more forgettable than ever, and it's not a fun feeling...

I somehow missed this convention entirely as a kid (we had both computers and video games at my house when I was a kid, and there were no arcades within walking/biking distance, so I didn't really go to arcades, and when I did I always played the claw machines to get toys, which didn't tend to have a line), and got the incredibly awkward experience of having it explained to me by a bunch of middle school kids when I was in my 20s and going around playing Dance Dance Revolution at arcades with my fellow poorly-socialized 20-somethings. Kudos to those kids for being willing to stand up to adults and explain the norms of a space, but boy, was that awkward.

Coming from a country which doesn't really have any arcade culture at all, I didn't even know this was a thing before today.

Also, the good thing about awkward is at least that it seldom happens more than once. The brain is really good at learning that it doesn't want that to happen ever again.

You must have one of those names that people have heard before and have a guess as to how to say. I am SO TIRED of correcting spelling/pronunciation/ethnicity assumptions about my (traditional/common in my family) name. It's to the point that I make up goofy nicknames for things like calling out my name when my food is ready because I am tired of it. (Just for fun: common ethnicity guesses based on hearing my name spoken rather than written: Hawaiian, followed by other Pacific Islander, followed by African-American/urban culture (not sure how to refer to this - actual member of that culture referred to it as "that's a ghetto name" when he first heard it). Actual ethnicity of name: Swedish. That's basically the entire other side of the globe from what people are guessing.)

I mean, my dad's name is Michael and the only reason anyone knows how to pronounce that is because everyone already knows a Michael or five. I was the only [my name] at Worldcon this year somehow (at least who had pre-reg'd - the person behind the reg desk told me this when I was picking up my badge), so people are often trying to sound out my name from first principles.

Oh, now you have me really curious. A Swedish name that Americans would mistake for Hawaiian or urban African-American? Too bad I know next to nothing about those last two naming cultures...

[Anonymouswizard]

The key to understanding English spelling is to interpret each letter as roughly equivalent to a brush stroke of a fully hieroglypic language, and the spelling of the words equivalent to a hieroglyph.

Names are a little better behaved, but then the stuff I was able to pull with my own screen name (and just name, in my case) is a pretty good indication that it's not much better.

You know, I've never known how to pronounce your screen name. Is the a silent?

I personally have problems in that, while there's now a famous actor who shares my given name, a lot of people are either unused to the way it ends (an annoying ct sound) or come from a language where you don't use double constonants. Which means that even though I hate people using diminuitives there's about two friends who I've asked to do so because they just cannot get the end right.


I've decided to try learning Mandarin again, because the main problem I have is the tones and a couple of vowel sounds. Oh, and reading characters, but I'm going to get a friend to help me with those once I'm solid on the spoken language.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As a monolingual English speaker, I readily admit I envy diacritics. Every letter should be pronounced one way, and if there's a different way to pronounce it, throw a diacritic to show that. And don't even get me started on silent letters. Though that's a sin that is shared by many, many more languages as well.

Heh. Spanish has only one diacritic (ü)... and it is literally to indicate "pronounce this 'u', despite being in a position where it would normally be silent".

(I mean, technically 'ñ' is also a diacritic mark on an 'n' - indicating, IIRC, a double n - but it's been there for so long I think it is considered its own letter now).

That said, I share your pain about silent letters. Remembering where Spanish requires 'h's is quite annoying if you are not fully versed on the etymology of a given word. And French seems to give up pronouncing words halfway through, so it feels like every word ends in nothing but silent letters.

(BTW, the other little marks on Spanish vowels are accents, not diacritics. The vowel is still pronounced in the usual way, it just indicates that that is the stress vowel of the word. So "árbol" is pronounced ARbol not arBOL)

You know, I've never known how to pronounce your screen name. Is the a silent?

I've always guessed it's pronounced like night, which has an "a" sound at the front.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

accents

Toss those in there too, why not? If English is the robber baron of languages, we could at least start taking the best stuff.

Also, I'm on the "Nate" side. Specifically, Nate Dogg. Famous rappers are notorious for chilling in D&D webcomics forums after faking their deaths. I'm onto you, Knaight!

[Kyrell1978]

(I mean, technically 'ñ' is also a diacritic mark on an 'n' - indicating, IIRC, a double n - but it's been there for so long I think it is considered its own letter now). Grey Wolf

Ñ is indeed its own letter now (Pronounced "In Yay" Sorry, I don't do phonetics). It indicates a 'ny' sound.

[LaZodiac]

Sadly, that picture was hosted on Imageshack, so now I think it only exists on a harddrive back home with my family.

Message me the name of your imageshack account and I'll see what I can do.

also speaking of names boy is it great sharing a name with this character from a video game.

[Teddy]

Message me the name of your imageshack account and I'll see what I can do.

What can you do?

[Mith]

Reading the discussion of language and names makes me chuckle. As a person with a Gaelic name, I've gotten into some arguments with people who insist that my name is spelt wrong. They seem to have a hard time grasping the fact that it isn't an English name and doesn't transcribe into the Latin alphabet of it's historically obnoxious neighbour. I mean, who builds a fence without asking?

On the other hand, as someone with hearing problems that mean I cannot hear certain letters, I look as some names and go "In theory, I know how to pronounce this. In practise, no way."

[Anonymouswizard]

Reading the discussion of language and names makes me chuckle. As a person with a Gaelic name, I've gotten into some arguments with people who insist that my name is spelt wrong. They seem to have a hard time grasping the fact that it isn't an English name and doesn't transcribe into the Latin alphabet of it's historically obnoxious neighbour. I mean, who builds a fence without asking?

Yeah, with a lot of Irish family I've come to expect it with Gaelic names myself. Some of them make sense (Aisling), and some are more weird (Siobhan), and a rare few are spelt as they sound.