New post, old times

A friend of a friend rehomed her cat to my house - she is my new old cat.

MamaM's post has inspired me to write a post that I have been thinking about for a while. This blog has been part of my life for longer than I can remember and I have encountered some remarkable folks here.

First and foremost, the late, great Chip Ahoy. He has been gone for years now but his work, both here and IRL, sticks with me. He was as creative and productive a human as I have ever encountered. When his brother posthumously posted links to works Chip had not posted here I was blown away - what a wide range of interests and what a remarkable set of skills he had. I am sure he is greatly missed by everyone who knew him.

Next, of course, The Trooper - now there is a guy who has been shouldering a mighty load here. He needs to pop up and post more of his writing, and I am sure he will in his own good time. I want to know how some of those stories turn out!

The other day I read about two new super heavy elements - 119 and 120 - ununennium and unbinilium respectively. I would have named the latter unobtainium, but that name is already taken. That story reminded me of our resident chemist and grammar genius, Chicklit. I miss his writing and I hope he is doing well with his new venture and in his new location. Every time I saw some aromatic White Oak or apply some Waterlox to a finished product I am reminded of him. 

Evi L. Bloggerlady, the floofy red cow who got his name from the sobriquet that Trooper applied to a certain communist blogger still comments and blogs. He's a funny guy. 

Various commenters here have popped up on other sites - I used to see RicPic's comments over at Instapundit, but I haven't seen his name over there in a year. Michael Haz still shows up occasionally, which is good. The woman from Colorado who is now known as Hunter'sHooker still comments over there - she's pretty funny. 

Others have disappeared into the ether of the internet. TT Burnett - gone. The woodworker up in Maine, no trace of him. 

And so it goes with life. 

One of my classmates just returned from a visit to Minnesota and she brought me some wild rice that is produced up in Bemidji - guess what I am having for supper!

*Update - I forgot to mention that I have now met two people associated with this blog in real life - as you might imagine, they are awesome people. Carry on!

Chip Off The Old Chip

 

I wanted to make a wish-you-were-here post for Chip Ahoy, but I don't know a damn thing about hieroglyphics, or pop-up books, or food, or et cetera. But Chip would periodically post a list of unusual words he had encountered, along with definitions. I can do that.

One of my favorite time-wasters is doing London Times Cryptic Crosswords. Any sort of cryptic crossword is difficult. The Times Cryptics are both very difficult, and very British, which makes them real beasts for Americans to solve. These days I can successfully complete maybe two out of three, but almost never without heavy use of the internet -- particularly the indispensable Crossword Solver.

Every single puzzle has answers that are words and names and phrases I've never seen before. Plants, animals, minerals, names of British and European places and people. Terms from soccer and cricket, of course. And Indian food: apparently Times readers are presumed to know all about Indian food. Also phrases. Most Americans would recognize "Oi, mate!" or "Pull the other one!" But how about "Yah boo sucks" or "Tace is latin for candle"? Both of those showed up as answers in Times cryptics.

I'm currently halfway through a book of 50 Jumbo (23x23) Times cryptics, and I've already found several dozen new-to-me words as answers. I'll exercise self-control, and list only seven of them (all from the same puzzle!):

goldcrest: a small bird

teapoy: a three-legged table, sometimes with a tea-chest

Wee Free: slang for the Free Church of Scotland (as opposed to the much larger United Free Church)

leaf curl: a plant disease

raita: a yogurt-based Indian dish

pay and display: a ticket-vending machine used in parking lots -- sorry, in car parks

ragged staff: a symbol used in heraldry -- a staff with knobs, or a tree-trunk with stumps of branches

Books of Times cryptics can be found only sporadically on US sites; the best place to buy them is the excellent English online bookseller Wordery.

RIP my friend

Many of you have posted moving comments about the passing of our friend Chip Ahoy. He was a one of a kind character and will be really missed by all of us..

When Lem first set up this blog Chip was a frequent commenter. When many of the original contributors went crawling back to pay homage to Mordor it resulted in  Chip became a contributor here. A vital one. So much so that Lem put him in charge when he had to step away the first time. Chip was a prolific poster. Sometimes posting up to three and four posts a day while still posting like crazy at his own blog. He never failed to be interesting by sharing his interests which I think are more accessible then mine. He would post about food, Egypt, his youth in Japan and of course his beloved pop up books. He never failed to be interesting.

Of course he could have a prickly personality at times as all of us here do. His posts began to mention his health issues and the effect it had on his everyday life which we can all relate to as we get older.  In the end as he got sicker he decided to leave. I can understand that as posting all the time can be a lot of pressure. It's not fun when you are not feeling well.

My favorite interaction with him was in a post back in the day when we were making fun of Joe Biden's pretend Catholicism. I posted some ridiculous comments like "Joe Biden is so Catholic that he thinks Padre Pio is when Tony Glynn takes a leak in the outfield." For some reason that struck his fancy and he posted about thirty or forty puns or jokes about obscure Catholic arcane that Joe Biden would screw up. One after another like a machine gun. It was a tour da force I tells ya and very funny.

I enjoyed Chip's post and valued his contribution. I considered him a great  internet friend if you know what I mean. I am sorry that I didn't get to tell him that. I did email him a few times since he left to ask how he was doing but he never responded. Which is fine. He had enough to deal with. I hope he realized how we all felt about him.

So long Chip. I bet you are showing St Peter how to make an avocado toast that you can turn into a pop up book. You will be missed.

What do you do when you are snowed in .....why you eat of course!

When you are snowed in like we were the last couple of days the only thing to do is eat. We stocked up on Sunday so we had plenty of stuff to munch on while we watched the blizzard outside.

Now we are pikers compared to youse guys who live in Minnesota or Wisconsin or those other states that are blighted by snow storms and horrible law professors. So we really shouldn't complain to a blizzard once every couple of years.

I decided to not go crazy since I am already a fat bastard and I can't afford to get any fatter as it puts a strain on my ticker. Last night I made a nice beef bourguignon with a wonderful red wine sauce. Tonight it will be gluten free lasagna. It's lunch that is tricky.

You see I can't go with the old staples of grilled cheese or a meatball hero. Too much bread. Bread is my kryptonite. So we go with a nice Meditanrrean lunch of cheese and salami and olives. That's too kinds of cheese. Manchego and a goat gouda. Artichoke hearts marinated in vinegar. Also too kinds of olives. Add a couple of crackers and you are all set.

I miss Chip and his food posts. I go over to his food blog  and catch his recipes. He seems to be ok and I hope all is well with him. Sometimes you can burn out on a blog and he posted up a storm here for quite a while. I wish he would come back and post once in a while with a food oriented piece. He can even copy and paste some his old posts like I do with the Trooper York blog stuff. It will be new to most of us and would bring a lot to the blog.