Useless Conversation

[Zetor]

Yeah, I agree with IainC -- Amsterdam has a lot of good stuff, and you can reach most of Europe (the good parts, anyway) within a few hours. For destinations off the beaten path, visiting Efteling could be fun for kids, it's kinda like a low-key Disneyland with local fables instead of the well-known franchises. Bonus: animatronics speaking in incomprehensible languages! Bruges is not THAT far if you rent a car, though it's more of a 2-day trip best combined with some other locales in Netherlands/Belgium along the way; it's is a pretty awesome city, and not just for revisiting the locations from the movie.  

For the 'royale with cheese' aspect, there was a pretty legit McD's in Milan, but I think they forced them out to make room for more Gucci shops or whatever. /sadf

(Regarding London, obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGuGzH3Ne5w )

[Viin]

When you have fiber and find a server that can deliver, boy does it deliver.

[schild]

I have found NOTHING that can max out my fiber connection. That, of course, won't matter soon because nn.

[Abagadro]

Ha, just heard Body Count's updated "Institutionalized."  Funny as hell. Didn't know that band was still around.

[Rendakor]

Ha, just heard Body Count's updated "Institutionalized."  Funny as hell. Didn't know that band was still around.

Is it a cover of the Suicidal Tendencies song?

[Abagadro]

Sorta. They update the lyrics but it is the same basic song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jXnZS3ouU

NSFW obviously

[Chimpy]

Man I wish I knew someone affiliated with the airport authority (or local government) in Salt Lake City. 

I spent like fifteen minutes driving in circles after leaving the rental car garage trying to find the way out because their construction barriers detour you all over the place but there are no “To EXIT” signs anywhere along the road it takes you down. Then the one sign I did see (which ended up being the correct one) routed me into the long term parking entrance and forced me to take a ticket. 

[Abagadro]

That place is a disaster right now.  Part of the problem is it is constantly shifting, so I'm not surprised their signing sucks.  I'll send an email to the attorney who works for them but I doubt it will do anything.

[IainC]

At Madrid Barajas airport, they put the signage on the fucking floor. So when it's busy (which it always is), you can't see the directions.

[calapine]

Merry Christmas you all! 

[Polysorbate80]

Frohe Weihnachten!

(Did I get it right?)

[calapine]

Yes, you did!

First Christmas I don't spend with family or sis, and after 17:00 it's really the quietest time of the year.

All cafés closed, so my plan to go there, read some didn't work out. Even the McDonalds are shut.

The main street through town is pretty empty as well, and it's not confirmation bias when I say the Arab-Turk ratio of the few people is unusually high. 50%+.

No wonder depressed people kill themselves, nothing left to do.

Like in the Kipling poem..*googles*

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
   An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I ended up getting a Kebap-to-go and now omw home...

[RhyssaFireheart]

Merry Christmas to all the F13ers and Happy Holidays!

We're getting a white Christmas here in Chicagoland, which is fine since all driving is done until Tuesday morning.  Yay!

[calapine]

And that made find something nice:

A composition setting poems to his own music.

My favourites so far:

Kipling - The Young British Soldier

Kipling - Arithmetic on the Frontier

Shakspeare - Song of the Witches

Edit: And that reminds me:

Here is a book recommenddation:



The story of the Brits first afghan war. Even if you are not interested in military matters -  the book reads like a Thriller.

And the story is true but almost unbelievable. The advantage of real life, it can do things that wouldn't work in a fiction book for being too over the top or cliche...

[Polysorbate80]

I’d mail y’all Mai Tais for Christmas, but I dont’t think they’ll travel well

[Chimpy]

Merry Christmas crazy people. I am spending it skiing by myself because family gatherings are for the birds.

[calapine]

Chimpy mentioned in the funny picture thread:

Oxy cutting torches don't actually cut by melting steel, they cut by accelerating the oxidation process until it rusts through :p

Christmas alone, and deciding to be forcefully-hyper is better than feeling lonely + Wikipedia, lead to this:

Oxy fuel cutting >
Laser cutting [Some detours about welding, steel sorts, Berrylium copper, Induction cooking] >
Faserlaser >
Maser >
GPS >
UTMREF (What you call MGRS) [Which I had to learn to use years ago (so some emotional connection) as it replaced our older Gauss-Krüger BMN system sometime around...uhh..before my time anyway] >
UTM (Universal Tansverse Mercator)


And now I found that an Austrian (like me!) cartographer (who is also geologist, mountain researcher & mountaineer (some people only life to make you feel inadäquate, sigh!)) who went to school in Linz (like me, again, even same schooltype!) found out that UTM dates back to the Wehrmacht in 1942, not the US Army Corps of Engineers in the postwar period, as is commonly started.

Mind  >
Blown



Geodetic grids in authoritative maps – new findings about the origin of the UTM Grid

[HaemishM]

It's still Christmas Eve here but I've had some wine so MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Also, there's a radio station in town that has been playing Neil Diamond's Cherry, Cherry on continual loop for the last 12 days straight. I don't mean it's been played back to back with breaks in between, I mean, it's been played on a literal loop with no pauses, longos, breaks, commercials, or even station ID breaks for 12 STRAIGHT FUCKING DAYS. No explanation, nothing, just a long form surreal nightmare of Neil Diamond's best over and over into madness.

[rattran]

A day that started with a cat barfing on my face, ending with some video games and MST3K Hercules.

So a typical xmas-eve.

[Chimpy]

I skied most the day, drank most the afternoon/early evening, and now I am watching Bad Santa on my iPad from my hotel room. Merry fucking Christmas F13.

[Sky]

It's still Christmas Eve here but I've had some wine so MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Also, there's a radio station in town that has been playing Neil Diamond's Cherry, Cherry on continual loop for the last 12 days straight. I don't mean it's been played back to back with breaks in between, I mean, it's been played on a literal loop with no pauses, longos, breaks, commercials, or even station ID breaks for 12 STRAIGHT FUCKING DAYS. No explanation, nothing, just a long form surreal nightmare of Neil Diamond's best over and over into madness.

My question is...how do you know this? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING!?

Yeah, Merry Christmas, folks. One mom is ill and the other doesn't want to drive in the blowing snow predicted, so it looks like me and the fiancee just might crack a bottle of prosecco or two and sit in front of the fire while the snow stacks up. And eat rib roast until we pass out.

[HaemishM]

My wife has done most the Christmas shopping this year while I didn't feel well. So she's been driving a lot and when she drives, she listens to the radio (I never do, I listen to Spotify). She's also a horrible ADD listener, so she's constantly switching channels. She discovered it and kept coming back to the station to see if it was still happening. She used to intern in radio, so she's just aghast as the royalties and FCC fines the station has to be paying.

[Abagadro]

License is probably being sold.  They will put placeholders in there while it is getting sorted out.

[Abagadro]

I skied most the day, drank most the afternoon/early evening, and now I am watching Bad Santa on my iPad from my hotel room. Merry fucking Christmas F13.

You lucked out my friend. There was zero snow a week ago.  How long are you going to be in town?

[Teleku]

About to engage in my annual Christmas tradition of watching Survive Style 5+.

[01101010]

Merry Christmas, every ONE. 

I spent the 23rd with my family since all the cousins could come in with their broods, save for my youngest cousin who works as a TV station producer. He facetimed with us for a few minutes. Then drove from Cleveland area across Pennsyltucky, outside Harrisburg for the inlaws. Now sitting here watching my 18 month old niece find all her presents under the tree.

[Sir T]

Happy Christmas!

[Chimpy]

I skied most the day, drank most the afternoon/early evening, and now I am watching Bad Santa on my iPad from my hotel room. Merry fucking Christmas F13.

You lucked out my friend. There was zero snow a week ago.  How long are you going to be in town?

I drove up to Sun Valley ID on Saturday to ski a couple days here. I am driving back down to Ogden tomorrow morning to hit up Snowbasin and Powder Mountain the rest of the week. Flying back out on Saturday afternoon. Will be back in SLC next Friday-following Wednesday to ski Alta/Snowbird for 4 days for a short club trip I am trip leader on.

I think I am what brings snow to SLC, same thing happened last year where I arrived in pouring rain in the valley and the mountains were getting their first real dumping of snow. Of course I missed the really good snow that got dumped on Christmas Day as I was leaving.

[Hawkbit]

Merry Christmas All. We have a white Christmas here in Seattle.

[WayAbvPar]

Merry Christmas All. We have a white Christmas here in Seattle.

Only like the 3rd time in my life we have had snow on Christmas around here. Still snowing, as a matter of fact!

Merry Christmas, all.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's nice and sunny and freezing outside, which means the snow from yesterday is that light fluffy powdery stuff. Made it really easy to shovel off the driveway by hand because why not?  Helped me get some steps in today.  Now I'm debating what to do next - put in a load of laundry, prep some paper for painting later, or be extra lazy and log into FFXIV.

[Polysorbate80]

It’s so cold I had to jump start the tractor to plow the driveway so I can drive to the airport to fly to Kauai.  Mango coladas, here I come

[justdave]

Merry xmas/saturnalia/whatever the fuck, all y'all I rarely speak to but lurk at!

Glad to hear your hubsteaks got through that better than expected, Rhyssa! And Calapine, that sounds worth it as a Christmas narrated by James Burke.

I didn't get a lot of material shit this year, but experientially, I sent an bong to a cop, named someone's cat after an opioid receptor, and got used over facetime as a badge in a teppanyaki place to dissuade an older gentleman from hitting on someone's girlfriend. I'm happy.

I also discovered that my favorite of the 'Nine Inch Nails Songs to Seduce Impressionable Emo Men To' is actually a cover of a queen song from 1977, so what the fuck. I'm going to have to proceed from 'tipsy xmas' to 'Man, I *used* to be able to play MWO'

[MisterNoisy]

Merry Christmas to everyone!

[Strazos]

Merry Christmas.

Took me an extra hour+ to drive back down to DC from NJ. Fucking morons on I95, especially Maryland drivers.