English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

16:00

used to live there at the time mentioned, then while at school in a town with absolutely nothing it was the best two hour drive, then I used to go for a yearly conference for a bit. The last visit was as a mini vacay while my wife was at training.

I spent half of every day eating at the Weihnachts Markt in Daley plaza. It was the best. And then every evening eating at some new great place that had replaced some old great place.

Robusto

@Mitch University of Illinois? Champaign-Urbana has pretty much nothing to offer beyond college-town bars and the like. The University, of course, has other attractions.

Mitch

exactly

the longest most boring 2 hour drive ever.

the flattest flat

you calibrate machine precision levels out there.

Robusto

@Mitch You should have ventured up to the North Side now and then. That's where I lived, variously, between Fullerton and Irving Park. You can't throw a rock without hitting a decent restaurant.

Mitch

You ride over a speed bump and you're so high you can see the rockies -and- the appalachians.

@Robusto Clark st

Halsted

I worked in various parts of the loop, but lived in a couple suburbs but also a couple places in Lincoln Park/Wrigleyville

I'm Google mapping right now... it's like they move the skating rink in Millenium Park every time I look.

Oh ... now everyone shows up.

user 85795

Were you guys there during the 85 Bears' year?

CowperKettle

16:09

During 1985, I visited Moscow briefly with my parents. I was amazed that in Moscow, vienna sausages were sold in cafes and shops, and there was no need to wait in a long queue. You just went to the cashier and bought sausages. They just there were, not only for 1 hour in a day.

That was one of the most vivid memories of my life.

And my parents bought me a wristwatch that had a Yuri Gagarin photo on the strap, in a small plastic cameo.

I later broke it by forgetting to take it off while playing tennis.

Mitch

@user85795 Rob probably yes. Me no.

But...

CowperKettle

My grandma was cross at my parents for bying a watch to a 7-year-old. It's not good to pamper a boy at this age by making such luxury purchases.

Mitch

I was there for every year of the Bulls. People in the streets, fireworks, cats and dogs high-fiving.

2

user 85795

coolio

Mitch

@CowperKettle I remember a watch incident as a child.

hm.. also as an adult.

user 85795

16:16

MJ is a legend

Mitch

I never liked having it on my wrist so I kept it as a kid in my pocket.

Then as an adult someone got me a fancy pocket watch with a chain, which I naturally kept in my pocket.

CowperKettle

@Mitch I broke several watches over my life. The recent one was only 2 years ago, a Casio. I really should only buy Casio G-Shocks, despite the cost. All the usual watches get broken..

Mitch

but not long after I got it, somehow... I closed the lid on the watch but the chain was in the way so it cracked the glass cover.

So basically I gave up on time.

CowperKettle

I stil have the broken Casio on the shelf. It works perfectly, but I was doing sports and brock totally the parts that are connected to the strap.

Mitch

So that's my story. It's kind funny that I've been a time traveler all these years.

The cobbler's kids go barefoot

or rather I do.

CowperKettle

16:19

@Mitch Wow I would have loved to have this as a kid. But in my kidhood, bigger boys would have taken it away.

Mitch

@CowperKettle So your grandparent was right about both you and me as for when we were kids -and- adults.

Don't give an adult a watch, they can't handle the responsibility.

@CowperKettle Exactly. or just broke it out of fun.

CowperKettle

Just after the USSR collapsed, bigger kids started robbing us in the streets. Street crime skyrocketed. And kids our age, too, of course. I was not very tough.

Mitch

goddam kids

CowperKettle

The town was subdivided into several youth gangs.

I was afraid each time to go to a shop.

I was robbed several times.

Mitch

@user85795 Him and Pippen.

CowperKettle

16:22

One time, me and my friend went to a market to see computer games, and a kid forced us to open our bags and put them right on the snow. To make a search. The passers-by did nothing. He robbed us and went away.

Mitch

1 min ago, by Mitch

goddam kids

user 85795

@Mitch yup, beam me up

Mitch

haha

CowperKettle

A guy severa years older than me went to the army as a conscript, and returned a bit broken in the head. He lived at our landing, the door right across ours. He enrolled as a security guard, and smoke weed a lot.

Once he started firing at our door from a gas pistol. Made several dents in the steel door.

The police came and talked to him, then talked us out of pressing charges and submitting any kind of written complaint.

Well, they talked to him, but they first waited until the gas evaporates from the stairwell.

Robusto

@Mitch Yeah. Lincoln Ave., the southern part, there were lots of small theaters and other entertainment venues (music bars, etc.) It was a rich night-life scene back in my day. I recall seeing John Malkovich and Gary Sinise in True West at the Victory Gardens theater there, among other things.

CowperKettle

16:27

One of the kids in my yard was the son of a policeman. He bragged that his dad just went to the market and took anything he liked from the stalls. Basically robbed people who sold stuff there.

So I have the rough idea what it will be like in North Korea when the communist dictatorship falls. Youth gangs, corruption, muggings, rampant crime, robber policemen.

Mitch

@CowperKettle Was he one of the bullies when you were a kid?

CowperKettle

@Mitch No, he was just a kid. But not a bookworm like me of course.

The police just sabotaged its own work. It was too hard to fight crime, it was easy to rob businessmen using the police uniform.

Mitch

@CowperKettle Or it could be like the West/East German reunification where everybody tries to move from north to south and those that are left try to prosecute the snitches for the police state.

@CowperKettle how are things now?

CowperKettle

@Mitch Yes, South Korea will help.

@Mitch It moved to a higher level. By 2003, whole companies were grabbed by the special services.

Robusto

@Mitch So we would have been neighbors but for the years. I lived on Newport on several occasions, Cornelia, Seminary, Marine Drive, Lincoln Park West, Grace, Greenview, Bosworth, Arlington, and a few others.

CowperKettle

16:32

@Mitch Today our local website, E1.ru, published a news story about a medium-scale businessman who got all his equipment confiscated under trumped-up charges by the police 9 years ago, and the equipment was given by the police to the man's competitor (!!!!!) And it took the man 9 years to get throug the court system.

Robusto

You're not really a North Sider, though, if you can't tell me (without Googling) what WOOGMS means.

Mitch

@CowperKettle but how about everyday petty corruption like cops? has that gotten better?

@Robusto I'm not really a northsider

CowperKettle

@Mitch In a way, yes, but look at my post just above. I think it has gotten better but it has moved higher too, where the catch is bigger.

Robusto

@Mitch Wellington Oakdale Old Glory Marching Society.

A mini-parade on Memorial Day centering on those streets.

Mitch

@Robusto sounds very Lincoln Park

Robusto

16:34

Indeed.

CowperKettle

HEre's the news: "Police in Yekaterinburg seized all equipment from a businessman, and it vanished" e1.ru/news/spool/news_id-69764675.html

They seize equipment from people and it takes many years to claw it back. It "gets lost accidentally" too.

Robusto

Another thing about living in Wrigleyville, you always made sure your car was parked and left on game days.

When I lived there the Biograph was a great theater to see movies at. Also the Music Box, a bit farther north and west.

CowperKettle

There was a huge Russian company that sold mobile phones. The police seized a really big shipment of phones under some pretext. The owner raised a big stir and managed to get some foreign leaders(!) to tell Putin what was happening, and this helped him get his property back.

But later his company was raided again, and he fled to the West.

He is now living in Britain.

Mitch

I never had a car when I lived in the city. what a pain in the ass...ah... I -did- have a car for a year and got rid of it because spending an hour driving, and then another half hour circling nearby blocks looking for a parking space.

@Robusto yeah both were great

@CowperKettle It sounds like a time of robber barons.

Robusto

@Mitch Yeah. On game days, even the illegal parking spots were all taken.

Mitch

16:38

hopefully enough people will get pissed off to enact enforcible anti-corruption laws.

CowperKettle

Evgeny Chichvarkin

Evgeny Alexandrovich Chichvarkin (Russian: Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Чичва́ркин; born 10 September 1974 in Leningrad) is a Russian entrepreneur who founded the largest Russian mobile phone retailer, Yevroset. Due to this business, he became the richest man under 35 of his country, with an approximatively $1.6 billion wealth. He has received a number of public awards including 2004 Person of the Year in the Head of Retail Business category. The winner of the Ernst & Young contest "Entrepreneur of the Year 2005" in the Nomination "Trade".In 2006 Evgeny Alexandrovich Chichvarkin was awarded the Order...

Here he is, living in London

Mitch

@Robusto and the faint smell of pee everywhere.

CowperKettle

> Due to this business, he became the richest man under 35 of his country, with an approximatively $1.6 billion wealth. He has received a number of public awards including 2004 Person of the Year in the Head of Retail Business category.

Robusto

Less faint the closer you were to Wrigley Field.

The last time I was in Wrigley Field was to see The Police's 25th anniversary reunion tour.

CowperKettle

> While in London Chichvarkin has participated in protests highlighting the dangers of conducting business in Russia, referring to the cases of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Sergei Magnitsky.[21] He is aware of being observed by "men with russian behaviour".

Mitch

16:40

@CowperKettle I mean really with that much cash you could do a Mackenzie Bezos, solve cancer or something, and still have the tiniest percentage leftover to live ... well.. like a Russian oligarch.

@Robusto Music these days just isn't that good

Robusto

No shit.

I wonder if the John Barleycorn Memorial Pub is still in business on Lincoln?

Mitch

It's like there was 15 years of -good- music being made all by kids born during the war or baby boomers.

And then it just stopped. maybe 1980?

sure there are a few good things later here and there

Robusto

No. For one thing, The Police didn't break up till '83. For another, the grunge era was a goldmine of music.

Mitch

it was ... pretty good... but just not -as- good

Robusto

And let's not forget Peter Gabriel, and Paul Simon's Graceland, and I'm sure we could come up with a bunch of others.

user 85795

16:43

Classic rock era.

Robusto

Pop music today is just boring to me.

Mitch

Do people write songs any more?

good ones that is.

Robusto

THe songs are written by producer teams these days.

user 85795

and Gangsta rappers

Mitch

It's like that movie yesterday where the guy wakes up and somehow the Beatles never existed but he, as a musician, knows all the Beatles songs and it's effing great!

Robusto

16:45

John Barleycorn has apparently bitten the dust. That's sad.

CowperKettle

You cannot have good music produced constantly. There must be some hiphop periods.

Robusto

I expect that's true.

Mitch

@user85795 I'd say that GMF and RunDMC were 70's quality great and Public Enemy/NWA were grunge great. ie really good but not -as- good as the early stuff.

user 85795

Yeah, apples and oranges :-)

CowperKettle

Mitch

16:48

Some how I've actually never heard the Baby Shark song.

Robusto

There used to be a lot of blues bars on Lincoln. Prolly not so much anymore.

Mitch

And you can't make me. SO don't even try.

@Robusto Halsted has Kingston Mines and Buddy Guy's Legends and a couple others still.

Robusto

And when I was in high school we used to go down to the South Side to see acts like Junior Wells and Buddy Guy at Pepper's Lounge.

Mitch

I thin those are forever because of name recognition.

Robusto

Orphans, across from The Biograph, used to have blues and folk acts.

In fact, did you ever see the film High Fidelity? When John Cusack comes out of the Biograph and heads across the street to a music venue, it's right where Orphans is (or used to be).

Mitch

16:50

I used to love Deni's Den, a Greek restaurant with a live band, that was the best place to take people visiting.

@Robusto Is that the record shop movie with John Cusack?

Argh.

Robusto

Yes.

Mitch

Yes. I know. I can't read

Robusto

I had just edited it, so not your fault.

Mitch

haha

my eyes

and brain

you never know

user 85795

Stop moving the goal posts!

Robusto

16:52

Deni's Den sounds familiar, but I don't think I ever went there. Used to get Greek food down on Halsted west of the Loop.

Mitch

or making up new goal posts

user 85795

:-)

Robusto

There will always be new goal posts. That is a sad fact of life, and of aging.

Mitch

@Robusto Greek town is effing amazing now. just to the north and west of it, there's an L stop that I wold normally never get off at without combat armor is now all neon and avocado toast.

user 85795

It doesn't need to be "sad."

Mitch

16:54

@Robusto The goal posts were there the whole time, grampa.

Here let me fix the defaults on your phone for you.

Robusto

@Mitch Yeah, but every time I go back there is more gentrification, which destroys the things I used to value.

@Mitch I never had a problem with technology.

Mitch

@Robusto South of the Loop every year they put up new highrises I can never get used to it. It's not even 'I don't recognize it anymore' it's more, I'll never get used to not getting used to it/

Robusto

But yeah, eventually you reach a point where all the goal posts that mattered are behind you, and the ones that remain are merely sign posts that the end is near.

Mitch

@Robusto I'm all technology all the time (very aware of UI/UX design) but I'm starting to see things in using it that I just don't get.

Robusto

Mar 16 '12 at 16:14, by Robusto

@KitFox "The tragedy of age is not that one is old, but that one is young." — Oscar Wilde

user 85795

16:57

Kit who?

Mitch

like ...

dangit.. meeting

user 85795

cya

Robusto

Chicago to get maybe a foot of snow today. That is certainly something I don't miss.

But really, the things I miss about Chicago are gone forever.

Feb 23 '15 at 14:14, by Robusto

> You can't step into the same river twice.

Not even if it's the Chicago River.

Rockin' Chair - The Band (The Band 8 of 12)

►

Robusto

17:22

@CowperKettle What kind of gas was that? Usually those kinds of pistol use CO2 or plain air.

CowperKettle

@Robusto It was some kind of tear gas. Such pistols were very popular in the 1992-1997 period due to rampant crime.

As a self-defense measure.

Robusto

Ah.

CowperKettle

He shot at the closest possible distance, and so got the door dented.

He was drunk or on weed.

Robusto

That's weird.

@CowperKettle I could see that kind of activity while drunk, but not on weed. Weed just zones you out.

CowperKettle

Noyabrsk was a very wealthy city, and drug mafias really descended on it in the 1990s.

@Robusto Ah! I never smoked weed, so I cannot tell ))

Robusto

17:25

Yeah, nobody gets belligerent on weed.

CowperKettle

Now and then the local police busts a person who grows weed using a hydroponic system, and I always feel sorry for them. They get several years of penal colony.

Sometimes many years.

I would make punishments milder for weed.

Robusto

Yeah, that is just a miserable thing to do to someone who just wants to get high and listen to music.

@CowperKettle I wouldn't have any punishments at all. It's probably the least bad drug you can take. Much less damaging to society than, say, alcohol.

Cerberus

The only thing about it that deserves punishment is using illegal electricity and being a fire hazard.

Robusto

@CowperKettle: Moscow having a snow apocalypse.

tchrist

17:54

> Thalidomide was a sedative that was given to pregnant people in the 1960’s as a cure for morning sickness.

LIARS!

This is why the PC police are everywhere "despisèd, rejected by men" as Händel's English librettist put it.

It was only ever given to pregnant women, never to pregnant "people".

People do not get pregnant. Ever. Only women do, no matter how hard you try. Check your chromosomes at the door before you write more nonsense.

user 85795

Yeah, PC on steroids.

tchrist

The impregnator cannot become preggers, only the impregnee.

Somebiddy done learned 'em wrong.

user 85795

yuppers

CowperKettle

Junior (1994 film)

Junior is a 1994 American buddy sci-fi comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson. The film follows Alex Hesse, an Austrian-American scientist who agrees to undergo a male pregnancy from a newly developed drug Expectane.The film was released in the United States the day before Thanksgiving on November 23, 1994, to lukewarm reception and did not match the box office performance of Reitman's earlier films starring Schwarzenegger - 1988's Twins, which also starred DeVito, and 1990's Kindergarten Cop. Schwarzenegger and Thompson...

I liked the movie when it came out

tchrist

> He was a child of privilege turned demagogue, a man who blurred the boundaries of politics and spectacle and seemed to think himself a divinity beyond mortal rules. His tumultuous tenure lasted longer than anyone expected. Then along came a pestilence that seemed a sordid reflection of the ruler’s arrogance and ineptitude. The disease revealed and amplified social tensions that had festered under the surface and brought back whispers of civil war. The people could stand no more, and even the fainthearted Senate at last showed hopeful signs of courage.

> I am talking, of course, about the Roman emperor Commodus and his successor Pertinax. Son of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, Commodus ruled as sole emperor for 12 years (A.D. 180-192), his reign marred by perpetual scandal. The emperor had disturbingly little esteem for traditional decorum. To the delight of some and dismay of many, Commodus participated in the gladiatorial spectacles himself. We can only imagine what he would have done with Twitter.

Nothing new under the sun.

2

CowperKettle

18:09

Where did brains come from? -- Leonid L. Moroz et al. Neural versus alternative integrative systems: molecular insights into origins of neurotransmitters, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2021).

tchrist

Worms.

They had the mouth at one end and the butt at the other.

Somebody had to decide what to eat where. Hence, brains.

CowperKettle

Flag of Ukraine

The flag of Ukraine is a banner of two equally sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow (Constitution of Ukraine, Article 20). The top represents sky and the yellow represents wheat. The combination of blue and yellow as a symbol of Ukrainian lands comes from the flag of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia used in the 12th century. As a national flag, the blue and yellow bicolour has been officially used since the 1848 Spring of Nations, when it was hoisted over the Lviv Rathaus. It was officially adopted as a state flag for the first time in 1918 by the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic...

They should add the tree and the man, that will be hilarious.

CowperKettle

18:22

> Later this year Seagate will start shipping 20TB hard drives that use HAMR technology, but SDK is going far beyond that with the promise of its HAMR platters allowing for up to 80TB drives.

CowperKettle

19:04

Picos de Europa

The Picos de Europa ("Peaks of Europe", also the Picos) are a mountain range extending for about 20 km (12 mi), forming part of the Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain. The range is situated in the Autonomous Communities of Asturias, Cantabria and Castile and León. The highest peak is Torre de Cerredo, at an elevation of 2650 m (8,690 ft). == Name == A widely accepted origin for the name is that they were the first sight of Europe for ships arriving from the Americas. The name can be traced to Lucio Marineo Sículo, who mentions the Rupes Europae in 1530. Ambrosio Morales, chronist of Felipe...

Beautiful

Cerberus

19:18

Volcanic?

tchrist

20:36

nytimes.com/2021/02/15/opinion/ancient-rome-covid.html

Gigili

It's so weird that German have no IPA.

How could I pronounce the dam- word correctly?

By listening to the audio they provide x100

tchrist

@Gigili What do you mean?

Gigili

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols to show pronunciation

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (158): Is "ho"/"hoe" basically an equivalent of "whore" which differs only stylistically? by Mike Olguin on english.SE

Gigili

21:02

es ist mir nicht gestattet, darüber zu sprechen

Mitch

21:28

Oct 17 '20 at 21:31, by Mitch

Jul 17 '17 at 14:38, by Mitch

'There is nothing new under the sun' is not new under the sun

Robusto

21:42

@Gigili German is easy to pronounce (well, with a few exceptions) from the spelling (well, Hochdeutsch anyway) and easy to spell.

What I mean is, you know how it should be pronounced, but whether you can get your mouth to do that is sometimes problematic.

Feb 2 '11 at 21:27, by Robusto

My surname is German and I can't even pronounce it to my own satisfaction ...

Interesting. At my altitude, water boils at ~202 °F (~95 °C).

Robusto

22:04

No Compromising with the GOP Cult | Robert Reich

►

tchrist

22:44

@Robusto The rule is about 1 degree under 100C per kilofoot about C-level.

@Robusto To say it properly, say shit but skip the sh- part. :)

Mitch

Interactive Map with travel time to distance

CowperKettle

15 hours after the second vaccine shot, my axillary t is 37.6°C

I feel cold, so I put on my running fleece stuff

Mitch

2nd shot is supposed to give you a bit of a fever

but that means it is working.

CowperKettle

I expected fever with the 1st one. But yes, it's logical.

Mitch

22:59

It's not unreasonable to try to schedule the 2nd one for right before a usual day off.

I'm saying all this third hand... I don't actually know anything and haven't experienced anything.

Robusto

@Mitch That's never stopped you before.

2

@tchrist Indeed. That's how I got that result. I'm ~5200 ft. above sea level @home.

tchrist

We've hit double digits again today, except this time it's POSITIVE!

I sure wish London and Amsterdam could get a couple nights at a full -25F and a howling gale to boot so they'd stop complaining about their tropical trials and tribulations.

Otherwise it's too much like listening to folks in Houston complain about the current "winter" they're having there.

"Oh no, we have to wear a jacket! The Fimbulwinter is upon us!"

Texans. Can't even give 'em a heated umbrella.

If Gail is howling in your boot you I really should stop and let her out.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…