Yeah.
TNP doesn't consider herbal teas as "tea." They can be delicious and soothing, but they're not tea by any but the most eccentric of metrics.
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Yeah.
TNP doesn't consider herbal teas as "tea." They can be delicious and soothing, but they're not tea by any but the most eccentric of metrics.
Yes, they're tea. If something is commonly called "tea," it's tea.
TNP could do with some hot cocoa right about now.
Yeah, preferably with a shot of something in it.
TNP likes sipping hot broth.
Yes. Hot broth, hot tea with lemon.
And, I do hope you are on the mend. Herbal tea is an excellent suggestion. They should really have a different name for it, though.
TNP is not averse to taking lemon or honey in tea or herbal tea, as a decadent palliative.
Oh, by all means. I just had honey in mint tea on Saturday at a Middle Eastern restaurant, although I felt perfectly fine.
TNP loves Middle Eastern food.
Hell yes. I cannot resist a good falafel sandwich with all the trimmings. Hummus is the only reason I regret selling my KitchenAid stand mixer, but a stick blender works OK (I know you can buy it in a store, but I require massive quantities of the stuff). I'm unsure of where the line is drawn between middle east/near east/eastern-mediterranean foods, but IMHO there's plenty of overlap. And goat's milk is very good, too. Of course, like literally everybody on the planet, including vegans, the meat of lamb is to be eaten with vigor and loud gusto. Raw while the lamb's heart is still beating, if necessary.
TNP will choose between a gyros sandwich, and a faladel sandwich. And will explain why. In detail. Explicit detail.
I prefer a gyro - tastier and better mouthfeel, especially with the yogurt sauce, I'd say.
TNP has read The Great Gatsby in the past decade.
Yes, not too long ago. A masterpiece of clarity in the vernacular, in a brief form, which I don't believe Fitzgerald ever came close to matching in his other novels.
TNP takes a very dim view of so-called "transhumanists" who think that a technological singularity is coming relatively soon during which the acceleration of machine learning and generally "smart" AI will produce utterly unforeseeable effects. More or less, I think that's their point.
No, I can't say I take a dim view. I don't think I'm in a position to take a view at all. Could happen, I suppose. World changing things tend to happen without being predicted, though, I think.
TNP thinks chocolate chip cookies make other cookies pretty much redundant.
(Oh, and thanks for the kind words about my cold, guys, it's pretty much better.)
(Glad to hear it!)
No, I actually prefer ginger cookies to chocolate chip. I've even been known to request my wife's famous ginger drops rather than cake for my birthday.
TNP has been to a birthday party in the past month.
Sort of. I pounded the table at the break room for a co-worker last week over coffee, and gave an extra large shout-out to another one in the past few weeks. I think my father's birthday was sometime in the last month, but there wasn't any big get-together, that I know of. I know I left a voice-mail and it was much appreciated, and we spoke on the phone.
TNP is pretty convinced that in life, you have to make your own parties and do the inviting yourself. Otherwise, nothing ever gets done.
(ETA chocker-chip cookies rule! there is no other option!)
I reject your cookie dogma and substitute my own!
As to parties, yeah, pretty much, especially as one gets older.
TNP will be mowing this weekend.
Tcheh. Yeah. I'm thinking about mowing some lawns and it ain't the kind of lawns you're thinking about. I'm talking about, as an enticement, asking this woman to shave my crotch with a safety razor.
You know, in case she thinks asking her out to have some beers after work isn't forward enough.
TNP wouldn't really trade his or her social life for anything else. Nice balance, or whatever.
True, I value my family and friends too much.
TNP has bought a lottery ticket in the past month.
C'mon. No. It would be a pretty sensible small investment, though, to buy a lottery ticket for a buck or few or something every week. Somebody has to win, I guess, and the risk is quite small. No, it never occurred to me, and I associate games of chance with some really pitiable people playing Keno and video poker at the local dive bars. As opposed to the sensible people who just sit at the bar and drink cheap beers, I guess.
TNP has actually, literally thrown a book at somebody.
No, but I once had a book thrown at me (a dictionary, by a high school English teacher, in mock-frustration when I correctly defined a word he was sure I wouldn't know).
TNP has a good book within arm's reach at this very moment.
Yep. Blackburn, de Rďjke, Venema, Modal Logic. Julia Kristeva, Soleil noir : dépression et mélancolie. And some others, but those are what interest me right now.
TNP is pretty good at making a very loud, sharp whistle when necessary, but aims to improve his or her technique, for it is useful.
I can do a pretty clear whistle, but it's not as loud as some I've heard. I'm always up for improving my whistle!
TNP can, like me, whistle the entire piccolo part from Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
Nah, can barely whistle at all.
TNP owns a policeman's whistle.
No, although it's an intriguing thought. Don't know how that's different than a regular whistle, but it sounds better, anyway.
TNP owns a compressed-air horn.
No, although I have used them. Fun!
TNP needs something noisy to wake him or her up in the morning.
Nah, I haven't used an alarm of any kind in years. I hardly even sleep in on weekends.
TNP uses Apple Pay regularly.
No, hardly ever.
TNP has put a new app on his or her smartphone in the past week.
Nope. Currently my phone is at that sweet size spot where it's big enough to pinch-browse the web, but small enough that I'm not inclined to play Gin Rummy or Backgammon on it, or use any of some cool slide-rule emulators. I got computers for that, or maybe a very small tablet at most least small size.
TNP is inclined to choose between (i) drowning any person who says the phrase "Use your words" to him or her (ii) listening to drummer Mike Clark play with The Headhunters feauring Herbie Hancock on record/disc/tape/FLAC/whatever (iii) listening to 1970s-era Elton John. Explain why.
I would never drown anybody for what they said, I don't particularly care for Mike Clark, and I can't go wrong with option iii - "Island Girl" (1975) to be precise. Love it!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M6onFt--iM
TNP can't stand that song.
I've never heard it on purpose, so, by default, I say "it's OK, but I can't stand the title." ETA OK, now I heard the first few bars. Fucking A goddamned right I can't stand it. Yeah, I've heard it before, and, while I'm not a scholar of Elton John's corpus, pretty much everything about that tune I hate. Fucking disco beat, limp, trite piano work, over-compressed mixing, vocals layered upon vocals, upon vocals. No. Sorry, true believers, but that is not the kind of sugar papa likes.
TNP has an amusing story about contacting a friend from the past, primarily to ask him or her a question about one of his or her specialized domains of knowledge.
Hmm, not that I can think of, no.
TNP has been on a university or college campus in the past month.
Nah, don't think so, although there are a couple of Toronto universities whose campuses blend so seamlessly into the city that I might have been.
TNP has no regrets about university or college, but no particularly sentimental associations either.
That's true: I mean, it's just one of those things you put on your CV, and "team loyalty" seems to me more than a bit odd. Not into branding my emotions with the imprimatur of some temple of reseatch, when what counts is who and what and at what specific time was able to perform their work and be accomodated by administrators with their teaching schedules, sabbaticals, and so forth.
TNP has about equal parts respect and dismissiveness of the work administrators do. In whatever field.
Pretty much. They're people like anyone else - some are skilled at what they do, some are not; some are fine people, some are not.
TNP has supervised more than ten people.
I guess not. The unit I was Director of in Nunavut was fairly understaffed, and I can't really count acting Chief gigs in my present office.
TNP has retirement plans that don't involve alcohol and Netflix.
No. Those will definitely be part of my retirement (as well as travel, books and writing).
TNP has written a short story in the past year.
No, haven't written in years. Maybe when I retire....
TNP has weather-related aches.
No, but hay fever bothers me in the spring sometimes.
TNP has a box of tissues within easy reach right now.
No. I've never ever had a box of tissues in any place I've lived. Dozens of handkerchiefs, though: strong, and doesn't leave stray bits of paper if you have some facial stubble. Fuck germs, they're clean enough and I don't let other people put their disgusting snot in them.
TNP is now thinking or has ever thought of keeping some wet-wipes in the bathroom. For cleaning your ass, let's not kid ourselves.
Have been using them for years. They work.
TNP has already had a pleasant surprise this morning. (Mine was discovering that the biggest dullard in the Office is finally retiring.)
Yes. Upon waking, I found one of the large tendons in my right ankle is much worse when walking, despite (i) me not having yet looked up the physiology of the foot yet (ii) sleeping for ten hours. OTOH, it is kind of amusing, I guess, to walk with a pronounced Ygor-style limp for even the shortest of distances. Amusing in a painful and irritating way, but still amusing. And I can spend the next week teetotalling in case any authority person starts sticking their big snouts in my business and suspects I've got some drunkard-style difficulties in walking.
TNP has very few, if any, errands to run or chores to do this weekend and is extremely happy about it.
Relatively few, but not very few, I would say. Those kinds of weekends are rare.
TNP will be in Maryland in the next week.
No, although being friends with someone who lives there currently, it's a good vacation destination, should I ever get a chance.
TNP likes softshell crabs, but thinks digging into even very good, fresh crabs is not really worth the effort and would rather just open a can of tuna.
No, I definitely think it's worth the effort. I like crabs all kind of ways.
TNP has eaten crabs in the past month.
Hmm, no, don't think so.
TNP likes clams, on the half shell, in chowder, with linguine, whatever.
Yeah. I wouldn't take them raw (if that's a way people eat them) but despite them seeming inherently unclean, some nice clams casino or any of the other uses are just fine. In fact, kind of fun, especially as part of a communal dining thing.
TNP has had the chance to look at various medical illustrations of the tendons of the foot and lower leg. Spoiler alert: not too dissimilar in structure from the way the hands are structured.
It was awhile ago, but yes.
TNP thinks it's remarkable the human body works as well as it does, for as freakin' complicated as it is.
Oh, without question. I don't much about physiology in any given species, but since last I checked, being a human, I'm more familiar with its inner systems than other mammals. Pure self-interest. People rightfully point often to the structure of the human brain and the CNS, but the complexity of "lower" systems is perhaps best describe as incredibly well-regulated, and somehow, for all its complexity, capable of understanding.
TNP is good at drawing/sketchings things from the natural world. If not, TNP feels kind of inadequate about his or her rudimentary abilities.
Not good at drawing at all, and do feel a little bad about it. Not too bad, since I escaped Art class so long ago, but a little bad,
TNP likes to play Hangman.
No, I'd far rather play Botticelli.
TNP has played Botticelli in the past year.
No. It's just too damned complicated for me.
TNP can think of, and will name, another game that is pretty simple but that he or she just refuses to learn. If TNP has reasons, that would be amusing, but it's not required to supply such.
True. I learned backgammon once but didn't like it and can't be arsed to try again.
TNP loves backgammon.
False. I don't love the game, but I like it well enough.
TNP thinks cribbage is one of the stupidest games ever invented, but still plays it to pass the time. Sort of the card game equivalent of twiddling one's thumbs, IOW.
No, I am terrible at cards, and play very few card games.
TNP likes Vegas, but doesn't gamble much when there.