That is certainly true! Yikes. Never even remotely considered doing that.
TNP has at least one niece and one nephew.
That is certainly true! Yikes. Never even remotely considered doing that.
TNP has at least one niece and one nephew.
Well, yeah, that is.....no....I can't figure a clever way out of that. Three nephews, no nieces.
TNP thinks one of the greatest tools of vBulletin and later variations on the web forum is the ignore list, and TNP uses it often.
Can't say as I do.
TNP has occasionally looked in on live critter cams like this one, for a bald eagle nest in southern California (link intentionally broken, as it would not appear otherwise): https://www.youtube.<br /> <br /> ...?v=B4-L2nfGcuE
No, but that looks like fun.TNP thinks "one of these days" he or she is going to set up one of those Go-Pro (or knock-off) cameras to try to catch pictures of some of the amazing birds outside his or her abode.Spoiler (mouseover to read):
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I've thought about it. My BIL has one for his outdoor feeder, and has gotten some great closeup pics, especially of hummingbirds and cardinals.
TNP thinks seven states is 'WAY too many to have the cardinal as state bird. Every state should have a unique state bird, dammit!
Never thought about it....had a similar thought about other state tokens, but that was a while ago.
Yeah, too many cardinals....and sports teams and....it can be a bit much.
TNP (I know, never talk religion or politics or sports).....TNP released a long relaxed sigh after the KC Chefs didn't threepeat at this big game.
Bonus TNP if one completely muted the TV or whatever during halftime and commercials (I was working that evening, so didn't watch any of it, just glanced at the play-by-play in text format).
I will confess to being mildly pleased, yes.
TNP has had enough winter.
More or less, yes. But wishing will not make it so.
TNP watched Groundhog Day on or near the actual day this year.
What? Nobody does that!
Anyway, no. Haven't seen in a few years and never been geographically near nor temporally near Groundhog Day. At other times, sure, sure, just not this best time of year to generally go out cruising for some local talent.
TNP has a book. And everyone he or she meets goes into that book.
Just about anyone of note, yes. Not that it leads to bad consequences for any of them, though.
TNP can look out the window right now and see bright white snow outside.
Yeah. Depends how hard I squint, but the white flies that have accumulated are still here.
TNP has something special planned for St. Patrick's Day.
No, not in particular. Not yet, at least.
TNP will be sure to wear something green.
Yeah, I have a mediocre but presentable solid emerald green tie, which I will certainly wear. Green undies? Well, too soon to tell, but at least I wear my emerald green necktie with a black suit (well....maybe slacks and a sportcoat.
TNP has recently bought too many books....and finds it gets to a problem.
I loaded up on books recently, due largely to birthday windfalls, but, hey, no problem.
TNP has had a persistent cough this winter.
Fortunately not. I've been pretty healthy this morning (if you still have one, RET, hope you feel all better soon!)
TNP will be leaving work early tomorrow.
I hope so! My main plan for personal finance is to leave work early *every* day. It's...a work in progress...lot of details, lot of ins and outs. If they release me early, I still get benefits and time off accrued for those hours...just less of a paycheck.
TNP has recently had to replace all four tires on his or her car (if applicable) and was not happy about it. But would admit driving on decent new tires is pretty sweet.
I haven't, but yes, I'm sure it would be. My front right tire keeps going just a little flat. I'll have to replace it before too long, I think.
TNP talked to at least six people under age twenty today.
Negatory. I *could* have, in practice, but just kept my head down and did my job without much need for conversation. Don't think we had any younglings on the job today, though. Meh....maybe? Not too sure. Don't think so, though, including all encounters today. TNP has ever had a problem with, say, the MCL or ACL (about the knees) or similar and if so, has found it be fairly life-altering.
No, fortunately not, although I know people who have.
TNP has sweated a lot in a sport in the past week.
Nope. I don't even do pushups anymore. I'm soaked with sweat after work five days a week. And most of my job is not that physical. Not hyperhydrotic. I sweat playing pool for hours....but hands never sweat on me, so no need for hand chalk or a glove. TNP will name a sport a middle-aged person can or should play (and, no, Tom Brady doesn't count, nor does curling!) Something good. All I got is playing pool, and that's arguably only very tangentially a sport. Or body-weight calisthenics....pull-ups, dips, pushups, resistance training....or hiking, backpacking (activites based as much on knowledge as stamina). I dunno you tell me!
I like hiking and backpacking very much. I take vigorous walks around my neighborhood all the time. Weather permitting, I also enjoy cycling.
I consider pool (and snooker) a game, not a sport. Likewise chess. Cheerleading (a sports-adjacent activity, however strenuous) and dance (a form of physical artistic expression and/or a performing art) are also not sports IMHO, regardless of what the IOC might say.
TNP agrees with most of the previous paragraph.
Last edited by Elendil's Heir; 10 Mar 2025 at 10:27 PM.
Hell no! The cue sports (pool, snooker, billiards) are very much sports! Sweating over a hot table for hours, executing physical moves based upon strategic and tactical ideas. If golf is a so-called sport, then hell yes so are the cue games! TNP needs at least another bookshelf...for books.
Most definitely. By this point, I could use a whole freakin' warehouse.
TNP has at least three books underway at the moment.
It is to laugh. Yes. In fact I've transferred funds from my Roth IRA to pay off my book binge, which includes some relatively expensive volumes (think, like hundred or onefitty or so rather than rare book, but still, it adds up), by paperback standards. It reminds me of the character Udal, IIRC, from Ford's The Fifth Queen. But, yes, on any average ___day, yes. I am reading about that many a day, plus dictionaries and cribs and so forth for Greek and Latin. As discrete books, mind you. Not as just browsing the stacks. These are what one might call "books in progress." TNP would feel mightily disrespected if a former flame, while just shooting pool, playing cards, chatting, drinking at a bar were to have said "And you're not coming over to my place and crashing." Implying that were one's intent.
Last edited by Jizzelbin; 15 Mar 2025 at 02:46 AM. Reason: formatting fix...eh..."fix"...work in progress....I suspect Fanucci is involved but I shall discover the cause
Yeah, I can see how that might rub you the wrong way.
TNP has been to Florida or some other sunny place in the past month.
Not really. It was kind of sunny yesterday here, though!
TNP has been inclined to have some body work done on a motor vehicle in the past....rather than just leaving the car, let's say, with some of it's guts exposed, Terminator-style.
Yes, an addled old man once badly dented one of my car doors when he lost control passing through an intersection and hit me; I got the door fixed.
TNP has listened to some Bach today.
In a way, yes. I haven't touched the keyboards in a while, but I was playing in my head the A Major English suite and the E Minor Partita, sort of as a palette cleanser when I was doing some stuff with Wes's "Twisted Blues" on guitar. There have been very few days when I haven't "listened" to Bach. Not really a recording, by Angela Hewitt or Gould or Schiff, but running over the score of such-and-such a piece, at the very least. TNP finds it more and more necessary, as one ages (as one does), to not only pay closer attention to his or her fingernails...every fucking three days or so!....but also to say corny things to his or her friends such as "I appreciate you and in this concrete regard." TNP has been very much enchanted recently by several settings of the latin mass in music, whether by Beethoven, or Bach.
Last edited by Jizzelbin; 27 Mar 2025 at 06:52 AM. Reason: whatever
Hmm, no, not in Latin. I was listening to a bit of Schubert's German Mass, though, the other day.
TNP can say five different sentences in Latin that aren't mottos.
Heh. Sure. I can dig up some passages from the little grey cells from various authors, I'm sure, from memory, or just recite parts of the Roman Rite Latin novus ordo mass and various supplications from tradition, or quote from scripture, or just make up some sententiae for fun, but I'm no longer particularly proud of my abilities in various forms of lingua latina.....it's just a tool or a technology I use frequently. Old school "tech": I don't use any kind of online translation kludge. TNP has been recently very frustrated by various newcomers to the USA who only seem to know one language. Russian! Great! So apparently such people cannot speak German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, or Latin for that matter? My Spanish nor Italian is no great shakes, mind you, but I can still speak the motherfuckers well enough to communicate! I dunno, if I emigrated to another country, as, let's say a "citizen of the world," I'd make an effort to speak more than one language! Doesn't have to be English, certainly, but at least something more than one single, dumb language. Could be ancient Greek for all I care. At least that would be a start. That's in the context of my work environment where I have to solve their little problems....otherwise, I don't care. Apparently Russians only speak one language. That is puzzling to me, and I disapprove. Next time, I think my strategy will be to bark orders at them in German, or just outright insult them in French...while demanding that they look at me when I'm speaking to them. They won't know what I'm saying, exactly, but they'll get the idea that I've given them a Vichy-style order to get their shit together.
Last edited by Jizzelbin; 28 Mar 2025 at 07:44 AM. Reason: Don Fanucci hasn't fixed the formatting problem yet, so eat me.
I'd certainly prefer that anyone who wishes to live in the U.S. learn to speak English, but I wouldn't require it except for those going through the naturalization process who are under, say, age 60.
TNP has been in a Federal building other than a post office in the past week.
Nope. We at Amazon have our own little pile of drivers who try to roll on without even a driver's license and having their seven year old daughter step out of the car to be a translator.
(I can roll with spanish, Spanglish, whatever, but where do these people get the balls? Pardon my French! Next time I'm only barking orders in German at them. "Americans" only speak one language. Bullshit. I also can do a good Vichy French military command.)
TNP can answer: "Why do the Russians in particular insist on only speaking one language (namely, Russian)? Much less get insulted and almost start crying when you insist on using Eng, FR, IT, German, hell, even Finnish or Latin?" And follow-up TNP, who the hell let's their like seven year old daughter out of the car to "translate" in a potentially hazardous environment.
I have no idea. I've never noticed, or heard, that Russians are particularly chauvinistic that way. The French have the reputation, I'd say, for being the most persnickety about their language.
TNP agrees with George Bernard Shaw, who wrote, "The French do not care what they say, so long as they pronounce it correctly."
Yeah, somewhat. There is a long-standing tradition that something can be pronounced "correctly," but doesn't sound right. But there are so many regional French accents, including overseas, that it may as well be a mask for a kind of chauvinism or provincialism.
TNP does not think those traits are peculiar to the "French," the global community of native francophones. And bonus TNP, will name at least one more example of a similiar psycholinguistic phenomenon.
I do, in fact, think those traits are peculiar to the French. I cannot think of speakers of another language who are so fiercely protective of it.
TNP has spoken more than a sentence of French in the past two weeks.
Can't say that I have.
TNP has quoted a Latin saying recently.
Yeah, actually. I was allowed to climb up the very serious scaffolding during repairs to my parish church, St. Patrick Catholic Church, and Fr Tim pointed out that he requested the "Veni Sancte Spiritus" be printed in Irish, English, Latin, and Greek about the coupole.
Pretty cool to see up close the recently, locally painted, murals of St. Patrick and St. Brigid up close, in addition to many other details.
But, as a matter of course, I use Latin daily for fun and, well, fun. Not as good at it as I can be, but I use it every day for reciting the rosary prayers, and mostly to look at Cicero's vicious attacks in prose, viz., his Phillppics. And I still try to understand Propertius.....he is a beautiful poet, but so clever I cannot often get the meaning without a crib of some sort.
TNP has ever took up something nel mezzo del cammin and actually became good at it. You know, maybe painting, or horseriding, or philandering, or whatever that might be.
Not really, no. Old dog, new tricks, etc.
TNP knew, without looking it up, that Nel mezzo del cammin means "Midway through the journey of my life."
Well, it's been a handful of days, so I'll say the obvious: "Yeah." That's why I said it. Or rather quoted from Dante.
TNP has any particular thoughts about the next pope, but will not be waiting for the sign of election especially interestedly. For example, a Filipino? Or whatever. (I like the Filipino guy myself....that should be....but dunno anything about the dude....except I bet he plays king-hell game of one-pocket or eight-ball).
Sorry about 2x post, but I wanted to correct without screwing up the formatting. That'd be negative on my part....I never thought about the Dante part of a verse translated as such. More literal, like "In the middle of the path," where the reader is enjoined to supply the context. But, then, my Italian is not that great....exchange pleasantries and such, and order breakfast or whatever....it's not even clear to me that Dante meant "middle of life," stricto sensu, but that is the context of the narrative.
I'm not Catholic, but I liked Pope Francis. I appreciated his humility, his thoughtfulness and his tireless advocacy for the poor, the forgotten and refugees. He really tried to reform the church and move it in a more modern and compassionate direction, unlike his two predecessors. I think he did about as much as he could, given the Vatican bureaucracy and deep-rooted conservative opposition. Now, I hope the first Jesuit pope may rest in peace, and that his successor - whoever he is, wherever he's from - will carry Francis's important work forward.
TNP mostly agrees with that.
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