Deep 6 FaWtL

[Drejk]

Fantasy Monster: Candy Storm

[GM_Beernorg]

Hey there John!

[Quark Blast]

@Nobody'sHome

Do you have an opinion to share as to why there is so much administration in higher education?
I was talking with my thesis advisor the other day and she mentioned how the faculty headcount has nearly doubled since she came on a little over two decades ago. She was lamenting the time spent grant writing was split about 50/50 between dealing with the grantor and the university and how that extra ([smaller]wasted[/smaller) time commitment factored into her application decisions when it really shouldn't have to.

[Limeylongears]

I don't have to work between now and the 4th of Jan, so after a big old sleep to recover from yesterday's 11-hour journey, I spent a thrilling day (in no particular order) visiting the Chinese supermarket to stock up on tea and condiments, making dhal, exercising, restringing the mandolin, reading, and getting my hair cut to the sweet, sweet sound of 'Cotton Eye Joe' by 'Rednex'.

[lisamarlene]

Never actually got to work on my projects today, as WW and I have been attempting (with pole saw and some rope) to get the dead branches out of the old oak in the front yard.
The oak has been dying by inches for years and every big storm pulls more of it down, but Miz Daisy calls it "The Mother Tree" and refuses to get it removed.
I've lost track of how many random bits of shrubbery on this property have been labeled with ancestral significance, but, in the vernacular of my homeland, dere ya go.

[gran rey de los mono]

(Having not read/watched Harry Potter, I do not know what is being said here, but it seems funny.)

Why are the students at Hogwart's afraid of the Shrieking Shack? Because it's haunted? THEY LITERALLY GO TO SCHOOL WITH GHOSTS!!!!

[gran rey de los mono]

The Mandalorian in a nutshell:

You are a mechanic. A busted-ass 30 year old Honda Civic pulls up. Dude in an Armani suit gets out and offers you $2 to fix everything wrong with the car. You tell him it's not enough money, but you'll do it anyway if he does something stupidly dangerous. He shrugs, takes his 3 year old out of the back seat, and heads off to do the thing.

[gran rey de los mono]

Dionysus: "I had a salad for dinner. Technically a fruit salad. Actually it was mostly grapes. Ok, all grapes. Well, grape juice. Fermented grape juice. Wine. I had wine for dinner."

[John Napier 698]

About to go home. Good night, everyone.

[gran rey de los mono]

Life must be so dull for people who have no hills to die on. They exist on a flat, barren plain of compromise, acceptance, and accommodation, while I? I reign supreme over the lush, rolling highlands of stupid s#** that I have irrationally chosen to build my identity on.

[gran rey de los mono]

Okay, try to picture this. A piece of sheet music. The first measure is one whole rest. The second measure is two half-rests. The third measure is 4 quarter-rests. The fourth measure is 8 eighth-rests. Then 16 sixteenth-rests, 32 thirty-secondth-rests, etc...

The whole piece is literally just silence, but it keeps getting faster, and faster, and faster...

[gran rey de los mono]

One of these days I shall submit my manuscript to a publisher. But not yet. The world is not yet ready for the adventures of Captain Harry McHowls, the submarine pilot who is secretly a werewolf hiding from the moon.

[gran rey de los mono]

The opposite of "formaldehyde" is "casualdejekyll".

[gran rey de los mono]

I enjoy John Ringo as an author, especially when he really gets on a roll. As evidenced by the following. (For context, the speaker is in the middle of one-on-one combat with a bad man named Dionys McCanoc, and is simultaneously giving him a lesson on the proper way to insult an opponent.)

For length and content:

"Dionys, thou art a coward. Sooth, dost thou send others before thee and refrain from the strife thyself. Thou strikest women yet shirk to strike a man, lest thy pustulent skin be cut by a blade fairer than they own. Sooth, thou art a coward, McCanoc."

"Dionys, thou art a braggart. Braggart thou art for nought, for in every contest thou art defeated. Fighter of weaklings and braggarts like thyself, whensoever a true knight face thee, thou runs away. Yet, sooth, from this cowardly retreat dost thou make brag. McCanoc, thou art a braggart."

"Dionys, thou art smelly. Thy breath stinks of the rotten ejacula of horses, which, sooth, thou dost love as thy morning drink. Thy body reeks with the stench of fear, and the manure of asparagus-eating goats is better than the smell from thy moustache. McCanoc, thou art a stinker."

"Dionys, thou art ugly. Thy orcs doth not run forward to the fight, but away from thy countenance. Sooth, in the history of the ill-favored, thy name is held in high esteem. Thy whore mother screamed at first sight of thee as the replicator burst open of its own accord in horror. The ill-fortuned persons that were forced to care for thee had to put a pork chop around thy neck to get the dog to play with thee. Further, sooth, when it did, it mistook thy ass for thy face and preferred it to lick. McCanoc thou art ugly"

"Dionys, thou art stupid. Thrice hast thou attacked us and thrice have we thrown thee back, though we be but, forsooth, a fraction of thy number. Thou art unlettered and hath never read of the term 'defeat in detail,' for assuredly, but those few letters would require all day and the use of both of your pustulent forefingers. But the veriest simpleton canst understand that thine tactics are those of a school-yard bully held back until his tutors at least release him as a man full grown yet unable to manage fingerpainting. The very fact that thou canst breathe must be by the arts of some homunculi or hob, smarter than thou, who doth sit upon thy shoulder and whisper in thy ear, 'breathe in, breathe out' else surely thou wouldst cease in this vital activity for lack of thought. Canst thou walk and chew bubble gum at the same time it is asked and I cry 'Nay' for I have found you, face down, the bubble gum upon the ground as proof."
"McCanoc, thou art stupid."

If you are interested, this exchange is found in chapter 42 of the book There Will be Dragons, by the aforementioned John Ringo. It can be had in ebook form, for free, from the Baen Free Library.(Here is a link.)

[gran rey de los mono]

I want to open a biblical themed restaurant called "The Garden of Eatin'". One of the items on the menu is called The Forbidden Fruit, anyone who orders it is immediately thrown out.

[lisamarlene]

gran rey de los mono wrote:

I want to open a biblical themed restaurant called "The Garden of Eatin'". One of the items on the menu is called The Forbidden Fruit, anyone who orders it is immediately thrown out.

Garden of Eatin is already brand name. Not sure what else they make, but a friend always used to buy their blue corn tortilla chips.

I tried them. They did not tempt me to sin.

[Freehold DM]

There are several garden of eatins I know of.

[gran rey de los mono]

lisamarlene wrote:

gran rey de los mono wrote:

I want to open a biblical themed restaurant called "The Garden of Eatin'". One of the items on the menu is called The Forbidden Fruit, anyone who orders it is immediately thrown out.

Garden of Eatin is already brand name. Not sure what else they make, but a friend always used to buy their blue corn tortilla chips.

I tried them. They did not tempt me to sin.

Never been a fan of blue corn tortillas. Don't know why, but they always tasted off to me. And the last time I had blue corn tortilla chips, they were thicker than normal chips which gave them a strange texture. Like I had to chew extra hard to eat them, which was unpleasant.

[captain yesterday]

Me (after noticing a new note on my snow run list): What's premium service?

The boss (smiling): You!

Apparently, people are willing to spend extra money to request specific crews to clean their properties.

I will absolutely let this go to my head.

[GM_Beernorg]

Premium Captain Yesterday...guaranteed to not hit your mailbox with plow blade, and have great hair while doing it!

[captain yesterday]

GM_Beernorg wrote:

Premium Captain Yesterday...guaranteed to not hit your mailbox with plow blade, and have great hair while doing it!

This is true! In fact even though I have a plow on my truck I almost never use it and never on an actual driveway.

Another point of pride is, all the premium crew leaders are either former coworker or all the people I've trained for snow in the last four winters that didn't quit.

[captain yesterday]

Freehold DM wrote:

There are several garden of eatins I know of.

Yup, I've also seen them.

[NobodysHome]

Quark Blast wrote:

@Nobody'sHome

Do you have an opinion to share as to why there is so much administration in higher education?
I was talking with my thesis advisor the other day and she mentioned how the faculty headcount has nearly doubled since she came on a little over two decades ago. She was lamenting the time spent grant writing was split about 50/50 between dealing with the grantor and the university and how that extra ([smaller]wasted[/smaller) time commitment factored into her application decisions when it really shouldn't have to.

I consider it, "Bloat through laziness," and it's not at all limited to academia.

(1) Something bad happens.
This could be falsified grant proposals, grant money provided to morally-questionable research, or one of hundreds of other things where someone, somewhere, exploited a loophole in the system or incompetent review by underfunded staff (see the U.S. Patent Office).

(2) Rather than reviewing existing rules to see whether something was missed, new rules are enacted.
This is the one that incenses me. Instead of, "Was this already illegal? What did we miss?", the entire review process is bypassed because "the public wants action now!" Nobody receives votes for saying, "We're looking into this." They receive votes for saying, "We've enacted new legislation that makes this horrible deed illegal," ...even if it was already illegal.

(3) Repeat ad nauseam.

Add to this a plethora of policies that make no sense (for example, California is a "butts in the seat" state where schools don't get money for students unless they are physically present, so keeping kids home because they're sick costs your school money), and you end up with the bureaucratic nightmare that is educational administration.

EDIT: And yes, there ARE career bureaucrats who come in and "want to have an impact" so they put in all sorts of nonsensical rules on their own, but I find them to be in the vast minority compared to, "Well, one time a student came in and had all the formulas saved on their calculator, so now we require that the instructor hand-check every phone and calculator that comes into the classroom before allowing it on tests."

[Drejk]

GM_Beernorg wrote:

Premium Captain Yesterday...guaranteed to not hit your mailbox with plow blade, and have great hair while doing it!

Does he snowplow angry bears?

[Drejk]

... garden of ettins...

*makes note*

[NobodysHome]

Interestingly enough, yesterday I had the second-worst food poisoning of my lifetime...
...from a sushi place...
...yet the two of us who got the severe food poisoning had only one dish in common: The chicken katsu curry, which no one else touched.

Can pretty much guarantee they used the same knife to cut the raw chicken then cut the cooked chicken, but hoo boy, it was unpleasant. Semi-conscious for 16 hours, 102.6˚F, plenty of gut cramps to tell me it wasn't any kind of illness.

On the bright side, just in case GothBard went to the drug store and picked up 4 at-home COVID tests and we verified it wasn't COVID.

That's something... I guess...

[Drejk]

Fantasy Monster: Feast Tree

[GM_Beernorg]

ouch NH, have had food poisoning before, not fun, not at ALL...

[NobodysHome]

GM_Beernorg wrote:

ouch NH, have had food poisoning before, not fun, not at ALL...

Gross:

When excreting solids from only one end is considered "victory", you know you're having a rough time of it.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

NH:

Spoiler:

Been there, done that, the spectacle was AMAZINGLY well-contained for the circumstances, never want to repeat that...

[Wei Ji the Learner]

gran rey de los mono wrote:

I enjoy John Ringo as an author, especially when he really gets on a roll. As evidenced by the following. (For context, the speaker is in the middle of one-on-one combat with a bad man named Dionys McCanoc, and is simultaneously giving him a lesson on the proper way to insult an opponent.)

** spoiler omitted **...

I used to enjoy Ringo, but then it became Okay, in this book he dog-whistles this thing he's really against in the form of a story.

After the second or third book like that it went from "Oh, that's kind of quirky" to "Dangnabbit, if I wanted to be PREACHED at about something I was largely on board with, I'd GO TO CHURCH".

Can't remember what the last book was that I started to read and instead donated to one of those 'free libraries' because the first chapter made me actively nauseous.

[NobodysHome]

The kids are playing Pathfinder:

Talky: We need to give her a weapon. What does a child have proficiency in?
Impus Minor: Sad.

[NobodysHome]

Impus Major: If you can make a blood golem, I don’t see anything wrong with a mayonnaise golem.

[GM_Beernorg]

For some deep seated reason I find the idea of a mayo golem more disturbing than a blood golem...

[gran rey de los mono]

NobodysHome wrote:

The kids are playing Pathfinder:

Talky: We need to give her a weapon. What does a child have proficiency in?
Impus Minor: Sad.

I feel like kids have weaponized asking "Why?".

[gran rey de los mono]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

gran rey de los mono wrote:

I enjoy John Ringo as an author, especially when he really gets on a roll. As evidenced by the following. (For context, the speaker is in the middle of one-on-one combat with a bad man named Dionys McCanoc, and is simultaneously giving him a lesson on the proper way to insult an opponent.)

** spoiler omitted **...

I used to enjoy Ringo, but then it became Okay, in this book he dog-whistles this thing he's really against in the form of a story.

After the second or third book like that it went from "Oh, that's kind of quirky" to "Dangnabbit, if I wanted to be PREACHED at about something I was largely on board with, I'd GO TO CHURCH".

Can't remember what the last book was that I started to read and instead donated to one of those 'free libraries' because the first chapter made me actively nauseous.

I'm gonna guess it was Ghost, the first book in his Paladin of Shadows series. Those ones get pretty intense.

[gran rey de los mono]

You ever think about the fact that in order to have a Mothman, you would first have to have a Caterpillarboy?

[lisamarlene]

GM_Beernorg wrote:

For some deep seated reason I find the idea of a mayo golem more disturbing than a blood golem...

Gives "Hell-man's" a whole new meaning.

See? There's a regional joke. Hellmann's is called "Best Foods" west of the Rockies. Ridiculous name. You can't make a Best Foods Golem.

[gran rey de los mono]

Gotta love getting up to the desk to start your shift at the same time as the fire department comes in because some a&$#$+$ kids have set off the smoke alarm in their room. They're a high school wrestling team (which is never a good sign) and were apparently "saunaing" in the bathroom to try and drop weight for their match tomorrow. Fire department told them to stop it, and so far I haven't had any issues. 2nd shift said he had lots of trouble with the kids, the coach, and the parents, though.

Oh, and the best part? Whoever did the group contract never put it in the system, so we had no idea they were coming until they showed up. A dozen rooms we didn't know we were going to need, just because someone (probably the manager) couldn't be f!+@ed to put it in the computer. Or, more likely, tell someone else to do it.

[gran rey de los mono]

I found a recipe from Morocco for homemade dinner rolls. The recipe called for fresh thyme, but mine was outdated but I made them anyway. They were amazing. Call me a relic, call me what you will. Say I’m old fashioned, say I’m over the hill but today’s recipes ain’t got the same soul. I love those old thyme Moroccan rolls.

Hopefully you hadn't herb that one before.

[gran rey de los mono]

A woman and man are staying in a manger, for there is no room for them in the inn. The woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. Shortly thereafter, three wise men enter bearing gifts. The tallest one hits his head on the low door frame and exclaims "Jesus Christ!"

Mary turns to her husband and says "Quick, Joseph, write that down! It's so much better than 'Kevin'."

[Sharoth]

gran rey de los mono wrote:

A woman and man are staying in a manger, for there is no room for them in the inn. The woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. Shortly thereafter, three wise men enter bearing gifts. The tallest one hits his head on the low door frame and exclaims "Jesus Christ!"

Mary turns to her husband and says "Quick, Joseph, write that down! It's so much better than 'Kevin'."

~sad sigh~ Insulting but true.

[Drejk]

NobodysHome wrote:

Impus Major: If you can make a blood golem, I don’t see anything wrong with a mayonnaise golem.

Nope. Don't look at me. I am not getting enough patronage on Patreon for that.

[Freehold DM]

NobodysHome wrote:

GM_Beernorg wrote:

ouch NH, have had food poisoning before, not fun, not at ALL...

** spoiler omitted **

But...that is victory. Because it is normal. Think about it.

[Freehold DM]

NobodysHome wrote:

Impus Major: If you can make a blood golem, I don’t see anything wrong with a mayonnaise golem.

Impus Major's character (points to creature to be attacked by Mayo Golem) I sentence you to DEATH! DEATH BY CREAMY FOOD LUBE!

Mayo Golem *glorp*

[Freehold DM]

Drejk wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

Impus Major: If you can make a blood golem, I don’t see anything wrong with a mayonnaise golem.

Nope. Don't look at me. I am not getting enough patronage on Patreon for that.

I'll keep paying until I get DEATH BY CREAMY FOOD LUBE, dammit!

[GM_Beernorg]

I suspect Freehold won't give this one up..to be fair, there is a running joke between myself and my writing buddy and co-owner at Flying Pincushion that someday, we are going to craft the used kitty litter golem, which may or mayo-not (yep, went there) be as bad or worse than the mayo golem.

[Freehold DM]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

gran rey de los mono wrote:

I enjoy John Ringo as an author, especially when he really gets on a roll. As evidenced by the following. (For context, the speaker is in the middle of one-on-one combat with a bad man named Dionys McCanoc, and is simultaneously giving him a lesson on the proper way to insult an opponent.)

** spoiler omitted **...

I used to enjoy Ringo, but then it became Okay, in this book he dog-whistles this thing he's really against in the form of a story.

After the second or third book like that it went from "Oh, that's kind of quirky" to "Dangnabbit, if I wanted to be PREACHED at about something I was largely on board with, I'd GO TO CHURCH".

Can't remember what the last book was that I started to read and instead donated to one of those 'free libraries' because the first chapter made me actively nauseous.

Been there before with some authors. Some grow out of it(Butcher). Some don't(name withheld).

[Freehold DM]

gran rey de los mono wrote:

You ever think about the fact that in order to have a Mothman, you would first have to have a Caterpillarboy?

...And yet another thing to throw money at Drejk for...

[Freehold DM]

lisamarlene wrote:

GM_Beernorg wrote:

For some deep seated reason I find the idea of a mayo golem more disturbing than a blood golem...

Gives "Hell-man's" a whole new meaning.

See? There's a regional joke. Hellmann's is called "Best Foods" west of the Rockies. Ridiculous name. You can't make a Best Foods Golem.

I've been watching too much Mazinger. I want to hear Baron Ashura say in their twinned voice, "GO! BEST FOOD GOLEM!"