this some kind of plot that everywhere I turn, I am being bombarded with HIPPOPOTOMI?
Clearly that fertile aquarian has become the mother of all posts.

And speaking of maternal pride: The tale is told of three american-indian ladies, talking one fine afternoon while seated at their labors. The first, seated on a bearskin, boasted that her son was so fine a hunter that he had killed 20 deer that season. The second, seated on a buffalo hide, countered that her son had accomplished that same notable feat. But the third lady, seated on a hippopotomus (!) pelt, smiled quietly, secure in the recollection of her younger days when, as a warrior princess and Artemis, she had personally had equal success in the hunting arts.

Proving once again the Pythagorean insight that the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws on the other two hides.

i have being trying to avoid this sudden, compelling involvement AWAD has developed for hippopotomi.. i keep finding, like some one in the deapths of DT's, hippos where ever i look.. but now, even i must add to the hippopotomadness.

what i have found to be mesmerizing --is the lovely image of the hippopotomi ballerina's, en pointe, dancing their way through Fantasia..
not being a thin, or even average sized woman, i took it as a complement when some one said i danced, and moved with the same grace as the lovely hippotomi of Fantasia..grace and elegance are not exclusively the possesions of the young and slender..

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.

I love them!

the lovely image of the hippopotomi ballerina's, en pointe, dancing their way through Fantasia.
I can't hear that music without Alan Sherman's words thereto ringing through my poor head. "Hello Mudder. / Hello Fadder. / Here I am at / Camp Grenada!" And of course, the Fantasia images further make comic the "Dance of the Hours" music. BTW, Helen, forget not that the Fantansia hippi in tuti were ardently pursued by slavering wolves.

While waiting for pages to download, I:
flick through my shelf of reference books;
stare at the person in the office across the corridor;
go to the loo;
make a cup of coffee;
get a bar of chocolate or an ice-cream;
open another window and go to a site which has long pages to read;
and if all else fails, work.



Bingley

and if all else fails, work.

yeah, that's a real bummer, ain't it!

RE: the Fantansia hippi in tuti were ardently pursued by slavering wolves.

yes, keiva, but women of grace and refinement are often persued by wolfs.. fortunately, as in Fantasia, the wolf don't always win. the hippo's are not unmindful of the wolfs, but they don't let the wolfs change their behavior. as a recall, the wolf all suffer a bad end, and the hippo's continue to their dance.

there is either a distinct lack of wolfs at AWAD, (first guess) or failing that, a distinct lack of being persued. not that i am complaining, i don't post here in hopes of meeting the perfect He-ppo.

Helen, I do believe you're mis-recalling the resolution, in Fantasia, of the eternal conflict between refinement and slavering. See the title of this post.

and if all else fails, work.

Oh you poor dear . I know that feeling, when all you want to do it bounce around AWAD and there is your boss hovering around your desk.

You have to practice the "concerned attention to a vital piece of information" look. Scrunch your eyebrows together while peering intently at the screen. Every four or five seconds press on "Caps Lock" a couple of times to make is seem as if you are moving through the document.

It may happen that somebody will, after hovering around for a couple of minutes and not wanting to wait anymore, say "er, Bingley old chap."

Then you move to the "oh all right let me just mark my spot since what you have to say is soooo important" move by doing the 'just one second' sign in a somewhat distracted way, with one hand holding up one finger just barely higher than your mouse - that'll prove you are so very concentrated in your work and they'll usually say "let me come back later". To which you just nod your head without taking your eyes off the screen.

Just a suggestion of course
_________________________________________________

I usually play Sherlock while waiting for page turns.

Bel, you are in fine form tonight, my friend! Loved your architecture post, too.

You DON'T want to know. Just trust us on this one.

tap. tap. tap. We're waiiiiiting [lecherous leer e-con]

TEd! While I enjoy this Board greatly, and yield to no one* in my admiration for our ladies, if any (ayleurettes? does that make me an aileurophile?), how could I post in such a state?

----------
*exception made for the admiration Faldage holds, in the specific case rather than the general.

Now wait a minute here TEd. Unless your computer is wayyyy different than mine, all I can fiddle around with is the mouse. Now, unless you are into some sort of freaky rodent fetish you'll have to elaborate for us ladies [pure and innocent looking face]

Oh wait, if you are at home maybe you have one of those flight simulators or game thingies. Then I suppose you could play with your joystick.[snicker, snicker]

I canter imagine.

re: nless your computer is wayyyy different than mine, all I can fiddle around with is the mouse. Now,
unless you are into some sort of freaky rodent fetish you'll have to elaborate for us ladies

Bel, dear, not every one has a mouse any more.. some have touch pads, and lots of people these days got for balls, a track ball that is.. i suppose it should be singular.. computers only get one ball..
a trainer in the next cube over has a big red one.. i suppose it would be right to ask TEd if he has a big red one, too? or do you think he is a touchy kind of guy?

Oh, never mind. I can't do it. I just can't!

Ladies, one may presume that TEd's CPU ("Cental Processing Unit"} and related systems include ...
a hippopotaMouse!

Were I in England, I would merely ask if you wanted to go over my testimonials.

Of course that would depend on the position you were offering me.

>lots of people these days got for balls

Is that an indication that I could get to first base with you????

What! Another attempt to turn a thread into a sports thread! No way brother! Not first base, not any base.. I was making a crude attempt to ape Chaucer.. you do remember the tale of the farmer?

the farmer bragged "I have a big red cock! It wakes me every morning.." It was a fine cock... the finest fowl he had ever owned.. the brand name of the track ball is "the big red ball".

They aren't done with us yet. Wednesday I was in the silver store, looking for some girly-girl earrings, and there, bold as brass, was a hippopotomass. A pin for the lapel. Oh, hell. I haven't bought it, yet.

Enigma:girly-girl-girt, hippopotomass-hips

I browse OED2 or peruse "Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography" or Mencken's "The American Language"... but y'all knew that, didn't you.

this will be my one (and only) hippopotamine [animal adjective crossthread] post. a hundred lashes with the hippopotamus hide whip if it isn't.

I have been mildly surprize that no one, in all the hippaloo, has mentioned William, one of NY's famous hippo's. He is the (un) official mascot of the Met. (mus. of art)

William, is a faience hippo that has been a favorite with Museum visitors since its arrival at the Museum in 1917. William is decorated with drawings of lotus blossoms and marsh plants which remind us of his favorite habitat, the shallow banks of the Nile River.
A direct link to a version of william for sale can be found by going here..
http://www.metmuseum.org/store/index.asp

and searching for William, to find him in his many available forms, (kids backpacks, men's ties, and everything inbetween!) It is a store, but it is a dot org store (which means everything is 20 to 50% more expensive than it would be anywhere else!)
the end result is a very, very, very large URL.

from the Met home page, you can find the original william (or a photo of him)

all the hippaloo

I, for one, propose a hippopotamoratorium.

Heyyyy, I just found out something neat. You can open up several internet exporers at a time. Open them all to this Board and have a different category in each window. I usually only visit I&A, Q&A, Wordplay, Misc. So when one thread is loading in one window I can be reading an other in another window. When I post and answer, I go to another window to read there, and so on.

It saves so much time.

Well, there goes the bandwidth :)

If our members in Australia have long waits the end of March/early April, here's something to do while waiting for the pages to load

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones will be appearing:
3/29 -3/30/02 East Coast Blues & Roots Festival Byron Bay, Australia
3/31 - 4/1/02 The Basement Sydney, Australia

APRIL 2002
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4/3/02 The Prince of Wales Melbourne, Australia
4/5/02 The Gov. Hindmarsh Adelaide, Australia

Check it out! (No, I don't get a commision!)

I'm trying to improvise a scheme for reading a magazine while waiting for window to change. It hasn't been as bad lately. I still can't tell when it is my ISP timing out on me, and when it is AWAD server not replying.
But with DSL the download time is negligible. But to read a magazine I have to push keyboard into storage space under monitor, replace it with bookrack to support magazine, and get my jointed arm with 8" circular fluorescent with five inch magnifying glass into position. That rigamarole gets tiresome. Where have all the alphatists gone?

The board has been blissfully fast these past few days. I wonder what's up? But those days that you wait and wait and wait--well, it's just not worth the effort of waiting. Could be a sign from the gods that we should be doing something else altogether:

living
walking
hunting
talking
writing letters to old friends
organizing those piles and stacks of disorder
loving...

I can imagine doing something other than writing here, but from where can we draw the propulsion to do so, I wonder? I know! Just go out and buy, at the after-Christmas sales, the Chicken Tiki Masala Cat®! Energy in amber rods!

DubDub