#13016
12/29/2000 5:02 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Juan Maria, I've missed you. Tenho saudades. Welcome back.
P.S. In the U.S. south a cotillion is a debutante dance.
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#13017
12/29/2000 6:49 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
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Halloween was always an "American" thing in NZ when I was a kid. No one quite understood it - even the Peanuts "Great Pumpkin" references weren't easy to follow. Why would anyone sit in the pumpkin patch? What was funny about it? Over the past few years, however, it's caught on, and now we get gangs of rapacious trick or treaters roaming the streets terrorising the young and old alike and demanding treats (tricks don't fill the loot bag) on All Hallows Eve. Most older people wish that they were dead, or at least elsewhere or otherwhere.   . Where's Sarah Michelle Gellar when we all need her? Kids understand consumerism, not mysticism.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#13018
12/29/2000 8:18 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
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Carpal Tunnel
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Cap K remarks: (tricks don't fill the loot bag)
The tricks referred to were always something of a veiled threat. Give us treats or we'll pull a trick on you. The trick, in its mildest form would be something like soaping your windows or other acts of soft vandalism and could escalate to the old favorite of filling a paper bag with used dog food, lighting it on fire ringing your doorbell and running. Tossing rotten eggs at your house was another favorite.
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#13019
12/29/2000 9:13 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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The trick ... acts of soft vandalism ... could escalate
In rural areas, the escalated trick was to tip over the outhouse, leaving an unpleasant task for the privy owner to accomplish on the Feast of All Saints.
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#13020
12/29/2000 10:07 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
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Faldage wrote : acts of soft vandalism and could escalate to the old favorite of filling a paper bag with used dog food, lighting it on fire ringing your doorbell and running.
I have heard of the nastier trick -- the bag is filled with animal "poop" so when the householder stamps on the fire to put it out ..... well... you get the idea.
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#13021
12/29/2000 10:33 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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you haven't lived until your tin can trip wire snares the local constabulary's vehicle -- what a treat.
"Do you know anything about these tin cans?" "What wire, officer?"
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#13022
12/30/2000 3:27 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
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Why tsuwm, I am aghast! Here I thought you were all straight and proper – the picture of the perfect gentleman. Don’t tell me that in your youth you were a little pest.
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#13023
12/30/2000 4:09 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
Faldage wrote : acts of soft vandalism and could escalate to the old favorite of filling a paper bag with used dog food, lighting it on fire ringing your doorbell and running.
I have heard of the nastier trick -- the bag is filled with animal "poop" so when the householder stamps on the fire to put it out ..... well... you get the idea.
I think he meant the same thing. He was just using a subtle euphemism. And a very clever one, I might add. Dog food that's used tends to go through the whole cycle.
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#13024
12/30/2000 11:50 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
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Posts: 11,613 |
Dog food that's used tends to go through the whole cycle.
Ow-ooo!!
Juanmaria!!!! I just noticed your posts! Oh, Honey, I'm so glad to see that! Oh, I hope you can stay this time!!!
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#13025
01/02/2001 2:56 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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In NY, the soft acts featured shaving creme-- the nozzle on the can was reshaped with a hot pip, so you could send out a stream, and hit a target 6 to 10 feet away-- Not too mean a trick-- you ended up with a "clean door" covered in soapy foam.
If you were nasty to kids, and didn't have treats something worse awaited-- Like Faldage "stink bombs" which where not unknown-- or worse-- you got oiled-- your door and threshold got coated with oil or grease-- and un wise step could send you flying-- your doorknob and jam would be greased too, so if you started to slip-- anything you grabbed for would be slippy too.
Some kids used eggs-- but if i ever got caugth with an egg, i would have missed halloween fun for years...
Chalk (big 6 inch by 1 sticks) would be put into the toe of an old sock, and beaten against the sidewalk till it was dust- and then people and property hit with it and dusted in chalk dust-- It was really vicious-- it was like being hit with a black jack-- and you got covered in a cloud of chalk dust..
halloween is not so much american as pagan irish-- it was always big in our house, and neighborhood. we always had really good costumes, one year i was a fairy pricess with yards and yards of tulle, an other year a Dale Evan's type cowgirl, with a leather vest, and flair skirt, and a six shooter!
Halloween is much more commerical now, and the costumes are all commercial.. very few kids have home made interesting costumes, they are all popular comic character of the day-- two year ago i had a steady parade of "Little Mermaid's" -- all in the same outfit-- in NY gay community has reshaped the holiday too-- so it is very different than it was 30-40 years ago..
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#13026
01/02/2001 4:32 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
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It was in, oh, about 5th, 6th grade (10-11 yo [Yoder? Where, pray tell, my dear Ćnigma, did you find Yoder?]). My costume was a cat suit. The tail fell off during the school parade about the neighborhood and I spent the rest of the parade time asking people if they knew where there was a retail store. Obviously an early sign of depravity.
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#13027
01/02/2001 4:52 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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In reply to:
a cat suit...... Obviously an early sign of depravity.
i'll say-- cross dressing at such an early age! Is this still a hobby? No wait-- I don't think i want to know the answer-- Only a very young and sleek body looks good in a cat suit-- like a birthday suit, its show age rapidly... you might have made a wonderful cat-- but its not very often you see a male in a cat suit-- i don't think Fredrick's of Hollywood offers them in their catalog... maybe i am just looking in the wrong places..
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#13028
01/02/2001 6:24 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
In reply to:
trick or treaters
Here's a peculiar word for you. My father, a native of Reading PA, which is in Berks Co. PA and in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, used the word belschnickel for trick-or-treater. This was the old Pa-Dutch word. I have no idea of the derivation.
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#13029
01/02/2001 6:30 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Halloween costumes
One of our sons attended kindergarten at a school with a lot of trees around it, including osage orange trees. The osage orange produces fruit in autumn which fall on the ground, right in time for Halloween, about the size of a grapefruit, light green with a wrinkled, convoluted skin. We dressed up the kid in an old scrubsuit, cap and mask (my wife is a nurse and brought a set home from the hospital where she was working), gave him an imitation scalpel and an osage orange fruit and he went out as Dr. Frankenstein carrying this "brain". It was a tremendous hit. To this day, we refer to osage orange trees as "brain trees."
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#13030
01/03/2001 1:30 AM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
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>I spent the rest of the parade time asking people if they knew where there was a retail store. Obviously an early sign of depravity.
Brings back memories. I was a cat once, and got caught in my dad's lawnmower. He had me going around to all the houses asking for a piece of tail.
Depravity is apparently hereditary!
TEd
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#13031
01/03/2001 8:53 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
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Oh TEd, I nearly choked on that one. I thought your were going to say a piece of p...y. Boy, you gents are sure taking up the gutter-snipe baton while Jackie is away 
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#13032
01/03/2001 9:07 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Is it significant that our favourite gutter-dweller went to D.C.? Political centres often seem to be little more than giant gutters, n'est-ce pas?
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#13033
01/03/2001 9:26 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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She went to refresh the gutter batteries and plot schemes for the wider dispersal of sewers ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#13034
01/03/2001 9:59 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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This thread started out as Christmas wishes, and has moved on to Halloween--
There are way to many computer nerd on the board-evidently since all the old time computer nerds (or even new nerds in Unix) have the problem of confusing Halloween and Christmas--
after all Oct(al)31 = Dec(imal)25!
all you non-math, non computer nerds just ignore... Not everyone enjoys a really good math joke...
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#13035
01/04/2001 2:23 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197
member
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member
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197 |
>>>new nerds in Unix after all Oct(al)31 = Dec(imal)25! <<< my husband wishes for me to point out that new Unix nerds speak hex(adecimal) not oct(al). yes, we liked your joke. 
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#13036
01/06/2001 5:40 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
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In reply to:
My father, a native of Reading PA, which is in Berks Co. PA
My parents also live in Reading, Berks., but in England. Is the Pennsylvania one also pronounced Redding?
Bingley
Bingley
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#13037
01/06/2001 5:55 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
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Is the Pennsylvania one also pronounced Redding?
Yep. My college roommate's from PA. I never did like that
pronunciation. Everybody knows that in Monopoly, it's the
Reeding Railroad!
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#13038
01/06/2001 6:06 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
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Not on my Monopoly board it wasn't. We had Marylebone, King's Cross, Liverpool Street, and Fenchurch Street.
Bingley
Bingley
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#13039
01/06/2001 3:39 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
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Really Bingley. Did they also change the names of the places like Park Place et al?
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#13040
01/06/2001 3:43 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
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There was a Park Lane (the second highest rents if I remember rightly) but no Park Place.
Bingley
Bingley
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#13041
01/06/2001 6:30 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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Top o' the mornin' to you, Bel. Parker Bros. had licensed each country to make its own Monopoly® board - For many decades, NZ used the UK edition. I, like a lot of other Kiwis, grew up thinking that the UK set was the original, I was about 25 when I learned that the original was modelled on Atlantic City, NJ. The New Zealand edition features streets and railway stations from around the country, rather than just one city, one of them being a Marine Parade from a city 18km from where I live.
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#13042
01/07/2001 3:17 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
I note the discussion on the various versions of Monopoly. I think it is good that there are now versions for major cities although I'm not convinced by the special edition versions such as "Rugby World Cup 1999 Monopoly" which was sold in Edinburgh last year. I'm sure that London will hate the diversification in the UK (the places on the board became tourist attractions). It was a major ambition of mine and many other British children) to see places like Park Lane and Mayfair. I still go out of my way to go through Marylebone Station if I get a chance! I am fairly sure that the London version of Monopoly has been made by Waddingtons since 1934/35 but I also spotted this press release from Hasbro (who took over Parker Brothers), claiming that they "swapped" the UK rights for Monopoly for the USA rights to Cluedo sometime after 1949: http://www.hasbro.co.uk/corporatePR/corporatePRcontent.asp?articleType=ARTICLE&PRID=7The origin of the game of Monopoly was the subject of a long running disagreement with a friend from the USA, before the days when we could surf the internet for (mis)information. We were all convinced that the UK version must be the original until she pointed out that the American game was set in Atlantic City - she claimed that if it had been an adaptation then surely it would have been a major city like New York or San Francisco - she won!
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#13043
01/08/2001 12:22 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Posts: 2,204 |
Our family tried the game, but ended up renaming it "Monotony". I've never understood the appeal, except for the really rich who use legal tender to play it.
Incidently, for non-Londoners, it might help if I point out that Marylebone Station is out of the way for everybody unless they live in Marlow or Beaconsfield (pronounced "Beck - - ")
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#13044
01/08/2001 12:39 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Posts: 393 |
Two of the places on the London board are not streets, Mayfair and Angel Islington: just in case any of you come over from Australia or NZ wanting to tour them. (Apparently it's virtually impossible to do the tour in a single day.)
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#13045
01/08/2001 1:36 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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(Apparently it's virtually impossible to do the tour in a single day.)
This is a reflection on the state of London's transport chaos - it used to be quite feasible (if exhausting) mostly using the Tube - - it was considered cheating if you did not get off the train and go up to street level!
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#13046
01/08/2001 2:24 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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>Our family tried the game, but ended up renaming it "Monotony". I've never understood the appeal... first you get into the art of the shady deal, then you bend a rule or two -- soon you have chaos, just like real Capitalism!
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#13047
01/08/2001 3:54 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
In reply to:
Everybody knows (???!!!)
The hell they do. Since the Reading RR has its HQ in Reading PA, it's pronounced the same as the city (Redding). Pennsylvanians always pitied those who were so ignorant they didn't know this.
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#13048
01/08/2001 4:05 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Everybody knows..."
Figured that would get a rise out of somebody! My Pennsylvanian college roommate was always correcting me
vehemently on that. I kept telling her that it wasn't my
fault that Pennsylvanians couldn't pronounce things right.
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#13049
01/08/2001 8:21 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Nicholasw pointed that Two of the places on the London board are not streets, Mayfair and Angel Islington:
I saw an interesting drama series on TV where The Angel Islington was a person, an angel. It was set in a sort of alternate London, very interesting stuff, IMO.
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#13050
01/09/2001 9:34 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
Was it called "Neverwhere" with Peter Capaldi as the angel?
I saw a little of it. It looked interesting.
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#13051
01/09/2001 12:22 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Was it called "Neverwhere" with Peter Capaldi as the angel?
Yes it was, and one of the key settings was Battersea Power Station, made famous from the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals LP (for non-Floydians, it came after Wish you were here and before The Wall - approx 1976).
But the series was truly dire, I'm sorry to say. The premise was marginally interesting, but the plotting, dialogue and characterisation were awful. I truly wanted it to be good, so watched much of it, but it just couldn't cope...
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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#13052
01/09/2001 7:13 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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Shanks insisted But the series was truly dire, I'm sorry to say. Just the sort of poor taste and lack of discernment one expects to find built into the genome of a Spurs fan! I enjoyed what I saw of it, but your post made me think about it, and I realised that much of what you said would explain why I found myself flicking away a lot. I do think though, that the basic premise was more than marginally interesting. So I guess, you blackheart from White Hart, that I won't be calling you out over this. No kukri at dawn - this time!
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#13053
01/10/2001 3:44 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
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shanks: one of the key settings was Battersea Power StationWell, they won't be doing that again, will they? Max: No kukri at dawn - this time!1. Is the maudlin Mumbaikar also a Ghurka? 2. I've haven't even thought about khukris for years - then a friend of mine brings one back from Nepal as a gift and you mention the knife, in the same week, on the board. I'm becoming a bit paranoid. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#13054
01/10/2001 1:01 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Just the sort of poor taste and lack of discernment one expects to find built into the genome of a Spurs fan! Hey!! Just watch your language down there! I stopped watching football when I realised that there would never be an improvement on the skills of Alf Ramsey, Lou Macari or Danny Blanchflower. The absolute pinnacle of brilliant foorball was acheived during those wonderful years - other teams also did very well, but Spurs were supreme. And this has nothing whatever to do with how many games were won or lost, it is all to do with the spirit of the game.
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#13055
01/11/2001 8:32 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
shanks: one of the key settings was Battersea Power StationWell, they won't be doing that again, will they?Actually, Cirque du soleil have set up there, and are rumoured to be considering making it their 'permanent' location (from which, no doubt, they will be flinging genetically modified human hoops to all corners of the globe). Actually, the power station hasn't been functioning for yonks (decades even?) and only an unsafe outer shell remains: hence the lack of development - the shell is listed, I think, but unusable. 1. No, the lascivious Londoner is more merry Malayali (or bewilderingly brilliant Bombayite, or crafty Keralite) than gory Ghurka. 2. I've haven't even thought about khukris for years - then a friend of mine brings one back from Nepal as a gift and you mention the knife, in the same week, on the board. I'm becoming a bit paranoid. Nah. As we sceptics like to show - the human mind is geared to make patterns, and will do so at the drop of a hat. Fear not, we are not after you (we already have you - that's why  ).
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