Random randomness

[Blackhawk]

I'm a heavy tea drinker. I've got a whole set of shelves just for tea. The top shelf is black, one is for greens and whites, one for herbals, the last is cup storage.

My favorites, a combination of bag and loose leaf:

Straight black tea:
Yorkshire Gold by Taylor's of Harrogate
Lapsang Suchong by Twinings of London

Flavored black teas:
Earl Grey
Earl Grey jasmine
Earl Grey lavender
Black currant breeze

(all by Twinings of London)

Straight green teas:
Yamamotoyama Green Tea
Yamamotoyama Hoji Cha

Herbals:
Fruit and Almond by Bigelow (hasn't been available commercially for a long time, but you can order it directly from Bigelow.)
Pomegranate/Raspberry by Twinings of London (doesn't taste like a fruit tea at all)
Peppermint (various makers)

Other:
White tea with rose by Numi (this stuff is amazing)
Oolong by Yamamotoyama
Jasmine Silver Needle by Teavana (one of my favorites, and with the company gone, what I have is all there will ever be.)

Tea Tips:
~Different teas require different water temperature. Go ahead and use boiling water on your black tea, but it will ruin your greens and whites.
~Dunking a teabag is fine, but never squeeze it. It just squeezes out tannins that make the tea bitter.
~Use a timer. 1-3 minutes for white and green teas, 4 minutes for most black teas. Keeping the bag in longer does not make the tea stronger. All of the flavor is out of the leaves after the listed ties. After that you're just leeching out tannins, which again, make the tea bitter. If you want stronger tea, use more tea/multiple bags.
~If you notice an 'oil slick' effect on your tea, it's your water. The tannins can react with the minerals in hard water, create that slick and a bad taste. It's why I use distilled.
~Caffeine hierarchy (most to least): Black, oolong, green, white, with black having about half of what coffee does, and green half of that. Black tea caffeine works much like coffee, with a quick spike of energy and a quick letdown. Green teas tend to be smoother, without the spikes. You don't feel it as fast, but it doesn't make you crash afterward. Yes, I know it sounds like I'm talking about pot.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Been trying to get kudzu down in the back area for 2 days. When i was 20 and no kudzu I could clean the entire place in 2 days. After 2 days I have a small yet visible spot cleaned. My plan was to cut it low then cut what I could reach hanging. But its so thick I cant get into it. So the plan now it to cut it high then squish it down and leave it. Thatg way it cant get into my trees again. Its the reaching up thats killing me.

But I can only manage 30 minutes a day. Its pathetic. At the 30 min mark my body screams at me "YOU'RE A 50 YEAR OLD DISABLED MAN!!!!". Sad really. Today was my right shoulder feeling like it wanted to fall off but make me pass out first. Welp theres always tomorrow..and next week and next year. I hope I can get this first half done this year so come spring I have only the smaller'ish area to do.

Seems like using an appropriate herbicide to control Kudzu would be a more sensible approach.

[dbt1949]

Goats love Kudzu. Rent a goat.

[Daehawk]

Ill look into that.

And teas are rumored to help cause kidney stones so I don't drink a lot of tea.

[Daehawk]

Doh I missed this the other day. Would have been neat to meet him. Not sure I could understand him him though.

Brian Johnson of AC/DC at Chattanooga Motorcar Festival

[MindToyGames]

Been trying to get kudzu down in the back area for 2 days.

God, i'm a nerd. When you said 'Kudzu' the first thing I thought was:

I take it your patch isn't this bad?

[hitbyambulance]

However, herbal stuff, without any of the actual Tea Plant in it. I have a variety of tasty herbal teas. I even have a favorite tea blender
https://fridaytea.com/

They have an online shop, and offline if you are near Seattle I recommend it. Friday is a hoot, and she makes some tasty teas. They sell a lot of geek themed blends, so if you need the perfect tea for game of thrones or battlestar galactica, shes got you covered.

coincidentally, they are actually my closest tea shop, being nine blocks away from my place. contributed to their Kickstarter (before they opened a physical location) and have been there numerous times. their 'shop dog' is cute also.

[hitbyambulance]

Straight black tea:
Yorkshire Gold by Taylor's of Harrogate
Lapsang Suchong by Twinings of London

really recommend checking out Thompson Family teas (imported from N. Ireland). soooo good.

Oolong by Yamamotoyama

loose-leaf oolong is very much worth getting into. the flavor is amazing. here's my local oolong dealer: https://floatingleaves.com/

recommend preparing 'gong-fu' style -very short infusions, with maaaany cups of tea from one serving of leaves, and each brewing bringing out a different 'layer' of the tea leaves' flavor. this can be done with pu'erh as well.

https://www.shangtea.com/blog/Gong-Fu-Style-Brewing

Jasmine Silver Needle by Teavana (one of my favorites, and with the company gone, what I have is all there will ever be.)

there's really nothing to fear here. Silver Needle is basically a commodity (tho not a low-end one) and i guarantee you can find a suitable replacement for this.

~If you notice an 'oil slick' effect on your tea, it's your water. The tannins can react with the minerals in hard water, create that slick and a bad taste. It's why I use distilled.

i... actually didn't know this.

[Daehawk]

There sure is a lot of ridiculousness in that video.

[Blackhawk]

loose-leaf oolong is very much worth getting into. the flavor is amazing. here's my local oolong dealer: https://floatingleaves.com/

recommend preparing 'gong-fu' style -very short infusions, with maaaany cups of tea from one serving of leaves, and each brewing bringing out a different 'layer' of the tea leaves' flavor. this can be done with pu'erh as well.

Bookmarked! I'd like to try some loose leaf, although gong-fu is probably outside of my means right now, as I just put in my annual fall tea order (and I'm still wanting a nice matcha set at some point, too.)

[Daehawk]

Let me say long before time to change.....Fuck falling back an hour for the year. I hate cold short dark days soooooo much. I hate this time schedule thats coming. Get up at dark and it gets dark by 5pm. So stupid and useless these days.

[Isgrimnur]

The days are going to be cold and short regardless. And as someone with no discernible daily schedule, I don’t see how it’s going to have anything more than a psychological effect.

[Blackhawk]

Pesky axial tilt.

[Kraken]

The days are going to be cold and short regardless. And as someone with no discernible daily schedule, I don’t see how it’s going to have anything more than a psychological effect.

That effect affects a lot of us. I double up on my antidepressants and use one of those full-spectrum lights from December-March, but I still want to murder Santa Claus.

In the never-ending pointless debate over time-shifting, I'd rather my daylight last later than start earlier, and if you value Santa's life you'd better agree with me.

[Daehawk]

I agree. And I feel the same way. Years ago it got so bad I thought about death and bad places.. My wife helped me past it years ago also. But it still bothers me enough to hate the time and season. I admit its tougher. As a youngster I never considered it at all.

[Kraken]

I agree. And I feel the same way. Years ago it got so bad I thought about death and bad places.. My wife helped me past it years ago also. But it still bothers me enough to hate the time and season. I admit its tougher. As a youngster I never considered it at all.

Then Santa is safe...for now.

I liked winter until I got too old to play in the snow. I don't remember when that was...me and my friends used to go tobagganing into our mid-teens, at least. In fact, some of my earliest, um, encounters with the female race took place in the back of a station wagon that we used to take "tobagganing" on a "double date." We took turns on who got the wayback and who got the front seat.

Ahem. I digress. I was trying to figure out when winter depression set in. It was definitely after my tobagganing days, so late teens or early 20s, probably. Not coincidentally, that coincides with when I started working retail jobs. Nothing will make you hate humanity more than working in a store during xmas.

[hitbyambulance]

loose-leaf oolong is very much worth getting into. the flavor is amazing. here's my local oolong dealer: https://floatingleaves.com/

recommend preparing 'gong-fu' style -very short infusions, with maaaany cups of tea from one serving of leaves, and each brewing bringing out a different 'layer' of the tea leaves' flavor. this can be done with pu'erh as well.

Bookmarked! I'd like to try some loose leaf, although gong-fu is probably outside of my means right now, as I just put in my annual fall tea order (and I'm still wanting a nice matcha set at some point, too.)

You can also do short brewings in a little infuser, which is what I do. 1 tbsp of leaves, then 10 seconds for first brewing (discard this one), then enough water for one cup and : one minute first steeping, 45 seconds for the next two steeping, then keep adding 10-15 seconds for each subsequent steeping until the flavor subsided. These times are approximate and need to be adjusted to the particular oolong being brewed. I get six steepings from this particular dong ding oolong I have, this way.

[Z-Corn]

There sure is a lot of ridiculousness in that video.

You ever watch some of the videos you post?

[coopasonic]

The days are going to be cold and short regardless. And as someone with no discernible daily schedule, I don’t see how it’s going to have anything more than a psychological effect.

That effect affects a lot of us. I double up on my antidepressants and use one of those full-spectrum lights from December-March, but I still want to murder Santa Claus.

In the never-ending pointless debate over time-shifting, I'd rather my daylight last later than start earlier, and if you value Santa's life you'd better agree with me.

Right now first light is a few minutes before I take my youngest to school. By the time we move the clocks we will be doing it in full dark. It's hard enough getting the kids out the door when there is light.

Everyone has their preferences and no solution will make everyone happy. I don't like the disruption of the change, but not enough to actually care.

[coopasonic]

Since I am posting in the randomness thread, last week I crashed my 13yo son's bike in a rather painful fashion. I was riding ahead of my youngest coming home from school with the bike in low gear because the kiddo goes slooowwww. I went to shift back to top gear before we got to the house and my brain decided to mess with me. Rather than the shifter I grabbed the brake... hard... the front brake that is. You can guess what happened next.

First note, I was wearing a helmet because I am a good boy and it's how we get the kids to wear theirs. I landed primarily on my left forearm. My 10yo freaked out a bit but I was able to calm him as I extracted myself from the bike (TREK 820 mountain bike sized a bit small for me - kid is 5'4" and I am 5'8"). I was a little sore but not too bad. Left arm and left thigh were unhappy but not badly.

A couple hours little with persistent pain and swelling through my forearm and elbow I went to the urgent care... except it was an ER because the urgent closes at 5pm apparently. I decided to tough it out and save some money. The next morning I called the free nurse line our health insurance provides and based on my limited range of motion and pain levels she advised I seek help immediately. I went to the on campus clinic at work which is 100% free to employees with company health insurance. They don't have imaging equipment so they gave me an order for an x-ray (forearm and elbow) from third party imaging. Got that done for around $75 and they came back negative. Yay, nothing is broken.

The fall was a week ago now. The thigh pain went away after about 3 days. The bruise is still visible on my forearm down near the elbow. Range of motion is mostly back to normal. If I put pressure on my wrist in the wrong way, I get pretty intense shooting pains. The x-rays I got didn't target my wrist and now I am starting to wonder if I should head back to the clinic. If it's still bothering me after the weekend, I'll probably do it. I am able to play video games but need to rest my wrist fairly often. The same with work. I am on a computer pretty much all day which kind of makes my wrists important.

[The Meal]

My three older brothers are within four years of each other (I popped out nine years later). Before my folks split, and definitely against my mom's wishes, they acquired a moped for general boyish childhood adventures of the motorized higher-than-manually-pedaled-speed nature. Day one of moped use saw my dear ol' pops "show the boys" how to use the moped, which resulted in separating both tires from the ground surface in an intentional lift-off from a rampy-type device. Things progressed well for pops until gravity returned both wheels to the ground surface in an unstable manner and he laid down the moped into a patch of gravel. Dad went to the ER (urgent care not being a thing for use during convenient or non-convenient hours either way). The moped went to a farm up in Canada. They cleaned up and bandaged dad's elbow and after his entry on my brothers' shit list we all thought that was that.

About ten years later (give or take) Dad had been experiencing some lingering elbow pain that exceeded its general level of damn-I-had-a-dumb-moped-crashing-experience-about-a-decade-ago nature. It got bad enough that my pops, against his general hospital-avoiding nature, took a four-wheeled vehicle ride to the local sawbones to see what was up. One X-ray, one slice, and eight stitches later, he had three pieces of bloody road gravel excised from his general elbow area.

No pain persisted from that day and his golf game improved markedly.

[Daehawk]

Both me and my wife took separate spills down the front concrete steps. She had our dog in her arms around 1993 and slipped in the damn dew on them. She bumped all 5 on the way down but never dropped the little dog. I was behind her and could only watch the bump bump bump down. The dog was like "AGAIN!" but D was hurting. She hit her elbow on the way down too..the tippy point of it and it sheared off. She didn't know until a couple weeks later when she felt it good . The doc simply numbed it in his office and used some tweezers or some grabby things to reach in and pull it out from the maybe 1/2" cut. She was a trooper.

About 5 years later again we were both going down those steps and this time it was raining good. I had the flashlight and on about the 2nd step both my feet musta went above my head. I dont recall the fall much as I hit my head. Which is ok as thats the hardest place on me and Im good if I hit it But I also landed on my tail bone. Didn't know that until I came in and sat on the side of the bed...and jumped straight up almost to the roof. OMG thats a damn painful spot. It stayed swollen and painful for a month. I couldn't sit to drive and she drove us when we went somewhere. I had to sit kinda at a angle on my side. I couldn't even use a donut pillow until a month had passed. Then I could use it and drive barely but still in some pain. Sleeping was hell as there was NO back laying and on either side it still ached some. On my stomach worked best but it was tough to get that way then get up again. And poopin? Who'd think that would hurt but if you strained even a hair it HURT. Stupid tail bone.

[coopasonic]

One X-ray, one slice, and eight stitches later, he had three pieces of bloody road gravel excised from his general elbow area.

That's incredibly disturbing to even ponder, but my fall was onto a concrete sidewalk and there was no open wound. A very minor abrasion to the palm was the extent of the inside bits escaping to the outside.

[Daehawk]

2020 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame nominees....geebus what a shit list mostly...not even rock n roll for cripes sake.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/15/entertai ... index.html

Pat Benatar............................Im good with this..bout time.
Dave Matthews Band................no
Depeche Mode.......................no
The Doobie Brothers...............meh ok
Whitney Houston.............um no this is pop again
Judas Priest...................yep Im good
Kraftwerk..................who?
MC5.......................again who?
Motörhead......................oh ya cool
Nine Inch Nails................no
The Notorious B.I.G..............................F no this is cRAP
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.......................no
Todd Rundgren.......................Im ok here
Soundgarden...................yep
T.Rex..........................yes why not already?
Thin Lizzy.........................yes again why not already?

[Kraken]

When I was little my dad won a trip to Bermuda in a sales contest, so he and mom left us with a sitter for a long weekend, as people did back then. Mopeds were how the cool people got around Bermuda, so they rented a pair. I don't think Dad had even been on a bicycle in decades, and with that level of expertise he promptly ran his little scooter into a sign post, necessitating a trip to the ER and leaving him with chronic pain for years afterward. For the rest of his life, he referred to it as his "motorcycle accident."

[hitbyambulance]

got a burrito with 'Beyond Meat' at Taco Del Mar today. also heard that Subway is going to start carrying Beyond Meatballs in January, which will make it the first time in over 25 years that i will be able to eat the meatball marinara sub (which used to be my favorite).

[Holman]

2020 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame nominees....geebus what a shit list mostly...not even rock n roll for cripes sake.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/15/entertai ... index.html

Pat Benatar............................Im good with this..bout time.

As it happens, my wife's friend is married to the guy who was Pat Benatar's keyboardist all through the 1980s. He says she's a terrific lady, very kind, very committed to never letting rock and roll interfere with raising her kids.

He's in the E Street Band now, so he's had a pretty amazing career.

[dbt1949]

You have to wonder about roaches who hide under a Raid can.

[Kraken]

You have to wonder about roaches who hide under a Raid can.

I think you meant to post that in the impeachment thread.

[Daehawk]

Kinda wish they'd ban balloons. When I see crazy pet owners letting their dogs snap them it makes me cringe. Little guys could choke so easy on them.

Kids choke on them easy too.

And lastly people mean well when they commemorate something by releasing them but then its a choking hazard to wild animals or a slow death in their gut when they mistake them for food . Not to mention its pollution and environment damage.

Then you just have the stupid. *shakes head at humans*

[LawBeefaroni]

I remember reading somewhere that a hypothetical invasion or terrorist attack on a modern city could be preceded by releasing strips of mylar, like tinsel, either from aircraft or on the wind. They would short out power lines and cripple infrastructure.

It appears that mylar balloons would work as effectively.

[Isgrimnur]

Graphite

A graphite bomb is intended to be a non-lethal weapon used to disable an electrical grid. The bomb works by spreading a dense cloud of extremely fine, chemically treated carbon filaments over air-insulated high voltage installations like transformers and power lines, causing short-circuits and subsequent disruption of the electricity supply in an area
...
The graphite bomb was first used against Iraq in the Gulf War (1990–1991), knocking out 85% of the electrical supply. Similarly, the BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb" graphite bomb was used by NATO against Serbia in May 1999, disabling 70% of that country's power grid. After initial success in disabling Serbian electric power systems, the electric supply was restored in less than 24 hours. The BLU-114/B was again used a few days later to counter Serbian efforts to restore damage caused by the initial attack.

[Kraken]

Kinda wish they'd ban balloons.

Funny you should say that. "BOSTON (CBS) – State lawmakers are considering a bill to ban the sale and use of all balloons in Massachusetts."

[Isgrimnur]

[Daehawk]

Oh God watching a TV show online is worse than on tv. Its smaller , I cant sit in a place to see it that well, and worst of all I have to watch ads I cant FF through. If my adblocker is on then the video wont even play.

Stupid DVR recorded the 3 shows I wanted. I saw them listed on it yesterday. Today I go to watch then and pt 1 and 2 are gone and only pt3 remains. Sigh. Also I have it set to record the 11pm news each night as a series recording. It did that fine until a week ago and now it never records it unless I click record when it comes on. Ive deleted the series setting and reset it 3 times to no help. Ive given up on 11pm news.

[Daehawk]

I really miss the Coca Cola bottles we had in the 1980s. They were a more rounder glass bottle wit ha metal lid wrapped in a Styrofoam label. They kept your drink cold for a long time plus you hand didn't get cold holding them as bad. Still remember picking and peeling at the label when I was done.

[Smoove_B]

When your posts sound like a weird grumpy Andy Rooney rant, it might be time to sign off the internet for the day.

[Kraken]

I aspire to Andy Rooney's curmudgeonliness.

[Daehawk]

Most people today wouldn't know what carbon paper is.

[Hrdina]

Out of curiosity, how long after you reported the issues did you get that email?

I have not yet received any sort of e-mail communication from Amazon, either from my original call on Wednesday, or the resubmission of the ticket yesterday. I'm a little concerned that they're sending the account restoration e-mail to the dude who stole my account.

EDIT: Scratch that...I got their e-mail literally as I was typing that last response.

It was within a half-hour or so.

Looking at the time stamps on my email, I got the unexpected "Email Address Changed" message at 22:36, while I was having dinner.

I checked my email before going to bed and saw that message. I see the responses from Amazon when I changed my address back (02:24) and changed my password (02:25). I'm pretty sure I contacted Amazon after I did that. I got their response at 02:53.