1 February 2006
Submitted by eve on Wed, 02/01/2006 - 10:33pm. Tragic
"Missouri! Missouri's a state!"
"One of the fifty, yes."
"No, seriously, I haven't thought of Missouri in five years. It's just not a state that comes up. Even Iowa's more popular. What's a city in Missouri?"
"Biloxi. Oh, shit, that's Mississippi. St. Louis."
"I've even been to St. Louis. I changed planes there. I think I thought it was St. Paul. Minneapolis, you know?"
--A girl and a guy at Dona Thomas
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"How many books?"
Posted by Mike on Fri, 05/19/2006 - 12:48pm.
"Not enough" is the only acceptable answer.
 
Amen
Posted by daen on Fri, 05/19/2006 - 3:51pm.
Preach it, brother!
Advertising
Posted by steff on Sat, 05/13/2006 - 5:16am.
i'm putting this up on the front page so it'll be seen by more than just the 4 or 5 of us willing to slog through the trackerspam. vis., the ipip thread, somewhat revived... or at least now only mostly dead.
 
Bump
Posted by jcharles on Tue, 05/30/2006 - 9:44am.
pimpity pimpity IPIP

I\'m not sure we have enough interested people, but... I have posted a suggestion. See steff\'s link. Hey, I should add that to my user account, for when this eventually falls off the front page.

[edit]Dammit. The slashy thing strikes again. Should have left my account well enough alone.

What\'s wrong with the tracker?
 
More advertising
Posted by Somnambulist on Thu, 05/18/2006 - 3:16am.
I found a site that I think a lot of you might like...
 
Forget books
Posted by umrguy on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 2:01pm.
...There is no way I can keep track of all of them anyway, and 200 is a joke.

DVDs, however... much better. For example:

http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=umrguy42

-There\'s someone in my head, but it\'s not me.-
 
SHINE. EEE.
Posted by steff on Thu, 05/18/2006 - 7:33am.
som. i love you. and these people.

...and my books. heh.

i've been wanting something like this but was too lazy/harassed/whatever to do it myself. i have a list of my library online, but it's woefully out of date and alphabetically is a fine way to organize your book list as long as it's not the ONLY way you have.

speaking of "woefully"... 200 books? pah.
 
Posted by Matt on Thu, 05/18/2006 - 9:46pm.
I haven't a clue how many books I have. Could be more than my CDs (200-ish), could be less. But my English Literature degree pretty much assures me of a diversity of collection greater than the average reader, at least by percentage. Example: Zen Comics, several Faulkners, Watchmen, Proust, Baghavad-Gita, and so on. I'm starting to bore myself.
 
Yeah...
Posted by Somnambulist on Thu, 05/18/2006 - 8:46am.
...I kinda figured you'd like it... you and your sister, wherever she went off to... and I'm thinkin' I may have to get the lifetime membership...

I've managed to amass over 100 books in the five or so months I've been over here... I lay awake at night wondering exactly how I'm going to bring 'em back with me... I have books in storage in three different states... My living room was completely lined with overflowing bookshelves... used bookstore owners in at least five different states know me by name... I could go on...

...but I won't.
 
Hmmm...
Posted by jcharles on Thu, 05/18/2006 - 7:12am.
It would be kind of nice to know, definitively, how many books I own, but I'm not sure I actually want or need an electronic list of them. And anyway, I don't have that kind of time right now, so it's not really an issue.

However, I did love this unsolicited testimonial that was on the front page:

"It's six kinds of wonderful. It's all the wonderful."


What's wrong with the tracker?
 
Heh.
Posted by Bael on Thu, 05/18/2006 - 12:39pm.
If I had my books organized enough to enter them, I wouldn't need an online reference, would I? Might be nice though. As it is, I can spend hours going through boxes to find something I last saw years ago.

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.
Missoura
Posted by oldestgenxer on Sat, 02/18/2006 - 8:56am.
It's good to know that Geography is still taught in school. I am in MO, and we are much, much more than a flyover state. We are the ones that will be left after California destroys civilization. Not judging, just making an observation.


I will make you love me.
I will make you sorry.
I will make you sorry you love me.
 
Missouri != Civilization?
Posted by Desert Fox on Sun, 02/19/2006 - 1:22pm.
We are the ones that will be left after California destroys civilization.

So...you don't consider Missouri to be civilized?

Universe - Civilization = Missouri?

Interesting observation.

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto
 
Good work, excellent work!:)
Posted by dofalare on Tue, 11/14/2006 - 1:10pm.
Good work, excellent work!:) Best of luck, thumbs up! My link
 
Perhaps Civilization is overr
Posted by oldestgenxer on Sun, 02/26/2006 - 3:56pm.
Perhaps Civilization is overrated. At least the LA version of it. My whole convoluted point is that, from our perspective here in God's country, the only thing that matters to LA and NY is LA and NY. Irksome.
90210 is not how high schools are everywhere
NYPD Blue is not how police are everywhere
ER is not how hospitals are everywhere
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not how vampire slayers are everywhere.
I'm just sayin'



I will make you love me.
I will make you sorry.
I will make you sorry you love me.
 
Posted by Matt on Tue, 05/02/2006 - 10:08pm.
My high school was a mixture of Sunnydale high and Beverly Hills High. With the drama taken down a notch. A small notch.

But then again, I grew up in The Devil's Playground, a.k.a. Newport Beach (The logo for The Harbor School in The O.C. is *exactly* the same as my high school's, which just happened to be called Newport Harbor High School.) When was watching the early episodes of The O.C. I used to find myself saying things like, "Been there, been there, been there.... that's a new development, been there, been there..."

Yawn. A bunch of neocons with too much money and not enough to do.
 
Newport Beach is indeed a cre
Posted by Desert Fox on Wed, 05/03/2006 - 9:39am.
Newport Beach is indeed a creepifying place. It's like La Jolla on steroids.

It is unfortunate that the rest of the country tends to think the Hollywood bullsh*t typifies California, since we're probably the most diverse state in the country by whatever means you care to measure.

Cheers!

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto
 
Posted by Matt on Wed, 05/03/2006 - 9:37pm.
La Jolla on steroids! I love it!

So true. I kinda sorta apologize a little bit to those of you who don't know what DF and I are talking about.

Eh, it's a thing.
 
Expand horizons
Posted by Jon on Fri, 05/12/2006 - 10:22am.
'sokay. If we didn't have "in-jokes" and the like here, there would probably be 2 comments on each topic, instead of tons of them.

I'd love to find a website that compares TV-show settings to what the locals really think they're like.

- My mind is in the gutter, but it keeps out the bad weather.
 
Hey I was just in La Jolla
Posted by hypoxic on Wed, 05/03/2006 - 10:10pm.
Stupid seals taking over my beach!

But I did see a big black seabass in about 15 feet of water
 
Civ 4, of course.
Posted by Apple on Tue, 05/02/2006 - 9:59am.
ER isn't true to life??? LIES!!!
 
Civ 3 or 4?
Posted by Jon on Tue, 03/07/2006 - 2:31pm.
My computer is too slow to run Civ 4, but I've always been behind the times. :p

- My mind is in the gutter, but it keeps out the bad weather.
The Flyover Zone fights back
Posted by jcharles on Fri, 02/17/2006 - 7:59am.
At long last, the Midwest joins the rap battle.


Never apologize. Never explain.
 
The world trembles
Posted by Mike on Fri, 02/17/2006 - 8:39am.
How long until the inevitable Ft. Wayne retort? Drive-by shootings that require a full tank of gas and a superhuman tolerance of corn fields?

Dear Muncie: Nice video, but points off for Jim Davis. Jim Davis sucks.
Back to geography class.
Posted by Mike on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 7:27am.
Which-- in our defense, foreigners (wherever the heck you are, I sure don't know)-- they no longer teach.

...er, do they? I can still rattle off the state capitals, but I don't recall location being emphasized. Hmm. Weird.

Whatever. Here's your homework. Or if you're not ready for that one, here's the easy version.

Did you know that Michael Jordan majored in geography? I figured it was a cop-out at first, but I'd probably fail if I had to memorize the world.

Now I'm off to ponder the mysteries of Upper Michigan.
Is it east of the 5?
Posted by hypoxic on Thu, 02/09/2006 - 8:40pm.
Is there any life east of the 5? I've heard that dragons live there :)
You know, in the middle somewhere
Posted by jcharles on Thu, 02/09/2006 - 4:15pm.
I'm guessing this has to do with the way the states in other parts of the country sort of blur together. I'm pretty familiar with the East coast, but when it comes to "Out West," I couldn't tell you to save my life whether Colorado or Nevada is farther North. I mean, I'm pretty sure they're both states, but if I were sufficiently drunk, I might start getting confused as to what country New Mexico belongs to.

In any case, this is a lovely quote. The stuff I overhear is never this snappy.
Damn blue staters.
Posted by umrguy on Thu, 02/09/2006 - 9:13am.
I will kick your ...

Anyway. Matt, Missouri is in no way "northerly". We're definitely central. Just about as central as you can get. In fact, there's a retreat center in south St. Louis called the White House, because apparently it was originally built to be a replacement for the building of the same name in D.C. (although they look nothing alike) during a time when politicians were considering moving the US capital out more to the center of the country. ("Cooler" heads prevailed, or something, and our federal government was left in the malarial swamp of the Potomac River, so....)

Som's right. Hot and humid in summer, followed by the potential for miserable cold in the winter. The worst of both worlds.

Two big rivers most people would have heard of, the Mississippi and the Missouri, and there's also the Meramec River which flows in at St. Louis and makes up one of the three rivers on the city's flag.

As far as other towns, besides St. Louis and Hannibal (and Rolla, and Columbia, and Springfield, and Joplin), they're obviously unfamiliar with the fact that what most people think of when they say Kansas City is actually Kansas City, MO. (I've been told that the Missouri "side" of the city is the "good" side, but I can't back that up.)

And since when is Iowa more popular? They have what, the Field of Dreams and a college football team, and that's about it. (Okay, okay, I may be mistaken, but it may have Steff as well, so that's another plus in it's favor :D)

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-
 
Central location
Posted by nightwisp on Mon, 06/05/2006 - 8:52am.
The mean population center of the United States is in Phelps county Missouri. Although it continues to drift westward, it\\\'s been in Missouri for upwards of 25 years.

:)
 
Ugh!
Posted by Sera on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 9:30am.
*grin*

In all this time of reading this website (years), I never thought I would get to talk about most of the states I've lived in in one post... and by saying that - how much of a geek am I? Geesh. *grin*

Well... KCMO and KCK have a long-standing feud about which side of the river is better... for those of us who are transplants to the area, the truth is that the "Promised Land" is the south side in Kansas (which actually are the suburbs of KCK in Johnson County). Keep your Worlds of Fun and your NASCAR racetrack... I want SHOPPING!

Regardless -- there's some kick-a** BBQ to be gots here... and oddly enough some really good French bistro cuisine...

So says the "grew up in Iowa" transplant...
*grin*
 
Wait a min...
Posted by umrguy on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 11:18pm.
The suburbs don't count in that discussion :) I have a number of friends who went to work in KC and live in the 'burbs on the Kansas side (I'm thinking of Olathe, here... I assume it's fairly close if not an actual suburb itself, since I've got a friend living there who works for Sprint in KC...)

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-
 
I'm not going there...
Posted by hypoxic on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 4:59pm.
unless you got Rubio fish taco's. Do you know how long it took for SF to get one?

The burritos in the bay area are so bad in comparision to SoCal.
 
Fish tacos?
Posted by Saint on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 8:20pm.
Didn't know selling tuna taco was legal outside Nevada....

--I am powerless over my addiction to parenthesis.--
 
Umm...
Posted by hypoxic on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 9:05pm.
While a tuna taco is important in my diet it isn't quite what I was asking about :) And paying for it is just wrong I mean besides buying the drinks and dinner.

Uhh anyone going to join me in the gutter?
 
Nope
Posted by Matt on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 9:56pm.
It's all you, buddy. Your metaphor just ran into a dead end. Happens. It's nobody's fault.
 
Posted by Matt on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 6:16am.
Like Mike said, it's all just Flyover Zone anyway.

And since Iowa City and Des Moines are both cities I know in Iowa, that makes it twice as memorable as Missouri to me. Plus steff *and* my favorite uncle live there.

According to Google ads, there's a city in Missouri called Ozark. And a Christian realtor named Randy Fry really wants to sell you a house there.
 
Actually,
Posted by steff on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 6:34am.
mr. flyover zone, i lived in ozark, and someone i know quite well was actually born there. and st. louis is so much more of a city than des moines and iowa city put together. still, i know how you get, so i suppose we won't lynch you for your insolence.... this time.

i'm only an iowa transplant, and i want OUT, so trash it all you want. *grin* but, thanks. i guess. (heh. i love how umrguy qualifies that... "...MAY have steff." things do have a way of changing in a heartbeat, don't they?)
"I'll be dead in the cold cold ground..."
Posted by Mike on Thu, 02/09/2006 - 8:36am.
Oh come on. No Hannibal? And I hear there's this wacky little river named after it... or so I hear. Whatever, it's all just flyover country. Mmm, provincialism.

I do wonder what made her think of it so suddenly. Maybe she was playing quarters or something.
Posted by Matt on Wed, 02/08/2006 - 11:38pm.
I sure don't know the name of any cities in Missouri other than St. Louis. I mean, what else do they have, a river? And isn't the state kind of northerly and far from the ocean?
I already don't wanna visit.

Something tells me this conversation did not occur outside the influence of alcohol.
 
Misery
Posted by Desert Fox on Mon, 02/13/2006 - 10:13am.
When I was 12, my sister and I spent part of a summer on my grandparents' cattle ranch in Barnett, MO. Go ahead -- try to find it on a map. I'll give you a hint: it's near Versailles (pronounced ver-SALES). That's 3 weeks of my life I'll never get back.

On the other hand, we were there over the 4th of July, practically all fireworks were cheap and legal, and cattle react very amusingly to bottle rockets.

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto
 
Posted by Matt on Mon, 02/13/2006 - 8:16pm.
You make me sad. Very, very sad.

Well, not you in particular, just your anecdote about Flyover Zone culture. Pronouncing a city name like that is even worse than Sequim in WA, which people pronounce, "Squim." Or something.

Then again, I just found out there's this area on the southern edge of San Francisco where a lot of the streets are named for famous writers. One of the streets is pronounced "GO-eth" by the locals, though it's spelled "Goethe."

Again, with the sadness.

Open question for the language buffs: Does anyone know for sure whether or not to pronounce the final E in "schadenfreude?" I've heard it both ways.
 
This looks like a good place to put this.
Posted by paul on Mon, 02/20/2006 - 9:14am.
I stopped for gas this weekend, and taped to the side of the pump were instructions on how to use your debit card at the pump to pay for gas. The final instruction said to life the "nozel".

I crossed out "nozel", wrote "(sp)" after it, and underneath carefully printed "nozzle". Sadly, the pen I had was black, not red.

Although actually it would have been even better if it had been purple ink.
 
Nitpicking
Posted by marinerd on Mon, 02/20/2006 - 9:41am.
I hope it actually said LIFT the nozel, not life it. Otherwise, it begins to sound philosophical.

Down with the soulless minions of orthodoxy!
 
Well...
Posted by paul on Mon, 02/20/2006 - 5:16pm.
...it did say "lift", but had I the talents of Bugs Bunny I could produce a turban and a small wind instrument and get it to writhe about like a snake...
 
I always liked
Posted by umrguy on Tue, 02/21/2006 - 8:09pm.
That the front desk of our dorms used to list a "small ironing bard" (yes, "bard") on the items available to be checked out :) I think it was steff or somebody who asked if that meant a vertically challenged person who would sing to you while they pressed clothes ;)

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-
 
Flyover?
Posted by Desert Fox on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 7:52pm.
Don't be sad at me! The Flyover Zone thing was somebody else's comment. :) I'm actually kind of bummed my grandmother eventually sold the farm after my grandfather died. Nowadays, I'd love the idea of having 100 acres in the middle of nowhere to which I could escape occasionally. But at age 12, 100 acres of dry grass and cowshit lacks that certain something -- namely shopping malls, video games, and other such silly pubescent forms of entertainment.

There's no excuse for the Versailles pronounciation though. Or the Goethe. There's a Goethe Park in Sacramento where I grew up, and it's pronounced "GATE-ee". I didn't learn to pronounce Goethe until my mid-20s when a German biochem prof of mine insisted that I read some of him. I still probably don't pronounce it *exactly* correctly. But at least I know it's not GO-eth or GATE-ee. Sheesh.

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto
 
...
Posted by daen on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 7:44pm.
I'm not a German, per se, but I do know a number of them, and German is my first language...

Anyway, yes, you do pronounce the final E in schadenfreude, but it's a schwa, and not much of an E. Think SHAH-den-Froyd-ih.
 
German rules
Posted by marinerd on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 3:18pm.
My daughter took German forever, and says you don't pronounce the final e in schadenfreude. Anybody know any real Germans?

Down with the soulless minions of orthodoxy!
 
Until I played "You don't know Jack"
Posted by Mike on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 7:00am.
I didn't know how to pronounce Goethe either. (*shrug*) Wacky Germans: Wolfgang isn't a name, it's a horrible way to die!

Anyway, m-w.com says that schadenfreude's final "e" should be voiced.

Mispronunciation vs. scaring cows silly. So far flyover zone culture sounds like a push.
 
Cows
Posted by Jon on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 11:36am.
Scaring cows seems to be an universal fun factor, if accounts from friends in upstate NY, Connecticut and New Jersey are any indication.

I'm just sayin'.

- My mind is in the gutter, but it keeps out the bad weather.
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