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Oh my, you’re so helpful in responding despite my gift idea being totally outside of your interests! Thank you. And look, some of your other readers/friends have suggestions I might follow alongside Yelp. :)

Thank you ninox-ios and spinfrog! I’m putting together the package now and will pass on the recommendations for anything that doesn’t make it into the gift. 

Hi Sam! My brother recently moved to Chicago (Pilson/Lower West Side), and I'm sending him a package for his birthday with tickets and gift certificates and things. Except I have no idea what to get. He loves good music at local bars. Any recommendations?

Oh lord. I’ve never been to Pilsen. :D Umm, I also never go to live music or bars. So I am less than helpful in this instance. What I would do in your situation is send him a pre-loaded debit card with a picture of Chicago on it. :D

But googlemaps might be your friend in this instance! Find his address, then zoom in close and have a look at what bars and music spots and other fun things are in his neighborhood. Usually you can find their websites by clicking on the names; also check Yelp for his zipcode and see what comes up.

Good luck! Sorry I lack any specificity :D 

Ha, the Faucet King of America! 

I don’t pretend to be a DC insider (and after my time there I don’t want to be), but the shady stuff that bothered me is less insider trading-type stuff (although hearing hints about how certain prospective donors made their money after the Iraq invasion was sickening), and more the references to political influence peddling. That kind of confirmed my cynicism and despair about democracy on the federal level. :/ 

And I can’t imagine Chicago’s alll that different in that regard? :P

Capitalism.

I love it when I find what probably is but probably can’t be proven to be charitable foundation fraud when researching donors.

Nothing radicalizes you like spending all day studying millionaires, I swear to god.

Thank you thank you! 

Hi Sam! My brother recently moved to Chicago (Pilson/Lower West Side), and I'm sending him a package for his birthday with tickets and gift certificates and things. Except I have no idea what to get. He loves good music at local bars. Any recommendations?

Oh lord. I’ve never been to Pilsen. :D Umm, I also never go to live music or bars. So I am less than helpful in this instance. What I would do in your situation is send him a pre-loaded debit card with a picture of Chicago on it. :D

But googlemaps might be your friend in this instance! Find his address, then zoom in close and have a look at what bars and music spots and other fun things are in his neighborhood. Usually you can find their websites by clicking on the names; also check Yelp for his zipcode and see what comes up.

Good luck! Sorry I lack any specificity :D 

Me: *rereading a fanfic for the 17th time* ah, yes. *sips tea* a true literary classic

I started out running with my dad, a lifelong runner, as my companion/coach. He and I were training for a 10 Miler a few years back, and he kept spitting snot onto the grass strip next to the sidewalk. I was grossed out and grumbled something like “you’d better not do that during the race, what if you hit a spectator??”

He just looked over and was like: “well, then they’d be an EX-SPECTATOR, wouldn’t they?”

...I have been waiting YEARS to share this story in an appropriate context. :D

foxish49 reblogged your photoset: Baby’s first street run!  I did 1.72 miles in…

re: Snot - if there weren’t bored doormen watching, I’d recommend learning the fine art of the snot rocket. But then again, maybe not something you want to do in front of people or onto a sidewalk. (I mostly run on trails, so it’s not as big of an issue.)

Yeah, I get irrationally angry when people sit or hock loogies on the sidewalk, that’s gross and unnecessary. But I think above and beyond that the issue is that it wasn’t congestion, it was a steady drip. I could have stopped and blown once and been fine if that was the case, but I just dripped the entire time like a gross snot monster. :D

nah just practical :)

ok ok last thing:

(yeah, I hope you won’t become the snot puns guy. Just the running puns guy!)

foxish49 reblogged your photoset: Baby’s first street run!  I did 1.72 miles in…

re: Snot - if there weren’t bored doormen watching, I’d recommend learning the fine art of the snot rocket. But then again, maybe not something you want to do in front of people or onto a sidewalk. (I mostly run on trails, so it’s not as big of an issue.)

Yeah, I get irrationally angry when people sit or hock loogies on the sidewalk, that’s gross and unnecessary. But I think above and beyond that the issue is that it wasn’t congestion, it was a steady drip. I could have stopped and blown once and been fine if that was the case, but I just dripped the entire time like a gross snot monster. :D

Perfect. I nominate @copperbadge to inherit this task. 

(Any longer version in the works?) 

Yet another reason I’m sad Terry Pratchett is dead is because I just know that the Discworld novel he would have written in response to recent developments in Britain and the world would be fucking scathing.

Interesting. I've gotten it, but rarely, and it's definitely at least 50% psychosomatic for me. It's usually associated with my playlist coming to some ridiculously inspiring music that helps switch my brain over away from resentment and exhaustion at having to do this meh meh meh. I get either this overwhelming swell of love and gratitude for being alive and able to run outside, or an intense determination that feels Very Heroic (usually accompanied by the Mulan soundtrack to be honest). Both feelings can also be gotten through other difficult but life-connecting pursuits. That high does give me a boost of energy and is sometimes a physical feeling of well-being and strength, but it's so clearly triggered by the attitude switch through music that it can't just be physical. Though it doesn't really happen during those initial training weeks when I'm always exhausted and out of shape and slogging through.

The other moment I experience that sweeping rush of energy/gratitude/power/connectedness while running is during the actual race itself. It always propels me up this dreaded steep hill at mile 8.5 that's now my favorite part, although it's still a tough haul to keep the speed up till the end (mile 10) after that burst of feeling good. My dad, who runs it with me and is always in much better shape, has never gotten the high on that hill and says it's the worst part, but he still has way more strength left for the last mile than me, so the high isn't a prerequisite for success or anything.

So, do you actually get that "runner's high" the hardcore runners are always on about? Because I ran for years and I'm not going to lie -- I never got a runner's high. Not once. I'd run miles fueled only by my hatred of running and the closest thing I got to a "high" was the relief when I finally finished. I've long suspected that the runner's high is a mass delusion or a trick to lure people into running, or else I'm just weird.

Well, there are chemical, physiological changes linked to a runner’s high, so they’ve established it’s a real thing that does happen – whether or not it’s psychosomatic, things are happening in the body when it happens. But what induces it is still not really well-understood, and it could be that inducing it is psychosomatic – that you are psychologically causing those changes in your body chemistry. We really don’t know. There’s the idea that it happens when the body is under a very specific combination of stresses, but you can also develop a tolerance to those stresses and then it will change so that different things induce it. I did a bunch of reading on it and it basically boils down to shrug-emoji. 

I have had it a couple of times but the thing is, while the reduction in pain is nice, the whole thing is fucking terrifying because you’re not really prepared for it. The first time it happened I freaked the fuck out because I knew something was altering my perceptions but I didn’t know what or why. It’s not so much the fact of having the high, because I mean, I’ve done recreational drugs and I quite like that feeling – and even the mild recreational drugs I’ve done are both more intense and more euphoric than the runner’s high. What’s frightening is having a high you didn’t induce, can’t control, and are having to cope with (in my case) on a city street at 4am while wearing spandex. 

Additionally, some people experience it less as a high and more as a sense of ongoing well-being that stays with them the rest of the day – these are the kinds of people who tend to advocate physical activity as a “treatment” for depression because it makes them feel so good, surely it must be that way for everyone! (No.)

I don’t think it’s a trick or a delusion, but I also think it’s a terrible reason to run – not just from the standpoint of “don’t use this to convince people to run” but from the standpoint of “don’t use this as a reason to run”. There are great reasons to run – better cardio health, cool leg muscles, as an outlet for the seething frustrations and hatred of modern existence – but if you want a good high, running is not where you will generally get it. And as with any activity whose result is altered perceptions, it can become unhealthy when carried to excess. 

So yeah – you’re not weird, lots of people never get a runner’s high or get it only rarely, and even those who do get it don’t always enjoy it. But it is a thing that happens, and hopefully eventually there will be More Science about it. 

Why did this take so much longer than any other version?

I remember reading these when they where being published. (Along with a lot of other titles.) The Dr Strange books had the best artists; that's how they reeled me in.

I’ve been reading old Dr. Strange comics, because I’m a masochist, but I have to admit that all the handwaving and mumbo-jumbo aside, there’s something strangelycompelling about the whole concept. I’m really rooting for these two crazy kids. 

[From Dr. Strange #169, 1974]

Reblogging to tag @copperbadge because sea shanties

https://twitter.com/northumbriana/status/846454474654781442

Reblogging for the HP fic bit at the end, which I LOVE despite not being an Avengers person

Cheese, pumpkins, and gender

nefersitra replied to your photo “tienriu: I… I have no words. @levynite, @copperbadge I was kind of…”

I would have said “Philistines. Philistines do wine shots” but I’ve just learnt that Philistine is comes from the same root word as Palestinian and so that’s not cool to associate a lack of culture and refinement with an ethnic grouping. Also, the Philistines might actually be the Sea Peoples and/or the Hyksos who caused so many problems for the Ancient Egyptians.

Yeah, most words for someone we consider classless come from “that foreigner” in the end – I was going to suggest the Greek barbaroi, which is where we get “barbarian” from and which generally is considered to be a catch-all for “anyone who doesn’t act like the Greeks”, but I double-checked and sure enough the Greeks took it from the way they thought Anatolians sounded when they talked (”Bar bar bar”). 

ameliahcrowley replied to your photo “tienriu: I… I have no words. @levynite, @copperbadge I was kind of…”

Also, how are you meant to eat them? Do you bit into them, letting the wine spill everywhere? Or do you drink the wine, then eat the misshapen, oily, and now *wet* and mildly tannic cheese? Is the cheese just there for presentation and tainting your otherwise reasonable, moderately-priced wine?

All exceptional questions for which I have no answers. Some cheeses are enhanced by soaking in wine during their aging phase, but I don’t think anything can save pre-melted cheese. 

nefersitra replied to your photo “Free GIGANTIC pumpkins to good home.  (This is the infamous Free Stuff…”

Sam, I am curious - are they actual vegetable/fruit pumpkins or fake ones? A friend’s granddad grows giant produce for competitions and he says the ones bred for size tend to have the taste bred out.

Yep, they are realio trulio plants. My building has a wide economic range of residents and especially on the upper floors there are people who are just…the kind of people who can drop a lot of money on a giant pumpkin as a decoration and then discard it when the season is over. 

The Free Stuff Table doubles as the “this won’t fit in the dumpster” table, literally – if you ask the building maintenance guys what to do with something that won’t fit, they say “put it on the free stuff table, I’ll deal with it on trash day”. 

onlysilentawe replied to your photo “Free GIGANTIC pumpkins to good home.  (This is the infamous Free Stuff…”

I will send you a roll of tape if you will promise to tape down the edges of those signs. Just knowing they exist like that, no matter how far away they are, is driving me bananas.

If it’s any comfort, they get replaced every few months, and those are probably due to be replaced soon. It just happens – the wall isn’t a good surface for taping on and the room isn’t insulated (plus the big cargo doors are often open) so the paper curls no matter what we do. 

seniorvpofscrewit replied to your post “Wait, are you a guy? Sorry for the awkward question, but I kind of…”

I always assumed you were a guy, but at the same time I kind of think of copperbadge as a genderless internet phantom sharing some knowledge haha

I am honored to be considered a genderless phantom librarian! 

pantone2955c replied to your post “Wait, are you a guy? Sorry for the awkward question, but I kind of…”

I… never realized that I headcanoned you as a woman. My bad.

I’m not bothered! It happens all the time and it’s a rational assumption to make given how heavily fandom skews female.  

strixus replied to your post “Wait, are you a guy? Sorry for the awkward question, but I kind of…”

I now really want the cross over fic of Bucky somehow ending up at the Weasley’s during Yule.

“I don’t know who brought him, Mum, maybe he’s one of Charlie’s weird coworkers. You’ve never minded when Harry visited for the holidays!”

“Harry’s a friend! I had to knit a sweater overnight just to make sure the poor thing had a present and he hasn’t taken it off since. I don’t mind feeding him and he’s been a lamb, but I’d like a little warning, Bill!”

“Well, don’t look at me. He looks like an Auror type, maybe he’s one of Ron’s friends.”

“Oh Merlin, there goes your father.”

“Dad, no, don’t ask him about the arm, that’s rude!” 

I feel like @copperbadge will enjoy this

Happy super bowl everyone! Have a Superb Owl.

Huehhhhhh

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An ancestor (uncle, I believe) of my friend made several of the tiny books in the library of the doll house. And if you could take them out, they are actual books with pages and words, not just faux. 

Colleen Moore’s fairy tale castle dolls’ house. Moore was one of the most successful silent film stars (famous for popularising the ‘Dutch boy’ bob), and she started creating this dolls’ house in 1928. She enlisted the help of professional planners and architects, such as Horace Jackson, the set designer at First National Studios. The entire house can be broken down into individual pieces and packed into specially designed shipping crates, and from 1935 to 1939 Moore took the dolls’ house on tour through the U.S. to help raise money for children’s charities, which proved hugely successful. Moore gave the dolls’ house to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1949.