@gecko: @Weegees bored: @Meg: I voted by mail-in-ballot already. I was giddy with it. First time ever. Giddy, I tell you. I felt so wonderful. Maybe there really is a person out there in politics who is running for Pres who thinks like I do.
GECKO: stay up a little while. I just made cupcakes for school.
@Meg: @Meg: This made me think of James Frey. I never read any of his stuff (because I can't be spun anymore by the machine. Okay, okay, I fall for it every now and then , but I didn't fall for it by him.) But I did read an interview in Poets & Writers (I think) in which he said something like: I'm not one of them (meaning Moody, Eggers et al), I did my work, I studied Hemingway, I did it the hard way. Fucking laugh out loud. He was such a fuck. From the start.
I mailed in my absentee ballot last week, and had so much fun filling it out. Actually having the time to go through every candidate on the ballot-city council, judges, conservation district people- was awesome.
@vaquero: That's who I was thinking of too. I've read My Friend Leonard, because my book club chose it, but I thought it was awful. I wouldn't even attempt to read any of his other stuff.
@vaquero: I'm winning them over slowly, mostly with baked goods. They're still cringe-worthy-one asked if it would be too racist to go as a Mexican migrant worker for Halloween- and sometimes I just hide from them all. That's why I'm glad to have you folks :)
@gecko: Oh God, that is awful! Here's to hoping you always have a nearby hiding place.
@vaquero: I understand why people are pissed, and I get that it casts doubt on memoirs in general, but if I liked his writing, I'd read him anyway. I'm just not a fan. To be fair, I'm often alone in my choices, so perhaps I just have bad taste.
@vaquero: Also, there's no new posts on here in awhile. None over at Jezebel either. I like to read Gawker while I watch Jon Stewart, but there's nothing new since I was last online at 6 or so. Hope you guys are OK!
@Meg: I'd be pissed too, if I'd bought into it. I just mean that I understand the bullshit of what sells. I mean, fuck me, seriously, the publishing market is just so horrid, these days. "Oh, this story is really good, but I can't sell it as a novel, but if it were a memoir, I could totally sell that." What? I know a very profoundly good writer, I mean to tell you that she has a fucking awesome novel and she can't sell it because she has been told a number of times that: There is no market for this. No market for an awesome book? Since when? This is a fucking fantastic, knock you into another world, fantastic book. If this were 1972, the book would be out there. I just don't really get it. Having a readership of 5,000 used to be wroth something. But when writers have to sell over 70,000 copies? What?
@Meg: That too. I cruised Obama HQ at the Carpenter's Union in Hackensack before, looking for party potential. They looked happy, bu t the word "party" didn't come to mind. I guess I'll have to drink at home alone. Alas.
Are there any thirsty terrorists hanging out in Bergen County on election night?
@T.S._delegate: I think that guy is such a fucking asshole."'I. all by my little self, studied Hemingway and Fiztgerald and blah blah, I've worked so hard, and I'm such a stud." Go fuck yourself, dude. We all work really fucking hard. And most of us do not get anywhere. It is no longer about good writing. It's about what sells.
@nolongerinacubiclestillawhore: Who am I kidding, I'm lazy. I'm just going to keep hitting refresh....and the battery just flashed it was low. I'm so not moving from the couch.
@Weegees bored: I'm actually going pretty far out of town to find a party. Though I live in Delaware, you'd think someone would be hosting something, but no.
@vaquero: I have a readership of about 3000 for my drivel. I once figured out that if it takes me 200 to knock out a mystery, and a total of $6000 comes in spread out over five years, I've been getting $20 an hour, which is still nearly three times what Barnes & Noble pays.
@Weegees bored: There are strange things going on with you. I noticed that while I was sober and so remained silent that as another person you unhearted me and now that I am four sheets gone, I want to know why that is so. I am very hurt by this. By the way. Unless I am not sane which is possible. Maybe PM me about this. Hurt hurt pain pain agony. This is all me. Weegee. Why? Was I giving you away?
@T.S._delegate: I still have no idea what you're talking about!
Come on, take pity on a girl whose hands are so chapped from work that she's typing this while wearing gloves, hoping to keep the copious amounts of lotion she just put on from smearing on the computer.
By the way? Mouse touchpads don't work so well while wearing gloves. Lesson of the day.
@vaquero: that sense of entitlement makes my head explode in rage. I hate that shit too. I sometimes feel like there's so much more opportunity for people who really love what they do to get their stuff out there, but at the same time there are so many people using the same outlets for this self-gratifying shite.
@vaquero: I haven't unhearted anyone! It must have been a misclick. Wanna hear about the touchpads on Toshiba laptops. BTW, when I am thick into a political rant typing goes straight out the window. So whatever happened, I'm sorry.
Our colleagues at CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything, have been hard at work and, to their great pleasure, they can add this phrase to their list. 'Three sheets to the wind' is indeed a seafaring expression.
To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminology. Sailors' language is, unsurprisingly, all at sea and many supposed derivations have to go by the board. Don't be taken aback to hear that sheets aren't sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes (or occasionally, chains). These are fixed to the lower corners of sails, to hold them in place. If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the sails will flap and the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.
The phrase is these days more often given as 'three sheets to the wind', rather than the original 'three sheets in the wind'. The earliest printed citation that I can find is in Pierce Egan's Real Life in London, 1821:
"Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind."
Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just 'one sheet in the wind', or 'a sheet in the wind's eye'. An example appears in the novel The Fisher's Daughter, by Catherine Ward, 1824:
"Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before he took his departure."
three sheets to the windRobert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' piracy as his countryman and contemporary Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread 'Bonnie Scotland'. Stevenson used the 'tipsy' version of the phrase in Treasure Island, 1883 - the book that gave us 'X marks the spot', 'shiver me timbers' and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver. He gave Silver the line:
"Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober; "
@Weegees bored: This is when you were someone else. You were someone else? Am I nut crazy? Were you? OMG. This site sometimes makes me feel the fragility of my sanity. It's okay. I still love you. Maybe. If you were that other person. I think. Fucking shit. O Boy!
@vaquero: I'm so getting another drink. Gin and Juice, For re.......My battery died. I am sittng on the rug in the middle of my living so i can be with you all.
*On my knees* Oh Gaaaaawker!!! What have you done to meeeee!!!
@leonleonleon: Tetris! OMG, there was a time when I was so addicted to that that I dreamed about it. NOw, I actually (this is so sad, tell no one, swear?) I dream of Gawking people. Really. So fucking sad. I dream of what I am doing right now. Ha!
@vaquero: My housemates all watch each other play Dr.Mario, which is kinda like tetris.
And last night, I dreamed about putting bycatch reduction devices on crab traps-things that keep turtles from drowning in crab traps. Because I'm just that cool.
I've occasionally dreamed that I'm in a restaurant, eating, and strike up a conversation with some strangers, reference something from gawker, and then find out slowly that the stranger I'm talking to is one of you all.
@vaquero: Aha, you've stumbled onto the other thing I'm good at, and that's some arcane stuff involving racing sailboats. I can actually do play by play on the America's Cup. Avoid me. Of course, the main thing I'm good at is bullshitting, much of it on paper.
They're "lines," not ropes, generally speaking. "Sheets" are lines that control sails. I always wondered where "three sheets to the wind" came from, but was too lazy to look it up. I assumed it had to do with sails blowing free. I've occasionally heard sails called sheets.
But on old time sailing ships lines were sometimes stored in the rope locker. So go figure.
I can't wait for the sun to go over the yardarm next Tuesday.
@T.S._delegate: I work at an environmental education center, and my hands are in and out of salt water all day every day. Add that to the change of seasons, and my skin's in bad shape. Putting my hands in saltwater right now is insanely painful, but part of the job.
@vaquero: I've been here a year, first under my real name. Then I was executed for talking about myself too much (so I better shut up now). I picked out a phrase from a Tom Waits song and used that until Ian broke my balls about it sounding like something from a Saturday morning kids' show. So I came up with Weegee's bored. I began my career as a photographer, not counting teaching sailing and being a dockmaster on Fire Island.
@gecko: Oh, that is the worst! I have dry hands that crack frequently in the winter, but when our first child was born, he stayed a few weeks in the NICU. Scrubbing them multiple times a day with iodine and a plastic brush, coupled with the December weather, was murder on my hands. I looked like I had been training in the meat locker with Rocky. Hope they heal quickly!
@gecko: ugh, god, sounds painful. my face is taking a beating just from walking outside all the time and my terrible, terrible heater. so I can only imagine what your hands are going through :(
on the other hand, your job sounds pretty awesome :)
@T.S._delegate: I'm not a photographer, but I love taking pictures. I decided this summer to start taking pictures of things that make me smile, and have pretty much constantly carried my camera since.
I'm jealous of your camera, I just have a little Olympus waterproof point and shoot...but it's perfect for what I do.
@T.S._delegate: I'm a bit lost, too, but he was someone else, and before that someone else. And perhaps, if you count the whole apostrophe situation, he was also partially someone else at some point. But since no one could talk to that person, I don't think it counts. But he is who is he is, now. Got it?
@T.S._delegate: I've gone clueless too. The Xanax is kicking in. If it's sailboats, somewhere on my hard drive I have a photo I took of the rope locker on the old square rigger Star of India in San Diego. I can toss that into the conversation about sheets and lines.
@gecko: Hey, Olympuses are great. For the longest time I used an early Canon elf. And the best photo I ever took was taken with a disposable camera, in middle school, two seconds before it began to rain, of a little boy sitting alone in the back of a yellow school bus who had just opened up his cello and begun to practice. Thinking of him there still makes me smile.
@Meg: Yea I wanted to be my favorite block (the straight long one) but I don't think I'd fit in the subway if I did that one. I also considered Z-shape, but then I might tip over, and T-shape either is too wide or it looks like I got a tumor. Square-shape is just BORING.
Plus, L-shaped upside down doubles as a hammer.
I'll be the Tetris block stumbling out of the Union Sq subway stop to work tomorrow morning.
@ChuffedLittleMuffin: I put up those people dancing in costumes for you. Was it here? That I did that? I no longe rknow. I never knew. Really. O! Seven sheets in.
@vaquero: YES! Omg, I thought that was for me! But then I thought that I was being self-centered and vain because I thought that. But it was a really, REALLY good video.
@gecko: I use my cheap cell phone camera sometimes. I like the gauzy quality. I really do. Othr than that, I have an Olympus digital that I picked up for $60 at a pawn shop in West Virginia.
@T.S._delegate: A school bus always reminds me of being in elementary school and walking onto the bus and having the older kids sing: another one rides the bus
@gecko: Well, being exhausted and in pain and frustrated is only worth it if you get something good out of it. It's amazing how fucking rewarding the tiniest piece of learning can be, isn't it? It's like completely irrational!
@ChuffedLittleMuffin: That "REALLY" sounded somewhat sexual. For the record, I am not a furry. I just have a soft spot for furry culture. A flaccid, soft spot.
@gecko: This is true. I've found that threaded is really nice for reading convos that you're not participating in, but classic, newest first is best for FFs, by far.
@T.S._delegate: I gave up riding the bus in 9th grade, when the pot smoke from the back of the bus would get so thick that I'd be nauseous on the walk home from the bus stop. Blecch.
@gecko: eww, sounds awful. though I have a strange relationship to the smell of pot smoke, having spent almost every summer in holland growing up. when someone in the US finally introduced me to weed, I was like "oh, that! Aw man, that makes me nostalgic."
Palin/Stevens in 2012, the 4000th anniversary of the day that Moses administered a stone tablet enema to an T Rex, necessitating the Flight out of Egypt.
Seriously, if that Miss Teen South Carolina gal had been from Alaska, she easily could've absolved herself of all scrutiny by saying that she studied for the question portion of the competition by listening to her local politicians speak.
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Can't wait to wear it to work, though.
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Are you people not here because you are working on your own Opera novels?
Where are you all?
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I got this:
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what are you having?
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GECKO: stay up a little while. I just made cupcakes for school.
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I mailed in my absentee ballot last week, and had so much fun filling it out. Actually having the time to go through every candidate on the ballot-city council, judges, conservation district people- was awesome.
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@vaquero: I understand why people are pissed, and I get that it casts doubt on memoirs in general, but if I liked his writing, I'd read him anyway. I'm just not a fan. To be fair, I'm often alone in my choices, so perhaps I just have bad taste.
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Hi all!
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Are there any thirsty terrorists hanging out in Bergen County on election night?
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@nolongerinacubiclestillawhore: Evening!
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Come on, take pity on a girl whose hands are so chapped from work that she's typing this while wearing gloves, hoping to keep the copious amounts of lotion she just put on from smearing on the computer.
By the way? Mouse touchpads don't work so well while wearing gloves. Lesson of the day.
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from:[www.phrases.org.uk]
Three sheets to the wind:
Meaning
Very drunk.
Origin
Our colleagues at CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything, have been hard at work and, to their great pleasure, they can add this phrase to their list. 'Three sheets to the wind' is indeed a seafaring expression.
To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminology. Sailors' language is, unsurprisingly, all at sea and many supposed derivations have to go by the board. Don't be taken aback to hear that sheets aren't sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes (or occasionally, chains). These are fixed to the lower corners of sails, to hold them in place. If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the sails will flap and the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.
The phrase is these days more often given as 'three sheets to the wind', rather than the original 'three sheets in the wind'. The earliest printed citation that I can find is in Pierce Egan's Real Life in London, 1821:
"Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind."
Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just 'one sheet in the wind', or 'a sheet in the wind's eye'. An example appears in the novel The Fisher's Daughter, by Catherine Ward, 1824:
"Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before he took his departure."
three sheets to the windRobert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' piracy as his countryman and contemporary Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread 'Bonnie Scotland'. Stevenson used the 'tipsy' version of the phrase in Treasure Island, 1883 - the book that gave us 'X marks the spot', 'shiver me timbers' and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver. He gave Silver the line:
"Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober; "
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@Weegees bored: I am always in awe of people that publish their writing. Very cool.
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*On my knees*
Oh Gaaaaawker!!! What have you done to meeeee!!!
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And last night, I dreamed about putting bycatch reduction devices on crab traps-things that keep turtles from drowning in crab traps. Because I'm just that cool.
I've occasionally dreamed that I'm in a restaurant, eating, and strike up a conversation with some strangers, reference something from gawker, and then find out slowly that the stranger I'm talking to is one of you all.
10/30/08
They're "lines," not ropes, generally speaking. "Sheets" are lines that control sails. I always wondered where "three sheets to the wind" came from, but was too lazy to look it up. I assumed it had to do with sails blowing free. I've occasionally heard sails called sheets.
But on old time sailing ships lines were sometimes stored in the rope locker. So go figure.
I can't wait for the sun to go over the yardarm next Tuesday.
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on the other hand, your job sounds pretty awesome :)
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Also, how many photographers do we have here? I saved up and bought a dslr this year and I feel like a kid whose faith in magic has just been renewed.
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I'm jealous of your camera, I just have a little Olympus waterproof point and shoot...but it's perfect for what I do.
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Plus, L-shaped upside down doubles as a hammer.
I'll be the Tetris block stumbling out of the Union Sq subway stop to work tomorrow morning.
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It's good, and occasionally I even get the feeling that someone actually learned something in one of my classes.
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1) love the weird al reference.
2) I sooooo connect with that. I was one of the youngest kids in my grade, and the last to start driving/quit riding.
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@vaquero: I love, love, love Weird Al.
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@T.S._delegate: I gave up riding the bus in 9th grade, when the pot smoke from the back of the bus would get so thick that I'd be nauseous on the walk home from the bus stop. Blecch.
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It's pumpkin time for me, too. Sweet dreams, everyone!
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Sorry, this will never get old for me.
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Rambling, incoherent, madman! Betcha he does get reelected.
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Seriously, if that Miss Teen South Carolina gal had been from Alaska, she easily could've absolved herself of all scrutiny by saying that she studied for the question portion of the competition by listening to her local politicians speak.
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[link.brightcove.com]
That's how I like my debates, vetted by lawyers and politicians callin' America's jury system "a political smear." What a douche.