Small Talk: The Quiver

[statsgirl]

There are two current Anne revivals on my TV now so I don't know which one you're talking about.

I tried one of them but it was too realistic for me.  What I loved about the books was the complete fantasy of it, how much it was of what I wanted my life to be like, getting drunk on cordial or having the guts to walk on the roof of the school, rather than the reality of my true existence.  Watching scenes like how Anne deals with her first period kills the books for me.

[looptab]

1 hour ago, Kymmi said:

My one fear for another season of this, is the showrunner.  Moira Walley-Beckett also was responsible for Flesh and Bone, a ballet themed drama which was TERRIBLE.

That was truly terrible. At first I was, yay, ballet! Plus the dude from Center Stage! And the ballet was good. But they threw every possible thing  in those ten episodes - did we really need 

Spoiler

incest, rape, human trafficking, the Russian mob, and murder? Did we need all those things? LOL.

Plus I don't know what the point of the strip club was, haha. Or of the series at all.

[LeighAn]

She was also a key writer on Breaking Bad though and wrote one of Breaking Bads best and most famous episodes so. I've found the writing has been so far strong on Anne with an E *shrug* I guess I'll have to see where the show goes next season as it ended on a cliff hanger that seems to suggest a deviation from the books.

[leopardprint]

20 minutes ago, looptab said:

That was truly terrible. At first I was, yay, ballet! Plus the dude from Center Stage! And the ballet was good. But they threw every possible thing  in those ten episodes - did we really need 

  Reveal hidden contents

incest, rape, human trafficking, the Russian mob, and murder? Did we need all those things? LOL.

Plus I don't know what the point of the strip club was, haha. Or of the series at all.

OMG, I am an obsessive completist and will watch any and all dance shows and movies and I could not finish this. All, I remember is that the Richy Rebel Stripper (sigh) had an awesome art display closet thing.  

Edited May 21, 2017 by leopardprint

[Mellowyellow]

Guys!!!! Need your help!

So hubby has one day in San Francisco before he needs to move to his hotel in San Jose

What are the sights that he must see/anything that he must do in his one day in San Francisco?

Also is it safe to travel at night? Like if he has dinner in San Francisco before he catches a taxi to San Jose is it safe?

Also what yummy American junk food should he buy home for me to try? Do you guys have any good chocolate/cookies etc?

[catrox14]

Nob Hill, Golden Gate bridge, the Embarcadero,Fisherman's Whar , Lombard Street, Ghiradelli's

[lemotomato]

26 minutes ago, Mellowyellow said:

Guys!!!! Need your help!

So hubby has one day in San Francisco before he needs to move to his hotel in San Jose

What are the sights that he must see/anything that he must do in his one day in San Francisco?

Also is it safe to travel at night? Like if he has dinner in San Francisco before he catches a taxi to San Jose is it safe?

Also what yummy American junk food should he buy home for me to try? Do you guys have any good chocolate/cookies etc?

If he only has one day, he'll probably only have time to explore the waterfront area-- the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero has some really great food stands (Humphrey Slocum ice cream, Blue Bottle Coffee), Fisherman's Wharf to get the touristy experience (Boudin, the SF sourdough bread company, has their flagship store/cafe there) Pier 39 to see the sea lions, and then continue to the Marina district to see the Palace of Fine Arts and the Golden Gate Bridge. 

The waterfront area is pretty safe at night. I think any of the super touristy areas tend to be safe. He's catching a cab to San Jose, though? I hope his company is paying for that fare, because that's almost 50 miles away, lol.

[Tallis]

Not chocolate! Avoid American chocolate at all costs. Trust me on this.

[catrox14]

2 minutes ago, Tallis said:

Not chocolate! Avoid American chocolate at all costs. Trust me on this.

Eh, American Dark Chocolate is pretty damn good. LOL /defensive American dark chocolate lover

[lemotomato]

There's actually an artisanal chocolate store-- Recchiuti-- at the Ferry Building. Good stuff, if on the pricey side.

[Mellowyellow]

Thanks @lemotomato! He has a corporate card so should be fine.

He's supposed to get to San Jose for a conference in the morning. Google tells me it's a one hour taxi ride which doesn't sound too bad.

Haha maybe just a few small bars to taste!

[thegirlsleuth]

7 minutes ago, Mellowyellow said:

Thanks @lemotomato! He has a corporate card so should be fine.

He's supposed to get to San Jose for a conference in the morning. Google tells me it's a one hour taxi ride which doesn't sound too bad.

Haha maybe just a few small bars to taste!

Depending on what time that "one hour" is scheduled, it might be closer to 90 mins.  There's also Caltrain, which will take him from right next to Giants stadium down to San Jose in about an hour.  

 Giants Stadium is about half a mile from the wharf area and is beautiful even if you don't care about sports at all.  It looks out onto the bay, it serves great garlic fries, and the team is a group of World Series-winning goofballs. 

[leopardprint]

Do you like ceramics/housewares @Mellowyellow? Heath Ceramics (out of Sausalito) has a store in the Ferry Building as well as outposts of most of the famous SF food stuffs. 

[Mellowyellow]

1 minute ago, leopardprint said:

Do you like ceramics/housewares @Mellowyellow? Heath Ceramics (out of Sausalito) has a store in the Ferry Building as well as outposts of most of the famous SF food stuffs. 

Omg I love ceramics and homewares!!!! 

I'm also planning to do an amazon order to his hotel room. Amazon postage costs the earth to Australia.

[Kymmi]

Does he have to take a taxi to San Jose?  Seems excessive.  There are trains (Cal train) that run between the cities that are a more cost effective way to go.  

Also recommend the Ferry Building in SF for a lot of fun stalls/products.  I went to college in San Jose and there's not a lot see there, sadly.

[BkWurm1]

I love Madame Secretary  but there are too many tall, slender, brownish haired, white guys in their 30's to 40's.  I kept getting them mixed up tonight and I've watched this show since season one.  

Edited May 22, 2017 by BkWurm1

[bijoux]

Does anyone know the best size for cover photos? Because anything I chose gets stretched out and you only see the middle from super close up.

[BkWurm1]

What I uploaded was labeled large in the google image search but more important than size was choosing something that had the most important stuff all at the same level and then I just adjusted the image so that stuff was in rectangular box.  Nothing i loaded got stretched out but yeah, a lot of the image gets chopped off and it took a few tries before i found a workable picture.  

[Mellowyellow]

2 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

I love Madame Secretary  but there are too many tall, slender, brownish haired, white guys in their 30's to 40's.  I kept getting them mixed up tonight and I've watched this show since season one.  

I ducked into the thread and there was even 2 shippy comments this week!

Was there anything shippy going on with Stevie from your perspective?

Haha it's stupid now excited I am at the notion that MS has ship! 

3 hours ago, Kymmi said:

Does he have to take a taxi to San Jose?  Seems excessive.  There are trains (Cal train) that run between the cities that are a more cost effective way to go.  

Also recommend the Ferry Building in SF for a lot of fun stalls/products.  I went to college in San Jose and there's not a lot see there, sadly.

Is it easy to catch the train? Are there lots of trains?

He'll do it if I tell him to. I thought it was safer by taxi!

Yeah poor Hubby would have gone to the conference in San Francisco last year but he was too scared of our son to do it and this year they moved it to San Jose. 

But the folks on here have given him lots of recommendations for restaurants so hopefully he'll have nice food at least!

And there is always a supermarket! Supermarkets in foreign countries are always awesome!

[BkWurm1]

Not overtly shippy but Stevie was introduced (very briefly) to the guy that her dad recruited as a Russian Spy last year ( until they thought he was dead and has been in witness protection since).  She dashed back to the house unexpectedly looking for some gala tickets. 

It's one of those scenes that is pointless unless the whole point was for Stevie to meet him and thus the shippy speculation.  But there haven't been any rumblings of her having issues with the fiance, so who knows.  I will admit.  The shipping angle is where my mind first went.  She was even all dressed up fancy.     

Frankly I was more interested in Nadine and Mike.  But I kept mixing him up with Jay.  

[Mellowyellow]

On a shallow note I want Nadine's figure! She has the most amazing figure and it's not like she's in her 20s!

[lemotomato]

7 hours ago, Mellowyellow said:

Is it easy to catch the train? Are there lots of trains?

He'll do it if I tell him to. I thought it was safer by taxi!

If the company is paying for it, just take a cab. It's definitely more convenient. Depending on when he's going to be in SF, there might be commuters and people attending the ball game that will be taking the train too, so it can get crowded.

Edited May 22, 2017 by lemotomato

[NumberCruncher]

17 hours ago, Tallis said:

Not chocolate! Avoid American chocolate at all costs. Trust me on this.

Could not disagree more. There's A LOT more to American chocolate than Hershey's.  Practically every major city I've visited can boast a local chocolatier to rival any European city.  

[Morrigan2575]

17 hours ago, Tallis said:

Not chocolate! Avoid American chocolate at all costs. Trust me on this.

Funny I tell everyone I know to avoid UK chocolate as it's utter crap.

[leopardprint]

The Hershey vs Cadbury debate is super controversial (both not great, imo) beware, but yeah small batch American artisanal chocolate doesn't need to apologize to anyone. 

If you want to try grocery story chocolate, Trader Joe's has a ton. (Also fun cookies) 

Edited May 22, 2017 by leopardprint

[Morrigan2575]

I don't like Cadbury. I can deal with Hershey's (used to love going to Hershey Park).

I like Russel Stover, Gertrude Hawke, and Ghiradelli (in San Fran) 

[statsgirl]

I liked Green and Black's.  They're good.  Also organic and ethically sourced, which is important to me. 

Even if you can't get the chocolate, I recommend the recipes.  Super good.

[BkWurm1]

For grocery or convenient store chocolate, Dove is excellent. So creamy. 

And their chocolate dipped ice cream bars, heavenly.

Edited May 22, 2017 by BkWurm1

[Mellowyellow]

Oooh they like Dove on America's test Kitchen!!! 

We have Cadbury, it's terrible. So sweet!

Any gourmet cookies you guys can recommend?

@statsgirl are you a greenie (I don't mean to sound rude we are totally greenie wannabes ourselves!)? We have switched to RSPCA approved chickens only and stainless steel straws! We probably still eat sketchy farmed meat but I figure every little bit helps. We brew our own yoghurt to save on the plastic packaging and stuff like that. 

[statsgirl]

@Mellowyellow I am not green enough but I try.  I buy free range eggs and eat less meat and make sure it's antibiotic-free and sustainable fish.  I've never been successful at brewing my own yogurt (It's pretty bad) but I recycle all my containers.  The compost/recycling program here is pretty good.

I try to get ethically-sourced chocolate because there are a number of sketchy chocolate suppliers who treat their employees badly.

[Mellowyellow]

@statsgirl

Every bit helps! I feel like I'm not doing enough but I tell myself it's better than what I was like a few years ago. I bring my own containers to yum cha so I can pack takeaway for the dog (he's super old and loves yum cha) so I don't need to use the restaurant ones.

I'm getting a compost bin for the garden instead of the usual bevy of dresses and handbags this year (I still loooooves clothes though and am struggling with this aspect but clothes are so bad for the environment). Haha the preschooler was asking hubby what they should buy me and hubby was like "Your mummy is all zen now. She's refusing presents."

It's amazing how much plastic we use without thinking. I used to pop hubby' s afternoon tea into a plastic freezer bag and send him to work with it. He'd throw out the bag. Now I put it in a reusable container and curse myself for wrapping his snacks in plastic all those years!

[statsgirl]

I didn't know what yum cha is and I had to look it up.  We call it dim sum, and I like it too.

Good for you for getting a compost bin but you can still get dresses and handbags, and then recycle them when you're tired of them.  Second hand stores love good clothes.

Reusable containers are so, so fashionable here.   It's become a status symbol to carry around a reusable container of water or coffee rather than a place bottle or cup. Fortunately we can recycle plastic bags here or I'd feel terrible buying bread and milk. I'm not committed enough to wrap bread in a cloth I've brought from home.

[BkWurm1]

1 hour ago, Mellowyellow said:

 

Does that count the CW app/site if I stream it? Cuz I go through a lot of effort to rig my VPNs and stream the Felicity eps over and over. It occurred to me I should check that, that counts!

Question about the VPNs.  In my quick research, it seemed that VPN's are a paid service.  Is that what you have to do as well, pay for the intermediary, or are there VPN services that will route you for no cost?  

Edited May 23, 2017 by BkWurm1

[Mellowyellow]

11 minutes ago, BkWurm1 said:

Question about the VPNs.  In my quick research, it seemed that VPN's are a paid service.  Is that what you have to do as well, pay for the intermediary, or are there VPN services that will route you for no cost?  

We pay for ours but it's not very much. I think only $8 a month and it let's me access the sites I want like videos on the Food Network.

[Morrigan2575]

I hope all the UK/England peeps on the board and, their families are OK tonight.

[BkWurm1]

27 minutes ago, Mellowyellow said:

We pay for ours but it's not very much. I think only $8 a month and it let's me access the sites I want like videos on the Food Network.

That's not so bad.  The limits placed on access to a lot of content based out of the US if you aren't in the US doesn't make sense to me.   Glad there are legal options around what often seems arbitrary.   

Edited May 23, 2017 by BkWurm1

[Kymmi]

My husband is an eco nazi - we compost and recycle everything and our garbage bin is ... so small.  I'm talking the size of a small carryon small.  I'm always left looking at my stuff wondering where to throw it away.  LOL  Also, sorry for you if you tossed it in the wrong bin.  Hellfire may rain down.  LOL  I adore him.

[Mellowyellow]

Awww that's awesome @Kymmi

Wow that's small!

Mine was skeptical about what he calls my "hippiness" but he's gradually being converted to our way of thinking. The preschooler seems to have been born a natural hippy so he's really influenced us.  

Hubby is now saving rinse water (water we pour out when we wash rice or veg) to use in the garden bless him!

Anyone grow any edible stuff here?

I grow: bananas, pomelos, meyer lemons, lemonade, blood oranges, calamansi, mulberries, tomatoes in summer, figs and assorted herbs

All stuff that I can't kill!

[BkWurm1]

1 hour ago, Mellowyellow said:

Awww that's awesome @Kymmi

Wow that's small!

Mine was skeptical about what he calls my "hippiness" but he's gradually being converted to our way of thinking. The preschooler seems to have been born a natural hippy so he's really influenced us.  

Hubby is now saving rinse water (water we pour out when we wash rice or veg) to use in the garden bless him!

Anyone grow any edible stuff here?

I grow: bananas, pomelos, meyer lemons, lemonade, blood oranges, calamansi, mulberries, tomatoes in summer, figs and assorted herbs

All stuff that I can't kill!

Last year we managed one ripe tomato.  Yeah, my thumb, not so green.  I'm envious of your ability to grow citrus and tropical fruit.  

[Mellowyellow]

Oh that's just my soil hun! I've tried growing passionfruit for a decade and failed! And it's such an Aussie thing to grow as well! My mango tree dropped dead. As did my finger lime.

My bananas just sprout and fruit like weeds! Have 4 bushels unharvested right now.

I sometimes go on a banana forum and the poor folks their shield their banana trees from the wind and do all sorts of crazy things only to have them die. But they have passionfruit in abundance lol.

[statsgirl]

I have an apple tree in my yard that has wonderful apples every two years.  Other than that, herbs growing on the balcony is my limit -- I have a black thumb.

Roger Moore has died.  He was such a suave James Bond but I first fell in love with him as Simon Templar, The Saint.

[catrox14]

I had a pretty bad black thumb myself and read about putting used coffee grounds in plants. I thought well why not give it a try, so I put them in one of my nearly dead houseplants, about 6 months ago, and about a month later there were new growths. I put the used coffee grounds in about once a week when I water it and I kid you not, it's FLOURISHING, so much so that I had to cut back the leafage.

 

ETA: I did not replace the potting soil. Just put the grounds on top of the existing soil.

Edited May 23, 2017 by catrox14

[leopardprint]

I was using the square foot gardening method for awhile and I would recommend it for my fellow black thumbs. Not sure if I believe the whole companion gardening thing but it certainly doesn't hurt. 

Edited May 23, 2017 by leopardprint

[statsgirl]

Thanks for the coffee grounds tip, @catrox14.  I save my used coffee grounds in the winter to use instead of salt on my sidewalk (because it doesn't hurt paws) but it sounds like a good idea for my yard.

What is square foot gardening?

[leopardprint]

Square Foot Gardening

Basically, you build a raised bed say a 4' x 4' square and fill it with 6" of good soil, you then plant in each square (so 16 squares) some plants (squash or melons) require more space but most can go in one square. 

There is a bunch of companion planting theory which is planting certain plants next to each other helps with nutrients and pests, etc. Like Basil and Tomato do well together as an example. 

Edited May 23, 2017 by leopardprint

[catrox14]

1 hour ago, statsgirl said:

Thanks for the coffee grounds tip, @catrox14.  I save my used coffee grounds in the winter to use instead of salt on my sidewalk (because it doesn't hurt paws) but it sounds like a good idea for my yard.

What is square foot gardening?

Oh what a great idea about the coffee grounds instead of salt.  Does it help melt the ice at all or no?

[statsgirl]

I don't think it helps melt the ice but if your winters are fairly mild or if they're so cold that salt doesn't melt the ice, it works pretty well.  

24 minutes ago, leopardprint said:

Square Foot Gardening

Basically, you build a raised bed say a 4' x 4' square and fill it with 6" of good soil, you then plant in each square (so 16 squares) some plants (squash or melons) require more space but most can go in one square.

Hey, I think I can do that!

I've always loved the idea of the three sisters that Native Americans used to plant

Quote

When the maize is 15 cm (6 inches) tall, beans and squash are planted around the maize, alternating between the two kinds of seeds. The process to develop this agricultural knowledge took place over 5,000–6,500 years. Squash was domesticated first, with maize second and then beans being domesticated. Squash was first domesticated 8,000–10,000 years ago.

The three crops benefit from each other. The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants use, and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight, helping prevent the establishment of weeds. The squash leaves also act as a "living mulch", creating a microclimate to retain moisture in the soil, and the prickly hairs of the vine deter pests. Corn, beans, and squash contain complex carbohydrates, essential fatty acids and all eight essential amino acids, allowing most Native American tribes to thrive on a plant-based diet.

[leopardprint]

Yes, it's very much in that style @statsgirl, I'm not sure how much the research supports it but it doesn't hurt. 

If you are interested in Native American agriculture/seeds, Native Seed Search tries to preserve the indigenous plants from the Western US. If you have the right climate for it. I tried and failed to grow "glass" corn which is inedible but so pretty!

[statsgirl]

Thanks, that's an interesting site.  I'm too far north for those seeds though.  Last weekend I got some plants from the North American Native Plant Society and my fingers are crossed I don't kill them (too).

[Mellowyellow]

On 5/22/2017 at 6:04 PM, BkWurm1 said:

Not overtly shippy but Stevie was introduced (very briefly) to the guy that her dad recruited as a Russian Spy last year ( until they thought he was dead and has been in witness protection since).  She dashed back to the house unexpectedly looking for some gala tickets. 

It's one of those scenes that is pointless unless the whole point was for Stevie to meet him and thus the shippy speculation.  But there haven't been any rumblings of her having issues with the fiance, so who knows.  I will admit.  The shipping angle is where my mind first went.  She was even all dressed up fancy.     

Frankly I was more interested in Nadine and Mike.  But I kept mixing him up with Jay.  

Just saw it!!!! Totally set up to give them shippy options I reckon! He was all smiley at her! And she was oddly flustered!