Small Talk: "I'll Take Non-Show Chat For $400, Alex."

[shapeshifter]

So sorry for your loss, @The Wild Sow.
❤️‍🩹
 

13 hours ago, The Wild Sow said:

Hi, Jeopardy Peeps - some sad news to share.
My brother Jim McGinnis (gimmickgenius on the forums) passed away suddenly this past Thursday.  He had just turned 65 a few weeks ago.  My baby brother (along with Tom) and just the best brother and friend and all around wonderful guy anyone could ever hope to know 😪  Jim's show aired July 3, 2018.  He lost on a very tough Final Jeopardy, but just making it to the Alex Trebek stage - and meeting Alex himself! - was such a great thing.  We're all so proud of him.

Miss you like crazy, Brother - till we meet again 💔

13 hours ago, The Wild Sow said:

Miss you like crazy, Brother - till we meet again 💔

13 hours ago, The Wild Sow said:

13 hours ago, The Wild Sow said:

Edited January 12 by shapeshifter

[MrAtoz]

@The Wild Sow I only just saw this. I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. I didn't know Jim well at all, but we did meet because we both taped on the same day. We happened to sit next to each other on the van that drove us to the studio, and only narrowly missed competing against each other. I remember that he seemed to have a great sense of humor, and I loved his bow tie.

You and all of your family have my deepest condolences.

Edited January 14 by MrAtoz

[The Wild Sow]

@MrAtoz - Thank you (and everyone who remembers Jim.) He mentioned meeting you and said you were a great contestant too, as well as a pretty cool guy.  I'm heading over to the house now to spend some time with Jan and help with planning for the service Friday (including getting our 100 year old Mom there!) So awful - no one should lose a child, and certainly no one expects to reach the age of 100 and lose a child 💔

Here's Jim's obituary.

[MrAtoz]

1 hour ago, The Wild Sow said:

@MrAtoz - Thank you (and everyone who remembers Jim.) He mentioned meeting you and said you were a great contestant too, as well as a pretty cool guy.  I'm heading over to the house now to spend some time with Jan and help with planning for the service Friday (including getting our 100 year old Mom there!) So awful - no one should lose a child, and certainly no one expects to reach the age of 100 and lose a child 💔

Here's Jim's obituary.

Thank you for posting his obituary. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to get to know him better. It sounds like we would have gotten along wonderfully.

Particular condolences to his mother. It must be a very difficult time for her.

Edited January 14 by MrAtoz

[Mindthinkr]

@The Wild Sow My condolences to you and your family. 

[shapeshifter]

From Tuesday’s NYT crossword:

Edited January 15 by shapeshifter
Cannot edit image size in iOS 18 without first saving

[ProudMary]

I thought this was very interesting. I think some other people here might also have interest in participating.

The article is from USA Today. 

Can you read cursive? It's a superpower the National Archives is looking for.

If you can read cursive, the National Archives would like a word.

Or a few million. More than 200 years worth of U.S. documents need transcribing (or at least classifying) and the vast majority from the Revolutionary War era are handwritten in cursive – requiring people who know the flowing, looped form of penmanship.

...

To volunteer, all that’s required is to sign up online and then launch in. “There's no application,” she said. “You just pick a record that hasn't been done and read the instructions. It's easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.”

Here's the National Archives link to volunteer:  https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/get-started-transcribing

 

[Clanstarling]

9 hours ago, ProudMary said:

I thought this was very interesting. I think some other people here might also have interest in participating.

The article is from USA Today. 

Can you read cursive? It's a superpower the National Archives is looking for.

 

Thank you! As much as I love being retired, I've been looking for something meaningful to do (at home - I'm lazy), and this looks like it's right up my alley.

[possibilities]

I'm also pretty excited about trying to do it! I want to read the Hannah Arendt documents, especially!!

[SomeTameGazelle]

6 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Thank you! As much as I love being retired, I've been looking for something meaningful to do (at home - I'm lazy), and this looks like it's right up my alley.

I participated last year when the Jane Austen house asked for volunteers to transcribe Austen's brother's handwritten memoir. As far as I know they are still compiling the results and I will be interested to see it when it is published.

I also learned about volunteer proofreading for Project Gutenberg from Jeopardy champ Hannah Wilson's online posts and I do that from time to time as well. It's a different challenge from reading cursive but there's quite a variety of material and alongside some obscure oddities I have seen some interesting and well-known works coming into public domain as well.

[Driad]

I have edited and indexed articles and books for a genealogy society for several years. My vision is not up to reading cursive, but there is plenty of typed and typeset material to work on.

[Prevailing Wind]

Today's clue about the toilet squirrel reminded me:

We've got snow in Metro Atlanta, it's been below freezing temps for over two days and I saw a squirrel today that looked like s/he'd never experienced snow before. S/he was leaping across the yard with very lengthy leaps. Reminded me of the late Bosco the first time he went out in the snow. Poor kitty got so confused, he ran upstairs instead of back inside & the upstairs neighbor had to bring him back down the stairs to me.

[Bliss]

I was trying to recall when I first joined this forum, and I think it was 2010 because my very first post was on a DWTS site (although Canadian, I was an Evan Lysacek fan). I was no longer a "tv chatroom" virgin.

The benefits were tremendous as I eventually met - in person - some of my chatroom friends from NYC, Atlanta, Rochester, etc. We're still email buddies and I cherish these relationships.

Soon, I discovered J! and found that sharing opinions with like-minded people was a lot cheaper than therapy. *wink*

Mostly, I'm a lurker. However, I thoroughly enjoy the amusement/entertainment and knowledge of reading others' comments - esp the J! forum. Maybe it's the snob in me, preferring to read intelligent chatter? Although I don't keep notes during the show, or care what categories I run ( or miss entirely), I look forward to reading your accomplishments here. Just wanted you to know that.

The other night, when Drew laughed at Ken's "lithp" and then responded with his question using his own lithp, I cracked up and so did Mr Bliss. I said, "Wow. We needed that laugh!" I'll always remember that moment, as it was the first time we'd laughed in several hours. An unusual occurrence for us... to go without laughing for an extended period of time. In fact, I was probably still wiping tears from my eyes at the same time.

We'd had to make the unbelievably difficult decision to take our beloved golden retriever for her last car ride to the vet that morning. I can hardly type this. It's still so raw - missing her energy, her just being her, her beautiful brown eyes and golden eyelashes, and most of all her unconditional and oh-so-loyal love. She was my best friend. She knew absolutely everything.

Not sure I'll be able to watch her fave show, "Hudson & Rex", anymore. She LOVED Rex.

Back to lurking.

[Trey]

I am so sorry for your loss @Bliss.  The house is always so quiet when we lose a furbaby.

I am glad you find this board therapeutic - I do too.

[zoey1996]

@Bliss, I'm so sorry to hear about your beloved furbaby. 

[SoMuchTV]

5 hours ago, Bliss said:

I was trying to recall when I first joined this forum, and I think it was 2010 because my very first post was on a DWTS site (although Canadian, I was an Evan Lysacek fan). I was no longer a "tv chatroom" virgin.

So, apparently you joined on October 14, 2016.  (If you hover over someone's avatar, you can see their basic stats.  Or on a phone I think you can tap to see it.)

So sorry for your loss!

[Bastet]

Also, just a bit of trivia, since I saw the 2010 and thought, "Wait, this site didn't exist back then, did it?" -- previously.TV launched in 2013 (and then saw a huge uptick in membership in 2014 when TWoP shut down), and became Primetimer in 2018.

[Bliss]

Thanks for the hugs and love! And the correction in dates! I guess remembering my very first online chat post obliterated the rest of my memory. Yes, I now remember those other sites and names - I'd melded them all into one lump of "tv chat rooms".

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, Bliss said:

Yes, I now remember those other sites and names - I'd melded them all into one lump of "tv chat rooms".

TWoP was founded by the same people who went on to create previously.TV (and then that trio sold it to whoever turned it into Primetimer) -- although they'd long since sold TWoP to Bravo (in 2007) at the time they created pTV (in 2013), there's such similarity with previously.TV, especially in the forums, that a lot of people who migrated here after TWoP shut down (in 2014) to this day think TWoP turned into this site.  It's easy to think of them as the same, since on the users' end they largely are.

[Browncoat]

Didn't they start as Mighty Big TV? 

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, Browncoat said:

Didn't they start as Mighty Big TV?

TWoP actually started as Dawson's Wrap, dedicated to making fun of Dawson's Creek, but when it expanded to other shows it was as MBTV, yes.

[Prevailing Wind]

21 hours ago, Bliss said:

We'd had to make the unbelievably difficult decision to take our beloved golden retriever for her last car ride to the vet that morning.

You did your best for her. I once read something about how brave pet owners are - knowing we will probably outlive our beloved pets, we go ahead and adopt them anyway, setting ourselves up for incredible heartache. But, oh my, the years in between are wonderful. You gave love and were loved. That's all that matters. {{{{{HUGS}}}}}

[Mindthinkr]

@Bliss I’m sorry to hear about your fur baby. BB🌈 has lit a candle to show him the way to the best food, never ending ball throwing, and the softest clouds 😿

[30 Helens]

I’m very sorry for your heartache, @Bliss. Nothing feels quite like the bond we have with our pets, and it’s so hard to let that go. I hope you can take comfort in knowing how much love and joy you brought into her life, because I’m sure it was a tremendous amount. Not all dogs are so lucky. Carly sounds like a wonderful friend. ❤️

[Bliss]

22 minutes ago, 30 Helens said:

I’m very sorry for your heartache, @Bliss. Nothing feels quite like the bond we have with our pets, and it’s so hard to let that go. I hope you can take comfort in knowing how much love and joy you brought into her life, because I’m sure it was a tremendous amount. Not all dogs are so lucky. Carly sounds like a wonderful friend. ❤️

Thank you. She really was an amazing energy/soul and although it's getting easier (I'm not crying 24/7, just 22/7 now), I will forever think of her as my bestest friend. Mr Bliss used to say to people, "if you're looking for Bliss, just look for Carly and Bliss will be there." She was my constant sidekick, companion, support.

So grateful for the memories, and so blessed to have had her in my world.

Thanks again for all the cyber hugs from my fellow J! friends! You are the best.

[30 Helens]

I'm very happy to hear that there are so many community stores that support handmade crafts. Thanks to everyone who corrected my skepticism about Hannah's yarn store! I wish her, and everyone like her, nothing but success. There's nothing quite so satisfying as something you make yourself. 

(a recent project... no yarn involved, but there is embroidery floss if that counts!)

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, 30 Helens said:

(a recent project... no yarn involved, but there is embroidery floss if that counts!)

Adorbs!
Who's it for?

Edited Thursday at 02:16 PM by shapeshifter

[Bliss]

7 hours ago, 30 Helens said:

I'm very happy to hear that there are so many community stores that support handmade crafts. Thanks to everyone who corrected my skepticism about Hannah's yarn store! I wish her, and everyone like her, nothing but success. There's nothing quite so satisfying as something you make yourself. 

(a recent project... no yarn involved, but there is embroidery floss if that counts!)

Oh how I love this! I see a puppy; Mr Bliss thinks it's a polka-dotted bunny. Whichever - it's a dorable😍 Explanation: grandson #3 at the age of 4, hands on hips, told me quite dramatically (after he'd done something quite cute, and I'd said, "you're adorable!") that he was NOT adorable, he was a people! He also wanted totes (toast) for breakfast and was always eager to "hepl" (just like it's written... hepple?) me whenever I was gardening.

Ever since then, I call him (and the rest of the grandkids) my "dorables".

I wish I knew how to post photos... I'd bore y'all with the "stuff I make for my grandkids" (one of my albums on FB - if anyone is interested, pm me and I'll share!)

One of my best creations was a white eyelet nursing 'umbrella/apron' that fit over my daughter's head loosely and formed an apron-type cover-up so she could nurse her babies in public without anyone seeing anything. Her choice. There was boning in the edge of it so it acted like an umbrella for her milk supply! She could see the baby from above. Difficult to describe! I'm sure the men reading this are thinking, "wow... I want one of those!!" LOL

[30 Helens]

4 hours ago, Bliss said:

a white eyelet nursing 'umbrella/apron'

What a clever idea! I bet there are lots of nursing mothers who would love to have such a thing.

For the record, that lovey blanket above is a floppy-eared dog. I made it for a baby nephew. The face and ears are my own design; the overall pattern I got online, from Shannon Fabrics. The original had instructions for a bunny and a kitty, which is probably why my dog looks like a rabbit. 😆

4 hours ago, Bliss said:

I wish I knew how to post photos..

It’s actually pretty easy. I’d be happy to walk you through it sometime, if you want. Just send me a PM.