Jed's Super-Dooper Newbie Question-of-the-Week Thread

slcboston said:

Well, if I knew what gluhwein was.

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Red wine spiced with cinnamon, cloves and aniseed and served just under boiling point. A German exchange student at our college taught me to make it. It's an unusual taste, but warms you up like nobody's business.

Sycamore said:

Go out and take photographs! Can you tell we rarely get snow?

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Us too!

Mulled wine, by the sounds of it.

We do the same thing here with cider.

The current QotW

slcboston said:

This question has been plowed under...

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Just bringing it to the new page...

Sycamore said:

Go out and take photographs! Can you tell we rarely get snow?

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This is from last year, the day after I had my little accident. But it does give you a good idea what roads are like around here when it snows. That white stuff on the road? That's not snow. It was snow, but it's partially melted and then refrozen as a solid ice.

Locke said:

Oh, it's not bad. A tie rod end (replaced) and a messed-up alignment (still not right) was all that came of that. It's an old car anyways.

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I see. well I hope things get better.

Locke said:

This is from last year, the day after I had my little accident. But it does give you a good idea what roads are like around here when it snows. That white stuff on the road? That's not snow. It was snow, but it's partially melted and then refrozen as a solid ice.

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that is GORGEOUS.

It didn't feel gorgeous. At the time I took that shot, I had a Redbox movie that needed to be returned and didn't want to chance driving, so I was going to walk it the length of the road you see there to a convenience store. That nice diffuse haze is from mixed snow and ice precipitation which stung my face the entire way there.

The kicker? The convenience store had removed their Redbox kiosk the week beforehand. I called my wife for a ride back, and then spent the next hour making sure my camera was dry.

I'm sorry, locke. that bites. only thing I've come close to doing like that is I had to walk a mile nd a half in scorching hot weather. but the cold's worse, so I'm sorry you had to go through that.

Eh, I'll endure worse than that if it gets me a good photo. Equate it to writing while suffering from CTS. I didn't have anything spectacular come of that particular outing, but I did bring the camera along just in case. I'd have the camera with me everywhere if my car weren't old and at least one car in the work parking lot gets broken into every month.

oh my o.o yeah I know how you feel. I've gone on walks while it was snowing just to get photos of my neighborhood. I have a lot of them on my devianart account xD

Is DeviantArt a good place for photographers? I know there's plenty of graphic artists who use it for portfolios, not to mention several of them who have been contracted for cover art before. I'm on the verge of trying my hand at selling some images.

oh man, it's great for ANY kind of art, really. photos, editing, banners, drawings(digital and traditional) writing, poems, ANYTHING.

That's a gorgeous pic, Locke.

slcboston said:

What do you like to do when you're snowed in during the winter?

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I've only been for-real snowed in once, during our region's last big snow-and-ice storm in...2012? Since we were some of the lucky ones who didn't lose electricity, my husband jumped on the opportunity to marathon the Lord of the Rings movies. All of them. In one day. Extended versions.

That may have been a bit much, but curling up with an absorbing movie—or a good stack of books—and some quality snacks really can't be beat.

Locke said:

That white stuff on the road? That's not snow. It was snow, but it's partially melted and then refrozen as a solid ice.

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Argh, that's the worst. People from snowy regions make fun of us when we freak out about moderate snowfall, but it's the melt-refreeze-melt-more snow-melt-refreeze cycle that take roads from "kind of sketchy" to "you are taking your life in your hands." At least in places where it snows regularly they're theoretically prepared to salt/plow the roads, and it stays consistently cold enough that stuff doesn't re-melt so nastily...

cldek said:

my husband jumped on the opportunity to marathon the Lord of the Rings movies. All of them. In one day. Extended versions.

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There are enough hours in the day for that?




(My daughter and I are slowly working our way through the extras on the other two discs in each of the extended editions. Now you've given me a good idea for the next time we're house-bound.)

nice.

New QotW!

And it's not even been a month.

So, while parts of the NE US are figuring out the answer to the previous question, I figured it was time to ask another question here. As we're coming to the end of the first month of the year, it seemed like a good time to check in on your New Year's Resolutions.

And if you didn't make any, that's okay, because that's what the QotW is for.



Clearly, answering the QotW was not on anyone's list of resolutions. But it should have been.



(It is perfectly fair and reasonable to make something easily keepable... like, say, having some chocolate every day.)

Not strangle a certain person from my past who is making life so much more complicated because of ego issues.

I didn't make any resolutions this year. I wish I'd made one about warm socks or hot chocolate. But that's mostly because my feet are cold right now.

I did make the standard optimistic, 'I will write every day' commitment. Which did not last. Hence my signing up to a couple of writers' communities to try and get more motivated.

Eating chocolate every day is the kind of resolution I could really commit to, though.

The New QotW! It's furry! It's cuddly! You don't have to clean up after it!

Here in the US we have just undergone our annual ritual of seeing whether or not a small furry rodent too fat and slow to get out of the way of anything can accurately predict the weather. (Helpful hint: he can't.) In the spirit of this "glorious" event:

What other animal should we consult, and what should we consult it for?


You may make one up, tell us of an existing one, or whatever else strikes your fancy.


For example, I know we used to consider robins to be heralds of spring, but considering the robins are here when there's still three feet of snow on the ground, it's time to give the job to something else.

slcboston said:

Here in the US we have just undergone our annual ritual of seeing whether or not a small furry rodent too fat and slow to get out of the way of anything can accurately predict the weather. (Helpful hint: he can't.) In the spirit of this "glorious" event:

What other animal should we consult, and what should we consult it for?


You may make one up, tell us of an existing one, or whatever else strikes your fancy.


For example, I know we used to consider robins to be heralds of spring, but considering the robins are here when there's still three feet of snow on the ground, it's time to give the job to something else.

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hmmmmm. . .

*thinks maybe we shoulda consulted something besides a sheep for the next QotW


hmmmm. . .


Plot Bunnies! They always have ideas


Or cats. . . we are goddesses (ok so there are some gods, too) so we, of course, know everything. We just probably won't tell you. So yeah, that's probably not a good idea eiher.

I've considered the question of the week for twenty-two hours. I have concluded that we should consult Monarch Butterflies, and ask them to pronounce the state of health of the biomes in which they live.

...what have I walked in on?

I think all politicians should consult dragons when they are having disagreements. With any luck, their bickering will irritate the dragon so much it'll eat them.

In fact, I propose we appoint a dragon as Speaker of the House in every parliament, congress and senate chamber on Earth.