New Year’s Eve Forum
One last open forum for 2023.
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24 responses to “New Year’s Eve Forum”
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On the subject of presents that came up the other week, a housemate bought a new pot. Specifically a Westinghouse granite finish pot.
It’s not a present per se, but that’s the kind of thing I’d enjoy getting.
On other matters, time travel still doesn’t exist, but you can play arbitrary date games with the international date line.
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Brexit has completely failed for UK, say clear majority of Britons – poll
“The appeal of ‘Get Brexit Done’ was not just about completing the long Brexit process but also about unblocking the political system and delivering on other long-neglected issues. Brexit got done, but this has not unblocked the political system, and troubles elsewhere have only deepened. Many of the voters who backed the Conservatives to deliver change now look convinced that achieving change requires ejecting the Conservatives.
“This shift in sentiment may be particularly stark among the ‘red wall’ voters who rallied most eagerly to Johnson’s banner four years ago, but have been most exposed to rising bills and collapsing public services since. The final act of Brexit may yet be the collapse of the Brexit electoral coalition.”
Gee, ya think?
eta: I have no idea what happened with the linky here, but it still works so I’m gonna leave it be.
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@Kathy: My wife was a Peace Corp volunteer in Fiji and for one NYE she and some friends went Taveuni, which is on the dateline. There’s a sign on the beach. At midnight they started jumping back and forth shouting, “It’s 1990!” (Jump) “It’s 1989!”
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@MarkedMan: There is a scene in the movie Paul where the 2 main characters played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost “time travel” at a time zone line.
It’s a silly little movie but fun and entertaining, which is all it’s supposed to be.
eta: Dammit, made the mistake of watching a couple clips and now I’m gonna have to watch it today.
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For our anniversary, my wife and I did a quick trip into DC for an overnight stay and dinner at Michelin-starred Sushi Nakazawa. Chef Daisuke Nakazawa apprenticed under Jiro Ono, Japan’s renowned sushi chef. The service and food were both outstanding, but it spoiled me for regular sushi forever.
Anyway, that’s not what this comment is about–it’s about something rather interesting at the hotel.
As a holder of AmEx’s Hilton credit card, I’m entitled to one free night at any Hilton property anywhere. This year we chose the Waldorf Astoria in DC. For those unaware, the Waldorf was Trump’s DC hotel until he lost the election.
The free night reward is for a basic room, but we got really lucky–the hotel upgraded us from the $500-a-night room to an $1100-a-night room (still for free). This room was quite spacious and had two full bathrooms. One of the bathrooms had something I have never seen on a toilet outside the Middle East: a hose attachment with a spray nozzle.
Now why would an American hotel have something like this? It would if frequent guests from, say, Saudi Arabia would stay there. And at $1100 a night, it wouldn’t be just any Saudi, you know what I mean?
Can you spell “foreign emoluments?” I knew you could!
Another interesting thing: when we were leaving we were talking to some of the hotel staff (who were, I must say, absolutely spectacular) and told one I was happy they kept the staff on when the hotel changed ownership. He said “yeah, because we’re a union hotel.”
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On January 1, 2024, thousands of copyrighted works from 1928 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1923. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. This year’s highlights include Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman and Cole Porter’s Let’s Do It, and a trove of sound recordings from 1923. And, of course, 2024 marks the long-awaited arrival of Steamboat Willie – featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse – into the public domain.
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@CSK:
Trump will be holding a rally in Newton, Iowa, on January 6,
In 1967 when I was 6 years old, my family traveled cross country. We spent a night in Newton. The only thing I remember from that night was next to the hotel pool was a trampoline.
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@Jax:
Me, I’ll probably be asleep shortly after 10. We usually watch the ball drop on TV, and go to bed.
I’ll be asleep somewhere between 9 and 10. The last time I stayed awake for the ball drop was around 20 years ago.
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@CSK:
Poor Newton, first Maytag disappears and the cities economic reason for being goes with it and now trump is showing up.
One of those cute mid western cities from the 19th century where the downtown is built around a central square containing the courthouse. Today it’s probably a bedroom community for Des Moines.
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@DrDaveT: Walt’s Day? Who’s Walt?
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@DrDaveT: 12-31-23. I didn’t get it the first 3 times, but I’ma cracker.
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123123…so tomorrow is the first day of AD24.
Here are some predictions for the New Year. -
Good news to close out the year: Randall Munroe has an XKCD What If? channel on Youtube.
Only 3 videos up so far, but each as hilarious as his books and comic strip.
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Happy New Year’s, my OTB friends! I almost got married today, and I definitely shot my dogs while they were killing roughly 40 of my chickens, today.
After watching Dad die in front of me in October, all I could do was take a long, hot bath and wash the stink of 2023 off me.
Cheers to 2024!! It can’t get much worse.
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