kbobam

For those who haven't seen it. This is pretty cool in my book. ( : http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/snowy-owl-flying-transport-quebec-traffic-camera-1.3393343

To be completely honest, I'm having a pretty tough time of it myself. Since there has always been a friendly spirit of 'flexibility' here, maybe that's the best way to go. Why don't we all give it our best shot, and then explain why we couldn't do it?

Very nice! I'm looking at my question now, and realizing that I worded it badly. It's okay for any of the three to be a fantasy marble you don't already own. And the 'exclude marbles with personal connection' line simply meant not to include marbles that were gifts from friends or family. That could lead to various problems. ( :

Theoretical situation. You have to get rid of your entire collection, except for three marbles. For the rest of your life. Which would you keep? ( I can smell the cold sweat already. And please exclude any marbles with which you have some sort of personal connection. I'm talking about three marbles that could make you happy for their own sake.)

I didn't see that coming. In spite of the fact that I'm completely losing my mind recently, my eyes and brain are frequently pretty quick. So your use of 'spacing' was perfect there, and made the whole thing even more hilarious! ( :

You may! I was really impressed earlier with Mike's 'Fortress of Solitude' marble, and the magnificently mibstified 'Silver' which might be my favorite of all time. ( :

Even though I'm still depressed in general, that one got a laugh out of me, too!

I was certain that fomenting must be some sort of 'typo'. But apparently it means 'to stir up' in the 'fan the flames' sort of way. Never heard of it.

Love American Style! My devoted followers are probably aware that I've been enjoying several old TV shows lately. Most of them are really well-done television. This is not one of them. Boy, it's really stupid! I'm still kind of liking it though. Probably a combination of its occasional decent laughs and 'The Nostalgia Factor'. What's really amusing to me now is that I clearly remember, as a young boy, feeling very 'devious' and 'sneaky' watching this 'very adult' show when no one was around to catch me! I also figured that I didn't understand the theme song because I wasn't old enough to. Nope. It still makes no sense whatsoever! ( :

Thanks for the historically interesting and very logical explanation! And thanks to you, Winnie, for even more pain! They sure are spectacular! Would you tell us what the 'range' of sizes is here? ( :

The salesman box (think that's the right term(?) is just painful. Is there a size or other distinction between the two sections in the left column both labeled 'Tri-Colors'?

No doubt! It's a noteworthy spectacular image.

I have no idea why you 'did the bump' here, but I'll take it. Many years ago I went to Boston for some reason I can't remember. What I do remember is being surprised that there was a place where people were even worse drivers than we had in New York. The cab driver I had taking me to my hotel wasn't so bad. But the total insanity all around us was very evident. At one point, this driver, who'd been completely silent up until now, suddenly 'burst into song' and loudly did three words from a popular tune at the time. He sang "♪Do The Bump!♪" right before we ran over something of definite car suspension significance. To this day, this is one of the funniest 'lines' I've ever heard. ( :

Are you kidding? You've always been a little insane, which of course I mean in an admirable 'best of the best' and 'outside the box' sort of free-thinking way. But this sounds crazy. Although the noodles/hot sauce combination certainly works. I don't know. Maybe you just have an 'iron-clad' constitution! ( :

Huh! I didn't know about udon. (Almost said 'from' instead of 'about'. Must be feeling New Yorky today!) It looks more appetizing than ramen. Maybe 'better for you' too. Although I have no idea if reports about ramen not being the healthiest thing in the world are over-exaggerated. These might be based on the traditional situation of impoverished students eating nothing else for long periods of time. I think I've had a couple times where ramen noodles have caused a problem, and I'm guessing it's because of their 'quick cooking' nature. (Similar to 'instant' rice) Proper cooking time needs to be surprisingly precise because of this, since small variations are a large percentage of the 'overall' time involved. If you cook them too long, they turn to mush. Not good, but I guess you can live with it. The problem I'm talking about is when you don't cook them quite long enough. They haven't finished absorbing liquid in the cooking process, so they do it in your stomach. Picture a classic cartoon animated version of 'Good Old Bob' eating these undercooked noodles. Next you hear a bunch of strange gurgling sounds. Then there's a sudden 'Pop!' and you see him appearing to be eight months pregnant! Of course it's hilarious on the surface, but it's somewhat unpleasant in practice.

Your food almost always sounds really good. Except for the raisins. Grapes, in themselves, aren't so great either. There is only one legitimate and noble use for grapes. (With the exception of Welch's Jelly) The pursuit of truth!

At the risk of taking myself too seriously, I think you knew I'd like this one. ( :

Even for 'ignorant me' this is a great topic. I don't know what's going on as far as a lot of the knowledge and details here. But all these marbles are beautiful! ( :

Alan brought up a real important point. When you're shooting close-up, a very small change in the camera-to-marble distance can make a big difference. But this is already a better than average photo, and Mon got that nice 'glassy' look a lot of people have trouble with. ( :

Winnie, thanks for bringing up the term 'collectors names'. This is, to my personal way of thinking, a very important thing to mention when people are trying to decide 'exactly' what something 'is'. ( :

Just found a fan for sale which included these lines in the description. One side is eye-catching hand-painted cherry blossoms on gold leaf paper. The panache (end pieces) are bamboo, lacquered black, painted with a gold foil pattern, and the brin are also made of bamboo, stained dark brown. The painting is only on one side of the fan.

The 18-55 lens will be just fine! When you 'zoom' between 18 and 55, putting the lens right about 'in the middle' will probably be best for marble photos. I wouldn't worry about using the camera in 'manual'. When you use the 'macro' setting, the camera will know you are taking close-up photos and probably make good adjustments. So leave everything on 'automatic', have fun, and see what happens! If there's any need, you can make things more complicated later. ( :

I've been using the 'Ummy Video Downloader' (with which I have absolutely no personal connection) for a couple months now. It's the most useful, well-designed, and easy to use program I've seen in a very long time. And it's free, without any of the more significant 'irritants' that some freeware programs have. The basic idea is that it allows you to save a 'hard copy' standard format video file of whatever you might be watching on 'The Tube'. This can be incredibly valuable for some people, although that depends, of course, on your personal preferences and needs. I'll tell you some reasons why I personally think so, and you can decide whether you might think so too. *You can play these standard video files in your 'media player' of choice. I've used Windows Media Player, VLC, and others. You don't have to be 'connected' with YouTube, or even 'on-line' at all. Watching a video in these players can sometimes give you a higher quality 'picture', if you will. And you can use their 'extra features' like slow-motion, A-B repeat, etc. *Very often, YouTube 'turns down' the resolution setting of any given video you might be watching. This saves them bandwidth, but gives you a 'less than HD' inferior viewing experience. The downloader automatically records the video at its highest available resolution. *Once you've made one of these 'recordings', it's yours forever. If it suddenly 'disappears' from the tube, you still have it. (Please avoid legal and moral issues by keeping these files for your own personal use and not 'distributing' them.) Please read this warning: The last thing I want to do is cause any of my friends here problems. Downloading, installing, and running programs from the internet can be a very tricky and dangerous business. Unless you have a lot of experience with this and know the many steps involved to do this sort of thing relatively safely, please don't do it at all. Wishing everyone and 'theirs' at TMC a wonderful New Year!

Oh CRIPES, Steph! I was temporarily forgetting the Dec.13 post where you brought up the 'K thing'! Happy New Year, Hoody! Regarding 'panache', my first thought was that since the 'brins' are the sticks, maybe the 'panache' is just the paper. But that would probably be too easy. Found an ad for a fancy 'leather and lace' fan. With this one the leather was the structural 'paper' part, and the lace was basically additional ornamentation. So at this point I'm guessing that lace bit was the 'panache'. It does seem to be a rare term.

An 8:07 post made while I was finishing my 8:09 one! We did it again! We're kind of freaky sometimes. Did not know that. Haven't really thought about 'Dodie' for a long time. For me she was an example of the traditional 'later episode' television character who didn't quite cut it. But this is probably an unreasonable thing to say. As a thirteen year old 'man', I wouldn't have liked any 'goofy little girl'! ( :