kbobam

Just watched the 'Christmas episode' of the television show 'Hot In Cleveland'. At one point in the show I noticed this particular moment and made a 'freeze frame' of it. A little later it was time for the commercial. Can you imagine my surprise when it was announced that "Tonight's episode of Hot In Cleveland is brought to you by Walmart"?

Exactly. But it's become very common in American English for people to say "Here's two swirls!", even though they'd never say the uncontracted "Here is two swirls!" That's what I find so irritating about it. Boy, I really like Dave's marble! It looks like the yellow and black/brown marbles which were discussed recently, but the addition of that emerald green really kicks things up a notch!

Please forgive me for inserting a quick 'off-topic' comment here. I want to thank Winnie for using the perfect and correct English contraction Here're in her opening statement. It made me feel good, because 99% of the people in the United States would have used Here's in that situation and they would have been wrong wrong wrong! This is a pet-peeve of mine which just makes me crazy. ( :

Ha! My first big laugh of the day! And time was running out! Was definitely not expecting that second shot as I scrolled down. But as a newbie at this other place, I think it might be a good idea to hold off on passing that one on. Here's the shot I liked which made me want to talk 'bird' with these people. (With a credit and thank you to Dave at the 'Nikon 1 System Talk' forum at 'DPReview') Apparently it's a Bewick Swan. They're impressive looking when seen from this angle while landing. Made me think of a Lockheed C-130! ( :

Aha! So the title here was a 'general concept'! So my random conversation is that I just looked up the word 'birder' and was directed to this link. I did this because the discussion group for people who use the same camera system I do has a large number of bird-lovers for no particular reason I can figure out. I didn't dare use the term incorrectly, and wound up finding the distinctions in terminology interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdwatching

'Oil on Canvas'? That's just outrageous! ( :

Here's one for our buddy on the Jersey Shore! ( :

As a fan of both Al and Jack, this seemed like a good one to post. ( :

Hope you're all 'weathering the storm' as well as possible. It would be great to hear from you if you have a chance. Best wishes!

Also a thanks to Winnie for the nice photo comment. (Another blue reflection!) I have many arguments with myself about that subject. Unlike your almost unnoticeable window reflection, the ones in my outdoor shots are pretty significant. This certainly detracts from the photo for people who are mostly interested in 'identification'. On the other hand, this is what a marble looks like if you're outdoors. And that can be a nice thing. It sometimes makes me crazy wondering what the best way to do it might be. P.S. I really did like those last two responses. Of course I already knew that when these two guys give an opinion without hesitation it's almost certainly correct. But I appreciated that the JABO expert from Nantucket was so specific, and laughed that Galen somehow knew that I still had Akro 'on the brain' and gave a high-tech reason to change my mind.

Thank you both for those clear-cut responses. I can do the honorable thing and shut-up about my 'feelings' now!

To be honest, I was hoping it might suggest something about the maker to someone who knows more than I do. I'm no good with IDs. I tend to concentrate on certain characteristics that give me a 'feeling' and wind up ignoring other things that seem completely obvious to people who are experienced. Even with these shortcomings, it still seems pretty clear to me that none of Galen's marbles are especially 'similar' to yours. Although he's way more educated than I am, and may be seeing things that I'm not. All I've really concluded so far is that black and yellow marbles can be tricky! Maybe this is because there are so many due to the popularity of this particular color combination. Adding to this confusion (at least mine!) is that there are a lot of Vacors out there which have a wide variety of brown quantity included in their black/yellow marbles. ( :

Whoops. Please forgive my comment about 'blue'. That appears to be a reflection.

The colors and bubbles on Dave's marble are pretty 7Uppy, but that's as far as I can go. Steph, I thought your marbles looked familiar, and finally found the ones I was thinking of. Do they look like Marble Kings? Not what I'd assumed, but then again, IDs that I make have traditionally been best used as an indicator of what a marble almost certainly isn't.

Has this post gotten to where I can make an important slightly off-topic 'coming out' announcement? "I'm a California boy trapped in a New York City born body!" I've always known it deep down, and I wish I could come along! But unfortunately I can't. I do agree that Steph should, though. Hope you all have a great time! ( :

I don't know if this makes any difference with the diagnosis here. But I applied some incredibly high-tech multiple graphic card forensic technology normally only available to high-ranking law enforcement agencies to this photo. (Okay, okay! I just brightened the heck out of it.) Didn't see the brown in the black before. Since the original photo looks properly exposed, I'm curious to ask Winnie if that brown (and some blue too) is obvious with the marble in hand.

Hope you get your surprise! It's a cool looking marble. It reminded me to respond to Ron's 'Rather Strange Marble' post. The peach-colored area in your mib seems so 'opaque' next to the more detailed parts, that it gave me a similar feeling to the different textures in his. ( :

Hey, Ron! This is a very interesting marble. I like it! I didn't post before because I wanted to let someone respond who might be able to give you some good information. But it looks like we're all, also, clueless! ( : Please let us know if you find the story behind this.

Whoops. I haven't visited here for a while. Probably because of subconscious guilt from not having made more of an effort to contribute lately. I'll try to do better... I like the Yellow Jackets. You could make a poster out of it. Very cheery! Could say the same thing about The Dawg's terrific piece. But along with cheery, it's also very calming. (And kind of cosmic.) And instead of the poster, I want an entire wall of it! I like Hayden's marble too. But as some of you may know, I've always been a fan of 'character'. As a comedian once sort of said, "I certainly wouldn't want 72 perfect fresh shiny things as my final reward. Just give me a few tarnished ones that have been around and know what they're doing!" The Akro contest piece is terrific. I was thinking at first "Gee, that must be pretty old. One hundred bucks was probably a lot of money." Then I remembered my current circumstances and thought "Wait a minute! It still is!" But more importantly, when I noticed the precise date involved, that "lot of money" became even more significant. Life for many was more than a little tough at that particular point in history. Does anyone (oh of course you do!) know what the ten Akro marbles involved here would have cost at the time? I'm thinking that a lot of parents of clever kids might have considered the investment a pretty good gamble! ( : (Would also bet that a lot more girls than usual got the June issue of Boys' Life.)

Thanks! And back at you! I'm planning on achieving both those goals by pretty much keeping myself firmly planted. I may get adventurous and travel 50 yards to park my bottom on the couch next door for a while, as explained in another post. ( :

From all my highly-refined sociological research ( I watch a lot of sit-coms on TV. ) I'm under the impression that a decent percentage of the population thinks Halloween is the greatest event of the year. These folks probably wouldn't mind adding some of this old 'Halloween II' attitude to the current Thanksgiving festivities. And why not? There're so many individual approaches to Thanksgiving already, another wouldn't hurt. This year I'm planning on being 'the old man sleeping with his mouth open while sitting on the couch'. A classic favorite!

Man, these are both great! I was going to try to explain why, but quickly realized my wording sounded like gibberish. And sounding like a hoity-toity art critic doesn't make you a lot of friends. But it would have been a glowing review! Is that actual snowfall going on in the first shot? We're not having any of the serious winter concerns much of the East Coast is having. The Annapolis area frequently finds itself right on the 'edge' of weather conditions. We pretty much got some very cold rain today. I like that stuff. You don't have to shovel it.

I can't believe I finally found this. Been looking for it for years. When I was a kid my stepfather had an old 78 record of this. (For you younger people, this was pretty much the same thing as one of those old 'record albums', but it was thicker and heavier and had to spin a lot faster.) I thought it was pretty funny and had a catchy tune, although I probably didn't get all its finer distinctions.