Thread 4 - TalkExiles: "The Planet Goes On Being Round"

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous lifeboat threads 1 & 2 & 3.

Gather here all ye refugees from the JTT Flat Earth Society, welcome to the reassuringly oblate spheroid of MN! Ye all already know the answers to the questions "How the heck do I format my post?" "Why can't I edit my typos?" "What do those acronyms mean?" and most importantly, "Where is everybody that I used to know?"

So really we're all here just to chat randomly.

Well done with the bird rescue, Kuc!

Massive amounts of the brain are subconscious, but I wouldn't really include the endocrine system as 'brain'.

Top bird rescuing skills.

I'd happily live in a sauna or steam room (at university, where the gym suna was rarely used, I'd often spend the afternoon in there with a book), so the SE Asian climate is just about right.

@angelico53

Cloudless blue skies here, gulls circling over the green outside. 😎

Ha ha @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn

My favourite stupidty is when he decided to go out for a run at 3pm in France when it was knocking on 40 degrees. No hat and a sleeveless vest (he had Irish colouring).

He nearly gave himself heat stroke and had to deal with me bollocking him for a fair bit of time afterwards.

Among the joys of American TV is a never ending stream of drug adverts featuring shiny happy people accompanied by a rapidly-muttered list of dire side effects including death, after which they implore you to ask your doctor if X is right for you.

Well done Kuc for rescuing the swift! We have a swift hole outside our bedroom window, and had swifts the first year we lived here, but none since. We also had swallows up at the stables for years, then came that very cold late spring, when many swallows died because there was no food, and “our” swallows never came back. So sad, my favourite birds. They nested in the stable beams and used to shit all over the horses below.

It was a gorgeous little bird ❤️

A quick food picture before I (try to) go to sleep. This is roti jala (literally "net bread") with Malaysian-style chicken curry. The net bread is made by swirling batter (made with coconut milk, and flavoured with turmeric) onto a hotplate/frying pan, out of a dispenser like a ladle with a bunch of holes. A lovely lunch.

Well done @CyanCrystalViolet !

@Dotellhimpike I'm a scab picker, literally and the other one. I think it's fair enough when you've been wronged, not so much the other way. I feel uncomfortable because I've always been fond of the drive by person but it makes no sense at all to lurk somewhere where you know people have a view you don't agree with so much so that they were forced into exile so they felt free to discuss said view.

Good news about the rapist who is now being sent to a male prison. I hope that everyone realises that that is the right decision.

It is. I just hope that the public and media don't start losing interest in the whole area because they've nipped this specific instance in the bud. This week has seen some significant progress in making people aware of the issues and getting them to speak openly - we don't want any piping down now.

There's a swift hole above my sitting room window, and when they are coming and going to feed their babies the screaming noise they make is TERRIFYING as they zoom at what looks like 100mph vertically about 5cm from the window.

roti jala (literally "net bread") with Malaysian-style chicken curry

That looks amazing, I'm drooling something horrible.

@CyanCrystalViolet

Well done on your result, I am very in awe of your studies - virology has been a minor obsession of mine since childhood(libraries have so much to answer for).

Roti jala is now on my food bucket list!

Kuc's photos are taking me back to my childhood, as an army brat in early-60s Singapore, just before it (briefly) joined Malaysia. That brightly coloured shaved ice was a real "madeleine moment" and also reminded me of the tiny, tiny semolina floating in a thin, almost milky syrup. I went back about 20 years ago and the place had changed beyond recognition ... but oh, the food!

Oh really?? I love studying viruses, zoonotic ones particularly. Do you have any book recommendations, and do you have a favourite virus? I think there’s something beautiful about influenza with its segmented genome… I’ve got my eye on H5N1.

Loving kuc's photos (well, I'm averting my eyes from the chicken and clams, but very excited by the net bread and the delightful new-to-me kitchen implement!). The swift rescue is lovely. Every tiny save of a creature in the face of world disaster gladdens my heart.

And a big mention to Kasper, who is looking particularly splendid in honour of cyan's achievement.

This is not a drive by: there's a message on the old place in ATBU. If you want to please read it, it's meant honestly and without malice.

(you may also c&p it for those who don't want to look, I'm not that much of a hypocrite)

Speaking of bird rescue. I have been leaving doors and windows open in the new house for the cats to venture out of they want to but up until now neither of them will go into the garden unless I accompany them. This did not surpise me when it comes to Jellybean, my older cat, who is both a wuss in general and very bonded to me but younger cat Archie surprised me as he is very confident and bold, or at least I thought so until this week, when he's been extremely clingy since the hosue move, understandable I suppose. Anyway, tonight he kept crying to be let out but then would do that cat thing of getting me to open the front door then standing there half in, half out, so I nudged him out and shut the door, the kitchen window was open and he knows how to get from the front of the house to the back of the house. I went back to the living room where I was happily getting drunk and listening to a box of old 7" records that I'd found during the house move. Not five full minutes after I'd shut the front door he came waltzing in with a bird in his mouth, not five fucking minutes!

Anyway, I got it off him, it was a fledgling which I am assuming he found at the bottom of a hedge. It's scarpered under a bookcase and I've blocked it in, cos I'm too pissed on gin to catch it right now. Will try to rescue it in the morning when I'm sober, and release it somewhere safe.

I actually got some sleep last night! (My strategy was to borrow a Jane Austen audiobook from my library app and plug in the soothing sounds of Mansfield Park).

With apologies to the vegetarians, here is a display of roast ducks and a slab of Chinese roast pork (siew yoke) from one of the little local stalls near my parents' place. For lunch yesterday I had the roast pork, served on a mound of savoury (chicken-flavoured) rice, with a bowl of clear chicken, pork and preserved vegetable broth.

I'm loving the food pics!

Ooh. I used to be fascinated as a child by the ducks hanging up in the windows of restaurants in China Town in London. You don't see it as much any more.

It looks like you are having a wonderful time Kuc.

the poor duckies!

@Dotellhimpike getting me to open the front door then standing there half in, half out

LOL classic cat. See also ‘I demand to be let out so I can demand to be let in again in 5 seconds’ time!’

I'm no vegetarian, but I can't be doing with duck.