Hard News: Conversation Starters
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. . . when I paint, I use the good oil. Just to be straight.
Strictly acrylics here, tho I wouldn't drink the stuff.
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Joe, you wowser. Can't you handle your turps or something?
Sssh! A gallery mislabelled an item of mine as being oil a while back, so it seems I'm capable of giving the impression of being hairy-chested, even if I'm not. This is what comes of spilling one's guts on the web.
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@Ben Wilson
People talk about how wonderfully thirst quenching beer is. But there is no way on earth it really is as thirst quenching as something actually designed for rehydration, like maybe water mixed with glucose and salt
There speaks a man who has never had to neck oral rehydration fluid, thirst quenching it most definitely is not. Neither is most water since it is too alkaline. A properly thirst quenching drink needs either acidity and/or an astringent to stimulate your salivary glands. So that after the liquid has left your mouth you do not immediately feel thirsty or dry again.
My missus was on medication that had dry mouth as a side effect, she swore by, and I made them endlessly, lime, lemonade and bitters. The lime for acidity (helped by the bubbles in the lemonade) and the bitters add astringency.
The hops in beer, the tannins (similar compounds) in tea and wine all help to quench thirst. I run and for several hours afterwards my habitual coffee habit is replaced by black tea since it is more thirst quenching. After a long, hot run nothing hits the spot more than a cold, bitter, not too strong beer (which is why hot countries brew lager not Scottish Heavy). The only problem is that the fastest way I know to get pissed is to drink beer after a long hot run . . .
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Ha! what is going on with the italics? I took extra special care at checking that I'd left a space after the second dash, of the word I was attempting to italic.
Just put two spaces after the italics.
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My missus was on medication that had dry mouth as a side effect, she swore by, and I made them endlessly, lime, lemonade and bitters. The lime for acidity (helped by the bubbles in the lemonade) and the bitters add astringency.
Thanks Peter -- most informative. This seem to be what I'm after in most beverages.
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I love alcoholic drinks - but my primary reason for ingesting them is NOT to get drunk (that can come as a welcome by-product.) I love the very complex sensory pleasures - smell, taste, colour (the same way I really enjoy smoking the occaisional cigar, or drinking coffee) and the interaction between those senses.
Would have saved us a lot of effort if you had written that six or so pages upthread.
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it seems I'm capable of giving the impression of being hairy-chested, even if I'm not.
Hey, me too!
Also, did anyone else do that 'taster' experiment in high school? Of course I can't know remember what the chemical was called, but my beloved biology teacher went round and gave us all a small piece of paper tape to put on our tongues. Half the class went 'OMG dude, you trying to kill us?', and the other half went 'what?'. It was absolutely foully bitter for the Tasters, and the non-tasters couldn't taste anything at all. Simple genetics.
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Stewart, how about you produce one child who did like alcohol from the first nip.
That would be me, aged 8 or 9. Heard to observe that it was delicious, also that I liked the nice warm feeling inside.
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Emma, I agree, it's probably simply genetics. There seems to be a wee bit of judgementality creeping into this thread for what is really just the diversity and uniqueness of each human brain. As one of those who never developed that taste for alcohol (nor for meat either), in spite of grown ups assuring me that I would, I can at least save money at the supermarket.
I am much more interested in the historical and political aspects of alcohol eg its role as a tool of colonial oppression. And would NZ women have won the vote so early if it hadn't been for the anti-alcohol activists in the Women's Christian Temperance Union? But probably a discussion for another time.
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And off topic - although they are probably toasting each other and the activists who went before them - congratulations to our MP Grant Robertson and his partner Alf on their civil union today. It is featured in the Dompost today with a photo of them both.
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steven crawford -what I wrote, stands. However, the deliberate introduction of alcohol (or cheap opium, or toads - um, probably not them!) into populations that havent used them before, is another matter altogether as Hilary Stace has indicated...other Polynesians used/use kava. And the use of cacti/vines/fungi/leaves as hallucinogens/entheogens/or to get stoned
by 'Native Americans' in both North and South America is extremely widespread. Not to mention the extensive brewing that went/goes on
from fruit, honey and grains... -
Sorry Bart. I realise from the rest of the thread that you had a valid point re alcohol dissolving flavour compounds in drinks and weren't being chemophobic.
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On the format thing, have PA ever thought of switching to either bbcode or an HTML subset, as other systems (PHPBB boards, Blogger, LiveJournal) do. The current system is quite elegant, but it is non-standard and another thing to remember.
Plus, being able to embed images (as well as Youtubes) would be nice.
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Plus, being able to embed images (as well as Youtubes) would be nice.
For what is worth, I'd be against that - nothing worse than taking forever to load a forum page because it's full of pictures. Not having flash, I don't even load the embedded youtube pictures and I like it that way.
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And there are some interesting new provisions which allow territorial authorities to make, in consultation with their community, legally enforceable local alcohol plans. Local licensing decisions will then have to be made in accordance with the local plan.
That would be mightly welcome to the communities I've seen who have despaired over the establishment of cheap alcohol outlets in their local area (in central Auckland), and in particular one outlet next door to a school.
This thread has been most interesting. Alcohol, computer geek stuff, and some other stuff all mixed in together. Kinda like an interesting cocktail, though I wouldn't want to try it again.
For what it's worth, I distinctly remember drinking my father's beer when I was about 3 or 4. I would badger him for a sip or three, which I would get. It was hoppy and fizzy, not terribly sweet (it was that DB stuff that used to get delivered in tankers around the place - remember that? we don't see that anymore). After that I didn't enjoy alcohol until late teens. Now I enjoy it, but my alcohol tolerance (never high to begin with) has gone down over the years I've found, so my max is three glasses at any one time.
Humans have been seeking to intoxicate themselves for centuries. Didn't Jesus turn water into wine? There's a reason why humans would want to do so (loosen inhibitions) and wine/beer is usually a pretty pleasant way to do so. Of course there is degrees of intoxication; teenagers/young aldults really push that boundary, but for the most of us who are tolerant to alcohol (10-15% of the population is not tolerant in the sense that they can't moderate their drinking) there's a happy limit based on body size and gender.
And on that note, I'm off to get a G&T. :)
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Emma:
I used to love Fry's Turkish Delight, now I can't stomach it.
Me too, until I detected what I fancied was a faint undertaste of formaldehyde. Of course I have no idea of the real flavour of formaldehyde, but I'm a firm believer in the importance of imagination in most things.
Which, essentially, is why I find pretty much everything that BenWilson has to say on matters of taste to be a total crock.
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The conspiracy theory about John D. Rockefeller manipulating the american temperance movement has been debunked.
You mean Jon D. was such a lousy cross-dresser that no-one was fooled? (That'll be him snuggling up to the one in the centre with the interesting hat. What do I win?)
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If you Email me your postal address, I will loan you my VHS copy of Transfigured
Just as well I was wrong eh? Really, I've seen enough Canadian art animation for one lifetime.
To be fair to Stephen X. Arthur, though, he doesn't seem to have succumbed to setting his visuals to French-language folksongs about flaying beavers.
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Plus, being able to embed images (as well as Youtubes) would be nice.
Though at times I've thought it would be nice to be able to post an image or two, I think that this place is just tends to be words, is nicer.
I have just spent a rather depressing morning reading The Economist. The one thing that I did find inspirational was the obituary of apartheid-fighter, Helen Suzman.
As is my habit I found something topical to listen to whilst having a bit of a look around and in the mean time I've been pointed at Naomi Klein in the Guardian.
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but I'm a firm believer in the importance of imagination in most things
Me too, but very visually oriented. Which I why I won't eat anything I do not like the look of--which includes shellfish and offal. I once gagged down an oyster, for people speak of them as one of life's great pleasure. Once was enough.
Steven: you were up at 4am on a Sunday morning??
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Late to the discussion, it's taken me a couple of days to catch up on over a week of PAS (among other things).
Anarchy is a great idea, until you want to interact with a world that's based around concepts of state-enforced law.
I don't an anarchy model of states works very well, but I see a postal system and a telecommunications system as not really being problems. Any 'anarchist state' simply has to reach agreement with other states in a contract, they're unlikely to turn down the money just because it doesn't come from a Prime Minister.
Just because anarchsim doesn't have state-enforced laws by central leaders, doesn't mean it doesn't have rules and order. That's a misreading of the strong differences between 'anarchy' and 'anarchism'.
Even if most of their profits come from pokies?
The pokies would still exist in private establishments, just some of their profits would go to the establishment, and less to trusts that put the money into the community.
Also, I just wish to add that I don't like fresh tomatoes, and neither does my son. He doesn't eat them at all, I only eat them because I love everything else in a greek salad, and it just has to be done.Therefore all you freaks that claim to like fresh tomatoes either did it to be cool, or you were sucked in by the red colour, and you've learnt to like them. Nyer.
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Therefore all you freaks that claim to like fresh tomatoes either did it to be cool, or you were sucked in by the red colour, and you've learnt to like them. Nyer.
Got red, green, yellow tomatoes growing here, and a previously untried variety that's claimed to be almost white. Pushing the envelope on pretension, nyer nyer.
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There seems to be a wee bit of judgementality creeping into this thread for what is really just the diversity and uniqueness of each human brain
Tell me about it. My only motivation for even mentioning my personal (and countless other people's) distaste for alcohol was to point out that drinking alcohol for it's other rather obvious characteristic, that it intoxicates, is not actually childish, wrong and bad. It is simply a natural response for a huge number of children, and a great many adults too. To deride and seek to limit what other people actually do find nice (alcopops) is to be exactly the taste fascist everyone seems to be accusing me of. But I have never denied that people can like the taste of alcohol, I've simply said that not liking it is perfectly natural, for perfectly natural reasons, and liking intoxication is perfectly natural, for perfectly natural reasons. I don't see anything adult or responsible about trying to drag children's tastes toward beer, wine, or unmixed spirits. It's just irrelevant and snobbish, IMHO.
If you want to limit how much children drink then the sensible thing to do is just to limit how much they can buy and where they can have it, not force them to drink things that many of them think are disgusting, in some vain hope that it will civilize them and cause them to drink responsibly. They will just drink beer, wine and spirits irresponsibly, just the way they did when I was a kid, and still do today.
In essence, I simply deny the point that liking the taste of sweetened alcohol is any way at all less civilised, sophisticated, mature or sensible. It's just something that adults do. If you can't understand the distinction then consider that whinging about getting old is something that only adults do, too, but that doesn't make it mature, civilized, sophisticated or sensible either.
Yes, the sweetened drinks target children. But if you really have a problem with children drinking then surely the solution is raising the age at which children can drink whatever their choice of drink is. Then you will also catch the kids who actually do like unsweetened drinks too, and you will not be limiting the choices of responsible adults who may actually prefer alcopops. Being a taste-fascist is missing the point entirely.
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Kyle,Joe, it's just the same as all youse asparagus freaks who actually claim to like the stuff (even thought it is a wellknown scientifically established fact that fern shoots are carcinogenic!) I bet you were forcefed the tips as tiny unsuspecting infants so you grew up suppressing the rotten odour & taste, right?
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