Anyone Awake Out There?
Claire Berlinski ·
Aug 7, 2010 at 4:39am
You're awfully quiet. Was it something I said? We could talk about our pets again, if you prefer.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Are you procrastinating again? :)
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Maybe people miss the orange portrait. Or are hungover (don't they have hangovers in Constantinople?) Re pets, there's no excuse for cats unless you have a granary in the backyard or are Alexandrian. Here are Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie discussing this important topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znZuH2BU0FE
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
It's that obvious, huh.
Jul '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Hey, it's Saturday morning. It is obscene to get up before 5:30AM.
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
No YouTube here in Constantinople, let alone hangovers.
Jun '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Interesting anecdote out of Britain from a few years back. Ranchers in a rural district began to lose sheep to what appeared to be some sort of predator. But what could it be? A farm dog suddenly gone rogue? No one had seen the beast whatever it was. The local game warden looked at the forensic evidence and declared there was a big cat loose in the district; the evidence was unmistakable. A big cat in Britain?
A few weeks later someone discovered the beast and killed it with a shotgun. It was a north African serval. Someone had probably kept it as an exotic pet until it got loose. The curious part of the story is what happened later when the local barn cat population began to give birth to kittens in the spring. No one had ever seen such robust kittens with such extraordinary colors. It seems the old boy had been busy sowing his wild oats during his brief period of freedom.
We know now definitively where domestic cats originated.
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
I am making a conscience effort to cut down on my online comments. My wife, whose favorite movie is 1776, calls me "the agitator, the first in line to be hung." She doesn't understand why I post here. "Have you ticked off so many people at the Washington Post that you have to tick off your allies, too?"
Jun '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
"If we don't hang together, we most assuredly will hang separately."
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
~Paules - Thank you for the dash of Franklin. If you are familiar with the play/movie, maybe the War Committee can meet sometime in New Brunswick.
Jul '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Maybe it is because I will not hit myself on the thumb with a hammer because I know how good it will feel when I stop.
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Oh, but your comments are so much fun to read! That "Nickajack paddywhack..." comment had me laughing for a full 5 minutes.
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Felicia - Anytime I can make tea fly out of people's noses...
Jul '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Join : 1 'join
Pronunciation: \joyn\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French joindre, from Latin jungere — more at yoke
Date: 13th century
transitive verb
1 a : to put or bring together so as to form a unit
b : to connect (as points) by a line
c : adjoin
2 : to put or bring into close association or relationship
3 : to engage in (battle)
4 a : to come into the company of
b : to associate oneself with
intransitive verb
Conversation: con·ver·sa·tion
Pronunciation: \kän-ver-'sā-shun\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English conversacioun, from Anglo-French conversacion, from Latin conversation-, conversatio, from conversari to associate with
Date: 14th century
1 obsolete : conduct, behavior
2 a (1) : exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas
(2) : an instance of such exchange : talk
b : an informal discussion of an issue by representatives of governments, institutions, or groups
c : an exchange similar to conversation
The key word in Conversation's definition is Exchange.
I said something quite cryptic more than 12 hours ago, and yet NO exchange, not even a question.
So, while I'm awake, I'm loosing interest.
Perhaps there are too many threads on the site.
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Jaydee, I think it's not that there are too many threads--it's that there's no easy way to see who's recently posted a comment. We need a simple way to indicate that someone's responded to a thread we're following, I think. Anyone else agree with me?
(If no one answers, it proves my point, sort of.)
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
Claire - Couldn't agree with you more. Disqus sites actually e-mail you when someone has replied to one of your postings. However, I worry that this place might get too popular. Nothing turns me off quicker than seeing "1,043 comments" at the bottom of an article. You can't wade through that.
Jul '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
My issue goes as follows,
I make a statement, and as I did with this one, I noted that my comment was #10 on my notepad chopping block.
During my infrequent checks on the site, I go to Conversations I'm following and note when the number increments. So I know when there is activity.
Most of thos I have been following are stuck on the same number they've been on, my comment, and not moved. After 48 hours I stop following them.
I do my best to make my comments open ended, dovetailing from other comments in teh thread, or including the cryptic comment now and then to, hopefully, generate at least a "what do you mean by that?" question.
Thus far, I've had one conversation, and made a lot of statements that I'm not certain have even been read.
My thought is that right now the site is too scattered, it hasn't any focus so there is more babble than conversation. Simple supply and demand - lower the supply and you'll up the demand.
May '10
Re: Anyone Awake Out There?
I actually thought of Claire on Friday night. Rubber Duckie and I were staying at a home that had 7 cats, including a tiny little scared kitten named Henry, a 110 pound golden retriever, and no living room furniture because the space was filled with birdcages for the 9 birds, including two gorgeous African macaws, a cockatoo, and a bunch of others.
She would have found inspiration there, but I think she doesn't visit South Carolina if she's not on a book tour.