Tales from the Office

[Alorael at Large]

Cider usually means means soft in the US, and it's the hard that gets specified. In Europe hard is assumed. And I'm pretty sure you know that.

 

—Alorael, who likes hard cider and soft cider. It's just that they often don't taste the same at all. Most hard cider isn't really sweet after fermentation, and some of it (bad cider?) doesn't even taste of apples anymore.

[Nicothodes]

We've had different experiences, because I've always had to specify soft cider.

[Drayk Armitage]

Where have you had to specify that, Nico? In the vast majority of the U.S., people assume that "cider" refers to nonalcoholic "apple cider" that is often served to kids. Even Wikipedia says:

 

'In current usage of the term in the United States and Canada, the term "hard cider" is used for the alcoholic beverage discussed in this article, while the term "cider" usually refers to a non-alcoholic apple juice beverage.'

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

i did not realise that, and instead pictured you roasting a whole boar on a spit or something in the middle of the lab, because that seemed like a very british thing to do

Now that is a mental image I did not need. (Must resist bad puns!)

[Nicothodes]

I've mainly been in Maryland and Massachusetts. Maybe I've just known a lot more people who mainly drink hard cider and that's their first thought.

[Student of Trinity]

I think it may be a recent change, or still in progress.

 

Hard ciders started getting more popular in the US somewhere around ten years ago, I think, probably as part of the general gentrification of alcohol that had begun a bit earlier. Wine coolers and the like seemed to have acquired some kind of stigma of artificiality, and you can only add so many flavors to bourbon before Jack Daniels returns from beyond to punish the wicked, so reviving a solidly traditional drink like hard cider was just the ticket. Soft cider seems to have gotten less popular at the same time, at least as a label, probably as fancy apple juice started getting marketed as juice, to ride the coattails of not-from-concentrate orange juice.

[Drayk Armitage]

I don't think it's actually a change. Obviously there are situations in the U.S. where you can say "cider" and people will assume the alcoholic kind: namely, if you are at a bar or a party where alcohol is served. If you have moderate exposure to those circumstances and minimal exposure to people who drink nonalcoholic apple cider, it makes sense that you'd hear it used that way most of the time. That doesn't mean its general use has changed.

[Micawber]

Originally Posted By: Nicothodes

I hope it makes its way to the UK soon. The lower quality of coffee has been the hardest thing to adjust to.

I know Fortunately Italy is just 2 hours flight away...

If you're in Oxford, have you tried the restaurant on the top floor of the Ashmolean? The tea there is quite good, but I haven't tried the coffee.

[The Mystic]

Well, however you like your coffee, I highly recommend not using this method of production.

[VCH]

So has anyone here attempted to drink 4 litres of milk in one sitting?

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: VCH

So has anyone here attempted to drink 4 litres of milk in one sitting?

Here in the US, where we still don't use the metric system, that's known as the "gallon challenge." When I was in high school, a kid tried to do it in the cafeteria one day. It did not end well.

[Randomizer]

In my college dorm a guy was complaining about his Saudi Arabian roommate "accidently" drinking his 12 pack of beer (144 ounces - over 4 liters(. He had thought it was safe because the Saudi's religion forbade alcohol.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

In my college dorm a guy was complaining about his Saudi Arabian roommate "accidently" drinking his 12 pack of beer (144 ounces - over 4 liters(. He had thought it was safe because the Saudi's religion forbade alcohol.

so had this dude never met a Catholic who used birth control or what

[Aran]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

In my college dorm a guy was complaining about his Saudi Arabian roommate "accidently" drinking his 12 pack of beer (144 ounces - over 4 liters(. He had thought it was safe because the Saudi's religion forbade alcohol.

The roommate was selflessly sacrificing himself to save him from that evil stuff.

[Alorael at Large]

If it was a whole twelve pack, it may have been a group intervention to save him.

 

—Alorael, who could even see the Saudi taking the directorial role and leaving the actual protective drinking to others. Ideally they would give up alcohol immediately afterwards.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

In my college dorm a guy was complaining about his Saudi Arabian roommate "accidently" drinking his 12 pack of beer (144 ounces - over 4 liters(. He had thought it was safe because the Saudi's religion forbade alcohol.

so had this dude never met a Catholic who used birth control or what

Wait, there are Catholics who actually pay attention to the Church's directives in the US? Since when?

[Skwish-E]

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus

Originally Posted By: VCH

So has anyone here attempted to drink 4 litres of milk in one sitting?

Here in the US, where we still don't use the metric system, that's known as the "gallon challenge." When I was in high school, a kid tried to do it in the cafeteria one day. It did not end well.

My son's cross country team participates in the gallon challenge over the summer at XC camp. Only they use chocolate milk. ... and a bucket.

[Rowen]

I drank just under a gallon once. I then vomited, vomited again, regretted drinking the milk, vomited once more, and ended wishing I was not a such an idiot for doing it in the first place.

 

I hated high school pep-rallies.

[Trenton.]

I once drank Two jugs of YEAR OLD milk, and drank a bottle of ketchup. I didn't throw up once.

[Sudanna]

I call BS. Did you drink that year-old milk with a spoon?

[Trenton.]

Wait, where did you all say it had to be true?

[Alorael at Large]

Because if people were bragging about things that weren't true, they'd do a better job of exaggerating their exploits.

 

—Alorael, who once drank fourteen gallons of 10 molar hydrochloric acid, followed it with with a slug (mass unit) of sodium. And he didn't melt or explode even a little bit!

[Trenton.]

I once swam in the nuclear reactor core of a nuclear power plant, and jumped out of a plane 1,000,000 yards in the sky which I flown my self, without a parachute, and didn't get a scratch either time. Yes, Im that awesome.

[Goldengirl]

I don't understand as to why people brag over how many liters of milk they have drunk, when the reported numbers are so small. I would say that I have drunk hundreds of gallons milk, if I were to estimate. When compared to the age of the Universe, my drinking of the milk was all successive, too!

[Dikiyoba]

Oh yeah? Well, I once went back in time and ate an entire herd of Giraffatitans in a single sitting, ate an Allosaurus for dessert, and then traveled to the future to wash it all down with the blood of hyperbolic teenagers (the ones who tell lies, not the kind you can graph).

 

Dikiyoba only returned to the present because there's no good Dr. Pepper in the future and the constant horde of butterflies in the past protesting "Don't step on me!" got really annoying.

[Tirien]

Originally Posted By: Trenton the dragon lord

I once swam in the nuclear reactor core of a nuclear power plant, and jumped out of a plane 1,000,000 yards in the sky which I flown my self, without a parachute, and didn't get a scratch either time. Yes, Im that awesome.

The only reason why you didnt get scratched from the nuclear power plant is becuase you were getting cancer, not scratches.

I once changed the subject name of this thread for my own amusement, wondering why anyone would want to make themselves puke from drinking that much milk.

[Callie]

Originally Posted By: Trenton the dragon lord

I once swam in the nuclear reactor core of a nuclear power plant, and jumped out of a plane 1,000,000 yards in the sky which I flown my self, without a parachute, and didn't get a scratch either time. Yes, Im that awesome.

Not to mention somehow flying a plane at an altitude higher than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

[Alorael at Large]

It's actually pretty easy to fly when you're in microgravity. It's steering that's hard.

 

—Alorael, who is forced to retract his previous statement. Now it's perfectly acceptable to lie atrociously in this thread.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Present Ongoing Breakup

—Alorael, who is forced to retract his previous statement. Now it's perfectly acceptable to lie atrociously in this thread.

I maintain my utter honesty in respect to this thread; I have drunk much milk, indeed, far more than mere liters or gallons. That said, this consumption has been spread out over the current span of my life.

I also brew a fairly good cup of coffee. I'd rather have that under my belt than flying in microgravity, or swimming in nuclear reactors.

[Alorael at Large]

Actually, I'd like to fly in microgravity. If space tourism ever becomes affordable I'll sign up.

 

—Alorael, who swam in a nuclear power plant and did get a scratch. Oh well; beats radiation poisoning, which he avoided thanks to all that milk he drank.

[Harehunter]

I've got nothing to brag about. I've only donated 6 gallons of blood.

A pint at a time over many years.

You have to wait 8 weeks between donations; not 7 weeks and 6 days, 8 weeks.

Other people have donated much more.

[Trenton.]

Oh yeah? We haven't invented the time machine yet! and even if we did, who said you would be the one to have it?

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

you're only assuming we haven't invented the time machine yet.

what if we just didn't tell you about it?

[Trenton.]

It would be all over the media. Unfortunately for you, I watch the news.

[Skwish-E]

I invented the time machine next year.

[Alorael at Large]

Every timeline in which a time machine is invented has two possibilities. One, the time machine remains secret. Two, the time machine is revealed, and the timeline becomes increasingly snarled until it eventually settles into either of the two stable timeline states: time machine secrecy or time machine nonexistence.

 

—Alorael, who missed something somewhere. Why are there time machines in this thread?

[Trenton.]

What if a time machine somehow brought two timelines together in co-existence, like if you brought 5 seconds ago over and now, couldn't you see your-self, and wouldn't that create a paradox?

[Dikiyoba]

Quote:

—Alorael, who missed something somewhere. Why are there time machines in this thread?

Because Trenton foolishly assumed Dikiyoba needed something as banal as time machine to travel through different periods of time in order to complete Dikiyoba's brag.

[Trenton.]

It is not foolish! how else is you gonna travel time? Is Dikiyoba a magical time traveling creature?

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: Trenton the dragon lord

What if a time machine somehow brought two timelines together in co-existence, like if you brought 5 seconds ago over and now, couldn't you see your-self, and wouldn't that create a paradox?

Yes, you'd see yourself, which isn't necessarily itself a paradox. But if future-self then murdered past-self, there are some causality problems. The temporal physics are quite complex, but it eventually resolves into one of the two states: no time machine, or no public time machine.

—Alorael, who finds it all much simpler when several selves just make out.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

I've got nothing to brag about. I've only donated 6 gallons of blood.
A pint at a time over many years.
You have to wait 8 weeks between donations; not 7 weeks and 6 days, 8 weeks.
Other people have donated much more.

Good for you! I'm about halfway through my 7th gallon myself, with a minimum lifetime goal of 10 gallons.

Also, I figured out once that if you donate blood every eight weeks to the day, It's possible to give 13 units every 2 years. (I don't recommended it, though; listen to the voice of experience and stop after 6 (EDIT: 6 donations per year, I mean))

[Trenton.]

Perssonaly, I wouldn't make out with a man even if it is myself, or kill anybody. I would rather go play video games with my self >.>

[Harehunter]

Ever have one of those weeks where everything that could go wrong, did, and you have to move at such high speed trying to put out the multitudinous fires that you leave yourself behind. Later you find yourself meeting yourself as you pass each other in the hall. Finally, at the end of the day, you finally catch up with yourself, and drag your exhausted hinny home.

That has described my whole last week. Ah well, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: Trenton the dragon lord

Perssonaly, I wouldn't make out with a man even if it is myself, or kill anybody. I would rather go play video games with my self >.>

Video game rage takes a tragically high number of time-traveling lives each year.

—Alorael, who has never, even at his most busy, exceeded light speed in the course of his work. He thinks that might be an OSHA violation.

[Dintiradan]

Make out? If I ever meet a future version of myself, the first thing I'll do is try punch future me in the face. I figure that would be the perfect way to distinguish between a future version of myself and a doppelganger. Future me will be expecting the punch. Also, it would be cool to get into a fight with someone who's exactly as (un)skilled as I am.

 

(While we're on the topic of time travel, I must remind everyone that

. Seriously, don't do it. Bad things will happen.)

[keira]

I would never make out with myself. I have standards.

[Alorael at Large]

What if, in anticipation of that punch, future you trains to become a blackbelt? And brings a taser?

 

—Alorael, who just realized that action films are sadly lacking in taserjutsu. That really ought to be rectified.

[Niemand]

Quote:

What if, in anticipation of that punch, future you trains to become a blackbelt? And brings a taser?

Future Dintiradan will surely remember, however, the basic usefulness and importance of the doppelgänger test, and will use his expectation (and possibly his blackbelt unarmed combat skills) to dodge, or non-harmfully disable Past Dintiradan. That is, unless he's worried about doppelgängers who would attack him on sight, not to mimic Past Dintiradan, but simply because they plan to kill him and take his place. I'm glad I don't have such dangerous life as the Dintiradans.

[keira]

I seem to remember watching a movie about something like this, where there were a whole bunch of different universes, and Protagonist has to stop Antagonist (who is Protagonist from Different Universe) from killing all the third-party duplicate Protagonist and absorbing their power.

 

It may have had an Asian man as the Protagonist. I can't remember. Any hits?

[Randomizer]

Jet Li in The One.