# It's 30º. Let's buy a bike! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 14, 2005, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453 "2005-03-14T13:19:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/81 "2005-03-15T22:44:33Z")
> [@taxi78cab](#): > > It sounds like I should hop on a plane this weekend!! Ok, maybe I can’t do that (although it’d be nice to see TaxiDriver again that soon!), but I am a HUGE chocolaholic (why can’t I spell that??) with dark and bittersweet chocolates being my favorite kind! (OK, way too many exclamation points. I’ll calm down now. It’s just the thought of all that bittersweet chocolate!) If I can’t fly down right away to sample that culinary delight, could I get the recipe? 😃 It’s the ultimate chocolate fix! Maybe we can arrange a Dopefest when you’re here next time, and I’ll make it just for you! The recipe is on [America’s Test Kitchen](http://americastestkitchen.com/). You have to register (it’s free), but it’s worth it for all the wonderful recipes. I think you only get the past two or three years without paying, but still you get a lot of good recipes. **scout1222,** North Carolina is a friendly place. Southern hospitality and all that. I’m not a native southerner, but I think I fit in pretty well. Although I do talk a little too fast sometimes. I like sweet tea and biscuits (especially sweet potato biscuits). ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/82 "2005-03-16T01:08:24Z")
It may be friendly, but I bet it has big ugly bugs. And chiggers. ::suspicious:: Why don’t you all come up _here_ to visit _me_? It’s be warm in… in… a few months! Well, not snowing, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/83 "2005-03-16T02:05:51Z")
**Lissla** , you were not either at the beach today. I know for a _fact_ that you’re in Canada and so that is not possible. Perhaps you mistook large drifts of snow, for sand along a beach. The moose should have tipped you off. So does every woman of the MMP have a younger man about the house? Yes! **Eve** is back and already made me laugh twice and taught me of two new old-fashioned games. All is right with the SDMB now. Thank you **Shibby** , for single handedly saving civilization as we know it, you taught your kids to whistle. Now you gotta teach 'em the words to _Lydia the Tattooed Lady_. ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/84 "2005-03-16T03:26:57Z")
I just got back from Target. Of course I got Peeps (but I didn’t see a Peep Maker ☹ ) And I got some other Easter candy (M&M’s peanut butter eggs, yummmm). I got a new CD, so I was rockin’ on the way home! And I spent less than $30, which is hard to do at Target. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/85 "2005-03-16T03:57:25Z")
> [@swampbear](#): > > Wile E has got me wantin’ colcannon now. If’n I was to eat corned beef, cabbage and colcannon together, the resultant gaseousness would be heard and smelled all across the greater midwest. There would be big national headlines about toxic fumes and evacuation of the greater Chicago area. But it’s sooooooo good! Well, it can all be explained as swamp gas. I found an envelope tonight containing some family history. My great-grandpa was from County Donegal, Ireland. He came over sometime in the late 1800’s. Oddly enough his father and father-in-law (both my Irish great-great grandfathers) came over earlier to fight in the Civil War and then went back to Ireland. My great-grandmother has the lovely Irish name of Bridget. Although I am not too certain of my brother’s geneology research since he lists great-grandpa as having emigrated to the US in 1866 but he was born in Ireland in 1868. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bumbazine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bumbazine/32/362_2.png) [@Bumbazine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bumbazine)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/86 "2005-03-16T05:23:50Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > Although I am not too certain of my brother’s geneology research since he lists great-grandpa as having emigrated to the US in 1866 but he was born in Ireland in 1868. :dubious: He was precocious. My Father used to tell me that my great, great grandfather was hanged in Missouri for stealing horses. He was funnin’ me of course. It was my great great uncle, and he was hanged for murder. My great great uncle was Tom Horn. Incidentally, I have all of the lyrics to _Lydia The Tattooed Lady_ I don’t know if anyone still owns the copywrite, so I’ll just post the first verse to prove my veracity: **Music by Harold Arlen. Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg.** \* Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia? Lydia The Tattooed Lady. She has eyes that folks adore so, and a torso even more so. Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia. Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo. On her back is The Battle of Waterloo. Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too. And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue. You can learn a lot from Lydia! La-la-la…la-la-la. La-la-la…la-la-la. \* If anybody wants the rest of the song (and who wouldn’t) you can e-mail me and I’ll send it to you. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/87 "2005-03-16T05:38:05Z")
I misheard something today which I think I will share with you all. I was with a group of people today and one of them is getting married soon. I mentioned a couple co-workers who are pregnant. So they soon-to-be-married woman said “Maybe next year we’ll be talking about even more babies”. Another person commented “Why would you want to do that?”. She replied “Because I am a pro-life Catholic and we accept all babies God chooses to send us.” Well, I thought she said she was a “Prolapsed Catholic”. I knew she was a Catholic and I thought she was making a joke. I said “Prolapsed? Is that because you keep having babies until your uterus prolapses?”. She looked at me kind of funny, then I had to explain I thought she said “Prolapsed” and was making a joke. She eventually laughed but not as much as I did. In my defense, my mother was Catholic and she had 5 kids and then her uterus started to prolapse and she had a hysterectomy. So my mother was a Prolapsed Catholic. I’m just a lapsed Catholic. ---
**Author:** ![Rue\_DeDay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/41988e/32.png) [@Rue\_DeDay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rue_DeDay)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/88 "2005-03-16T12:42:51Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > “…we accept all babies God chooses to send us.” Does God mail out the babies, or does He use FedEx or “Brown”? What kind of postage do they charge Him for sending out babies? God didn’t send us any babies, we had to do all the work ourselves. (And by “we had to do all the work”, I mean pretty much “the Little Woman had to”.) ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/89 "2005-03-16T13:18:12Z")
> [@Rue DeDay](#): > > Does God mail out the babies, or does He use FedEx or “Brown”? What kind of postage do they charge Him for sending out babies? Well, duh–of course he uses “Brown”. 😃 “Prolapsed Catholic.” 🙂 Well, I think it’s funny. But I can understand why a Catholic wouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/90 "2005-03-16T13:45:20Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > “Prolapsed Catholic.” 🙂 Well, I think it’s funny. But I can understand why a Catholic wouldn’t. I use the phrase “Recovering Catholic.” It’s one of the few things that my ex-wife said that I found to be funny. I’m not too far from North Carolina myself. During the summer, I often go down to the Nags Head/Kitty Hawk area to see bands. And I know quite a few folks that own property there, including a few of the folks I work with. NC is within commuting distance to Technical Thingies, Inc. As for the age thing, my SO is 4 1/2 years older than me. For what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/91 "2005-03-16T13:49:29Z")
I forgot to finish my post, 'cause I got interupted. I’ve always loved that song “Lydia” ever since Katherine Hepburn’s little sister sang it in [iI]The Philadelohia Story.\* I never knew it was a real song until long after I saw that movie. And for another song: “Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great. If any sperm is wasted God gets quite irate!” - Michael Palin & Terry Jones, \*Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life \* ---
**Author:** ![Tupug\_Anachi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@Tupug\_Anachi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tupug_Anachi)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/92 "2005-03-16T14:45:44Z")
> [@Rue DeDay](#): > > Does God mail out the babies, or does He use FedEx or “Brown”? What kind of postage do they charge Him for sending out babies? Keh! Keh! You’re all wrong! God uses DHL (Dad Helps Little)! 😃 I learned to whistle two different ways. The traditional pursed lips way was difficult for me when I was a kid due to a very narrow hard palette so I taught myself to whistle by curling the sides of my tongue up against my top molars. The result is a higher pitched annoying whistle which apparently fascinates parakeets and cockatiels…much to my family’s irritation. 🙂 Tupug ---
**Author:** ![susan\_foster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@susan\_foster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan_foster)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/93 "2005-03-16T14:53:36Z")
> [@Ashes](#): > > So does every woman of the MMP have a younger man about the house? Nope - none at my place. Unless one snuck in while I was gone and is hiding in my office. I’ll check when I get home and let you know. Susan ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/94 "2005-03-16T14:56:33Z")
> [@Tupug Anachi](#): > > I learned to whistle two different ways. The traditional pursed lips way was difficult for me when I was a kid due to a very narrow hard palette so I taught myself to whistle by curling the sides of my tongue up against my top molars. The result is a higher pitched annoying whistle which apparently fascinates parakeets and cockatiels…much to my family’s irritation. 🙂 > > Tupug Just put your lips together and blow. ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/95 "2005-03-16T15:10:16Z")
It never ceases to amaze me. I go to New York for one friggin’ day and consequently fail to check the board, and this thread completely passes me by. I just can’t keep up with you people. Thus, I am forced to go all the way back to page one and respond to **Kalley** on an important subject in short terse sentences because I fear for my life. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. I live in the Northeast. There are a lot of people here who self-identify as Irish. I do not know what my ethnic background is. I do know that I’m not Irish. I do know a lot of Irish-Americans. They tend to congregate. Especially on St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t go out of my way to wear green on that day. Again, I’m not Irish. I _do_ go out of my way to not wear anything orange. I don’t want to die. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/96 "2005-03-16T15:29:36Z")
I never heard about the “don’t wear orange” restriction. I guess Pittsburgh Irish aren’t as political as the Boston Irish. About the only restriction on SPD I ever lived with was “don’t be caught sober today.” ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/97 "2005-03-16T15:39:34Z")
I heard the “don’t wear orange” thing because my high school chemistry teacher (Mr. Monahan) firmly believed it. Every year the kids in his AP Chem class would decorate the crap out of his classroom - in orange. He was a pretty good sport. **Taters** and I are meeting tonight for dinner. We played phone tag last night, but I made sure to give her a brief description of me, so we’d be able to find each other. ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/98 "2005-03-16T15:46:14Z")
I don’t think it’s universal, but there are a lot of people around here who subscribe to the extreme end of the Irish Catholic/Republican thing even when the last immigrant ancestor they had got off the boat in 1880. A personal anecdote: I was grouse hunting with a friend on his father’s farm down in Athens. We quit for the day and stopped into a bar for an early lunch. I don’t recall the name of the place, but it was “Brennan"s” or “Brannigan’s” or something like that. Not a chain, just a local bar in a town that consisted of a few buildings clustered together along a road. The joint was full of Irish-themed stuff, including an honest-to-God shilleighlah (sp?) on the wall. Keep in mind that this was bird season (i.e. October) so it wasn’t just a St. Paddy’s Day thing. I forgot to take off my hat before we went in. My day-glo-safety-orange-because-I’m-hunting-and-don’t-want-my-head-shot-off hat. Turned out to be a major oversight. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/99 "2005-03-16T15:50:04Z")
We love you, too, **Ex**. Even though you haven’t sent us (me) any chocolate. I was so at the beach, **Ashes**. We have beaches here, and the ice is almost gone! [Here’s what it looked like earlier this year!](http://www.drunkenmonkeystyle.com/geoff/Snow%20&%20Ice%202005/target9.html) Water plus sand equals beach, even if it’s frigging cold. And you can’t swim there at any time because of pollution and zebra mussels and stuff. Still, it looks nice! Is your head still attached? ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453/100 "2005-03-16T15:52:13Z")
Forgot to add: “Hurling” turns out to be field hockey, and it involves big wooden sticks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-30-lets-buy-a-bike/294453.md?page=6)