Until now, I never put two and two together that “melange” can mean “a variety of something” in certain contexts. Hmmm, was Dune just an excuse for a hidden pun?
“Melange” means a “mix” or “blend” in every context.
Reportedly, the effect of being on it was based on Herbert’s experience with mushrooms. I always thought it was treated more like marijuana, though; because the Fremen used it not just as a drug, but also to make things like textiles, or paper, or explosives, and even as a (literal) spice to flavor food and drink. (Sort of like how hemp can be used for a variety of purposes.)
But both “spice” and “melange” are just really generic terms that I think speak to both the substance’s ubiquity and mystery.
Melange still races.
I’m trying to keep track: are we on a tangent of a tangent of the food tangent?
I keep clicking when I see new posts, hoping to hear about Stupid MFers In The News…
…sigh…
I’ll say it again: This thread is becoming grossly deficient in stupid motherfuckery.
Seems like too many of us regulars have simply turned off all the news. And therefore there’s no source for fresh stupidity except our personal experience. And speaking just for me, I haven’t witnessed anything spectacularly stupid all week. But I’m watching diligently.
Here in my neck of the woods, a man has been arrested for the 98th time - this time for shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and leading police.on a high-speed chase in a truck with a custom bong mounted into the dashboard.
Hopefully he was taking big hits during the chase.
A big news story, both in my old home town of Green Bay (where it occurred) and in Chicago, where the injured are from.
On Sunday, a tour bus was making a trip from Chicago to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on an outing to a tribal casino. The driver got off of the Interstate in Green Bay, apparently either to refuel or to give the passengers a rest stop…however, the driver failed to stop at the bottom of the ramp. He crossed a road (the exit ramp ends in a T intersection), went over a large snowbank (the city had gotten 2 feet of snow last week) and an embankment, and ended up between two warehouse buildings.
Of the 54 or so passengers (most of them senior citizens), 41 were injured, two of them being initially classified as in critical condition. It turns out that the driver – a Chicago man, who also owns the bus and the company – was driving on revoked licenses (including a revoked CDL), due to a DUI, then driving while his license was suspended.
He claimed to officers that the brakes in the bus had failed. He’s now facing new charges of operating the bus without a license, as well as “causing great bodily harm.”
I can believe 100% that the brakes failed. Also, he deserves every charge that can be laid on him. Also, it was his responsibility as owner and driver to make sure the bus was safe to operate.
I’d sooner believe that traction failed on a icy snow covered downhill offramp. The old saying is “brakes stop wheels; tires stop vehicles.” Decent bet his problem was tires vs. surface, not brakes vs. wheels.
With a side order of “lazy complacent (impaired?) driving leading to a too-fast exit and a too-late attempt to slow”.
But still, stupid bordering on evil.
As a fellow Cheesehead, you must know all the jokes (but, are they, really?) about FIB drivers. I was hearing them before I could ride a bike. It’s disquieting when, every once in a while, they appear to be true.
Who organized this trip? (Is no one asking that, or did I just miss it?)
You’ve got a bus full of elderly people… were they from a retirement home that hired a sketchy guy with warrants?
Or was it some sort of Late Night TV Ad - “Call to get a seat on a random casino bus”?
*He showed the cop an “Illinois ID Card”. Not a driver’s license?
For those not regional, like me, apparently FIB means Fuckin’ Illinois Bastards.
Illinois driving rule apparently being followed here.
Braking is to be done as hard and late as possible to ensure that your ABS kicks in, giving a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates.
I’m thinking, why? There’s no closer casino to Chicago that the Yuper? (answer: yes, there are)
Thank you.
On the idiotic cheesehead front:
So an FWB in other words. 
See also post 6747 where somebody else posted about this court case.
I’ve not seen any mention of that in the news coverage. I might guess it was organized by a retirement community, a church, a park district, or a senior activity center, but that’s not yet clear.
And yes, there are a lot of casinos in the Chicago area, and closer to Chicago than the UP is. I’d guess that they did not choose that particular casino based on proximity alone. For one thing, the UP is more scenic than going to Hammond or O’Hare. And, at that distance from Chicago, it was undoubtedly not just a day trip to a casino; one would suspect that the planned trip included at least one overnight stay at the casino’s hotel.
Ohh, yes, especially as I live in FIBland. Illinois drivers drive like they are in NASCAR, and are late for something; Wisconsin drivers camp in the left lane while doing exactly the speed limit, and have de-activated their turn signals. 