September 06, 2005

• Hooray for punting. We tried to go last week, but apathy and the heat on King's Common stopped us.
• Lazy punts.
• I'm assuming this is Cantab, rather than Cambridge, Mass.
• I assume there will be time for pints and such in between. Not that I'm not all about manuscripts (they actually look pretty neat), but you know. Pints! Kit, back me up here.
• Dreadnought, did you get my email?
• Yeah, cos beer has educational value, but education has no beer value. To paraphrase the mighty Weezello
• wish I was going...
• Yes, Skirk, this is about Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. Sorry. Weezel, I note that the pubs have longer opening hours than the museum, so it might be an idea to do gawping at old things first and glugging of fermented things second.
• Note, also, that we can put people up overnight both before and after the meetup, for people with long journeys to make.
• And then kill them in your basement! I'm not falling for that one! Again
• Dreadnought, I may have to take up that offer, as the last train to leave for Loughborough goes at 8pm on that day. Uh...where exactly in Cambridge should we meet?
• Weezel> I was scared of that too, unless they were delicious beer soaked manuscripts.
• Nooooooooooooooooooo! I can't believe I'm going to miss another meetup. And in Cambridge too. Fuck.
• flashboy, now you know how I feel. If you're reading MoFi on the laptop in the living room and the cat jumps on the sofa and paws at the screen, technically, is it a meetup? Should we be doing shout-outs, even if there is no beer present?
• Flash, how about a meeting in London? Would like to see you and Pleggers before I go (^_^)
• Mmmm, beer soaked manuscripts...
• flash, Mickey, when can you make a meetup? jb is coming here September 22nd, so that's a fine excuse, I think, to have a meetup after that date too. Alnedra, feel free to come and stay with us for the weekend. Weezel, I didn't get your email. Can you send it to me again at ndg25 at cam dot ac dot uk? I don't know where it might be sensible to meet. My housemate suggested one of the coffee shops in one of the big book shops in the middle of town. One complication: Some time on Sept 9, I'm going to loose internet at my house for up to two weeks. This is because Tiscali won't get with the program and cooperate with the Migration Access Code system that makes switching ISPs easy. Monkeys, don't use Tiscali! They're not nice to their customers. I will still be able to get email from the college say, once a day, but it might be best if people dropped me emails at the above address so they can get my phone number.
• Dreadnought, it might take me a while to get to Cambridge. Check my profile. however, shoutouts are accepted.
• Mickey, that's totally not an excuse for not coming! You don't have planes in Tennessee? :-)
• Cantab? Cambridge? The Cantab in Cambridge.
• And don't be confused by the fact that the Nightly Entertainment page hasn't been updated since March: it's a very happening place.
• Cantab? Cambridge? The Cantab in Cambridge. Longtime home of doo-wopper Little Joe Cook and the Thrillers.
• you punters! if i were there, i'd show you a thing or two...like how to get your boat spinning end for end into a bunch of swans while you lose your pole and spill your pimm's
• Take pictures! Nice link, Dread, by the way.
• As I said before, Sooooo, what's the deal?
• Weezel and I will meet at Cambridge, 12-ish (have to check train times again to be sure). Dreadnought, hopefully youre still checking this thread! Will email you my mobile number.
• I'm going to take the plunge and come along. Can someone let me know what's been decided?
• djryan, sweet! Can you get to Caimbridge around noonish? That's the plan. Drop me a line to the email in my profile, and I'll give you my mobile number so you can find us.
• Ok, guys... the train station here is miles out of town. I could meet you there, but it would be a long walk there and a long walk back. There is a bus that goes from the train station to the centre of town. It's big, it's blue, it's number 007 and it costs, I think, a quid. At least it costs that much for students, so say you're students. This goes to a place called the Drummer St Bus Station. I'd meet you there, but it's not a nice place to hang out. My housemate, who will also be joining us, suggests meeting in a central, easy to find place. For example, we could meet in the cafe inside the Borders bookshop in the Market. Cambridge is twisty and confusing, but the Borders in the market is about as easy to find as anything. Everybody knows where the market is, if you ask, it's close to the bus station, and if you're in the market then borders is easy to see. What think you? Also, what about other London monkeys? Carolingian? Ginger? dng? dickdotcom? Speak up!
• Let the seething begin! Have a wonderful time guys, and please take many pretty pictures!
• Sounds good, Noughty. (he he he, noughty...) So Alnedra, djryan, and I will meet up in the train station and catch the bus together from there. Then we can find you at Borders. Mmmm, books and coffee....
• Actually, since I'll be coming in from the north side of town it may be easier to meet you at Drummer St. Depending on how hungover I am as I've a leaving do on the Friday I could make it to the station ;-)
• Cool. djryan, just give us a call on the day to tell us, so's we don't wait for each other in the wrong place. I'll have to make do with another disposable camera, I guess (^_^)
• I have internet access. Should anything happen, or anyone else want to join, people can email me, and I can telephone Dreadnought. But does everyone going have his phone number?
• Just a note to people coming here tomorrow: make sure you bring good walking shoes. If you're planning to come back to our house, it means walking through cow fields. Seriously. With cows and everything. So if you have good, sturdy shoes, wear them.
• You're really giving Cambridge the hard sell, eh Dreadnought?
• They're very pretty fields! The Grantchester Medows! World famous! Byron swam there and Brooke, bitter with homesickness, idolised them as an arcadia: … would I were In Grantchester, in Grantchester!— 35 Some, it may be, can get in touch With Nature there, or Earth, or such. And clever modern men have seen A Faun a-peeping through the green, And felt the Classics were not dead, 40 To glimpse a Naiad’s reedy head, Or hear the Goat-foot piping low:… But these are things I do not know. I only know that you may lie Day long and watch the Cambridge sky, 45 And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass, Hear the cool lapse of hours pass, Until the centuries blend and blur In Grantchester, in Grantchester.… ..... you just need good shoes to get there is all!
• Okay, when are my pictures coming? And if I don't get a shoutout, heads will roll! Though probably only Dreadnought's, since it belongs to me anyways.
• This is a message from alliterated arithmancer, the only monky ever to go to a mofi meetup even before his account is approved by tracicle. He's also my housemate and co-host to 'neddy and Weezel. "The pictures will be up soon. We're in the process of scanning the shoutouts in now. I'll get some plastic sheeting before you arrive. All this head-rolling business sounds as though it could get messy."
• Hello! No head-cutting, please, jb. Dreadnought has been very very very nice, and alliterated arithmancer has been terribly patient with us lot as well. Train journey back was a riot. First they couldn't find a train driver for the train, so we all wait an hour to hook up to the next train. Then we got stuck midway between March and Ely (I think), because a drunk driver had knocked down a barrier gate the night before and caused some damage to the signalling equipment there. Got stuck again in Stamford, as some customer had pulled the emergency cord, and the staff went through all the carriages trying to find out which one. Finally got to Leicester, and due to engineering works, had to take a bus back to Loughborough. I have a very, very important comment to make, but it'll have to wait till I'm showered and fed. Be back in two shakes.
• ! Let's see.... (a) she's staying after all, (b) she has a train driver's severed head in her bag and wants to know how to dispose of it, (c) a kidnapper with a New Zealand accent is holding her at gunpoint. No, I give up.
• I will spare Dreadnought out of courtesy to you, Alnedra. I hope he appreciates the mercy. /mock serious And I'm glad you had a good time - I love Cambridge. Sometimes I think I really should see more of England outside of Cambridge, but it is also so hard to leave.
• Plegmund: 1. I wish. 2. I WISH. 3. If (s)he has a plane ticket and NZ work permit, I'm a ready victim for the Stockholm Syndrome. Ok, seriously now. What I wanted to say was that when I arrived at Cambridge and met Dreadnought, AA (sorry!) and Weezel, they dropped a bombshell on me. Apparently some of you monkeys pitched together some money for my going away. A huge amount of money. Huge huge huge. I am so entirely flabbergasted (as I was when Weezel told me), and immensely grateful. I feel very blessed. Thank you seems so inadequate, but thank you. This is so incredible, I'm still having a bit of trouble believing it. Wow. I remember thinking sometime during yesterday's really fasinating trip (Dreadnought is an amazing tour guide! We even picked up some genuine tourits along the way because of his oratory finesse): I don't know what I did to deserve you people, but it must have been something incredibly right. *slightly teary-eyed*
• I actually have a lot more to say, but it really has to wait. I'm slightly choked up right now. Be back soon.
• Pictures!
• Thoughts: 1. Soooo jealous. 2. Weezel has the Ultimate Geek Watch. 3. Aw, MoFi on a Mac. As it should be. iv. Livii is 56? 5. My kidnapping plans are still in the works.
• Now THAT was a meetup with a different theme! Cows and history along with the food and drink. But I do think you may have spent far too much time doing shout-out homework. (Has anyone checked to see what Henry was wearing under his skirt? And was he as squat as he appears, or just wide enough to offset his great height?) And I'm more jealous than anyone!
• Yeah, it does kind of look, from the pictures, that we spent hours and hours doing shoutouts. And that's totally true. It was all about you guys. No, no, we thought about going to town eating marvelous food, chatting up a storm and enjoying the unique pleasures of this uniquely civilised place, but your shoutouts were more important! We are nothing, if not dedicated!
• (oh, and it turns out that alliterated arithmancer takes lots of pictures and Alnedra doesn't, so there might be a bit of a sample bias)
• Oh, and speaking of shoutouts, in no particular order: Quidnuc and kitfisto tracicle jb (coming to chop my head off) Pallas Athena - 'neddy pointed out that this should really be Athena holding Pallas in her hand. We thought that was a step too literal path (also, a path!) Plegmund squidranch flashboy Koko livii - the small text reads "(sorry for the cap[italised L]!)" dng - we were talking about dng, trying to figure out how one might draw it, and somebody commented that it should be the name of a City investment bank... well... one thing lead to another... Wolof - it's a wolf! It is not a killer donkey! mothninja Space Kitty and the_bone f8xmulder Melinika - and some of her proposals for peripatetic monkey meetups The Carolingian beeswacky - a once denizen of a certain university in the Thames Valley Skrik - this is supposed to be a representation of what we think the word 'skrik' might sound like if it was an onomatopoeia StoryBored djryan - not actually a DJ dickdotcom .... and everybody else. Sorry, as much fun as making them was, we simply didn't have time to get all monkeys! We didn't forget you, we just had beer to drink!
• Oh, and welcome to aliterated arithmancer! This is an auspicious start.
• I just want to add a word of thanks to our annonimous benefactors. You guys are the bestest, bestest people in the whole wide world. Thanks to your unbeleivable generosity we were able to give Alnedra a monumental sendoff. It was quite an amazing weekend. I'm still all warm and glowy inside, and I expect I'll remember this for years to come. Someday, when I'm older and established and have more money than my current none at all, I promise I will repay this karma by being just as generous to somebody else as you guys were to Alnedra and to those lucky enough to spend time in her golden circle.
• I just want to add a word of thanks to our annonimous benefactors. You guys are the bestest, bestest people in the whole wide world. Thanks to your unbeleivable generosity we were able to give Alnedra a monumental sendoff. It was quite an amazing weekend. I'm still all warm and glowy inside, and I expect I'll remember this for years to come. Someday, when I'm older and established and have more money than my current none at all, I promise I will repay this karma by being just as generous to somebody else as you guys were to Alnedra and to those lucky enough to spend time in her golden circle.
• Oops! Sorry for the double!
• Oh, and alliterated arithmance, I find my self reading that as alliterated antimacassar, so if I screw up, well, you know. (Sorry, not on purpose.)
• Awwwwwwww! Our first joint shout-out! You people are wonderful. I so miss England....
• Safe journey, Alnedra! And happy days under pale blue skies to the rest o' ye!
• Thank you, I appreciate it!
• Heh. I stint not in my largesse, Wolof. Um...how chirps the cricket these days?
• Er, ask an English person, they have the box seat at the moment.
• Filthy English weather.
• Thank you for my shoutout! quidninkle and kitfatso have a joint shoutout ... does this mean they're officially a couple?
• I'm a little...concerned about my shoutout. Should people salute me or something? Do I need to become a filmmaker/dancer/jill of all trades like Kim Jong-Il? Shouldn't there be one tiny lone monkey standing in front of a tank? So many questions...
• Dreadnought draws good tanks. Imagine what he could do with boats.
• Fine pictures. I'm having a little retro-seethe.
• Heh. A kit for fists. Heh. Thanks you guys. A little bit of wee came out when I saw that. Quiddy and I are so glad it's all out in the open. I've wanted to shout it from the rooftops for a long time... Safe journey, 'neddy. Welcome to alliterated arithmancer, although I too will have trouble with that name.
• Lovely people, having a lovely time! But what the hell is a quidnuc, hmmmmmm?
• I guess this means I'm officially a monkey now. Despite being late to the party (due to the predicted hangover) it was a fun day in good company. It was good to put faces to some of the names and also get some history about this place I've made home. Now I can be less scared of future meetups and brave the cruiser to London.
• Apologies in advance if this gets a trifle sycophantic but there are monkeys who need to be thanked. Firstly, a big thank you to the anonymous benefactors. As Alnedra and Dreadnought have observed words are inadequate Thank you to Alnedra, Weezel and djryan for their patience in putting up with a newbie. Finally, thank you for the welcomes path and kitfisto. Maybe I should have chosen a shorter name. Although I rather like antimacassar -it has appropriately domestic associations.
• No problem. You know I'm the group treasurer, right? You did know about the joining fee, didn't you?
• I mean, it isn't difficult, is it? Eight letters, english word, latin roots, clearly printed below every comment I make ...
• The first half is easy. So really one only has to remember four letters. And two of those are n, so that's just three letters. And you remembered those, its just that you forgot that you needed FOUR.
• I mean, I don't go around calling people "Weezl" or "Dreadnough" or "Alneda", do I? No - I don't. I take a little goddam PRIDE in my work, you know?
• And it's not the other parts of my name are confusing. "the" and "kid" - very simple, three letters, no problem. But somehow spelling "quidnunc" is like proving the four-colour theorem.
• This is the last shoutout I'm ever gonna get, isn't it?
• Big shout to the quipmonk flid!
• Hi quinun!!
• Ooh, this rankles :(
• qidnunc!
• SHUDDUP SHUDDUP SHUDDUP!!!
• You know, I plead dyslexia. I don't know what Weezel's excuse is, though. *glares*
• Too much jazz? I hear it can be bad for you.
• Jazz as in "I'm going for a power jazz"? That would explain a lot. What d'ya think, pliknoonk?
• We ♥ you, qunu kd!
• Apart from me, kweedy.
• Hmm, that is odd, quiddly. They managed to spell kitfisto's name properly and then bungled yours. Ah, well, not to worry. I'm sure you weren't meant to notice the error. I mean, you are listed first, at THE VERY TOP OF A MILE-LONG LIST OF SHOUTOUTS.
• Yeah, whatever Mikey.
• Oh, who's a grumpy qunk? *pinches cheek*
• Sorry, Kooko ;)
• The quinine kid does have a nice ring to it.
• And then it's just a short hop to the equine kid.
• On yer bike, tricycle!
• You just keep moanin', quiddy. Your pleas for sympathy are falling upon the deaf ears of those of us who didn't get a shoutout at all, much less be at the top of the list. Not that I'm complaining about the fact that I didn't get one YET AGAIN. Seriously, I'm not bitter at all. If high school taught me anything, it's how to deal with social rejection. I'm well-practiced. *pouts*
• Aah, Laphroaig, you'll never let me down, will you..? *glug*
• the equine kid? Are we back on the horse buggery again? Thanks for the magnificent shout-out! So glad you all had a good time!
• Are we back on the horse buggery again? We are now.
• idnunc quid?
• You would?
• Capt - you get a half share of mine, obv.
• ha ha, my revenge is sweet. Take that, ya horse-buggering summabeeatch!
• Oh, and about the meetup. If anyone ever gets a chance to take a tour from 'Noughty, I HIGHLY recommend it. We saw an Elizabethan door that hadn't ever been replaced simply because it hadn't broken. Nothing special or exciting about it, it just still worked after 400ish years. You won't find THAT on a standard tour.
• This door has been around for 940 years, and is still in use.
• Umm, I can't see the shoutouts or pictures. It keeps saying the server timed out. Any thoughts?
• Hmm... looks like my web site's down. It hasn't done this in a while, but it's been known to happen from time to time. Oh and stop giving away the best bits of my tour Weezel! : )
• Pics temproarily mirrored here. Shoutouts temporarily mirrored here.
• He never showed me the Elizabethan door. Or maybe he did, and I forgot about it. He's always blathering on about something or other. I just pretend to listen. Capt. Renault - petulence is always rewarded for shoutouts - now you'll be top of the list for next time. :)
• Also - dendochronology rocks.
• Thanks, jb. And you're right -- dendochronology DOES rock. Anyone see that PBS documentary on the early-bronze-age man they found near Stonehenge? By melting the enamel on the guy's teeth, they could match up the nitrate-level (or some such thing) with the levels found in rain water to determine that buddy was originally from Switzerland or thereabouts. The second body, that of buddy's son, was a local. Never heard of that tooth-enamel thing before. As cool as dendochronology. Maybe the tooth-enamel thing IS a part of dendochronology. It'd have to be, wouldn't it? Huh.
• Actually, dendochronology is tree ring analysis (usually for the purposes of dating, but also useful for climate analysis) . The tooth thing is also cool, but different.
• nah, the dude just drank bottled water from Switzerland. that confuses things all the time.
• Yes, I know, but how would one tie rainfall patterns over a geographic area but through dendochronology? By looking at trees from a certain area, you'd be able to read rainfall patterns through history. You'd need dendochronology on THAT side, the side that you're linking the tooth-enamel to. Right? That's what I meant. But I'm the first to admit my sciency-type edjimication is none-too-impressive.
• Thanks for the shoutout (although I can't see it - or any of the other pictures, either) Sorry I missed this - I haven't read monkeyfilter in a while (almost a month), and didn't realise this was happening
• See, I think the cool thing about the door at Corpus is not it's great age, per se, and it certainly doesn't have the importance of the door at the Abey... it's more that it's in daily use, and nobody really knows about it but a handfull of people. They're still painting it and fitting new locks in it and slamming it angrily. It's just a door to a student room. Someday, somebody is going to kick it, or something, and it will break and they will replace it with a new one and they'll never know that the door they're throwing out is over four hundred years old. That's what's so neat about it. It is a sudden, startling connection with the past in the way that a carefully studied and preserved museum peice just isn't.
• Capt. Renault - I'm no scientist either, and only ever had one semester of archeology (most of which was spent digging), but I believe the tooth analysis goes by the balance of trace chemicals, which are linked to certain regions. The dendochronology doesn't use chemical analysis at all, but was pioneered at the beginning of the century by painstaking comparison of tree ring patterns (which are affected by rainfall levels).
• Welcome back, dng. How was your month away?
• Monkeyfilter - I'm no scientist either
• Didn't mean to diss your door, Dread. Maybe you should put a notice on it or something; it reminds me of finding splendid medieval carvings with big new gate hinges screwed into them in a cathedral I was visiting.