November 6
Peggy was back when I woke up, and I was really quiet so I didn't wake her up, since it was a Sunday. I took all my flight gear into the bathroom and filled up my camelback and got dressed, then I went down to the boardwalk and called the airplane directors.
It was someone that I didn't know who was directing airplanes this morning, but he gave me permission to fly, so I took off and went west.
Main Street was kind of empty this morning, which was odd. I didn't see very many cars on it until I got close to Drake Road, which is where there are always lots of cars. And I started to climb when I was over Maple Hill Mall, and I was at about eight hundred feet when I went over the 131 Highway.
I turned north, so that I could follow along the Kal-Haven trail, and pretty soon I went over the parking lot at the entrance, which was empty, and then I started to follow the trail along. I was gonna go to Gobles, and then turn around and come back, 'cause that was about thirty miles.
Most of the fields were empty now, but there was still some corn up which didn't make a lot of sense to me. I was pretty sure that it would go bad if you left it on the plant in the field, so I couldn't figure out why the farmers hadn't harvested it yet.
And they'd left out some of the big rolls of hay, too—I saw a few of those sitting in fields, too. Maybe they'd gotten them in late and were waiting for them to dry the rest of the way, but the hay in the center was never gonna dry, and they should have done that when it was in windrows.
There was an electrical wire path that cut across the trail before I got to Kendall, and I thought about following it to see where it went, but then decided that maybe I'd do that some other time and for now just stick with my plan of flying above the trail because then I knew how far I was going and when I would be back.
I kept looking back, 'cause it was getting near sunrise time, and since the sky was so clear, I didn't want to miss it if I could help it. I should have thought of that when I was making my plans and flown east instead of west, 'cause then there wouldn't be any chance to miss it.
I was about halfway between Kendall and Gobles when I thought that the sun had to be getting pretty close, so I started to circle, just gliding around in a big, slow spiral like hawks did when they were looking for prey. And I guess I kind of was, except that I couldn't catch the sun.
When it started to poke above the horizon, I just kinda hovered in place until it was all the way above the trees, and then I dropped down and landed so that I could watch it again because it had been so pretty the first time.
I wasn't on the path; I'd landed at the edge of a harvested blueberry field, and even though it was a really big field, the trees on the other side blocked my view a little bit so I didn't see the sun until it came up above them, and it wasn't as good as the first sunrise had been. But it was still really fun to be able to see it twice.
I took flight again and I hadn't gotten all that high before I was over Gobles and turned around to go back to Kalamazoo. And I had to kind of keep my eyes downwards, 'cause otherwise I was looking straight into the sun.
As soon as the trail made its big turn south, I started to lose altitude, and I started to angle towards the 131 Highway as I descended, until I was under a thousand feet, and then I turned towards downtown. I called the airplane directors on the radio, and instead of the man I'd talked to earlier, Dori was there and so I told her where I was and she said that I was flying earlier than usual, which I thought was odd 'cause it was about the same time that I usually flew. I thought maybe she was just confused 'cause I was headed back into town and I hadn't talked to her on the way out of town.
Usually when I landed on the boardwalk, there were a few students around on campus, but this time I didn't see any, which was odd, especially with the roads being kind of deserted, and I stood on the balcony for a few minutes looking over campus. There were lights on in some of the windows, but I didn't go inside until I saw a boy walk out of Hoben and to Academy Street.
And when I was back inside, I heard some noises of people waking up for the day. Yesterday had been Guy Fawkes Day, so maybe everyone had been celebrating that and had woke up late.
Nobody was in the bathroom when I went in, and the floor of the shower was dry so I guess I was taking the first shower of the day. And I didn't hear the door open at all while I was in there, so I took my time.
When I was back in my dorm room, I had to be really quiet because Peggy was still sleeping, and I didn't know how late she'd gotten in last night. I didn't want to wake her up by mistake.
I didn't think that she'd want me to wake her up for breakfast, so I went out of the room and back down to the boardwalk and glided down to the stairs in front of Hicks Center, and when I went inside, the dining hall was closed even though it was supposed to be open, which was really annoying since I was hungry, and I could smell the food inside.
I sat down outside the dining hall in frustration. It was like the whole town had decided to sleep late today, everyone except me, and that wasn't fair at all.
Sitting around and being frustrated wasn't doing me any good, so I went back outside and kicked some acorns across the grass, then took off and I thought about flying to a restaurant and getting breakfast there but probably they would be closed, too, and I'd have wasted a bunch of energy for nothing. Besides, it was the principle of the thing—the dining hall owed me breakfast, and I wanted it. So I flew around the building a couple of times and looked through the windows but I couldn't see much, 'cause they hadn't even turned on the lights yet.
It took them almost an hour before they finally opened up, and I'd resorted to nibbling on some of the grass on the quad even though it wasn't very good. And I was the first one in, and I was in a pretty grumpy mood by the time that I got my food and sat down at the table, and there wasn't any of my friends there so I didn't even have anybody to complain to.
I'd finished with my food and I felt a little bit better when Meghan finally came in and sat down next to me and I started complaining which wasn't very nice of me at all, and then she started to laugh until she saw that I had my ears down, and she hugged me and told me that Daylight Saving Time had ended last night, and the clocks moved back an hour, so it was an hour earlier than I thought. And that was why there hadn't been too many cars on the road and Dori hadn't been directing airplanes and I felt kind of dumb but I was still mad that nobody had told me. And she said she was sorry and she thought that I'd already known.
It was going to be confusing while I got used to it.
So I sat at the table while Meghan ate, and I guess I was glad that I hadn't woken up Peggy, 'cause she'd probably expected to sleep in another hour and she would have been really mad if I'd woken her for when I thought breakfast time was.
Nobody else showed up while we were eating, so me and Meghan walked back to the dorm together, and she said that she was still working on her project and she didn't know if she'd be done by the evening, but she hoped so. And then she said that she hoped that Aric had gotten done with his project, and I did, too.
I got my Bible and went outside, 'cause it was a really nice day. And at first I sat in a tree, but it was kind of hard to read there and after a while the branches began to dig at my belly so I flew down and landed on the quad.
There were a bunch more letters from Paul, to other churches and also to Timothy, and he mostly told them good, encouraging things, and gave them advice on how they should conduct themselves and what they shouldn't do.
Hebrews was kind of long, and it said a lot about what Jesus had done for people, and after I'd read it, it made a lot more sense about why God hadn't saved Him from the cross, and how He had changed the covenant by His sacrifice.
And then there was a letter from James, who was one of the disciples. It didn't say which James, and there had been two of them. And he gave some advice to the twelve tribes, and then Peter also had two letters. The first was to the exiles, and I guess the second one was, too, although he didn't say specifically. And he had lots of advice, as well, about how to live good lives and do what God wanted.
There were three letters from John, and the last one was to Gaius. And John said what everyone else had said, that God wanted people to love each other as brother and sister, and to do good deeds for each other. And Jude only had one short letter, and then it was Revelation, which was the last book of the Bible.
It was written by John, and God had showed him a vision like he had showed the Old Testament prophets, and there were a lot of letters he was supposed to write in the beginning, telling them that they had been bad, and then he started to describe the things God had showed him. It was a strange vision and I had trouble making sense of all of it. There were horses who rode out and there were monsters and plagues and a war in heaven and angels blowing trumpets and it was all very confusing. An angel took the dragon and threw him in Tartarus (which John called the Abyss) for a thousand years, and then John saw how God was going to create a new Earth and a new heaven and a new Jerusalem, and He was also going to open Eden again. Then at the very end there was a benediction, and that was the end of the Bible.
I went back to my room and set the Bible on my desk. It was really strange to be done reading it, 'cause it had kind of seemed like I'd never finish. But I guess no matter how big a book is, if you slowly work your way through it you'll get to the end eventually.
I was still kind of confused by the clocks and so I finally asked Peggy, 'cause my portable telephone said it was one time and my body said it was another and I wasn't sure which was right. How did my portable telephone know that it was a different time than it had been? And she looked at hers and said that it was almost time for lunch, and that she should get dressed, then she decided that since it was a nice day outside she'd change out of her sleeping clothes after lunch.
She wasn't the only one who thought so, because Christine was also still wearing her sleeping clothes. I guess when people got the opportunity to sleep in one hour late they slept four or five hours longer.
Peggy and Christine decided that they needed to go shopping to get props for the play, and Sean went and got a bunch of toast and wrapped it up in a napkin and Christine put it in her purse because that was one thing that they needed. And when they were done eating, Christine and Peggy left so that they would have time to get what they needed, but Sean stayed and he and Meghan helped teach me the Time Warp so that I could dance it with everyone else.
Meghan said that she wasn't going to be able to go to the play, 'cause of her homework, but told me to have fun, and she said that if she was lucky she'd be done with her work early enough that we could play tonight.
So I walked back to the dorm with her, and since I didn't have anything else to do before the play started, I went to her room and sat on her bed while she worked at her desk and sometimes petted my mane or scratched my ears.
When it was time to go to the play, I nuzzled her and then kissed her and asked her if she was sure she wanted to miss it, and she said she'd rather work now and spend time with me later, so I kissed her again and then went off to see the audience participation version.
I had to wait around a little bit for Peggy and Christine, and they must have spent more time shopping than they'd planned to, 'cause instead of walking, Peggy drove Cobalt to the theatre and they had a couple of plastic sacks full of things.
We got our tickets and sat down in our seats and right before the play started, the director came out to announce it and to remind us that we were expected to participate.
And it was really neat to do it that way. Since I'd seen it last night, I kind of had an idea what was going to happen, so I didn't have to pay as much attention to the actors as I would have if I'd been seeing it for the first time.
There was a lot of times when the audience said things and I didn't always know what to say, but when it was something that got repeated I figured it out. And Peggy and Christine told me when I had to hold up the toast and throw rice and toilet paper, and we all got to get up and dance the Time Warp together, which was a lot of fun, especially since I knew the steps to it.
It was really strange when the play got over that it was light outside. It was confusing to be in a theatre during the day, 'cause you got used to the dark and then were expecting it to be dark everywhere. And we congratulated all the actors again, and rather than wait for Aric, I went through the door that went upstairs and nobody stopped me. Aric was by the light board, cleaning up, and so I hugged him and told him that I'd liked the audience participation even better than the audience just watching version.
He had a lot of stuff to do, because after the last performance they had to take down the set and all the lights, but we had a few minutes together because he couldn't start working until everybody was out of the theatre, since he might accidentally drop a light on someone.
I asked him if that had ever happened, and he said he hadn't dropped a light, but he'd dropped gobos and gel frames and wrenches before. And he said that he nearly got someone with a length of pipe when they were taking down the set for Six Characters in Search of an Author, because they were supposed to all be off stage, but someone hadn't been paying attention while he was taking apart their temporary lighting grid.
When the actors started to come back on stage, dressed in work clothes, he kissed me and said that it was time for him to work, and I asked if he'd gotten done with his project, and he said that he was almost done with it and if he finished her pretty quickly he'd have it done by the end of the night, and that me and Meghan could come over if we wanted to. He said if he wasn't done, maybe the thought of two sexy girls in his bed would motivate him to finish up.
I went back to my room and Peggy was gathering up her laundry so I thought that I should do mine, too, so I stripped everything off the bed and emptied the pockets out on my flight vest and then took it downstairs. We had to wait for a washing machine that was almost done, and then she put all the wet clothes on the table and I said that she could put her things in first and I'd wait until the other machine had finished to do mine.
So she went upstairs and came back down with her homework which she hadn't done yet, and we both sat on the washing machines because there weren't any chairs, and she read her art book while the washing machines were cleaning our laundry.
When you really focused on them, the washing part was a pretty relaxing noise, and the machine moved gently under you. But then it got more chaotic during the spin cycle, when it was trying to fling all the water off the clothes.
We put our clothes in the dryer before going to dinner, and Peggy said that probably some impatient jerk would take them out before they were finished and we'd get back to the laundry room and they'd all be piled on the table and still wet, and it turned out that she was right. We should have stayed in the laundry room and guarded them.
She wanted to take the clothes out of the dryer and put ours in but I thought that was mean, so we waited until they were dry and then took them out and Peggy folded them up but instead of putting them in a neat little pile, she put them all through the laundry room so that whoever had left them there would have to get them one at a time. She said that maybe he'd learn something from that.
And when he finally did come in, he saw his shirt sitting by itself on the middle of the table and another that was on top of the dryer right between us, and Peggy just crossed her arms and glared at him as he went through the laundry room finding all of his clothes, and his face was really red by the time he'd gotten everything and left, and I didn't think he'd be mean like that again.
She helped me fold up my sheets and blanket, even though I was just going to put them on my bed when I got back up to my room, so they didn't need to be folded. And I put them across my back and let her put her blankets on my back, too, and she said that I looked like the world's cutest pack mule, which was kind of insulting but she didn't mean anything bad by it.
After we'd made our beds and she'd put her things away, I said that I was going to go to Meghan's and then to Aric's, and she told me to have fun. And I packed up my flight gear and this time remembered to bring the Kama Sutra, too.
When I got to Meghan's room, I told her that I had it, so she decided that she'd be daring, too, and changed into her sock-skirt without any underwear, and her tall boots, and I said that she should try not to distract Aric too much if he hadn't finished his homework.
So the two of us walked to his house together, and when we got there he was upstairs in his room, sitting at his desk and working on his computer, and he still had his theatre clothes on, so I guess he'd just come right home and started to work.
Meghan asked him how much longer he thought he was going to be, and he said that he was getting close, so the two of us sat on his bed and we went through my saddlebags and got out my book and looked through it for inspiration. The drawings were kind of crude and there were some positions that looked really athletic and others that just looked like they'd be uncomfortable and not fun at all. And there weren't any that included a pony, which was disappointing, but some of them were things that I could do; my legs might just be in a different position.
We tried to be quiet and not distract him, and so we were mostly pointing and making gestures at each other, and I guess he started to wonder what we were up to, 'cause he turned around and looked at us to make sure that we were still there, and then he looked back at his work and a moment later he turned around again and I guess he saw what we were reading or else he saw up Meghan's skirt, or maybe both.
And I guess that motivated him to finish, because it was only a couple more minutes before he said that he was done, and Meghan leaned over and whispered in my ear that she bet he wasn't really and he was just saying that because he wanted sex.
I thought that was probably true, but I wanted sex, too, and I was getting impatient.
Besides, if he wasn't done yet it was his own fault for not starting sooner.
So Aric sat down on the bed between us and we started going through the book again until we'd found a position that we all thought looked like it would be fun to try, and then I undressed Aric, and I was gonna undress Meghan, too, but Aric said that she should leave her dress and boots on a little bit longer and she said that she didn't know he had a clothing fetish, and he said that anyone would with that dress, and I had to agree with him.
I think that should be gotten done with his project.
Little disappointed Meghan didn't flash Aric while he was working on his project.
A goal that I missed:
I wanted Silver Glow to finish the Bible before the word count of the story was more than the word count of the Bible.
Apparently, the NIV (which is the version she was reading) is 741,065 words, and the Journal is currently 753,334.
7853794
Well, maybe Eric got too impatient. He had to go down now.
Boss finish.
7852187
My school technically does, but it's ridiculously hard to enforce. Pocket knives and box cutters are fairly common in shop environments. There's on campus apartments so culinary knives are allowed (although not in the dorms), so I can't have my pocket knife, but I can have a paring knife that is actually more concealable than my pocket knife. So it mostly goes unenforced unless you're doing something stupid.
well, we use weight as well for US units.
sometimes even more. But I was just talking about how the notation works. You could come up with a form of notation for the derivative that would make using our notation for partial derivative impossible. For example you can't use lagrange notation (y') to show partial derivatives because you can't specify the variable you're taking the derivative with respect to. But you can use Leibniz notation (dy/dx) because you show what variable you're taking the derivative with respect to. With our math, we switch between both of these (along with others) when we need to. In silver's case, the two sets of notation may be different enough to prevent her from using both at the same time.
well, it's more i've seen this before, I don't need to do it again. I'll just do it once in general and then plug in all my variables. As good as they are at math, engineers aren't mathematicians. So we'll get someone who is a lot better at math (a mathematican, a phd, a masters) and have them do it once in general and then everyone can do it. I guess it comes from practicality in some ways. We also don't necessarily have to have the finesse that would be expected of a mathematician. If it works, it works.
well if you think about it, that's how we learn languages. You become fluent before you even know what nouns and verbs are. It can make it more difficult to learn languages later on because you already know all the rules for the first language. If you're learning the languages side by side, this doesn't happen (although you wouldn't get the formal grammer).
[Insert Austraeoh joke here for cheap laughs.]
She must not have found the right crotch in that tree.
7853794 maybe she did and Silver didn't noticed?
7854153 for the record, I in no way brought tau into this. I want to be very clear about that. I was showing a very interesteting math tidbit that involved pi.
¡Damned DayLightsSavingsTime! ¡Abolish it and timezones too! ¡UTC/GMT everywhere now!
Guy Fawkes Day? You must be British. AFAIK, most Americans have never heard of it, never mind celebrate it. I only know of it because some British authors I've read have mentioned it.
Will Rodgers was an early 20th century comedian. (He was in some of the early Shirley Temple movies). Being part Native American, he used to tell dumb Indian jokes about his Uncle John back on the reservation. His comment on Daylight Savings Time:
"My Uncle John had a blanket that was 24 foot long, but that wasn't long enough to suit Uncle John. So, he cut a foot off the top and sewed it onto the bottom to make it longer."
Here in Arizona, we're the only state that doesn't bother with this foolishness. There is a joke about that In Phoenix we are In LA time in the Summer & Denver time in the Winter
Q What's the time difference between Phoenix & LA?
A 20 years
In Indiana it used to be that parts of the state used it & parts didn't. They decided that was too confusing, so now the whole state uses it.
#foreverEast
7854241 Lots of people heard about it when V for Vendetta came out. I graduated before that but it wouldn't surprise me if the movie's continuing popularity online meant that enough students knew about it to get word around.
Following an electrical cable while getting distracted and looking back over your shoulder sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Never give up on your dreams, some day you're manage it Silver.
I'm surprised Dori didn't pick up that Silver had missed the clocks changing. It never occurred to me before but I guess that people working overnight have to work an extra hour (or an hour less when things go the other way).
And now, with one plot thread wrapped up, we can briefly pretend there's any kind of ticking clock for this story.
Edit: So, are we just not allowed to make jokes about how long a story is unless it's written by shortskirtsandexplosions?
7853948 Brawndo has the electrolytes plants crave!
Poor Silver having to deal with the silliness of Daylight Savings. Sadly, we can't just adjust the sun manually, so we have to work around it.
7854348
There is. It's called the calendar.
7854241 Remember, remember the fifth of November, and here I live in Minnesota...
V for Vendetta certainly did awaken a lot of people to Guy Fawkes and his actions. I was vaguely familiar with it prior, but only in passing reading, I'll admit.
Maybe in two more months, Dale will start writing his own daily journal at the embassy?
7854608 Is there something wrong with implying that a story could easily go on forever if the author wanted it to?
Achievement unlocked.
Book Horse +1
Achievement Unlocked.
ALL the Socks.
7854274 I watched it in high school Government class. And no, I'm not joking.
Yep, daylight savings time is pretty stupid. Personally I'd prefer it if we just left daylight savings time on, I'm a night owl.
It's the opposite for me. It was light when I went in, and now it's dark out. Going through the lobby were it's light is enough to get me used to it being light after the dark theatre.
Too bad Silver didn't reference Nightmare Moon. I guess once the sun did rise, it was clear enough they didn't need to literally go save daylight...
7855841 That doesn't shock me, though more because I've had some experience with films for class than because I think it has any legit value as such.
Dang, now I need to read the Bible all the way through now.
7857723
I keep finding new stuff to think about every time I've read through it.
As for Daylight Saving Time: Though it supposedly was invented to save electrical power, I've decided it's a deliberate ploy to reduce the population by increasing the number of traffic accidents.
...It doubles the number of days each of us has to drive directly toward the sun.
7854478 (Electrolytes! Like the stuff inside of an automobile battery! >
This kind of sounds like a reference to The Little Prince. I guess when you can fly, that really does work on Earth.
Were you doing the DST thing on this weekend? That always messes me up; we did it on October 30 that year.
Well, that fits the day, I guess.
Planning and choreographing.
7854195
Just going to leave this here.
7853794
Correction made; thank you!
She did, although not blatantly:
I guess he started to wonder what we were up to, 'cause he turned around and looked at us to make sure that we were still there, and then he looked back at his work and a moment later he turned around again and I guess he saw what we were reading or else he saw up Meghan's skirt, or maybe both.
7854019
7854055
7854092
Of course!
It's a proven fact that some crotches are better than others.
7854126
She did--she wasn't blatant about it, but she was sitting on the bed in such a way that if he turned around he'd see right up her skirt.
7854195
I mean, in one sense how we measure time is arbitrary; there could be ten hours in a day or a hundred or whatever number we wanted. If we all went to GMT, I guess the further away from it you were the weirder things would be. I'm not sure that anyone would be happy with the thought of the sun rising at midnight and setting at noon, for example. And there is the long-running assumption that 'noon' is when the sun is directly overhead.
Plus, if you were going to do any of the survival tricks with an analog watch, you'd have to know the correction factor for your time zone.
7854241
Nope, American. And it got brought up every year I was at K, because we were a bunch of geeks.
I was working there when they changed, and it confused the hell out of everyone. They were asking me how it worked, since I was from Michigan.
It was actually kind of funny, because some people just didn't get the idea of changing what time the clock said.
7854249
7854274
We were bringing it up at college long before, but I'm sure that increased superficial American knowledge of it.
I wonder if V for Vendetta is experiencing a surge in popularity, given the current political situation here in the US? Apparently, 1984 went back on the bestseller list (I've heard; I have not verified this).
7854278
As long as you're a few hundred feet above it you're probably okay. As long as you maintain altitude.
If Rainbow goes east long enough, she will. I assume that's how Astoreah is going to end.
She probably assumes that everyone knows, and that Silver's friends would have told her. Especially these days, when cell phones change on their own.
And yes, I have worked overnights, and the shift length is affected by the change.
7854348
Well, she leaves Earth on December 31, and the journal will stop around then. So where we're at right now, there's just a little over a month before it's over.
Apparently not. I got a chuckle from the comment, 'cause it's true. This does not exactly have a tightly-focused plot.
7854478
Yup! And maybe ponies crave them, too.
7854608
I think that it's really something that we don't need, but I guess inertia means that we keep having it. I'm not sure if any study has shown a benefit.
7854637
Yeah, I didn't know the whole story before V for Vendetta, but I looked it up after watching the movie.
That's probably too much to hope for. But, I'll be moving forward on it, if not sooner than two months.
7855094
Silver Glow needs to wear socks more often.
7855841
That actually seems like a really good place to watch it.
7855844
I wouldn't mind, either. I also seem to be a night owl; unfortunately, that conflicts with my work schedule. So I don't tend to get as much sleep as I ought to.
7855911
If she'd known about it beforehand, she might have. But it appeared to her to be a normal day, at least until she found out what time it was.
7856120
I think in some ways it does, and in some ways it doesn't, and maybe it depends on what your government is currently doing. I think it could be a good springboard for discussion, though.
Or it could have been the teacher just wanting to show a movie instead of teach. Our history teacher had us watch The Princess Bride.
7857723
It's a long read, but if you've made it this far in Silver Glow's Journal, then you know that you can read something that long over about eleven months if you take it a piece at a time.
7858120
Yeah, that's one thing I don't miss about having to commute east in the morning and west in the evening. Now it's west to work and east back home, so driving into the sun isn't a problem any more.
7858890
Well, actually you can also do it by just watching the sun come over the horizon while you're standing on the beach, and then lie on your belly and see it again. Or in any number of taller buildings, going from the top down to the bottom (and that way you can see the whole thing twice). As I recall, Randall Munroe mentioned it in one of his what-ifs.
Yeah, we changed it in November, because they moved it late. I think it was in 08 that they stretched it out a couple of weeks to improve the economy or something.
That wasn't even intentional; it just worked out that way.
That's very important. You don't want to go into bedroom olympics without a little bit of planning.
7864019
Thanks! Lot of interesting stuff there that I hadn't even thought about.
7906842
Noon is noon and midnight is midnight. As it is, we are already at variance with what the clock and Sun says. The variance would just be greater.
It would be much easier to figure out longitude if one has a watch set to GMT/UTC.
7907078
IIRC the angle of the sun matters, and since you have to correct for DST, you'd presumably have to set your watch to the local time zone before you could use it to find north.
Wait a minute!
Silver was just talking to Peggy! Why is Peggy dressing like that to go see Aric and Meghan with Silver?
7930686
Silver left out the part where she left her room and went to Meghan's, so I've clarified it a little bit. Although Aric and Silver probably wouldn't object if Peggy joined them. . . .
7864019
Abolishing time zones will cause trouble, yes. But abolishing Daylight Savings Time, while keeping time zones, seems to avoid all the issues as presented in that article...
8015193
That was in response to a comment that called for abolishing time zones in addition to DST. So I'm not sure what your point is.
I call it Daylight Stupid Time for a reason.
Dammit, Benjamin!
8065064
Franklin meant it as a joke. The whole "Ben suggested it; so now, it must be a good idea." gambit is a way of sugar-coating it. The fact is that Daylight Stupid Time does not save energy. It does cause jetlag, which causes more fatal accidents from people dozing off and the increased stress causes heartattacks. The people pushing it profit from outdoor activities (golfing, tennis, gardening, et cetera). All-in-all, society looses money and lives from Daylight Stupid Time.
I say abolish Daylight Stupid Time and timezones too. ¡Let all times be GMT!
What sort of project are due on a Sunday?
8351195
They're not due on a Sunday; they're due on Monday, which essentially means that they have to be finished on Sunday (depending on Meghan and Aric's class schedules).
8065086
Seconded! Liberté! Down with ze establishament!
We don't use DST, and the only effect it's had is annoyance due to the Muricans using it.
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I wrote a BlogPost in my group the Skeptics’ Guide to Equestria about elimination of timezones and an universal calendar (the HoloceneCalendar). You might want to read it:
ISO 8601, HoloceneCalendar, & Elimination of TimeZones
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Equestria, the only place besides Australia, where having a Zombie Plan ISN'T just a fun little joke. (And in Aussieland, the usual Zombie Plan is to just hole up inside for a few days while everything else on the continent kills the zombies for them.)
Would Playboy even do that? yeah probably, if only as a publicity stunt if nothing else. Related question, would there be skeezy magazines in Equestria that treat pictures of 'tail slips' of famous ponies we do nip slips?
It reminds me of a line from Buffy season (I want to say 5). "Ever since I started hanging around with you guys, I've had to had to learn the plural of 'apocalypse'."
Eh, still better then an Ahnk-Morpork sausage. The really high end ones contain about 50% sawdust by volume. You don't want to know what the low end ones have. It's been said that the true proof that CMOT Dibbler is one of the greatest salesmen on the Disk, is that he can sell one of his Sausage-in-a-bun to someone who has already eaten one. (Also leads to a really fun scene in a later book where a character is in another country that takes food prep much more seriously, and is completely freaked out at the idea of a 'Sausage' that is 100% meat.)
Therefor, WAY better then the food they feed to people in the military. I've been on un-reps and seen the food that got brought on board. I have no shit seen boxes labeled 'Not intended for Prisoner consumption' and 'For institutional use only' (That's not even getting into having 'frozen' meat sitting in a 80-90 degree hangerbay for five or six hours by the time we moved it all down to the, by that point 60 degree or so, 'freezer'.) The ones labeled 'Grade F but edible' I've heard of, but not seen myself.
But that seemed more a case of her being the only pony (that we saw) to know about the prophecy at all, rather then the only one who believed it.
Silver, you should know by now if you knock, Meghan will answer. Her Mistress Sense would wake her up for it.
I don't think a few random days of running with a pony will really help you get in that much shape. But it makes Pony happy,. so it's still worth it.
Silver is the type that would totally look up if you told her 'Someone wrote "gullible" on the ceiling.'
Cayenne, in Chicago, during a Cubs win. What percentage of the rioting was due just to her?
Silver, just be glad you are adorable when being utterly taken in far too easily by people trolling you.
So, Cubs winning is what, the fourth of Fifth seal? Lions winning would be one higher... See this is another reason we need to be Cuddlequested, Ponies actually have experience in stopping apoclypses.
Ah, the Indian burial grounds. Yeah, Cubs on the other hand just pissed off the leader of the Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fae), so were just dealing with a single curse that eventually wore out. (Yes Dresden reference. If I mention ANYTHING the least bit supernatural related in regard to Chicago, assume it's Dresden related.)
"Once you are at the point you an't think of the thermodynamic processes that made your booze, you know you've had enough."
D'awww Pony cares for friends, must go make sure missing friend is okay!
Well, there is no way that pony nuzzles can hurt being sick, so go ahead, nuzzle ALL the sick friends!
Silver, if you can't identify what 'meat' went into some food, either don't eat it, or if you do, don't try to work it out, you will regret knowing,
And yet, she falls prey to her insatiable need to consume flesh...
And queue upset pony tummy. Time to scramble the entire emergency response team! Must not let pony be queasy!
It's not a trip to another country without at least one bout of Montezuma's revenge. Surprised it took this long for her.
That look. Is it a "Damn kids just being perverts" look to anyone getting that book, or a "How could you possibly need this for? You are a pony!" look?
Pony cheering on the people cheering on the players, while being sheered on by he friends in the stands for cheering on the cheerers... Cheerception!
Yup, if tummy is upset, just, eat some small, bland things for a bit.
Hey, we know 'The Trots' is an actual pony condition!
Of course Meghan wants to go to be as near pony as possible at all times.
See! pony just being on the sidelines is encouraging, makes people gravitate towards her, so easier to knock them out of bounds.
Just get in the shower already Pony, we all know how bad you want to.
Totally worth it, having a pony in your cheerleading squad is exponentially better then not having one.
Everyone always happy for beer pony to show up!
Seriously dude... how dead is your brain you don't instantly take the two hotties you are banging saying 'let's go to bed' as code for "time to fuck'?
New way for Meghan to get to Pony Land, write a human/pony Kama Sutra and show up on a book tour!
Yes, you are a good, and smug, pony, but you deserve it for doing all your homework right away.
See, this time they plan ahead and bring stuff for pony to eat too, anchovy sandwich... ummm, yum?
Electrolytes.... Story... just...
That image of tons of ovens and bakers would totaly be how an Equestrian cookie factory worked. And it would be amazing.
Silver, you have no idea how many people love seeing how stuff is made. Seriously, how has no one showed her that series yet!?
Yeah.... anyone who uses the phrase 'real men do/don't' is being stupid.
And here we see the time Aric tried to put himself up for a Darwin Award!
Old school ice storage FTW.
Well, she IS an "Equestrian" so, go for it!
Also Pony Sniffer FTW!
Hey, bitch, you'd be even MORE pissed if he was 'riding' the pony. He so should of made a joke like that to her.
Also, note to idiots, don't fuck with equines who are smart enough to mess right back, while riding a horse.
Silly Pone. "How do you farm antennas?"
Insatiable little sex fiends the both of them.
Hmmm, would Gatorade work well for ponies, or do they have a massively different mineral balance needed?
Does seem to have maybe super charged pony at least.
V for Vendetta, awesome movie, but not a good one for Pony to watch, and the only reason anyone outside England knows that rhyme or who Guy Fawkes is pretty much.
Go be fun time play pony. You do enough good pony school work, you deserve some fun!
New campus hazard, pegasi stealing frisbees!
Yeah, I'm sure the students put on a decent show but, no way can their cast compare to the shear raw glory that is Tim Curry,
Her entire summery is... pretty much spot on. Strange story that's hard to follow but with a lot of great musical numbers.
Good pone hit him some more! Discipline you slave for being bad and not doing his work!
Try being on ship, ALL the FUCK YOU! from our chain of command on time changes for crossing time zones. If we lost an hour, it was done in the middle of the night, so we lose sleep. If we gain an hour, it was done at the end of the workday to give us an extra hour of work.
Well, way to give away the big plot twist with the title story. Totally broke the tension over if she'd make it through or not.
They left the corn there for Pega-Snacks, and no one can prove you have any reason to think otherwise.
See, 'catch the sun' has got to be all the more odd an idea for Ponies, since all they need to do is sneak up behind Tia. Or put a slice of cake under a large box held up with a stick.
D'awwww, double dawn watching!
Notes for Cyber-Pegasus conversion additions. Tinted goggles.
Oh yay, that moment when you realize it's DST and you fucked up. Fuck that whole idea.
See, the thoughts at first, of her being all alone, not having seen anyone at all, had me thinking what if this were to switch to some kind of pony survival story of her all alone trying to find out what happened.
Pony want food! People, hurry up and give Pony noms! Pony tummy says is nom time!
Silver learns a valuable lesson, being the early birdy-pone does not in fact get you anything special, rather makes you wait for all the silly lazy humans.
Silver gets all imperious and loses the "I'm totally an innocent little pony with no thoughts about how I shall be ruling all of you soon my slaves." act when she gets hungry and denied noms.
Nice little touches to show just how ready Meghan is for Equestria, being able to read Silver's mood almost perfectly and know when joking time is stopped and hugging time is started.
See, having something mention Giaus was just funny to me, cause I just started reading Codex Alera (By same guy who writes Dresden) which is... hard to describe but also awesome. Roman Legionnaires who are all ATLA style benders by way of pokemon, fighting beast master barbarian elves, nine foot tall wolf-men, ice giants, and all ending up having to fight The Zerg, while also dealing with Game of Thrones style political backstabbing and power plays, mostly from various lords trying to take down and replace the First Lord, Giaus Sextus.
Silver, you are not alone in having no idea what is going on in Revelation
Well, it must feel like getting done reading some other long, in depth story you've spent months on... I have no idea what I might be able to compare it too though.
"Give a human an extra hour of sleep, they'll sleep half the day"
They are really prepping for the show, also, pony dance time yay!
Encouragement pony helps you get your work done!
No one stops pony from going anywhere she wants! So, did no one notice her going up there, or, did no one want to try stopping her?
Yeah, that is a good motivator, but in the bad way as you'll just half ass it to rush through to get in bed sooner.
Always guard your laundry!
See, even the dryer stealer should have known better! Serves him right. Do not cross Peggy.
But you do look like the worlds cutest pack mule, and it's adorable!
Kama Sutra time, YAY!
Right now, any old book showing human and equine positions would be in the very, very, VERY 'special' collections of only the kinkiest and most depraved collections.
Pony Wisdom "If you put something off, it's you own damn fault if you don't get it done."
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I’ll be honest, the walking dead is about the only thing that isn’t in Australia.
Yet.
Which is a quite efficient, practical way to deal with it, honestly.
I have a Playboy featuring Marge Simpson. They’d totally have a pony model for them.
Related question, would there be skeezy magazines in Equestria that treat pictures of 'tail slips' of famous ponies we do nip slips?
I honestly doubt it. My headcanon on that is that nopony cares, since everypony’s seen it already. Now on Earth, there might be magazines that show that kind of picture.
And there’s another thing that I haven’t watched. Well, I did watch the full-length movie, for what that’s worth.
Kraft Parmesan Cheese is 50% sawdust or thereabouts (it’s probably not really).
And yes, the good salesman is the one that can rip somebody off once and then return and do it again.
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Nothing like keeping our fighting forces in good health The worst I’ve ever had was raw chicken nuggets at Boy Scout camp (we didn’t eat them).
Well, a thousand years old, that’s old news. Ponies don’t care about old news.
So there’s this developmentally disabled guy I work with at my weekend job. He’s very food-motivated, and also deaf. One time, after he’d gone to bed, I opened the fridge, and when I turned around, he was standing behind me. I can only assume that he’s trained himself to feel the difference in air pressure when the fridge opens.
It probably won’t, but then it won’t hurt, either. Better than sleeping in, because it’s not being lazy, and it’s spending time with pony.
She would, and then she’d say, “No they didn’t,” and then it would take her a second or two to get that she’d just been the butt of a joke.
Probably less than 10%.
Constant adorableness never fails.
Yeah, Cubs is probably five or thereabouts. Lions is close to the last one; if the Lions go up against the Browns in a Superbowl, it’s basically all over. Get in your bunker and weld the lid shut time.
It’s nice to know that Welsh curses have a time limit. That’s thinking ahead. “I’m really mad at you right now, but in a hundred years or so, I’ll have forgotten why, so the curse can end.”
Plant water + hungry yeast = beer.
Pony always cares for friends. Especially since hugging and nuzzling is a good way for a sick pony to get better (at least, in Silver’s mind).
Exactly! In fact, I could probably find a video saying how it helps.
<googles for .2 seconds>
And there we go
Yeah, that’s good advice, especially for a pony.
Speaking of which, while it’s been my headcanon that one advantage to buying your food at a pony market is that the pony who’s selling it is probably the one who grew it, can you imagine a pony butchers? “Oh, that’s bacon from Bob. He really liked rolling around in the mud, until I killed him and butchered him.”
Can you blame her? Seafood helps her get energy, although it’s better when she catches it herself.
Fake crab salad not a good choice.
She’d do much better with actual crabs, that’s very true.
Probably a mix of both, honestly.
Let’s be honest, that’s pretty much the pony way.
Bread is always good, toasted or not . . . if you can’t keep down bread, then it’s time to go to the ER. Veggies are probably okay, and for ponies pasture grasses would be good, too.
Who had that? I always think Bon Bon, just ‘cause I had her make a joke about it in one of my stories, but I want to say it was somepony else that brought it up in the actual show.
Of course she does. Why wouldn’t she? And pony is happy with that arrangement, too.
And it would work even better if she didn’t wear her cheerleader panties. And if Cayenne tried that, she’d wind up with both football teams constantly going out of bounds near her. :rainowlaugh:
She really does. Human rules for that kind of thing are just dumb.
Agreed. That’s just obvious, or should be. She’s got good spirit, even when the team loses by a lot of points, she’s cute, and she’s a pony. What’s not to like?
She could have made a killing ferrying beer directly to dorm rooms. Like, to the windows.
Tech week/plays will do that to a man. Back in college, there was a six week period where I was doing tech for three shows back-to-back, and also sick. I never saw my roommate awake except for once during that period (came in late and left early), and I lost like 70 pounds. Not recommended, incidentally.
That’s not outside the bounds of possibility, honestly. More research is needed!
Silver Glow knows that a good pony does her work first, and then plays, not the other way around.
She would have been happy with just the anchovies. And now I’m picturing an interview with Aric regarding his roommate (like the famous YT one with Octavia) where one of his complaints about her is that she likes anchovies right from the can.
Plants love ‘em.
A season of How It’s Made, set in Equestria. Generally everything would involve lots of ponies all working together, often using rather primitive machines, and I bet that lots of people would be glued to the set from start to finish.
I love that series.
Pretty much, yeah.
I can tell you from personal experience that leaving the truck in gear with the ignition off does in fact result in a very satisfying explosion from the muffler, and a new exhaust system shortly thereafter. Man, did it echo. It was glorious.
A hole, a cold spring if you have one, and lots of straw for insulation . . . what’s not to love about it?
The trail’s basically got her name on it. There’s no reason not to.
It’s a good way to know if your friends are around, even when their trailers are empty.
That’s how you make a stuck-up old biddy explode.
There’s got to be at least one Earth pony (possibly more) who, in their time on Earth, have become a very good horse whisperer, and such a pony could probably just tell the horse to buck his rider off.
That’s an important question. How do you know when they’re tall enough to harvest? Do you plant a small cell phone antenna and let it grow into a broadcast tower?
Yes, they are. Durn college kids.
It would not work as advertised on ponies. They have a different mineral balance. (I only just now did some quick google-fu on the subject.)
A combo of the sugar in the Gatorade and the sex.
I’d just like to say that I knew who Guy Fawkes was before the movie. Years before the movie, in fact.
She does indeed.
Which would be funny the first time, less so after that. Especially if she doesn’t give them back, and stashes them high up in trees where they’ll be safe.
Nobody can compare to the sheer raw glory that is Tim Curry.
Yeah, that’s one of those plays/movies that you really can’t describe in a logical way, but when people watch it, they understand. Well, mostly. I’m sure my manager wouldn’t understand it.
She should have started hitting him three weeks ago.
That sounds about right.
She was so close to the end, of course she’d make it through.
Also it was a proud moment for me, ‘cause I read almost the entire Bible for research (I mostly skimmed Psalms and Proverbs).
I have to bet that seed corn doesn’t taste all that great, but maybe it’s okay to a pony palette. I would hope that they covered not eating a farmer’s crops in orientation (I assume ponies generally don’t anyway).
Although she’s not literally the sun.
I can’t see Twilight having tried that, but depending on how much time Princess Celestia spent with the Sparkle family, I can totally see Shining Armor making an attempt.
One of the advantages to being a pegasus, and also incontrovertible proof that the world is not flat.
Yeah, those would be useful. I wonder if the yellow-tinted ones would work well with pony vision?
Agreed; DST is dumb.
At this point in the story, especially given how much it tracked along with actual IRL events in the world, that would be a hell of a twist.
They owe her a breakfast, dammit.
That would never happen in Equestria. In part because they wouldn’t have DST; what’s the point? Celestia can make the day however long she wants it to be.
She does. Hungry pony wants food now.
The ears are a real giveaway. Pony body language is probably really easy to read for anyone who wants to.
Who’s to say that John wasn’t writing a letter to that Giaus? He might have been (he probably wasn’t).
I think I’m not alone in assuming that this is one of the earlier examples of somebody writing out what they see when they’re tripping.
Yeah, what could you possibly compare it to? I can’t think of anything that would be similar, hundreds of thousands of words, maybe take a year to read . . . .
Incidentally, SGJ is longer than the King James version of the Bible. In case you were curious.
Yes, indeed. That’s a very true fact.
If you have the opportunity, you have to. Sadly, I’ve never had the opportunity. Maybe one day.
She does, which is why they’d be such great overlords.
Odds are that nobody noticed, and even if somebody had, they wouldn’t have stopped her. It’s not like the theatre has any sort of security; I don’t think that door was ever even locked during a show.
You know damn well that Aric will half-ass it in order to get nookie more quickly.
Especially important in a college campus. The local laundromat I use occasionally is much better; they have more than enough washing machines and people don’t steal laundry that I’m aware of.
There are far worse things that she could have done with those clothes, too. Put them outside to freeze, chuck them in a waste basket, donate them to Goodwill. . . .
She is the world’s cutest pack mule sometimes.
That’s the best time.
Or in the Crystal Empire public library . . . I don’t think Cadance would censor such a book. Ponies gotta know.
There are a lot of people who ought to hear those words of wisdom.