The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[g'nad]

Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!...

[Sam Cree]

Hi, g'nad, it's great to see you, been kind of lonely around here...are those things any good to eat?

The weather map makes it look pdcold in VA, I see 2 cold fronts went through, back to back, recently

[Overtaxed]

Good Morning,

Just a same old Tuesday here. My samples are in (Yay!) Highs will be in the low 40's here (or so the weather weenies say) and I'm ready for second breakfast!

[g'nad]

orc is very gamey, with alotta gristle... make sure you got a couple'a ggod toothpicks handy...

temps in the upper 20's... the Chopawampsic is iced over... beautiful view of the sunrise from my window...

Sunrise brings it's golden glory
transforming grey skeletons to delicate webs of red
birds dancing over the frozen waters
in a frenzied ballet of flashing feathers
with frigid beauty contrasts my heart...

The broad empty sky,
lifeless, impassionate, cold
Like my life before... without...

She is the sunrise, that brings a new day,
moves the world from death to life
She is the sunrise that turns greys to gold,
makes warm what was cold,
new from what was old...

she still brings me joy...
She brings light to all around her,
a beautiful song that lifts the sad heart..

[Sam Cree]

I think it's about to get colder in North Carolina, OT.

Where is Oak Ridge, and what did you guys find in the water?

I remember reading, a couple years ago about some really bad stuff, sounded like wisteria, that was in the tidal waters of NC and VA.

[Overtaxed]

Where is Oak Ridge, and what did you guys find in the water?

Oak Ridge, TN where the nuclear lab and stuff is. Found lots of DDT,PCB's, and mercury in the fish. Didn't eat fish for years after that.

Why are guvmint facilities big polluters?

[Sam Cree]

That's a cool and touching poem, where does it come from?

Reminds me of when I'm sitting freezing in a tree, waiting for the sun to touch me. Wonder why, though, it always gets even colder, or feels like it does, right after it starts to get light.

[g'nad]

I wrote it... watching the sunrise...

[RosieCotton]

I wrote it... watching the sunrise...

I suspected as much. Very nice! And you told us you couldn't write...silly dwarf!

[Sam Cree]

You're kidding, that poem is great, I'm gonna save it to Word...makes sense that you are the author, though, as not everyone sits outside watching sunrises. Thanks for posting it.

Are you ever on CoteBlanche's thread?

[Sam Cree]

Where do you suppose the mercury came from?

They've got some signs posted in places around the Everglades warning of mercury levels in some of the fish there. Not sure if anyone really knows how it gets in them.

[Overtaxed]

Where do you suppose the mercury came from?

From the guvmint lab!

[RosieCotton]

So...mini review of what I think of the three whistles I got, so far at least:

Sweetone: VERY easy to play (number one of the three), nice mellow tone, somewhat quiet. My brother was over and pronounced it a good 'un. He also liked that it's plain, shiny metal. He wants one like it now!

Walton (Little Black D): Relatively easy to play, fingering wise, but...I don't know if the one I got needs tweaking or if they're SUPPOSED to sound like this, but it has an odd, almost gurgling sound (maybe some would call it throaty instead?) and a tendency to squeak. I don't like it.

Susato Dublin: Hardest to play, I think, though I LOVE the feel of the mouthpiece. It's short, and just rests on your lip nicely. Switching octaves is harder than on the others (it's pretty much effortless on the Sweetone), and it requires more air. It's really, really LOUD! LOTS of tonal character - it has a very different sound, but I like it a lot.

Conclusion: I like both the Sweetone and the Dublin a lot. I need more practice before I can play the Dublin without a lot of dropping down an octave accidentally or otherwise messing up, but I like the sound of it enough that it will be worth a little practice. The Sweetone is so easy to play, it almost seems like cheating. Not that I'm any good on it, but it's a fun one!

[g'nad]

thank you kindly... I've been very introspective lately...

[Overtaxed]

The Sweetone has a plastic mouthpiece, right? Every whistle I have with a plastic mouthpiece plays easier/better after clearing it with a piece of Emory board. Did you have to do anything like that or am I just lousy at breaking in new whistles?

[RosieCotton]

The Sweetone played nicely from the start. Maybe I got lucky, but we have about three Sweetones kicking around now, among various family members. Maybe that's what the Walton needs, though? I don't know...it really sounds nasty, IMO.

[Overtaxed]

Actually, I didn't have to do anything to the C Meg mouthpiece. The Feadog had a piece of plastic from the box stuck in the mouthpiece. Even after I got rid of the box piece, it squeaked and switched from low to high octaves erratically and with less air than you would expect. The D Meg did pretty much the same thing and cleaning out the mouthpiece with an emory board fixed the problem with both whistles.

[RosieCotton]

Maybe I'll try that with the Walton, then, and give it another chance. Maybe I'm being too hard on it? ;-) I really don't like the sound of it now!

[Overtaxed]

Can you play anything off the Starkindler CD yet?

[Wneighbor]

and i probably would have just eaten those fish