USO Canteen FReeper Style ~ Pancakes on Wednesday ~ 03 September 2003

Canteen FRiends ~ Radix

[Radix]

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Thank the Veterans who served in
The United States Armed Forces.

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Pancakes on Wednesdays

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Welcome to Pancakes on Wednesdays.

Wednesday September 3, 2003

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Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts and seemingly useless data.

Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks.

We have links, lots of them.

SNOLLYGOSTER

A shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician.

This is another of that set of extroverted and fanciful words that originated in the fast-expanding United States of the nineteenth century (I see a snollygoster as a outsized individual with a carpetbag, flowered waistcoat, expansive demeanour and a large cigar). These days it’s hardly heard. Its last burst of public notice came when President Truman used it in 1952, and defined it, either in ignorance or impishness, as “a man born out of wedlock”. Many people put him right, some quoting this definition from the Columbus Dispatch of October 1895, with its splendid last phrase in the spirit of the original: “A Georgia editor kindly explains that ‘a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy’.” But an American dictionary fifty years earlier had defined it simply as a shyster. The origin is unknown, though the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it may be linked to snallygoster, which some suppose to derive from the German schnelle Geister, literally a fast-moving ghost, and which was a mythical monster of vast size—half reptile, half bird—supposedly found in Maryland, and which was invented to terrify ex-slaves out of voting.

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THE MAPLE SYRUP SONG

(to the tune of Miss Mary Mack)

Oh, first you tap, tap, tap,
To get the sap, sap, sap
Then pour the buckets, buckets, buckets,
Into the vat, vat, vat.

Oh, stoke the fire, fire, fire,
Until it's hot, hot, hot,
And then you boil it, boil it, boil it,
Don't let it stop, stop, stop.

The steam goes up, up, up,
The sap boils down, down, down,
Until it turns, turns, turns,
A nice amber brown, brown, brown.

It smells so good, good, good,
It tastes so great, great, great,
So pile those pancakes, pancakes, pancakes,
High on my plate, plate, plate.

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Happy Birthday

Ferdinand Porsche 1875

I am an excellent driver.

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Alan Ladd 1913

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Valerie Perrine 1943

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George Biondo (Steppenwolf) 1945

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Donald Brewer (Grand Funk Railroad) 1948

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Jennifer Paige 1973

See ya blowin' me a kiss
It doesn't take a scientist
To understand what's going on baby
If you see something in my eye
Let's not over analyze
Don't go too deep with it baby
So let it be what it'll be
Don't make a fuss and get crazy over you and me
Here's what I do, I play it loose
Not like we have a date with destiny

(CHORUS)
It's just a little crush
Not like I faint everytime we touch
It's just some little thing
Not like everything I do depends on you
Sha la la la, sha la la la
Sha la la la, sha la la la

It's raising my adrenaline
You're bangin' on a heart of tin
Please don't make too much of it baby
Say the word forevermore
That's not what I'm looking for
All I can commit to is maybe
So let it be what it'll be
Don't make a fuss and get crazy over you and me
Here's what I do, I play it loose
Not like we have a date with destiny

CHORUS

Vanilla skies, white picket fences in your eyes
A vision of you and me

CHORUS

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1783 - The Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Great Britain ended with the Treaty of Paris.

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Todays Wednesday field trip takes us to a strange place.

An amazing country where everyone is flatter than a pancake.
It is a land that exists in only two dimensions!

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1838 - Frederick Douglass boarded a train in Matryland on his way to freedom from being a slave.

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Russian Pancakes

Ingredients
2 cups milk
1 tbsp. sugar
1 package active dry yeast
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. melted butter or margarine
3 eggs, separated
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
Caviar
Smoked salmon
Minced onion
Sour cream

Method

Scald milk, pour into a large bowl. When lukewarm, add sugar and yeast, mixing well to dissolve yeast. Stir in 1 cup all-purpose flour; cover bowl and set in warm place until "sponge" doubles in volume (about 1-1/2). Combine butter, egg yolks and salt. Stir down the sponge and add butter-egg mixture, along with buckwheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry, then gently fold into batter. Cook batter, one tablespoonful per blini, on a hot buttered griddle or skillet. Flip blini to brown second side after batter appears set on top. Cover blini with a towel and hold in 200° oven until serving. Accompany blini with caviar, smoked salmon, minced onion, sour cream - creative self-service.

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1939 - British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in a radio broadcast, announced that Britain and France had declared war on Germany. Germany had invaded Poland on September 1.

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1999 - Mario Lemieux's ownership group officially took over the National Hockey League's Pittsburgh Penguins. Lemieux became the first player in the modern era of sports to buy the team he had once played for.

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Miranda eats 1 pancake. Gina eats 1 pancake. How many do they eat all together?

About a hundred pancakes.

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Three pancakes.

You have a hat in which there are three pancakes: One is golden on both sides, one is brown on both sides, and one is golden on one side and brown on the other. You withdraw one pancake, look at one side, and see that it is brown. What is the probability that the other side is brown?  

A) The chance is two out of three. The pancake you withdraw had to be one of only two of them: the brown/brown one or the brown/golden one. And of the three brown sides you could be seeing, two of them also have brown on the other side.  

B) Only two pancakes have brown sides, and one of them has brown on only one side. There is a 50% chance that you are looking at the one with brown on both sides.

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German Pancakes.

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The Möbius stip is the simplest geometric shape which has only one surface and only one edge. It can be created by taking a strip of paper, giving it a half twist along its long axis, and then joining the two narrow ends together.   The Möbius strip in 3 dimensions can be represented parameterically f(s,t) as follows

   

where s ranges from 0 to 2*pi and t ranges typically from -0.4 to 0.4

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Pancakes Wednesdays

Definitely

 

[HiJinx]

200?

[Old Sarge]

GUESS WHERE SARGE IS TAKING THE FAMILY?

We just got BALCONY seating for Sarge, The Missus, and The Boy for the matinee show in Louisville on the 28th!

We fell in love with the show ever since it first came to these shores, and wonder of wonders, The Boy wants to learn!

THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!

[HiJinx]

Well, looks like you get the fast fingers award for 200, BG!

[blackie]

Waylon Jennings ... an original!

[Soaring Feather]

Wow this is great Sarge. The dancers are terrific preformers to be sure. WOO HOO!!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hmmm...should be home by now. After 4p on the east coast. Speaking of first days, is your son home from his first day of watching over freshmen?

BTW, instead of going back to yesterday's thread and trying to find it...I almost fell off of my chair laughing at "You Rang?" and Hobbes!! Priceless!!!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Did you remember to eat?

[HiJinx]

Thanks for the reminder, Kathy, I almost forgot!
Hey, Mojo! Here are my picks. What do I win?

Thursday, Sep. 4

N.Y. Jets blow by Washington

Sunday, Sep. 7

Arizona burns Detroit
Baltimore skewered by Pittsburgh
Denver kicks Cincinnati
Houston bottled up by Miami
Indianapolis races past Cleveland
Jacksonville clawed by Carolina
Minnesota packs it in at Green Bay
New England stands firm at Buffalo
San Diego is scalped in Kansas City
St. Louis scampers over N.Y. Giants
Atlanta flies past Dallas
Chicago pans the 49ers in San Francisco
New Orleans gets picked clean by Seattle
Oakland gets ba-ad with Tennessee

Monday, Sep. 8 - Tie-Breaker

And finally, the Tampa Bay Bucs fall prey to the Eagles, 21-10 in Philadelphia

So? What do I win? I picked all the games! All you gotta do is pick, right? Right?

[PigRigger]

Thanks, hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

[Kathy in Alaska]

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Umbizza from Eagle Troop, 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, breaks in the door of an abandoned building, where an improvised explosive device and a cache of hand grenades were spotted, northeast of Fallujah, Iraq, Aug. 27, 2003. The soldiers from Eagle Troop are participating in an Army-wide operation to search a large sector of Iraq for illegal weapons. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Derek Gaines

Soldiers from the Grimm Troop, 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and 498th Engineer Battalion, a National Guard unit from Arkansas, attached to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment , form a daisy chain to move artillery rounds at a collection point northeast of Fallujah, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Grimm Troop is participating in a mission to search Iraq for illegal munitions, Aug. 29, 2003. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Derek Gaines

[HiJinx]

Did you notice SouthernHawk picked up on it, too? Back around 180 or 140, I think.

Wasn't tomkow6 talking about Hobbes? I thought sure he was...

A golden oldie from the Afghan campaign...

[HiJinx]

The first day went great, he's such a...hmmm..what's the word? He really enjoys the idea of being in charge of the 'little kids.' Yeah, he's going to be a great Senior!

[Radix]

 

 

Political Commentary by Edward Scissorhands

 

[Kathy in Alaska]

Thanks for leaving them up a bit. If I haven't gotten them by the next day, that's my problem. I love "Amanda". Still listening. LOL!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Mr S, those one liners are great!! Thanks for sharing.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Tow truck: Glenn Kaifas pulls a 25,000-pound dumptruck at an amateur strongman contest in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

[firewalk]

Hi BIS! I have been thinking about you. Glad you stopped around

Thanks bentfeather
hope you're having a good day (-:

[Kathy in Alaska]

Thanks always, Rags, for the links to the human stories, and the ones that the press won't allow the masses to see. I'm working on the kid thingy.

[Kathy in Alaska]

You can be the Seabiscuit of frogs! Six-year-old Kade Stutes gives Bryan a pep talk before the big frog-jumping competition at the Rayne (La.) Frog Festival. Alas, Bryan failed to make it to the finals.

[aomagrat]

Wednesday's weird warship, the Italian Navy Duilio class battleships

Displacement. 12071 t.
Lenght. 358.2'
Beam. 64.8'
Draft 27.4'
Speed 15 kts
Complement. 420
Armament. 4 17.7" muzzle loaders, 5 4.7", 16 57mm, 4 14" torpedo tubes

Laid down in 1878 and commissioned in 1882, the Duilio and Dandolo were armed with two pairs of giant 17.7 inch guns. The only other battleships to carry bigger guns were the Japanese Musahi and Yamato in WWII.

They caused quite a stir when they joined the Italian Navy. Nothing at sea in 1882 could resist the sledgehammer blows from the 17.7" muzzle loading (that's right, muzzle loading) rifled guns. However their rate of fire was only one round in 15 minutes. They were the first ships in the world with steel armor, 12.5" maximum thickness. They were subdivided into 83 watertight compartments. The two twin turrets were disposed en echelon, to port and starboard admidship to allow a degree of end on fire as well as to allow all four guns to be trained on either beam.

The Duilio was decomissioned in 1909 and turned into a floating oil tank. The Dandolo was modernized in 1900, with 10" breech loaders replacing the 17.7" muzzle loading monsters. She was decomissioned in 1920 and scrapped in 1923.