NY Times Building New Years 1905

[NKP guy]

   Even as a thrice-daily dog walker, chiefly in parks, I found Morels only twice in 35 years.  Then, one day last year, 11 of them, all at once in one spot!  Talk about feeling like a lottery winner!

   They're delicious; in my opinion much better than nearly all other varieties of mushrooms.

   Being a Carpatho-Rusyn, Lady NKP has nearly 60 years of mushroom knowledge and experience, plus a bunch of books to help her correctly identify them.  She's also a terrific cook.

   Early in our courtship I noticed that she left in the frying pan some of the mushrooms she had made for dinner.  When I inquired as to why, she replied, "For the coroner, just in case."  

[Flintlock76]

Decades ago my grandmother knew an old woman in the neighborhood who was good at picking wild mushrooms, the ones to take and the ones to leave alone, and never got it wrong.

Then one day she died (natural causes) and after that Grandma got her mushrooms at the A&P, she wasn't going to take any chances. 

Interestingly, at least once a year, usually in the spring, the North Jersey papers run "Don't pick wild mushrooms, get them at the supermarket!" articles, because every year, guess what happens?    

[Miningman]

We are blessed up here with Morels, Wild Rice, Wild Blueberries and Saskatoons ( looks like a big blueberry)... it's actually a pome, very high in antioxidants...the City of Saskatoon is named after this berry. Wild Rice grows like grass up here, in wet areas, which is basically everywhere. 

Another treat in abundance is something called Rat Root. It's looks like a thick twig, tastes a bit like licorice but sharp as horseradish. It's one of those claimed cure all for everything but I enjoy chewing on it, especially at work. 

[Deggesty]

My mother taught me how to handle puffballs--small white mushrooms that spring up overnight; go out early while dew is still on the grass, pick the puffballs, put the skillet with butter in it on the stove, clean and slice the puffballs, and sautee in the butter (don't slice the great big ones--all you will get will be spores).

[Flintlock76]

Gee, how did we get from the old New York Times building to mushrooms?

Amazing.

You know, there'd be sourpusses on the "Trains" Forum howling to the moderators over this!  Thank goodness we don't have to deal with 'em here!

[M636C]

Could we go back to Star Trek briefly?

Here in Australia, where we are all inside sheltering from fires or much more widely, the smoke therefrom, I have watched some daytime television...

At the same time we had original Star Trek, Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Voyager running at different times on the same TV station.

Lately they stopped running "Next Generation" and replaced it with "Star Trek Enterprise" which is in 16 x 9 format so must be newer than the others...

How old is "Star Trek Enterprise"?

Why is the Enterprise registered NX 1 instead of NCC 1701?

Just to keep me interested until it is safe to go outdoors again...

Peter

[Overmod]

It is a strange thing indeed, but just yesterday morning I was looking at an immensely-satisfying color picture (plate opposite p.168 in the Crown "The Great Trains" book) of two early ATSF PAs, from 1947 ... with a C&EI E7 nose visible in the left background ... and thinking 'gee, you never see pictures or discussion of C&EI  passenger trains; I wonder how many people on the Classic Trains forum know what that is...'

 

The NX-01 is so named because it is the eXperimental ship from which all the other Federation starships were supposedly designed.  Despite its design language being considerably more refined and modern than the original NCC (which is supposed to mean, possibly more than a bit retconned, 'Naval Construction Contract) 1701.  And 1701A,B,C,D ... insert silliness to preserve franchise.

There is a pretty good explanation, as these things go, from Doug Drexler (who laid out NX-01) on the Ex Astris Scientia site.  As I have never particularly thought highly of any of these things as functional warships of any kind, that should serve as an entry point for a good amount of the necessary entertainment you're seeking with a minimum of curmudgeonry.

[Deggesty]

Flintlock76

Gee, how did we get from the old New York Times building to mushrooms?

Amazing.

You know, there'd be sourpusses on the "Trains" Forum howling to the moderators over this!  Thank goodness we don't have to deal with 'em here!

 

Did we, perhaps, go down into the basement?

[Flintlock76]

"Star Trek Enterprise" ran from 2001 to 2005.

Quite honestly I didn't care for it at all, in fact the only impression I got was the franchise was starting to run out of steam.  No fault of the actors, the casting was fine, but I found the stories pretty lackluster.  

One thing I will mention though is, I'm still impressed after 50+ years of the genius of Matt Jeffries and the team that came up with the design of the original Enterprise.  Gene Roddenberry asked the crew to design him a spaceship that exuded power, but without effects like flame, smoke, or other kinds of exhaust.  The succeeded brilliantly, in my opinion anyway.  50 years on and the old Enterprise still looks good!  In fact, it doesn't surprise me that the starships that came after it were variations on the original.  How do you beat (near) perfection?

And of course the ship itself is part of the dramatis personae.  In the vacuum of space you wouldn't need streamlining or exotic stying, a large block would do for a ship, but how dramatic would that be?

And I still think it was a mistake to kill Enterprise NCC-1701 in "Star Trek 3, The Search For Spock!"  They should have stolen and lost Excelsior, not "The Big E!"