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The governor of Idaho is named Butch Otter.  Butch.  Otter.

Counterargument: they haven't figured out how to make comic book movies.

Whoa, dawg, haven't you seen Ghost Rider II: Spirit of Vengeance?!

I think you mentioned on the old board that you were going to start taking melatonin to help you sleep, Courtney?  Melatonin can affect dreaming for some people-- I personally went from having a memorable dream once every few months to having very vivid dreams as often as a couple of times a week, and my dosage is pretty small.  Lucid dreaming (ie, dreaming when you're still half-awake) can be a side affect of a heavy dose of melatonin.  Also:

aliens

If someone believes that aliens are "among us" or are visiting earth, they're almost certainly wrong (and supposed abduction experiences are probably also lucid dreams), but given that there are probably hundreds of billions of planets in our galaxy alone, it seems unlikely that there is nowhere else in the entire universe where at least single-cell organisms live or have lived.

dark matter

There's a brand of pseudo-sciencey new ager who takes things like dark matter and quantum physics in a really weird direction, but as I understand it, there is some scientific evidence for dark matter.  The dark matter hypothesis arose due to discrepancies between the apparent gravity of galaxies and the amount of mass in the galaxy that could be calculated based on the kinds of matter we can see-- in short, in order for a galaxy to have the kind of gravity we observe, there must be some additional source of mass in addition to the stuff we know about.  Scientists began to suspect that the missing mass must be the result of some other form of matter besides conventional matter.  Astrophysicists tend to suspect that this unconventional matter is made up of a different kind of particle than the matter we know.  That particle hasn't been discovered, but by studying the movement of galaxies, scientists are pretty confident that there is "missing mass" unaccounted for by conventional matter and dark matter is at the moment the top explanation for it.  (I'm totally not a science person, so Whitney, Jeremy, and Sami could probably find some errors here)

I don't really know about multiverse theory, but I think it's another one where New Agers and scientists are talking about different things, and the former are just trying to piggyback off the latter to better sell their snake oil

I think Brett mentioned this in another thread, but for some reason my post got clipped.

Name:  Mike

Username Meaning:  I was tired of the other one (which was kinda dumb) and I love Left Behind/Bible prophecy/Rapture fiction

Location:  The Virginia Piedmont

Age: 26

Gender/Pronouns: He/him/his, mostly.  For some reason my voice is higher when I talk on the phone, and I don't mind when I'm called ma'am.

What You Do:  I work in a library.  For the first time in my life, I enjoy my job.

Favorite Music: Probably 90% is stuff that literally everyone on this board loves.  Lately, I've also been listening to some Trojan box sets, Al

Boats are dumb.

There's probably a lot of runners on the board who can give you some tips, but running isn't really the best exercise for everyone (I fall into that category).  For years, I tried to get into running but found myself gasping for breath with aching knees almost immediately.  More importantly, I became bored with it after a few minutes so I just gave up.  For nearly a year now, I've been doing interval training 5-6 times a week, and I find it far easier to push myself when I'm having fun and doing varied movements than when I'm doing something repetitive.  Have you considered exercises other than running?

I would also recommend doing a dynamic warm-up before exercising, and longer stretches afterwards.

I don't know what dubstep is.

R Mills, Texas

Oh hi, Mark.

I've been learning Arabic for a few years ^_^

Just out of curiosity, are you learning MSA, a dialect, or both?

I'm eating a bowl of Kroger-brand Grape Nuts right now for the first time.  My mind is officially blown.

I went camping in the Smokies this past weekend.  It was terrific.



There was a "First Amendment Expression Area" outside the visitor center



Next to the cairn atop Mt. Leconte.



At several points in the hike, there was thick fog, a ton of ferns and whatnot, and a lot of little streams, like it could have been a scene from a Jurassic Park movie.

I live with my mom in a city that bores me to tears most of the time.  I don't want to stay here and probably couldn't lay down roots if I tried, so I'm working on bettering myself-- I've been doing a lot of exercise and feel better physically than at any point in my life, and I'm trying to improve my Spanish.  I have a job that I like that's in my field, but it's only part time, so I'm looking for other library jobs elsewhere.  The market's bad, so the job hunt is taking way longer than expected, but I'm making it work and managing my anxiety surprisingly well right now.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: your musicianship is ridiculously great, Rory.

Anyone on the board currently learning a language, or have experiences learning languages that they didn't grow up speaking?  How did you learn, how well have you retained it, and what resources worked best for you?

It's always been a dream of mine to learn how to speak Spanish.  I took a couple years in high school and one class in college, but didn't apply myself and felt I learned nothing.  The past few months, however, have been pretty productive for me; I felt like I relearned everything I'd forgotten in school almost immediately and for some reason a lot of the things that were once super tricky (por vs. para, preterite vs. perfect, just straight up conjugating past-tense) are increasingly intuitive for me.  I read at least a couple of news articles in Spanish every day and that's usually not too difficult, but my listening comprehension is not good, especially if someone's speaking fast.  I've been able to help Spanish-speakers at my job twice, but I don't really have many opportunities to practice with actual people.  Has anyone else been in the same place?  Any advice?

I've been a Carpenters fan for a while now, but I've only recently heard these:

Seriously, Karen Carpenter had the most beautiful voice, and the more spartan mixes somehow make her sound even better.  Favorite Carpenter's songs, y'all?

talk about your diet in general and what you like to consume

My spice cabinet only consists of cinnamon, garlic powder, cumin, red pepper powder, paprika, and nutmeg. Literally every dinner I know how to cook starts off with sauteing some onions and garlic.  I like to make vegan sloppy joes with lentils, sweet potato and black bean chili with brown rice, split pea soup with hella cumin and some red pepper, white bean chili, pinto bean tacos, etc.  Basically, I eat almost only the same seven or eight very similar dishes for dinners.

Remember the old class action thread about Naked Juice or Odwalla or something?  Did anyone ever get any cold, hard cash from that yet?

I always seem to eat way too much after I cook spicy split pea soup for some reason.

My freshman year of undergrad one of my hall-mates read online that you could get really fucked up on fresh nutmeg, so he engorged himself on a whole bunch of it; he subsequently got super high, but also felt weak and confused and was bedridden for a couple days.  Everyone basically took shifts to look after him and make sure he didn't die and every time someone mentioned that maybe we should call an ambulance, he would suddenly become super animated and tell us not to.  Another time a lot of people on my hall were watching wrestling, and he begged his roommate to hit him with a metal folding chair.  Weird dude.

- it just went from clear to tornado weather outside right now  :-\

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLm5Sn1cMyQ  Be careful out there.  Tornados are the absolute worst.

Anyone else on the board a Chris Gethard show fan?  Every year on the night before Thanksgiving, they have something called Sandwich Night, where the entire hour-long show consists of watching people in a TV studio make and eat sandwiches.  It's amazing and somehow not boring.

This is Mike WK.  I didn't like my old name that much, and I didn't know if I wanted to do something mundane or something more colorful like "Juggalo for 9/11 Truth."  I guess I went the mundane route.