Harpo’s House of Haphazard Happenings, Humorous Hilarity, and Heartfelt Hodgepodge

  • Quote of the Day - "I keep myself amused and others confused" ~ Benedict Cumberbatch

My late Dad loved Pabst beer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Always served it to me even when I'm underage.
My sister took me to the Pabst Brewery tour on my Milwaukee trip during the 2025 NLCS.
Surprisingly the Pabst glass pour beer tasted better than the Pabst cans on my tour. I do not like Pabst anymore since I'm spoiled with Guiness, Fosters, Corona, Modelo, German beers, local brews.
 
Here's the tour gathering place. I wish they had pretzels. Pabst told the story about their success and downfall.
Pabst Brewery tour gathering place.jpg
 
HarpoSF said:
It rained off and on most of the day yesterday, but nothing today. It is supposed to rain for a few hours tomorrow night and off and on most of Sunday, though.

I will do my grocery shopping and laundry between downpours.
Click to expand...
Is you hair okay:ROFLMAO:?
 
(I knew this thread would come in handy some day... no defacedbook to waste time on? No problem! Thanks, Phil... but you know... you will be sorry!)

I would just like to point out that yours truly is currently in First Place for NFL Picks Weak 11!!! (Yeah, so, I might be tied with several others... but still... )

Of course, the rest of this week's picks are all looking pretty shabby...
 
Sofi Stadium-Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels of Anaheim proposed indoor place for rainy winters.
 
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - 2025 Home run totals
Leaders:

Jo Adell, Centerfield - 37 home runs. 98 RBI's. Batting average 0.236.
Taylor Ward, Left Field - 36 home runs. 103 RBI's. Batting average 0.228
Zach Neto, Shortstop - 26 home runs. 62 RBI's. Batting average 0.257.
Mike Trout. Designated Hitter - 26 home runs. 64 RBI's . Batting average 0.232
Logan O'Hoppe - Catcher - 19 home runs, 43 RBI's. Batting average 0.213
 
Shivering cats and kittens from the cold winter rains outdoors.
Wet and shivering cats enter special indoor house room chambers. Where air purifying mist cleans the cats and kittens from the shivering cats.
Steam warming cats and kittens are air cleaned from the dirt and debris from the outside.
Cats and kittens rest.
Next dry heat sucks up water and wet fur from the cats and kittens
Slowly the cats and kittens slowly regain normalcy in body, fur, warmth sensation.
Purifying air Transends the cats and kittens.
Cats and kittens then exits the chambers indoors for a return of normalcy.
 
Harposf the cat: This sounds crazy.
Loyalsoxfan2 the cat: What ideal did this came from? MIT?
Splinter the cat: Brilliant ideal. Great for me in Eastern Washington.
Soxtrot the cat: Does fromcal the cat always come up with more cat obsessions?
Demonsbaby the cat: New invention.
 
abacadaba I will turn SoFi Stadium into a baseball field for rainy winters in So Cal.
Sofi Stadium inside.jpg
 
Do you think the dimensions are still okay for a Baseball diamond? I know that both Candlestick Park and the Oakland Coliseum were dual Baseball-Football stadiums, but they were pretty cr*p really.
 
I proclaim the extension of baseball season played indoors from the winter rains and Mammoth Mountain ski area snow blizzard.
 
St*pid, useless cunning linguist post of the day:

(grab a comfy seat and a cold drink or hot beverage of your choice, this is gonna be a lengthy post)

When I was going through Basic Roosky training at the Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey (wayyyyy back in 1978), my primary instructor/teacher (“учительница” [pronounced “oo-CHEETEL-neetsa”, or close ‘nuff fer Gub’mint work] in Roosky-speak) was Gospozha (which is just “Mrs.” when translated into Angliski) Valentina Drage. She told us this pretty funny story about when she first came to Amerika as a little girl.

Prior to emigrating to the States, her family lived for a short while in Germany. (This was all probably before WWII had even started.) She picked up a smattering (not sure how to say that in either Roosky or Deutsch, though) of German. When her family moved to the U.S., they lived in New York City.

During her family’s first summer in the States, they came to really love corn-on-the-cob. One day her mother sent little Valentushka to the corner grocery market to pick up some more for dinner. Unfortunately, when she got to the store, she could not remember the American-English word “corn”. She got flustered and blurted out that she wanted to buy some “Mais” (which is the German word for “corn” and sounds a lot like “mice”).

The shopkeeper was taken aback and told her, this is a grocery market, not a pet store. And then asked her exactly what she wanted with the “mice”. She then explained that they boiled the “mice”, and put butter and salt on them, and they were delicious! By this point, the poor shopkeeper was thinking that these fuzzy li’l ferreners would eat just about anything. He explained again to Valentina that they did not sell “mice” there. She was adamant and told him they had bought some there before and, on the verge of tears, exclaimed the Roosky word for “corn” ~ “кукуруза” (which is pronounced as “koo-koo-ROOZA” for those of you non-Cyrillic readers). It so happened that the shopkeeper was of Roosky decent himself and said, “Oh! You want to buy some ‘corn’!”

I started with that little anecdote basically to explain the etymology of the word “maize”. Most of the rest of the English-speaking World uses this word when they are talking about ears of corn, anyway. The word “maize” derives from the Spanish word “maíz” (pronounced “ma-EEZ”) which came from the original Taino word “mahis” (sorry, there is not a corresponding pronunciation for Taino in Google Translate; I just assume the Spanish word was close enough).

In addition to German, many other foreign languages base their word for “corn” (‘cause prior to 1492, they had never needed a word for it) on the Spanish word “maíz”. Ferinstance:

Italiano ~ “mais” (pronounced fairly close to “mice”, too)
French ~ “maïs” (pronounced “may-EES”)
Afrikaans ~ “mielies” (pronounced “mill-EES”)
Danish ~ “majs” (also pronounced close to “mice”)
Dutch ~ “maïs” (yet still another small rodent sounding pronunciation)
Esperanto ~ “maizo” (sorry, Google Translate does not seem to think it necessary to provide a pronunciation for the great nation of Esperant)
Estonian ~ “mais” (pronounced “ma-EES”)
Filipino/Tagalog ~ “mais” (pronounced “ma-EES”; of course, many Filipino words come from Spanish words)
Finnish ~ “maissi” (pronounced “micey”)
Icelandic ~ “maís” (also pronounced close enough to “mice”)
Swedish ~ “majs” (also pronounced similar to “mice”)

Unfortunately, I have no idea where the Roosky word may have come from. However, several other Slavic and Eastern European languages also use variations of “kukuruza” for “corn”.

(And just how come you never hear of a seasonal “Maize Maze”?
And if the Say Hey Kid ever started one, would that be a “Mays’ Maize Maze”?!)
 
That's an a-mais-ing story (sorry) lol It's always interesting to me how many words are very similar in so many languages (which makes sense I guess, because that's how languages evolve)

As a follow up, google tells me this:

"The English word corn ultimately comes from the Proto-Germanic word kurną, meaning grain or seed. This goes back further to Proto-Indo-European ǵrH-no-, also meaning grain."
 
Well that is funny, and fascinating! Because I always thought the Maize was the Native American work for corn that was picked up by settlers when they came over from europe. The word is very prominent in Michigan where we refer to the U of M sports teams as the "maize and blue" because of the color of the U of M logo.

iu
 
Dear Harposf:

Why is that whenever I go to the dentist, they are always obsessed with wrong with my teeth?
 
You can’t even go to Jiffy Lube for a simple oil change anymore because they say several repairs are needed
 
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