The Song Fight Bulletin Board

fluffy wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:57 am

Is that safe to do? Aren’t most random mushrooms highly toxic and you have to be absofuckinglutely sure of what you’re eating?

You're statistically better off eating random mushrooms than random plants, in terms of ratio of edible to toxic species. Death caps give them a bad reputation. Plus there's a learning curve cause you've gotta familiarize yourself with the various genera and their distinct features.

And I don't eat them unless I am indeed absofuckinglutely sure what they are! Specifically, these were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvatia_cyathiformis
. And they're good!

Æpplês&vØdkã wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:18 am

fluffy wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:57 am

Is that safe to do? Aren’t most random mushrooms highly toxic and you have to be absofuckinglutely sure of what you’re eating?

You're statistically better off eating random mushrooms than random plants, in terms of ratio of edible to toxic species. Death caps give them a bad reputation. Plus there's a learning curve cause you've gotta familiarize yourself with the various genera and their distinct features.

And I don't eat them unless I am indeed absofuckinglutely sure what they are! Specifically, these were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvatia_cyathiformis
. And they're good!

whoa! I've never seen a purple puffball. I've eaten the white ones and they don't taste especially good IMO, to the point that the last time my husband found one, we just cut it open and poked it a bunch because it's really pleasing to touch, and then threw it away instead of eating it.

my husband and I forage for mushrooms as well, mostly morels and chicken of the woods, and I have a very healthy respect for them being potentially deadly, I refuse to try anything that is not in the foolproof four and honestly I would probably have misgivings about chanterelles too, but we've never found any. Morels are the tastiest mushrooms I've ever had (maybe tied with lion's mane), it's too bad they can't be cultivated.

owl wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 12:25 pm

Æpplês&vØdkã wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:18 am

fluffy wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:57 am

Is that safe to do? Aren’t most random mushrooms highly toxic and you have to be absofuckinglutely sure of what you’re eating?

You're statistically better off eating random mushrooms than random plants, in terms of ratio of edible to toxic species. Death caps give them a bad reputation. Plus there's a learning curve cause you've gotta familiarize yourself with the various genera and their distinct features.

And I don't eat them unless I am indeed absofuckinglutely sure what they are! Specifically, these were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvatia_cyathiformis
. And they're good!

whoa! I've never seen a purple puffball. I've eaten the white ones and they don't taste especially good IMO, to the point that the last time my husband found one, we just cut it open and poked it a bunch because it's really pleasing to touch, and then threw it away instead of eating it.

my husband and I forage for mushrooms as well, mostly morels and chicken of the woods, and I have a very healthy respect for them being potentially deadly, I refuse to try anything that is not in the foolproof four and honestly I would probably have misgivings about chanterelles too, but we've never found any. Morels are the tastiest mushrooms I've ever had (maybe tied with lion's mane), it's too bad they can't be cultivated.

Well there's two main types that show up around here, and the purple ones are only purple when they're old! When you find them and they're young they're as white as all of the others...and if they're purple they're not good eating. Puffballs are boring by themselves but they soak up other flavors really well.

I love chanterelles, we get them a lot in the summer around here. And morels...rare in this part of the country but oh so good. My morel patch and my lion's mane spot are really close to each other, so I just kind of head to the same woods and get different gourmet species depending on the time of year. And there's a chicken of the woods tree behind my neighbor's house.

Basically it's my *other* hobby that's not music making. Hence using names like Phlebia and Sebacina for my tracks here :p

Currently cooking dinner from all the leftovers in the fridge, and listening to I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats. John is talking about only wanting to own the same backpack forever and I’m all, come on John, live a little. Except then he said he bought it in Australia and I immediately knew it was a Crumpler. I looked it up, and yes. I, too, have been team Crumpler for 20 years now and am on board for life. I do try different styles out, but I understand.

https://pca.st/episode/5964d419-f8df-44 ... cf08518963

Mmmm I love a good bag.

I refuse to ever again have a laptop bag that doesn't include a thing that slides over a suitcase handle. Once I got a bag that had that feature, it was basically life-changing. If you travel even a moderate amount with a laptop bag, the amount of effort you spend trying to keep that bag on top of your suitcase is considerable. And if you want to just carry it, you find yourself lugging 10 pounds around for miles in a day when the top of your wheeled suitcase is just sitting there.

4-wheeled suitcase
Laptopbag with handle-strap/pouch thing

REQUIRED.

my husband is out of town and I had it in my head that I'd go out and do some Halloween partying tonight--a friend's band is playing a 15-minute walk away and a bunch of friends are there--but I got stuck on the couch binge-watching Glitch on Netflix instead and I'm very comfortable now.

So it turns out our daylight savings time hasn’t been abolished. Hooray!

Heck of a weekend.

Went to TarraWarra Gallery to view the Archibalds. Some great pieces, and in particular i enjoyed David Darcy's "Tjuparntarri - women's business", Clara Adolphs' "Rosemary Laing and Geoff Kleem (in their garden)" which used an absence of paint to provide highlights in a wonderful way, and my absolute favourite was Benjamin Aitken's "Fiona Lowry" which just grabbed me and wouldn't let go. The pose and the colour palette, are just gorgeous.

My daughter fell for Anh Do's "Art and war". She was particularly taken by the heavy application of paints, and the way Anh incorporated other prints throughout the picture.

After the gallery we went for a picnic, and because it rained so much we setup in the back of the wagon and had a belter of a time singing along to Ella Fitzgerald while eating cheese and bread.

At the end of the day, I stood on a hillside in the sunshine, eating icecream (yeah - Melbourne weather changes often), looked out over the vineyards, and marveled that I get to live on the doorstep of these beautiful rolling hills.

Today, I'm back at work and my sinuses are dealing with the aftermath of all that cheese and ice-cream. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Recently I finally figured out that I almost certainly have ADHD, which explains a hell of a lot about my various "quirks" and the things I've struggled with all my life, both career-wise and in terms of interpersonal relationships.

I shared this revelation with my therapist and her response was, "Wait, didn't you know that already?"

fluffy wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 28, 2019 2:57 pm

Recently I finally figured out that I almost certainly have ADHD, which explains a hell of a lot about my various "quirks" and the things I've struggled with all my life, both career-wise and in terms of interpersonal relationships.

I shared this revelation with my therapist and her response was, "Wait, didn't you know that already?"

I was diagnosed as a preteen, and still struggle with easy distractibility to this day. I took meds for it for a couple years (Adderall) but weaned off freshman year of high school cause I kind of resented my parents making me take prescription amphetamines...but then I spent the next decade and a half chugging way too much coffee for pretty much the same effect. I dunno, maybe my teeth and stomach lining would prefer less coffee.

Nah, I'll just drink espresso. Less acidic. Does coffee count as OTC ADHD meds?

I mean it turns out I was self-medicating with way too much caffeine for a long time, but then I started getting panic attacks and had to go cold turkey. And for some strange reason that's about when I stopped being able to stay focused on work, go figure.

I had to get rid of coffee for several months in 2017. Gastritis was to blame. Apparently my diet of black coffee, grapefruit for breakfast, and habit of smothering everything in hot sauce wasn't helping much. Thought about completely cutting it but instead I switched to these "focus plus" capsules that mix caffeine with l-theanine (an amino acid found in green tea). Helps inrease the focus aspect of caffeine and decrease the jitters a bit.

Now I'm "back on the bean", and on a big Americano kick.

Anyway I’m finally getting a formal screening for this in about a month and hopefully I can get a prescription for one of the newer non-stimulant medications. I have no desire to find out how much Adderall makes me I’m going to die.

(Although I’m willing to try it out, especially if it ends up helping me lose weight...)

I never did well with Strattera as a kid, for some reason my hands were always cold when I was taking it. Adderall sort of made me a little more moody, but being 14 may have contributed to overall moodiness.

We've reached the point in the weather where I go for a walk by myself and the dog stands by the house in his coat waiting to be let back in. On top of that, today was first Wellies for the season, and I actually vacuumed them out because I was scared of spiders. (A few weeks ago I put my bare foot in my slipper, where a giant Irish house spider had made her home overnight. It wasn't a fun experience for anyone.)

Today I'm part of a group being recognized for recovering the remains of a murder victim that was buried in the landfill 13 years ago. All I did was haul up a couple of roll-off containers (30 yard/40 yard construction style refuse containers that you usually see at construction sites etc.) back and forth to and from the site. I tried to get out of it, but no luck. The good side is, four of my guys actually did most of the work and they recovered most of the remains and it looks like her husband will be going to jail for a long while.

Pigfarmer Jr wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2019 4:32 am

Today I'm part of a group being recognized for recovering the remains of a murder victim that was buried in the landfill 13 years ago. All I did was haul up a couple of roll-off containers (30 yard/40 yard construction style refuse containers that you usually see at construction sites etc.) back and forth to and from the site. I tried to get out of it, but no luck. The good side is, four of my guys actually did most of the work and they recovered most of the remains and it looks like her husband will be going to jail for a long while.

Oh wow. The recovery was 13 years ago? Or the murder was 13 years ago and you just did this work recently?
I'm sure the woman's family really appreciates you and your team's work.

The murder was 13 years ago. The recovery was last month. The mayor, several members of the city council and the City Manager were all here. To be honest, I would rather have skipped it, but it was great to see my guys get the recognition they deserve. I'll spare the details, but it wasn't pleasant work in 90+ degree heat for two weeks.

Holy shit. The world is a crazy place.

I’m impressed they even knew where to look and that they were able to recover anything after that long.

That recovery sounds like an unpleasant project, but I'm glad to hear you're getting props for it!

In today's news, I was going to make copies of a bunch of pictures of my and my wife's dead relatives and make an altar for Dia de los Muertos, but I didn't get around to it because I spent too much time making my son a Halloween costume and carving jack o'lanterns, filling out a job application, and coming up with riffs for SongFight. Maybe we'll just get out the old photo albums and reminisce instead.

Madison got 7" of snow yesterday as we were en route to Tulsa for a wedding... disastrous day, friend didn't pick us up to take us to the airport, but as it turns out, all our flights were delayed so we ended up arriving in Oklahoma about 5 hours late. But we still made it to the bachelor/ette party and the weather here is nice. My husband and I are en route to the Skeleton Museum in Oklahoma City, I am very excited!

(I only got a little over half my "I Used to Know You Better" reviews written up before leaving. Is anyone still interested in reading very late reviews if I finish them once I'm back?)