Teacup Café XXXVII

[Grey_Wolf]

Originally Posted by Tessar

The only suggestion I have would be to save your bookmarks folder and then do a complete wipe/reinstall of your browser.

Thanks - will try that! best GW

[Acalewia]

Originally Posted by Noble Elf Lord

Anyone else get the "Evony" ad? It's getting rather disturbing, and I've only seen it twice.

Yes it is. And the plenty of fish ads

[shesabrandybuck]

I need to come here more often! I feel left out of the family! (I mean that in the most un-Charlie Manson way possible). I've been getting back in my Tolkien phase rather rapidly lately - and just finished putting sticky notes on my wall of all my favorite Tolkien quotes, it's quite lovely .

Anyway, I hope all is well & that everyone is enjoying their summer vacations! I'm leaving for Hawaii in a little over a week!!

[Acalewia]

*Tackle*

[Grey_Wolf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV6WgRAN9FU

Best top ya all from ur friend GW

[Grey_Wolf]

Hi all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV9WACDEBV4

Are any of you able to see thÃ*s youtube vid? If - could you perhaps dld it and mail me it to anders.sjotorp@gmail.com - would be most grateful.

Best GW

[Earniel]

Hi all, I'm back from holiday. Did I miss much?

[Varnafindë]

Not too much
Aika and I are having a great time in LLL, though

[Mari]

Just popping in so I can pop out again. Welcome back Earn, how was your vacation?
Hiya Link!

[Aikanáro]

Welcome back, Earniel!

Anyone else get the "Evony" ad? It's getting rather disturbing, and I've only seen it twice.

Yeah, Evony are spamming the Internet with increasingly dubious and un-family-friendly ads.

Firefox Adblock is my solution.

Originally Posted by Varnafindë

Aika and I are having a great time in LLL, though

Indeed we are!

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Mari

Just popping in so I can pop out again. Welcome back Earn, how was your vacation?

Hi Mari! The holiday was great! I got to invite a friend along for a week, and we had a great time showing her the island. There were still enough frogs (although my friend didn't want me to play with them too much) and I returned home once more with a few hundreds of pictures of frogs, dragonflies, waterdamsels, butterflies and more pretty things. The weather was good, although we had some heavy winds in the beginning and a heatwave at the end, that nearly left us melted in our seats.

We saw a snake catch a frog right in front of us (probably one of the most documented murders in natural history, we had three photo cameras and a video camera among us.) But my pictures of that were all bad, boohoo. I suspect my camera doesn't like snakes, the other snake we encountered didn't come out well in the pictures either. And we saw mouflons! A type of wìld mountain-sheep that is pretty rare. These were the first ones we ever saw, despite coming there for many years.

The not so great part were the forest fires. One started somewhere we had only been a couple of days before, and two thousand acres were destroyed, including the only road. It'll be a desolate valley for the next few years to come, but luckily the Corsican vegetation is reasonably well adapted to regrow after forest fires.

It was an experience, I'll say. My dad and I had gone hiking that day on a trip to specifically see butterflies and lizards. The brown smoke clouds darkened the sun, therefore reducing the number of lizards and butterflies we would be able to see. The forest we were in was bathed in an eerie red light from the veiled red sun. It looked rather special. But it took us some while to notice that there were actual burned pine needles and scorched pieces of tree bark quietly raining down on us. So we knew it was forest that was burning. (Forest is worse than shrub-land. The maquis of the shrub-land can recover within a year. Of the forest only cork-oaks survive, and all those majestic, age-old pines are destroyed.) Such a waste. To think of all those animals caught in the fire, tortoises, birds, cows, wild pigs... Although supprisingly several houses went up in flames as well, which is usually (luckily) a far rarer occurrance.

My mother, who had stayed at home, got a shower of ash instead. And we had to sweep up the ash from the terrace for the next two days. And the day we were packing, we saw four Canadaires (brightly coloured planes that can carry water to battle fires) continually wheel over-head, descend into the coastal valley, scoop up seawater in-flight, and rush back towards the mountains to dump their full tanks on the flames. So there were still fires when we left. My everlasting curse on people who are so god-forgiven stupid or malicious to light forest-fires!

Originally Posted by Varnafindë

Aika and I are having a great time in LLL, though

Aha, very good! I will join you again shortly, once I've caught up with reading.

[Jonathan]

Murderous snakes, mouflons and forest fires - a rather eventful Corsican vacation, eh Eärniel?


Well hello all! I'm back from an excellent holiday as well.

My equivalent to Eärniel's Corsica would be the small Swedish island of Koster where I go every year. It's a remarkable place with a scenery to die for - bare windswept rocks with deep coves along the shores, and (on windy days) a roaring sea and waves that crash against the cliffs. Also white sandy beaches and crystal clear water, great for sunbathing and swimming. And inland, meadows and forests to stroll where one can suddenly find oneself either eye to eye with a cow, or in the midst of a flock of sheep.

I love to swim to all these rocky islets that lie a hundred yards offshore and explore them thoroughly (though I'm about to run out of brand new islets to descend on!). There, one can be alone and enjoy the sea, the sun and everything and get away from any everyday stress or other concerns there may be. Sometimes the islets are inhabited by goats, which are always very friendly and almost too intrusive! Other times I find a mink or two, probably descendants of escapees.from bygone mink farms.

I'm going back next week with a friend

[Noble Elf Lord]

Jonathan, that scenery sounds like Oblivion (or Cyrodiil, more accurately ), except for the great waves. There are no waves in TES:IV vanilla. It really lacks desert and (proper) seashore landscape. Without mods, that is.

I'm doing quite fine. I didn't get to any schools, but I'll apply to work in my former high school as a class assistant. 400-450 €/month, quite neat.

[The last sane person]

Heh, I know of some nice mods to fix that. Needs one hellacious CPU and video card to handle it though.

*meanders over to the deserted skybar and meditates over an irish carbomb*

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Murderous snakes, mouflons and forest fires - a rather eventful Corsican vacation, eh Eärniel?

We've met snakes before, including one that was after the same frog as I was (and where my reactions to those encounters still cause many an amusing tale in the family) but I admit, seeing a snake attack a frog in plain view and for almost the entire length of time, was a first, and a very interesting one at that. Too bad my pictures failed. It was however rather amusing that my friend the biologist felt more badly for the frog than I did. As much as I like frogs, snakes got to eat too.

The mouflons were indeed a few glorious seconds to treasure. I did, however, have to spend almost the entire holiday convincing my dad that 'yes, it were mouflons, I stood in front so I got a good two-second look before they threw themselves off the mountain, and no it was not deer, and if he had ever seen deer with sheep heads, he's welcome to tell me'. We've had a few times we mistook mountain goats for mouflons from a distance, so he was still worried that the mouflons we saw might not turn out mouflons at all. It took three people, beside me, to convince him.

The forest fires, sadly, were not a first. Almost each year we see new blackened patches that weren't black the last year. And a couple of years ago, we had four forest fires in one month, a holiday we still refer to as 'the year of the forest fires'. We can spot a Canadaire pretty well nowadays. Raining ash and burnt bark was a new thing, however.

My equivalent to Eärniel's Corsica would be the small Swedish island of Koster where I go every year. It's a remarkable place with a scenery to die for - bare windswept rocks with deep coves along the shores, and (on windy days) a roaring sea and waves that crash against the cliffs. Also white sandy beaches and crystal clear water, great for sunbathing and swimming. And inland, meadows and forests to stroll where one can suddenly find oneself either eye to eye with a cow, or in the midst of a flock of sheep.

Sounds like quite a treat! And so familiar in many ways. Are you sure, you were on a small Swedish island? Definitely sounds like tremendous fun, though.

[Acalewia]

*Pops in to say hi*

"hi"

[Empress_Flynn]

*ducks in the door*

I'm here!

*ducks back out the door*

And I'm gone again!

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Noble Elf Lord

that scenery sounds like Oblivion (or Cyrodiil, more accurately ), except for the great waves. There are no waves in TES:IV vanilla. It really lacks desert

Nice. But I'm sure reality surpasses fiction

Originally Posted by Eärniel

It was however rather amusing that my friend the biologist felt more badly for the frog than I did. As much as I like frogs, snakes got to eat too.

Well, it's a matter of fact that Corsica is part of the land of the frog-eaters

I saw a viper a couple of weeks ago on Koster, which is supposed to be "snake free". Heh, I guess not anymore.

Originally Posted by Eärniel

The mouflons were indeed a few glorious seconds to treasure.

Are they maybe the ancestors of our modern-day wool-producing sheep?
On my island, there used to be really long-haired primeval cows from Scotland called highland cattle. They were pretty cool. They were great at keeping the landscape open, as they ate of all the shrubs and thickets while roaming around. Unfortunately they've been replaced this year by less exotic "normal" cows.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Well, it's a matter of fact that Corsica is part of the land of the frog-eaters

Hm, snakes have got a right to eat frogs in my book (the one we saw was a ringed snake, which eats primarily amphibians), humans who do so merely look stupid. *Eärniel is not a fan on using animals for 'les délicatesses'*

I saw a viper a couple of weeks ago on Koster, which is supposed to be "snake free". Heh, I guess not anymore.

I hope at least a native Swedish viper at least? Not an invasive species? I've never seen an actual viper up close before, must look impressive.

Are they maybe the ancestors of our modern-day wool-producing sheep?

Distant cousins at least. The ancestral mouflons were domestic sheep imported to Corsica by early inhabitants. I think in the neolithic times. Anyway, several millennia ago at least. Some of those sheep got loose and returned to the wild. But be fair, they've always looked more like goats than sheep to me. I reckon it's the horns and the rather un-woollike-looking fur.

On my island, there used to be really long-haired primeval cows from Scotland called highland cattle. They were pretty cool. They were great at keeping the landscape open, as they ate of all the shrubs and thickets while roaming around. Unfortunately they've been replaced this year by less exotic "normal" cows.

Highlanders? Big, sturdy cows with long red hair and big horns? Those are indeed awesome cows and said to be pretty bright and self-sufficient. The regional environmental organisation uses several herds of them to keep certain protected habitats from overgrowing with different vegation. 'Normal' cows aren't really up for the job.

[Tessar]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Highlanders? Big, sturdy cows with long red hair and big horns? Those are indeed awesome cows and said to be pretty bright and self-sufficient. The regional environmental organisation uses several herds of them to keep certain protected habitats from overgrowing with different vegation. 'Normal' cows aren't really up for the job.

No, duh, everyone knows Swedish cows are MAGICAL, Earniel. Highlanders. Pfffft. WhatEVER. We all know they're magical Swedish cows. I mean if they were magic cows AND Highlanders, then you would never see more than one at a time and they'd be battling for supremacy because as all bovine know THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.