Covid-19 lockdown check-in

[PDH]

Report from Santa Cruz.

The flour and yeast are all gone from Safeway. 

[merithyn]

Holy shit, went into the Waitrose on the way home this evening and picked* up the holy trinity:

Toilet rolls.
Bread flour.
And yeast.   :gasp:

*none of it for me, but a realitve who can't leave the house.

[fromtia]

Report from Santa Cruz.

The flour and yeast are all gone from Safeway.

Christ.

[Admiral Yi]

I nominate this, in all sincerity, as the single weirdest digression in all of Languish history.

[Barrister]

It's true though.

I went throw the local Sobey's to get some milk.  No cleaning wipes, no flour (there were a couple packages of self-rising flour, but that doesn't exactly count).  Forgot to check for yeast though.

[PDH]

Forgot to check for yeast though.

FAIL

[Barrister]

Oh by the way, the price of oil is usually quoted for West Texas or Brent Sea - those are trading at $23 and $29 respectively.  A barrel of Western Canada Select is today trading for $9. (Pipelines - the answer is pipelines)  Earlier this week I think it was down to $7.  Because some companies structurally can't not shut down production for various technical reasons it wouldn't shock me for the price to go briefly negative.

This... THIS is a headline!

Barrel of Monkeys now worth more than a barrel of Alberta oil

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bitumen-wcs-wti-oil-1.5511386

[Zanza]

Prince Bonesaw wants to use the crisis to destroy as much competition as possible.

[Josquius]

Girlfriend is getting super down and angry.
She is off work rather than work from home and it has given her a lot of time to think and panic about her situation. Insisting that as a foreigner no matter what official qualifications she has she will never find a job as a teacher in the UK.

[Tamas]

Girlfriend is getting super down and angry.
She is off work rather than work from home and it has given her a lot of time to think and panic about her situation. Insisting that as a foreigner no matter what official qualifications she has she will never find a job as a teacher in the UK.

I would like to say she has no reason to worry, but she might have. On the other hand, surely this is well regulated in the UK so information should be readily available.

[merithyn]

Girlfriend is getting super down and angry.
She is off work rather than work from home and it has given her a lot of time to think and panic about her situation. Insisting that as a foreigner no matter what official qualifications she has she will never find a job as a teacher in the UK.

Oy. That's tough, Tyr. I'm sorry.

[fromtia]

I have a small bag of self raising flour, but no yeast. I've made a potato soup. The flatbread (no yeast) recipes I can find call for butter or greek yogurt - I have neither, so I'm considering using some oil as a shortening. Not sure how this is going to work out. 

[Oexmelin]

Barrel of Monkeys now worth more than a barrel of Alberta oil

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bitumen-wcs-wti-oil-1.5511386

Utterly tangential story.

My grandfather was, shall we say, an embellisher of his own life. A man who liked tall tales. He relished adding colorful details to his life experiences.

He lied a lot, is what I am saying. And he was a lovely man, so we played along, and learned to disregard his most outrageous claims (he did live an eventful life). So, when he complained that he had been swindled by Milton Bradley for inventing Barrel of Monkeys, we rightly dismissed it.

Many years after his passing, I am doing a genealogy for my mother. And since he lived an eventful life, I googled my grandfather. Unbeknownst to me at the time, google also searches in patents. And it turns out that my grandfather had a patent for a toy, which was bought by Milton Bradley when they acquired the "actual" Barrel of Monkeys, so as to make sure there would be no competitor.

I was shocked that, for once, the story had a lot of truth to it. And one of the most outrageous ones, to boot.  Everybody in the family had dismissed the claim as one of his usual stories.

[Caliga]

I found a lot of stuff like that too when researching my family history.

My mother and uncle always thought my grandmother was a total bullshitter with family history.  She used to tell people that one of our ancestors "captured Benedict Arnold", which she told me once and as soon as she was out of earshot, my mother whispered to me "Mother just makes up stories.  Never tell anyone that, it's not true."

However, I eventually found we were descendants of a Nicholas Van Wart, whose grandfather I believe to be Isaac Van Wart (though I have not proven it), who was one of the three NY state militiamen who captured John Andre, which led to Benedict Arnold being exposed as a traitor.  So, she probably wasn't lying at all.

[Barrister]

I found a lot of stuff like that too when researching my family history.

My mother and uncle always thought my grandmother was a total bullshitter with family history.  She used to tell people that one of our ancestors "captured Benedict Arnold", which she told me once and as soon as she was out of earshot, my mother whispered to me "Mother just makes up stories.  Never tell anyone that, it's not true."

However, I eventually found we were descendants of a Nicholas Van Wart, whose grandfather I believe to be Isaac Van Wart (though I have not proven it), who was one of the three NY state militiamen who captured John Andre, which led to Benedict Arnold being exposed as a traitor.  So, she probably wasn't lying at all.

Benedict Arnold was a patriot!