Things you were shockingly old when you learned

i was worried that niall = neil

It is? Or at least it should be, because that's the Irish pronunciation, compare with Niamh for instance - need gyac or darraghmac to confirm though. Anyway it's how the Niall in Niall Ferguson is pronounced.

― John Donne In Concert (Tom D.), Thursday, 20 July 2023 06:40 (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

would always default niall to ny-al fwiw

if he was snippy about that id ask him where his fada was

TIL: black bears in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains around Los Angeles aren't native - they were captured in Yosemite in 1933 and then imported by a dumbass fish & game commissioner who owned a hotel, had a bear as a pet, and wanted to boost mountain tourism.

So them and the Okies showed up at the same time.

hread title is unbelievably 100% OTM rn. I'm legit shocked. I mean, I learned all about the California grizzly bear in grade school (it was the Woodsy Owl era) and I still remember the date that the last one was killed: 1908 in Orange County. Still, "watch out for the black bears" was something I learned in early boy scouts (and dgaf after because I was far more a desert wanderer than a mountain one). Never once did any one say where they came from.

Again, another rich man's fucking folly blowback. It's all funny ha-ha when it's the peacocks and parrots, then uh-oh it's eucalyptus cause that shit likes to catch on fire. Now the bears? Rewilding is problematic, but it's shit like this that makes me a full-on Liet Kynes jihadist about native plants and ecology.

TIL that most of the time (in the US) when you think you see a ladybug, it’s actually probably an Asian lady beetle.

The US govt introduced the ALB in the 70s to help agriculture, because they kill a lot of pests (the same pests that LBs feed on). But they’re stronger than LBs, they contain a parasitic fungus, and their larva are poisonous to LBs (who eat the larva). They also emit a chemical when they become defensive that possibly causes breathing problems in humans.

Due to the competition for resources, LBs became endangered.

And now we’re stuck with them. We can’t get rid of them because it would have hugely negative effects on agriculture.

Root beer is sassafras flavored (mostly artificial these days).

xp should probably get some cane toads in to take care of the ALBs

what could go wrong?

not sure if sassafras is legal in the u.s., known carcognogen iirc

There's still root beer made from real sassafras with the carcinogen filtered out or something.

Creedence Clearwater Revival are from northern California?! What??

Born on the Bayou of Berkeley

heckin bamboozled tbh

The carcinogen is called safrole, iirc.

There's still root beer made from real sassafras with the carcinogen filtered out or something.

Creedence Clearwater Revival are from northern California?! What??

Seems like if you were really from NoCal seeking your fame and fortune, you'd make it to at least Modesto. Getting stuck in Lodi more like a rookie mistake made by someone from Acadiana.

What town did you think “Lodi” was referring to?

New Jersey, of course!

Into the 90s one could purchase Pappy's sassafras syrup and make tea with it (or, if you were clever, a variant of root beer). Sarsparilla is a variant, properly made with a different plant but very similar in flavor.

Sassfras is of course a ubiquitous wild plant in much of the US; I have some in my yard. I could find bunches more in any local woods (and have done). Look for the leaves that look like mittens. If you want to use the roots you have to pull the saplings pretty early - knee-high or so. It is a lovely smell and a lovely flavor and I will never not love it. But maybe you shouldn't, as cancer is kind of a bummer.

They used to sell sasparilla on Walthamstow high street when I was young. I think as a cordial you diluted.
I was wondering if Vimto was an attempt to mimic the flavour using berry ingredients more local to the UK.

They used to sell sasparilla on Walthamstow,
high street when I was young.

Rejected CCR lyrics.

is it possible to choogle a sasparilla? asking for a friend

True story: I am an American human. In approximately 1995 I stumbled into a pub in Cambridge (the one in England) and asked for bourbon and ginger ale. It was utterly delicious. The spiciest ginger ale I'd had up to that point (including the "Jamaican-style" ginger ale one can get here).

I asked what kind it was, and was shown the bottle. It said, "American-style ginger ale." Yet another example of things on the other side of the ocean being a funhouse mirror.

Life is like a box of chocolates.

What town did you think “Lodi” was referring to?

New Jersey, of course!

― but also fuck you (unperson)

LOL, that's the only Lodi I know of. I always thought of it as like the Springfield of the Simpsons.

Does sarsaparilla taste like root beer? Been wondering the last couple of days.

LODI

Lodi is based on Fogerty's days as a minor league baseball player and he dreaded playing out there.

― Steve Shasta, Wednesday, 25 June 2008 18:24 (fifteen years ago)

SMalkmus wrote a song about his rival high school in Lodi (Linden Lions) and Yanks slugger Aaron Judge is from said highschool.

so Fogerty told u that story at a show? amazing.

Ok, learning point here…always assumed Lodi was his shorthand way of saying Low Dive i.e. a scummy venue. Never knew it was a place in California until now.

I prefer my misinterpretation.

lol, also amazing

Creedence Clearwater Revival are from northern California?! What??

I know, right? If you didn't know, you'd guess . . . almost anywhere else.

Weirdly, I knew they were from California. Lumped in with The Band as Northerners who could evoke the South even better than Southerners.

keep on toinin

I've always known they were from California, I must have read it somewhere when I was young.

... sleevenotes on first album perhaps?

They were from Choogleston

... from what I can make out from images of the first album, the sleevenotes are all about CCR being part of the San Francisco music scene.

Wait, THE BAND are fr California??????!!!!!

lol no

Canada

Malkamus went to high school in Lodi CA

oh wait just saw Steve Shasta’s post phbbbt me

oh ok, that's way less shocking xp

Malkamus went to high school in Lodi CA

This threw me off a little too, because there's a Linden, NJ one town over from where I lived for 25 years (it's not close enough to Lodi, NJ for them to have been rival schools, though).

Yes, I assume everyone is from NJ unless explicitly told otherwise, it seems.

There was for a time a lot of people who thought Manowar were British because of Hail to England, doing most of their touring in Europe, and not being funny

JK the latter would make them from the America South

*American

Levon Helm was from Arkansas, to be fair

That "it's all downhill from here" is meant to mean "it all gets easier from here", like you're on a bike ride, not "it all gets shittier from here".

I have never heard that before.

i had a quick hunt around for the histories of each meaning (turns out they both go back a long way) (by which i mean centuries).

The most useful bit of advice i came across is this: "To avoid misunderstanding you need to be clear about what is meant."

I assumed the title of the Jam's third album was a dig at the mod revival they were trying to extricate themselves from. I learned last week that "all mod cons" is also an abbreviation for "all modern conveniences" used in British newspaper real estate/rental listings.

The mod revival didn't really take off till the following year so I doubt they were trying to extricate themselves from it.