Acrophobia #42 - Dear John and Jane Letters

[HoodedCrow]

I think that it is usually booked through insurance, so Ontario might have different rules from B.C? It is possible that they wait for the cataracts to reach a certain point. We paid extra for fancy lenses. The surgery was quick and fairly painless.  Each eye was done in turn, two weeks apart and the hard part is not to rub the eye. ( at least there was no cone)The eye drops were a a small chore for four weeks.

There are some limited options.

[Dolorous Gabe]

1st) 3

2nd) 2

3rd) 1

[Ser Not Appearing]

I didn't read or listen to any books from about March of last year until a month ago. I'm on a book a week right now, though only listening. I tend to listen while doing other things, which precludes actual reading.

Most recently, I'm listening to the Lies of Locke Lamora. I just finished book 2. It's decent but no more than that.

 

[AssHat Ahai]

1.  4.  If only

2.  7

3.  3

[Fragile Bird]

I am sensing people are having difficulty with this one. Please say if you need more time. I figured this one might be harder because we know Doran but never met his wife.

[RhaenysBee]

I’m on a mini holiday, will try to get to the assignment on the train, but there’s a chance I can only get it in tomorrow. 

[a free shadow]

18 hours ago, Castellan said:

rubbish almost exclusively.

what kind of exclusive rubbish?

17 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

I listen to more books now.

what type of books can be listened to? I have tried some, but I immediately forget that I need to listen and 3 minutes grows to 3 hours

14 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Most recently, I'm listening to the Lies of Locke Lamora. I just finished book 2. It's decent but no more than that.

i have read the first book before, it made me feel lighter.

[Julia H.]

On 8/5/2021 at 9:04 PM, a free shadow said:

The Huns were uniting on Hungarian plains, and the year was 4 3 2

And that's actually in Wikipedia... LOL.

On 8/5/2021 at 11:11 PM, a free shadow said:

Conversationaly, how many books do you read?..

It depends. When I have time to spend reading for pleasure, I tend to spend whole afternoons and evenings reading - though I couldn't tell how many books I read during a given time period on average. I don't really count my books... However, there are also long periods of time when I hardly have any free time. But I read even then, only then I read for work, not for leisure. 

12 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

I am sensing people are having difficulty with this one. Please say if you need more time. I figured this one might be harder because we know Doran but never met his wife.

I haven't even started, so I would be very grateful for some extra time.

[RhaenysBee]

15 hours ago, Julia H. said:

And that's actually in Wikipedia... LOL.

 That’s… well that says a lot about the reliability of Wikipedia, I suppose. Now I feel bad for all the papers I used Wikipedia as a source for  

 

getting down to work now, I apologize for the delay, y’all. 

[Fragile Bird]

Still waiting for some people.

[a free shadow]

On 8/7/2021 at 2:23 AM, Julia H. said:

in Wikipedia...

No, I have seen them myself

[Castellan]

17 hours ago, a free shadow said:

No, I have seen them myself

Did you see the Battle of Rimini too?

God I am so bored. I should change my avatar. My lioness looks too content.

[Fragile Bird]

ROUND FIVE RESULTS

Oh dear, Lyanna and Rhaegar, splitting? 

1.   Prophesy included sadism? Masochism? Roleplay? Dominatrix kink?!?  AssHat Ahai  1+1+2+1+1+1=7

2.   I hate to say, over your "visions"!  Castellan  1+1+3+2+2+1=10

3.   Packing immediately, since my roses dried. Kisses.  Julia H.  1+1+3+2+2+1+1+1=12

4.   I have this sense of yonder violence.  Dolorous Gabe   1+1+3+3+3+2+2=15+3=18*

5.   Please, I’m saving myself. Robert’d definitely know.  RhaenysBee   1+1+3+3=8   

6.   I hate the sound of your voice!  rocksniffer   1+1+3+3+2+1=11

7.   Playing is satisfactory. Marriage? Really don't know.  Ser Not Appearing  1+1+2+1=5

 

Standings

1.  Castellan  69+10=79

2.  Julia H.  59+12=71

3.  AssHat Ahai  63+7=70

4.  Dolorous Gabe  40+18=58*

5.  RhaenysBee  32+8=40

6.  Lilac & Gooseberries  33+1=34

7.  Ser Not Appearing  18+5=23

8.  rocksniffer  1+11=12

9.  a free shadow  7+1=8

10.  Howlin' Howland  7

We had a little bit of a moving day this round, and although Castellan has cleverly stayed on top, Julia H. has nipped past AssHat Ahai into second spot. Dolorous Gabe has made a nice move by giving Lyanna some clairvoyant insight that won the round with the most first place votes. RhaenysBee has slipped past Lilac & Gooseberries who came up blank this round. Ser Not Appearing gave us a very reasonable response and rocksniffer came in with a great thought. More on great thoughts later. 

As usual, double-check my math as I have been a bit under the weather.

 

[Fragile Bird]

ROUND SIX VOTING

I asked you to look at a power couple whose marriage was on the ropes even before the events in the books, and figure out what words got exchanged between Doran Martell and Mellario. (I keep wanting to put an a at the end of her name, European-fashion!). As it happens, the final entries are all from Mellario.

1.   Regrettably, marriage’s collapsed. Divorce?

2.   Yacht's here, your highness...I'm going home!

3.   Remember me, cruel Doran.

4.   You're honouring your heritage? I'm going home.

5.   Enough sand! The particles hide everywhere.

6.   Reason: Made Children Detainees.

7.   You hang your head in grief's hell.

8.   <space reserved>

I'm still hoping that a final entry might roll in.....

As usual, please vote for your top three picks. This time I'm going to ask that you have your votes in by Sunday, August 15th before 11:00 pm, EDT. I will post reminders as the time approaches.

[Fragile Bird]

ROUND SEVEN ASSIGNMENT

I'm sure you've all been asking yourselves, who could the final couple be? You're probably exchanging messages, laying bets on the final names, and....

*snaps awake out of dreamland*

I figured the final couple had to be Cersei and her darling brother, Jaime. There's so much material to work with, and so many times one or the other said to themselves, this is it, I'm done. 

You may recall that at the start I was telling rocksniffer about the theme and he asked, geez, how many letters are you going to have to give to do a Dear John letter? I have to admit, you have all risen to the challenge and have provided some wonderful responses, sometimes using very few letters. And I understand a certain amount of fatigue has set in, so maybe I should have done this a few rounds ago. But in our very first round someone sent me a sort of rambling, stream-of thought response using all the different letter sets and some of them several times, to do a pretty good letter.

My question to you is, would you like to do that, to save yourselves from boredom? I'll give letters and you can use them as many times as you want, as many sets as you want, to do a letter. Or maybe I should say you can use each set twice, and I'll give 5 sets of letters. 

Or at this point in time, is that asking too much of you? Do you want to try doing a letter, or just one phrase as we've done so far?

[RhaenysBee]

4

2

5 - I guess they are coarse too  

 

[a free shadow]

Yax Mutal was celebrating the death of Sky Witness, and the year was 5 7 2

On 8/9/2021 at 6:49 AM, Castellan said:

God I am so bored.

As it is addressed to me and so I have to solve it, I suggest toppling the Prime Minister of Australia, learning Chinese, staging a sighting of a new local monster or taming at least eleven zebras as a next project.

[Castellan]

17 minutes ago, a free shadow said:

Yax Mutal was celebrating the death of Sky Witness, and the year was 5 7 2

As it is addressed to me and so I have to solve it, I suggest toppling the Prime Minister of Australia, learning Chinese, staging a sighting of a new local monster or taming at least eleven zebras as a next project.

I am not a project person, as you should know, God.

Re audiobooks, the best audiobooks have 1st person narration, or a lot of dialogue, and have a good reader or a full cast. Light humour is good. There is no use in listening to deadly serious third person narration for hours. And they can't be too soothing or you will fall asleep. I once tried listening to The Riddle of the Sands and could not get past an early chapter where our hero is lying in a bunk in a gently rocking barge watching a lantern swaying overhead. Kept waking up, rewinding to where I remembered, then falling asleep in the barge again.

But I think I should cancel my audible subscription. I think I probably have quite a few credits expire without me noticing. I used to buy them to listen to when driving to holiday house, now I don't drive much especially with COVID lockdowns and I prefer reading.

[Castellan]

1) 7

2)4

3)2

[Dolorous Gabe]

1) 5 - I relate to this too much

2) 6

3) 4

 

@L'oiseau français

The idea that came into my head was that you could give us acronyms as normal but we can reuse each letter to alliterate as much as we like before moving onto the next letter. Then we have the choice to make it as long or as short as we like (plus alliteration is fun!). Just a thought anyway.