AgoraBoard

Morocco mole wrote:

Of course; beans are a good source of protein.

Mash up a bunch of chickpeas, mix in some tajini, olive oil, fresh garlic and a dash of lemon juice and you get hummus.

*Turns back to them with their curried waffles*

Here ya go.

Thanks.

*Takes the dish and sniffs at it before looking up again*

So what if hypothetically I had too many beans, like way too many beans, and I was to...I dunno...give some to you. What would you do?

John Constantine wrote:

Or we could just become too lazy to practice them. Honestly, how many people enjoy putting up Christmas trees and lights, only to take them down less than a month later? Most people put them up early and delay in taking them down specifically for this reason, and now we have other holidays trying to make us decorate as well. Who decorates for Valentine's Day?

I enjoy putting up a Christmas tree each year :)

I like traditions, and it helps me recapture a bit of the innocence and wonder of youth.

However, I do procrastinate taking the tree down again. Which usually means I miss the tree collection days in the city. Which means I eventually toss its dried husk onto my back patio and hide it under a tarp like some great shame weighing on me.

Morocco mole wrote:

I once almost started a flue fire trying to burn up an old Christmas tree. Flames were shooting out the top of the chimney. Those dried pine needles sure do burn well.

Ah, to have been there to see that...

If I remember correctly, chimneys accumulate stuff within them that is flammable if not properly cleaned often enough? So your tree likely lit all of that?

Morocco mole wrote:

I once almost started a flue fire trying to burn up an old Christmas tree. Flames were shooting out the top of the chimney. Those dried pine needles sure do burn well.

Every year my family friends go around and gather people's spent Christmas trees and burn them in a field. Last year we all tried to cook skewers over it, but it all got too hot to get near enough to the fire.

Morocco mole wrote:

Them pine trees do burn with a fierce heat, lol. Eucalyptus is likewise an oily tree and also burns very hot.

We had a big eucalyptus that fell over and so we chopped it up and use it as firewood. One time there were a bunch of wasps that had made a nest burrowed inside one of the pieces and when I threw it in they all started swarming out into the flames.

Morocco mole wrote:

Poor little waspies. But then again, death to little waspies; nasty little buggers.

The big Oakland/Berkeley hills fire back in '91 was largely fueled by the eucalyptus which had grown in this region. I was still living there at the time and It was scary how fast the fire burned.

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991}

^{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NseOhUqZAh0}

Jeez. That wind was nuts, and from what I've heard it often is in the case of large scale fires like that. There were a few scenes in the video where the fire seemed to burn horizontally due to the wind.

_{"The superheated fire-driven winds combined with warmer, drier air east of the Oakland-Berkeley Hills, and interacted with the ambient cooler, more moist Bay/Coastal air to create erratic, dangerous gusts, which helped produce numerous rotational vortices"}

Now I see why fires can spread so quickly, especially if they have plentiful fuel as they did here. My grandad used to be a firefighter for the forest service, and he'd tell me about the time a vortex actually formed a pillar of fire while he was out trying to subdue a fire. The thought of a flaming tornado always scared the hell out of me, lol.

'Fire Tornado'

_{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SyX2NUEkKk}

Here's one that explains a little bi to how it happens.

_{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvfDbODi-vQ}

Edit: This one is a bit more in-depth

_{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMwBaFzOYo}

Janisport wrote:

Did you know?

The god Zeus really got around a lot, so much so that the formal naming process for the moons of the planet Jupiter (the Roman name for Zeus) is to name them after the deity's lovers and daughters, Jupiter has 79 known moons

So have fun, do what you want, and you'll get celestial bodies named in your honor?

Harteath wrote:

So have fun, do what you want, and you'll get celestial bodies named in your honor?

Uranus is named after me. Man, that was a wild night. I wish I had more than just a planet to remember it by.

Janisport wrote:

Did you know?

The god Zeus really got around a lot, so much so that the formal naming process for the moons of the planet Jupiter (the Roman name for Zeus) is to name them after the deity's lovers and daughters, Jupiter has 79 known moons

My favorite is the moons of Uranus. They are all named after Shakespeare's characters.

John Constantine wrote:

I would suggest burning it, but I've seen many videos about how that can go wrong. Have you thought about getting an artificial tree? I actually know a gal who uses her trees to decorate for other holidays too.

Nah, I like having a live tree, and the smell is unbeatable. No place to burn it in a city apartment, and considering:

Morocco mole wrote:

I once almost started a flue fire trying to burn up an old Christmas tree. Flames were shooting out the top of the chimney. Those dried pine needles sure do burn well.

I think the real solution to my problem is just to stop procrastinating, lol

John Constantine wrote:

We came to vastly different conclusions since mine was to burn the city apartment. I'm sure it needs to be renovated anyway and it's insured.

Careful; you've gotta be sneaky about doing that. Arson charges are pretty obnoxious. Plus, you start to attract pyros that way, which isn't always a bad thing, but winds you up running around with your back on fire more than you'd like.

Gates of Horn and Ivory wrote:

Nah, I like having a live tree

Don't you mean a recently live tree that was executed for your entertainment?

My family had actual live trees that we would plant in the backyard when the holiday was over and we had a pretty nice grove going on before we moved away.

I've mostly only had live trees since then and planted them in the yards where I was living or out in a park under cover of darkness (nothing says urban guerilla like sneaking out with your loved one to secretly plant a tree where one isn't 'supposed' to be). Recently, however, I have just skipped the whole practice of observing the holy days of religions I don't have much faith in. But I still set up the Festivus pole every year.

The tree that almost caused the chimney fire was one my housemate had acquired and he's the one who let it get so dead that it was almost a skeleton of itself when we finally 'took it down' and burned it.

Morocco mole wrote:

You're a professional fire-eater? Or a dragon-keeper.

I've heard fire has a nice smokiness to it. Dragon meat is okay but you have to slow cook it for hours before it's even soft enough to cut with a kitchen knife.