Scar - Star

Of those two, Tesla but truth be told, I'd rather a small ICE like my Civic (2L 4).

Stargaze at the literal stars or stargaze at the Hollywood variety?

Quote by verbal
Pulling four impacted molars!

Ouch. My son had one done and it was bad enough. I had my wisdom teeth out at 19 but the only other tooth I've had removed was a broken one.

Scam - Scan

What is it with teeth in your family? Vibes to your youngest.

Good morning. Whipping up a pot of Tobermory Flowerpot Island for the coffee drinkers. There's Assam and Red Rose teas as well. Cold drinks looking good.

Later.

Quote by DenimAngel
I have Beignets for a special Sunday treat .

Ape pounces. To hell with bananas, beignets are my favourite food starting with "b". 😉

Quote by DenimAngel
APE tell the marshmallow dealer that he can have 4 boxes of cookies for every 4 cases of marshmallows.. he has a liking for marshmallow chocolate chip cookies .

Sounds fair. I'll see what he says.

Canadian alternative band Metric, fronted by the wonderful singer-songwriter Emily Haines, has a new album looming and there's a couple singles out.

A little cafe music. I've talked about Laufey in the music thread, but her "Live from Home" performances are perfect for a cafe setting, just her and her guitar. This may be my favourite new song of 2023, at least so far.

And this performance of "From the Start", another terrific song from her new album, features a special guest: Her twin sister Junia on violin. Their mother is a violinist as was their maternal grandfather so music is very much in the family.

Seal - Seam

Coffee, we got coffee.

Hmmm. How about some Fire-Roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe? Good stuff from London's main local roastery. With that are teapots filled to the tippy-top with Scottish Breakfast and Russian Caravan. Washed the pitchers and refreshed the iced tea and lemonade, though I note they seem to be going down more slowly now. Soda supply is inventoried and restocked.

Hot chocolate season is likely not far off so I'll need to renegotiate the marshmallow supply contract. He's bargaining hard this year but with the quantity we (meaning Sara) use, I think I can get his price down.

Grabs a couple dinos and puts on a green tea.

I've probably raved about First to Eleven on here before. Incredibly talented Gen Z (except the bass player, their former music teacher, who is a millennial) cover band from Erie, Pennsylvania. The three young members (vocals, guitar, drums) also form the indie rock band Concrete Castles where they perform their own compositions. Anyhow, they release a new cover every week and this week it is "Life is a Highway", originally written and performed by Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane. Except they credit Rascal Flatts, who covered it for the movie Cars😕. In any case, F211's cover is solid and actually sounds a lot like Cochrane's original in the end.😋

Quote by verbal
Undiscovered species of dinosaur, Ape?

Yeah, probably. It'll just be a mashup of known ones. Mendallasaurus Imaginarius, eh.

Meal - Veal (which could be a meal)

Hot tub, I think.

Electric bike or electric scooter?

New Scamp? I'm in! Bring on the monkeys and other cute animals.

Good morning, animals, humans, and anything else lurking. Coffee is Tobermory Grotto. There's Irish Breakfast and Sunday Tea in the teapots. Cold beverages are refreshed.

I want a dinosaur in my next story (sorry, Sara, not a cute, friendly one) and I can't find one that fits my parameters, damn it. With so many new species over the past couple decades, you'd think there'd be something. I mean, I could pull a Jurassic Park and distort an existing species (the dilophosaurus and raptors in the original both have issues relative to reality) but I'd rather "keep it real".

I have a vision for a setting right now. A vast forested plain wracked by almost ceaseless storms. Rain in summer, snow in winter, but seemingly perpetually stormy. Why is it like this? Who would live there and why? What stories could I get out of this? Inquiring minds want to know.

Quote by verbal
DEAD PEOPLE’S BONES IN MY JAW,

Meat - Mean

Quote by gillianleeza
It is very quiet here. Not sure why.

Me, neither. Even in terms of stories, there's been only been a dozen since July and nothing over 1000 words since the Bear's last story on July 18. Only one story (again, the Bear) has cracked 100 views since the last comp. The forums have been quiet for a while, too, with only a handful of regulars posting and mostly in social and game threads.

Has me wondering about my writing plans. Is a 4000-5000 word story even going to fly on here anymore? Because that tends to be my minimum for any serious work. Even 2000 might be stretching from what I see.

Ape not happy but ape also not sure what to do. I already link to the site, at least my stories page, from most of my other forum sites and discuss both my writing and occasionally that of others on other sites. I'm off the big platforms, though, and only frequent other forum sites, most of them not terribly much bigger.

Anyhow, there's my rant du jour, I guess.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I'm fond of spaghetti Westerns.

Live in the city/burbs or live in the countryside?

So while have heard the name Gentle Giant before, I have never actually heard anything by this early prog band even though they are a contemporary of such classic early prog rock groups as Yes, Gabriel-era Genesis, etc. So I added their first couple albums to my library on Amazon Music. I quite like. Maybe not destined to be all-time favorites, but quite a good example of early prog, with a mix of rock with jazz (very jazzy sound at times, in fact), and classical elements. At times they resemble early Yes, at others they are more seventies Moody Blues, which just means, of course, that they were part of that early seventies scene with those groups.

Goat - Moat

Watch out, world! The Ape is loose! But don't worry, I won't climb the Empire State Building. Too scared of heights to climb that high. 😳

Good morning! Coffee is a Nicaraguan Dark Roast from Las Chicas. Teas are English Breakfast and Earl Grey. Cold beverages are refreshed.

Settling in with an English Breakfast and a couple hippos.

Godzilla, though I quite like both

Legendary (American Godzilla) or Toho (Japanese)?

Haven't actually seen Rosemary's Baby so The Exorcist. Great movie.

Gory, nasty horror or subtley disturbing horror?

(That's a word? Must look it up.)

Goul - Goal

(EDIT: Huh, so it is)

SS in general is kind of eerily quiet, isn't it?

Of course, jokes like that aren't going to help much. Glad this place is a cafe and not a comedy club.

Thanks for opening up, verbs. Not sure why I am scarce these days. Will be trying to remedy that now.

Since verbs didn't check on the fridge, I've washed the pitchers and made fresh iced tea and lemonade. I hear it is still rather steamy in some parts, though here is definitely starting to feel rather Septemberish.

Now, on to trying to write something. My attempts at continuing Spirits of Tan Maldrin are flailing so will probably start with something less ambitious, maybe some short standalone pieces.

Fool - Foal