For 24hrs Spain and Portugal become one of the largest Dark Sky Sanctuaries.

Personally, I eat cookies and tortilla CHIPS, not biscuits and tortilla crisps. Martin, you guys drive on the
wrong side of the road, pavement, assfault, etc!  What was this topic, again???

Oh, dark skies!  Another odd thing is why is my sky dark when yours is light?  Dang cats, anyway! 🐈

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

Negative Mr. Negative

Ah, not being negative, I find the differences in word usage amusing, sometimes using older terms for newer things. I give you guys credit for not calling cars and  automobiles horseless carriages 😀.

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

P.S. A Warning... These days you have to be careful how you say "Flashlight." 😮🫢Not that I know about such things

Huh?  I guess I’m clueless on that.  Maybe “flashlight” is the Operational Go Code for Project Armageddon? ☢️🤯

3 hours ago, Mike A said:

Huh?  I guess I’m clueless on that.  Maybe “flashlight” is the Operational Go Code for Project Armageddon?

Say it as "fleshlight" and you possibly might figure it out...

You certainly would not find these devices at Wall Mart or even Dollar General! 🤐

5 hours ago, n4gix said:

Say it as "fleshlight" and you possibly might figure it out...

You certainly would not find these devices at Wall Mart or even Dollar General! 🤐

I tried, but no luck; lots of things I have no clue about.  Ignorance is bliss, right?

But did you have to say Dollar General?  While repeating fleshlight over and over, I’m picturing myself in a Dollar General Store, and a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe who is working as a sales associate is trying to sell me a flashlight. “So, you vant to buy fleshlight, no? Zeese ees very goood fleshlight, trrrust me!”

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by Mike A
Sp.

So I asked DuckDuckGo about fleshlights and found out.  Since you can’t have Marina Martin, I guess that’s how you cope 🫢

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by Mike A
Add name

14 hours ago, Mike A said:

I give you guys credit for not calling cars and  automobiles horseless carriages 😀.

 

I call my daughters car her personal transportation pod. 

 

10 hours ago, n4gix said:

Say it as "fleshlight" and you possibly might figure it out...

 

Bill.... you naughty man. Your knowledge of such things has changed my entire impression of you. 

A few American words / phrases perplex me.

You never say dead or died. Passed away is borderline acceptable. Passed is unclear. Passed what? Wind? 🤨

”Reach out” is making its way into our vocabulary. It’s CONTACT. You’ll never hear ATC say “reach out”. Contact. Always.

Ground is outdoors, floor is indoors. We now have football commentators saying he fell to the floor in an outside stadium. Arrgghh! 🤨

More words don’t make things clearer. Good to go = ready. “I need you to” before an instruction is superfluous.

I could go on but I’d probably fill up the Internet. 🤣

8 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

A few American words / phrases perplex me.

You never say dead or died. Passed away is borderline acceptable. Passed is unclear. Passed what? Wind? 🤨

 

29 minutes ago, Mike A said:

 

Absolutely brilliant! All the way through. I’m guessing it would be 1990-1995. 👍

7 hours ago, martin-w said:

Bill.... you naughty man. Your knowledge of such things has changed my entire impression of you.

This is the first time I’ve heard these devices called “fleshlights”, but I do have a story involving them. When I was working at the Military Police Desk at the Presidio of San Francisco around 35 years ago, we had an incident involving a suspicious item.  An attache case was found at the helipad by one of the patrols.  Because it was just sitting there out in the open unattended, the Explosive Ordinance Detail unit was called to respond in case it was a booby trap. So they secured the area and attached a small explosive charge to the case and detonated it, and the case did not explode. Further investigation of the contents of the case revealed that it belonged to an Army officer.  The next step was to bring it back to the Military Police Station, inventory its contents and contact the officer to come and pick it up.  One of the items was a mail order catalog of X-rated videos and devices.  So of course we had fun looking through it. One of the items was what is now called a  “fleshlight”.  The funny part of it was that it was somebody’s job to write the advertising copy for this item. So what did they write?  “You’ll never have to buy dinner for them again!” 🤣.

And the icing on the cake?  We contacted the officer to come pick up his case and it’s contents. When he arrived, standard procedure was to go over the inventory of items in front of the person to whom they belong to ensure nothing is missing. The desk sargeant mentioning the X-rated catalog straight-faced without laughing and the officer’s embarrassment was pure gold 🤣

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by Mike A
Add 2 words

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

”Reach out” is making its way into our vocabulary. It’s CONTACT. You’ll never hear ATC say “reach out”. Contact. Always.

That's a great one!

"And ahhh Speedbird___, you can go ahead and reach out to Gander Oceanic now at ___. No really, don't worry, reach out to them. You're not alone out there. In fact that's why you need to reach out to them, they'll take good care of you."

"Reach Out and Touch Someone" isn't 'new'; Bell Telephone started using the Slogan in the early 80's as a way to promote their Telephone services. 🙂

Back to the original Topic... we have an awesome Dark Sky sanctuary here in Colorado; The Great Sand Dunes National Park.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sand_Dunes_National_Park_and_Preserve

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Ground is outdoors, floor is indoors.

This is how we use "ground" and "floor" in the U.S. 

"Passed away" or "passed" implies "passed to the other side or afterlife".  Since many believe the idea of an afterlife, it's actually accurate and less painful to refer to a dead person as "passed".

Here's a few more things you guys say that are different: "taking the pi**" or "taking the mick", meaning to poke fun at or make fun of, "having a row", meaning having an argument or fight, and "standing in a queue", meaning to stand in line.

What is it they say about the UK and United States?  Two nations divided by a common language, LOL.

Dave

 

 

2 hours ago, Mike A said:

was found at the helipad

When my brother and I played at the Presidio 75-80 years ago your helipads were an airstrip called Crissy Field.  We watched Piper L-4 Grasshoppers land and takeoff there.

Noel