Strictly speaking most cans nowadays have a chemical coating on the inside to keep the contents from reacting with the metal, but Mountain Dew _is_ impressively corrosive.
The local market stopped carrying glass bottles of Mountain Dew (or even Pepsi); dunno whether it was a decision by the distributor or the market to not stock it.
(I’ve got an eight-pack of Mountain Dew bottles dating from the mid-1980s. I was gonna crack one open when I sold my first story to a magazine. Here it is, 2020, and I’m afraid to drink them now. They’ve been in my (hot) garage since the late 1980s.)
We had a miniature golf course in Phoenix back when I was a teen that had a soda machine that sold Mountain Dew in bottles that were so cold it was practically a slushie. Those were pretty darn good.
“They call it that good ol’ Mountain Dew / And them that refuse it are few / I’ll hush up my mug if you fill up my jug / With some good ol’ Mountain Dew…”
My God, you’re right. Maybe we have some Narnia creeping into Oz here?
(… responses to this will indicate that Narnia foreshadowing has been *all over the place* and really obvious for about ten years and I just completely failed to notice any of it.)
Without knowing who or what is causing it, or what his, her, or its intentions are, it’s impossible to know why anyone in particular is getting the dreams. But if it is for the purposes of manipulation why would the sender limit itself only to one person?
If Leo is indeed the target, and if he were the only one getting the dreams, then either a) he would obviously be the target, or b) no one would believe him at all (he does write fiction, after all). Causing all of them to have the dreams could very well be subterfuge, so that no one would think there is a single target.
I run across ‘atelier’ way too frequently – it’s been picked up by pretentious hipsters who want think “workshop” or “studio” isn’t fancy enough to appeal to their upscale clientele.
I wouldn’t mind it as much as I do, except they’re misusing the word, just as Leo himself is. A single artist’s personal workshop doesn’t qualify – an atelier is actually a large workshop where a head artist directs a group of assistants or apprentices to collectively create a work under the head artist’s name.
I did pick the word for its pretentious ring, but an atelier is usually a single artist’s workshop whether or not assistants also work there. For example, Hayao Miyazaki calls his private studio an atelier.
Yes, I wrote this so I could mention that I once had tea with Miyazaki at his atelier. Thank you and God bless.
Perhaps the modern meaning has simply changed more in recent years than I realized and I’m just behind the times somewhat.
Atelier previously was used chiefly as I described – it comes from the French, and the French themselves used it to refer to their workshops which were (at the time) predominantly run as group arrangements, and hence that was for a long period the default association.
But by the exact same token, the word itself evolved from an earlier usage referring specifically to -carpentry- workshops, and it clearly no longer has that strict association or usage. Language evolves, after all.
—
I suppose I’m just old-fashioned about the word, and would have preferred the older usage was retained, as it has great value in helping distinguish between different -kinds- of workshops, and simply using it as a direct synonym feels redundent.
On the other hand, the word was clearly falling further and further out of usage, in large part because the way of making art it used to refer to has also fallen out of usage, so perhaps this more modern change in meaning is for the best, allowing the word to be revived instead of forgotten. Who can say?
—
All of that said, at no point did I intend to suggest you were using the word incorrectly yourself – I assumed it was just another layer of depicting Leo’s pretention. I fear I inadvertantly led you to think I was criticizing your word choice, and for that I apologize.
—
As for Miyazaki, I’m not sure how fair it is to compare two different languages’ loanwords, because different languages often borrow the same words in different ways.
A quick Google search informs me the Japanese adopted “atorie” in the 1890s, but that doesn’t tell us how exactly they used it then. It’s possible they never had the association of a master artist leading a group of students / assistants – especially since that system wasn’t common in Japan in that era.
Or, perhaps they did did have that association, but just as in English that usage changed at some point in the intervening years.
I suspect his webcomic went on hiatus a long time ago. He was on a book tour for his first novel when the reality blindness hit. It’s quite challenging to write a novel and a webcomic at the same time. Then, after the reality blindness hit, he holed up in the abandoned Jersey safehouse, living off the land, so he wasn’t working on anything.
It’s possible he had a unusually French-inflected upbringing…?
I mean, sure, his creator Doctor Bloodworth doesn’t very French, and sure, he raised Leo as an instrument of death, but I mean… maybe he’s a half-Quebecois who inherited an English last name from his father, but he hated that side of his heritage and created Leo as a weapon for the cause of radical secessionism?
Man, these straws are just so hard to get a hold of…
Any OTHER large, powerful predators? Have you MET Sweetheart? Her idea of a rampage is taking a shortcut across the grass instead of staying on the sidewalk.
“Wear three days, turn around…wear three more days, turn inside out…wear three more days, turn around, still inside out…wear three more days, get dunked in the creek ’cause nobody will ride in the same canoe with you.”
A week for us. It’s all been the same day for them. She went and talked to Remy, then they all went out for breakfast at the IHoP, and now they’re here talking to the Queen. It probably isn’t even noon yet.
Chilled canned dew not the bottle canned is the better choice Leo
If you could get original Mountain Dew (not the “throwback” junk they sell now) in glass bottles, that would be the best choice.
Plastic bottles and aluminum cans both change the taste of the beverage. Glass doesn’t.
Strictly speaking most cans nowadays have a chemical coating on the inside to keep the contents from reacting with the metal, but Mountain Dew _is_ impressively corrosive.
BMunro: That just means you get Mountain Dew laced with bisphenol A rather than metal. It’s probably better for you than pure Mountain Dew either way.
I would recommend pouring it into a glass and drinking it from that, though, as you don’t taste the original container as you drink.
I have gone to stainless steel water bottles for this reason. Hate the plastic taste and glass shatters.
@SVGeezer. I concur. If chrome weren’t so gawdawful expensive we’d see a lot less paint, rust, and waste than we do now.
The local market stopped carrying glass bottles of Mountain Dew (or even Pepsi); dunno whether it was a decision by the distributor or the market to not stock it.
(I’ve got an eight-pack of Mountain Dew bottles dating from the mid-1980s. I was gonna crack one open when I sold my first story to a magazine. Here it is, 2020, and I’m afraid to drink them now. They’ve been in my (hot) garage since the late 1980s.)
There is a TV show now for that.
I may have previously mentioned that I have a can of Spam from 1995. It’s a tradition in our family, to keep a can of Spam around till it explodes.
We had a miniature golf course in Phoenix back when I was a teen that had a soda machine that sold Mountain Dew in bottles that were so cold it was practically a slushie. Those were pretty darn good.
I wouldn’t touch the stuff now.
“They call it that good ol’ Mountain Dew / And them that refuse it are few / I’ll hush up my mug if you fill up my jug / With some good ol’ Mountain Dew…”
Throwback, ideally.
(Which apparently no one is shipping to my part of California anymore? I can’t get my liquid crack! Gaaah!)
They’ve made a change in the packaging here in Florida, though I haven’t bought any yet.
Is Leo getting to look more like one of the creators of this webcomic? Or both of them?
My God, you’re right. Maybe we have some Narnia creeping into Oz here?
(… responses to this will indicate that Narnia foreshadowing has been *all over the place* and really obvious for about ten years and I just completely failed to notice any of it.)
Hmm. Is Leo the Most Vulnerable non-human? Is the Wizard manipulating the Cowardly Lion? Has Leo been promised his own Youtube channel?
Well, H. T. played him pretty good.
He’s an insecure narcissist. Of course he’s the most vulnerable to manipulation. Just like Tip was when he was going through his identity crisis.
Which doesn’t explain why others are also still getting the dreams.
Perhaps the dreams are a phenomenon separate from A-Sig?
Without knowing who or what is causing it, or what his, her, or its intentions are, it’s impossible to know why anyone in particular is getting the dreams. But if it is for the purposes of manipulation why would the sender limit itself only to one person?
If Leo is indeed the target, and if he were the only one getting the dreams, then either a) he would obviously be the target, or b) no one would believe him at all (he does write fiction, after all). Causing all of them to have the dreams could very well be subterfuge, so that no one would think there is a single target.
‘Atelier’, like ‘smew’. ‘étui’, and ‘reredos’, is a word I rarely run across outside of cryptic crosswords.
I mostly run across it when playing video games.
I find them when reading Web Comics
I run across ‘atelier’ way too frequently – it’s been picked up by pretentious hipsters who want think “workshop” or “studio” isn’t fancy enough to appeal to their upscale clientele.
I wouldn’t mind it as much as I do, except they’re misusing the word, just as Leo himself is. A single artist’s personal workshop doesn’t qualify – an atelier is actually a large workshop where a head artist directs a group of assistants or apprentices to collectively create a work under the head artist’s name.
I did pick the word for its pretentious ring, but an atelier is usually a single artist’s workshop whether or not assistants also work there. For example, Hayao Miyazaki calls his private studio an atelier.
Yes, I wrote this so I could mention that I once had tea with Miyazaki at his atelier. Thank you and God bless.
Perhaps the modern meaning has simply changed more in recent years than I realized and I’m just behind the times somewhat.
Atelier previously was used chiefly as I described – it comes from the French, and the French themselves used it to refer to their workshops which were (at the time) predominantly run as group arrangements, and hence that was for a long period the default association.
But by the exact same token, the word itself evolved from an earlier usage referring specifically to -carpentry- workshops, and it clearly no longer has that strict association or usage. Language evolves, after all.
—
I suppose I’m just old-fashioned about the word, and would have preferred the older usage was retained, as it has great value in helping distinguish between different -kinds- of workshops, and simply using it as a direct synonym feels redundent.
On the other hand, the word was clearly falling further and further out of usage, in large part because the way of making art it used to refer to has also fallen out of usage, so perhaps this more modern change in meaning is for the best, allowing the word to be revived instead of forgotten. Who can say?
—
All of that said, at no point did I intend to suggest you were using the word incorrectly yourself – I assumed it was just another layer of depicting Leo’s pretention. I fear I inadvertantly led you to think I was criticizing your word choice, and for that I apologize.
—
As for Miyazaki, I’m not sure how fair it is to compare two different languages’ loanwords, because different languages often borrow the same words in different ways.
A quick Google search informs me the Japanese adopted “atorie” in the 1890s, but that doesn’t tell us how exactly they used it then. It’s possible they never had the association of a master artist leading a group of students / assistants – especially since that system wasn’t common in Japan in that era.
Or, perhaps they did did have that association, but just as in English that usage changed at some point in the intervening years.
I had to look up “atelier.” Is Leo still drawing his internet comic?
He’s working on his memoir.
One doesn’t preclude the other.
I suspect his webcomic went on hiatus a long time ago. He was on a book tour for his first novel when the reality blindness hit. It’s quite challenging to write a novel and a webcomic at the same time. Then, after the reality blindness hit, he holed up in the abandoned Jersey safehouse, living off the land, so he wasn’t working on anything.
With the good ones, they always wear down and stop before I lose interest.
“Atelier”? My God, he’s so pretentious.
It’s possible he had a unusually French-inflected upbringing…?
I mean, sure, his creator Doctor Bloodworth doesn’t very French, and sure, he raised Leo as an instrument of death, but I mean… maybe he’s a half-Quebecois who inherited an English last name from his father, but he hated that side of his heritage and created Leo as a weapon for the cause of radical secessionism?
Man, these straws are just so hard to get a hold of…
But when the French use “atelier”, they mean an actual workshop, not an artist’s studio.
Any OTHER large, powerful predators? Have you MET Sweetheart? Her idea of a rampage is taking a shortcut across the grass instead of staying on the sidewalk.
Well, Victor Wren, you say that, but Sweetheart did recently rip a zombie’s arm off. I think she did that to make a point, but still…
She said “powerful”, Sweetheart.
Sweetheart is powerful. She’s just afraid to use it.
They’ve all been out their all these whiles.
A lot of data in their files.
But Leo was the first they met.
Is he that easy to forget?
Unity’s been wearing that T-shirt for nearly a full week, and I just now noticed it.
“Wear three days, turn around…wear three more days, turn inside out…wear three more days, turn around, still inside out…wear three more days, get dunked in the creek ’cause nobody will ride in the same canoe with you.”
A week for us. It’s all been the same day for them. She went and talked to Remy, then they all went out for breakfast at the IHoP, and now they’re here talking to the Queen. It probably isn’t even noon yet.
Obviously the mane suspect has shown up
And you can never tell if he’s telling the truth, because he’s always lion.
He could be just a-kitten you.
That’s just a sign of pride.
That’s a catty remark.
Had to look up ‘atelier’.
Apparently it’s a fancy word for an artist’s workshop.
It just occurred to me that the Queen said “our kind seldom attack one another.”
That implies that they do, in fact, sometimes attack one another.