Wapsi Square Forum

jwhouk wrote:The one section can only be properly read with the following playing in the background...

Fixed it for you.

DinkyInky wrote:Fixed it for you.

"... like a rabid Care Bear." Lady, you are delightfully evil!

I have to watch it. My family's from Barnard's Castle, which is a few well thrown bagpipes from Scotland.

Dave wrote:

DinkyInky wrote:Fixed it for you.

"... like a rabid Care Bear." Lady, you are delightfully evil!

"How do you get an Englishman out of a tree? Cut the noose...."

I just hyperventilated and fell out of my chair.

chicgeek wrote:On a lighter note, I am the least mechanically inclined person you'd hope to meet. The engineering jargon is so much babble to me. And I still thoroughly enjoyed the story.

Personally, while I am somewhat mechanically inclined, inasmuch as if I know how to do a procedure, and have the proper tools, I can accomplish it, I am, sadly, somewhat car-knowledge poor. Yet in spite of that, I too, enjoy this little story immensely. I believe the reason for that is that there is a sufficient mix of mechanics and people story together to make it interesting to even those who do not grasp the finer details of the mechanical parts.

Incidentally, this story, along with others that "starred" Clara, had me look up information on Land Rover vehicles on the internet... I have to admit that while the front end is evidently different, the side panels and overall look of some of the Land Rovers remind me somewhat of the look of some models of the International Harvester Scout vehicles... (What can I say: we can't all be "classically trained"... ) It's not all the models, of course: I'm talking about the shorter wheelbase ones, for LR, and mostly the earlier Scout models. Compare an LR Image search with a IH Scout image search, to see what I mean. (As long as you overlook the sloping roofline on the LR models, of course... and I did say they "somewhat" remind me of the Scouts...)

I owned a Scout, for a few months, but could not afford the work it needed to get it certified and plated, so I had to sell it. I would have loved to be able to keep it. I also was interested in a 1972 Ford Bronco (i.e. first generation), but it was jacked up, and the owner said that the driveshaft had a tendency to pull out, if one was not careful. I was doing pizza delivery, at the time, so I could not take the chance of that happening while working... I was also enamoured by the second generation Broncos, long before I fell in love with the GMC Suburbans (of which I was only able to purchase one in 2011, after years of yearning...) I also found the Centurion Bronco conversion (one is pictured on the Bronco's Wikipedia page), of a Crew Cab pickup into a Bronco-like extended truck similar to the Suburbans to be quite interesting. But those were done as custom jobs by a company that charged quite a bit for them (and I'm sure they were worth it), before Ford decided to try the Excursion and, later, the Expedition EL (Expedition Max, in Canada, because, God forbid, someone might confuse the name with that of the Acura El... )


By the way, I'm starting to think that we will need a cast document, with the same kind of information as jwhouk did for the WS cast... For quick reference and backstory (as much as the fanfics have told us, no more), to help jog peoples' memory, as they keep reading newer and newer fanfics, with the older fanfics getting further in the back of the mind... (It's easier to read a quick reference on a characer, than to have to re-read all the fanfics to try to remember what that character has done in the past...)

lake_wrangler wrote:By the way, I'm starting to think that we will need a cast document, with the same kind of information as jwhouk did for the WS cast... For quick reference and backstory (as much as the fanfics have told us, no more), to help jog peoples' memory, as they keep reading newer and newer fanfics, with the older fanfics getting further in the back of the mind... (It's easier to read a quick reference on a characer, than to have to re-read all the fanfics to try to remember what that character has done in the past...)

Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

AmriloJim wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:By the way, I'm starting to think that we will need a cast document, with the same kind of information as jwhouk did for the WS cast... For quick reference and backstory (as much as the fanfics have told us, no more), to help jog peoples' memory, as they keep reading newer and newer fanfics, with the older fanfics getting further in the back of the mind... (It's easier to read a quick reference on a characer, than to have to re-read all the fanfics to try to remember what that character has done in the past...)

Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

I think it sounded something like Dev-naught, or something like that...

I expect to be corrected forthwith and post-haste, naturally...

lake_wrangler wrote:

AmriloJim wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:By the way, I'm starting to think that we will need a cast document, with the same kind of information as jwhouk did for the WS cast... For quick reference and backstory (as much as the fanfics have told us, no more), to help jog peoples' memory, as they keep reading newer and newer fanfics, with the older fanfics getting further in the back of the mind... (It's easier to read a quick reference on a characer, than to have to re-read all the fanfics to try to remember what that character has done in the past...)

Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

I think it sounded something like Dev-naught, or something like that...

I expect to be corrected forthwith and post-haste, naturally...

You've got it precisely correct, actually. It's from the Gaelic, which is always pronounced very differently from how it is spelled due to an alphabetical translation which is... the best one can do considering it was primarily a spoken rather than written language.

lake_wrangler wrote:

AmriloJim wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:By the way, I'm starting to think that we will need a cast document, with the same kind of information as jwhouk did for the WS cast... For quick reference and backstory (as much as the fanfics have told us, no more), to help jog peoples' memory, as they keep reading newer and newer fanfics, with the older fanfics getting further in the back of the mind... (It's easier to read a quick reference on a characer, than to have to re-read all the fanfics to try to remember what that character has done in the past...)

Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

I think it sounded something like Dev-naught, or something like that... . . .

Thirded . . . I could use such for the piece I'm trying to write.

--FreeFlier

ShneekeyTheLost wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:

AmriloJim wrote:Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

I think it sounded something like Dev-naught, or something like that...

I expect to be corrected forthwith and post-haste, naturally...

You've got it precisely correct, actually. It's from the Gaelic, which is always pronounced very differently from how it is spelled due to an alphabetical translation which is... the best one can do considering it was primarily a spoken rather than written language.

Ironically, while I remember (apparently) how to pronounce it, I currently forget how it's written...

Dem...something... (though I'm pretty sure it ends with a 't'...)

Yana has a friend who put up a Wapsi Fanfic Wiki. The various authors are, albeit somewhat gradually, working on filling it with the information it would and should contain.

Trouble is, it's a huge project. We have produced a rather huge volume of work, and life has been getting in the way somethin' fierce.

Still, it's a work in progress, even if progress is flowing a bit more like molasses than we would probably like.

AmriloJim wrote:Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

lake_wrangler wrote:I think it sounded something like Dev-naught, or something like that...

I expect to be corrected forthwith and post-haste, naturally...

ShneekeyTheLost wrote:You've got it precisely correct, actually. It's from the Gaelic, which is always pronounced very differently from how it is spelled due to an alphabetical translation which is... the best one can do considering it was primarily a spoken rather than written language.

lake_wrangler wrote:Ironically, while I remember (apparently) how to pronounce it, I currently forget how it's written...

Dem...something... (though I'm pretty sure it ends with a 't'...)

Damhaight? (Probability of being reasonably correct approximately 50%)

--FreeFlier

FreeFlier wrote:

AmriloJim wrote:Agreed... I've tried searching for the proper pronunciation of the middle name which Sterling uses as her surname, to no avail.

lake_wrangler wrote:I think it sounded something like Dev-naught, or something like that...

I expect to be corrected forthwith and post-haste, naturally...

ShneekeyTheLost wrote:You've got it precisely correct, actually. It's from the Gaelic, which is always pronounced very differently from how it is spelled due to an alphabetical translation which is... the best one can do considering it was primarily a spoken rather than written language.

lake_wrangler wrote:Ironically, while I remember (apparently) how to pronounce it, I currently forget how it's written...

Dem...something... (though I'm pretty sure it ends with a 't'...)

Damhaight? (Probability of being reasonably correct approximately 50%)

--FreeFlier

Sterling Damhnait.

The sides were a trompe d'oeuil picture

Is that a valid term? I've always seen it as "trompe l'oeuil".

Dave wrote:

The sides were a trompe d'oeuil picture

Is that a valid term? I've always seen it as "trompe l'oeuil".

You may be right - I derived it freom the French instead of looking it up. I will revise.

I am, however, browned off that I did not get called on something.


“Ye dinna ken why ye’ve angered me! A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, eh?”

“Leave my wife out of this."

Geeze...

There appears to be something slightly out of order in the latest installment - did time pass between "Now, out with you all!" and Ari and Sterling doing the checklist?

jwhouk wrote:There appears to be something slightly out of order in the latest installment - did time pass between "Now, out with you all!" and Ari and Sterling doing the checklist?

Yes, one was the afternoon of the day before and the checklist was the next morning. That bit's a bit clumsy.

Just add a 'graf that tells of one of the co-conspirators rolling in to the plant two hours early, only to find the other waiting impatiently.

AmriloJim wrote:Just add a 'graf that tells of one of the co-conspirators rolling in to the plant two hours early, only to find the other waiting impatiently.

Quite true. Good point, and good solution.

Agreed... well spliced!

And, I agree with Al's decision to wait until the next day. All too often, I've "finished" something difficult, looked it over and found nothing wrong, and pushed ahead to test it... only to have something go PFFFT and let some of the magic smoke out. I'd missed seeing the fault due to a combination of over-eagerness and fatigue (sort of a tech version of buck fever, perhaps?).

Getting a good night's sleep before doing the final look-over and running the test, is usually a very good idea. Fairly often I find myself waking up at four in the morning with an "Oh sh*t, you idiot!" realization, where the back-side of my brain throws up an image into my awareness, with my big fat mistake glowing in neon colors. The workings of the not-entirely-conscious parts of the mind are mysterious, but I've come to respect them a lot (mostly by being slapped around by myself whenever I don't!)