For your edification

[kaberett]

noldo: and now, I google "can you grow onions in antarctica" -- THIS SORT OF THING IS VERY IMPORTANT
kaberett: YES
noldo: no you can't grow onions in antarctica. all my dreams of moving there and being an itinerant onion herder are SHATTERED.
kaberett: ...
kaberett: ...
kaberett: face
kaberett: onions
kaberett: don't
kaberett: need
kaberett: herding
noldo: that
noldo: is exactly what [3rd party] said
noldo: to which I repli
noldo: "You round up the wild onions
With sled dogs
Then you chivvy them into the fold
And then, French onion soup for all
Which is a bit barbaric but there you go"
noldo: also
noldo: Onions
noldo: aren't vegetarian
noldo: Therefore
noldo: They are animals
kaberett: ...
kaberett: ...
noldo: Therefore
noldo: you gotta herd them
kaberett: ...
noldo: ONIONS
noldo: NEED
noldo: HERDING
noldo: or they stampede
kaberett: ... across the veldt?


Comments

[noldo]

Let it be known that 'twas mustela_nivalis the Renowned and Respectable who reminded me that onions just can't be vegetarian. And if they are not vegetarian they are not vegetables. And if they are not vegetables they are BEASTIES WOT YOU GOTTA HERD I TELL YOU.

Given that this originated from an analysis of circumpolar funerary traditions, I feel like knowing me must be a unique educational experience.

...or

something

[kaberett]

but is one of their legs longer than the other

it's important

[noldo]

um hello

veldt

VELDT

that would be COMPLETELY IMPRACTICAL

lo, with all their legs being beautifully the same size, the onions proceed MAJESTICALLY across the PLAINS

occasionally STAMPEDING a bit which is HARD to DO on a MOUNTAIN and if you've got to HOP a lot

...

they are joined in their endeavours by the noble FACEBOK

with their smaller and less-antlered cousins the TEXTBOK

it is an awe-inspiring sight a whiz a wonder of nature

[kaberett]

but

it is circumpolar

it might be veldt but it's still slopier on one side than the other

also how on earth do you reckon the onion is related to the textbok last I checked IT HAD NO ANTLERS AT ALL

;_;

you mock its antlerless state

[noldo]

[kaberett]

ALL YOU HAVE PROVEN

IS THAT ONIONS

ARE IN FACT

A RELATIVE

OF THE SPRING-ONION-SQUID

[squigglefish]

...That has to be the most beautiful thing I've seen all day :D

[sorrillia]

Onions aren't vegetarian? This explains so much: Randall (he who was the laziest person ever to graduate from Tech on time) always asserted that they were meat.

So I guess it follows that one ought to herd them. Though I think they are very lazy animals, spending all their time curled up underground as they do. And so they are probably appropriate for lazy herders.

Now I am curious if there is a way to make French onion soup without beef, and if I should try it some day. But I am probably too lazy. Onions have that effect on a person...it comes from their lazy affect as previously mentioned.

[ghoti]

onions need herding in the same way that i am moving to a remote island off the coast of tibet. *nods sagely*

[noldo]

I'm almost sure I could find some way to manipulate the territorial claims of Taiwan into generating one of those for you.

Onions are very dangerous animals and must be controlled.

[ghoti]

or at least folding a map creatively.

[noldo]

My grandfather doth refuse to consume the humble onion for he claims it makes him lethargic and unhappy. I think my uncle thinks so too.

Perhaps we should introduce them both to Randall.

[kaberett]

On the basis that one of my PhD students once tried to convince me that shrimp were vegetarian because some of the cell wall proteins are the same as in vegetables...

As for being curled-up-underground animals: well I suppose onions might well be a member of the mustelidae but in that case THEY STILL DON'T NEED HERDING HAVE YOU EVER TRIED HERDING A BADGER

IT RAPIDLY BECOMES BADGERAGE

... and, yep, just use veg stock instead of beef.

[noldo]

Surely

you mean

badgering a badger

[sorrillia]

I merely refuse to eat onions because they Taste Bad, as has been well established by me since I was a most tiny epsilon.

*Is impressed by these gentlemen, who need specific foods to feel lethargic and unhappy.*

We might introduce them to Randall. However, this seems hard, and I am lazy despite spurning onions.

[noldo]

Onions are amazing and wondrous especially when caramelised in liberal amounts of butter, and you are wrong. On the other hand, this difference of opinion meant I used to get to eat all your onions, so I don't actually mind much.

[sorrillia]

You get pet PhD students already? Wow, *is impressed*! So, I have been known to make the argument that mushrooms should count as meat, because their cell walls are made of chitin. But I am confused by shrimp having cell walls: I was under impression that no animals had cell walls.

Badgers need to be herded, too. You just need to be judicious in how you do it. By which, is meant, tell them to do what they were going to do anyway. Which makes it a well-considered occupation for the refined and inert soul

[sorrillia]

*Wonders if they actually have badgers in the real world, or only in fictionalized-England-with-talking-animals, as that seems the only place has come across them.*

[sorrillia]

Some day I shall have to manage to visit you again, and should remember to come bearing onions.

Alternatively, I could go to Haymarket and buy twenty pounds of onions and see if that can work to lure you here from your distant haunts over the sea and far away.

[kaberett]

By "my PhD students" I mean "the ones who supervise me" not "the ones I supervise" :-)

[noldo]

allons OIGNONS de la PANTR-IE
blah blah blah days of glory for the onions and some shit
flag flag flag onwards [l'étendard soupant?]
etc
Mugir ces féroces POTAGES
ILS VIENNENT JUSQUE DANS VOS ... racines?
ÉGORGER VOS FEUILLES, VOS ... I can only make the champignons joke once right bother

AUX ARMES, ÉCHALOTES
SOMETHING SOMETHING CHAMPIGNONS [there we go]
BOUILLONS BOUILLONS
QU'UNE SOUPE IMPURE
no you know what this makes no sense

[sorrillia]

I eventually realized what you meant, but the other interpretation seemed more amusing.

[noldo]

Given this, you definitely need to make sure not to forget the onions.

[noldo]

England? The bodgers have dwelt in it for in it for generators!

[noldo]

Did I tell you people about my postdoc?

[sorrillia]

Are onions still overpriced or hard to get there? And, perhaps more relevantly, I wonder how customs officials would feel about me showing up with a suitcase full of onions in my checked baggage. Besides taxes, I think countries tend to be worried about people with plant products carrying evil insects and the like...

[sorrillia]

You mean the Lazy European? *wonders if she ate a lot of onions or something*

[noldo]

I periodically still get emails from people hoping to be my postdoc, since being First Author and having an email ID of Firstname at University Dot Edu apparently means I must be very important.

I was considering taking one of them up on it senior year and having him do my Ph 205 sets for me.

[sorrillia]

Oh, right. You were going to make me watch that show. Then I disappeared to the North-East Frontier and became most scarce.

[sorrillia]

Ah. You had mentioned receiving such.

Someday, if I make sufficient offerings of sacrifices and lightings of votive candles and recitings of names of power, perhaps the Machine shall allow me to be first author on a publication, and then I can know the honor and wonder of having a postdoc?

And, perhaps, if the Machine is truly generous, I may even Graduate some day, and then maybe I shall run away to Europe to _be_ a postdoc. Perhaps I can apply to work for you then?

[noldo]

But will you do my quantum field theory homework? That is an important employment criterion.

[sorrillia]

Certainly. As a sample of my work, I can present a report on bats:

Bats == Bugs
QED

Leek Shore Drive

[hairyears]

Onions are not vegetarian. For it is Written:

THOU SHALLOT NOT KILL.

[naath]

Ah, onions are related to Haggis?

[noldo]

My grandfather, Man Of A Thousand Weird Opinions About Food, refuses to touch mushrooms for this very reason. Well, that and the fact that he DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THEY'VE BEEN. What if they were growing in something UNHOLY. I try to point out to him that many things grow in less-than-savoury sorts of environments but he will have none of it. (To be fair, mushrooms are probably the unholiest of the things I will actually eat, so I suspect he has a point. But I don't like encouraging him.)

What if what the badgers were going to do anyway is knife you and steal all your pocket money? Devious sorts, those bodgers.

[sorrillia]

Disbelieves about unholiest thing you eat being mushrooms. You eat capsaicin, which is the ground up essence of _fiery demons_! Why else would it burn you when you eat it?

[amethystfirefly]

This is the best post and series of comments threads EVAR.

[ewx]

kaberett: face
kaberett: onions
kaberett: don't
kaberett: need
kaberett: herding

Tell me more about face onions.

[elialshadowpine]

JFC I nearly choked on my cherry laughing there. (IT ISN'T WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE, I REALLY HAVE A BOWL OF RAINIER CHERRIES IN FRONT OF ME, SEE???)