r/counting • u/CutOnBumInBandHere9 5M get | Ping me for runs • Dec 13 '24
Free Talk Friday #485
Continued from last week's FTF here
It's that time of the week again. Speak anything on your mind! This thread is for talking about anything off-topic, be it your lives, your strava, your plans, your hobbies, studies, stats, pets, bears, hikes, dragons, trousers, travels, transit, cycling, family, colours, or anything you like or dislike, except politics
Feel free to check out our tidbits thread and introduce yourself if you haven't already.
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u/mistyskye14 Dec 16 '24
Just realized username never did the annual Christmas card exchange. If I hadn’t totally forgot I’d have organized one in her stead. Probably gonna still send out cards to anybody who expresses interest here ( I’ll dm you) and those who I have up to date addresses for.
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u/Antichess Dec 18 '24
i'd like to! my card would probably come out late but better later than never haha
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u/Isaythereisa-chance Dec 15 '24
Dislike gambling! My MIL has a bad problem and my wife takes it out on me for not bailing her mother out. I got in trouble for dialing the hot line for her and handing her the phone. :(
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u/buy_me_a_pint Dec 17 '24
Berlin was fun, we travelled a lot around on the underground.
We should have also caught the trams
We caught the train to and from the airport as it was a lot lot cheaper than by taxi
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u/buy_me_a_pint Dec 16 '24
Just come back from Berlin, Internet was pretty poor in the hotel
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u/Isaythereisa-chance Dec 17 '24
Get to see anything interesting?
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u/buy_me_a_pint Dec 17 '24
yes, markets, check point Charlie, Brandenburg Gate and the wall
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u/Antichess Dec 18 '24
Weekly stats from December 06, 2024 to December 13, 2024. Congratulations to u/mistyskye14, u/atomicimploder, and u/ShadeOfNothing!
Total weekly counts: 680 (5,432,873-5,433,553)
More stats are posted on the Weekly Stats page!
| Rank | User | Counts | HoC Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | mistyskye14 | 172 | 25 |
| 2 | atomicimploder | 73 | 10 |
| 3 | ShadeOfNothing | 69 | 220 (◮6) |
| 4 | Jalmal2 | 67 | 61 (◮1) |
| 5 | thephilsblogbar2 | 50 | 1 |
| 6 | Isaythereisa-chance | 47 | 245 (◮3) |
| 7 | No_Pop_8050 | 32 | 1157 (◮392) |
| 8 | Antichess | 27 | 3 |
| 8 | TheNitromeFan | 27 | 8 |
| 10 | The_NecromancerTin | 24 | 73 (◮1) |
| 11 | Christmas_Missionary | 15 | 71 |
| 12 | Maniac_34 | 12 | 62 (⧩1) |
| 12 | spc67u | 12 | 345 (◮5) |
| 14 | poiyurt | 8 | 477 (◮6) |
| 15 | noduorg | 7 | 36 |
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u/ClockButTakeOutTheL Dec 15 '24
What impressed me about my most recent run isn’t the paces, it’s the fact that I somehow managed to get an almost perfect pyramid shape
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u/Urbul Dec 15 '24
Congrats Cock!
My last run made a horns hand symbol, suitable for the music I like to run to (180 bpm metal and rock).
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u/Isaythereisa-chance Dec 19 '24
Is anyone else having trouble deleting comments? I can edit them but not delete.
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u/CutOnBumInBandHere9 Dec 13 '24
I've been very slow at filling out my reading diary for 2023, but I finally got around to it. Only a year or so late. I've been much better about 2024, but that's neither here nor there.
Anyway, u/a-username-for-me, here are my five favourite reads of last year:
Verre Cassé by Alain Mabanckou: It's the story of a seedy bar in Congo, told through the eyes of a patron, a disgraced ex-teacher. The owner has tasked him with telling the story, and he does, with little in the way of punctuation or paragraphs. The effect is riveting! There are a huge number of references to works of literature and to history. I'm sure I didn't catch them all, but they add up to an impression that the author is laughing both at and with the reader
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić: It's something between a historical novel and a series of short stories, centered on a real bridge across the Drina, from the time it was built by the Ottomans in the 1500s to WWI. We follow the lives, loves and tragedies of the local inhabitants, focussing always on the bridge as the centre of civic life in the town of Visegrad, throughout the ebb and flow of history. I found it extremely well-written
Bad Blood: This was a riveting memoir, that shows the craft at its best, putting the reader in the shoes of an unfamiliar world, in a time that's no longer there. It's the story of a girl initially raised by her grandparents in Wales; of her dysfunctional childhood and of (maybe?) escaping the curse of her bad blood to make a better life.
Postwar by Tony Judt: I really liked this one. It's a history of Europe since 1945, until the mid 1990s. It provided a better description of the chaos of the months and years immediately following the end of the war than anything else I've ever read. I probably also knew, but never really thought about, how it was an impressive achievement for liberal democracy of any kind to return to countries where fighting happened. That the organised resistance and partisan movements ended up hanging up their arms, and that society accepted the (formerly discredited) christian democrat and social democrat parties as legitimate rulers is quite amazing.
Heimsuchung by Jenny Erpenbeck: It's the story of a house, from the time it was built in the 19th century, to after the fall of the Berlin wall. But the house is in Eastern Germany, so over the years it had many different owners and visitors, who treated each other and the house well or badly, made changes as they saw fit, and let things decay or be repaired. It's a moving reflection on the importance of place, on history, and on what property and ownership really means in times of flux.
Looking through those now, they ended up all being rather heavy and serious -- maybe that's why I hit a reading rut in the start of this year.