LongTom

^ What a strange question. Too many ways to answer that. I assume you mean "with someone with whom romance otherwise is or could be a factor." Heck, I don't know. Defrosted our freezer? Irrigated a set of episiotomy stitches? < Romance is overrated. Novelty fades. It's supposed to. We are not meant to be perpetually off-balance. (Which is not to say that romance isn't nice, when you can add a little in. But people mistake it for the thing that cements a strong relationship, the sine qua non of being together, and that's why so many fail.) V Passing the question along, to see if somebody else has a clearer idea how to answer.

You all thought I was kidding. Read this. Donating blood in someone's name. The relevant text from the page: Can I donate blood in someone's name or as a credit against future blood needs? Yes. Delta Blood Bank operates on a credit system. Each blood donation creates a credit that can be used for one of several options: Replacement Credit, Bloodplan Credit, or Community Donor Credit. Replacement Credits can be applied to a patient who is using blood, to help reduce the patient's hospital bill. The name of the patient and the name of the hospital should be provided to us at the time you register to donate. We need to find out whether this is a national system, and whether there is a blood bank in your area that will facilitate this!

N'apkins? N'ahhhhh. N'ever mind. N'ot n'ecessary.

I'd donate a pint for the lass.

^ The day after my aunt's wedding (who is one year older than me). Man, I was in a sorry state. But it eventually dawned on me that, wait a minute, hangovers don't involve 102-degree fever.... < always be careful when travelling back to the old country. You are acclimated to your local germ pool, but the stuff half a continent away can nail ya! V Pass the question on.

Sorry to harp on it, but this idea of scale has caught my imagination. The HMS Rose, which portrayed the HMS Surprise in Master and Commander, has a Length Over All of 179 feet, and a beam of 32 feet. (Here is her specs page) That means that were she placed on my 0.2 acre lot (50'x150'), she would be just slightly wider than my house, her length on deck would be roughly two of my house, and the bowsprit would hang over the neighbor's yard by some 29 feet. Big ship.

Not a ship, but a lighthouse.

What about silk painting? You can do a thing where you outline the design that you want to keep undyed in washable kids glue. Then you apply dye on the rest. The dye runs right up to the glue lines and stops. I think the hard part is setting the dye and getting rid of the excess without bleeding into the clear areas. Maybe completely cover the white areas with glue (or maybe wax), not just the outlines. Just a thought.

If you aren't concerned with accuracy, MegaBloks makes some pretty nice ship toys in several of their toy series. Captain Cutlass' Stormstalker from the Pyrates toy series. Man O'War, from the Dragons toy series. This is my favorite of the MegaBloks ships. Nice lines, and big! And of course, the Black Pearl, the Flying Dutchman, and a number of other increasingly fantastical ships, which you can find on their website. I called the first two out as being in my opinion their best representation of a wooden ship.

Google tells me that the most common scales associated with dollhouses (search terms: dollhouse furniture scale) are 1" (one-inch, or 1:12) and 1/2" (half-inch, or 1:24). That ought to tell you what sort of ship can be built to the size of a reasonable dollhouse. By way of comparison, that four-foot-plus HMS Surprise is 1:48, so building the equivalent ship at dollhouse scale would be either nine feet or seventeen feet long. (you say that like there is some problem, tom... )

I wouldn't change a thing. Your flag has a ring of "realness" to it. (It's getting to the point where I'm reconsidering how much too modern mine looks! ) If I saw that flying over your vessel, I'd have no doubt that you meant serious business.

Hmmmm.... so if I'm reading you right, a pirate ship scaled to take "standard" dollhouse furniture...okay, yes... three feet long... implies something like ten inches wide... probably would imply a hull that opens on one side like a cupboard door, rather than splitting open at the keel line (that also would make the standing and running rigging much less of a nightmare, since the top deck could be permanent...sounds like a two-master at most, at that scale... probably one deck of belowdecks, probably flat bottomed, though some sort of stand could be incorporated, if a full keel is desired... some necessary distortions of scale of the parts, for sturdiness, and simplification of rigging, just to keep it manageable for a kid...still, definitely go to the trouble of tapering the masts and spars, for appearance... Yup. Could be done. (Not likely by me. I haven't the woodworking skills.) That ship model company has some ships on roughly that size (though not necessarily that scale), by the way, like this one, if you have 7 or 8 hundred to spend on it. (I know, still not the right thing...but nice to drool over anyway...)

In that case, maybe what you want comes from these people. I'm currently building this ship. Probably a mistake to start with one of the intermediate models, but I've managed not to completely ruin it so far. (shades of Calvin and Hobbes and the airplane model...) These definitely do not open up, unless you count this cross section model. They also are sufficiently small scale that dollhouse-style operation is not practical. But they are mighty pretty!

Something like this? It appears to open up, but I can't tell what belowdecks looks like.

southern ca, apr 2007:

wildly careening Greyhound bus

Does Sparrow get to palm the Aztec coin for this encounter? On the other hand (wait, with Hook there is no other hand), I was going to say, it's a bit cramped to maneuver a cutlass inside a croc.

Elves aren't affected by cold, silly. ...actually, now that I think about it...you don't suppose that was a deliberate reference?

Did my weights tonight. I'm up to 30 situps per set, 90 total. It's good to be out of the red ink, as it were, regarding making progress. Positive progress is positive reinforcement. Setbacks are the pits, and working my way back to where I was before the problem occurred just isn't the same. Here's wishing everyone a speedy recovery, and then back on track. A (low-calorie) toast!

^ Martinelli's float. Like a root beer float, but with Martinelli's sparkling cider and a dash of cinnamon. < Doesn't get dessert near as often these days, so has to just dream. V Who's next?

Yeah, diethylene glycol again. A Chinese chemical entrepreneur sold that as glycerine for use in cough syrup, and killed some horrible number of people in Bangladesh and Panama. Now it's showing up in toothpaste. Somebody seriously needs to be fed his own product until he dies, a victim of his own malfeasance.

Glad to hear it doesn't seem to be the old ticker, John, though it must be frustrating not to know what is going on. I hope it continues to clear up on its own. Sorry to hear about the back problems, Asukaru. I hate setbacks too. I strained my back coughing once, when I had mononucleosis 15 years ago. Ouch! I hope you still aren't coughing! Thank you Jacky. It feels good to have dropped 16 pounds. Only 20 more to go! (groan) Speaking of which, I did an hour hike this morning, about 2 miles long and about a thousand feet elevation change. I have to get out there more regularly. Redwoods in the fog are just too nice. Good for the soul.

^ No sprinkles. Thank you, no. (Not meaning to impugn anybody's personal taste. Hey, some people don't even like raw tuna.) < Meyer lemon juice squeezed slowly over the top of rock-hard vanilla ice cream. (Must be the barest trickle, so the lemon juice freezes a nice rind over the top.) Mmmm, mm! V Traditional with the desserts, or like to experiment?

Got my weight workout in last night, on track for 3 per week for the second week in a row. That seems to be finally shifting things again. Scale says 181, my newest pair of pants is actually baggy on me, and I think I may need to punch a new hole in my belt. If I hit 175 by end of June as planned, I'm seriously considering celebrating with a new wardrobe.

^ A human being. < Breaks things for a living. Luckily they're all software, so the fix-by-reset rule applies. V Passing the question on.