Archived comment by Saint:
Holy sh*t, I think I know you, Jim. In Alamosa, going to school?

Archived comment by Saint:
Not unless she has a dick....

Archived comment by jim:
Are we talking about eating out a woman?

Archived comment by slugbuggy:
Of course, if Bookstore girl were an IP reader she'd just think "Heh. Lobster much?" If she were really cool, that is.

Archived comment by slugbuggy:
Maybe the fact that I don't understand the quote is the key to understanding the quote. As in, bookstore girl is referring to an action or event she doesn't understand the motivation for. So she's witnessing something that doesn't make sense to her, such as a group of friends walking down the street having a conversation, but one of them is in front walking backwards facing the others while talking, maybe because she needs eye contact to talk or needs people to see her so she can direct the conversation or something. Bookstore girl sees this and thinks "Why is she doing that? I don't get it. That makes about as much sense to me as eating your ice cream from the cone up. I'm sure she has her reasons for doing that but it's beyond me."

Eating your ice cream from the cone up is just something that some people do. There's no real reason for it that anyone else can think of, so it seems strange, and probably the people themselves don't know why they do it that way, but whatever.

There. I have some semblance of closure. I can stop now and go away and do something else.

Archived comment by Jon:
I'd go with instructional. That kind of class will never put me to sleep!
The "brain freeze" could be killer, though.

Archived comment by steff:
no, those buttons are fine... my waist isn't the same size as - nevermind. what bothers me about this quote is that it sounds so specific. why did she pick that? it's either something problematic as per your first proposal, odd but workable like your most recent, or maybe she just feels very strongly about eating ice cream from the cone up and is trying to convey the beauty of a sunset or the feeling of your first kiss. or, she feels strongly the other way, and she's comparing it to wearing stripes with plaid or listening to country music. =) OR, or, it could be instructional.

but we won't go into that.

Archived comment by slugbuggy:
I'll bet. It's just an analogy. If you have that much trouble you probably have problems stretching the shirt to get the buttons done, so same difference. Nice imagery, however.

I have no idea why this whole metaphor thing even concerns me at all, other than the fact that discussing the original post is ostensibly the whole point of the comments section, and you'd think on at least one or two occasions there'd be some kind of resolution by general consensus at some point concerning the meaning of some of the more obscure or obtuse overheard conversations. I think this is exactly like where I more or less came in here, barring a few random previous posts, on the "Reese Witherspoon/ art" thread, which got somewhere only circuitously and without final resolution, other than a spew of "shut up shut up shut up shut up I can't take it anymore" comments. It's like a Rubik's cube that you can never solve: at some point it's best just to play catch with it or just use it as a paperweight.

Archived comment by steff:
makeup and hair issues are not the ones i have with pulling dress shirts on from the top. =D

Archived comment by slugbuggy:
So, given the revised meaning of "sucking the ice cream out of a hole in the bottom of the cone" what we now have is a metaphor that means something like "buttoning up your dress shirt first and then pulling it over your head like a sweater," instead of the normal way of putting it on first and then doing up the buttons. Makeup and hair issues aside, the shirt goes on just fine although most people don't do it that way.

Archived comment by slugbuggy:
I still wish I knew what the bookstore girl meant. The meaning I came up with fits, but it seems like too much of a stretch, intuitively. It's like that recent proof for Fermat's last theorem that took several hundred pages. Fermat's original proof supposedly was scribbled in the margins of a book, so it was much simpler and more elegant, and probably could have been understood immediately and intuitively by anyone with the proper math background, assuming it was actually correct. Similarly, my reconstuction of the "ice cream cone" metaphor takes too much flipping back and forth through all the pages to see where all the pertinant points line up. "Building the roof before the walls" can be intuitively grasped without any furthur exposition, I think, which is necessary for a successful metaphor.

Anyway, everyone immediately thinks that "eating your ice cream from the cone up" means biting a hole in the bottom of the cone and then sucking out the ice cream, which is completely different from what I was saying (eating the whole cone first then the ice cream), so there's that problem. I could start over using that angle, but I won't, because I don't see a problem with anyone eating their ice cream that way, so there's no point in trying to make a metaphor out of it (actually, using the framework I've already established it would mean doing things in a different way but with exactly the same end results, no mess no fuss, #2 on the list from way back).

It's also possible that bookstore girl just came up with a bad metaphor, in that it doesn't actually mean anything or convey what she thought it meant, in which case there's no way of really figuring it out.

Someone else just tell me what it means and I'll go along with it.

Archived comment by Jon:
That last point is good advice for *anyone*! ;-)

Archived comment by Parental Unit:
Well Paul it sounds like they've got their 'automated nanny' system up and running. Were I in charge of the system, I'd have a 'cutoff' as to who I had a 'talk to', i.e. 5 messages to a person means they're not paying attention. Or whatever. I guarantee you that no IT person WANTS this duty and for darn sure the cutoff wouldn't be '1', it'd probably be 5 or 10 or whatever in the course of a week or so.

So just don't click on any links that Monk lists and you'll be fine.

Archived comment by fair_n_hite_451:
Paul:

That's another passive filtering technique. The router / firewall / whatever, scans the key words that are listed by a website for "naughty bits" and then redirects if it finds one.

There's a chance that no one has even noticed.

Archived comment by Paul:
Thanks, PU. That does ease my mind a bit. Although I do also know that they have some kind of passive filtering on the firewall- if you send out an email with certain words in it you get a rather ominous automated email back saying that you have used one of the Words That Shall Not Be Used. And when I accidentally hit that site the other day I got directed to a similarly ominous page saying that I was accessing a Page With Inappropriate Material. So I was wondering if they monitor the people who get that warning... I guess not, since I'm still here and haven't received any more emails from Big Brother.

But I'm still pretty damn paranoid anyway.

Archived comment by Parental Unit:
Paul - As one of the 'IT Nazis' (we haf ways of making you talk), let me put you mind at ease. Depending on your facility, what they generally look for is length of downloads (i.e. bandwidth) not individual sites. If you think of all the sites you normally visit per day multiply times the number of people that work there you'll see that no one cares to look at all of them. UNLESS they want to. What's more likely is that someone walks by and sees what's on your screen and then they 'Can' look at where you visited. So in general try not to have your screen visible to others and don't 'deliberately' visit porn sites and you'll probably be fine. Of course if they're 'out to get you' then you're hosed. 8=(

Archived comment by Jon:
Heh. Porn is unnecessary, I just read the latest IP thread.

OK, so "unnecessary" is stretching it a bit... ouch!
(Reminder to self: do not stretch unstretchy bits, unless administered by trained dominatrix.)

Archived comment by Paul:
Yesterday I was looking through Memepool at lunch and accidentally clicked into an "adult content" site. I've been waiting ever since for the IT Nazis to show up at my door, or to get some sort of threatening email as a result... Probably won't happen, since I didn't click onto the next page or anything but just got out of there fast.

Archived comment by Monk:
well joe - you can always go to whitehouse.com

go ahead...you know you want to.


come on.....


*Parental advisory - the white house website is whitehouse.gov The dot com version is porn.

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:
I do most of my posting from work...what? I don't use cigarettes, so just add up all the smoke-breaks I'd be taking and subtract them from my web habit. That's what I thought...anyway, since I'm at work, I do not ever ever ever click on any links unless I know they're not going to get tagged and flagged by our so-called SmartFilter.

Just what I need...to get canned for surfing foodporn.com a month before I was planning to quit, right in the middle of a background investigation. That would be bad.

Heh.

-Jn-
Efreeti Sophist

Archived comment by tim:
"Like Water for Chcolate" was a good movie that had some of those themes in it also.

Archived comment by tim:
Ripe mango.. take 2

Archived comment by steff:
*sigh* i posted a link to foodporn.com days ago, and nobody WENT? you're slipping, people! =)

oh, and thanks ben! someone was asking me just yesterday why women eating fruit was so very sexy and all i could come up with was "mumble mumble juicy" (i had a mouthful of fruit at the time), but your answer is so much more conversation stopping. *grin* thanks much, the check is in the mail and all.

Archived comment by Montygirl:
Ben, you didn't think about 9-1/2 Weeks? Now THAT should be on the foodporn site.

Archived comment by Ben:
Food and sex has always had a large connection. Between aphrodisiacs, naked women on chocolate (Godiva), sites called foodporn.com (which is all about food), oatmeal wrestling, jello wrestling, eating fruit (hey - just think, thats a sex organ you are putting in your mouth every time!), edible underwear...

Feh, I tried to find more upscale stuff, but... I just started drawing a blank and quickly plummeted to the smutty food.

Archived comment by fair_n_hite_451:
Gah! I read Ben's posts about food and pictures and tables .... and I think about porn.

Is it just me? yeah, probably.....

Well, mostly, I think about The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and her Lover That's some weird movie right there.

Archived comment by Ben:
Hehe, yeah...It may be a little while before I do that, but I will eventually get around to it. Gotta get back into the IP swing of things first.

The cool thing would be pictures of the food (Yes, I've read their cookbook cover to cover), and the back of house operations. Ive spent a lot of time doing image searches on Google to see some of their kitchen. Thomas Keller's (the exectuive chef) chef's table is by far the most amazing I have ever seen - in pictures of course.

Archived comment by Parental Unit:
Ben - send Eve an e-mail and ask her about the French Laundry (for the rest of you it's a restaurant in the Napa Valley with a 4 month wait for reservations). She ate there once.

Archived comment by Montygirl:
Ben, I too refer to my parental units as my parental units.

PUnit - No, it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Still waters run deep, and all.

Archived comment by Jon:
"Tell me something I didn't know."
"I once open-mouthed kissed a horse."

Yes, I just saw Goldmember, and it was very funny. Muahahahahha!

Archived comment by Monk:
Hoe, this is Ben.
Ben-Hoe


*uncontrollable giggling like a little girl*

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:

"I'm sorry. I thought you said your name was..."

-Jn-
Efreeti Sophist

Archived comment by Ben:
oh...
And allow myself to introduce myself...

Archived comment by Ben:
Nooo Monty - I was just saying that there is no way I would catch up at all. Don't take off for 6 moths, unless you need to dissappear, decide what it is you excatly dislike about your job, think of what exactly you found rewarding about work, find a medium which you like to work in, and figure out a way to persue your goals. I got caught in too many damn potholes growing up. Being smart and challenging yourself is good. An engineering background begins to prepare me with the discipline necessary to be a chef. However, had I decided to do what I wanted to do, and not what I was capable of doing (over challenging myself), I'd probably be working on my AMCG or be 8 years into the kitchen experience.

Parenthetically, I'd have never met Mindy, never have experienced southern cuisine (some is over-rated, most is far under-rated). I'd have a serious drug and alcohol problem, and I wouldn't have taken my schooling seriously.

Of course, in 15 years as a chef, I MIGHT make as much as I made last year as a second year engineer.


Hello P.U. On a bizare note, I refer to my parents as the Parental Units as well...

The CIA out in Napa is afiliated with the CIA main campus out in Hyde Park New York. There is an extended wine program, and imagine that is part of it. In a few years, I may head back to get my bachelors, but I think I'd rather get my LCB Masters from Sydney, Aus. I opted for the 1 year LCB (Le Cordon Bleu) program from the Atlantic Culinary Academy up in Dover, NH - as it required me to morgatage less of my life. (2 year program accelerated into one year). I'll definitely be on the west coast for a bit. I'm certainly pining for the French Laundry.

Archived comment by Parental Unit:
Oh Ben - let me introduce myself, since you probably don't know 'about me'. I'm Eve's Parental Unit (M) and her 'old' friends are always welcome.

So out here we've got the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in Napa and lots of VERY high priced 'foo foo' restaurants. You ought to consider it sometime.

And Montygirl - save your Ready Whip for Monk, he likes that sort of thing.

Archived comment by Monk:
oh - that's right, I was going to offer a float trip this weekend.

Archived comment by Monk:
wb Monty. Personally, I always need a vacation after my vacation.

Archived comment by Montygirl:
Jon, that's spelled "Ready W-h-i-p"

Ben, why do you want me to leave for six months? Did I offend you? Just because I prefer sugar cones to cake cones is no reason to exclude me, is it?

Breyer's has a great 'limited edition' (whatever the heck that means) flavor: Mocha Almond Fudge. I'd tell you to try it, but that would mean less for me. So, DON'T TRY IT, PLEASE!

Archived comment by Jon:
Ah, so it *is* that Ben.

WB, Montygirl. "Take my hand and we're halfway there..." As always, your ready wit is appreciated.

Archived comment by steff:
"...the craftsmanship can be lost and unappreciated in the persuit of the sweet."

now THAT is a great line! welcome back, ben.

Archived comment by Ben:
Take 6 months off montygirl... I won't even attempt to read the posts I've missed. Heck, I'd need another 3 months.

Eating Icecream from the cone up can be a rewarding, although messy experience. First the cone stays cruchy. Second, the cone does not loose its flavor in that of the icecream. For this reason, plain cones are ideal, as they have a more delicate texture and refined taste. While sugar cones are certainly appealing, the craftsmanship can be lost and unappreciated in the persuit of the sweet.

Archived comment by steff:
*applause*

Archived comment by Apple:
I, too, have a friend like that, Joe. Funny enough, his name is Joe! 8^) And, no, I wouldn't give him a hand. Wouldn't work for him any better than they work for me.

Archived comment by Penny:
Welcome back to you, too, Montygirl!

And well, my friends that I met have children. New Orleans is not exactly kid friendly. Nuff said.

Archived comment by Montygirl:
Wow! TEn days computer free, twenty minutes here, and I've already given up on reading all the posts.

Penny, hope you had a nice time away.

Joe, but if I take your hand, that'll leave you with only one.

Archived comment by Monk:
thanks

Archived comment by fair_n_hite_451 (CB):
It stands for "complete butch" .... I was mocking the whole F & M thing after our names .... and referencing the conversation with Katrina in some other thread. .... but you know, now, having to explain it. pheh!

...And Penny, I know what you mean. I miss one day and I feel like I can't catch up any more.

Archived comment by Jon:
Sum est Profundus Maximus. QED

*Latin-speaking grin*

To quote Mars Attacks, "Why can't we all just... get along?"
Sometimes even when I know what the conversation is about I get bewildered, and I'm OK with that.

Free the hamster emoticons! %*p

Archived comment by Obsidiana:
Joe, I think we have the same friend...

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:
Let me ask you something, Apple...

Would you trust any of your favorite appendanges to a fellow who would do things like, oh, stand staring out the window muttering "You should have buried them deeper...I know, but the ground was frozen...don't be such a wimp...why don't you shut up!"

Didn't think so.

*Grin*

-Jn-
Efreeti Sophist