Always in Zugzwang

OK I'll be stupid here and ask, feeling a bit embarrassed...what is "OT"?

Why do you hate America?! Might have to revoke your Revolutionary War status and pay fealty to the British crown! (all in jest here, of course!)

Hey @yoda...as a LOTR fan yourself, I thought you would perhaps appreciate this. I've got the extended Bluray editions of the movies and have seen them at least a few times each over the years. Of course, I also had seen the theatrical releases when they came out. But this weekend I actually decided to watch them back-to-back-to-back! A veritable LOTR-athon! Not all in one night, but over like 3 nights. And I'm still amazed at how well filmed it is, all the little nuances, etc. I still pick up things that I hadn't noticed before (seems true of all good movies). Watching them in sequence gives a different effect and more continuity, too, while the previous movie is still fresh on your mind. Glad that Jackson decided to film it that way, without a long lag between each one. And it's hard to believe that Return of the King is now some 20 years old (that's the one I have left to watch tonight)!!

Inflation has put the affordability of those out of reach this winter, I'm afraid!

Can we keep the change??

I once started a thread called 12z gfs nukes dc. I caught all kind of flak for it. Culture cancel started a long time ago l! OK, now I'm interested...what storm would that have been for??

Bourbon is nice (that Jefferson's Ocean looks tasty!)...but I myself do enjoy a good single malt Scotch now and then! My bastard Scottish background calls every now and then!! When having a Manhattan, Maker's Mark is my favorite for that (though to be sure, I haven't had one of those in a long time).

I remember the Eastern days, joining just before it changed into AmWx (right in time for the 2009-10 winter!). Prior to that I lurked and read for awhile (found it better than the AccuWeather forums). And yeah, all regions were in one place, kind of a free-for-all. I can't recall if things got divided up by region at the end of Eastern, or sometime with AmWx (been a long time!). On the one hand having no regional divisions was interesting and gave everyone the chance to read experts from every location (whether here, Philly, NYC, SNE, etc.). If I recall correctly, threads were created for various events and a sort of generic medium/long range thread, among other stuff like Banter. Perhaps even some threads specific to a storm for a given region. I do agree it got to be a bit of a cluster with everyone from every region commenting in storm threads (or even the more general longer range ones), each with their specific perspective depending on where they were located. You could read someone saying "wow, the 00Z GFS is amazing!" and then realize they were talking from a SNE perspective and not Mid-Atlantic! At any rate, I overall like the regional breakdown as it is and glad it moved to that format. Sure, there are "forum dividers" but I think that would be the case in every region (is it more that way here in the Mid-Atlantic than others, though?). And we do have some of the expert posters from other regions show up here with some very good information like @40/70 Benchmark and @donsutherland1...I also like what @brooklynwx99 has added for our area lately. One little anecdote, @Ji, that I recall involving you (no, not bad!!). This was when it was still Eastern, in March 2009, near the time I first started looking at this forum. 2008-09 was a blah winter around here, but there was a solid event in early March 2009 that got a lot of traction and discussion. I think it was the only worthwhile event that season! It was actually pretty exciting to this one-time lurker, to see all this discussion about every model. Anyhow, I remember some thread or comment you made a couple of days before that storm, something like "The most important Euro run of our lives!", for the 00Z Euro just before it came out. I was up unusually late (it was a weekend) and stuck around to watch the old play-by-play of the Euro for that storm, and it came out looking pretty good. I think some of the individual threads were actually for specific model cycles back then. The storm actually was a good one in the end, though maybe not as much as some indications gave.

The more things change...

And yet...here we are! A sign of the times...

Quite a "Liszt" of "Grieg"ances there!! (ETA: OK, I'll "Bach" off with the lousy puns, I'm done "Chopin" around for laughs!)

There's a joke I heard once about a guy finding a hard-of-hearing genie, and given 3 wishes. For one of the wishes, he mistakenly ended up with a 12 inch pianist.

'70s...bad clothing styles '80s...bad hair '90s...bad music (I jest here, of course, LOL!!) Probably some weather weenie soldier during the Civil war was complaining how it was a Nina and there wasn't much snow!

You can kind of glean this from 500mb by noting the "bagginess" that extends into the southwest on that plot above, cutting underneath the ridging. Sort of split-flow like.

When is the month of Ian? Is that on a secret calendar between Jan and Feb?

Kyrie Irving and George Orwell called...said you're free to join their discussion forums!!

Reaper Emeritus!

Jackson Pollock called, he wants his paintings back!

Haha, right! In a strange, perverted way it would almost be interesting to get zeroed out (well a trace maybe) just from the historical perspective. Like knowing your team is being no-hit, and thinking might as well watch a complete no-hitter while we're at it! That said, I'm not hoping for anything like that anytime soon, but if it's getting toward March and we're still at zip with nothing on the horizon, that might change!

C'mon man, go for the gold!

Wow...pretty cool! I've seen an occasional fox where I'm at and it always sort of startles me. A couple of winters ago I was out taking pictures near my place, and suddenly saw this fox just run right past me. Kind of startling! It wasn't terribly close (maybe several or so feet away), and my first thought was "who lost their dog?" and then realized what it was. It didn't care about me or come after me, just was running by.

Replying to this here in Banter. While most who frequent this board in the winter are doing so because they really like snow and cold (myself included!), there are some who probably don't care for a huge HECS that paralyzes things for days, or who don't deal well with cold temperatures. I like snow and cold, but do not care for extreme cold temperatures (not that we get that here very much). I also don't much care for cold and dry, it just chaps my skin all the more. This Christmas was a good example of that with very cold and windy conditions and nary a flake (OK, a quick burst as the cold air moved in, for all of 15 min.). That was an interesting Arctic blast from a meteorological standpoint, but to me it would have been a lot cooler (pun intended?!) if we got some kind of snow, even a couple of inches to cover the ground. So I don't necessarily mind some of the seemingly "doom and gloom" posts in the medium range, if it's realistic and not just people ranting that we suck or how there's no blue over their house for 384 hours. And for the most part, those posts are using facts as you say, it's not just people whining (but hey...facts are stupid things, right?! ). I view it more as an emotionally detached commentary on what's going on or how things look in the models...much like how Sherlock Holmes analyzes a case.

Even though you're retired, do you still get royalties for any Panic Room likeness or other spin-offs? I mean, the Reaper has to afford those fancy trips and cruises somehow!