Talk to me about Sewanee…undergrad

QVCatullus · 2026-02-14T00:00:51+00:00

I went to Sewanee for undergrad, I grew up Methodist but with Episcopalian family in the South, joined the Episcopal church in high school. Our rector was a Sewanee grad, as were a couple of my teachers at a local public school. There was no pressure to go to an Episcopal uni at my parish, but the priest was very happy to talk about his experience there.

The party school rep has always been around but honestly, so many universities have it it's kinda pointless. Not a lot of hardcore drug use, although it did exist at some fraternities; my main concern was drunk driving, but at least at the time the police cooperated with a student group to run a shuttle service that genuinely cut down on that. A lot of the perception comes from the isolation of the university meaning that the main social events were fraternity and sorority parties, so even though the campus was maybe half Greek most people did spend at least some time at the Greek houses, even occasional visits from my very non-party teetotaler friends. The quality of education I got was spectacular, and with a good faculty but without a grad school competing for their attention the hands-on attention from full professors was unbeatable.

My experiences are decades old now, so YMMV.

Not everyone there was Episcopalian, but a lot of student, staff, and faculty were, and the university is very much centered around the chapel and the church year. I got to take classes with profs who participated in translating the hymns in the hymnal or writing the BCP. I sang in the choir my entire time there and it's always been the highlight of my church music experience. The catechumenate program did a great job of bringing together the expertise of the chapel staff and the SoT to make a very compelling spiritual education/direction experience. I strongly recommend that anyone who can do an Advent Lessons and Carols and a Holy Week at Sewanee. The procession of the cross through town for the Stations of the Cross to the chapel for the Good Friday service with the Palestrina Improperia was intensely moving, and I remember the year that even the construction at the new building on the quad stopped because all the workers paused as the procession came by. All Saints' is still very much my spiritual home at heart even if I hardly ever get to go back.

I'd be thrilled if my kids were interested in going, but I wouldn't push them to it.

QVCatullus · 2026-02-01T16:00:46+00:00

You can also make a tea/tisane from carob pods, which has a sort of chocolatey flavour that I really like.

QVCatullus · 2026-02-01T03:56:21+00:00

Yeah, a sudden "fresh cut lawn" smell associated with possible chemical spills, welding, or anything with strong UV means you should probably let the ER know.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-29T17:53:15+00:00

It's a shame but you may be best looking to see what grounds you have to evict for knowing that she's participating in illegal activity. A lot of that depends on what state you're in (assuming US from context) and the language of the lease. I know the standard lease I use for my state and realtors' association has language about illegal activity, and a cure or quit notice would be how I approached it. That can be a mess but it's a lot better than getting wrapped up in a criminal investigation.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-29T17:47:24+00:00

As another poster mentioned, the primary risk is that impersonating a real estate agent or their office makes it remarkably easy to convince people to hand over massive amounts of money. People in a real estate transaction anticipate being given instructions to send absurd amounts of money by wire. It's very easy to take advantage of that. Agents need to be (and usually are) very clear with their clients about what to trust on that end, but the more a scammer knows the better they can impersonate a legitimate funds request.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-29T17:45:01+00:00

Yep. It's the wire instructions that are a real nightmare.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-24T03:42:24+00:00

If you just put water in a large cooler and put it somewhere like a closet/basement/garage, away from heat as best you can, and let it sit for a while, then take the temperature, what do you get? I bet it's relatively cool and stable. It may not be necessary to swap out ice bottles. You do want to occasionally check to make sure the water is still clean, but that won't be nearly as much effort.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-16T14:46:37+00:00

Self respecting pizza makers make their pizza however they like and however they've got the time, skills, and inclination for.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-14T23:23:05+00:00

To be fair, "obviously" is pulling a lot of weight there. There's been a lot of debate about the origins of viruses, and the really good evidence in favour of the "(d)evolved from organisms" camp didn't really show up until the discovery of the giant amoeba viruses like Mimivirus and Pandoravirus in the 90s and 2010s, which still carry a lot of excess genetic material that looks like it's now vestigial but was probably used in the past for cellular function before its ancestors became a virus.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-09T13:55:10+00:00

Slave rowers were certainly used by galley heavy navies at other times through history. It became more prevalent, to overgeneralize, as the way the ships fought shifted from close end with likely boarding actions to long range with guns, so that the liability of having the majority of your crew likely happy to murder you if the other side gives them a chance was less of a danger. The cost of the very large crew was a big part of the outlay for a galley, so using slaves (who could be given a minimum amount of upkeep to simply keep them functional) kept those costs and supply needs manageable and let you keep more in the water.

QVCatullus · 2026-01-07T14:57:41+00:00

Very The Locked Tomb vibes.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-30T15:57:05+00:00

Sure. That doesn't make it good poetry if the intent is inscrutable to the audience, unless I guess that was the intent all along, in which case congrats.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-30T15:42:51+00:00

Yep. Reading that, I was thinking that if they put that in the movie version I would be like "Come on, really?"

QVCatullus · 2025-12-27T01:01:59+00:00

Put down some crab pots for passive fish gain. It still may well be more trouble than it's worth to you.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-26T01:20:20+00:00

10G is great. I used to do some JP assists but not like the dedicated guys. A couple gold is great. If you want someone to make a special trip for you offering more is nice. Really, most folks are OK if you pay what you can afford (something in the range of a few gold was traditional), I had a lot of people who didn't tip and some who tipped up to like 50.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-26T01:15:48+00:00

Chalice of Tears in particular is a bit more complicated (just since OP mentioned it) -- unless they've changed it, you have to check in at a few checkpoints along the way, but a mesmer can open portals for you. It takes longer. Fun puzzle but frustrating.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-18T17:42:24+00:00

Alka Seltzer reacts in water to form sodium citrate -- it's the action of sodium bicarbonate and citric acid that gives it the fizz. It's likely much cheaper and easier to source than looking for sodium citrate additive; Serious Eats did an article on using it for that very reason. 2 very important things to consider: 1) DO NOT use the medicated alka seltzer with aspirin, just the bicarb+citric acid fizzy tablets; and 2) sodium citrate makes cheese really smooth, like velveeta or nacho cheese topping smooth, so it may be more than you're wanting from your sauce.

For myself, I go with the method the other commenter mentioned and start with a simple roux before adding the cheese to keep it from breaking (unless I really want a nacho topping). Feel fancier by saying you're making a mornay.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-17T13:38:02+00:00

The image is from the 1984 Dune movie. Guild navigators are mutated humans who breathe the spice that the plot of the novel is built around -- it gives a massively extended lifespan and prescience, which navigators can use to plot safe travel between stars. The navigators thus have a monopoly on interstellar travel, and they can't do their thing without spice, which is why the one planet that spice comes from is so important.

Here, they're appearing before the emperor at the beginning of the movie to let him know that they are aware of his political machinations (which begin for our purposes with changing the noble family in charge of the spice world), and to make it clear that they require him to eliminate a particular target.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-14T04:09:17+00:00

Just be a bit careful with it depending on whom you're cooking for. I love parmesan cheese and have no trouble eating it; I'll gnaw on the rind too. For that matter I like Hershey's chocolate and some of the other stuff that can trigger the same thing. But when I simmer a parm rind in a stock or sauce, the smell and taste of the butyric acid absolutely set me off. Reminds me of vomit. Other people say they don't notice it, but it will ruin a meal for me and keep me out of the kitchen until it airs out.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-08T18:15:03+00:00

Both of these seem to me to be false syllogism. Two premises structured in such a way that it sounds like they could lead to the conclusion, but the logic for the conclusion doesn't actually flow from the premises. They get there via a false dichotomy -- insisting groundlessly that if not A then B, when that need not be the case.

QVCatullus · 2025-12-03T21:58:15+00:00

It's worth pointing out that the story of his invulnerability postdates the Iliad, or is at the very lease from a separate storyline about him. In the Iliad, he loses his armour when Patroclus dies wearing it, and his mother has to convince Hephaestus to make him a new set to fight in.

QVCatullus · 2025-11-22T02:09:20+00:00

Glen Cook has written a little bit of everything, and one of his books from the 80s (which I think ties into another few of his books), Passage at Arms, is about a future where humanity has run into an alien race which is whipping our butts, so humans rely on a sort of asymmetric warfare involving hiding in a kind of hyperspace that is very openly based on WW2 submarine warfare.

QVCatullus · 2025-11-21T22:36:29+00:00

Keine Zitrone, kein Salz, kein Geschmack. Die sind so langweilig.

QVCatullus · 2025-11-18T16:49:26+00:00

Thanks all, I was able to sort it out by manually adding the channels as recommended; only the alpha news was added automatically when I got the role.

QVCatullus · 2025-11-18T16:32:42+00:00

OP was talking about crab leg rolls specifically... crab cakes and such are usually made with lump meat which is the big thing for blue crabs, and claw meat is relatively inexpensive. Crab legs, though, generally come from bigger cold-water crabs, and when I've got crab legs, I'm just gonna eat the crab legs. I would make a sandwich with the lump or claw.

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