[Rosie] I have no idea, I'm an immigrant. 'Expats' is a name people give themselves when they're in a state of denial, not really believing the place they have chosen to live is actually 'foreign'.

[pen] Entirely agree.

[penelope, Software] And gifted by others to imply contempt based on the assumption of that very behavior. It's interesting that an Englishman here is often called an "ex-pat" but Hispanic ex-pats are universally "immigrants".

[penelope et al] Penelope and I are both immigrants and expatriates. I was expatriated forcefully (in the sense of having no choice in the matter) and penelope voluntarily (unless finding a husband in another country is considered an hormonal dictate). Of course the use of the term expat (or ex-pat) is just silly idiomatic waffling. I have heard the term used to describe someone who is working in this country but will, in all likelihood, return 'home' after a time - which is quite the opposite of its true meaning.

[Duj] I'll have you know I tried out lots of potential husbands in the UK, but none of them met the required standard.

Didn't try me!

[pen] or height?

Possessing a windmill could be a criterion, I guess?

Grad school is NOT for the faint of heart . . .

Yes, it's me, sans plus sign (which I dropped ages ago). Good to see MC5 is still alive and well. ????????

Now there's a blast from the past. G'day.

You're not fooling anyone Raak, which is of course to say "Dunx" impersonating "Software" in his "Dan"-pretending-to-be-"flerdle" persona.

Welcome "back".

Doctor Q! Wotcher, mate. Still at Pittsburgh Uni? Great to hear from you.

So yeah, a few of you know, but not everyone does, so here goes…
My real name is now Gracie Jane; pronouns are she/her. But I'm still in Pittsburgh, and people still call me Quuxum, even IRL.
[Duj] You might be on one of the meds I'm on as well :)

[drgj] Good for you! =) Out of interest, how long do people usually pronounce the "u" sound in "qu...um" for?

[drquuxum] Pleased to meet you, Gracie Jane. Great good luck in your new life.

[drq] Glad to see you back here. The more the merrier. And following on from Tuj, how do you pronounce "quuxum" (in my head it is kw-uck-zum)?
And thinking about it, how is Tuj pronounced?

[Bool] Yup; I usually spell it out as Kwucks-um, or even K????-?m.

Yes, how is Tuj pronounced? Tudge? or as in French "touge"?

"Tuy". That or "Mangrove-Stoat Frog Warbler" depending on where one is pronouncing "Tuj".

Unpronounceable in this solar system, I have always thought, existing only as a symbolic representation in ASCII of a different existence. 19451⁶⁶⁵⁹⁰+22⁵⁵⁴-171, if your Gödelising is up to it.

Alas, your instantaneous translator is on the blink. "Bismarck" is easily pronounceable in almost every language on Earth.

Been tweaking. Hopefully nothing broken...

Rhymes with "smudge" in my head, but YMMV. On this line, there aren't any truly unpronounceables among us, a la Drewsxpa, at present are there?

[rab] You'll ruin your teeth.

[Tuj] But what would you know.

Mornin' all. Comment ally voos?

Trebonski, as my Dad would have said. Bilingual but French wasn't one of 'em.

Our taiko group played for a friend's wedding yesterday. At the party afterwards, that is, not the ceremony itself. The bride is one of the group, so she was playing with us, with a shoulder-slung drum over her full white wedding rig. Later today I expect to be very happy when the restoration of my Mac from backup completes (touch wood). The disc failed last weekend and I've been poking at the Internet through a variety of letterboxes since. Or maybe I shall be happy in a couple of days. It has just announced, "About 37 hours and 2 minutes remaining."

Happiness is restored, along with the backup.

37 hours? How much were you recovering?

About 1.75 TB. I got the machine back from Apple yesterday with a new disc, the current OS, and nothing else. I booted it, it saw my Time Capsule, and in just a few clicks and 18 hours, it's back to normal. It reported a transfer rate varying between 8 and 25 MB/second, I'm not sure why it would be that low. My broadband is faster. Maybe I should have remembered to plug in the Ethernet before it started over Wifi.

Was it a Time Machine backup? These are very slow, for some reason.