Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Spaceopoly Kill This Thread VII: The 24-Hour Version, Part 3

I assume chain 'artisan' sandwiches mean 'overpriced, and trying to mimic something good, but failing.'

Twenty years ago, the word "gourmet" was similarly misused. If coffee was "gourmet", it was flavored. "Gourmet" pizza was any pizza with a topping other than sausage, pepperoni or mushrooms.

Apropos of this discussion, and sparked by Hoppy's use of "frappe" in another thread, I noted recently that Burger King has introduced frappes to its menu.

At first, I assumed that BK simply fancied up their milkshakes by giving them a new name, which seems kind of dumb as it would be bound to sow confusion. ("Frappe" -- usually pronounced to rhyme with "trap" but occasionally pronounced after the French, as BK does -- is synonymous with "milkshake" in many parts of New England.)

Turns out, a BK frappe is just their version of a Frappuccino -- a blended, sweetened, chilled coffee drink, typically with caramel or another flavoring... an artisanal beverage for the masses, as it were.

I indeed meant "frap", as in a milkshake made with ice cream. I was born in Massachusetts, so that's what we would have called such a beverage when I was a kid.

I miss the frappes at Friendly's. I have no idea how authentic they were, though.

Malteds were also awesome, and also now seemingly out of fashion around here.

My first exposure to the word "frappe" used was in a Moebius story I'd read in the mid-80s.

I wasn't certain what it meant (although the story suggested something along those lines), or even if it was a real word on its own rather than a Moebius-invented pseudo-term (as he often did) for many years afterward.

I think it would sound funny if Sylvester the Cat tried to order a frappe. It'd probably sound something like "fffffffffffrap-p-p-p-p."

I still have the free Looney Tunes T-Shirt I won fifteen years ago by doing an onstage impression of Sylvester the Cat.

"Thufferin' thucotastttthhh! There mutht be an eathier way for a puthycat to get thubsthananthesss! Thakessss!"

Cheers, Cleome.

It's been rumored that, without the lisp, Sylvester would have sounded pretty much like Mel Blanc's normal speaking voice.

Mel Blanc was born in CA, but raised in this neck of the woods. (He attended Lincoln H.S. in Portland, which is still around.) My late buddy Michael Z. (may he rest in peace) grew up here, too. When he turned ten years old, Mel Blanc (who owed his dad a favor for reasons that I now can't recall) called Mike up and wished him a Happy Birthday... as Porky Pig.

A couple years ago, my otherwise unimaginative local oldies station played the version of "Blue Christmas" sung by Mel Blanc in his Porky Pig voice.

Mel was also, ironically, allergic to carrots.

Porky Pig was Warner Bros.'s first breakout cartoon character, in 1935. He was eclipsed by Daffy (1937) and Bugs (1940), but he always had a special place in my heart.

In the late Nineties, when I hung out on the Usenet WB boards, there were premature old fogies (my own age or younger) lamenting how Chuck Jones "ruined" Daffy and how DD's earlier personality was infinitely superior.

(We also had a Canadian dude ten years younger than me --in his mid-Twenties, IOW-- who griped about how much he hated rock 'n roll and modern fiction.)

This used to <strike>quack</strike> crack me up. I think one of my first conversations with mr_cleome, back when he was still a swinging bachelor who'd been on those boards way before me was along the lines of, "Are those guys for real?"

Porky starred in Art Davis' "Bye, Bye, Bluebeard", which was the last cartoon Davis directed before having his unit taken away from him and being demoted to one of the animators for Friz Freleng's unit. I've always felt that was the end of my personal Golden Era of Warner Bros cartoons. Happily, Davis returned to directing about twenty years later.

While my beard has never been blue, I have worn a few different kinds of facial hair over the years. I first tried to grow a mustache my freshman year in college. I grew a full beard my junior year and had one off and on for a couple years after that. I then went back to the mustache for about five years. Since 1996 I've had a goatee, except for when I shaved it for a Halloween costume in 2001.

The hair on top of my head went through various permutations during my late teens and early twenties until I decided it looks best long and minimally styled.

The hair on my head pretty much left of its own accord. I shave what's left every other day.

I shaved my head in my late teens, partly because I was celebrating my newfound independence and partly because I thought it would look as good on me as it did on Sinead O'Connor.

It didn't.

By the way, we've already surpassed the previous thread of this type by about seven pages.

I wonder if we could kill this thread by making a mutual pact to shave our heads?

How about a mutual pact to take sledgehammers to the grunge albums of our choice?

Does Nickelback count as grunge?

Absotively posilutely!

Outdoor Miner himself confirmed it when he said the singer from Nickelback sounded like he was imitating Chr*s C*rn*ll.

C'm'll is the Dr. Gym'll relative that nobody ever talks about.

I'm sure he's a less annoying singer than Chris Cornell.