I have a daughter intending to relocate to Hokkaido later this year. I'm looking forward to visiting them and learning a tiny bit of the language.

@ShiroKuro If you can’t bear ‘em…

Looks great. I generally reject crockpot recipes too, and I also prefer them simpler rather than tricked out with fat.

I associate croutons more with Caesar salad than soup. Oyster crackers or saltines are what I amend soup with more frequently. Dried bread cubes are most likely to become bread pudding or a strada in our home. Big Al

Nothing. [image: 1770914638379-2111.jpg]

@Bernard said in Musical Interlude — Dick Hyman: Wow. And he plays so much with his eyes closed. I wish had such good blind knowledge of the geography of the keyboard! I noticed that! No dramatic contortions either. Not to mention…isn’t he over 90 years old? Not too shabby.

Thanks for the information! I'd suffer all of it-- if I were rich and young.

All the cool kids on Reddit are naming their starters so I named mine. Right now Bad Barmy is serving as a control to see if the 80° water bath makes any difference. [image: IMG-5198.jpg] That’s Yeastie Boys in the water bath.

@RealPlayer said in What are you reading?: @AndyD Your picture of The Pianist’s Mentor reminded me that there are a number of books on pianism by famous teachers (Neuhaus, Whiteside et al.) and I haven’t read any of them. The ones I’ve glanced at seem kind of dry, and it must be hard to describe fine muscle movements in lively prose. One study, The Great Pianists and Their Technique, does have comments by pupils of Liszt, Chopin and others which are interesting. In my teens I read one and picked out the essence. This is my youthful writing at the back of an address book (in which I listed all the songs I liked A-Z) [image: 1770623505317-20260209_074920-resized.jpg]

@ShiroKuro That's no thread drift. I should change the title to something more generic, like US Olympics. I don't have TV either, so I can only catch the meager offerings NBC posts on YouTube (and it's stingy to say the best). Here is something I'm not getting: They are using drones now for some events. Alpine skiing, for instance. Now, when I watch videos from vloggers I don't hear nary a peep from the drones they use. Why is it, a "professional" outfit like NBC has these drones that whine and wheez and buzz and distract like crazy? Surely, they can either mute the drone footage, or edit out the sound. It seems very sloppy to me. I'd also love it if more than one media outlet were allowed to cover the games.

@Mik said in Alcaraz breaks 88 Year Old Record: That's awesome. I wish we had kept our fantastic seats at the Cincinnati open. We've seen the changing of the guard so many times and so many thrilling matches. But as they said in one of the later Rocky movies, "Time...it's undefeated.". Great line.

[image: 1770543050853-screenshot_20260208-092910_duckduckgo.jpg]

Link to video Omg. She's wonderful.

I won't ever know if Melania wears Prada. I liked her first inaugural outfit. Her choice of the "I don't care. Do you?" designer makes everything she's worn from the swearing in ceremony to today a run away train to nowhere in particular.

https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0720/Sections/0720.303.html This might be useful.

Hey, series are great too!

Norway is in a furore! https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/07/europe/norway-royal-family-scandals-intl I read this so you don't have to. There are suggestions she resign herself to solitude and leave the Crown Prince to reign without her with it further suggested she cite health issues as the reason. I'd divorce her but that's just me.

Is that the Late Show that Letterman hosted or Leno? You can tell I don't watch television often. I'll watch this when I'm in more of a romantic mood. I think it would go over my head at the moment.