Terminalcoffee discussion

Those crazy Australians

is this about the job of being a caretaker for the island in Australia?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090113/...

i am going to the web site to apply.

This is interesting. I'm reminded a bit of the fire spotters in the mountains. I was once in Glacier National Park and one of the guides said some of the national park workers used to live in isolated towers for part of the year, pretty much on their own, as fire spotters. I wonder if that was true.

I've heard the same thing about fire spotters. I could picture myself not spotting a fire because I was busy reading.

thanks dan. my first good, sincere laugh of the day

I think I'm qualified. I can read and write in English very gooder, plus I love all the Crocodile Dundee flicks.

Man, you know they are going to get a MILLION applications!

I was gonna apply and then I saw the "good swimmer" requirement. Oh well, back to law school apps.

I tried logging on to that site. Looks like all the hits to that site are slowing their database down. I suspect it'll crash in no time, if it hasn't already.

RA, you heard right. The fire watchers used to spend nearly the entire time on their with nothing but a radio to call in fires and a donkey to carry in supplies. Kerouac did it for a while and wrote about it in his book Desolation Angels.

you think they ever got bored and started a small blaze just for some excitement?

A lady did that in CO about 6 years ago, seriously. She is still in prison.

Don't arsonists tend to gravitate towards fire jobs?

I would LOVE to be secluded like that. I have hermit (but not Unabomber) tendencies. But can I still have internet in the tower? I would be FINE!

at least pyro's do. most volunteer firemen get an odd grin when something is burning.

i would have to come down at least once a week to go to the library. and i would need a vollyball named Spaulding to keep me company

Yeah, pyromaniacs, that's the term I was looking for but couldn't think of!

My favorite pyro was Trashcan Man is Stephen King's The Stand! "Cibola! Bumpty, bumpty. BUMP!"

can you believe a rural indiana father of 2 boys knows what a pyro is? we have spent many nights around a campfire playing "wonder if that'll burn"

i have not read much stephen king. have you reviewed this book?

I'm sure if I reviewed it, it was mostly just "Oh man, I love this book so much I've read it 400 times" type stuff. I don't do much complex literary reviewing. I think it's his best work. Just so MUCH to it. So many characters, apocalyptic... But I'm baised b/c I just love Stephen King, even when he writes really stinky stuff. (Which he does, OH, he does!)

yeah, i am not too in depth with my reviews. mostly just a quick what i thought. i have read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Hearts In Atlantis but i think that is all. i will check out The Stand

It's a totally different experience from either of those, which are much later works. He was still drinking and using when he wrote The Stand, but that might've helped!

:)

I actually really like his non-horror stuff. I tend to think of both of the ones you mentioned as more non-horror than horror, though both are scarey... Hard to say what the difference is. Maybe the horror is more subtle in those, more psychological...

stuff that really can happen scares me way more than stuff that is not ever likely to happen. what about dumas key?

Mindy, I <3 The Stand. That book scared the bejeezus out of me in about 1991 and I've meant to reread it ever since.

I haven't read , but I heard it was good. Yeah, stuff that can really happen is scarey in a different way than stuff that can't. He's good at both, though. (When he's good and not stinky.)

Sally, I have read it at least ten times, probably more. (And I've probably said that on GR at least ten times by now, too.)

Look! Isn't the book cover thing COOL?!?!

Can we PLEASE stop talking about books? That's all people ever want to do around here.