Hot Coffee / hippy barthdays / doctorates / OBE / Beavers

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Cindy Sphinx wrote:

<< And McDonalds was serving coffee much hotter than the industry 
standard for no good reason, despite having received lots of 
complaints and reports of injury. >>

It wasn't for *no* good reason -- the unnaturally hot coffee would 
keep warm longer, so that long-distance drivers could nurse it along 
longer without having to exit the freeway to buy another coffee. The 
problem with MacDonalds's behavior was that they didn't package it 
safely for such a hot liquid.

Birthdays for Neil and Parker! And I missed them! Both wonderful 
people, one a flying car and the other a weaving re-enactor.

Mycropht wrote:

<< I've watched these men and women struggle for years to pay for 
school, working 48 hours without sleep and studying diligently to 
become skilled at their chosen discipline. >>

That seems pretty much what JKR did, except that her chosen 
discipline was writing novels and she studied that on her own 
rather than in a university program.

Christian wrote:

<< GBE - Knight (or Dame) Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of 
the British Empire >>

Similarly, I think the 'Grand Sorceror' in Dumbledore's titulary is 
part of "Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorceror" 

Having looked at CAIUS MARCIUS's link to Order of the Phoenix, I now 
wonder if First Class and Grand Sorceror are the same thing. I had 
thought that First Class, Grand Sorceror was even higher than First 
Class.

<< If one is made a member of either KBE/DBE rank or GBE rank one is 
entitled to use the prefix "Sir" if male, "Dame" if female. >>

As a child, I was confused between Knight and Dame versus Night and 
Day.

Petra Pan asked:

<< Do beavers as a species exist in Australia? Someone who had worked 
on the old Nickelodeon show "Two Angry Beavers" once told me that the 
show had to change names when exported to Australia because in 
Australia, 'beavers' does not mean dam-building water dwellers with 
big flat tails. >>

Here in USA, "beaver" has another meaning, as slang for, um, female 
genitalia ... which is why publications like HUSTLER are described as 
having "split beaver" shots, and why there is a t-shirt labelled 
"Ward, weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night?".

March 1, 2000 on ATC 
(http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1071034 for the 
audio): "Beaver College -- a school outside Philadelphia that 
originated in Beaver County, Pennsylvania -- is considering a name 
change. The word beaver, often used in vulgar reference to the female
anatomy, is blocked by some Internet filters designed to prevent     
access to pornography. Research also shows that 30-percent of the 
school's prospective students decide against it because of the name. 
Noah speaks with Bill Avington, Media Relations Manager at Beaver 
College in Glenside, Pennsylvania. "

More about the wizarding folk during the war when I have time.