Overheard at Table 1: Idea for Series - The Imagined History of Floridaman

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230528-the-overseas-highway-the-us-floating-highway?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Since this railroad cum highway brought poor islands to the mainland and forever changed Florida, it would be interesting to have some sort of multigenerational series on "The Evolution of Floridaman"

He didn't necessarily come out of the swamps ... he was hanging out in the Keys.

Until the day that the gaps between the islands were bridged, and Floridaman came to the peninsula!

Do you think I can sell the idea to Carl Hiaasen?

 

 

 

 

 

Overheard at Table 2: Cryptoquotes - All Enterprises by Tacitus

 "All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end. "
— Publius Cornelius Tacitus

hopetheturtle
September 19, 2011, 3:35 pm
I disagree, some people see things through and don't lose their original zest for the project.
fredsevent
September 29, 2012, 3:20 pm
Is this a weird quote or what?
chopstix
December 6, 2012, 7:30 pm
All I know is that putting in "can", not "may" slowed me down quite a bit.
wvwoman
January 22, 2014, 10:20 am
me, too, chopstix--took me a while to find my error!
Highpoint
July 9, 2014, 1:59 pm
Meaning what? What is indiscreet zeal?
wvwoman
July 13, 2014, 11:49 am
good question, highpoint--who wants to take this one?!
kb83
September 9, 2014, 7:39 am
If you have to ask what indiscreet zeal is, it may just be hopeless.
montyb
December 23, 2014, 1:24 am
My end collapsed years ago.
LLapp
January 5, 2015, 4:51 pm
I think he means zeal that is untempered by due diligence -- that you need both zeal and prudence to bring a big pursuit to fruition. Does that help?
abracadebra
March 24, 2015, 2:37 pm
I think it means that the enterprises secrets are overly enthusiastic, that some things are just better unsaid.
killdozer
May 20, 2015, 2:53 pm
By "indiscrete zeal," he means recklessness, Enthusiasm without planning.
Andy451
October 11, 2015, 10:50 am
Is this why infidelity gets such a bad rap, in other words? Or marriage too, for that matter? Or even remaining celibate for that matter? What's a Roman to do then Tacitus? So Caesar should have written, "I came; I saw; I was conquered"? No wonder the Roman Empire crumbled in to dust. No wonder all empires that came before or after it, met the same fate. As the noble Roman Katie Couric would say, "Oh, now I get it!"
pegxpeg
July 20, 2016, 3:04 pm
Good explanation, killdozer.
CarpeLanam
November 7, 2016, 2:41 am
I spent some time trying to trace this quote... it may be from Annals XV, where there is a description of a conspiracy to assassinate Nero that fell apart and resulted in a bloodbath of the conspirators and their associates.
LLapp
November 28, 2016, 2:31 pm
Killdozer's explanation and CarpeLanam's context are so helpful. Thank you both!
blueladyblue
April 4, 2018, 8:26 am
This quote has been pursued with vigor by some of the comments here. Other comments were typed hurriedly with indiscreet zeal.
mohamm1
January 24, 2022, 7:09 pm
Therefore, use discrete zeal, or rent cars from National or Thrifty instead of Enterprise. ==================================== You solved this cryptogram in 83 seconds. That's worth 286 points!

https://cryptograms.puzzlebaron.com/

Overheard at Booth 3: Cryptoquotes - One by Einstein

 "Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science."
— Albert Einstein

maradnu
March 3, 2015, 4:04 pm
Too many only want to live in a scene of hopes and wishes
vintage38
December 30, 2017, 1:50 am
54 seconds
Capy
April 23, 2019, 9:21 am
To question all the time. My hero AE
pickleball
November 25, 2020, 1:01 pm
and what a world it is !!
hrossa
March 14, 2021, 5:51 pm
Art and science are one realm. Lovely thought, thanks AE.
Fudi
July 11, 2022, 10:50 pm
I was trying to fake it as a free being ... as usual.




https://cryptograms.puzzlebaron.com/

Overheard at Table 4: Cryptoquotes - Upon Books by Henry C Rogers

 "Upon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought."
— Henry C. Rogers

puzzleme
September 26, 2013, 2:33 pm
True no longer.
wordfairy
March 28, 2015, 9:07 pm
Not sure this was ever true.
kb83
May 26, 2016, 2:52 am
Well, tweets do not transmit thought.
LLapp
July 10, 2016, 7:17 am
Astute comment, kb83, and stated in well under 140 characters!
MamaB
May 29, 2017, 2:45 am
So kb83 could have just tweeted it!
SippyGurl
August 13, 2017, 5:36 pm
tweets only transmit thoughts if the tweeterer has any
munchlet
August 14, 2017, 3:16 pm
Does that last thought apply to our Tweeterer-in-Chief?
miawallace
June 11, 2018, 11:32 pm
I pride myself in not knowing before now that tweeting has to be under 140 characters. Never tweeted and probably never will.
abra
June 29, 2018, 6:05 pm
I do not tweet eithrr.
mmfs83
September 29, 2018, 7:35 am
Nor I
eholland
November 2, 2018, 6:45 am
The failing @maiwallace claims 140 character limit for tweets! Character limit was changed to 280 in 09/2017. FAKE NEWS! SAD!
LLapp
January 5, 2019, 9:14 pm
eholland for prez in 2020!
badbob
September 23, 2019, 2:45 am
another never tweeter never facebooked don't intend to do either ever. i did however pass notes in studyhall
LLapp
June 22, 2020, 2:48 am
When we passed notes in junior high, they were at least a full page long, with drawings and jokes, and actually we wrote them during class and then exchanged them between classes, in the hallways. It was probably my favorite part of school, and I still have a big bagful of friends' long notes in my memory box.
montyb
August 31, 2020, 8:26 am
^ Oooh, I see potential for a lucrative career in extortion!

from https://cryptograms.puzzlebaron.com/

Overheard at Table 3: Therapy

Husband: My therapist says you're a bully.

Wife: You go back and tell her that's wrong!

Husband: I don't think therapy works like that.

Wife: Well, then I need to have a few words with her.

Husband: Maybe you should have your own sessions with her.

Wife: What?  And what am I gonna do?  Talk about the problems I'm having with you?  That's why I told you to GO to therapy!  So you could get fixed!

Husband: I might need to bump this up to two sessions per week.

Overheard at Booth 3: Rochefoucauld and Wilde Talk about the Sun and Death

In Booth 3, Francois de la Rochefoucauld opines, "Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye."

Oscar Wilde retorts, "Watching the flight of Icarus, thus, must be doubly vertiginous."

Overheard at Booth 3: Sunglasses Make You Go Blind

... my wife keeps sending me all these Instagram reels with this one Australian woman talking about natural health and how everything is bad for you, and this last reel the woman was saying that root canal will give you cancer because microbes will get into the dead root and multiply.

So then I tried to find her name and I couldn't, but I was going through all the clips of her and in one she was talking about the dangers of sunglasses for everyone who isn't skiing, that the lenses don't let your eyes "learn how to adjust to the light" which will make your eyes, over time, go blind.

Didn't really catch it, but I think her point was that eyes need the sunlight to stay healthy.