u/twatomexus

Hey Rush listeners

I've never really listened to anything by Rush besides YYZ or Tom Sawyer, and those are mostly just listen to the drums (i'm a drummer). I decided to listen to Hemispheres because the album art seemed intriguing, and I saw that it had a 18-minute monolith of an opener, so I knew I had to give it a spin.

To be honest, I always thought Rush were leaning more towards like heavy metal or prog metal, like that they sounded grittier and heavier than they actually do, and just assumed that Moving Pictures was basically their "mainstream" album (like Invisible Touch or 90125), but listening to Hemispheres, it seems they have a bit more of a distinct, slightly heavier but still very 70s prog-like. I like it.

I really digged this album. The opener, Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres, was fucking fantastic. But I wouldn't say it's a top 5 prog rock epic. It was good; I really loved that keyboard/synth section towards the middle-end part, it sounded fucking awesome. I actually really digged the shorter tracks, Circumstances and The Trees, especially the latter. It was really groovy and I fucked heavy with the lyrics.

La Villa Strangiato... my god. That fucking guitar solo. It's seriously incredible. I'd actually never heard it up until this point, but Alex Lifeson is a fucking insane guitarist. Živojinović, that Bastard. Niel Peart is a literal god behind that drum kit. He's top 3 drummers of all time, for sure. Lee's bass was also superb on this album.

I guess my only complaint is Geddy's vocals. I don't know I'm not a huge fan of them and to be honest, he sounds like a frog squeezing his nose. He does have some impressive moments vocally, but generally the timbre of his voice doesn't sound that good to me. But it's respectable, it's not so bad that I want to turn it off (like Talk Talk).

Overall, a fantastic album. I think I'd give it like an 8.5/10. Turns out that Hemispheres was a fantastic record and an awesome gateway to classic Rush music for me. The musicianship on display here is absolutely phenomenal, especially my guy Neil Peart’s god-level drumming and Alex Lifeson’s brilliant guitar solo on La Villa Strangiato. Even if Geddy Lee’s "frog squeezing through a nostril hole" singing style isn’t quite for me (I've heard the dude talk and he does not talk like this), this doesn’t detract from how excellent the rest of the band is here.

Here's the original post

Thanks, u/gjas24, for the comment that said the dried sourdough starter can be stored in the freezer for years!

To be honest, after writing my original post, I felt horrible. To make matters even more awkward, my aunt said little when discussing the topic. While searching for a way to solve this problem, I saw people mentioning that storing backups in the freezer is common practice. I decided to search for them just to see if I was completely cooked, and it turned out that she did store several dried backups of the very same starter for the past several years (this time with labels saying Gerald Backup)!

Being very energetic and scattered-minded (as she most likely suffers from undiagnosed ADHD), it explains why she keeps such backups despite forgetting to inform everyone about them.

Of course, I haven’t told her yet. Instead, I took one of those samples and revived it gradually. Now I have placed it into a jar and added a brief note saying "sorry for being an IDIOT".

It looked like she was taken aback when I gave it to her, but then she chuckled and called me a dumbass, in the endearing way that she always does. She pointed out that she has been wanting to create some backups but just doesn’t get to it.

All is well now. She got her starter back, and I learned my lesson about not throwing away weird jars from the fridge without checking first.

Once again, thank you to u/gjas24 and all who replied. It turned out much better than I expected.

TL;DR: Found her secret dried backups in the freezer, revived one without telling her, gave it as a surprise. She wasn’t mad and we’re good.

This happened three days ago, and I’m still a bit embarrassed by it.

I volunteer at my aunt’s little bakery shop every weekend. No big deal; just prep work and attending to customers. Cleaning the bakery counter is one of my regular duties, which includes taking the sourdough starter from the refrigerator so it warms up before she comes in at nine. This particular sourdough starter is about four years old, and she has nicknamed it Gerald. It even has its own shelf.

I am no baker, but I know enough to be dangerous.

And that day, at 6:30 AM, I arrived tired and operating on autopilot. I did my regular sweeping routine to get ready for opening. I wiped down the countertops and organized the refrigerator, disposing of anything that looked like it belonged to a museum collection.

You get the idea.

Gerald was shoved way into the back of the fridge behind a sheet pan. He was sitting inside a regular old mason jar without any kind of labeling on him whatsoever. He smelled quite bad if I am being honest. I dumped him out, cleaned the jar, and placed it into the dish rack to dry, patting myself on the back for having done such a good job.

Not even ten minutes later, I went to go retrieve Gerald to begin warming him up, only to find out that he was missing. The realization of how bad things could be hit me almost immediately.

I began sending frantic texts to my aunt, who got right back to me in record time, which may I add is the fastest she has ever gotten back to me considering once I sent her a message informing her that I got into a car accident.

She was not angry in the sense that I had heard her yell before; rather, she seemed calm in her anger. All she did was say the word "okay" in a very controlled tone of voice.

The next two hours I spent assisting customers and feeling like I was standing in the principal’s office waiting for my turn.

After a bit of staring at the empty jar, she sighed “well” and went on with her day. She did look very professional about it with customers around. But I know that she felt disappointed. As a side comment she told me that her starter used to be part of her friend’s, who owned a fairly old one, and she’d nurtured her starter for years, but “it takes some time to build something up.”

She doesn’t blame me in the least. She acknowledged that those things do happen and it was all her fault - as she forgot to label it. But she said it in the way where you can tell the person is being gracious and you don’t really deserve it.

So I decided to order her a book about sourdough and a pretty new jar as an apology. She answered with the thumbs up emoji, which coming from my aunt is kind of hard to decipher.

Anyway. Please label your starters. And anything else in a kitchen that can potentially confuse someone. Assume everyone helping you in there are complete idiots.

TL;DR: Cleaned out the bakery fridge on autopilot, accidentally threw away my aunt’s four-year-old sourdough starter, she was gracious about it in a way that made me feel worse.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​