A part of a shotgun barrel with a smaller diameter than the rest of the barrel. Forming a bottleneck at the end of the barrel, the choke is used to avoid an early scattering of the shot, thereby improving the killing range of the weapon, but shrinking the size of the pattern (the swarm of lead pellets) makes it harder to hit the target.

1990 sophomore effort from The Beautiful South. This is playtime for everybody's favorite northern scum, and runs the gamut from ska to lovestruck ballads to disconnected artsy meanderings. It is currently very difficult to get ahold of in the United States, despite its realtively good sales in the United Kingdom.

The cover depicts six skeletal statues against a stormy sky which, according to the band's website, seemed to mock the six chubby figures on stage.

Rating: 4 out of 5. This album's obscurity is undeserved, and is well worth the hunt in the Americas. This is The Beauties at their most playful, before the pop would go completely to their heads, before the tensions would drive singer Brianna Corrigan from the group, before they would descend into a permanent mid-life crisis.

track list:

  1. Tonight I Fancy Myself
  2. My Book
  3. Let Love Speak Up Itself
  4. Should've Kept My Eyes Shut
  5. I've Come For My Award
  6. Lips
  7. I Think The Answer's Yes
  8. A Little Time
  9. Mother's Pride
  10. I Hate You (But You're Interesting)
  11. The Rising of Grafton Street
All songs written by Paul Heaton and David Rotheray

Highest UK chart position: 2

The choke is a small hole about a quarter-inch wide on the side of pipes and bongs usually used for smoking marijuana. Also called a carb, you hold your finger over the choke while inhaling, permitting the chamber to fill with smoke.

With a pipe, when the chamber is full you may remove your finger, permitting a rush of air into the lungs. Inexperienced smokers may partly cover the hole on a pipe to permit a mixture of air and smoke to be inhaled instead, resulting in a milder, less painful hit.

With most bongs, the smoker holds their finger over the choke until the chamber fills with a sufficient amount of smoke, then, generally they remove the finger, letting air rush into the chamber and pushing all the smoke into their lungs.

Essentially a choke is a method of allowing all smoke to be removed from inside of the device, minimizing waste.

Chuck Palahniuk's fourth novel, written in his usual nihilstic style, regarding the strange details of sexual compulsion and obsession, and possible recovery therefrom.

Palahniuk's inspiration for this book was his father who, following the death of Chuck's mother, was dating and sleeping around on a fairly constant basis, much to the consternation of his sons. He was found burned to death with one of his recent conquests at a cabin in the woods during the filming of Fight Club, apparently the victim of the woman's ex-husband, who swore he would visit that fate on anybody he caught with her.

Further details and exerpts can be found at the fan site, http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net.

choad = C = chomp

choke v.

1. [common] To reject input, often ungracefully. "NULs make System V's lpr(1) choke." "I tried building an EMACS binary to use X, but cpp(1) choked on all those #defines." See barf, gag, vi. 2. [MIT] More generally, to fail at any endeavor, but with some flair or bravado; the popular definition is "to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

The world is falling apart. Torn asunder, shit like that. I’m serious, this is Chuck Palahniuk’s world. http://google.com/search?q=palahniuk+apocalyptic returns 256 hits as of today. Replace "apocalyptic" with "nihilistic" and you get 299 results. This is very serious business. Palahniuk, this evil, smug Vonnegut-wannabe, is trying to accelerate the end of the world, and he don't care.

Oh, you don't know who the bastard is?

Fight Club.

And now that I have your attention, I'd like to point out that, yes, the world is ending. On the radio, just last night, I heard a complete (and scientific) breakdown of just how, over the next two years, the world climate will swing (almost totally) into the inhabitable range (I blame the gays). And I trust my radio.

And Palahniuk is laughing his evil ass off.

And at this point, I'd like to make several things clear:

  • Fight Club is about fascism and violence, not about salvaging whatever bit of humanity you have left.
  • Palahniuk's Survivor is a tribute to cultism and mindlessly following leaders, agents, television, et cetera; it is not a critique of these things.
  • Invisible Monsters glorifies beauty and drugs.
  • Palahniuk is, above all, a writer obsessed with destruction.

Don't think for a second that, although it appears that the central theme in Choke is building things yourself, this is anywhere near Palahnuik's point. This is a novel about manipulation. It's about a man named Vincent who, while eating in restaurants, stuffs large pieces of meat into the back of his throat and then falls backward in his chair, pretending to choke so that someone, some stranger, will perform the Heimilich Maneuver on his faking ass.

Why I do this is to make money. . . . It's that old Chinese custom where if somebody saves your life, they're responsible for you forever.

Oh, and did I mention he's a sex addict?

Yeah, and a med. school drop-out.

Don't make too much of Vincent's friend Denny, who draws pictures and builds sculptures, who spends his days collecting rocks, because it keeps him too busy to masturbate. Don't make too much of the idea of building, as in the act of building that Denny goes through, or of growing, as Vincent would seem to be at least trying to do. These are what those in the business call red herrings. When he says

"Just supposing," I say, "Jesus Christ had to practice being the Son of God to get any good at it . . . What if Jesus spent all his growing up getting things wrong . . . before he ever got a single miracle right?"

don't think he's being serious. This is not profound. What you should concentrate on are lines that critics quote, such as

Some woman writes about how she's started a prayer chain for me. A spiritual pyramid scheme. As if you can gang up on God. Bully him around.

which are, of course, smug and sarcastic. This is the real Palahniuk. This is as profound as Palahnuik is ever going to be.



Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
293 pages, © 2001, Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday (Random House, Inc.)
ISBN: 0-385-50156-0
ISBN: 0-385-72092-0 (Paperback)

Term describing the phenomenon in sports where, due to tremendous pressure, athletes fail to perform up to the best of their ability. This can lead to great hatred and possibly even death threats from fans of the athlete involved. Possibly due to the tense, individual nature of the game, choking most often occurs in golf.

"Great" chokes and chokers in modern sports history:
On older cars, a choke is a knob on the dashboard, sometimes referred to as the cold start assist.

Pulling the choke knob out causes a flap on the air intake to close, restricting the airflow, hence enriching the gasoline air mixture1, enabling the car to start more easily and run more smoothly when the engine is cold. Some chokes also increase the idle tickover to help with warming up and reduce stalling.2

A common problem is to use too much choke trying to start the car, and flooding the engine.

Manual chokes have been replaced, first by mechanical automatic chokes, then later by software in the engine management unit. A mechanical automatic choke works the flap by means of a bimetallic strip.

Cold start problems have not been completely solved by engine manangement electronics. There can still be problems in the temperature sensors, wiring or one of the stepper motors, which are difficult to diagnose let alone fix, and require specialist knowledge. EMUs sometimes fail in the opposite way, racing at idle and running on.

1According to stupot, on an SU carburetor, the choke doesn't move a flap in the air intake, instead it opens the jet supplying the fuel to make the mixture more rich.

2Thanks to sideways for pointing this out.

Choke (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Choked (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Choking.] [OE. cheken, choken; cf. AS. aceocian to suffocate, Icel. koka to gulp, E. chincough, cough.]

1.

To render unable to breathe by filling, pressing upon, or squeezing the windpipe; to stifle; to suffocate; to strangle.

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Shak.

2.

To obstruct by filling up or clogging any passage; to block up.

Addison.

3.

To hinder or check, as growth, expansion, progress, etc.; to stifle.

Oats and darnel choke the rising corn. Dryden.

4.

To affect with a sense of strangulation by passion or strong feeling.

"I was choked at this word."

Swift.

5.

To make a choke, as in a cartridge, or in the bore of the barrel of a shotgun.

To choke off, to stop a person in the execution of a purpose; as, to choke off a speaker by uproar.

 

© Webster 1913.


Choke, v. i.

1.

To have the windpipe stopped; to have a spasm of the throat, caused by stoppage or irritation of the windpipe; to be strangled.

2.

To be checked, as if by choking; to stick.

The words choked in his throat. Sir W. Scott.

 

© Webster 1913.


Choke, n.

1.

A stoppage or irritation of the windpipe, producing the feeling of strangulation.

2. Gun. (a)

The tied end of a cartridge.

(b)

A constriction in the bore of a shotgun, case of a rocket, etc.

 

© Webster 1913.

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