There’s been a lot of darkness today, and this week, so how about a palate cleanser before bed? Or for the wee hours of the night for the folks who are having trouble sleeping.
Something funny, something happy, something good.
I’ll start with my two favorite tweets from the past few weeks, almost certainly from Anne Laurie.
Response to this video has been absolutely insane! Cannot thank everyone enough! 4.5 Million views on TikTok! #COVID19 #covid #corona pic.twitter.com/8i8F8ktJvD
— Blake Pavey (@BlakePavey) July 30, 2020
A hamster dressed up as a panda eating carrot sticks from its purse. pic.twitter.com/VXoLpKiUgK
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) August 8, 2020
Something good: Lamh got her job!
Okay, your turn!
bertintx
This sends me back to Monty Python’s Flying Circus show, and the three sided Matching Tie and Handkerchief Album, which I think I still have in my LP collection. Accents plus social commentary…
laura
Friday is my last day of work. They said dont come in Monday. Learning how to not work will be “A Thing” but they’ll be time to put to use getting Biden/Harris elected and catch up on the laundry.
Leto
After a poop Tuesday, I completed my VA benefits and Social Security Disability applications and got them submitted. I needed to get the SS Disability one completed and submitted to the state so I could start collecting my state disability. I’m almost done with all this stuff, which is a good thing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Bears with nunchucks!
https://youtu.be/fXesH4pZGqU
Yutsano
I was today years old when I learned that there are ruins of Kush in Sudan.
Emma from FL
Thank you! That first tweet made me giggle. Haven’t had a lot of that lately. “We are the definition of fucked.” And it’s not even us!
WaterGirl
@Leto: Yay! You had a poop on Tuesday? That is good news! :-)
Paperwork sucks, you’re almost at the finish line.
WaterGirl
@laura: I saw a passing comment from you earlier this week and I wondered if I had missed something. Indeed I had!
Does this mean you are retiring, or taking a break before looking for something else?
Ruckus
@laura:
I have a concept of how you are feeling.
I worked 2 days in the two weeks before last, worked my full 3 day run last week, was scheduled for 2 more full weeks this week and next. Boss called on Monday, he’s got no work for me for this week and next. I have no idea when my job will be back. I still have a job, just nothing to do. I’m practicing retirement.
Martin
Happy 40th Birthday Macaulay Culkin!
<ducks>
Leto
@Yutsano: Really cool article!
WaterGirl
@Martin: That flew right over my head! I’m hoping it’s because I have never seen any of those movies.
‘Night all.
HumboldtBlue
There’s always the Kabs family
Yutsano
@WaterGirl: That reminds me: I’m going back to work. I’m not going back to my office mind you…but I will be working again. Honestly not certain how I feel about this.
laura
@WaterGirl: Retiring. I’ve worked since 1976 – a glamorous grocery store career and worked through college starting in 1990 and left in 96 for law school and worked through school and lobbied and worked the census and then went to work for three unions, the absolute privilege of my professional life.
Leto
@WaterGirl: paperwork indeed sucks. And it’s never ending…
@Ruckus: I’ve been practicing it for almost two years and I have a lifetime to go… I need to get a hobby.
gene108
I had a pet hamster from ages 8 to about 10/11. He died around that birthday.
They are very cute, but after awhile all he did was climb on top of his water bottle and try to gnaw his way through the mesh screen on his cage. He succeeded a couple of times. When we were moving from Ann Arbor to Houston, we were staying with my aunt after our stuff got packed, and before our flight.
He got out one night, and got stuck in the sump pump. I was very distraught, but my mom fished him out.
Mary G
@Leto: I know every state does disability different, but after I filed for SSDI I got a form back with 10 pages of “additional” essay questions back, all of which were covered in my first filing, and a ridiculous deadline of three whole days to complete and return it all. I copy/pasted the exact same words in different paragraph order and sent it in. I was approved in three months without having to get a lawyer or appeal, which almost never happens. That was in the GWB administration, though, which seems kind and competent compared to the current dumpster fire. Good luck! Keep fighting!
Original Lee
Our garage freezer stopped working, but we were able to get a repair person out pretty quickly, and it turns out that the inside light circuit shorted and kept telling the thermostat that the door was ajar. So we just needed that simple fix and we don’t need a new freezer! Yay! Plus, our next door neighbor made some room in her freezer for our expensive meat, so nice neighbor stuff happened, too. I made her some roasted butternut squash bread while I was waiting for the repair person to tell me what was going on.
Major Major Major Major
Next Friday is a mandatory vacation day at work, they announced, so that’s cool.
Here’s something neat:
Martin
Thankful we don’t cover fires in CA by having reporters stand out in the middle of the fire like we do with hurricanes.
“That’s right Jim. We have an air temperature of 335 degrees. It’s really hot out there, and getting hotter. You can see the fire tornado just behind me.”
prostratedragon
The Guardian almost daily has nice photo essays. Here are two that struck me this week:
Photos of the civil rights movement, by Matt Herron
Survey of U.S. Post Office murals from the Public Works Administration
joel hanes
After 250 years, Esselen Tribe regains a piece of its ancestral homeland
joel hanes
The Billion Oyster Project
joel hanes
South SF Bay Restoration
joel hanes
The Land Institute
Jay
Jay
Chef Jose
lahke
@Yutsano: Not an Andre Norton fan then, I take it. She was writing about Meroe back in the ’60’s.
frosty
Great, thanks for the title WG. Now I’ll have Herman’s Hermits running through my brain all night!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Guess you missed Chuck Henry covering the Old Fire, they ended up getting rescued by firefighters and their news van burned.
frosty
@laura: Learning how to not work was a snap for me. Learning how to generate enough ambition to get to all the things I didn’t have time for when I was working … well, that’s a little different.
NotMax
@frosty
All night? Thought they only did that at Noone time.
:)
frosty
@NotMax: You stinker!
otmar
Positives?
All fine here in a club on a Greek island.
Flight back is on Monday, then 4 more days of vacation back in Vienna.
NotMax
The good? New computer mouse arrived this week.
The kicker? Of course on the very day it showed up the comfy old reliable and much used mouse decided to quit acting weird and return to its normal self.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Backup mouse!
Mary G
Very much not positive, so don’t read if you don’t want to be upset. LAPD has protesters trapped in a tunnel at both ends and is firing “non-lethal” projectiles into them at point-blank range. The cops are going to escalate this shit to try to terrorize people into not participating.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Yup. Sittin’ in the box.
Made sure to get one with the option to turn the redonkulous LED light displays they all now have off. The lighting on the old one is subtle enough to neither bother nor distract me, new ones nowadays can look like a carnival midway. Upgrade is that the new unit has an extra two customizable buttons on the side.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Or – dueling mouses!
My wireless Logitech has a simple green/red LED under the scroll wheel. No dance party here.
mrmoshpotato
My rack of ribs should be all thawed in the morning. Tomorrow will slow-cooked ribs day!
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Unsuitable for those with red/green color blindness?
;)
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Ribs? Will be there with bells on.
And shorts.
:)
Haven’t made ribs in the Instant Pot yet but the pix and videos I’ve seen look mighty toothsome.
SectionH
@Yutsano: Archaeology FTW. I’ll go read more.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Might one humbly suggest an accompaniment?
The technique demonstrated really, really works.
Sister Golden Bear
NorCal fires have slowed down, thanks to a change in the weather, that firefighters are starting to contain them.
Temperatures are back to normal, and more importantly air quality levels are finally good again. The splitting headache I’ve had for more than week is finally easing.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: High of 91 tomorrow.
Instant Pot Smart WiFi
“Let’s not be ridiculous!”
“Ok. We’ll not write a Your Stew Is Done alert polka for the phone app.”
“Good. We’re being reasonable.”
Sister Golden Bear
OK, not so positive, but insomniac jackals may be interested in following a hurricane chaser who’s live tweeting, with videos, from Louisiana tonight. The eye is getting close to him at the moment.
The power of nature is truly awe inspiring.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Yeah, the whole Internet of Things has rushed hellbent for leather to la-la land.
“My toilet hates me.”
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Interesting. I’ll have to keep that in mind. I’m thinking oven roasted potatoes with salt, pepper and rosemary tossed in olive oil.
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: Also Reed Timmer out there trying to get himself killed.
133 MPH gusts in Lake Charles. That’s pretty impressive for 30 miles inland.
hitchhiker
2 yrs ago we bought some land on Whidbey Island, inside the town of Langley. Langley is a village of maybe 1200 people, including many, many artists and writers and old hippies. From its website:
On Friday, at long last, we’re going to do the final walk through with the main contractor who built our little house. It’s a trip to realize that this is probably going to be my last move to my last address — or at least that’s the plan. The house is designed to be accessible and very low maintenance; it has no stairs at all, and the master bath has a giant roll in shower. All the doors are extra wide. There’s a front porch, and the back yard opens to a path through a protected wetland/woods.
I’m so, so happy. Here are some photos from Whidbey/Langley.
http://nitaogphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/langley-whidbey-island-washington.html
SectionH
Positives? Just got off a long phone call from a dear friend “somewhere outside of Merida.” That’s positive. He’s currently isolating big time but I think he’s nearly through it. Oh, and the isolation was because he was leading an archaeology tour somewhere in Guatemala, and he’s being incredibly careful. So fuck off about judging.
Just hearing his voice was so great. I
mrmoshpotato
@Sister Golden Bear: Woah.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Luscious. Even better roasted with a smidgen of minced fresh garlic.
The cooks at the summer camp where I worked learned to save the whole onions they placed in the pans with the gigantic roast beefs they’d prepare for the hordes and set them aside for me rather than throw them out. Lip smacking goodness.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: “This machine just called me an asshole.”
Also too.
mrmoshpotato
@Martin: When you need safety glasses for outside…
Hot! Damn!
NotMax
@SisterGoldenBear
Have gst through Hazel, Edna, Donna, Agnes and Iniki.
None of which I’d accept any payment to repeat.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: A smidgen of garlic? How many heads is that? ?
Mmmm…beefy roasted onions.
NotMax
@NotMax
Have sat through, not have gst through.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Compliment I treasure came from one of the cooks, said to me the first summer I became Head Counselor, after she motioned me to come with her into the pantry:
“Been working her since 1938 and I ain’t never seen this place run so good.”
NotMax
@NotMax
Oh, dammit. No edit function.
here, not her
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: Reed is famous for doing dumb shit. He’s the guy whose goal is to drive a car into a tornado.
SectionH
@Martin: Yes, worrying TF about ppl. Not as far north as .Shreveport, which is basically eastern TX, I mean compared to Lake Charles, yeah they’re fine. But damn, it’s not the wind, it’s the water.
NotMax
@Martin
In metric that’s only 59. Barely worth getting bent out of shape about.
:)
mrmoshpotato
@Martin:
All the facepalms! ??♂️
NotMax
@Martin
“Okay, but you’ve got to be driving a Rocket.”
:)
Sister Golden Bear
@mrmoshpotato: On a related note, CA officials recommended people add safety goggles to their go bags. Apparently, a good number of fire-related injuries are people who get embers blown into their eyes.
SectionH
@Yutsano: Cool innit though? It will take me a while, but wow if so.
mrmoshpotato
@Sister Golden Bear: Good thinking on their part.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The Chuck Henry story from the Old Fire was absolutely terrifying. He was right where they told him to be, but the fire came up behind him and the firefighters. When he and his cameraman tried to leave, the truck wouldn’t start. The firefighters grabbed them and they watched as the aluminum bits on their truck melted and ran down the road toward them.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Horrible punchline in that first paragraph. ??
NotMax
@SisterGolden Bear
Don’t Californians wear Ray-Bans 24/7? I seen it on the teevee so it must be true.
;)
opiejeanne
@NotMax: I never thought of doing that with corn but that’s a clever way to fix it if you’re in an RV. Many years ago we had a little 6-pack cab-over camper and I figured out how to make a cobbler in a skillet, but damned if I can remember the trick now.
Last week I priced renting a small RV, one that we could throw the cats into and just go somewhere.
Anywhere.
Kind of pricey to rent though, and to fill with gas, and the garden would go to hell so it won’t happen before we’re finished with it. .
evodevo
@lahke: A UK archaeologist was excavating extensively in the Sudan in the Seventies…https://www.as.uky.edu/dean-mark-kornbluh-blog-honoring-dr-william-y-adams
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: That’s probably mostly good news, yes? Shows progress!
WaterGirl
@laura: Sounds like you had a good run at work! But you deserved more than 4 days notice, that part is really disappointing!
Hoping that this will turn out to be one of those unwelcome changes where you look back and can see that it was a good thing, even if not of your choosing. Crossing my fingers!
WaterGirl
@Leto: Texting isn’t a hobby? How about gaming? :-)
Origuy
@Yutsano: More about ancient Sudan in Archaeology magazine.
UncleEbeneezer
A couple good things here:
1.) Pasadena voted to form a Citizen’s Oversight Committee for the police on Monday. I have been working on this for 3 years, the recent fight has been on-going for about 7 years and this fight really began in the 1970’s. It’s just a first step, still needs a lot of work and could go sideways, but still it’s definitely a cause for celebration. Especially since various groups worked together and stood firm on our demands in a way that we really haven’t seen before.
2.) In an hour or so, we are off to El Capitan State Beach to begin celebrating our 8th Wedding Anniversary, and first real vacation/breather since Covid.