I have no idea what this is about, but it is.
For a few days I noticed a hint or more of a nasty smell. It was one that I would rather not recognize, but due to experience(s), I figured “dead mouse” if it was real. There are times I pick up on something and nobody else does, and it’s transient. There are other times when I might be the only one to notice, but it keeps on happening. Annoyingly, this kept on happening.
The last night off, I tried to trace it. Flashlight to floor and corners and hidden areas. Some dust, sure, but… well, cabinets and drawers? Nope. Alright, time to clean the so-very-cluttered counter. Did that. And the troublesome smell moved. Aha!
The only thing that seemed like had any chance being The Stink was the cartoon of eggs. These were not the usual store-bought washed eggs, but a gift to $HOUSEMATE from someone with chickens. They should keep on the counter just fine. Not all did. I spent more time taking one egg and placing in a bowl away from the rest, letting time lapse, and sniffing. Of ten eggs, eight seemed alright. One was at least a bit suspect, and one was a real stinker. Those two are now in a Ziploc bag in the outdoor trash bin. The bowls involved are in the dishwasher. I washed my hands many times in all this.
The weird thing was that I had expected ‘bad eggs’ to have a hydrogen sulfide odor. That is often described as ‘rotten egg’. But I picked up on ‘dead mouse’. Well, the eggs are sorted… and the counter is cleaned. And just to clear, or mask, things, some incense was burned. Even with the source removed, some thing linger and ‘pear vanilla’ is far better smell.
No, not me. I took the picture. This was at the Siouxland Renaissance Festival’s Mythical Garden in 2021.
Overheard (aka ‘garage’) doors need springs (or I suppose counterweights, but I do not recall seeing a setup in use) to allow ready manual (and even light machine…) manipulation. For larger, heavier door, these are rather big springs. Here’s what one should not look like:
Yep, spring went SPROING! This was at work, and I was glad to not be around when it happened. Everything was contained, but I suspect the sound would have been Quite Startling Indeed. This was replaced within a day, and that it was done that quickly is impressive, especially nowadays with screwy supply issues. The door was opened at least a couple times with the spring in this condition. I will not detail how. I am fairly sure it was a parade of OSHA violations. I was not involved, which suits me just fine.
Going back to 1970 or maybe 1971… but here is an odd little tune as it first appeared:
And here it is as most likely remember it, if they do:
This has NO relation to an earlier tune Chicka-Boom (1953), as this is Chick-A-Boom (despite the title on the first vid…). And, oddly, it really did first appear on the Groovie Goolies cartoon. The cartoon had a rather short run, but each “episode” had two songs (animated music videos, now…) with the hopes that maybe some might ‘take off’ and be popular beyond the cartoon. Most were rather specific to the cartoon and thus limited. A few were not, but Chick-A-Boom was the one that truly took off and got (with a variant version, admittedly) independent radio air play.
Nope, not an accidental typo up there. This gadget measures carbon dioxide (CO2):
I think the thermometer reads a bit high, and yes it is quite dry but likely not as dry as indicated. The section of the “circle” are green, yellow, orange, and red. The current section is green and blinking for ‘good’ or ‘safe’ – the photo was taken in the off portion of the blink cycle. I know that the ‘yellow’ looks green in the photo. The phone camera did some color adjustment of a very yellow shot so it the photo is much whiter than the scene really is.
This is an inexpensive device, about $36 on Amazon. So I am not surprised the secondary measurements (temperature, humidity) seem to be a bit off. There is another, more annoying, quirk. After extended use it will ramp up to a very high reading and even alert despite nothing in the area changing. A power cycling seems to take care of this.
Why a CO2 monitor? Curiosity, mainly. Combustion of anything with carbon does result in CO2 (if it’s burning right and not oxygen starved) and I’d been wondering if the concentration rose detectably when I use some lamps and lanterns. It seems that burning both Ellipse lamps doesn’t result in any great increase in the small, somewhat closed office. Then, there is air from the furnace system and I have been in and out of the office a few times overnight, so there is some air exchange. That said, the monitor has stayed in the 430-450 range for at least an hour with the lamps burning. I’ll likely run this experiment again some night after the new windows are installed. The current windows… well, they were new in 1949.
The ranges?
Green: 0-799 ppm (really 400-799)
Yellow: 800-1199 ppm
Orange: 1200-1599 ppm
Red: 1600-1999 ppm
ALL FLASHING: >2000 ppm
Do you need one of these? Probably not. It’s interesting, but hardly critical. You do need the CO (MONoxide) monitors, however.
Windows & Mac types: Skip this post.
Window Manager Tweaks. Accessibility tab. Uncheck “Raise windows when any mouse button is pressed.” That drives me crazy too and it always takes me forever to remember where the setting is. Just had to do it recently, so it was fresh.
I have (thanks to $HOUSEMATE being VERY GENEROUS one birthday anniversary) a Very Nice trackball, with a scroll ring even… EXCEPT its driver defaults to the EVIL HORRID NO-DAMNED-GOOD WILL-GLEEFULLY-RAPE-YOUR-INNOCENT-DAUGHTERS-AND-THEN-BRAG-ABOUT-IT RATFINK vileness of “bump mouse to lose focus.” This post is ALL about fixing that BUG-FROM-HELL!
Bit Size (Liquid Diet Chronicles book 1) is, yes, part of a series. I have no idea how many books there might eventually be, but as I write there are two. I have not even started to read the second. I did, however, just finish the first.
Here’s the blurb:
Meg Turner has been a vampire for twenty years. Her favorite food is rapists. Which is how she met Andi Donahue, her new best friend/ girl Friday.
And then the nightmares start. And the bodies start showing up–bled out and raped. Just like Meg was. They don’t have a whole lot of time to stop the killer before he strikes again, and only one way to stop the killer.
But how can Andi help Meg stop a killer she can’t even see?
I was a bit leery of reading a(nother..) vampire story, but this is done well and it didn’t take long to get into the book. The theme is serious, but the outlook can be humorous. Here’s an example, as Andi and Meg are getting to know each other:
“Well, how long did it take you to learn how to…well, learn how to survive as the wicked, fiendish, immortal undead?” she asked reasonably.
“I’m a vampire, not a Supreme Court Justice,” I replied drily.
Is it all laughs? Well, no. But it’s continuously entertaining by humor, suspense, action, or yes – but is never overbearing about any of them.
FTC Notice: I purchased this book for my own use and received no remuneration from author or publisher for this review.
I’ve heard of cedar plank salmon and I might have had it at restaurants, but if so it never struck me as anymore than salmon. When a store had some cedar planks for sale cheap rather than at some crazy inflated price. So I bought so I could try it. I did. I soaked the plank as instructed and baked some salmon on it. And… it was plain salmon.
Alright, not a fair test perhaps. A side-by-side comparison of cedar and not-cedar would be right proper test. Well, I did that overnight. Same result. Nothing special about the cedar plank at all. It’s great ad copy, sure, but as for improvement or even making a detectable change in flavor? It’s like trying two different brands of distilled water: what difference? It’s odd how the damp wood gives off a potent, and pleasing, aroma but it doesn’t carry over into the flavor of the fish.
Now, using a soaked plank on a grill to deal with fish would make sense. Fish is delicate and apt to fall through the grill grate, so a plank makes sense there. But that’s not about flavor, but simple physics. Cedar is, perhaps, good as it seems to be fairly neutral. I do wonder if a hickory plank might be better for those who appreciate the hickory-smoked flavor.
I have several planks left (they can re-used) and might use them to grill fish in warmer months (the grill is rather snowed in just now) but I won’t be going out of my way to (over)pay for more cedar.
SUMMARY: Cedar as a physical support for grilling fish, sure. But to claim some great flavor enhancement? Buddy, you can KEEP the Brooklyn Bridge!
Back in school… some gal wound up qualifying as cheerleader, despite the setting being more open classroom than anything. When she did, she was given five pills. Others were given four. Things went on a bit and someone tried to hand me some from what was a big bucket of small white pills.
“What are these, really?” “They help you focus.” I was skeptical… and that’s about when I woke up.
No proper diagnosis, no proper pill bottles, no proper labeling. None of that. Just a big bucket of who-knows-what.
The night before, at work, I learned a co-worker had, when younger, been put on Adderall and it did nothing for him. But nobody would take that seriously and was stuck with the stuff for years. Eventually someone figured out something and switched him to Vyvanse which is similar, but different enough to at least be partly effective for him.
What’s the difference? Adderall is, come down to it, a 3:1 mix of dextroamphetamine and levoamphetamine. Vyvanse metabolizes to just dextroamphetamine. Yes, “Dexies” are still around, after a fashion. Just with slight change in a form and a new name.
The Elegant Ungulate 