Tag: bemusement
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Law of selective camouflage
The law of selective gravity is well known. A food particle that falls on the floor MUST bounce and roll into an inaccessible location, even if it has to bounce up over a threshold. A separate camouflage law applies to the unfortunate particle that can’t bounce out of reach. 1. Brown food like bread and…
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Local debreviations
I remember reading once that Toronto residents call it Tronno. I didn’t believe it until I started listening to Canadian news videos lately. Yup, it’s Tronno. Philadelphia has a similar short version, something like Flufya. One city emphatically goes the opposite way. Everyone outside of Frisco calls it Frisco. The Frisco Railroad OFFICIALLY calls itself…
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If logic worked
This week: It’s raining. It’s snowing. It’s sleeting. It’s hailing. It’s storming. It’s thundering. If logic worked on language we’d also say: It’s winding. I can see why tornado, graupel and lightning don’t work. The first two are recent imports and the third would be uncomfortably redundant. Wind is an old word and “should” behave…
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Random thought, good question
The 1959 union film on pipefitters learning to build nuclear reactors led to an irrelevant sidebar. The narrator is emphasizing the complexity of the physics and math needed for reactors. The plumbers had to learn a new vocabulary, a whole new way of thinking. “Specific heat, latent heat, sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant and cosecant.”…
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Nice to know
This year I’m trying to move back into pre-2020 condition as far as possible given aging. Trying to be more open and trusting with real people, pulling out of anxiety and constipation and inertia, getting projects underway again. After finishing federal and state tax, decided to update some internal records that I was skipping during…
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Weird English
When you sign into Twitter it prompts: What is happening? This is WEIRD English. It sounds like a teacher walking into a disorderly classroom: What in the hell is HAPPENING around here???? Other socials use casual phrases like What’s on your mind? Twitter reminds me of the standard prison greeting exchange in Mansfield: What’s happening,…
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Status inversions
Earlier I noticed that leather reversed its status rather suddenly in the mid 30s. Buggies had leather seats because leather is waterproof. The earliest automobiles were buggies plus motors, and continued as fully open vehicles with leather seats. As closed cars became more common in the 20s, cloth upholstery became the sign of status. The…
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Try to interpret this dream…
Dreamed this morning about Jesse Unruh, the old California political mover and shaker. I was an office manager. Unruh came in the front door along with a uniformed cop. I greeted him warmly. “Always wanted to meet you, Mr Unruh!”** But he was in a hurry, wanted to see the boss. I took him and…
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I’m everywhere!
Social media relies on your iPhone to keep you located at all times. For “underprivileged” nonphoners the location can be way off, which is just fine by me. In the real world I live in the northwest corner of Spokane. When I was using Comcast, most websites claimed I was in Millwood at the east…
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Another notch down
Substack has descended another notch. Now it’s solely occupied by two types of people: (1) Bible quoters who think that a random passage of Begats is an urgent message with universal relevance. (2) Literary snobs who are mourning an actor (or something) named David Lynch. Judging by the picture they’re all using, Lynch’s talent was…
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Classy Spokane
Via SpokaneNews: North Division and East Courtland area, Reported thousands of fake $100 bills are all over the streets and causing traffic issues as people are stopping in the road collecting them. = = = = = A similar windfall happened several years ago. A drug dealer working from an RV stashed his cash in…
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Cute
Several folks on twitter and substack had the same cute idea independently: Hello everyone! I’ve been on a month-long sailing trip with no connections to media. Anything important happen while I was away?
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I never understood…
Vintage.es has a picture of Martha Stewart during her honeymoon in 1961, sitting on the trunk of a Mercedes 190, wearing a dress she made. She looks confident and happy, prosperous but not arrogant. I watched her TV show once or twice in the 90s and got the same impression. Old rich, confident and easygoing,…
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Today is…
Today is Museum Comes To Life Day, and it lived up to its name. I haven’t seen a “virus” ballgag in the wild for several months. The usual gothy suspects have finally given up the fashion. Today on the bus I saw a middle-aged couple, both overdressed and out of style, both wearing outsized glasses…
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TIL
Today I Learned. I’ve lived in this house for exactly 33 years as of yesterday, and never realized until just now that the city sewer treatment plant is only 3000 feet away as the crow flies. That’s closer than Safeway and shorter than some of my regular walks. I always knew the plant was in…
Polistra's Mill 