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I’m’a smack somebody in a minute

I made up my mind and I’ve been trying all day to buy a new VR headset. The first try was rejected by the bank, as unusual purchases are. Once I got that straightened out, I got into a loop where I hit the purchase button, it swore it was talking to my bank for a second, then took me back to the purchase screen. Online help chat had me try dropping my VPN, using an incognito window, using a different browser. Eventually, Meta told me I’d taken advantage of too many special offers today and to go away.

I’m pissed.

Anyway, here’s another email that sounds like spam but I actually signed up for it: the Bean Institute. I get their newsletter because I’m from Tennessee and I like beans, dammit.

The title of this one is Love Your Heart with Beans, which sounds too much like a recipe.


Finally went through. I switched from paying by credit card to PayPal. And that worked only because PayPal showed me the error message Meta wouldn’t: it didn’t like my mailing address. Used to be, the house name and parish name was all I needed for a valid address, but lately forms have been demanding the road name as well. If only they had told me that!

February 29, 2024 — 7:35 pm
Comments: 5

I’ve been invited to make a rake

I’ve been invited to join a two-day rake making workshop in Wales. The number of times I get an email like that and think, “that’s a weird spam” and then realize, “oh, wait – I signed on for that shit!”

Well, no, not rake making. I signed onto a website that is all about scythes, back during my brief flirtation with scything. This is the first mailing I’ve had from them in years, so it took me a minute to place them.

People who spend two days and £160 making a rake that you can buy from the same site for £42.50 are will be a type. Wealthy, retired to the country, LARPing as peasants.

You know what? It would probably be a lot of fun.

February 28, 2024 — 8:27 pm
Comments: 7

It meanders, but it has a point

This is the excellent Modern Diner in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. “The Sterling Streamliner car, made in the late-1930s and early 1940s, was the first diner in the nation to be accepted on the National Register of Historic Places.” I used to get a wicked greasy breakfast there of a Saturday, after I visited my gun shop.

But I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for Atomic Pizza, which I think was on the other side of Providence, in Cranston maybe. Very Fifties aesthetic. I didn’t find it – probably long gone – but I discovered there are Atomic Pizzas all over the world. Huh.

Anyway. This morning, I had reason to look up some local shipyards and discovered there was a ship built locally in 1898 called Telephone. Imagine being the captain of the Telephone. Imagine going down with the Telephone. It made me reflect on the hilarious human urge to name things after unrelated cutting edge things that can’t possibly stay cutting edge and will some day sound stupid as hell.

At the end of the 19th C, all kinds of things were marketed as electric that had no electric components at all. It just sounded cool.

Ragtime Gal had ragtime, sending improbable things by wire and the telephone. Poor Daisy just had the bicycle, although it was an extra snazzy one.

The Fifties had atomic and TV. The Sixties had everything space.

When I first started coming over here in the Nineties, everything – I mean everything – was euro-this and euro-that. That got tired fast. I guess it’s sustainable now.

More examples?

February 27, 2024 — 8:24 pm
Comments: 11

Then it got *really* dark

I read tonight that the National Trust has acquired another Detmold illustration to put on display at Kipling’s house. The Detmold brothers did a beautiful series of strangely dark illustrations for the Jungle Book 1903, some of which are already on display in a funny little side room at Bateman’s.

I have posted about the Detmolds before. They were twin brothers born in 1883 in Putney, London. They were both very fine artists, particularly of animals. But the thing that always sticks in my head about the Detmolds is this anecdote:

Their local doctor gave them some chloroform to kill the housecat. Which Maurice did. Then he took the remainder of the chloroform and killed himself.

That’s it. That’s all the detail I’ve ever been able to glean from any source, and I have so many questions. Was the cat ill? Did people routinely kill their cats rather than bring them on holiday? I know people were shitty to cats back then, but that seems a bit much. Was Maurice depressed? Could it have been an accident? Or did he — this is my favorite theory — kill the cat and then feel so awful about it afterward that he offed himself?

This was in 1908. The Wikipedia article on Edward doesn’t mention the cat anecdote (Maurice doesn’t even get his own page – I wonder why). I went looking again for an explanation and found this article. I kind of wish I hadn’t.

According to this, the doctor had given them chloroform before to kill stray cats (I don’t like the sound of this) so he wasn’t suspicious when Maurice asked for more. Maurice was later found dead on his bed, a chloroform rag in a bag tied over his head. Nearby was a box with two dead cats in it. So he was…practicing? Seeing if it hurt?

Er, have a good weekend!

February 23, 2024 — 7:51 pm
Comments: 3

Aiiiiiii!

I’m stuck in line for fish and chips. Will post the Dead Pool as soon as I get home and rescue my cockerel from the roof!!

February 16, 2024 — 5:17 pm
Comments: 1

Hooray for us!

Old hands might remember that today is our wedding anniversary. Our fifteenth, in fact. Fifteen is crystal, but neither of us likes crystal and, anyway, we break stuff.

So we bought ourselves this pretty box instead. Dealer thought it was early Victorian. It was once a music box – we didn’t even notice the holes in the front – but it’s just a coffer now. It would have been a damn loud music box.

Oh, and it’s sweasel.com’s birthday. Its seventeenth, in fact. That’s right – I’ve been blogging longer than I’ve been married. Do you believe I’ve been gibbering nonsense every weekday for seventeen years?

Truth is, I don’t know how to stop.

February 14, 2024 — 6:15 pm
Comments: 16

No shit.

Our fancy, computer-controlled, hippie-approved septic system broke down over the weekend and took our electricity with it. Uncle B spent all Sunday morning isolating the source of the power outage.

We didn’t install this thing on purpose. It was a condition of the sale of the house because our waste discharges into a stream. Our neighbors are grandfathered in and don’t have a fancy system *grimace emoji*

It’s been a maintenance nightmare.

Outlet pump this time. We were told they usually last 5 years and ours lasted fifteen, so yay I guess. Somehow it doesn’t feel lucky.

If you’d like an explanation of how it works, you can watch this video on the Septic Tank TV channel. Or don’t. He does a lousy job explaining how waste water gets from the dirty side to the clean side. You will learn the charming old English term “poo water” however.

February 12, 2024 — 5:49 pm
Comments: 9

I’m sorry :(

I nixed the thing I was going to post at the last minute, so I’m postless. I shall use this opportunity to apologize to the Dead Pool folks. I didn’t think about Toby Keith being in the DP. Lavendergirl won it. I realized it too late for a new one this week, though, so the next Dead Pool is next Friday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

February 9, 2024 — 8:00 pm
Comments: 2

Broflake meltdown


Larry David was waiting to do a spot on the Today Show while the Elmo puppet was there to discuss mental health. David suddenly couldn’t bear the Elmo voice a moment longer, zoomed over and briefly wrung Elmo’s neck.

Okay, on a live segment about mental health, maybe not the best judgment, but I think we can all agree this is an overreaction.

Wil Wheaton, if you don’t recall, is a 51-year-old man who played the child character on Star Trek: Next Generation. Fans hated the character, I guess. I wasn’t a fan of any of it. He’s grown up with be a loud, whiny D-lister.

Now that I think about it, were they discussing mental health with under-fives or were they using a puppet intended for under-fives to discuss mental health with adults? It smells funny.

February 8, 2024 — 4:49 pm
Comments: 12

New wellies!

Uncle B’s treat. I think this is the model: Swamp Master Galaxy. Only, I don’t think they have steel toes. I could get up and look, but that would involve getting out of this chair.

It’s a very comfy chair.

Now comes the hard part: throwing away my old wellies. I mean, they’re excellent wellies. They’ve lasted me, like, 15 years and they’re still in good shape. It’s just, the lining has come loose and gets pushed down a little more each time I put them on.

I’ve reglued the lining once and it lasted a good while. I could reglue them again.

I’m bad at letting go of things. Especially things that are trivial but personal. I have a feeling my old pair will end up in the closet. You know, just in case.

Good weekend, everyone!

February 2, 2024 — 7:40 pm
Comments: 10