Pull my finger
Happy Columbus Day, everyone. Or as we usually observe it, the annual Argue with Lefties About Columbus Day, Day.
Indigenous Peoples Day, indeed. Indigenous peoples is such a lumpen, juiceless expression. Who would want to be one of them?
I know from living in Rhode Island that Columbus Day is very much seen as a celebration of Italian immigrants. Good luck getting those guys to back off their special day.
Oddly enough, in countries all over South America, it’s called some variant of Día de la Raza or “Day of the Race” – a celebration of Hispanics arriving in the New World. Our neighbors to the south are much less shy about their European heritage. Or were until recently, anyway.
Oh, yah, you betcha – in predominantly Scandihoovian communities, they celebrate it as Leif Erikson Day, because by golly he got here first.
I think this one is too complicated to cancel, y’all.
October 10, 2022 — 6:06 pm
Comments: 12
D’awww…
Follow the Twitter account @dailystoat.
That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.
Have a good weekend, all!
October 7, 2022 — 7:17 pm
Comments: 5
What it is to be rich
Oof! I’ve had a beast of a day. I know – I haven’t done a real estate post for a while.
Behold, Plumpton Place, a charming Elizabethan estate on 60 acrres. It’s on the market for the first time in thirty years.
Edward Hudson, founder of Country Life magazine, bought it in 1927 and spent his remaining years working with architect Edwin Lutyens and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll to do it up (those names might not be familiar, but I guarantee you Uncle B read those words and started to drool).
It went through several hands before it was briefly owned by Michael Caine, who sold it to Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. Several more hands later and George Harrison tried to buy it but, according to his ex, the owner said “she didn’t want rock’n’roll musicians buying her lovely house and sold it to the local doctor instead.”
Here’s how it works: Hudson bought it for £3,300. Ten years later, 1937, it sold for £9,000. Paige bought it in 1972 for £200,000. Ten years later, it went for £650,000 to a property developer who quickly flipped it for £800,000.
They will now entertain offers in the region of £8,000,000.
October 6, 2022 — 7:12 pm
Comments: 5
Success?
The question mark is because I ain’t so sure. It has a lovely flavor and a beautiful color, but I don’t think it’s going to set. Quinces have lots of pectin and usually don’t have any problem setting firm, but I think I cooked it in too much water. As I boiled it, it just didn’t thicken properly
The internet helpfully suggests I use it for sugar syrup. If I don’t want to boil it again. And I don’t.
Yes, you can see it in color.
October 5, 2022 — 6:52 pm
Comments: 5
A thing I had to do today
Today, as part of a parcel of documents relating to the early history of the local Girl Guides troop (Girl Scouts to you ‘n’ me), we received a small silver bowl that was given as a prize. I was asked to interpret the hallmarks.
So here you go. There are four or five marks on a fully hallmarked bit of British silver.
The Standard Mark identifies it as sterling. This one – the lion passant – means it was assayed in London or other English assay office.
The Town Mark is what it sounds like. The crown is for Sheffield.
Some hallmarks have a Duty Mark, which tells you if duty has been paid. It’s a queen or king’s head. This one doesn’t have it.
Now that we know the town, we can look up the Date Letters for Sheffield. This is a little harder. There are several lowercase G or Q marks. I’m calling this one for 1908 based on the gothic style letter. It fits with the provenance of the object, but there’s a little knob on the corner of the letter worries me a bit.
Finally, the Maker’s Mark. HW in a plain rectangle – I made this out as Henry Wilkinson – a fine Sheffield silversmith. I was chuffed.
But then I noticed the dot between the H and the W, which would make it Henry Wigful. Who at least has the redemptive quality of an amusing last name.
And that’s that. Now the lot goes into a box and the box goes into a cupboard and there it will lie until some future scholar asks some future office weasel what she has on the Girl Guides.
October 4, 2022 — 7:51 pm
Comments: 3
Look who’s in town
Kinda. I understand Michael Caine is staying in the beautiful town of Rye and filming a movie in nearby Camber Sands.
It’s about an old man who escapes a care home to go to 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings.
That’s his co star, Glenda Jackson. If you don’t recognize her, this is what they looked like when they last worked together.
He’s 89 now. She’s 86.
The production company is looking for extras. They’ve put out a call for people who look especially old and frail.
It’s hilarious watching all the old dears in my social circle act like they couldn’t possibly qualify.
October 3, 2022 — 5:16 pm
Comments: 7
Quinces!
One year, the quince tree at work was dropping so much fruit from on high, we seriously feared a quince would bean a visitor to death. We had it savagely cut back and it sulked for three years. This is the first year it’s fruited since.
Oddly enough, there was no low-hanging fruit *thinking face emoji*
I had to wait for some of the higher fruit to overripen and fall. That’s why it’s so spotty. I’ll cut out the worst buts and it’ll be fine for quince jelly.
I love quince jelly, but making it is such a pain in the ass, I go several years between batches.
Storm’s a-coming tonight, everyone. It is upon us. Logging off to hunker down. Have a good weekend!
September 30, 2022 — 6:01 pm
Comments: 11
I’m sure I missed a few
I don’t like suspense, so let me say up front: yes, I got the power supply installed without too much fuss and yes, it appears to have solved my USB problem completely. So far so good, anyway.
Those numbered things are zip ties, tightly holding the old cables to the frame. They each had to be cut, preferably without nicking the cables they were holding. Yeesh.
Things I know now:
Plug the cables into the power supply first, before you do anything else. The manual says to bolt it into the case first and then plug the cables into the motherboard and THEN plug them in the back of the power supply.
This means pointlessly sticking your fingers into many wkward tiny places to seat fiddly plugs you can’t see. I have circuit board rash on the backs of both hands.
I’m sure any way you do it is a doddle on an airy, well-lighted work bench. Sitting on the floor of a 16th Century farmhouse, not so much. Dark in here, fam.
Because the plugs are individually shaped, you can’t really go wrong. The worst mistake you can make is to leave something out so your rig is under-powered. And even that might not matter, depending on the component.
There is no over-powered splodey error.
The amount of juice coming out of each wire is the same. It’s not special sauce going to the motherboard or the graphics card. Plugs are shaped and numbered that way to idiot-proof the process.
One of these days, I’ll learn to watch a few YouTubes *before* I get stuck.
September 29, 2022 — 5:47 pm
Comments: 6
That was quick
My power supply arrived. Yeah, these people are good.
It’s a monster – hand for scale. It says it fits in an ATX case. Let us hope. But did I install it this evening? I did not.
I was busy chasing a little white rooster round and round my neighbor’s driveway. Damn, that little bastard is quick.
I chased him through blackberry brambles. I chased him through stinging nettles. I am alive with small ouchies.
I never caught him, but I did manage to chase him through a hole in the hedge so he could make his way back to the henhouse. It was well past chicken bedtime.
You know the previous post, when I said only one of those chooks in the picture is still alive? It was him – the little white bastard on the right. He was pushing his luck tonight.
September 28, 2022 — 7:18 pm
Comments: 7
Stop it, Google
Every time I log into my Google photos, it proudly shows me years-old pictures of my dead pets. (Well, one of these chickens is still alive). I’ve just now got so irritated I learned how to turn that feature off. It’s in settings.
I read an article about what a terrible problem this is for people who have lost a spouse or child – Facebook floating the images up on anniversaries or birthdays.
I hadn’t thought of that.
I do sometimes think about all my many free email accounts (I keep separate accounts for separate activities). When I croak, they’ll go on collecting spams in their hundreds, day after day, until…I guess until they reach the storage limit. Then the warnings will start to accrue. The cloud is probably already stuffed with dead people’s junk.
My new power supply is due tomorrow. Expect swearings!
September 27, 2022 — 7:29 pm
Comments: 5