Our new house (in 1983!) lacked a fireplace, so I had a gas log firebox installed, and built a corner enclosure around it out of plywood. I then faced it with “Z-Brick”, actual brick material a quarter-inch thick; you just glue it on. Here we are 35 years later and it’s still going strong.
Our new house (in 1983!) lacked a fireplace, so I had a gas log firebox installed, and built a corner enclosure…
“Another great thing about American roads is just how big they are.”
I’ve had some success with Facebook Marketplace. I advertised a 2005 Hyundai sedan there and was swamped with expressions of interest. The first guy to come paid cash and drove it home. Yes, Facebook is the devil; it’s truly horrible. The only reason I have an account is that my adult children are on it, and it’s the…
Everyone should be using Overdrive. This free app lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks from your local library for you to read on virtually any device, including your Kindle. It’s basically magic.
Let’s all remember that Atkinson co-starred with Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again. Ok, he had a bit part, playing Nigel Small-Fawcett, a bumbling diplomatic officer.
Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy. A staple of the ‘50s, this candy came in a hard bar which you smacked onto a tabletop, shattering it into irregular, yummy pieces. You then sucked on them until they became soft enough to chew up; I still have some impacted in my molars. Chocolate was my favorite, but banana was pretty good…
Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy. A staple of the ‘50s, this candy came in a hard bar which you smacked onto a tabletop,…
I saw Attack Of The Crab Monsters, a 1957 Roger Corman opus, when I was eight. Atomic tests embiggen a crab, which eats everything in sight. In one scene the claw comes through a window and grabs Pamela Duncan. For a long time after I saw that I’d lock my windows at night, even in the hot, pre-AC summer. Scared the…
Were you ever attacked by a shark? Those odds are orders of magnitude higher.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics and a Masters Degree in Engineering Administration. I have a deep understanding of both probability, and of expected value calculations. I understand that the odds against winning are literally astronomical (much better odds of being stuck by lightning on the way to the 7-Eleven)…
As an experienced father (two kids, two grandkids), I can tell you that wearing a baby carrier is absolutely the least difficult thing you will ever do as a father. Lugging a messy, squealing, squirming kid around on your belly while he’s kicking you in the nuts will seem like child’s play compared to the time your 16…
It’s a great deal, but... This remote carries the design flaw that rendered Harmony Ultimate suboptimal. The Play/Pause button as at/near the top, requiring you to wrench your hand around and make a painful lunge at it with your forefinger, instead of being under your thumb as god intended. This was corrected in the…
It’s a great deal, but... This remote carries the design flaw that rendered Harmony Ultimate suboptimal. The…
“Banksy didn’t destroy an artwork in the auction, he created one.”
This reminds me of the old problem of estimating how much air from Julius Caesar’s last breath are in your lungs right now. Without trudging through the math, it turns out there are probably one or two molecules of that air in your lungs right now.
“We just want you to safely handle dry ice with gloves to avoid serious burns”
Note the price of the “Talking Machine”: $69.95. In 1902 that was like $2,000 today. That’s the price of a pretty nice A/V setup with a big flat-screen, an amp and some speakers. Back then it got you a very tinny voice on a 2 minute cylinder that you could play maybe 100 times before it wore out. Amazing what 116…
Fun fact: the legal instrument allowing a privateer to operate is called a Letter of Marque. It is official permission from your government to arm your ship and seize enemy merchant ships and their cargo. Without that piece of paper those actions would constitute piracy.
I haven’t had a flu shot since the Great Swine Flu Debacle of 1976. A variant of H1N1 killed one person and hospitalized 13 in New Jersey, so the government under Gerald Ford implemented a nation-wide crash inoculation program.
“...the center called on Hyundai and Kia to recall all...”
fun fact: those creepy blank-eyed Roman statues were in fact painted with creepy uncanny valley eyes.
