Friday Ephemeraren’t
Feel free to assemble your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I’ll set the ball rolling with some tempting real-estate photographs, of which this one is rather special; some thoughts on the statistical proximity of the planet Mercury; ducks in a row; via Dicentra, a job worse than yours; and some cannabis-infused peppermint fondant, covered in dark chocolate, and gold, obviously.
Oh, and how to entertain your stoner neighbours.
So did Mr. Half get any good birthday presents? If so, what are they?
Dinner!
Heavens, David, you could have took the poor guy someplace better than THAT.
Ceçi n’est pas M. Downey.
(In case it’s not clear, it’s CGI, modelled and rendered in the open-source 3D application Blender. I did a beachball once.)
TimT, I can’t remember the species name, but they have that big old spider in the Invertebrate House at the Cincinnati, Ohio, zoo, which you should totally visit if you are ever out that way, If you come from north of Cincinnati you don’t even have to cross the bridge over the Ohio River on I-75, which is good because 10 years ago, the last time I was on it, that bridge was rust held together by more rust, and by now the city and state agree it will collapse any minute. (Here in rugged individualist America, we don’t do infrastructure, like you sissy socialist Brits do.)
That species, whatever it’s called, also routinely catches mice, birds, and small mean yappy dogs.
The Cincinnati Zoo also has a Nocturnal House, a Rare Ungulate collection, a comprehensive collection of small wild cats (unless the spider got out and ate them since we were there last), and, unless she’s died in the 15 years since we were last there, an albino Burmese python named Susie who has, or had, been there forever and is, or was, absolutely enormous. The last time we were there they also had an albino alligator. The Reptile House in general is very good.
There is neighborhood unrest off and on, so go on a weekday; neighborhood unrest seems to be a weekend thing, Mon-Thurs the neighborhood unrest is, I don’t know, off resting. (Hey, if you had to smell elephant poop every time the wind blew the wrong way, and had to watch out for escaped spiders trying to eat the baby, you’d get restive too.).
You can park behind the zoo’s locked gates. And like any zoo it’s much less crowded Mon-Thurs.
The Columbus, Ohio zoo is the famous one, because of the gorillas and Jungle Jack Hanna, but it’s not as satisfying a visit, for 2 reasons. One, it has grown so large that your visit will cross several time zones , so your feet will hurt like crazy the next day. Two, the zoo’s commendable desire to make the animals feel comfortable by making the exhibits as natural as possible got out of hand, so the animals, being wild, prefer to vanish into the concealment provided by all that natural-type habitat. Cincinnati does a much better job of balancing comfort for the animals and viewing opportunities for the visitor.
We’re out in the boondocks now, or the pogonips, I guess. so the only sight WE have is the traffic light at the corner of BF and E Streets. But here are some American sights, in no particular order, from more interesting places we’ve lived:
—Cumberland Falls, Corbin, Kentucky. Beautiful anytime, smaller so not as crowded as Niagara, and supposedly one of the only 2 places on earth where you can see a “moonbow” if conditions were right, which they never were when we lived there.
—The Art Institute, Chicago, Illinois. I’d live there if they’d let me.
—The Louisville Zoo, Louisville, KY. Small, won’t even tire the tiny ones out, with well-designed exhibits.
—Fairborn, OH, but only in October, when it becomes Halloween Central, drawing repeat visitors from as far away as California. Too sleepy to notice Nov-late August.
—La Porte, IN, known for 4 things: being a good starting point for a day trip to Chicago; the Blueberry Festival in August, draws crafters like Fairborn draws yard haunters; 19th-century mass murderer Belle Gunness; and the “LaPorte weather anomaly.” For some reason I don’t pretend to understand that has to do with atmospheric conditions and air currents off Lake Michigan, LaPorte has been statistically proven to have the worst weather in the eastern U.S. If you wish to observe such interesting U. S. meteorological phenomena as “thundersnow,” snow during a blizzard; a plain old blizzard; multiple rainbows; rains of fish or frogs; tornadoes;flash floods; the real pogonip, freezing fog; 50-degree temperature changes in an hour; derechos—all these things can be experienced in LaPorte, and it’s not entirely unpossible that they might be experienced in the same day.
Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, OH—science museum, natural history museum, history museum, all wonderful.
Ohio Caverns, West Liberty, OH—unique crystal formations found nowhere else. Watch out for that final formation at the end of the tour, though, the one quaintly called “85 Steps To Aboveground.” Those suckers are steep.
What’s worth seeing where you live or have lived?
Cincinnati does a much better job of balancing comfort for the animals and viewing opportunities for the visitor.
I think Harambe might disagree with you. 😉
Well, you gotta admit he was happy and comfortable up till the sad incident.
What? The Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH isn’t worth a mention? (Since you see to know a lot about Ohio.)
seem not see.
Maybe I should revert to grunting as a means of communication.
Yes, I used to live in Ohio, and the AF museum is fun but not quite as interesting as the other places.
http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/01/16/nendo-chocolates-japanese-onomatopoeic-words-texture/
For when your present of chocolates needs to be just that little bit more special.
tempting real-estate photographs,
The stair-toilet is a bit controversial.
Morning, all.
The stair-toilet is a bit controversial.
I also like the charming mural – alas, partly obscured.
I like the armchair/toilet/dog food combination in #10.
I like the armchair/toilet/dog food combination in #10.
Yes, the dog food and drinking bowl are the icing on the cake, really.
Do NOT enter #17 if drunk or stoned!
Either shit, or get off the pot.
Gosh, I used to smoke a bit of dope back in the day, but what does “5mg THC” equate to, taken orally? Serious question, I have no idea what dose of THC would be contained in a nice joint, perhaps shared with others.
Gosh, I used to smoke a bit of dope back in the day,
If anyone wishes to score some reefer, as I believe the kids say, see Big Mary in the cloak room.
Cash only.
What? The Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH isn’t worth a mention?
My only surprise is that the Air Force, being the Air Force, hasn’t changed the name of this museum plane yet. If you are ever in Pensacola, on the topic of aviation museums, the Navy one is quite good.
SheHe seems nice.The real Sherlock.
Deep thoughts about suicide.
I like the chocolate Necker cube.
Small cats!
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/02/photo-ark-little-cats/
It was only a matter of time before something like this was tried…
Yes, the people who are subject to the laws and rules usually aren’t nearly as dumb as the people who pass them, and so the subjects quickly figure out ways around the rules and laws. I think it would be helpful if each proposed new rule or law were focus-grouped by teenagers so that the lawmakers would have in front of them all the ways anyone who thought about the new rule for 5 minutes could get around it.
SheHe seems nice.
And not that clever, what with missing the obvious “murder of men” joke. Though I’m going for something in the same ZIP code as humor, rather than just unadulterated bigotry.
Deep thoughts about suicide.
Christ what assholes. Though typical I’m afraid.
Men are suffering >>becomes>> Men are “better” than women at something >>becomes>> Men’s quiet efficiency is just proof of their assholery
Funny thing life (closely followed by Mr Thompson’s fine collection here, of course.)
Nothing to do with anything but I just observed two young teenage boys with an equally teenage girl, who the lads were clearly trying to impress by both beating thin twigs against any wall they passed.
I suppose this is what alpha males do these days, which may be a step up from dragging said young lady round by the hair if my history cartoons were accurate.
Artistic history commentary.
Nobody lives in a place with any interesting sights to see? We are now in an itty-bitty town w/nothing interesting within a hundred miles, but it’s quiet and the scenery’s great.
That reminds me, the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland, Ohio is not worth the high ticket price, in my opinion. Costumes and guitars just aren’t very interesting just sitting there. Go to their zoo or their science-and-industry museum. I haven’t been to either of those but I’m told they’re very good. Or (and) visit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in nearby Euclid. The Euclid water didn’t work on Son. I guess Our Lady would rather hang out in France than suburban Cleveland, and who can blame her—the area’s disintegrating like the rest of the flyover U. S. and winters are ghastly.
Yours truly, Jack the Ripper:
Worst Jill the Ripper article I’ve ever seen:
https://longreads.com/2019/03/12/jill-the-ripper/?utm_source=Longreads+Newsletters&utm_campaign=397459068a-Longreads_Top_5_March_15_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bd2ad42066-397459068a-241932369&mc_cid=397459068a&mc_eid=5768c50269
So let’s air our pet theories! Mine is Jack was a butcher (our author above does not seem to be aware that such an occupation ever existed).
Watcher: “MY twig’s bigger than HIS twig.” 😁
Serious question, I have no idea what dose of THC would be contained in a nice joint, perhaps shared with others.
Depends on when you last smoked one. THC content has been bred higher over decades.
The Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH isn’t worth a mention?
Pogonips is a girl, in case you needed reminding.
Small cats!
Girl.
Go to their zoo or their science-and-industry museum.
The NASA Glenn Visitor Center at the Great Lakes Science Center is well worth the visit. They have the actual Skylab 3 Command Module which has flown 26.5 million miles in space.
Pittsburgh:
Carnegie Museum, number of dinosaurs, other natural history, some art…Monets, Bierstadts, I thought they had a Picasso or two, could be wrong there. Warhol, other more modern stuff.
Phipps Conservatory indoor gardens and such. Some Chuhuly art. Kinda cool to visit in the dead of winter as a kid.
National Aviary – the country’s largest aviary, and the only one accorded honorary “National”. Cool raptor exhibition/show. And yes, they have penguins. Of course.
The Children’s Museum is supposedly very good, though I’ve never been.
Lots of cool old ethnic neighborhoods, Italian, Polish, German, Hunky, etc. with great restaurants. Beautiful views of the city from restaurants and promenades on Mt. Washington (pronounced “Worshington”).
Old style local amusement park (est. 1899) Kennywood.
Old mansions, Frick especially, and also Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water house is not a far drive. Maybe an hour, I think.
Other cool stuff but that’s just off the top of my head. There really is no reason to go to Ohio in my opinion. Unless maybe if the Steelers are playing the Brownies. Even then, make sure your immunizations are up to date. And don’t forget your (Terrible) towel.
Summers and early fall
Summers and early fall are best. Rest of the year is grey skies and mud. Just a little caveat.
Small cats, but no horses. 😄 Nor am I a “ pet parent” to a woman’s dog.
For you Brits, “woman’s dog” is American for “small yappy dog, often white, that belongs to a pet parent.” The owner herself will call it her “furbaby” or “furkid.”
Son had a furbaby snarl at him once when he tried to pet it. He was probably the only man who’d ever tried to do so. Since he’s very big and very hairy, it is also possible the tiny dog mistook him for a large predator. 😄🐶
In any case I was kind of glad it retained enough mind to snarl. Furbabies are usually so confused about who’s in charge that they often crack up and are paralyzed with indecision. If the furbaby was born with a dominant type of personality, it will take the lead. Those are the ones who end up at the dog shrink because Mommy can’t figure out why her furkid keeps biting her.
“Woman’s dog” (who belongs to a woman) and “woman’s dog” (small yapper) are distinguished by pronunciation, the latter having the accent on “woman.s.” Which is probably why “furbaby” caught on: not only is the word cute, important to us girls, but it can be in print with no ambiguity.
“Furkid” always looks to me like it is the name of an obscure religious sect, pronounced “FERK-id.” Or a multi-armed creature that Arthur Dent might encounter in his travels. I don’t hear it much. Around here “furbaby” is far and away the preferred term.
Merry St. Patrick’s Day—the Xmas cactus is budding AGAIN. It must be the minerals in our water.
One of our local TV stations is 70 this year. Son is watching the history and just said”Mom! It’s like you said! They’re drawing on the weather map!” 😁
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2019/03/conversation-with-hospital-flunky.html?m=1
😵
Australia has a kitschy fondness for ‘Big Things’, tourist attractions of a sort. There’s a big pineapple (Queensland), a big penguin (Tasmania – the town is called Penguin, I believe), and a big prawn (South Australia, I think).
So now here’s a guy living in Woodenbong who wants to carve out a big wooden bong for the town. He reckons tourists will love it..
It reminds me how the township of Dunedoo (New South Wales) once wanted a gigantic self-composting toilet outside their town. Dunny Doo. Geddit? I can confirm this: Dad was working for the council there at the time.
how to entertain your stoner neighbours.
From down the thread…
https://twitter.com/SkitzophrenicYT/status/1104197679268147200
“Chestfeeding” kit.
Randomly taking hormones for no good reason – what could possibly go wrong ?
From down the thread…
Heh.
It once occurred to me that someone might eke a living by organising entertainment for people in various states of chemical enhancement. People who, being high, were very much inclined to fun activities, but who, due to a lack of planning, were in no fit state to organise anything complicated themselves. And so, provided the customer could just about get it together to make a call or send a text, someone would arrive equipped with two dozen helium balloons, say, or snacks, or an offer to drive them somewhere scenic, where they could be amused by the lights or the trees or whatever.
A friend suggested we call them trippograms.
Owen Jones, a journalist, sounds the alarm.
Via Damian.
“Chestfeeding” kit.
A few decades ago this was strictly satire.
Leader of the Pack.
a man-made form
Oh, for shame.
Persyn-made, surely.
Furbaby. Furkid.
Pogonip, I was blissfully ignorant before I read your post.
You owe me a bourbon. Neat.
Well, this person seems sane.
Well, this person seems sane.
Accompanied, I see, by the clicking bitches.
the clicking bitches.
Band name.
I tried to tell my wife that credible people would blame the NZ mosque massacre on Trump. She insisted that I was being ridiculous until I tried to get her to bet on it. As we narrowed down who would be considered “credible people” and I rattled off names of well known MSM talking heads, she backed away from the bet. She still didn’t think it would go that far but her doubts were showing (plus anytime I suggest a bet on a “ridiculous” thing that I’ve said, people suddenly grasp the reason in my madness). It never, ever, ever occurred even to me that someone would find a way to pin this on Chelsea Clinton. WTSF?
Meanwhile in Nigeria…
https://www.dailywire.com/news/44111/muslim-extremists-murder-over-30-nigerian-jacob-airey
Meanwhile in Nigeria…
Lone wolf, mustn’t blame all Mohammedans, not real Mohammedanism, etc., etc. Not at all the same thing as a guy who travels to Pakistan and North Korea, calls himself an eco-fascist, and digs communist China. Clearly that is a white supremacist alt-right neo-Nazi like all wypipo.
Meanwhile in Nigeria..
Christians murdered cuz Christian are never going to garner headlines – add to that, poor & black and it’s crickets all the way down.
A friend suggested we call them trippograms.
Is there an app? Asking for a friend.
What’s the deal with the clicking bitches?
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/porn-mums-british-tv/
🤭
I am disgruntled. I subscribe to a service called ipsy.com; for $10/month they send you 4 or 5 cosmetic items. (You can pick the colors you want.). Since even 1 item of drugstore makeup will, with a couple of exceptions, cost you $10, this is quite a savings. Each month they put your 4 or 5 items in a makeup bag. Since St. Patrick’s Day is a big holiday in the U.S. I was expecting a cute green shamrock-y bag, or at least green. Instead they sent me an ugly brownish-pink bag with the following message imprinted: “And Off She Went To Change The World.” They could have used that ANY month. Doofuses.
And off she went to put the bag up for sale on the Internet.
I’m finally getting over walking pneumonia so I won’t be Internetting as much, others will have to pick up the slack on Ephemeraren’t. Or we can have Jock do it—border collies are fast typists. 🐶
The Internet is a godsend when you’re home sick for two weeks.
Does anyone here have, or has anyone here, had, a border collie? When I was a kid we had the only one I’ve ever seen that wasn’t black and white. She had a pedigree, from whatever the border collie breeders association was called—at the time AKC wanted nothing to do with border collies. When we went to look at the puppies, we met Mom, Dad, and the siblings, all of whom were b/w. Wolfie was solid gray and we got her free since the owner said he knew he’d never convince anyone she was a border collie. (Dad was just looking for an outside dog to keep his lonely rabbit dog company, so he didn’t care if she was “real” or not.)
Meanwhile in Nigeria…
Which is one of the many reasons I’m unmoved about the news from New Zealand.
Does anyone here have, or has anyone here, had, a border collie?
Had one when I was a wee lad (back in the 70s). Brownie (yes, he was brown and white) was the smartest dog I ever met. Learned all the dog commands by *watching* my mom try to train my grandmother’s stupid mutt. Alas, when we moved to the Greatest State in the Union my mom found another home for him (or so she’s always asserted…).
https://www.sailfeed.com/2011/11/the-goodbad-old-days-of-hand-drafting-part-ii/
Meanwhile in Nigeria…
Well, yes, Meanwhile in Nigeria, quite as contrasting with New Zealand . . .
. . . . where even from the initial announcements in the news, the overall issue was not, is not, and will never be which faith is getting targeted.
The major reason for one collection of murders getting more noted over the other is going to remain the slaughter in the middle of ongoing conflict vs slaughter in a basically peaceful environment . . . .
And now for your enjoyment, a musical interlude . . . .
Meanwhile in France.
This has been happening for the past 18 weeks and there’s nothing about it in the British media. If Putin was doing this in Russia, there’d be calls for sanctions.
Ducks on the ceiling.
Ducks on the ceiling
Sequel to “Snakes on the Plane”
Google 1998: Don’t Be Evil
Google 2019: Party like it’s 1984
“Does anyone here have, or has anyone here, had, a border collie?”
I’ve never owned any dogs, but when I was in my late teens our upstairs neighbour had a border collie, a Jack Russell, and a… brown… dog. (He was a stray who literally jumped into her car when she was leaving work, and she didn’t have the heart to give him away. Never did work out what he was. Definitely a bit of chocolate labrador – same colour and basic shape – but smaller, stockier, and scruffier, with huge paws.)
I used to walk them sometimes, and the intelligence of the collie was so obvious. She was like a mother hen to the other two; she’d occasionally shoot you a look that said, “You see what I have to put up with? C’mon, let’s go chase sticks.” They’ve been my favourite breed ever since.
She was the usual black-and-white, though. I’ve never seen one a solid colour.
Pogonip wrote, “We’re out in the boondocks now, or the pogonips, I guess. so the only sight WE have is the traffic light at the corner of BF and E Streets.”
It must be so festive at Christmas with the glittering lights, changing all the time: green… amber… red… red and amber… and back to green.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74aK8w2910c&feature=youtu.be (3:49)