more fun with appliances

Today I learned that the reason you see people on tv repairing garbage disposals with broomsticks is that sometimes disposals get stuck, and then you need a long lever to unstick them. I'm pleased that was a fairly quick fix, and I sincerely hope that I don't get to know our garbage disposal as well as I know our washing machine.

green awards and washing machines

Today I learned that Duraflame and Ecological Paint won awards in The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program of 2005 (pdf). In related news, there was a Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program in 2005. I suppose they must have them every year, but I have clearly failed to ever hear about it.

Ecological Paint I've tried - that's the stuff I can actually use myself without getting sick - but Duraflame logs have a reputation in the EI community as something that's supposed to be green, but will kill you. I don't know if they'll still kill you now that they're using plant waxes instead of petroleum-based wax to hold the sawdust together, and I have no way of finding out. All I have is heart palpitations stronger that regular wood smoke causes, a very faint odor of smoke, and a bunch of questions. It could just be something with the weather.

In washing machine news, we learned that we've been inside our washing machine so many times that when the drive block fails, we can tell at a glance because it doesn't look right, and that's a good thing because my favorite diagnostic site didn't say anything about a worn-out drive block. So $12.57 later, the laundry czar is back in business. She also knows that you can get front-loader technology in a top-loader now, which uses a lot less water and electricity, and that you can get one with a glass lid instead of a metal one, which is not only breakable, but costs an additional $200.

phoney

Today it took me two five-minute phone calls to learn that if KMart is out of a thing you want to replace, in this case, a glass frying pan lid that I'll need again in two days, and they tell you over the phone that they'll probably reorder it, which will take two weeks, their advice is to start calling them again in two weeks.

To quote Dale Gribble,

I have a three-line phone and nothing to do with my time.

I learned the art of bending customer service people to my will from the best: the guy who can't get out of the house for more than an hour at time because he's looking after his really sick wife. So I knew what I had to do. There was some compromise involved, but the answer was clear.

I went to Target.

Weatherman

Today I learned by watching The Weather Underground that the FBI kept files on radicals and even killed some of them in the late 60s and early 70s on purpose. Then later in the day I was listening to NPR, and I learned that when that townhouse in NY blew up, the people in it had made a pipe bomb, and since they had previously stuck to firebombs, they weren't sure how much damage it would do, so they added nails to it. After it blew up, it occurred to the rest of the group that killing people maybe wasn't such a hot idea, but bombs were still a good symbolic gesture in the war against the establishment. So thinking things through ahead of time was not this group's strong point, as much as I understand how they thought the world was going to end.

I find it weird that:

• I happened to learn so much about Weatherman all in one day, and
• I never knew we had homegrown terrorists.

For that last one I blame... um, well, they never teach current events to toddlers, so never mind.

do you know the way to San Jose, and is there fast food?

Today I think I learned that the best way to get from Mexicali to Nogales, both of which are on the US-Mexico border, is to go through Tucson. Also, Jack in the Boxes around town were open yesterday, and they brought in twice as much money as a normal day.

spurious data

I made a little noise about how I avoided getting sick from the fireplace smoke this morning, but tonight over on the northwest side of town, the PM2.5 reading is 120, and the oracle says "Unhealthy for sensitive groups. Increasing likelihood of respiratory symptoms in sensitive individuals, aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease and the elderly." So I'd be obligated to report that Christmas will kill you, except for the fact that if you look at the oracle's data page, it becomes pretty clear that the 120 reading doesn't jibe with anything else, including previous data from the reporting site.

But that premature mortality thing gave me a bit of a start.

meringue

Today I learned that when you make meringues, that trick where you put the stuff in a plastic bag with the corner cut off and squeeze it out does not make pretty meringues if you try to swirl the end around like soft-serve ice cream. You have to hold the end still, or you end up with a final product that, despite its light color, resembles nothing more than dog poop.

language and clarification

A pall of smoke, rosy in the new sunlight, cast a glow across the city as the denizens awoke, unsure of what the night's events had wrought. And as they watched, the haze-obscured mountains gained definition, but perhaps only from the light of the rising sun.

Miss Molly, ever optimistic, lowered the ward about her house prematurely, and the foul miasma leaked inward, so she returned the ward to full strength and then checked with the oracle, which reported that the PM2.5 reading was 60 at Rose Elementary, so after recovering from a minor bought of fantasy-language, she figured she'd just stay indoors for a while until the inversion layer turned over, except all her presents came in cardboard boxes, so they're living on the patio.

She also failed to fairly report on the mall trip yesterday. At four o'clock, the place was still reasonably crowded, but by five, it was really clearing out, and few people shop for clothes at five on Christmas Eve, particularly not for themselves, so the fitting room was deserted, and since it was a Sears, nicely offgassed, in that I've never seen a recently remodeled Sears.

And since it's Christmas, and I have all kinds of trivia including sections of the gospel of Luke stored in my head, I will report that when somebody reads the part where the angel comes down to the shepards in the new version, where they are terrified instead of sore afraid, it makes me giggle.

new pants

Today I learned that if I were to go to the mall and wander around in the interior, I could get into a big department store by going back outside and going in the side door of the store, thereby bypassing the perfume counter. I'm pretty sure that's not what the stores are hoping for, but this strategy allowed me to hang around the mall for upwards of an hour, during which I learned that I am now officially old. I really, really needed new jeans, and I bought the same style that worked for me in college.

I'm really, really old.

But now I have pants that aren't suffering from age-related ventilation.

flamingos, eggnog, and Christmas in the hardware store

For those of you who wondered how I ran across the pink flamingo information a week or so ago, this kind of thing had a lot to do with it. In somewhat related news, connoisseurs demand that you age your eggnog for at least three weeks, and I'm feeling much, much better this year than the previous two if I can keep track of this kind of silliness. I went in an actual store for some Christmas shopping, too. Granted, it was a hardware store, and one that I knew was fairly safe, but this is a big step forward.

I also learned how to spell connoisseur.

secret musical code and the blue guy

Today I learned that you can find sheet music for Christmas carols online, and some places it's free.

In other news, there was supposed to be other news, but I can't remember what I was supposed to look up, so go check out the guy with blue skin if you've been living in a cave for the last week and have thus avoided hearing about him.

eggnog, a deserted island, and death in a bun

Today I learned that:

• Lucerne eggnog doesn't smell nearly as good as I was hoping.
• There's a deserted island off the coast of Japan that consists of a whole bunch of buildings perched atop a coral reef, and it was only inhabited between 1810 and 1974.
• Burger King will kill you.

I guess that last one wasn't too much of a shock, but usually people blame McDonald's.

dummies, feet, and alcohol

Today I learned that the National Geographic channel made a show called Crash Test Human, where a guy named Dave functions very much as the title suggests while wearing a mouth guard and kneepads. I'm not exactly sure for which audience this show was intended, but they managed to gratuitously explode and airbag to see how high it would launch itself, and later they used a stick and a half of dynamite under the hood of a car because that's roughly equivalent to the energy in a head-on collision at 80 mph. The sad part was that instead of having these explosions be highly entertaining, somehow they ended up being just stupid, and I say that as person who appreciates gratuitous explosions. And they made a pot-smoking reference. Or a helium inhalation reference. I couldn't tell.

In other news, there are foot pads that purportedly stimulate your lymph system so you detox all the junk in your system, and you can tell what junk you're getting onto the pads by the handy Reflexology chart. If you read the comments about these things, which I have time to do because I'm recovering from collecting junk in my system, commenters divide into three categories: people who think foot pad detoxing is clearly a scam; people who've tried them and gotten excellent results; and people who don't expect much but are about to try them. I expect they work if you believe they'll work, but don't ask me how that works, either.

Also, if you ban sales of extremely inexpensive alcohol sources in liquor stores near the haunts of homeless alcoholics, you reduce the number taxpayer-financed ambulance rides to the emergency room.

non-food items and artificial mobility

Today I learned that Vitasoy's Holly Nog isn't entirely undrinkable until you get to the shoe-polish aftertaste, and that the trick to moving somebody from a wheelchair to a bed is a closely guarded secret on the internet, but if you put in the time you can find some directions.

high-fructose corn syrup, singing cowboys, and eosinophil cells

Today I learned that a politician can propose, in all seriousness, a tax on food items containing high-fructose corn syrup. I suppose I thought all politicians were too far into the pockets big business, or I wouldn't have been surprised.

In other news, John Wayne's singing voice was dubbed, and John Wayne supposedly had a singing voice.

And here's something about eosinophil cells, asthma, and antibiotics. I didn't understand it today, but there's always tomorrow.

flamingos and goalies

Today I learned that there was only one manufacturer of the classic lawn-ornament pink flamingo, and it has gone out of business. Now if you need pink flamingos for your yard, you have to get something that looks just a little bit wrong, but is probably close enough.

In completely different news, hockey goalie pads evolved in the beginning of the last century from cricket pads. Eventually goalies got tired of having their faces rearranged at irregular intervals and invented face masks, but they weren't worth much until 1959.

frowned upon

Today I learned that an Arizona law requires civil citations to be delivered to people by a process server, so when a red light camera simply mails a ticket, you don't have to pay it. The thing is that if you make the state use a process server, you get charged an extra $25 along with the original fine. If Tucson is a really big small town, where presumably the Sheriff would just say, "Bob," - assuming your name is Bob - "just pay the fine already," then Arizona is a pretty small big state.

In other news, various Central American gang members have learned why it is not a good idea to permanently mark yourself up with ink, and

According to surveys, sites such as YouPorn and Pornotube draw more internet traffic than CNN.

the perfect gift

Today I learned that if your Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-obsessed niece could use a few more engines, there's a girl engine named Emily that really appeals to engineering-nerd aunts.

I think I just bought myself a present that's going to go live with my niece.

non-food items, fields, and radioactive paint

Today I learned that the same dairy supplies organic milk for multiple grocery store brands, including those of Safeway and Wild Oats (which will turn into Whole Foods in about two weeks), and the milk wasn't exactly organic. This information could explain why a friend of mine said she tolerates cheese just fine but seems to have trouble with milk. If the cheese comes from another supplier, that would be another mystery solved.

In other news, we borrowed a friend's electromagnetic field meter and found out that while the 22 inch monitor we have puts out over 100 mG (milligauss) at the screen, by about a foot away the field drops to 3 mG, and after that it's nothing. The microwave, however, has a similar field while it's just sitting there telling you what time it is, but when you turn it on, the field doesn't drop off below 20 mG until you've backed off probably 10 or 12 feet. I see now why people with electromagnetic field sensitivities will sometimes decline to enter a house with a microwave in it.

In other nerdy news, you can corral beta radiation from tritium in a lot of phosphor-coated microspheres and have yourself a thing that'll glow in the dark non-stop for 12 years. People envision using this stuff for safety equipment or even on bike frames, but I think a keychain you could find by turning off the lights could make them millions.

idiot box

Because we are in possession of a 22 inch computer monitor for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I learned that um.... Well, I suppose watching all that tv on it sucked out my brains. But there is something in one of the stores my husband toured while acquiring this device that soaked into him to the extent that I can taste it, and all I'm doing is sitting here. I'm not licking him or anything.

left, right, right, and full speed ahead

Today I learned that:

• Nancy Pelosi causes shoplifting and teen sex. The media have been alerted.
• UPS drivers' routes are chosen to eliminate as many left turns as possible.
• Mormons fast the first Sunday of every month, which saves money on food and health care because somehow that results in less heart disease. Except Utah has the highest rate of depression in the US, so it appears that either less heart disease or fasting once a month is depressing.
• If you're a retired race car driver, in just the right situation when you're running late, your skills could come in handy.
• A fellow moldie reported that this one electronics shop that has always made him sick had an actual waterfall in it yesterday during a rainstorm, and it wasn't one of those cute little machines. This could explain a few things.

fibromyalgia and vitamin D

Today I learned that the symptoms of fibromyalgia and vitamin D deficiency are fairly similar, and that Bill Sardi is convinced that they are one and the same. Whether or not he is correct, he has a misplaced comma in his first sentence, which just makes me itch.

distractions, waffles, ground cover, pancakes, and wood filler

Today I learned that scientists have found the brain's irrelevance filter. It supposedly sorts the distractions from the important stuff, so theoretically, the better it works, the better you are at remembering things. Conversely, you'd expect that if you had a whole bunch of distractions sliding unimpeded into your brain, you'd have more trouble remembering things, but I think that's why some of us have heads filled with random-seeming esoteric trivia.

In other news:

• "Consider the chocolate covered waffle: Last year, Britain both imported 14,000 tonnes, and exported 15,000 tonnes. And it is not just waffles that are travelling further...."
• "West Antarctic to be covered with scientific instruments"
• "People are dying like pancakes around here."

Also, wood filler gives me a headache, but only if I get the pot too close to my face. If I'm not an idiot about it, I can fill nail holes with the best of them.

trivia and wood filler

Today I learned that the second part of Tin Man was much more interesting than the first one, so I'll probably get around to watching the third part, and that the more baseboards we install, the more it looks like real people should live here.


That's my sewing corner. And you should have seen it before.

not much to report

I know I wrote something fairly coherent yesterday, but yesterday was pretty tough for a few hours, so I spent most of today recovering. [Ed note: for 'recovering,' read 'watching tv.'] Thus I learned that Napoleon Dynamite grew up and became an ice skater. Also, I came up with a great theory about an ark built for pollution instead of a flood, but I can't figure out where to put all the animals.

And Evan Almighty's wife was played by Mrs. Santa's sister, who it turns out was named Sue.

death in the drugstore

1. Today I learned that because of a ban on chemicals in baby products that just went into effect in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle measured the concentrations of phthalates and bisphenol A in a sampling of toys, teethers, and bottles available in local stores. Among other companies, Walgreens learned that it carried banned products from the Chronicle staff.

2. Another recent mention of Walgreens appeared in news articles about environmentalists' air freshener phthalate tests, which resulted in Walgreens yanking multiple air fresheners.

From these two pieces of information I could just conclude that many companies, Walgreens among them, don't really know what's in their products and unfortunately end up relying on concerned citizens, but it's far more entertaining to conclude that shopping at Walgreens will kill you.

vicarious shopping

Today I learned that you can repair a bumpy track on a sliding glass door by procuring a steel sleeve thingy that fits over the dinged-up track. Thus I also learned that:

• You can save a bunch of money this time of year buying things that are, in general, thoughtful but completely useless Christmas presents. Need a Dremel attachment to reshape your dinged-up door track so the sleeve will fit? Why buy one thing for $8 when you can buy more parts than you could possibly ever need for $15? Actually, we'll probably need them. Some of our do-it-yourself projects involved modeling parts with play dough, so I don't see why we wouldn't need all 43 Dremel attachments.
• If you fix a door that didn't ever slide well, when it does slide well, it surprises you every time you use it, thus demonstrating that door-opening-memory is very, very short.
• If you beg the people at Lowe's to price match something you really, really don't want to go into Home Depot for, if they make some phone calls, it can happen.

power tools and snack foods

Today I learned that the miter saw kicks when you squeeze the trigger, or whatever you call that piece you squeeze, and I don't like it. I'm a jigsaw woman myself.

In related news, white baseboards really, really improve the appearance of a tract house. To be fair, we have a nice house for a tract house, but the new baseboards are busy making the kitchen counter look all cheesy. The counter isn't making us sick like the carpeting was, but it's not long for this world. (And check us out planning a gratuitous home improvement project.)

In food news, I can't eat potato chips anymore. They came in a paper-ish package, so this is not a huge shock, and it's not like potato chips are good for you anyway.

quality and cow guts

The story and script of Halloween 4 were written in 11 days because of the impending 1988 writer's strike, which lasted 22 weeks, and ethanol production increases your chances of getting E. coli.

better than fark

I have a new favorite website. Now I've learned that:

• Divorce is not green because it results in more households with fewer people.
• People at Cornell are making sperm-powered nanobots. Ok, not really, but they're using the same mechanism.
• Rocket fuel in the water supply makes your kids stupid.

And here we thought rocket fuel was good for you.

sport

Today I learned that to some men, the description of 'sporty' as applied to women and women's apparel brings to mind either a Monty Python sketch or something unsexy, as in:

Thanks to Mel C, the word 'sporty' has lost any sexy, athletic connotations and is now understood by men to mean 'the one with a face like a bag of spanners but who can sing a bit'.

Then I had to find out what Sporty Spice, aka Mel C, actually looked like -- a bit of trivia that escaped me ten years ago because I was busy learning obscure facts about liquid helium. Anyway, she's the tall brunette with straight hair, who in a popular picture from their new tour promotions, appears to be the most normal of the bunch. In the least normal, Posh's outfit is reminiscent of the black-marker clothing my mother used to draw on unclothed soap opera actresses who graced the cover of TV Guide when I was a kid, but Mom probably would have drawn something with straps.

climbing trees and shredding wheat

Today I learned that a retired engineer I know has bowed to the weight of his years and no longer shinnies up the tree in his front yard to shake the last of the leaves off so he can rake them up. Now he uses a step stool, but then it's business as usual.

In other news, I made edible rotation-diet friendly breakfast cereal out of quinoa flakes. Made into hot cereal, quinoa is just this side of revolting. Toasted like granola with some oil and agave syrup, it ends up tasting similar to shredded wheat. The thing is that the quinoa flakes come in a plastic bag inside one of those minions of the devil, a cardboard box, so we'll see how long I get pull this little stunt.

yet another short post

I haven't had a lot to say recently because of a combination of terrible air quality and being just well enough to be busy. I spend a lot less time on the couch these days, and that's a good thing, but it makes for lousy reading. So sorry, and here's all I have:

Today I learned that an inch and a half of rain is enough to clean up the pollution problems we've been having for the last several weeks, and I'm enough better than I don't get in trouble with wet desert. When I say I don't get in trouble with it, I mean I found out right after a two-day rainstorm that jogging doesn't hurt anymore, and I haven't been jogging in probably two years. Also, I read a nerdy paper about radio frequency hocus pocus, and I understood it.

The nerd rides again.