Walmart just emailed me to ask me to review some cans of cat food I bought for the neighbor's gray cat. I gave it five stars. "Cat eats cat food!" was my catchy title. "I bought this food for my neighbor's cat. He liked it. He doesn't like it when there's no food."
Then it asked me to review the sturdy underwear. "Bra holds up bosom!" I wrote ...
I watched my favorite Sunday show, The Hill with Chris Stirewalt, yesterday evening. The day being Easter, the show followed a different format from the usual one that addressses the week's political developments with a panel discussion, and with interviews of various politicians (including Trump defenders). This one was on a more general topic (finding community and making connections; he referred to it as "our community comeback episode") and involved hope and hopeful developments. I am glad I watched it, because the people on the program and what they had to say were very good.
People on the program, besides Brother Stirewalt, were: George Will, Yoni Appelbaum (he was recently on a Remnant podcast with Jonah, discussing his ideas about the need to make it easier for people to relocate), Sen. James Lankford (I was very impressed) and John Kasich. Chris also reviewed some survey results about the decline in American adults who identify as Christians, and noticed that things seem to have stabilized in the youngest age groups. He did not speculate on reasons why, except that he senses people are looking for something.
Happy Monday all. This will be a busy week: hopefully what will be the final round of cleanup and sorting to get the estate sale people in. I think I'm nearly finished, only to find another box or drawer. They all have the same stuff in them - loose change (a lot of coins from the 1960s), pins, pens, paper clips, cough drops (did you know they sublimate?), note pads, business cards, old greeting cards (received and never used), nails for hanging pictures, push pins, Legos, more nails and screws and hooks, maybe interesting advertising ephemera, jewelry. And a great aunt's canceled checks from the 1950s. And her sister's scrapbook entries related to finding and buying her house in the mid '60s.
I have issues with OCD. I couldn't just throw it out early on, but I have made progress with the pins and nails.
Ditch it. Specialized fasteners rule. The new stuff is simply way better than a bunch of old nails and screws. The worst are those guys that keep thousands of random fasteners in old baby food jars.
I used to have an old barn full of scavenged building materials. Had it for 35 years. I never used about 97% of that stuff; I don't know anyone in the business that does. Of course, there's always a group that insists on messing around with scavenged material and has a rational for doing so. Most have never heard of opportunity cost. Or, they're sure that scavenging old stuff is going to prevent climate change. Or something. I just back away slowly and let them go.
My Dad had that same barn. So full of junk metal you couldn't walk through most of it. After he died, we hired a friend of my brother to haul it to the junk yard. 33,000 pounds of scrap later, we emptied it. He felt bad, we offered him whatever he got for the scrap, and he got 4x what he expected. We were happy, he got paid well, a win-win.
I've only ever lived in houses >100 years old full of vintage door knobs with little screws, and my apartment building is 100 years old and has a few dozens of doors with vintage door knobs. I know a little bit about vintage door knobs.
Specialized fasteners. Know where to get the ones you need.
Last time I needed them, I found some at Clark Devon Hdwe. I forget the name of the joint, but there's a lock shop on Sheffield by Belmont; they rebuild mortise locks. They were there forever, not sure now. I've not gone there in >7 years.
I have the store in mind! 😀 It's in Dublin Ireland. They sell every drawer pull imaginable, parts for every door knob, every door accessory you can think of. The store's name is
It reminds me of a funny story. One of my friends in college was Kathy, and while we never dated we joked around a lot. When Christy spent a year at the Deaf School (in Indy), she'd stay over some weekends with Kathy.
One night a group of us were watching Mel Brook's "Young Dr. Frankenstein". We got to the famous scene in front of the majestic castle doors (where Gene Wilder, admiring the hardware, states "What Knockers!"), when Christy leaned in, warning me "I'll slug you if you say his line". I grinned, then turned and said Gene's line to Kathy, (who had seen the movie). Kathy played it perfect, replying with Terri Garr's line "Why, thank you Jay". Christy rolled her eyes 🙄, then slugged me with a couch pillow. It was worth it. 😀
I might see Kathy in two weeks at the Indy Mini marathon.
Thor was over to do his laundry this weekend, which process, due to his mountain man hairdo, results in hairballs in the laundry for the rest of the week, as if we'd accidentally washed a wild haggis:
"Man! You can't believe the day I've had. First I saw this really bright light. Then I felt myself being pulled into that light where I was poked and prodded by aliens. Then came the anal probe ..."
Good morning Happy Easter Monday! Today is a holiday in many European nations, even though the actual practice of Christianity is greatly diminished (some would say, dying out).
It’s in the 60s right now with intermittent rain, and highs predicted in the 70s this afternoon.
The mothership, conveying Easter greetings also conveys the news that Pope Francis passed away early this morning in Rome, after having greeted Easter crowds yesterday. The mothership also reports that over the weekend, the Supreme Court ordered deportations to Venezuela be suspended pending further court action. This order is being obeyed — so far. Meanwhile, the FP asks, “Is Donald Trump breaking the law?”
That thing I put up a few days ago where I said something's happening, on Weibo there are daily potshots at the government, people are voicing specific dissatisfaction with Big Daddy and his government...
What a difference a couple days makes. All that's out the window and the entire country is behind Big Daddy to shove the tariff/trade war up into Donny's grill. Trump did what the CPC was failing at, which is unifying the country in common cause.
The Canadian Liberal party and its prime minister can relate to that. The Liberals were going to be shellacked in their election -- until Donald trump levied his idiotic tariffs on our closest trading partner and mocked them as the "51st state".
He did the same thing in Canada. He has successfully resuscitated the Liberal Government, which was at less than 20% in the polls in January and now looks to be heading toward a majority in next week's election (after a four-week campaign that has been mostly about him).
What I'm sure is inappropriate is how both Vance and Trump are using this as an opportunity to make an important development in the world be all about them, including trying to pretend that they are both the very best sort of Christians (even better than Putin).
I read about this in a full tilt essay, and it is fascinating, while also allowing that it might also be just another mistaken identity. It's a really good read. Link to the Substack below...
Some sort of spectrometry = magic foo. One of those links provides more detail, I think the space.com one. It relies on capturing the image as the planet transits in front of the star, so as to have light from behind for the spectrograph, if I understood correctly.
Unconfirmed news reports indicates Trump wants both a mineral rights deal with K2-18b, as well as to establish a colony there for those needing to be deported. He thinks the new place has potential for development, but needs a new name: K45-47b, or TrumpWorld, or, in honor of it being developed for illegal aliens, "New Australia". He said this deal with be YUUUUUUUGGGE.
I’m a lot more skeptical about claims of extraterrestrial life—much less advanced species—than I used to be, based only on how the original “habitable space” envelope has shrunk as theories have been refined. On top of that, a lot of science journalism is perpetrated by other struggling English majors unknowingly hyping hyped press releases from prestigious institutions.
But I did like the details about the research and its underlying assumptions, its means and methods of analysis, the state of modern understanding and its critics. All that in itself is worthy of reporting.
** It is indeed “possible” that a team of astronomers led by Nikku Madhusudhan, a professor at the University of Cambridge, has found a “sign of life,” but only if a whole daisy chain of other possibilities turns out to be actualities. **
That's the case with so many other science-y things. "May," "could," "might," "possible" ... all of them turn "facts" into "factoids."
I think that with things involving space, this is particularly true. Some folks WANT there to be exciting news so desperately, we get these kinds of reports fairly regularly.
I think the same applies to thre colonization of the moon, much less Mars. After reading about the obstacles of each in "A City on Mars," I'm not convinced that I'll live to see the former, much less the latter.
"I'm not convinced that I'll live to see the former, much less the latter."
Yes, I agree. When I first learned to read, 'long about 1970, one of the books I read several times was about people's travelling back and forth to a settlement on the moon. I thought it was nonfiction.
It amazes me that space travel, presaged by all the space launches in the '60s culminating in the Apollo moon landings, have turned into a big nothing burger. it seems as soon as we reached the moon, we lost interest, or maybe the will to expend research and money to set up those Moon bases and travel to Mars.
According to the news, the Pope gave J.D. Vance some candy for his children and wished him well.
I expect every Pope crosses paths with a lot of people who think they would do a better job of being the Pope, while the real Pope is getting it all wrong.
Pope Francis began his pontificate by visiting prisoners, perhaps intentionally in imitation of Pope John XXIII. I remember the shock in certain circles that he washed the feet of an immigrant girl in a juvenile detention center. "He touched a woman! Cats and dogs living together!"
At the time, I thought that he was probably the only person - except maybe her mother - who had touched that girl and not wanted to exploit her.
Walmart just emailed me to ask me to review some cans of cat food I bought for the neighbor's gray cat. I gave it five stars. "Cat eats cat food!" was my catchy title. "I bought this food for my neighbor's cat. He liked it. He doesn't like it when there's no food."
Then it asked me to review the sturdy underwear. "Bra holds up bosom!" I wrote ...
I watched my favorite Sunday show, The Hill with Chris Stirewalt, yesterday evening. The day being Easter, the show followed a different format from the usual one that addressses the week's political developments with a panel discussion, and with interviews of various politicians (including Trump defenders). This one was on a more general topic (finding community and making connections; he referred to it as "our community comeback episode") and involved hope and hopeful developments. I am glad I watched it, because the people on the program and what they had to say were very good.
People on the program, besides Brother Stirewalt, were: George Will, Yoni Appelbaum (he was recently on a Remnant podcast with Jonah, discussing his ideas about the need to make it easier for people to relocate), Sen. James Lankford (I was very impressed) and John Kasich. Chris also reviewed some survey results about the decline in American adults who identify as Christians, and noticed that things seem to have stabilized in the youngest age groups. He did not speculate on reasons why, except that he senses people are looking for something.
Transcript can be found at: https://www.newsnationnow.com/the-hill/the-hill-sunday/the-hill-sunday_transcripts/the-hill-sunday-transcript-april-20-2025/ Anybody who would prefer a video may be able to find it somewhere. I like transcripts because they can clear up things that the captions manage to scramble, and I already watched it on my TV.
Happy Monday all. This will be a busy week: hopefully what will be the final round of cleanup and sorting to get the estate sale people in. I think I'm nearly finished, only to find another box or drawer. They all have the same stuff in them - loose change (a lot of coins from the 1960s), pins, pens, paper clips, cough drops (did you know they sublimate?), note pads, business cards, old greeting cards (received and never used), nails for hanging pictures, push pins, Legos, more nails and screws and hooks, maybe interesting advertising ephemera, jewelry. And a great aunt's canceled checks from the 1950s. And her sister's scrapbook entries related to finding and buying her house in the mid '60s.
I have issues with OCD. I couldn't just throw it out early on, but I have made progress with the pins and nails.
Ditch it. Specialized fasteners rule. The new stuff is simply way better than a bunch of old nails and screws. The worst are those guys that keep thousands of random fasteners in old baby food jars.
I know this. I live with someone who has jars and coffee cans and cookie tins full (vintage, with interesting advertising!).
And yet. The decades long habit rooted in time warped ideas of thrift is powerful.
Time is a resource, too, and limited (understatement!). Perhaps this kind of thrift is a manifestation of procrastination.
I have made great progress in letting go.
I used to have an old barn full of scavenged building materials. Had it for 35 years. I never used about 97% of that stuff; I don't know anyone in the business that does. Of course, there's always a group that insists on messing around with scavenged material and has a rational for doing so. Most have never heard of opportunity cost. Or, they're sure that scavenging old stuff is going to prevent climate change. Or something. I just back away slowly and let them go.
My Dad had that same barn. So full of junk metal you couldn't walk through most of it. After he died, we hired a friend of my brother to haul it to the junk yard. 33,000 pounds of scrap later, we emptied it. He felt bad, we offered him whatever he got for the scrap, and he got 4x what he expected. We were happy, he got paid well, a win-win.
Just wait until you need to replace that little screw holding a vintage doorknob in place.
I've only ever lived in houses >100 years old full of vintage door knobs with little screws, and my apartment building is 100 years old and has a few dozens of doors with vintage door knobs. I know a little bit about vintage door knobs.
Specialized fasteners. Know where to get the ones you need.
If I knew a source, then I would know a source. But I don't.
Last time I needed them, I found some at Clark Devon Hdwe. I forget the name of the joint, but there's a lock shop on Sheffield by Belmont; they rebuild mortise locks. They were there forever, not sure now. I've not gone there in >7 years.
I do know Clark-Devon Hardware.
I have the store in mind! 😀 It's in Dublin Ireland. They sell every drawer pull imaginable, parts for every door knob, every door accessory you can think of. The store's name is
KNOBS 'N KNOCKERS
I have a few obscene sarcastic replies to that…you can probably fill in the blanks.
It reminds me of a funny story. One of my friends in college was Kathy, and while we never dated we joked around a lot. When Christy spent a year at the Deaf School (in Indy), she'd stay over some weekends with Kathy.
One night a group of us were watching Mel Brook's "Young Dr. Frankenstein". We got to the famous scene in front of the majestic castle doors (where Gene Wilder, admiring the hardware, states "What Knockers!"), when Christy leaned in, warning me "I'll slug you if you say his line". I grinned, then turned and said Gene's line to Kathy, (who had seen the movie). Kathy played it perfect, replying with Terri Garr's line "Why, thank you Jay". Christy rolled her eyes 🙄, then slugged me with a couch pillow. It was worth it. 😀
I might see Kathy in two weeks at the Indy Mini marathon.
Hi, all. For those of you Easter or Passover celebrants, I'd appreciate prayers for me (softer heart) and my marriage. Thanks.
May the Risen Lord grant you permeability, Bill, and abundant love in your marriage, from each to each.
Prayers for calming troubled waters, Bill Mc.
I haven’t seen my grandson in a few weeks, they are back from Jersey. His mom has some meetings today so Grammy is taking over for a few hours.
Have a good time and good luck! How old is he?
He’s 13 months and walking. Pure joy, very happy baby like his momma was.
Thor was over to do his laundry this weekend, which process, due to his mountain man hairdo, results in hairballs in the laundry for the rest of the week, as if we'd accidentally washed a wild haggis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCnQ0ash7As
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJqjaFF1OVE
Manul hates Mongolian biologists and you as well.
Later that day ...
"Man! You can't believe the day I've had. First I saw this really bright light. Then I felt myself being pulled into that light where I was poked and prodded by aliens. Then came the anal probe ..."
Well played!
Not sure if you've seen this, but this was the video that YouTube cued up for me right after I'd viewed the one you posted.
https://youtu.be/NoBNyCSc7bk?si=eZM0BegwbrNovQzm
Good morning Happy Easter Monday! Today is a holiday in many European nations, even though the actual practice of Christianity is greatly diminished (some would say, dying out).
It’s in the 60s right now with intermittent rain, and highs predicted in the 70s this afternoon.
The mothership, conveying Easter greetings also conveys the news that Pope Francis passed away early this morning in Rome, after having greeted Easter crowds yesterday. The mothership also reports that over the weekend, the Supreme Court ordered deportations to Venezuela be suspended pending further court action. This order is being obeyed — so far. Meanwhile, the FP asks, “Is Donald Trump breaking the law?”
No doubt the feeling is mutual. BTW, I hate annoying YouTube ads.
I'm annoyed by annoying ads, as well.
I'm sure the biologists actually love the manul.
Wow! The fixed stare at the one researcher intimated that the guy won’t have a single living relative by the time he reaches home.
Don't touch manul!
That thing I put up a few days ago where I said something's happening, on Weibo there are daily potshots at the government, people are voicing specific dissatisfaction with Big Daddy and his government...
What a difference a couple days makes. All that's out the window and the entire country is behind Big Daddy to shove the tariff/trade war up into Donny's grill. Trump did what the CPC was failing at, which is unifying the country in common cause.
The Canadian Liberal party and its prime minister can relate to that. The Liberals were going to be shellacked in their election -- until Donald trump levied his idiotic tariffs on our closest trading partner and mocked them as the "51st state".
He did the same thing in Canada. He has successfully resuscitated the Liberal Government, which was at less than 20% in the polls in January and now looks to be heading toward a majority in next week's election (after a four-week campaign that has been mostly about him).
Who knew he was such a great unifier?
He did the same thing elsewhere; The entire Vatican is now united in seeking another leader after the last one met with JD Vance.
Not sure that's appropriate, Jay.
What I'm sure is inappropriate is how both Vance and Trump are using this as an opportunity to make an important development in the world be all about them, including trying to pretend that they are both the very best sort of Christians (even better than Putin).
To be fair, being a better Christian than Putin is a low bar.
Of course, but that's not how MAGAs and Putin admirers see it.
Sadly, that's what they do. especially Trump. Because everything is all about Him.
With a capital H.
I've been sitting here trying to figure out a polite way to tie JD into the passing of Francis.
That you can't find one is probably a pretty good indicator that there's not one.
That is not a surprise.
I read about this in a full tilt essay, and it is fascinating, while also allowing that it might also be just another mistaken identity. It's a really good read. Link to the Substack below...
https://open.substack.com/pub/barsoom/p/and-then-there-were-two?r=286fkw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Ooo, that’s very helpful. Thanks!
"Its atmosphere was first analyzed in 2023 and found to contain dimethyl sulfide (DMS) ..."
Analyzed how?
The link I just put up describes it...I think. I'm not a science guy, but it seems like the explanation.
Here tiz again...
https://open.substack.com/pub/barsoom/p/and-then-there-were-two?r=286fkw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Thanks, that explains it tolerably well.
Some sort of spectrometry = magic foo. One of those links provides more detail, I think the space.com one. It relies on capturing the image as the planet transits in front of the star, so as to have light from behind for the spectrograph, if I understood correctly.
By some accounts, the news reports got out over their skis a bit. (shocked!)
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/04/k2-18b-possible-sign-of-life/682505/?gift=GJ8BttuoXrtu1ZXQn6tAiZCzcHbydxaohHQ6NUNz6Dw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Unconfirmed news reports indicates Trump wants both a mineral rights deal with K2-18b, as well as to establish a colony there for those needing to be deported. He thinks the new place has potential for development, but needs a new name: K45-47b, or TrumpWorld, or, in honor of it being developed for illegal aliens, "New Australia". He said this deal with be YUUUUUUUGGGE.
Nicely executed.
(The humor, I mean. Not the illegal aliens)
I’m a lot more skeptical about claims of extraterrestrial life—much less advanced species—than I used to be, based only on how the original “habitable space” envelope has shrunk as theories have been refined. On top of that, a lot of science journalism is perpetrated by other struggling English majors unknowingly hyping hyped press releases from prestigious institutions.
But I did like the details about the research and its underlying assumptions, its means and methods of analysis, the state of modern understanding and its critics. All that in itself is worthy of reporting.
** It is indeed “possible” that a team of astronomers led by Nikku Madhusudhan, a professor at the University of Cambridge, has found a “sign of life,” but only if a whole daisy chain of other possibilities turns out to be actualities. **
That's the case with so many other science-y things. "May," "could," "might," "possible" ... all of them turn "facts" into "factoids."
I think that with things involving space, this is particularly true. Some folks WANT there to be exciting news so desperately, we get these kinds of reports fairly regularly.
I think the same applies to thre colonization of the moon, much less Mars. After reading about the obstacles of each in "A City on Mars," I'm not convinced that I'll live to see the former, much less the latter.
"I'm not convinced that I'll live to see the former, much less the latter."
Yes, I agree. When I first learned to read, 'long about 1970, one of the books I read several times was about people's travelling back and forth to a settlement on the moon. I thought it was nonfiction.
It amazes me that space travel, presaged by all the space launches in the '60s culminating in the Apollo moon landings, have turned into a big nothing burger. it seems as soon as we reached the moon, we lost interest, or maybe the will to expend research and money to set up those Moon bases and travel to Mars.
Gibson's Law....again.
I wasn't acquainted with the term, had to look it up. I immediately thought of Henry Gibson from Laugh-In -- which says much about me.
Prayers and condolences on the passing of Pope Francis.
(Francis)
88 and sick ... it's not a surprise, but it's a golpe, a whack upside the head.
So grateful that Francis refused to see JDVance and went out and blessed prisoners. Man had his Jesus-following priorities straight.
You sort of hope that the Pope's last words, after meeting at last with JD, were, "Either that jerk goes, or I do."
According to the news, the Pope gave J.D. Vance some candy for his children and wished him well.
I expect every Pope crosses paths with a lot of people who think they would do a better job of being the Pope, while the real Pope is getting it all wrong.
Yeah, but as parting words, mine is funnier.
Definitely. Good job.
True.
Pope Francis began his pontificate by visiting prisoners, perhaps intentionally in imitation of Pope John XXIII. I remember the shock in certain circles that he washed the feet of an immigrant girl in a juvenile detention center. "He touched a woman! Cats and dogs living together!"
At the time, I thought that he was probably the only person - except maybe her mother - who had touched that girl and not wanted to exploit her.
I'm not Catholic, and I'm not particularly religious, but Pope Francis struck me as a Man of God in the best way.
I just love France so much I want to use a plural for them…
My mom said France is very scenic.
Yes. Considering he was active and in the public eye just yesterday.