George Carlin talked about Stuff, those treasures one accumulates throughout life that give us comfort as we use them and makes our lives more enjoyable. We all have “stuff,” some more than others but all important in our little tiny niche in this world.
As we get older we find that much of the stuff we have accumulated doesn’t seem to have as much use or enjoyment as it once did. Here’s a couple examples that I see at the Fourscores. We don’t travel much any more, in fact, my traveling days are over and Mrs F seldom travels now, a couple trips a year to visit friends and relatives is about all. She is now getting ready to visit some friends in Arizona and will take a suitcase. We have about five or six and I mentioned recently that maybe someone else needs a few and we could use the extra closet space, in case we get more stuff. Anyway, a wall of resistance was thrown up that would have made East Germany proud.
I asked her if she was going to take a camera but she wasn’t sure if she would take the 35 mm Minolta (with a half roll of film in it) that she couldn’t live without a few years ago or maybe the digital like everyone else was using when she was traveling on tours. Or the wide angle one or the big one with the telephoto lens that she never figured out how to use but highly recommended by a photographer friend. Heck, I’d have even loaned her my not expensive digital. She still has the little 126 from when we got married. She decided not to take a camera because who wants to look at pictures of old people anyway?
Like most other people we have lots of pictures, 1000s, taken over the years. Every year I took lots of pictures of Canadian fishing trips, annual gardens, snow in the trees, deer hunting and just scenery. I recently decided that I’d review them, sort out those with a special meaning, such as Christmas with the grand kids, birthday parties and other special family events. Did you know that every walleye, regardless of lake or size, looks very similar? Every deer is pretty much the same, unless it has some antlers, of which there were not many. The pictures of Canadian sunsets taken off the boat dock really don’t change much from year to year. These pictures were meaningful, mainly because of the people involved and the laughs that we shared but in retrospect have lost the significance they once had. Photos used to be meaningful and had some family history attached. Now no one else, like my kids, want them and they’ll be in the dumpster before the will is read.
From the first batch, which was a day’s worth of review, I ended up with about 15 pictures. I’ll save them but email them to my kids and grand kids, they can decide what to do with them. I still have 1000s more to go. I have a 100 or so framed photos, I have offered them to family members, since I have them on the computer. My son took a half dozen but others said they’d take a look later.
Mrs F has quite a few family pictures from Viet Nam. Her generation of family is old and aren’t interested and the nephews/nieces don’t know or have forgotten who the people in the pictures are anyway.
Mrs F did recently sort out her wardrobe and had 10 grocery bags of out of style or outgrown clothes. We gave them to friends that could use them or would take them to a charity. I need to do the same but my grand son-in-law is about my size and has taken some coats and sweaters to Alaska. By the time I get rid of something it generally doesn’t have much life expectancy left in it anyway.
I have given a number of guns away, after rescuing them from the boating tragedy. I’m trying to figure out what to do with a few more but my kids don’t hunt. I rarely shoot any more, unfortunately or fortunately, I’m not sure which.
A tour through the garages and I see all kinds of stuff that may not ever be used.
Stove pipe comes in three foot lengths but I only need two feet. Cut off a foot but save it, just in case. I did need a short piece last fall andsaved a trip to the hardware store. Need some chainsaw oil? Better buy two gallons while I’m at the store, even if I only needed a couple quarts. That stack of 2 X 4s, about 2-3 feet long? I occasionally use a piece to hold something up so I can work on it. I never know when I might need something like that.
That desktop computer that needs a motherboard, there’s room for it on the shelf, better save it, some smarter kid will be able to fix it one day. A pressure tank that someone gave me to use on a garden well, that’ll come in handy someday, it’s been in the same place for fifteen years, hardly even see it anymore. A nice floor jack with a leaky seal, someone could fix that, I’d bet.
Yesterday I tried to give a glass top electric range away, needs a heating element in the oven, easy repair. Mrs F wanted a new one and she is boss lady in the kitchen. That range has been sitting in the garage and has become a nice work bench if I’m on that side of the building. I’ll try one of the charity places, maybe they need a range. I don’t want to start on kitchen appliances, if it’s sold on TV we probably have it, stored downstairs. Everyone needs two woks that never get used along with a 25 year old counter top mixer that hasn’t had the cover off in 24 years.
Oh yeah, my bee partner sold his rural property and gave me his scarcely used Husqvarna chainsaw and protective coveralls. I may be able to use it this year, my Stihl has had too many trees roll over it but it still runs good though.
Getting old and always thrifty seems to make for a drop off place for other people’s slightly used things. The problem is that there are few young people around that can use a small tiller and old guys already have those things or don’t want them anyway. I remember the years when I carried a duffel bag and that was all I needed in life.
I know why we call it settling down. We accumulate so much stuff that we can’t part with and don’t want to move again.
My GF is so bad about this, she’s got a self storage overflow unit.
For me it’s media. Not only piles of books and other printed things, but vinyl, cassette, VHS, DAT, CD, DVD, floppy, etc.
I know people on both extremes of this. Our friend’s mom in a hoarder, not in the trash sort of way, but she has a house full of knick-knacks and old pens that she refused to get rid of. It’s getting time for her to no longer live alone so that’s becoming a problem.
Meanwhile my mom absolutely loves cleaning and throwing stuff away. We caught her getting rid of photos of her parents, and a 100 year old cast iron pan that belonged to her mom. I rescued those things.
I think I lean more towards mom. It does feel good to throw out a bag of junk. Once for Lent I put a box in my closet, and every day I found one thing to give away, and I put it in that box. On Good Friday I took the box to Goodwill.
I hope my sympathy doesn’t take up too much room, Fourscore.
My mom can be like that too, TOK. Grrr! 🤬
If I don’t have to look at it, I have a pretty high tolerance for stuff. But I absolutely hate wading through stuff, and when I look at stuff piled up – I have the urge to throw it all out because I know it’s not useful. This causes conflict with my missus, who has a sentimental attachment to some thing she hasn’t seen for years but it is given full effect as soon as she sees it. And she will straighten up the clutter, but never clear it.
This is one of the splits between my parents. My father was a stuff person, always going garage sailing, a gun trader par excellance, loved nick nacks, saved anything useful. My mother and her husband were stripped down, clean lines, throw it away when done, don’t buy what you might need later types.
No wonder the marriage failed. I take after my father, no surprise as I lived with him growing up.
You don’t know stuff until you’ve tried to clear out the house of an 85 year old hoarder couple with no children.
*shudder*
Oh, my fathers aunt an uncle in SF? Yeah, been there, have the oak roll top desk.
Dad and I finally turned over the keys to the old place yesterday. I know what it’s like to move a whole bunch of shit that’s never going to get used again.
I have trouble recognizing that I won’t or can’t use or fix something. Boxes of fishing gear? Gardening equipment? That sort of thing.
Me too. This is where living on an alley can be handy (and also dangerous).
Stihl >>Husqvarna
but
Free >> Cost to repair
I know a fella looking for a rear tine tiller…
Stihl >>Husqvarna
It’s funny you say that. This past weekend I was out at my buddy’s property clearing trails. I had my Stihl. But I also brought a little Husqvarna that the previous owners of my house left behind. My buddy had the same Huskie I did. His broke. So he went to use my Husqvarna and it broke as well. Really solidified that I made the right choice when I bought the Stihl.
My Stihl has cut way over a 100 cords of wood, starting at the tree and ending at the wood box. I was able to burn wood this past winter, I’m not sure about next year but it’s something I feel is necessary, part of not wanting to give in to the calendar. Fortunately it was wood in the bank from years gone by.
This is absolutely a problem I don’t have, but it does drive my wife nuts.
I am famous for my loaded runs to the local garbage dump or giant charity drop offs.
If you don’t use something anymore in our household and I think it’s unlikely you will in the future, it’s gone.
I salute you for that. I have packing skills which hide the scope of the issue until it reaches critical mass.
You have the cardboard box version of a Tardis?
More like a Looney Tunes closet that will eventually explode and crush me.
This is so timely, i just don’t have the words.
My family loves stuff, the more stuff the better.
I hate stuff, and want to burn it all. That being said, I hang on to piles of books that I’ll in all likelihood will never open again. Fortunately, their are a couple of charities that are more than happy to take all the books. Passing them on to someone else that will enjoy them makes me happy.
I got rid of a shit ton of books before we moved. I had giant bookshelves, the works. But like you, I knew I wouldn’t touch the vast majority of them again. So I purged and kept only reference books or those with sentimental meaning. Down to three plastic bins.
1. All pantries seem to look alike. Mine, yours, other people’s.
2. 1 foot of stovepipe would make a fine Glibs top hat. Now you just need a monocle.
I misread #1 at first as “All panties seem to look alike.”
Hey! I just cleaned out that garage last year and somehow you’ve accumulated …. more stuff!
Photos, it seems, rarely have any value to anybody accept those who took them. I’ve often thought what I’d try to save first if my house caught on fire and the answer is my photos. Nearly everything else is in some way replaceable. And yet I rarely take them out and look at them. Who has the time? I’m too busy taking more photos.
But I WILL take that countertop mixer!
You’ll have to arm wrestle a little ol’ lady. You’re gonna have to wait on that. How about some pictures?
I’m on the mailing list of a friend who likes to send out random bits he runs across. Sometimes he picks up boxes of photos at a junk shop, and he’ll parcel those out as part of a mailing. It caused me to think of the entropy in that – all of the social meaning that gets lost in time. I’ve even found it difficult to just trash some of the stuff he’s sent out because it strikes some weird chord in me.
There’s a guy I’ve seen several times at Viva’s past (and a couple times by buying his on demand shows), by the name of Charles Phoenix. He’s made a living by accumulating old slides/pictures (generally going up to the 70’s, and anything older) and putting together curated shows about a theme or an area. He’s got a focus on mid century modern, kitsch, classic cars, and Americana.
The guy who wrote Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children used old photographs he found as writing prompts. The books include those photos. It’s a cool idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Peregrine%27s_Home_for_Peculiar_Children
A couple of the stories and items that Charles has hunted down that I got to hear the stories about:
There was a chicken shaped truck that he had a slide of. Per the labeling it was selling chicken candy (apparently it was salty/sweet candy along the lines of Butterfingers), and later got repurposed into a food truck peddling fried chicken out of the cloaca. Charles continued hunting for the truck, and eventually found it in someone’s backyard, who knew the whole story about the truck and let him drive it around for a bit.
Another was a honeymoon picture of a young couple at a wigwam/teepee campsite (you would rent the teepee/wigwam and spend the nights in there). Charles was doing a road trip and stayed at the campsite. While sitting there, he noticed an old couple getting in near him. He started chatting with them, and the older couple mentioned that they had honeymooned there decades ago. It was the same couple, there to celebrate their wedding anniversary at the campsite they had spent their first honeymoon at. Charles asked if he could take a picture, which the couple allowed, and he framed it as closely as possible to the original slide.
OT – Just for you
When you forget about the bike on your roof-rack
Also when your “stuff” gets its revenge.
Sensei:
Ha! Jokes on you! I don’t have a roof rack, just a trunk rack that needs special accouterments to work on my Mini.
/drives down road watching bike and rack bounce after hitting every pot hole
You could always turn them into a best selling novel.
Great minds, Fatty.
I have an old friend, same age, that have lived in Podunkville his whole life. We reminisce about the old days of growing up here. He is a fount of history and I remember those early days. We are the “old guys”, the”characters”, there doesn’t seem to be anyone left after us. Everyone else are “Johnny Come Latelys”, newcomers that have only been here 30-40 years and didn’t grow up in this area.
newcomers that have only been here 30-40 years and didn’t grow up in this area.
Damn kids.
Whippersnappers!
And yet, once you get into genealogy, you really wish someone had kept that carte d’visite of great grandpa in his Civil War uniform, or the grandparent’s wedding picture from 1912. Then again, my mom left lots of photos where no one had written on the back who the people were in the picture.
Yep. guilty as charged
Of course not. They knew who everyone was.
Did someone say Grandparents (okay, great grandparents) wedding picture from 1912?
I’m sitting on several bankers boxes filled with old photographs and letter dating back to my great great grandparents. One of the most cherished letters is from my grandfather writing to my grandmother as he sat in the train going off to fight in WWII. Many other letters too during the war.
It’s expensive, but I’ve looking at buying a Fujitsu ScanSnap and converting all of the photos and letters to digital format. I’ll still keep at least some of the originals, but storage will be easier and I can also send copies to my parents and sister.
“You used to take one picture and look at it a hundred times. Now you take a hundred photos and never look at them again.”
– James Lileks
I couldn’t guess how many times I have purged a bunch of random unneeded junk only to find myself having to go buy something I just tossed out.
/hides the number of keycap pullers I’ve purchased only to find one of the others right after clicking Buy Now
In my experience, the best way to find a lost item is to buy its replacement.
Nice to see the mister here recently, GT!
It takes some doing (usually something to do with music) to drag him away from Facebook. 😄
I don’t pitch stuff, but forget about it.
I have 5 caulk guns.
Terrific article, Fourscore. That Carlin bit is great!
Did you know that every walleye, regardless of lake or size, looks very similar?
Yes. As well as beach sunset pictures.
One glorious thing about pulling up stakes and moving to a smaller place was a pretty good purge. I still have too much stuff, though. Thank God both my wife and I are on the minimalist side of stuff collecting.
I remember the years when I carried a duffel bag and that was all I needed in life.
Simple is good.
Previous Thread (cavalier973) [because I don’t think people will response there anymore and I’m slow]
“I saw the D&D movie the other night.
It was a lot of fun.
The music was a mix of a few Celtic-ish tunes and stuff similar to the computer game, “Icewind Dale” (which happens to be the region where the movie’s opening happens). I liked the music more than that of P. Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings”.
In fact, I kind of liked this D&D movie more than PJ’s LotR. Those movies give me a tummy ache, how much they got wrong from the book, despite some brilliant casting and a few good scenes in “Fellowship”. Jackson cut out the most important part of the story, the fool.
The story is derivative, as are many of the scenes. “That reminds me of Jurassic Park!” “That reminds me of Indians Jones!” “That reminds me of the Avengers!” “That reminds me of A Ghost Story with Casey Affleck!”
I can’t tell if it was just an attempt to crib the best stuff from successful movies, or if it was a meta commentary where, when one runs a game of D&D, he shamelessly steals ideas from his favorite movies, tv shows, and books. That’s if one accepts the possibility that the movie is a film representation of someone’s tabletop campaign.
There was some concern expressed about the film being “woke”, but it wasn’t.
Hugh Grant was in top form. Chris Pine was fine, Michelle Rodriguez was fine, the other three were fine. The villain was appropriately creepy.
There was quite a bit of humor, but your tastes might differ from mine. I was sold in the movie with the first joke, which took a few minutes, but was cleverly done.
There is a kind of theme, where the characters focus on trying something particular, struggle through the challenges, finally succeed at that one thing, but then it turns out it doesn’t matter, after all, and they have to improvise another plan.
There is a fun cameo that I appreciated.”
I agree. I guess the woke complaints might stem from:
1) the badass female barbarian … this fits the IP though… when I played D&D we actually had a female barbarian in our party. It might not fit a more realistic and gritty fantasy setting, but if fits the campy setting of D&D. It’s fine here. Plus, the paladin was even more bad ass anyway.
2) The white male leader doesn’t fight or do much to get his hands dirty … I found it to be clever, though, and he’s still the leader. It’d be difficult to pull off the bard’s role in a movie. You don’t have a character just pull out his instrument and start playing. It wouldn’t work on screen. But he more or less sets the strategy in the pen and paper game and the way they interpreted it, it worked well I thought.
3) They bragged about the casting being “diverse”. Yeah this is often the kiss of death because they’re focusing on shit that doesn’t matter. But whatever. It wasn’t horrible.
https://frinkiac.com/caption/S08E02/722637
😉
Jackson cut out the most important part of the story, the fool.
Huh? Tom Bombadil?
The Scouring of the Shire? The fool being Jackson?
I took the context as Fellowship of the Ring.
Removing Bombadil was one of the smarter decisions.
I know uber fans love the character, but some things just don’t work in a film, and only slow it down. Look at how poorly the army of the dead* scene was in part three. It ended up being a deus ex machina, rendering all the sacrifices void at that point.
*whatever they were called.
D&D was fun. Probably Michelle Rodriguez’s best work in awhile. She was trapped in the Fast & Furious universe.
My wife is bad about getting rid of stuff. And, dog-forbid I get rid of it for her. It’s an issue…
You people’s hording reminds me that I need to do some spring cleaning.
Also the gf has a major problem with collecting clothes and shoes. I swear she could clothe a village in Africa for a week without needing to do laundry.
My wife and I have a mantra when we’re doing spring cleaning: “If in doubt, throw it out.”
My wife is big on shoes and purses. She’s a mini Imelda Marcos. Many, many pairs of shoes have never seen daylight after purchase, boxes all lined up like soldiers in a parade.
A long distance move is the cure. We’ve done it twice, and both times were a Great Winnowing for all our accumulated stuff.
I wish. I have a few boxes from the East coast to West coast move sitting down in the basement/garage, having also made the reverse trip – without ever being unpacked.
So if they were to mysteriously disappear…?
Mrs F kept her text books. Did you know those things will burn in a garage stove?
lol
Niiiice.
I had the opposite experience; we moved from Calgary to Vancouver and disposed of a great deal of stuff (excellent books and lots of weight-training equipment, amongst other things) because we were moving from a large house to a small condo.
Turned out, condo living kinda blew. We moved to a house in the Lower Mainland six months later, and that kinda blew as well. Turned out, what passed for a “house” in an aggressively rising market in the Lower Mainland when you’re trying to avoid being house-rich and cash-poor is a sad, hollow shell of what houses can be most everywhere else in Canada.
Then we moved to Edmonton, and we’re living in a great duplex, with plenty of room for our pursuits, and excellent neighbours. Twice the house for half the money!
I am re-acquiring the weight equipment as needed, but the books are sadly lost forever (no longer in print, and used are difficult/hit-or-miss to find and expensive to ship). That’s the second time in my life I’ve had to dispose of books that were rare/exotic/specialized, and I’ve regretted it both times. I give up my next set of books when I die and there’s the estate sale!
Yeah, weights can be a pain, sometimes you have to leave them behind even if you’d rather keep them. Shame about the books. When we moved we went through ours, and kept any that couldn’t be replaced or had sentimental value. The rest went to goodwill.
Never get out of the boat? No, never get rid of the books!
(we are seeing the reason with Roald Dahl right now.)
Hitchens loved Wodehouse, and I’m thinking I should go buy up some older volumes at my favorite used books store.
I need Etsy and eBay brokers, because I don’t feel up to it.
It can be very cathartic.
What is the building in your avatar?
Leighton House museum in London, around the corner from Jimmy Page’s Tower House. So much yummy turquoise. Paging Kristen…
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/museums/leighton-house
Gorgeous! And of course right down the road from where I stayed.
Gah! At least you were in a nice postcode.
Travel regrets, ugh.
I didn’t spend enough time in London, but we were anxious to get to Edinburgh.
So much amazing history on that island.
I miss it awfully (while being realistic about its faults).
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/08/stairway-to-heaven-jimmy-page-castle-is-his-home-led-zeppelin
Great article! Thanks for that. I can’t believe how young he was when he bought it!
Leighton was one of the great artists. Around his time there was a split between classical realism and the impressionism -> cubism -> today’s garbagism line. He was on the right side.
When they finally turn out the lights on me, the kids will find lots of stuff they will send right to the dumpster.
Can they appreciate the photo of me getting an award from Bob Poole and Manny Klausner? Or how about welcoming Ronald Reagan while holding a “Reagan for President” sign at a Philly hotel in 1968? And who cares about that picture of me in 1977 standing with a German colleague who had served in the Afrika Corps as an aide to Rommel?
I am still in accumulation mode. I constantly scour craigslist and Facederp marketplace for even more stuff.
I recently scored a Weber E-210 propane grill for the cost of chiseling it out of a snowbank and ordering new grates.
I just moved to 7 acres of land so I have more room for more stuff!
Time for a shed!
And a shooting range!
And blackjack! And hookers!
Metal building!
Congrats, I guess?
What did you end up cleaning your cabinets with? I have the same problem.
Krud Kutter with the red label
danke
My dad used to pick up crap at estate sales. Fishing rods, camping gear, opened bottles of booze. Even now that he’s passed away, I can’t bring myself to get rid of all that crap.
My dad collected weird stuff. Beer cans. Barbed wire (you have *no* idea how varied it was in the beginning). Spark plugs. American-made pocket knives. And those are just what I remember. I am SO glad my brothers had to deal with all that when he passed. He built a pole barn to hold his obsessions. He did have a knack for getting in on a craze before it took off and making bank at the peak.
“Barbed wire (you have *no* idea how varied it was in the beginning).” There’s even a barb wire museum. https://barbwiremuseum.com/
I have my dad’s spurs, hat and belt buckles. And a picture of his project team from a satellite he launched. I am hanging on to all of that. I am about to do a major purge of my belongings and get rid of things I had for years.
I regret that none of my great grandfather’s pictures never made it down to my generation, L.A. Huffman frontier photographer. There are three books that I know of that cover his life and work. Worked primarily in the Montana Territory; recommended to those with an interest in the last of the old American West.
This guy?
https://www.amazon.com/L-Huffman-Photographer-American/dp/0878426035/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3VYS6M8C0FTSF&keywords=L.A.+Huffman&qid=1673643599&s=books
You must have told me about him before, since I saved it.
Yup, that’s the guy.
I may have mentioned him before. I honestly don’t remember ;-\
I tend to prattle on (and on and on…)
Now, that is awesome stuff! I have copies of the textbooks my father wrote, amid various other books family members are responsible for.
One of Dads https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30997409776&searchurl=xpod%3Doff%26bi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26bx%3Doff%26sortby%3D17%26an%3Ddavid%2Bwarfield%26recentlyadded%3Dall&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image4
One of my great grandfathers https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=10127932062&searchurl=xpod%3Don%26bi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26bx%3Doff%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3Dcensorship%2Bof%2Bhebrew%2Bbooks%26recentlyadded%3Dall&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title19
When I was young everything I had and needed fit into a 1996 Pontiac Sunfire. Now I have so much stuff that I don’t know where to put anything in a 3 bedroom house. And of course, this was my grandparent’s house, so it’s a bunch of their stuff to. Do I need those that empty safe that I don’t have the combination to? No, but it was my grandparents!
It took two trips to move in my Scirocco, but that was mostly the size of my stereo speakers.
“That stack of 2 X 4s, about 2-3 feet long? I occasionally use a piece to hold something up so I can work on it. I never know when I might need something like that.”
I can identify with that, except I keep even shorter pieces. It’s not the size, it’s what you do with it.
I finally got pissed at the rack of lumber, pvc, corner bead, etc. and got one of those dumpster bags and threw it all in there and took the racking down.
Then watched in amusement as several neighbors asked if they could raid it.
It’s not the size, it’s what you do with it.
Your wife is a sweetheart.
Thx FS. One of life’s great lessons that I tool too long to learn.
There’s obviously as cost to acquiring things, but there’s a greater cost to having things. Everything you have costs you space, effort (finding a place for it, moving it around to make room for/find other things) and stress (alll that stuff is in the way of things you really want to do.
If I could go back and give my younger self some advice it would be two things – ask her out, and throw stuff out.
“The things you own end up owning you.”-Tyler Durden
And also the dog-in-the-manger aspect: if I’m not using it, someone else could be. Or even worse, someone could have used it, but now it’s too old.
I’m kind of a pack rat. But my wife likes the show hoarders. Every time we watch an episode I go throw at least one thing out.
It can be helpful that way…
My MIL watches Hoarders but I feel she’s looking for justifications rather than solutions.
She was sitting on the sofa once, watching TV, and going through a stack of old magazines page-by-page. I finally realized she was looking for whatever article had led her to save said magazine.
I heard that the reason women like true crime, and they are the biggest readers of it, is they like to continually point out that THEY would make the same mistakes! THEY know better!
I’ve had half a roll of film in the old Nikon for too long. Need to shoot it off soon.
Moving, as much as we hate it, did help clear out the junk.
Maybe Momma should have taken your Kodachrome away.
Speaking of actual fascists.
AOC celebrates Tucker Carlson’s exit at Fox:
“Couldn’t have happened to a better guy… Deplatforming works and it is important”
“If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” – Tucker
Speaking of actual fascists.
Here’s Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on CNN explaining why he thinks Washington, D.C. can and should dictate to Fox News and Tucker Carlson what they can and cannot say:
“We not only have a right to tell Rupert Murdoch and Fox what to do, but an obligation.”
“We have to destroy the freedom of speech and press in order to save Democracy.”
Remember when Schumer said the intelligence agencies have six ways to Sunday to get to you? I suspect that might have something to do with Tucker’s firing. For “Our Democracy”.
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=29803#comment-351302
A new iron curtain dropping on American speech. The government and media are now one entity run by the same people.
It would be very funny if Musk deplatformed AOC to help make her point.
God bless Americaaaaaaa, my hooooome sweeeeeet HOOOOOME
I promise this will be the best thing you read today.
The Hat was able to escape before authorities arrived.
OMG, thank you for that.
Sorry Florida Man, Arkansas Woman has you beat.
It was, and thank you. Something had to come after Cocaine Bear. Meth Deer will do.
OT: The most recent econtalk with Mike Munger is very good. It is a discussion we have had here a number of times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzRc4sA_buM
The main argument is directionalism vs destinationism. An example, due you argue for charter schools or do you argue for ending public schools.
Its a really good discussion. He didn’t mention this category, but I think I am a “long directionalist”. For this, you argue the moral case for the destination, but then you provide a “compromise” that gets you a long way in that direction, even if not perfect. Backpack vouchers for school choice, for example. Or making Social Security private accounts, even if still mandatory. But the key is making the moral argument for the destination and refusing to concede that ground. And not fighting for small directional wins that merely tinker with the current situation.
s/due/do
You due you.
Ewe doo yew.
Also OT: My article drops tonight.
Its part 4 of my History of American Beer series. Part one was in 2018, parts 2 and 3 in 2020. Part 3, based on comments, dropped first week of lockdowns. All the parts are linked in article if you need to catch up.
I may not be around much but will eventually read comments and respond, so please participate.
“We not only have a right to tell Rupert Murdoch and Fox what to do, but an obligation.”
Freedom is too important to be given to just anybody.
Heh.
No kidding!
I am a stuff person. I have rooms full of books, a shop full of tool (both wood working and metal). Antiques and guns gravitate to me, like tides to the moon. And I have a hard time getting rid of things. But I do it, slowly.
I do have a few things from my grandparents: my grandfathers machinists chest, a film strip of my grandmother as a girl, high school year books for three of them (not sure that one graduated HS), and so on. I doubt my son will want any of this, although he has inherited the collector gene, mostly records though. Lets see what his girlfriend thinks.
This was a very nice piece 4×20+, the sort of thing that keeps us grounded.
One thing I’ve learned since the wife and I ended our apartment dwelling days and purchased a house eleven years ago; Much like a gas will always expand to the size of its enclosure, your collection of “stuff” will always grow to the size of your available space.
We have a garage that was built to house three vehicles. On a good day I can get one in with minimal problems. If a storm is coming, I can spend 20-30 minutes and find room for the second one.
Only 20-30 minutes? I have a two car garage. My sister has an old SAAB she needed to store for the winter. I’m kind of glad as it gave me an excuse to clean up the garage. Now everything is lined up around the edges of the garage. Progress I suppose.
I suppose the country is not completely destroyed yet.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally announced that he is running for reelection in 2024, asking voters to give him more time to “finish this job” and extend the run of America’s oldest president for another four years.
Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term, is betting his first-term legislative achievements and more than 50 years of experience in Washington will count for more than concerns over his age. He faces a smooth path to winning his party’s nomination, with no serious Democratic challengers. But he’s still set for a hard-fought struggle to retain the presidency in a bitterly divided nation.
+1 Uniter in Chief
That’s quite a steaming pile of a campaign ad.
Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours.
That’s why I’m running for reelection as President of the United States. Join us. Let’s finish the job.
EXTREME MAGA OOGA BOOGA.
Kamala is so awful that they’d rather drag Biden’s corpse around for another 4 years.
https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.1518978446.7390/mp,840×830,matte,f8f8f8,t-pad,1000×1000,f8f8f8.jpg
No shit – those aviators look like they are covering something up, not just shading his eyes.
“finish this job”
We’re not completely doomed yet, but by God, he’s the right man to finish it.
I hope they use that as their official slogan.
For better or for worse, the residents of Chez GT/TT are clutter blind (including the cats, as far as I can tell.)
In defense of saving stuff, sometimes you find long lost treasure: my middle sister was recently going through some long-stored belongings of our mother. Among them were several letters from her mother – the grandmother my sisters and I never knew. The last one was actually written by my aunt on behalf of her mother. When we checked the date, we realized it had been written only a couple of days before their mother (our grandmother) died of cancer… while my mom was pregnant with my oldest sister. I can’t explain why, but that means something to us.
My attic is very large, so it doesn’t look like I have much stuff. However, there is stuff up there that I haven’t touched in 10 years and will likely never touch again until it is tossed. Other stuff are things from my childhood or past that I would not want to part with.
I will be purging my basement soon as I move tools from there to my new garage. Time to purge the crap and look to organize from the get go. I’m thinking of continuing to use using Akro bins for fasteners and small stuff and labeled bins for stuff like painting supplies, wire, electrical hardware, plumbing, etc. I will look to maintain a work bench or two in the basement with some basic tools. All of the majority of power tools and hand tools will be moved to the garage.
Any recommendations or experiences with garage heating? I’m leaning toward propane, electrical radiant, or possibly pellet. My goal is for heating a work space not keeping my cars at >50 deg all winter long. So i expect it to be intermittent heating with possibly a low consumption baseline to maintain warmth.
11′ ceiling and a 30×40′ space. I may use a thermal curtain to isolate the work space from vehicle storage.
The garage in the pictures is 34 X 44, I have a wood burning furnace (same as my house) . Walls and ceiling well insulated. 2 seventeen foot doors, It will take a while for the stove to heat up so much space but it will be warm enough to work in, 50 or so. I used wood because I have a lot and it’s free for the labor. I don’t do a lot of work out there in the extreme cold days but my exercise equipment is there. My smaller garage, 24 X 40 just has a small home made steel plate stove that I use for burning trash (and old text books).
Metal building is unheated, storage/wood only.
Check with your home insurance first – many won’t allow wood fired stoves in a garage.
This is a fun game.
Teaching should not be a life-threatening profession.
Educators should not need to be armed to feel safe in the classroom.
We must do more.
I continue to call on Congress to pass common-sense gun safety laws to protect our kids and our teachers.
Accounting should not be a life-threatening profession.
Retail should not be a life-threatening profession.
Basket-weaving should not be a life-threatening profession.
Coincidentally, the solution to all those problems is to ban every gun! Who’d have thunk it?
See, I was scanning and I thought it said “Educators should be armed in the classroom…”
Which I agree with. Students should be taught gun safety and target practice in PE rotation too. Sadly that article did not say this thing.
Must resist…”I don’t need it”…
TBF, it would look way better without rails.
What’s sad is that isn’t stainless, it’s a colored finished.
I’ll have to buy the first Inox I see in a used gun case.
Let’s finish the job.
Rome wasn’t burned in a day.
Nero sure tried though.
I can’t imagine four more years of this. 🙁
Oh, I can. I do not like it.
On one hand we’ll have a lame duck who DGAF, and on the other an establishment that sees this as their last opportunity to ensure every president from now on is a Democrat. I don’t like it either.
Because (unsubsidized) EVs aren’t expensive enough.
California might require bidirectional charging capability in EVs
How does that affect the batteries?
Also, retarded.
They spontaneously combust?
I had to read into that madness to figure it out. The goal is to make every car be able to produce power for the grid in addition to just charging. Fuck off, Newsome.
I’m curious how that would work. I pug my car in, preparing for a trip the next day, and the smart grid empties my battery?
Sign me up, baby!
Now hear me out.
How about in order to make gasoline distribution more equitable, the next time you go to the pump it can either fill it or empty it based on your current need as determined by government regulators.
Hey, hey! We got a progressive HIGH PRIEST here! Pure fucking genius.
Obviously you didn’t get permission from the government for that trip so stay put peasant.
Where were you going to drive when you live in a 15 minute walking neighborhood?
Yup.
One of the current utopian thoughts is that there will be so many vehicles that it will only take a few percent and it will rotate amongst vehicles. before the grid stabilizes. After that your car would start charging again.
Realistically I would be willing to pledge x kWh x times a month if the rate was good.
Ayup.
It’s the number of cycles and depth of charge and discharge that impacts the life.
It’s a feature I would have and pay for. My Tesla could selectively power my house for several days.
However, it shouldn’t be mandated. Funny enough Tesla doesn’t do it, but KIA does.
Do you honestly think that they wouldn’t make your battery charge available to the grid if they mandated the feature?
You’d need a charger that supports it.
Right now I just want it for offline storage – not to sell it.
How about NO
How about NOS?
Too soon, junior.
NOH!
Haha – just realized in that front page pic that you have a case of Costco tomato paste and how long that lasted me.
Also, when you know you played really poorly…
https://www.espn.com/soccer/tottenham-hotspur-engtottenham/story/4933362/tottenham-players-to-refund-fans-for-6-1-defeat-at-newcastle
I barely escape the hoarder epithet. However, I made great strides over the past week & a half by trashing a lot of stuff. (A lot of it was empty bottle and the like for hurricane season – I figure one year is enough.) Books, correspondence and the like are going to be harder.
Been going through the same mental process myself as I get ready to move and downsize here. There’s been stuff that I feel bad getting rid of because it was important to one or both of my parents, even though I don’t need it and wouldn’t care about it otherwise. Pictures and old home movies among them. They’ve all been digitized, but I do still have a small U-haul box of originals that I only keep in case of an EMP, solar flare, or nuclear engagement that kills my electronics (because in the aftermath I’m going to want to look at printed photos from my childhood? Stupid shit). To be honest, I’ll probably never look at the digital copies again, let alone the originals, and there’s nobody else left to give a shit about them, but it feels almost disrespectful I guess to throw them away.
The other thing is that not having a lot of money, there’s things I rarely use, but can’t afford to replace (or rent, since that’s what we do now in the “own nothing and be happy” society). Tools especially. I’ve got a tote full of tools I bought for one-off jobs that would bring me pennies on the dollar if I could even find a buyer, but that would cost me a fortune to replace. Even if I had means, I like doing things myself when I can. I like having those available so I don’t have to hire a guy. I don’t like being helpless and dependent on tradesmen for every little thing. At the same time, I think to myself, a single guy in his mid-late 30s should be able to move into a studio apartment or Kaczynski shack at a moment’s notice, what am I doing?
I got over the guilt thing pretty quickly. It’s also a reminder not to saddle my kids with all kinds of shit, either.
Tools are always worth keeping. These days, I rarely do home projects, but I frequently help my kids or neighbors. So keep those.
Great advice on tools. You might think “I won’t be needing this again,” but you always do.
I don’t think I’ve ever used my Snap on radio removal kit.
The tools are definitely going to stay, it’s just one of those examples of something that accumulates space. I could probably fit everything under my queen size bed frame if I did have to downsize to that level. On the “won’t be needing this again, but you always do” front, I also have small cache of old electronics and parts. Nearly every time I finally break down and throw away the oldest junk in there, I end up realizing a need for the just-discarded part (and absolutely nothing else in the box).
I see you’re familiar with my milk-crate full of cables.
I’ll need those to hook up a VCR one day!