Skunk, tables, books.

Three topics weighing heavily on me this morning: Skunks, Tables, and Books. 

Let's go.

The dog groomer sent this around, and I repost it here as a public service. I do not know if this is the best advice, but I sure would be willing to give it a try. As longtime readers will recall, the late Tralfaz had a couple of memorable tussles with skunks and lost both, because with a skunk, as with porcupines and wasps, even if you win, you lose. When we tried to de-skunk the boy we started by spraying him with water, and I can tell you it did not help. I think the water may have just spread the skunk juice around, or helped it penetrate his skin. 

I think the method from the groomer -- who has probably de-skunked dozens of dogs -- is worth a try. If you are a dog owner, I hope you will not need it. Still, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. 

I did see a skunk waddle into the road the other morning while walking Izzy. Fortunately we were not crossing his path nor vice-versa, and he still had the good sense to go back the way he came.  

As for tables: You know also if you read this site that I am grateful for our trashmen, who make life much cleaner for the rest of us. Our local service is willing to pick up one (1) large item a week from each household, and in past years that has meant a mattress or an old easy chair. Last week it meant the kitchen table that my mother gave my wife and me as a wedding gift. 

We have had this set a long time. My wife never much liked it. We tried to replace it with another set more than ten years ago when elevated pub-type tables were in vogue, and she wound up liking that one less -- so that was relegated to the dining room and the old set came out again. A new new set has finally landed, and so the old table's time was up. 

That table lasted as long as it did because it was solid. It weighed a ton. I only got it to the street last Friday because it was circular and, with the legs off, I could roll it. Took out the legs and the leaf too. I was not sure the boys would carry it away, but they did, God bless ‘em. 

We still have the six chairs, which can go out in installments. No big rush. After all, a chair without a table is still a chair, but a table without a chair is a sideboard.

Finally, books. 

Just a quick announcement that Hans G. Schantz has rounded up a bunch of authors again to submit ebooks to the Based Book Sale. All books are 99 cents or less until September 11! Stock up on your reading to help you get through the anxiety of the election season and the stress of the holidays. I've got two books involved. Which ones? You'll have to look at the list and find out! 

Out for a JOG.

Another trash day, another chance to play JOG, or Judging Others' Garbage. And we have some good ones today! 

Uh-oh! A mirror! Notice that the owner carefully places it out on the curb. He does not want to be cut to bloody ribbons by shattered glass. But he's perfectly fine with letting the garbagemen take the chance. After all, they use one of those rear-loader trucks that periodically require shuffling garbage into the interior, which means there's got to be shattered glass involved at some point. Good luck, trashmen! 

I suppose I could mention that this also will subject the garbagemen to seven years of bad luck for breaking a mirror. Why seven years? Well, according to Barry Markovsky at the University of South Carolina, the Greeks and Romans had various superstitions related to a person's reflection, and when the Romans developed quality glass mirrors, they transferred the bad-luck juju to the breaking of the reflective surface. It should have meant bad luck for life, but the Romans also "believed that the body renewed itself every seven years," so there was a statute of limitations. Which is interesting, because in fact all the atoms in the human body are replaced in seven years (most in the first year), and yet the human consciousness continues seamlessly, which makes it seem like the Romans were onto something. 

Man, Bumble's had it. I've seen him around for years, but he's toast. Him and his empty box of Christmas cheer. And you know why? Because if you look closely, you'll see that Hermy did not remove the teeth of this Bumble. That's right -- because he was not rendered harmless, Yukon Cornelius had to kill this Bumble. Blew his arm right off. It's too sad. I can't go on. 

Quoting from the town's announcement vis-a-vis furniture: "Bulk/Large Item pick-up begins the 1st Thursday in April; it will end the last Friday in December 2023." Yeah, but this is just one little chair, right? They can squeeze that in. Sure, they can. Or at least, after you've polished off that case of Stella you probably would think so. 

So there I go again, Judgey McGarbageface, judging everyone's poor refuse behavior. What are you putting out on YOUR curb? 

21 years of bad luck.

My wife got a new vanity, which means she has a much nicer place to apply her makeup and such. So the mirror over the old bureau was sentenced to the trash collectors.

It's one of those trifold mirrors, so you can be discouraged by your reflection in three different angles. 

You know the type.

I've mentioned before that our garbagemen will take anything -- anything but a solid-iron basketball hoop bracket, that is. It's the only thing I have seen them refuse. So I duly schlepped the mirror(s) out to the curb for pickup. 

But then the old paganistic superstitious side of me piped up and said, "They're gonna bust that mirror. Are you consigning them to seven years of bad luck? No, wait, twenty-one years? Or will it just redound to you, since you're the one making them do it?"  

So then I wondered how we got into the superstition about broken mirrors and the very specific sentence of seven years' bad luck for the crime. 

According to an article by the University of South Carolina's Barry Markovsky, Romans first made mirrors from polished metals and "believed their gods observed souls through these devices. To damage a mirror was considered so disrespectful that people thought it compelled the gods to rain bad luck on anyone so careless." As for the seven years, Romans "believed that the body renewed itself every seven years," so once your body had been replaced entirely from the time of the breakage, you would be a new person and unbound by your disrespectful act. 

Were the Romans nutty about this? Maybe they were just off by a few years. You may have heard the estimate that 98 percent of our body's atoms are replaced every year, and if you want to go down the quantum rabbit hole on this, be my guest. I ain't got time for that now. 

I can only say that I don't believe the Roman gods are watching me through the mirror, so I eschew the notion that I'm going to have bad luck until 2043 if those three mirrors break. In fact, I'd wager that if I do have bad luck until then, it’s just my own bad karma, that's all. 

Kindly read instructions.

China -- where the Chinese Death Virus has boomeranged and causing brutal lockdowns, or perhaps is providing the excuse for some kind of mob control -- has slowed a lot of its manufacturing. This is causing all kinds of financial issues, and exposing the nation's preposterous real-estate overvaluations. One source, Zero Hedge, however, suggests that China may be slowing its factories on purpose: 

What if China is purposely shutting down its country to wreak havoc on the global supply chain even further and to exert its power over the quality of lives of the western world?... What if China wants to not only exert its influence by backing its currency, but also by keeping its production means on a tighter leash: more for the benefit of its own people, and less for the benefits of Americans exporting dollars. How would China show the rest of the world in a passive, non-confrontational way, exactly just how much power they have over our quality of life?

Well, whatever it is, I hope more stuff gets made in the United States, or at least in countries where English is not quite so foreign. If so, the instructions will be much more legible. 

Here are some recent examples I've encountered where the language is not horrible, but... off. First up, an under-sink organizer:

The problem with insserting B2 and A2 is that nothing is labeled. Plus, "Assemble the combination of steps 1 and 2" as an instruction can only yield one thought:

Fortunately this little organizer is not too tricky and could be assembled without instructions if necessary. In fact, the instructions might be more of a hinderance. 

This box contained spray bottles for oil, with stinless caps and for which oil may be sprinkled for reduced calorie (as opposed to just pouring oil in the pan, which leads to more calorie). The dimensions of the bottles are interesting, but not very helpful. The sprinkling, though, is not ensure, because after a few uses the spray head had reduced the spray to a stream. I wind up using a brush to ensure pan coverage, which I could have done without the spray bottle.  

This last one isn't so bad, but it does have an attitude I see common in the promotion of electronic products from the East:

Charge fast, live more! So many things like this are sold with the promise to bring your dull, frustrating existence from the darkness of the past into the bright adventure of the future. Power quick! Go skydiving! Meet exciting people! Eat in places with cloth napkins! Don't just sit around like an idiot, waiting for your phone to charge! 

For all your Engrish needs, I recommend the Reddit site on the topic. I never thought I would recommend anything on Reddit, but times have changed. Use Reddit to snap in place shown by the arrow! Live more! 

Joining together, falling apart.

The Babylon Bee hit one out of the park again the other day: "Archaeologists Uncover Missing Chapter Of Job Where He Has To Put Together IKEA Furniture":

"We knew the suffering of Job was bad, but had no clue it was this bad until now," said Dr. Philippe Domino, professor of Babylonian Studies at Oxford. The new passage of scripture was found miraculously preserved in a bronze age IKEA catalog. He believes it may have been hidden by Jews during the Babylonian exile.

Many of us find that the more we put furniture together, the more we personally fall to pieces. I note that there is an IKEA app, but to my surprise it is just about shopping. I expected it to have a series of increasingly difficult puzzles followed by an escape-the-room game.

But I don't want to blame everything on IKEA. The crib I was asked to help assemble last month wasn't one of theirs. The friend who called said that the instructions explicitly demanded two people for the job, and his wife wasn't up to being a coequal furniture lifter. He also seemed a little daunted by the instructions. That daunted me, because he's a very smart guy and can handle complex projects. If he was worried, what would I think?

Still, the Guy Code calls on one to act when a brother needs help, so of course I couldn't wait.

The thing is, while all consumer-assembled furniture has its little joys and complications in the instructions, cribs have the highest safety standard of any piece of furniture in the house, for obvious reasons. Only something like a self-assembled oven would be worse.  

I tried to be prepared. I printed out a copy of the assembly instructions before I went over. I read it and made notes. It looked simple enough. But no, like any good puzzle adventure, it had hidden traps that would hold us up as we went. One example: The assembly required three different sizes of bolts, which were packed together and were very close in size. Well, of course we used two bolts that were too short early in the process, and you'd better believe that made a difference down the line when the 1/4-inch-longer bolts wouldn't fit. For another: The assembly was almost entirely connected with barrel nuts, which kept rolling in the wrong direction at the worst possible time. Little things like that required stopping, reconsidering, finding, and fixing on a few occasions. I entered the arena like Tool Man Fred, but left humbled, but wiser. I'm glad no one was drinking beer.

In the end we got it done, and it's a lovely piece, sturdier than my own house, a crib that the great Shecky Weeble himself would applaud. The best part about it is that it converts into a bed, so it will suit the baby until he's ready for high school, I think. I should be up to helping assemble a bed by that point.

And I'm glad IKEA doesn't make pianos. They would call them PJANK and they would be as hard to assemble as a nuclear reactor.