What's everyone up to right now?

[Jackalope]

Coffee maker went kaput (they don't make appliances like they used to). Ordered a new one that's arriving in the morning.

(Bold mine.)

True story: When my parents married in 1950, my grandparents (mum's side) gave them a brand-new English Electric refrigerator for a wedding gift. They finally got rid of it in 2007. Not because it didn't work - they gave it to one of my brothers who needed a fridge.

Boru

Also a true story - when my grandmother passed, the only refrigerator they ever had still was in daily use. It cost a bloody fortune to run unfortunately or I would have used it as a garage fridge.

[awty]

(Bold mine.)

True story: When my parents married in 1950, my grandparents (mum's side) gave them a brand-new English Electric refrigerator for a wedding gift. They finally got rid of it in 2007. Not because it didn't work - they gave it to one of my brothers who needed a fridge.

Boru

Also a true story - when my grandmother passed, the only refrigerator they ever had still was in daily use.  It cost a bloody fortune to run unfortunately or I would have used it as a garage fridge.

When my parents split up after 47 years of marriage, my mother gathered the oldest, crappiest kitchen items to "let" dad have.  The one thing that wasn't crappy was the toaster they had received as a wedding gift.

[Jackalope]

Back to guiding scuba tours after a taking the summer off. One of my clients today is 11 years old - I'm not particularly fond of guiding kids but this one was great.

[Rev. Rye]

Just found a short that’s been haunting me for nigh on a quarter century. In the days before Adult Swim, Cartoon Network played a few different shows late at night for those of us who couldn’t sleep. One of those shows was O Canada, which showcased animated shorts from in Canada. I remembered a few of the shorts they showed, but one film stuck in my head for a long time and until less than an hour ago, all I could remember were two scenes: one taking place during an autopsy, and another one where a clown showed up to somebody’s house in the middle of the night for no reason. Every couple of years, I would have a flare-up of the mystery and I’d try and figure out what the short was. Unfortunately, searching “midnight clown autopsy cartoon Canada” never yielded results. And then, I discovered that someone uploaded a video to YouTube of every short known to be shown on O Canada. And that video delivered.

Gentlemen, Behold! Deadly Deposits AKA The Midnight Canadian Clown Autopsy Cartoon




And here’s the rest of it:

[Paraselene]

Ordered a new telly for half off via an early Black Friday sale.

[Angrboda]

Spending $150 on a lifetime subscription to PLEX Pass. It's what manages my DVR and live TV guides. It will pay for itself in two years, but it's still painful to click the button.

[Jackalope]

Planning our 2026 vacation. By happy coincidence, there's a total solar eclipse in northern Spain during our stay - we might have to make a side trip.

[Fireball]

Planning our 2026 vacation.  By happy coincidence, there's a total solar eclipse in northern Spain during our stay - we might have to make a side trip.

I envy you. If I didn't hate flying and travel in general, I'd be doing this sort of thing. Arthritis in many joints also precludes a lot of it.

[Jackalope]

Planning our 2026 vacation.  By happy coincidence, there's a total solar eclipse in northern Spain during our stay - we might have to make a side trip.

I envy you. If I didn't hate flying and travel in general, I'd be doing this sort of thing. Arthritis in many joints also precludes a lot of it.

The truth is, I hate flying but it's a necessary evil. Arthritis is catching up with me too, and there's places I want to see before I'm too old to enjoy them.

[Rev. Rye]

I had a short period of time where I wanted to find yet another short film I remembered. I watched 12 years ago for a class. I remembered it vividly for years partly for two things:
A) A scene where a doctor picks petals from a giant flower and uses it to tell whether or not someone has cancer. He sings the entire process like an opera.
B) Being part of a bizarre trend in the films we watched where, every other week, we'd see a movie where someone randomly dies of cancer. First was Y Tu Mama Tambien, the second was this film, third came with Isabel Coixet's segment of Paris Je T'Aime. The teachers didn't notice the trend until I pointed it out in the middle of class.

Fortunately, the path to finding it again was easier. First I tried to Google it, but I found absolutely nothing. I even tried putting every detail I remembered into ChatGPT to see if it could figure anything out. All I got were films that were either way too old or made after I would have graduated from Columbia. After this, I tried to look through a DVD that featured another short film that I remembered we had also watched that day. Then I figured out: All I had to do was find my notebooks for the class. That was hard, but before I found it, I remembered one other thing: after I made that remark, I handed in a paper that was part story, part journal entry and I included a little rant about the trend I noticed. Sure enough, I name-dropped the specific short film.

Here is A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation:




And here's the other film I remembered watching that day: