Category: Fluff

De-Motivational Question

Inspired by a touchy-feely manager’s class I was obligated to take today.

In order for me to win, someone else must: (pick one)

  • Lose
  • Help
  • Profit

Gibberish German

There’s a bit of fake information floating around the internet.  Shocking, I know.

The Germans do not (before this year, anyway) use the word “wuffenmaker” for dog.

However, I am thoroughly in love with this word and very may well use this as my next dog’s surname.

A Real, Live Nigerian Prince Scam

typical Nigerian scam letter
Click the image to enlarge

Friends, I have arrived.

Someone paid real money to mail me my very own Nigerian Prince scam.  I haven’t seen one of these in years, and never before have I received one via the US Postal service.  They have always been via email, which makes sense because it’s cheap.

But this wonderful communiqué was printed on the best 8.5″ x 11″ bog-standard printer paper that money can buy, lovingly edited to include the finest factual and grammatical errors (“Reputable Bank”, a Canadian COVID victim in February of 2020, strange misuse of quotations, commas, and capitalization, etc), and directs me to communicate with a superb free email account.  They even included a black and white clip art picture.  I’m amazed at the cheek of it all.

You’re not anyone until someone spends real money on scamming you.  I’m flattered!

Shower-thought about WALL-E

I was today years old when I figured out that WALL-E (2008) is just a re-telling of the movie Idiocracy (2006).

Don’t take this the wrong way.  I like both movies.  However, the parallels I see off the top of my head:

  • The world is a mess, literally and figuratively;
  • People are obsessed with low-grade entertainment and let their minds (and, in the case of WALL-E, their bodies) fall apart, while machines and automation have kept society from collapsing
  • Nobody knows how to get plants to grow;
  • Someone from the past holds the key to saving the world

There are probably more, this is all going from memory while I was in the shower this morning.

In which I go off on a wild tare

So, we have this bay window right? And its big, and pretty, and has a decent amount of room for a display in it. That decent amount of room is usually covered in all kinds of detritus of the house. It leaks cold air like a sieve. You can feel it flowing over your hand like a liquid if you put your hands on the bottom.

Not today. Not any longer. I did a thing. I took everything out of it. The Terrarium. The random horse statue. The weirdly healthy african violet. All re-homed (some of it needs to be permanently re-homed, but I’ll get there).

Once I had it clear, I cut several pieces of 3/4 inch foam insulation to fit in it and covered the shelf.

 

Then I had to trim it to make it look pretty.

Once it was (almost) completely covered, I hit my stash. A couple years ago I made a quilted circle skirt. I had a fair amount of the cotton batting left over that I should have thrown out years ago. I used that to cover the foam insulation and make it look like snow. Its cotton with no glitter in it so we don’t have to worry about microplastics. I used scraps to fill in the gaps that I couldn’t get into with the foam core.

My ability to throw things out has taken a huge hit, but hey. It looks amazing.

Once it was covered, I broke out the lasercut village display Michele gave us years ago. It is really pretty and I love it. I hung two strings of LED lights around it, and added our window candles. It looks so cheery and light!

I sent pictures to Michele. Hopefully she likes them.

I can’t feel cold air pouring out of the windows anymore, so hopefully that is all set, too. It would be nice to not have to plastic the window this year.

Lies, and the lying liars that tell them

There are strangers in your life that you should never lie to:

Your doctor or therapist because they won’t judge you, want to make you healthier, and can only make the best treatment plan with your full cooperation.

Your lawyer because they won’t judge you and can only provide the best legal advice when they know all the facts.

Your dentist and oral hygienist because, regardless of your lies, as soon as you open your filthy mouth they know whether you’ve flossed or not.

Stars

Last night, Beta spent half an hour out on the deck. She was wearing the wool cape I got her last Christmas. She had her new noise-cancelling headphones that block so many of the sounds that bother her. She used the new family telescope to check out the Pleiades.

That was pretty awesome.