Metatalktail Hour: I'm Gonna Do Something With It Eventually June 12, 2021 5:13 PM Subscribe
As a kind of complement to last weekend's question, I want to know what thing/object/item has been sitting on your desk or a table or a shelf (or moved between various among them) for Objectively Too Long because dangit one of these days you're gonna get around to thing you were gonna do with it or use it for.
Or, hey, talk about just about anything else (except grah grah politics). What are you up to this weekend? What's a nice thing recently, or something you're looking forward to? And if you've got ideas for future Metatalktail prompts, drop us a line at the contact form and we'll add 'em to the pile.
Or, hey, talk about just about anything else (except grah grah politics). What are you up to this weekend? What's a nice thing recently, or something you're looking forward to? And if you've got ideas for future Metatalktail prompts, drop us a line at the contact form and we'll add 'em to the pile.
High up on top of a bookshelf, I have a box of plastic bugs and army toys that I collected ~30 years ago, after I got to play Tom Moldvay's plastic toy game "Dino Wars" (an insert in Dragon Magazine #166) at a local game convention. I intended to use them in a cross between "Dino Wars" and the movie Them! (1954). It hasn't happened yet, but you never know.
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:56 PM on June 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:56 PM on June 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
Once upon a time I discovered that one could buy surplus aviation hardware on eBay. Being a complete aviation nerd who will for mostly-financial reasons probably never sit in the front office of anything more exotic than a Cessna in real life, I’m really into simulators, and now I have a whole box of surplus kit — mostly switches, including some fancy Honeywell magnetically held toggles that are basically unobtanium unless you get real lucky, but also the keypad from a FMS, the landing gear handle off a British Tornado fighter jet, and a Mi-8 helicopter’s collective controller (the lever you move to control how much lift your helicopter generates. The idea is to design and build imitation control panels for some of the aircraft I simulate, but due to my having “commit to producing a circuit board” phobia, I’ve just mostly got a big cardboard box of exotic switches, which started two apartments and five years ago and continues to grow. Someday I’ll actually start building panels…
posted by Alterscape at 7:09 PM on June 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Alterscape at 7:09 PM on June 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
I have over 60 empty pickle jars in my shop i am unlikely to ever use to organize anything, have other systems for that. But I can't quite bring myself to take them to recycling because MANY CONTAINERS OF SAME SIZE AND TYPE syndrome.
posted by maxwelton at 7:33 PM on June 12, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 7:33 PM on June 12, 2021 [13 favorites]
I recently purchased a sleek new ice cube bin, so the irritating flimsy white plastic one that developed a hole like, immediately after I put ice cubes in it, dangit, is now full of plastic bottle caps of various sizes I've been saving up to make some kind of citrus themed hanging thing like a wind chime but not (because plastic), for a neighbor child who is really into wind chimes, so much so that they get LOUD depending on the size of the, whatyoucallit, wind thingy at the bottom that makes the central wire/chain/horizontal metal doohickey clang against the vertical pipes; so I keep shuffling around my office the not-good-ice-cube-bin, but now secondarily useful-of-milk-caps-seltzer caps-yogurt caps bin, and I bought some lovely bright nylon cord to string them on and I'm thinking I should probably get some kind of dremel to drill the holes into the caps, because my drill is old and fiddly to change bits, but I want one that's a bit sturdier than the basic craft-type models I've seen, also what kind of paint to use, and sealer, once I get around to drilling holes with the dremel I ought to decide on at some point.
Wobbuffet, I decorate my tree in December with plastic bugs and sea creatures I got at a science museum.
posted by winesong at 7:50 PM on June 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
Wobbuffet, I decorate my tree in December with plastic bugs and sea creatures I got at a science museum.
posted by winesong at 7:50 PM on June 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have a stack of CDs I've been meaning to rip.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:52 PM on June 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:52 PM on June 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
ukulele - bought during pandemic, overestimated my level of dedication during the pandemic.
seeds of all sorts - my herb garden is gonna need something more than a global pandemic to get me to actually start planting anything
However, I also got a Rubik's cube during the pandemic, and followed through with that, to the point where I know that a Rubik's cube is probably the worst cube that I could have bought, and the kids just call them cubes now. Recently got down to 2.5 minutes, not bad for an middle-aged person.
posted by skewed at 7:55 PM on June 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
seeds of all sorts - my herb garden is gonna need something more than a global pandemic to get me to actually start planting anything
However, I also got a Rubik's cube during the pandemic, and followed through with that, to the point where I know that a Rubik's cube is probably the worst cube that I could have bought, and the kids just call them cubes now. Recently got down to 2.5 minutes, not bad for an middle-aged person.
posted by skewed at 7:55 PM on June 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
A 4" by 4" by 6" solid block of aluminum, for me. (It was meant to be a cube, but the spot I was looking at had an offcut for cheap)
A while back I got some hotrod vaporizer that's basically an oversized heater for its size attached to a titanium tube & screen. It's fantastic, pretty much instantly ready to go. Except in a group setting, it overheats. And while there's more traditional methods of dealing with this, I got the idea and ran the math for "What if I milled out a hole into a block of aluminum, then stuck the hot end of the pen-thing into it as a heat sink?"
Of course, since then it's sat around, as a monument to my hubris. But some day. My hotrod heatsink will live.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:41 PM on June 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
A while back I got some hotrod vaporizer that's basically an oversized heater for its size attached to a titanium tube & screen. It's fantastic, pretty much instantly ready to go. Except in a group setting, it overheats. And while there's more traditional methods of dealing with this, I got the idea and ran the math for "What if I milled out a hole into a block of aluminum, then stuck the hot end of the pen-thing into it as a heat sink?"
Of course, since then it's sat around, as a monument to my hubris. But some day. My hotrod heatsink will live.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:41 PM on June 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have 2 nylon string guitars, one full size and one half size, and a steel string Baby Taylor. A few years back I took up playing guitar after a 45 year hiatus. I'm mainly interested in finger-picking which I do with my fingernails.
After a series of unfortunate events involving the splitting and tearing off almost all my right hand nails, the guitars have been sitting unplayed while I wait for my nails to grow back. I need to give away the half size guitar to a kid to play but I don't know any kids. During Covid, I forgot about trying to find a kid that wants one.
Meanwhile I've been stabbing my left fingertips for diabetes testing so they are all torn up too. I feel bad that I have procrastinated practicing until conditions are just right. My hands are too small and weak to ever play very well. I just wanna be able to play some porch guitar for own amusement and sing some old songs. At least I dust and tune them every so often.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
After a series of unfortunate events involving the splitting and tearing off almost all my right hand nails, the guitars have been sitting unplayed while I wait for my nails to grow back. I need to give away the half size guitar to a kid to play but I don't know any kids. During Covid, I forgot about trying to find a kid that wants one.
Meanwhile I've been stabbing my left fingertips for diabetes testing so they are all torn up too. I feel bad that I have procrastinated practicing until conditions are just right. My hands are too small and weak to ever play very well. I just wanna be able to play some porch guitar for own amusement and sing some old songs. At least I dust and tune them every so often.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
I have a hammer on my desk. I do not recall why it got there. I think I was intending to hang a picture or two. Regardless of why it originally got there, I now keep it there. Depending on the circumstances, I think sometimes that I will smash the desk or smash the monitor. I never do, of course. Sometimes I see it as inspiration. Keep hammering away! Sometimes I see it as a warning. If you don't pay attention or concentrate, no matter how many times you have done it, if you miss, you smash your thumb. Sometimes it is just a hammer representing procrastination. Why didn't I put it away? Sometimes it represents a simple tool. Elegant in its function and simplicity. It reminds me not to complicate things and to face things head on. Sometimes it is just a paperweight.
posted by AugustWest at 10:58 PM on June 12, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by AugustWest at 10:58 PM on June 12, 2021 [15 favorites]
A Burroughs Adding Machine. I have this idea of water proofing it and put it next the garden on this bluish steel 3x3 table.
(Burroughs voice)
"Upon seeing this dreck appendage near the garden, the familiarity is extant. Make a unsuitable target, ricochet...Though must come to the rust tax while my name is on that, it's not mine to shoot, blow-up or steal, thus I must ask a NFT charge of $25 dollars as there is man with the horse soon to be boarding a train to Albuquerque"
posted by clavdivs at 11:16 PM on June 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
(Burroughs voice)
"Upon seeing this dreck appendage near the garden, the familiarity is extant. Make a unsuitable target, ricochet...Though must come to the rust tax while my name is on that, it's not mine to shoot, blow-up or steal, thus I must ask a NFT charge of $25 dollars as there is man with the horse soon to be boarding a train to Albuquerque"
posted by clavdivs at 11:16 PM on June 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have a set of really pretty D&D dice, complete with a silk-lined tray I made to roll them in, and a beautiful little silk bag with Chinese dragon patterns that I also made. My D&D group petered out during lockdown so I don't know when I will have a chance to use these again. Vaccine rollout here is not great so it's going to be a long time before in person games are possible again. But looking at the dice sort of gives me hope that I'll use them again.
In the "what's happening" category, I had an interesting experience at the pathology lab. While I was waiting to have a blood test, I could hear the nurse chatting to the person ahead of me in the queue. A very old man.
She was telling him misinformation about the Covid vaccine, anti-vax stuff, conspiracy theories. It was really unsettling to be aware that the person who was about to draw my blood was behaving in such an unprofessional way and held those beliefs.
I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't confront her, just got through the process of the blood test, but afterwards I phoned the pathology lab customer support line and reported her.
I did not really expect much to come from that, but the next moment I got a call from the regional manager thanking me repeatedly for my call. The manager (a super friendly chatty woman) told me that she'd been interacting with this nurse for some time, trying to help her get over her fear of the vaccine and help her understand how it works. But she hadn't known that the nurse was actively spreading misinformation, and would deal with it very seriously.
The manager told me that she was also working in a vaccine clinic and super passionate about helping as many people as possible get vaccinated.
It was just so good to see for myself that there are people out there who are working so hard to get the vaccine process to work,despite all the challenges.
posted by Zumbador at 11:41 PM on June 12, 2021 [30 favorites]
In the "what's happening" category, I had an interesting experience at the pathology lab. While I was waiting to have a blood test, I could hear the nurse chatting to the person ahead of me in the queue. A very old man.
She was telling him misinformation about the Covid vaccine, anti-vax stuff, conspiracy theories. It was really unsettling to be aware that the person who was about to draw my blood was behaving in such an unprofessional way and held those beliefs.
I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't confront her, just got through the process of the blood test, but afterwards I phoned the pathology lab customer support line and reported her.
I did not really expect much to come from that, but the next moment I got a call from the regional manager thanking me repeatedly for my call. The manager (a super friendly chatty woman) told me that she'd been interacting with this nurse for some time, trying to help her get over her fear of the vaccine and help her understand how it works. But she hadn't known that the nurse was actively spreading misinformation, and would deal with it very seriously.
The manager told me that she was also working in a vaccine clinic and super passionate about helping as many people as possible get vaccinated.
It was just so good to see for myself that there are people out there who are working so hard to get the vaccine process to work,despite all the challenges.
posted by Zumbador at 11:41 PM on June 12, 2021 [30 favorites]
Oh that would be my Romanian . . . Swahili . . . Hausa . . . Tibetan dictionary. My last year in grad school in 1982, I got YardSale-itis: touring the Western Suburbs of Boston buying reference books for my, then just a twinkle, children. 25c paperbacks, 50c for case-bound. The kids were born in the mid-90s and before they could read [poof] internet rendered hobby-interest dictionaries obsolete. Atlases from 1921 and 1938 have held their "value", because snap-shot.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:12 AM on June 13, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:12 AM on June 13, 2021 [4 favorites]
I bought an air fryer on sale during the holidays. It sat unopened on my dining room table until March. In March, I took it out of the box. It is now June, and it is still on my dining room table, unused.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:29 AM on June 13, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:29 AM on June 13, 2021 [10 favorites]
I need to move within the next month or two and that means I have to pack up everything that has been in my apartment for 15 years and that means I am going to have to evaluate whether I do want to keep any of these such items that have cropped up in that time span and I don't want to think about it.
If pressed I would say any of the random craft stuff, mostly the paper and the yarn. Although I'm suddenly enjoying a renewed burst of passion for knitting, which will help on multiple levels ("I will have less yarn to pack, I can take that shawl to WORK when it's done so I won't have to pack that EITHER, and it'll free up the plastic tub that yarn has been in and I can use that for something else, yay!").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:33 AM on June 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
If pressed I would say any of the random craft stuff, mostly the paper and the yarn. Although I'm suddenly enjoying a renewed burst of passion for knitting, which will help on multiple levels ("I will have less yarn to pack, I can take that shawl to WORK when it's done so I won't have to pack that EITHER, and it'll free up the plastic tub that yarn has been in and I can use that for something else, yay!").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:33 AM on June 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have about $12 in Canadian coins, the change left over from a visit in 1999, that I have hucked across the country three times, fully intending to at some point either use them or give them to a visiting Canadian friend. I have been to Canada since then! I have had several Canadian friends visit! I never freaking remember that they are actual money that I could give to someone for the purpose of obtaining goods and/or services!
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 6:02 AM on June 13, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 6:02 AM on June 13, 2021 [9 favorites]
The Objectively Too Long Project is a Korg Poly 800 synth (that I have literally owned since 1984) where the main memory battery has been dead for years and needs replacing, only the thing is while researching how to do that I stumbled on the Moog Slayer Filter Mod, which of course sounds like a fantastic idea, and of course if I'm gonna go through the trouble of opening up the gear to fix it I might as well do the modification while I've got it open, but that's a rather more involved project which means I need to clear space and time on my workbench (kitchen table) to do it, only these other projects somehow keep appearing . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 6:27 AM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by soundguy99 at 6:27 AM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have some digital scales in the larder, still in the box, been so for some years, against the day I autopsy some Cornish pasties to see how the square-cube law impacts the pasty experience at different sizes.
posted by biffa at 6:33 AM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by biffa at 6:33 AM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
My "shelf" would be the loft above my shop bathroom but upon it I have the disassembled frames of a pair of spindle rocking chairs that originally lived on the veranda of my father's family's summer house at Winnipeg Beach.
I'm not quite sure how my father ended up with them as the family sold the place in the 50s while he was still a kid.
At any rate he shleped them all over the country until about 20 years ago when I picked them up.
The spindles need sanding which will be a task of hundreds of hours before assembling but I'll get to it one of these years.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 AM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm not quite sure how my father ended up with them as the family sold the place in the 50s while he was still a kid.
At any rate he shleped them all over the country until about 20 years ago when I picked them up.
The spindles need sanding which will be a task of hundreds of hours before assembling but I'll get to it one of these years.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 AM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Over ten years ago I asked this question on AskMe. I still have a huge collection of corks, in fact it's even larger than it was. We don't drink as much wine as we used to and I no longer save my corks, but I can't bring myself to throw out them out. I know I will probably never actually do anything with them but... when if I need them some day?
A couple years ago I took a maker workshop out in the Catskills. While we were there one guy was using a chainsaw mill to cut slabs from a couple trees. At the end of the workshop everyone was told to take a slab or two home. So I have a three-inch thick, three foot long live edge slab of cherry and a six foot one of walnut. I am hoping to make benches out of both of them, an indoor one with the cherry and an outdoor bench with the walnut, which isn't in great shape to begin with. They probably still need to dry for another year or two but I wonder if I'll actually get around to doing anything with them.
Some good news: Ten years ago I bought a unicycle. I learned to ride one as a teenager so I decided I wanted to learn again. I bought it, I put it together, and it sat in my garage for ten years. Literally every single time I'd be in my garage I'd look at it and think "I really need to learn to ride that." I finally started learning again a month or two ago and I've been riding almost every night since. I even bought a new one with a bigger wheel so I can ride on our local rail trail. What started out as kind of a goof is now my nightly exercise. So, I guess the point is to never give up on these things. They may sit around for years and years, but maybe one day you actually will get around to doing something with it.
posted by bondcliff at 8:19 AM on June 13, 2021 [15 favorites]
A couple years ago I took a maker workshop out in the Catskills. While we were there one guy was using a chainsaw mill to cut slabs from a couple trees. At the end of the workshop everyone was told to take a slab or two home. So I have a three-inch thick, three foot long live edge slab of cherry and a six foot one of walnut. I am hoping to make benches out of both of them, an indoor one with the cherry and an outdoor bench with the walnut, which isn't in great shape to begin with. They probably still need to dry for another year or two but I wonder if I'll actually get around to doing anything with them.
Some good news: Ten years ago I bought a unicycle. I learned to ride one as a teenager so I decided I wanted to learn again. I bought it, I put it together, and it sat in my garage for ten years. Literally every single time I'd be in my garage I'd look at it and think "I really need to learn to ride that." I finally started learning again a month or two ago and I've been riding almost every night since. I even bought a new one with a bigger wheel so I can ride on our local rail trail. What started out as kind of a goof is now my nightly exercise. So, I guess the point is to never give up on these things. They may sit around for years and years, but maybe one day you actually will get around to doing something with it.
posted by bondcliff at 8:19 AM on June 13, 2021 [15 favorites]
I bought an Eastlake marble top drop well dresser (not this one, but quite similar to it) for $200 at an online auction at least 3 years ago, with plans to turn it into a bathroom vanity. My long-term goal is to have a Eastlake Victorian as the dominant furnishing style of my house. I've got a vessel sink and everything to go with with (and new light fixtures and towel racks and so on for the bathroom) for this project. I could probably knock it out in a weekend, but there's always been something higher priority whenever I have free time. It's sitting on my front porch getting full of spiders right now.
posted by drlith at 9:09 AM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by drlith at 9:09 AM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
Oh, gosh, yes, reading back over the rest of the responses, there's also the $300 birthday harpsichord project...
posted by drlith at 9:12 AM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by drlith at 9:12 AM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
Oh lord...how much time y'all got?
Too little, otherwise those projects would at least have been progressing past the Acquiring Stuff phase. Or not.
I've basically got two lists of projects. The large lists, that is. One is for finishing converting a building with two workshops that happens to have some living space attached into a building that kindof resembles a house with two large workshops. This is currently mostly paused, waiting for an inheritance to be released. The other is for a pile of circuit boards, components, circuit board designs, SBCs, code snippets and ideas, enclosures and related stuff to be turned into working, finished projects. It is not a small pile. Though this list might have a fair chance of starting to move now that the controller for the SMD oven is basically working, with calibration and a couple of test runs still to be done.
Of course there aresome smaller projects, some related to the above lists but not blocking, others just matters that have cropped up needing to be fixed/checked/answered/followed-up on. Stuff.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:38 AM on June 13, 2021
Too little, otherwise those projects would at least have been progressing past the Acquiring Stuff phase. Or not.
I've basically got two lists of projects. The large lists, that is. One is for finishing converting a building with two workshops that happens to have some living space attached into a building that kindof resembles a house with two large workshops. This is currently mostly paused, waiting for an inheritance to be released. The other is for a pile of circuit boards, components, circuit board designs, SBCs, code snippets and ideas, enclosures and related stuff to be turned into working, finished projects. It is not a small pile. Though this list might have a fair chance of starting to move now that the controller for the SMD oven is basically working, with calibration and a couple of test runs still to be done.
Of course there are
posted by Stoneshop at 9:38 AM on June 13, 2021
I have a pile of recipes on my desk just waiting to be typed up and added to the family cookbook. I also want to convert the volume to weight measurements for the baking ones. I went through the pile this morning looking for my grandma's banana bread recipe, but I can't find it. I swear I typed it at one point, but I can't find the file either. I'm not even sure that anyone else in the family has a copy. Shit shit shit.
posted by kathrynm at 9:49 AM on June 13, 2021
posted by kathrynm at 9:49 AM on June 13, 2021
I would like to elves to come and make shoes of my many incomplete projects. I got some antlers, with the aim of making a ceiling light; I'd like to do that.
posted by theora55 at 9:56 AM on June 13, 2021
posted by theora55 at 9:56 AM on June 13, 2021
Oh lord...how much time y'all got?
My sentiments exactly.
The little tabletpc with a smashed screen, waiting to find new life as a home server? The attempt at making canvas-and-bike-tire shoes? The electric leafblower, which has been selected to donate it's motor and other internal organs to science? My partner's favorite knit hat, past due for darning?
I am finally getting back to constructing weird bicycles, though, which is good because I've been collecting scrap bikes to steal parts from and they take up a lot of space in the shed & closet! I spent most of yesterday reassembling segments of our two recumbent trikes into a back-to-back tandem kind of like these ones. It didn't work - I could ride it solo, but adding a stoker made it hopelessly unstable. Probably the frame wasn't stiff enough and/or the steering geometry wasn't quite right and/or we didn't allow enough time to learn to ride it. Most likely all three. Then we needed our trikes back in working order, so no more tandem for now...
posted by sibilatorix at 10:00 AM on June 13, 2021
My sentiments exactly.
The little tabletpc with a smashed screen, waiting to find new life as a home server? The attempt at making canvas-and-bike-tire shoes? The electric leafblower, which has been selected to donate it's motor and other internal organs to science? My partner's favorite knit hat, past due for darning?
I am finally getting back to constructing weird bicycles, though, which is good because I've been collecting scrap bikes to steal parts from and they take up a lot of space in the shed & closet! I spent most of yesterday reassembling segments of our two recumbent trikes into a back-to-back tandem kind of like these ones. It didn't work - I could ride it solo, but adding a stoker made it hopelessly unstable. Probably the frame wasn't stiff enough and/or the steering geometry wasn't quite right and/or we didn't allow enough time to learn to ride it. Most likely all three. Then we needed our trikes back in working order, so no more tandem for now...
posted by sibilatorix at 10:00 AM on June 13, 2021
I could probably find candidates in every corner of this room, but the one on my desk as I type this is the life size replica skull I bought to do many many more anatomy sketches of than I have so far. I feel as though my use of time has become more efficient in general since these empty sockets began staring me down all day, but of course I can't prove it.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:02 AM on June 13, 2021
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:02 AM on June 13, 2021
Ok, new day, fresh energy, so...expanding on my hot-take instant gut reaction from up-thread:
I have an lifelong history of getting interested in many more things than I have time/money/perseverance for, 99% of which I've therefore ended up abandoning. A few I can think of off the top of my head:
- Stamp collecting (teens - inherited a half-ass collection from a family member who likely had lost interest in it years ago, I got semi-interested for a summer after which it then sat around for a couple more years before I assume mom gave it all away)
- Martial arts (teens - done at mom's insistence, not interested enough in it to give it the amount of effort it needed, never got past white belt)
- Banjo (college - seemed like a fun idea, schoolwork and study time ganged up and said "you ain't got the time, pal")
- Fencing (college - ditto)
- Restoring an old MG Midget (late 20's - driveable but quite rusty; finally decided it was more trouble than it was worth when the trans seized in 1st gear, sold for parts...fun while it lasted though)
- Bluegrass fiddle (early 30's - I'd played bass for a few years at that point, so the teeny weeny scale of fiddle was too much for a harried tired new parent's fingers to deal with)
The evidence for all those is long-gone, so they may not technically qualify for this thread, but if nothing else the list sets a precedent. Currently, I do have the following incriminating accumulations:
- A closet literally full of trumpets and saxes I haven't played in years because I've lived (and will continue to for the foreseeable future) in an apartment and it would disturb the neighbors.
- A gorgeous upright bass I spent four figures on and a few hundred more finding the right strings to make it really sing and growl; I can't bear the thought of selling it because it's so lovely, but I never play it because playing bass by yourself is boring as hell.
- A couple boxes full of some crusty old bench planes and a bunch of repairing/refurbishing tools and supplies - I fell into a YouTube rabbit-hole of woodworking videos at the beginning of the pandemic and temporarily convinced myself I could make money restoring and re-selling them. Turns out that's amazingly time-consuming if one doesn't have the money and facilities for powered workshop tools. I guess my fantasy of having a spacious airy upper-middle-class woodworking shop in a sun-dappled glade in which to while away my retirement will remain a fantasy...
- A very nice large-diaphragm condenser microphone, stand, XLR-USB preamp, DAW software, and acoustic-foam-lined backdrops that I (have continued to for the last five years or so) vow that I'm going to use to start a new career as a voice-over artist. Only real thing I've done with it so far is voicing a couple of training videos and a creditable performance of a short two-person play (with the help of a housemate) for Librivox.
- A couple boxes of beer-making equipment, plus a couple flats of quart Mason jars* that about once a year I swear I'm going to start using because the stores are SO DAMN FULL OF IPA AND IPA-ADJACENT BEERS that it's driven out all the good beers! AND beer's getting so expensive as well!! I've made some damn good homebrew in the past, and I'd love to make a big batch of nice malty Scotch Ale, but for whatever reason I can't seem to get started on it.
- Runner-Up Category 1: Don't even get me started on the vast snakepit of audio/video/computer/network/power cables, connectors, etc. taking up too large a chunk of another closet. Just...don't. Heaven only knows what's in there anymore; I have no doubt that I've re-bought quite a few things because I can't face the hassle of rummaging through the ultra-tangle to find the perfectly serviceable one I already had.
- Runner-Up Category 2: I suppose I have more kitchen knives than I technically need; but to be fair I do use the majority of them at least occasionally, and I plan** to sell off the rest.
- Runner-Up Category 3: I legit collected, AND listened to, a very large number of CDs in the decades before streaming digital music became a thing. Now I still have them because, as someone else said, I intend to ripall most many at least some of them. (and then I'll likely hang onto them for a few more years before I tackle the issue of selling the ones I can and I have no idea how I'll get rid of the rest; seems a shame to commit them to the landfill...)
- Participant Trophy: I frequently get as far as "Add to Cart" on all sorts of nifty tools (especially Dremel-related stuff) because aw man they'd be so cool to have! But then I remember I don't actually have a valid use for them, so...mm, well, maybe I'll just click "Save for Later", for now....
HOWEVER...to counterbalance the Epic Fail of the above list, two things that I'm delighted to say I do seem to be sticking with:
- Maybe two years ago I bought a mid-level electronic piano to finally tackle my long standing (i.e. long-avoided) aspiration to learn to play keyboards. My dedication isn't always steady but I keep working on it and slowly improving.
- About six months ago I bought a stationary bike and I've managed to stay on a regular exercise schedule - without dreading each next workout, no less! Haven't lost any weight yet, but I feel and sleep much better.
*Cleaning, sterilizing, and re-capping regular beer bottles is a massive PITA. 2-pint widemouth Mason jars are way easier to wash, have reusable screw-on lids, and I only need to deal with half as many of them as I do bottles. Efficiency and ease of maintenance FTW! Assuming they actually get used, of course.
**No, really!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:27 AM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have an lifelong history of getting interested in many more things than I have time/money/perseverance for, 99% of which I've therefore ended up abandoning. A few I can think of off the top of my head:
- Stamp collecting (teens - inherited a half-ass collection from a family member who likely had lost interest in it years ago, I got semi-interested for a summer after which it then sat around for a couple more years before I assume mom gave it all away)
- Martial arts (teens - done at mom's insistence, not interested enough in it to give it the amount of effort it needed, never got past white belt)
- Banjo (college - seemed like a fun idea, schoolwork and study time ganged up and said "you ain't got the time, pal")
- Fencing (college - ditto)
- Restoring an old MG Midget (late 20's - driveable but quite rusty; finally decided it was more trouble than it was worth when the trans seized in 1st gear, sold for parts...fun while it lasted though)
- Bluegrass fiddle (early 30's - I'd played bass for a few years at that point, so the teeny weeny scale of fiddle was too much for a harried tired new parent's fingers to deal with)
The evidence for all those is long-gone, so they may not technically qualify for this thread, but if nothing else the list sets a precedent. Currently, I do have the following incriminating accumulations:
- A closet literally full of trumpets and saxes I haven't played in years because I've lived (and will continue to for the foreseeable future) in an apartment and it would disturb the neighbors.
- A gorgeous upright bass I spent four figures on and a few hundred more finding the right strings to make it really sing and growl; I can't bear the thought of selling it because it's so lovely, but I never play it because playing bass by yourself is boring as hell.
- A couple boxes full of some crusty old bench planes and a bunch of repairing/refurbishing tools and supplies - I fell into a YouTube rabbit-hole of woodworking videos at the beginning of the pandemic and temporarily convinced myself I could make money restoring and re-selling them. Turns out that's amazingly time-consuming if one doesn't have the money and facilities for powered workshop tools. I guess my fantasy of having a spacious airy upper-middle-class woodworking shop in a sun-dappled glade in which to while away my retirement will remain a fantasy...
- A very nice large-diaphragm condenser microphone, stand, XLR-USB preamp, DAW software, and acoustic-foam-lined backdrops that I (have continued to for the last five years or so) vow that I'm going to use to start a new career as a voice-over artist. Only real thing I've done with it so far is voicing a couple of training videos and a creditable performance of a short two-person play (with the help of a housemate) for Librivox.
- A couple boxes of beer-making equipment, plus a couple flats of quart Mason jars* that about once a year I swear I'm going to start using because the stores are SO DAMN FULL OF IPA AND IPA-ADJACENT BEERS that it's driven out all the good beers! AND beer's getting so expensive as well!! I've made some damn good homebrew in the past, and I'd love to make a big batch of nice malty Scotch Ale, but for whatever reason I can't seem to get started on it.
- Runner-Up Category 1: Don't even get me started on the vast snakepit of audio/video/computer/network/power cables, connectors, etc. taking up too large a chunk of another closet. Just...don't. Heaven only knows what's in there anymore; I have no doubt that I've re-bought quite a few things because I can't face the hassle of rummaging through the ultra-tangle to find the perfectly serviceable one I already had.
- Runner-Up Category 2: I suppose I have more kitchen knives than I technically need; but to be fair I do use the majority of them at least occasionally, and I plan** to sell off the rest.
- Runner-Up Category 3: I legit collected, AND listened to, a very large number of CDs in the decades before streaming digital music became a thing. Now I still have them because, as someone else said, I intend to rip
- Participant Trophy: I frequently get as far as "Add to Cart" on all sorts of nifty tools (especially Dremel-related stuff) because aw man they'd be so cool to have! But then I remember I don't actually have a valid use for them, so...mm, well, maybe I'll just click "Save for Later", for now....
HOWEVER...to counterbalance the Epic Fail of the above list, two things that I'm delighted to say I do seem to be sticking with:
- Maybe two years ago I bought a mid-level electronic piano to finally tackle my long standing (i.e. long-avoided) aspiration to learn to play keyboards. My dedication isn't always steady but I keep working on it and slowly improving.
- About six months ago I bought a stationary bike and I've managed to stay on a regular exercise schedule - without dreading each next workout, no less! Haven't lost any weight yet, but I feel and sleep much better.
*Cleaning, sterilizing, and re-capping regular beer bottles is a massive PITA. 2-pint widemouth Mason jars are way easier to wash, have reusable screw-on lids, and I only need to deal with half as many of them as I do bottles. Efficiency and ease of maintenance FTW! Assuming they actually get used, of course.
**No, really!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:27 AM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
Oh geez, I forgot the 3 boxes of LPs I've been dragging around for years because (as with the CDs) I have to go through and decide which ones to convert to digital. I have a turntable and phono-to-USB converter, just waiting for me to use them...and waiting...and waiting....
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:31 AM on June 13, 2021
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:31 AM on June 13, 2021
Only all of my paints, brushes, canvas, paper, pastels, etc. for when I finally stop believing all of my inner voices telling me I was never really an artist and I don’t deserve to make art anymore.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:42 AM on June 13, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 10:42 AM on June 13, 2021 [5 favorites]
But I can't quite bring myself to take them to recycling because MANY CONTAINERS OF SAME SIZE AND TYPE syndrome.
This is me and plastic peanut butter jars, which I do use a lot to put other foods into, dried beans, rice, cookies, bulk foods from the farm stand, etc. But now that the shelf where I store the empty ones is FULL, I do kind of feel like maybe I can let some go. I WISH I had some pickle jars.
A few of these things really did finally reach escape velocity. I finally read the book on disability in fairy tales that I thought was going to be dry and academic but was really good. I finally found a disk reader, read the floppies that had been in my closet and determined they had nothing on them I needed and got rid of them. I finally saw Jim and gave him the little box if "presents' I'd been accumulating for him this past year. I framed the things I had to frame.
I still have a "take to Massachusetts" basket for when I am finally ready to travel more again. I have a letter to reply to. I have papers to file. I have one piece of paper to find or write away for a duplicate. I have some random leftover emails. The ancient power cord from my ancient waffle maker has broken and I need to take it to a friend for repair. I need to take down the contractor's lingering ladder so I don't get another bear on the roof. I should decide I'm really not going to hang that hammock up, or HANG IT UP ALREADY. Also have snake pit of cables but they are mostly decently organized.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:58 AM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is me and plastic peanut butter jars, which I do use a lot to put other foods into, dried beans, rice, cookies, bulk foods from the farm stand, etc. But now that the shelf where I store the empty ones is FULL, I do kind of feel like maybe I can let some go. I WISH I had some pickle jars.
A few of these things really did finally reach escape velocity. I finally read the book on disability in fairy tales that I thought was going to be dry and academic but was really good. I finally found a disk reader, read the floppies that had been in my closet and determined they had nothing on them I needed and got rid of them. I finally saw Jim and gave him the little box if "presents' I'd been accumulating for him this past year. I framed the things I had to frame.
I still have a "take to Massachusetts" basket for when I am finally ready to travel more again. I have a letter to reply to. I have papers to file. I have one piece of paper to find or write away for a duplicate. I have some random leftover emails. The ancient power cord from my ancient waffle maker has broken and I need to take it to a friend for repair. I need to take down the contractor's lingering ladder so I don't get another bear on the roof. I should decide I'm really not going to hang that hammock up, or HANG IT UP ALREADY. Also have snake pit of cables but they are mostly decently organized.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:58 AM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have an lifelong history of
...making typos I don't see until well after the edit window, no matter how many times I proofread.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:18 AM on June 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
...making typos I don't see until well after the edit window, no matter how many times I proofread.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:18 AM on June 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
dito
posted by clavdivs at 12:34 PM on June 13, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 12:34 PM on June 13, 2021 [7 favorites]
I need to take down the contractor's lingering ladder so I don't get another bear on the roof.
That's my favorite Erma Bombeck book.
posted by bondcliff at 12:58 PM on June 13, 2021 [23 favorites]
That's my favorite Erma Bombeck book.
posted by bondcliff at 12:58 PM on June 13, 2021 [23 favorites]
In my initial rush of enthusiam for film photography, ca. 2008, I bought myself an enlarger and accessories, with a view to setting up a proper home darkroom. A few years later I managed to set up a makeshift, temporary darkroom in which I used the thing exactly once.
Now my photography mojo has all but deserted me and I've no prospect of using it again in the forseeable future. Nor do I even have a good place to store the thing - yet I've not been able to bring myself to sell it or give it away. So it stands - awkwardly, under its dust-cover, taking up too much space and serving as an ever-present reminder of plans not working out.
posted by misteraitch at 1:05 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Now my photography mojo has all but deserted me and I've no prospect of using it again in the forseeable future. Nor do I even have a good place to store the thing - yet I've not been able to bring myself to sell it or give it away. So it stands - awkwardly, under its dust-cover, taking up too much space and serving as an ever-present reminder of plans not working out.
posted by misteraitch at 1:05 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Zumbador, thank you so much for making that phone call. You have single-handedly made a small but important reduction in vaccine misinformation.
posted by kristi at 1:23 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by kristi at 1:23 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
The sashiko project. *sigh*
posted by praemunire at 1:41 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 1:41 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
«gestures to all of this»:
· a weird homebrew CD player picked up for a few $ that I want to make into the case for a weird homebrew computer;
· (said homebrew computer is sitting in a crate of hundreds of ICs, switches and PCBs, unbuilt. While it will have A+ blinking lights game, it will have the approximate processing power of a toaster oven and the components cost roughly the same as a midrange desktop PC);
· loads of handmade paper that I made at a workshop years ago but I can't quite bring myself to use or throw out;
· a Synertek SYM-1 single board 6502 computer that I as given in 1988 and I've lugged it most of the way round the world;
· a large number of 68k Macs all of which work but are terribly slow, plus an Apple IIgs which is even slower;
· numerous coaster-brake rear wheels from salvaged bikes in the shed, despite the fact I loathe using coaster brakes;
· eleventy-billion art and electronics projects, all between 12–87% finished, but kipple up my space so I can't finish them or properly start new ones.
posted by scruss at 2:50 PM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
· a weird homebrew CD player picked up for a few $ that I want to make into the case for a weird homebrew computer;
· (said homebrew computer is sitting in a crate of hundreds of ICs, switches and PCBs, unbuilt. While it will have A+ blinking lights game, it will have the approximate processing power of a toaster oven and the components cost roughly the same as a midrange desktop PC);
· loads of handmade paper that I made at a workshop years ago but I can't quite bring myself to use or throw out;
· a Synertek SYM-1 single board 6502 computer that I as given in 1988 and I've lugged it most of the way round the world;
· a large number of 68k Macs all of which work but are terribly slow, plus an Apple IIgs which is even slower;
· numerous coaster-brake rear wheels from salvaged bikes in the shed, despite the fact I loathe using coaster brakes;
· eleventy-billion art and electronics projects, all between 12–87% finished, but kipple up my space so I can't finish them or properly start new ones.
posted by scruss at 2:50 PM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have three large bins of disassembled LEGO models (Town Hall, Cafe Corner, Green Grocer and Pet Store) that I need to sort and rebuild. The bricks have been in bins since we moved over eight years ago. One of these days I'll get around to it.
I have over 60 empty pickle jars in my shop i am unlikely to ever use to organize anything, have other systems for that. But I can't quite bring myself to take them to recycling because MANY CONTAINERS OF SAME SIZE AND TYPE syndrome.
I have to say, after the last 16 months, throwing a glass bottle/jar/container one at a time into a giant metal bin at the closest glass recycling station was unbelievably satisfying. Spouse stated that dumping the entire garbage can of glass into the bin was every more cathartic, but I'm not strong enough for that. So consider it stress relief?
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:03 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have over 60 empty pickle jars in my shop i am unlikely to ever use to organize anything, have other systems for that. But I can't quite bring myself to take them to recycling because MANY CONTAINERS OF SAME SIZE AND TYPE syndrome.
I have to say, after the last 16 months, throwing a glass bottle/jar/container one at a time into a giant metal bin at the closest glass recycling station was unbelievably satisfying. Spouse stated that dumping the entire garbage can of glass into the bin was every more cathartic, but I'm not strong enough for that. So consider it stress relief?
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:03 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have a glass 5gallon carboy kicking around my deck from brewing experiments from 2006-2012. It’s moved apartments with me. It’s been used once! to store water for a hurricane. I've talked for a while about modifying it to be the water source for drip irrigation... And I've also semi periodically listed it on Craigslist.
If I wasnt for the ginger beer experiment/incident of 2012, I probably would still be brewing, but my family has had strong feelings about over carbonated alcoholic beverages, so all that's left is this carboy.
One day I'll do something with it....
posted by larthegreat at 5:09 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
If I wasnt for the ginger beer experiment/incident of 2012, I probably would still be brewing, but my family has had strong feelings about over carbonated alcoholic beverages, so all that's left is this carboy.
One day I'll do something with it....
posted by larthegreat at 5:09 PM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have a 48 inch wide roll of watercor paper I boughf 30 years ago. A lot of art supplies everything. I have to get back to it all. It is only 6 feet from me right here. Be inert, apparently ert is where nothing happens.
posted by Oyéah at 5:38 PM on June 13, 2021
posted by Oyéah at 5:38 PM on June 13, 2021
I see a lot of stuff that I've done, ukulele, so I'll give myself a pass on that. Craft and knitting stuff, beading stuff, okay. We all want to do those things.
One day, I was at the local flea market place, and I came upon some ephemera. It was $12, so I bought it. It was a trove of old letters, photos, and Christmas cards. Some other weird stuff like archery badges. Lots of old letters, some dating back to 1898, back and forth between people, or farm diaries. Some are bland. But contain entries like, "dust storms out west," referring to the Dust Bowl. Or "neighbor hung himself in his barn."
I always wanted to write a story based on all of this ephemera, so I was looking at the history and ordered some books. Only to find one of my ancestors in one of these books. The author made it seem so real, instead of, Jake Nobody was a farmer, but how real it was. But still, she glossed over the day-to-day chores of the people. Made it seem like it was so easy, being a farmer and getting to be a rich person due to knowing people and that's how all people should be. It just left a bad taste in my mouth about you can be a farmer and get rich too sort of thing. If my ancestor did it, why didn't yours?
So I've had this box of ephemera lying around, and wanting to explore it, decoding who these people were, and wanting to write a story about them. Until I ran into this sort of horrible we are better than you version of some distant cousin. I know she's right, and a good person, but it still stops me in my tracks.
What I have laying on my desk is a little piece of Vermont jasper. Which is red and nice and smooth and tells me to carry on.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:51 PM on June 13, 2021 [5 favorites]
One day, I was at the local flea market place, and I came upon some ephemera. It was $12, so I bought it. It was a trove of old letters, photos, and Christmas cards. Some other weird stuff like archery badges. Lots of old letters, some dating back to 1898, back and forth between people, or farm diaries. Some are bland. But contain entries like, "dust storms out west," referring to the Dust Bowl. Or "neighbor hung himself in his barn."
I always wanted to write a story based on all of this ephemera, so I was looking at the history and ordered some books. Only to find one of my ancestors in one of these books. The author made it seem so real, instead of, Jake Nobody was a farmer, but how real it was. But still, she glossed over the day-to-day chores of the people. Made it seem like it was so easy, being a farmer and getting to be a rich person due to knowing people and that's how all people should be. It just left a bad taste in my mouth about you can be a farmer and get rich too sort of thing. If my ancestor did it, why didn't yours?
So I've had this box of ephemera lying around, and wanting to explore it, decoding who these people were, and wanting to write a story about them. Until I ran into this sort of horrible we are better than you version of some distant cousin. I know she's right, and a good person, but it still stops me in my tracks.
What I have laying on my desk is a little piece of Vermont jasper. Which is red and nice and smooth and tells me to carry on.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:51 PM on June 13, 2021 [5 favorites]
Most of the things that glare at me balefully aren’t passion projects, they are chores. A pile of stuffies that need mending, a few crates of school papers that want a good weeding, that type of thing.
I do have a crate full of beginner stained glass supplies, purchased in a fit of optimism after I took a short course in the mid 2000s, back when I still lived in an apartment and having my own little space for toxic hobbies was out of reach. Of course, not long after we got a house, Little e came around, and projects that involve aerosolizing lead aren’t top of the pile once you have a tiny roommate. I think I’ll keep that crate at least until we’re empty nesters and I can see if it still sounds fun then.
We went for a nice family hike yesterday and we saw for the first time several ebony jewelwings, which are every bit as ostentatiously beautiful as their name suggests. Today I saw another bizarrely metallic creature, I think an Agapostemon, if the internet has not misled me.
Tomorrow is the first day of summer camp. It’s been fifteen months since Little e had a day job outside the home, as it were. I’m as nervous and excited as a mother of a kindergartener. And I’m relieved, too. This wonderful, trying season of parenting has drawn to a close.
posted by eirias at 6:02 PM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
I do have a crate full of beginner stained glass supplies, purchased in a fit of optimism after I took a short course in the mid 2000s, back when I still lived in an apartment and having my own little space for toxic hobbies was out of reach. Of course, not long after we got a house, Little e came around, and projects that involve aerosolizing lead aren’t top of the pile once you have a tiny roommate. I think I’ll keep that crate at least until we’re empty nesters and I can see if it still sounds fun then.
We went for a nice family hike yesterday and we saw for the first time several ebony jewelwings, which are every bit as ostentatiously beautiful as their name suggests. Today I saw another bizarrely metallic creature, I think an Agapostemon, if the internet has not misled me.
Tomorrow is the first day of summer camp. It’s been fifteen months since Little e had a day job outside the home, as it were. I’m as nervous and excited as a mother of a kindergartener. And I’m relieved, too. This wonderful, trying season of parenting has drawn to a close.
posted by eirias at 6:02 PM on June 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
At the beginning of the pandemic, when masks were in short supply, I was like, "Who knew my world-saving superpower would be a complete inability to begin quilting projects?" because I've got a biiiiiiiiig bin of high-quality quilting cottons.
I've got a lot of half-finished sewing projects; I used to sew non-stop, and then I had kids, and kids and needles are not a great mix. They're old enough now I could get back to it, but somehow it never rises to the top of my list, it just sits there giving me dirty looks.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:21 PM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
I've got a lot of half-finished sewing projects; I used to sew non-stop, and then I had kids, and kids and needles are not a great mix. They're old enough now I could get back to it, but somehow it never rises to the top of my list, it just sits there giving me dirty looks.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:21 PM on June 13, 2021 [6 favorites]
Instruments? I have not one, but two Bandeon, that I can't play because I don't really know how, ahem, and couldn't play if I did because they are both so dramatically out of tune that I had to take them apart to tune them. Which I also, don't really know how to do. Not really. But I'm keeping the parts, and the collection of 100+ spare steel reeds I bought off eBay when I decided that's what I would need to fix them. And the leather a friend donated for the project.
I'd add the H Jolle (H-class Dinghy) I got, also, off eBay for 150 euro (it's an almost 20 foot long dinghy that is the distillation of designs that had been evolving for about a hundred years: and they look great on the water and go like stink and I'd never win the auction at 150euro - and then dammit but I did. My beloved was not excited about this: We have no room or time for such a thing. And then it turned out the back half of the hull was toast because of a combination of wear-and-tear and the fact that to keep the strips together thin steel nails were driven in, half of which ultimately rusted and rotted the wood so that... ) Ultimately I turned it into a loft-bed for one of our kids. It's Mahogany, sanded it looks beautiful.
Then I have all these rocks I've collected on various beaches that I half think I want to polish (they aren't 'special rocks' just rocks) and half am fine with keeping as they are. So I made a small display box and I rotate them out.
I've been meaning to read Kruso, which is a book everyone has said is great but I just can't get into.
Off topic, it's EM time, the european football championships, where each country puts forward tis best team for bragging rights. I'm not a regular watcher of football (I've come to it too late, I think) but these are generally pretty great games - a few years ago the Icelandic team amazed with their great football and astonishing 'slow clap'. Who knows what this round will bring, the stadia are sparsely occupied and everyone is still reeling from the last year-plus, but the matches I've seen so far have been surprising, and better than I had expected.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:53 AM on June 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'd add the H Jolle (H-class Dinghy) I got, also, off eBay for 150 euro (it's an almost 20 foot long dinghy that is the distillation of designs that had been evolving for about a hundred years: and they look great on the water and go like stink and I'd never win the auction at 150euro - and then dammit but I did. My beloved was not excited about this: We have no room or time for such a thing. And then it turned out the back half of the hull was toast because of a combination of wear-and-tear and the fact that to keep the strips together thin steel nails were driven in, half of which ultimately rusted and rotted the wood so that... ) Ultimately I turned it into a loft-bed for one of our kids. It's Mahogany, sanded it looks beautiful.
Then I have all these rocks I've collected on various beaches that I half think I want to polish (they aren't 'special rocks' just rocks) and half am fine with keeping as they are. So I made a small display box and I rotate them out.
I've been meaning to read Kruso, which is a book everyone has said is great but I just can't get into.
Off topic, it's EM time, the european football championships, where each country puts forward tis best team for bragging rights. I'm not a regular watcher of football (I've come to it too late, I think) but these are generally pretty great games - a few years ago the Icelandic team amazed with their great football and astonishing 'slow clap'. Who knows what this round will bring, the stadia are sparsely occupied and everyone is still reeling from the last year-plus, but the matches I've seen so far have been surprising, and better than I had expected.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:53 AM on June 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have a lot of record albums and a record player, and I always think I'm going to listen to records, but I know that if I put on a record and then sit down to listen, I will instantly have two cats on my lap, and then in 20 or 30 minutes I will need to get up to change the record, and this will disturb the cats, and then we all have to get settled again (which can be a challenge because I really only have room for one and a half cats on my lap), and then the record has to be changed again, lather, rinse, repeat. So, knowing this, the listening never actually happens, and I'm starting to think it's time they were rehomed. (The records, I mean, not the cats.)
posted by JanetLand at 5:53 AM on June 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 5:53 AM on June 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
So, I have been reliably informed that yarn shopping is not a hobby in and of itself, which means that having one of the world's most diverse collections of handpainted teal sock yarn is not, like, a thing.
I also have a couple knitting machines, and they are apparently not just conversation starting decor items for my living room. Who knew?
Maybe those two things could be related somewhow?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:51 AM on June 14, 2021 [5 favorites]
I also have a couple knitting machines, and they are apparently not just conversation starting decor items for my living room. Who knew?
Maybe those two things could be related somewhow?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:51 AM on June 14, 2021 [5 favorites]
So, I have been reliably informed that yarn shopping is not a hobby in and of itself
I'm acquainted with at least three people who would refute that. Hey, people collect stuff like seashells or rocks, which are a lot less practical than yarn, and call it a hobby...
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:48 AM on June 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm acquainted with at least three people who would refute that. Hey, people collect stuff like seashells or rocks, which are a lot less practical than yarn, and call it a hobby...
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:48 AM on June 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Trying to reorganize post move, well just get stuff in a semirational places, looking at six lovely pottery jars filled with pencils and pens. I do not use pens any more. (yes the occasional check, but still).
posted by sammyo at 1:02 PM on June 14, 2021
posted by sammyo at 1:02 PM on June 14, 2021
I have 3 DVDs from netflix from.....4 or 5 years ago I haven't gotten around to watching.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:02 PM on June 14, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:02 PM on June 14, 2021 [6 favorites]
My six-quart Instant Pot has mostly been gathering dust for two years. I broke the crock for my 1970s Crock Pot, and I figured an IP would be good because I could use it as a yogurt maker and a slow cooker.
It is wholly inadequate as a slow cooker (the only time I've used it), and I cannot make Greek yogurt with it. I've made no yogurt at all.
It intimidates or outright scares me. Unlike virtually all small appliances I've ever purchased, there was no instruction manual with recipes (yes, the Internet, I know), but there was a booklet with page after page of USE IT WRONG AND YOU DIE.
I'm going to get a new slow cooker and maybe sell the IP.
posted by jgirl at 3:41 PM on June 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
It is wholly inadequate as a slow cooker (the only time I've used it), and I cannot make Greek yogurt with it. I've made no yogurt at all.
It intimidates or outright scares me. Unlike virtually all small appliances I've ever purchased, there was no instruction manual with recipes (yes, the Internet, I know), but there was a booklet with page after page of USE IT WRONG AND YOU DIE.
I'm going to get a new slow cooker and maybe sell the IP.
posted by jgirl at 3:41 PM on June 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
Sadly, your new slow cooker will probably also suck, because slow cookers these days don't really cook things slowly.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:12 PM on June 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 4:12 PM on June 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a, in my house we call this Persuasioning, after the time I spent eight months not watching the 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion. The disc just sat there forlornly in its little Netflix jacket until we moved and I mailed it back. The term now generally applies to overdue library books, friends' tupperware I've never gotten around to returning, and untouched supplies bought for unstarted projects.
Five years is impressive.
posted by mochapickle at 4:51 PM on June 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
Five years is impressive.
posted by mochapickle at 4:51 PM on June 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have a very functional photographic enlarger sitting in a box, and folders full of negatives: the only thing stopping me from setting up a darkroom to print is the lack of rooms in my house that I can close to light. Maybe next house.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:36 PM on June 14, 2021
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:36 PM on June 14, 2021
On a shelf? I have a set of guitar hardware just waiting for me to make the actual, you know, guitar.
On the floor, though, the thing really making me feel guilty is the one sawhorse. I made it as a learning experience for mortise and tenon joinery, and it's really ridiculously excessively overdone for being just a sawhorse. But it's a really unnecessarily GOOD sawhorse and I like it.
Unfortunately, one sawhorse is way less than 50% as useful as TWO sawhorses, and I haven't ever gotten around to building the second one.
posted by ctmf at 7:02 PM on June 14, 2021 [7 favorites]
On the floor, though, the thing really making me feel guilty is the one sawhorse. I made it as a learning experience for mortise and tenon joinery, and it's really ridiculously excessively overdone for being just a sawhorse. But it's a really unnecessarily GOOD sawhorse and I like it.
Unfortunately, one sawhorse is way less than 50% as useful as TWO sawhorses, and I haven't ever gotten around to building the second one.
posted by ctmf at 7:02 PM on June 14, 2021 [7 favorites]
ctmf: one sawhorse is way less than 50% as useful as TWO sawhorses
The solution is to redefine what it is. Stop calling it a sawhorse... maybe it's a bathmat drying rack?
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:59 PM on June 14, 2021 [7 favorites]
The solution is to redefine what it is. Stop calling it a sawhorse... maybe it's a bathmat drying rack?
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:59 PM on June 14, 2021 [7 favorites]
I've had a stack of picture frames and a tube of posters sitting next to my desk for 8 months, because all of the frames need to have their hardware added, and I never remember until it's 11 pm and too late to be hammering away in my apartment. And anyway I'm intimidated by the idea of hanging all of those frames.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:07 AM on June 15, 2021
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:07 AM on June 15, 2021
the stripped Rickenbacker 4001 that I'm going to start restoring any day now
posted by thelonius at 11:11 AM on June 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 11:11 AM on June 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
"...what thing/object/item has been sitting on your desk or a table or a shelf (or moved between various among them) for Objectively Too Long because dangit one of these days you're gonna get around to thing you were gonna do with it or use it for."
My feet, actually.
posted by Namlit at 11:48 AM on June 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
My feet, actually.
posted by Namlit at 11:48 AM on June 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
I've been carrying a film scanner around for the last 15 years because I was going to scan all of the photos I took on slide film when I was living in Japan, I did a couple of test scans but it was slow and the results were never to my liking. My new plan to get this done is to buy a macro lens for my camera and then take pictures of the slides.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:23 PM on June 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:23 PM on June 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have a box of coins, mostly silver half-dollars, that I've been holding onto to sell when silver prices went up. Prices are up! I would get enough money for them to make it easily worth the trouble of selling, and then I could stop checking silver prices more often than is reasonable. But then I have misgivings about how it's nice to have small valuable things in a pinch, and also they were my grandfather's and shouldn't I feel sentimental about them, and don't they just kinda sound nice clinking together?
I spent the $2 bills my grandma gave me a few years ago and people got a kick out of them and it was fun. I should probably let the coins go and make some kids and/or some prepper types happy. I might buy myself a piece of jewelry "from grandpa" with the proceeds.
jgirl, I routinely see old slow-cooker crocks at thrift shops. Measure carefully!
posted by momus_window at 3:41 PM on June 15, 2021
I spent the $2 bills my grandma gave me a few years ago and people got a kick out of them and it was fun. I should probably let the coins go and make some kids and/or some prepper types happy. I might buy myself a piece of jewelry "from grandpa" with the proceeds.
jgirl, I routinely see old slow-cooker crocks at thrift shops. Measure carefully!
posted by momus_window at 3:41 PM on June 15, 2021
I have a whole bunch of these. The two most prominent are the mason jar full of polyhedral dice on my desk, and the lovely expensive model locomotive on my lovely workbench (or more accurately the clutterbench). There's also a closetful of unbuilt model train cars for the locomotive and a bunch of unbuilt balsa model planes and an unbuilt fuzzbox kit and an unused soldering iron. I suppose I could just open a very small hobby store.
posted by gamera at 5:31 PM on June 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by gamera at 5:31 PM on June 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
50 of the 57 tabs open on my phone are old MetaFilter threads that I swear I'm going to read. The oldest is from early January of this year.
posted by Tehhund at 5:51 PM on June 15, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by Tehhund at 5:51 PM on June 15, 2021 [16 favorites]
I gotta get back into making sauerkraut, I've got all the stuff for it.
But then sawing through all that cabbage is just...ugh!
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:10 PM on June 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
But then sawing through all that cabbage is just...ugh!
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:10 PM on June 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
A big WACOM table that was going to replace my little one because more drawing room, different functions, but I think I bought the little WACOM about 20 years ago, if that's possible, and the big one 7 years ago, and I just can't be fucked to learn it. In fact, I draw very little directly now because too many nodes, and go the Bezier curves with just a mouse.
posted by b33j at 2:24 AM on June 16, 2021
posted by b33j at 2:24 AM on June 16, 2021
My SOCIAL SKILLS. Not really even kidding. I'm getting my second vax dose this afternoon and the person I went on a date with on Saturday (outdoors! Canada) asked to accompany me. He...likes me? What even is this? What did I used to do with my hands and face when with other human people? Getting to KNOW someone? Ha. This is weird. Definitely not bad weird, but weird.
posted by wellred at 6:27 AM on June 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by wellred at 6:27 AM on June 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
Well, I'm for example still keeping this old 6x6 two-lens Rolleiflex that my dad bought second-hand in the late 80s for if I ever want to revive my photography-with-real-film hobby. There's in fact quite a number of supplies and tools spread around the basement workshop that will one day require some introspection: am I really the person to develop that skill, like, after my retirement? But the distance between "no, nope" and "toss or sell" seems so long.
It runs in the family. This story is from when my dad visited his grandmother in the late 40s in Berlin (these were the days when flying into West-Berlin was a matter of sitting behind single-pane windows in an unpressurized re-built-for-passengers military plane of some kind, an exercise that was especially bad for one's ears, he told me, since the flight ended in a dive into Tempelhof Airport):
So my great-grandmother had been a widow for quite a while and was in her eighties at the time. My dad was about to start his instrument-building workshop and was looking not only for company and stories about her neighbors ("There's that old reptile again, get away from the window!") but specifically for tools.
So he looked through the supplies once owned by my great-grandfather, and one of the things he pulled out was a soldering iron. "Nooo, noo, you can't have that," proclaimed my great-grandmother, "I need that if I got to solder something. No way!"
posted by Namlit at 6:50 AM on June 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
It runs in the family. This story is from when my dad visited his grandmother in the late 40s in Berlin (these were the days when flying into West-Berlin was a matter of sitting behind single-pane windows in an unpressurized re-built-for-passengers military plane of some kind, an exercise that was especially bad for one's ears, he told me, since the flight ended in a dive into Tempelhof Airport):
So my great-grandmother had been a widow for quite a while and was in her eighties at the time. My dad was about to start his instrument-building workshop and was looking not only for company and stories about her neighbors ("There's that old reptile again, get away from the window!") but specifically for tools.
So he looked through the supplies once owned by my great-grandfather, and one of the things he pulled out was a soldering iron. "Nooo, noo, you can't have that," proclaimed my great-grandmother, "I need that if I got to solder something. No way!"
posted by Namlit at 6:50 AM on June 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
......gestures at entire apartment
I bought a cheap 15/16 hammered dulcimer at the Old Town School of Folk Music's yard sale many years ago, and then got a dulcimer stand off of freebox, and I still can't play the damn thing. Like, I can plink at it, and I've tuned it several times, but for some reason it's just not as inspiring as the weighted keyboard it's next to, which is at least a familiar layout.
My plan for this weekend, as with most weekends, is to catch up on housework. Sunday dinner with my bubble-mate is still an ongoing thing even though we're all vaxed now, and I might make frozen zabaglione?
posted by All hands bury the dead at 7:44 AM on June 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
I bought a cheap 15/16 hammered dulcimer at the Old Town School of Folk Music's yard sale many years ago, and then got a dulcimer stand off of freebox, and I still can't play the damn thing. Like, I can plink at it, and I've tuned it several times, but for some reason it's just not as inspiring as the weighted keyboard it's next to, which is at least a familiar layout.
My plan for this weekend, as with most weekends, is to catch up on housework. Sunday dinner with my bubble-mate is still an ongoing thing even though we're all vaxed now, and I might make frozen zabaglione?
posted by All hands bury the dead at 7:44 AM on June 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Whelp, I'm off work until Monday with pneumonia so I might just tackle some of those recipes. And see if I can locate the banana bread one.
posted by kathrynm at 1:33 PM on June 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by kathrynm at 1:33 PM on June 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have around 20 different neglected dormant cultures in the freezer that need I need to revive before they are all dead. Some have been frozen for almost two years, some just a few months.
The different medicinal and gourmet fungal spore prints should be fine, I've revived 20 year old spores before, but the ones in mycelium form are going to be a pain after a year in the freezer. I have a bunch of assorted milk ferments (heirloom yoghurts, viili, skyr) and other SCOBYs (kombucha, kefir, tíbicos, sourdough) that are going to be touch and go.
The neglect is the result of lockdown depression. I was very good at following a schedule to keep all the different cultures healthy and have a fun rotation of interesting edibles and potables, but with no one coming over to share I just can't find the motivation. I used to really enjoy making my little agar plates at home, the whole sanitization and/or sterilization ceremonies very relaxing. But now anything sanitizing related is a chore and a reminder of all the pandemic pain.
Whatevs, if the cultures are dead building a new collection is going to be fun.
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:17 PM on June 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
The different medicinal and gourmet fungal spore prints should be fine, I've revived 20 year old spores before, but the ones in mycelium form are going to be a pain after a year in the freezer. I have a bunch of assorted milk ferments (heirloom yoghurts, viili, skyr) and other SCOBYs (kombucha, kefir, tíbicos, sourdough) that are going to be touch and go.
The neglect is the result of lockdown depression. I was very good at following a schedule to keep all the different cultures healthy and have a fun rotation of interesting edibles and potables, but with no one coming over to share I just can't find the motivation. I used to really enjoy making my little agar plates at home, the whole sanitization and/or sterilization ceremonies very relaxing. But now anything sanitizing related is a chore and a reminder of all the pandemic pain.
Whatevs, if the cultures are dead building a new collection is going to be fun.
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:17 PM on June 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
In my desk at work, there’s a set of ‘90s-vintage titanium derailleur pulleys that I want to add to my all-‘90s-obscure-high-end-parts town bike, a bike that I spend more time tinkering with than riding. It’s been a few years since I did much of either, because my modern bikes are better in pretty much every way, but I do like looking at the thing, and I’ve still got a bunch of saved searches on eBay, and it tickles me in an approaching-middle-age way to be slowly putting together my dream bike from when I was a broke-ass teenager who spent too much time reading Mountain Bike Action and Bridgestone catalogs.
In my office at home, there’s an unfinished PC build, a fully silent HTPC with a gorgeous copper basket CPU heatsink that still needs an SSD and an operating system. If I ever get around to finishing it, it’ll be state-of-the-art circa, oh, 2016 or so.
In my kitchen, there’s a sous-vide circulator from a short-lived Modernist Cuisine phase that never really got off the ground, and a bunch of homebrew stuff that I want to adapt to making hot sauce, but what the hell am I going to do with five gallons of hot sauce? I’m not really a get-a-booth-at-the-farmers-market kind of person.
posted by box at 5:34 PM on June 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
In my office at home, there’s an unfinished PC build, a fully silent HTPC with a gorgeous copper basket CPU heatsink that still needs an SSD and an operating system. If I ever get around to finishing it, it’ll be state-of-the-art circa, oh, 2016 or so.
In my kitchen, there’s a sous-vide circulator from a short-lived Modernist Cuisine phase that never really got off the ground, and a bunch of homebrew stuff that I want to adapt to making hot sauce, but what the hell am I going to do with five gallons of hot sauce? I’m not really a get-a-booth-at-the-farmers-market kind of person.
posted by box at 5:34 PM on June 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
what the hell am I going to do with five gallons of hot sauce?
*hand shoots up* Ooh! Ooh! I know! Pick me! Pick me!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:27 PM on June 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
*hand shoots up* Ooh! Ooh! I know! Pick me! Pick me!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:27 PM on June 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
box, my LBS here in Mexico keeps finding pretty good condition Bridgestone bikes at the local flea markets. This year I had to make the difficult choice between getting a beautifully restored XO-4 or a modern bike for half the price. I got the modern bike.
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:45 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:45 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
The boat. I began a wooden skin on frame kayak in 2013. Back then, I was single. I now am married and have a toddler, and the boat still sits outside my kitchen window. Framed up, I "just" need to finish attaching the gunwales, stem and stern, and coaming. Then I can floor the cockpit and then finally pop it off the strongback and skin the thing. It's close but not really.
posted by freethefeet at 4:00 AM on June 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by freethefeet at 4:00 AM on June 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have been lugging around court documents involving industrial espionage since the 1990s. Thanks to both my hoarding tendencies and my ADHD, whenever I'm about to move and the docs resurface my brain betrays me. You can't trash those, it scolds. You haven't even read them yet!
Tehund, I am impressed by your persistence when it comes old MF threads. Periodically I will notice that someone has favorited an older comment of mine and I get the warm fuzzies when I notice it was you. It's a nice reminder that threads I may have forgotten are not actually gone.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:46 AM on June 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
Tehund, I am impressed by your persistence when it comes old MF threads. Periodically I will notice that someone has favorited an older comment of mine and I get the warm fuzzies when I notice it was you. It's a nice reminder that threads I may have forgotten are not actually gone.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:46 AM on June 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
Update: Our fourth date is later today.
posted by wellred at 7:38 AM on June 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by wellred at 7:38 AM on June 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
There are many big, grand struggles I care deeply about. But, as personal struggles go, defeating this impulse is my white whale. The many microswitches bought for a project that never happened and 20 miniature mp3 players I got for free are now stored at work, on a high shelf, where they don't take up any space that would be useful for anything else. So, I'm down to deciding when to discard glass jars, throw out my 4th favorite spatula, and give up on plumbing supplies that we might possibly need in the next decade.
In a recent closet cleanout, I decided to keep the hand-painted, full-size road sign that I made as an inside joke for someone in an art group in a distant city and never actually installed. I've been carrying it around for 15 years. I'm keeping the 43 surviving glass eyes, though. I'm absolutely certain they'll be useful, someday.
posted by eotvos at 9:28 AM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
In a recent closet cleanout, I decided to keep the hand-painted, full-size road sign that I made as an inside joke for someone in an art group in a distant city and never actually installed. I've been carrying it around for 15 years. I'm keeping the 43 surviving glass eyes, though. I'm absolutely certain they'll be useful, someday.
posted by eotvos at 9:28 AM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Should you decide to part with those glass eyes, just give me a holler. Probably half of MF would be excited to acquire glass eyes. Those puppies would make awesome stocking stuffers alone, never mind their many other uses.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:41 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:41 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
the 43 surviving glass eyes
"Surviving"?
Maybe I shouldn't ask . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 2:43 PM on June 20, 2021
"Surviving"?
Maybe I shouldn't ask . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 2:43 PM on June 20, 2021
I'm keeping the 43 surviving glass eyes, though. I'm absolutely certain they'll be useful, someday.
Ah shit that is right, my drawer of teeeth
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:25 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
Ah shit that is right, my drawer of teeeth
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:25 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
OK, fine, I'll bite - why do you have a drawer full of teeth?
posted by soundguy99 at 4:43 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by soundguy99 at 4:43 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have a basket of eyeballs, so teeth are fine!
posted by mochapickle at 5:16 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by mochapickle at 5:16 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I had seen komara's weird tooth sculpture stuff he'd made. showed them to my sister, she found out you can buy teeth online (not real teeth but like "I am a tooth salesman and I sell fake teeth to dentists" teeth) and she got me some and now I have them.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:50 PM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:50 PM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think you should display them loose in a candy dish.
posted by mochapickle at 5:29 AM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 5:29 AM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think you should display [the drawer of teeth] loose in a candy dish.
I mean, I too have a bunch of teeth, though more like a bowlful. But my plan was to use them as molds for sugar candy, so that I could give away bags of creepy candy teeth as party favors. But alas, while all components of this plan - foodsafe mold material, bowl-o'-teeth, white food dye, etc. - have been around for ages, I've never actually made it happen. I am gonna do something with [them] eventually, I swear...
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 6:55 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
I mean, I too have a bunch of teeth, though more like a bowlful. But my plan was to use them as molds for sugar candy, so that I could give away bags of creepy candy teeth as party favors. But alas, while all components of this plan - foodsafe mold material, bowl-o'-teeth, white food dye, etc. - have been around for ages, I've never actually made it happen. I am gonna do something with [them] eventually, I swear...
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 6:55 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
the 43 surviving glass eyesSadly, there's no good story. 43 out of 50 survived badly packaged international shipping. I'm told it was a sales demo from the early 1900s. They have sharp ragged blown glass stalks and would be very bad to put into eye sockets.
"Surviving"?
Maybe I shouldn't ask . .
One of these days, I'm going to combine them with my marimo balls to make a truly unsettling table centerpiece.
I'm now considering incorporating my childhood teeth. But, they're mostly fillings and epoxy reconstruction and don't really look much like teeth. Maybe I can find cheap teeth elsewhere.
posted by eotvos at 10:12 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Maybe I can find cheap teeth elsewhere.
Well, apparently there are tooth salesmen who sell fake teeth to dentists . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 10:44 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well, apparently there are tooth salesmen who sell fake teeth to dentists . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 10:44 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Maybe I can find cheap teeth elsewhere.
apparently there are tooth salesmen
...yeah at a tooth fair
posted by Namlit at 1:23 PM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
apparently there are tooth salesmen
...yeah at a tooth fair
posted by Namlit at 1:23 PM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
The best tooth fairs are the ones that happen during a molar eclipse.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:34 PM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:34 PM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
That's some biting humor right there!!
posted by argonauta at 4:16 PM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by argonauta at 4:16 PM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, yeah. Tooth puns are all fun and games until there’s a drive bicuspid and innocent people get hurt.
posted by mochapickle at 8:39 PM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 8:39 PM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Get braced for what’s yet to come.
posted by Namlit at 1:58 AM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Namlit at 1:58 AM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have a drawer of real human teeth! My children keep losing them, and either I have to secretly steal them as the tooth fairy, or they just come and hand them to me. I kept dropping them in a random drawer, and then one day my husband was looking for a flashlight or something, and I told him I had one in the drawer. And he went the other room, I heard him open the drawer, and there was this long moment of silence, and then he said, "Do you ... do you have a drawer full of human teeth?"
I laughed so hard it was fifteen minutes before I could answer.
They're still there. I don't really know what you're supposed to do with baby teeth, so they keep sitting in the drawer. The drawer of human teeth.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:01 AM on June 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
I laughed so hard it was fifteen minutes before I could answer.
They're still there. I don't really know what you're supposed to do with baby teeth, so they keep sitting in the drawer. The drawer of human teeth.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:01 AM on June 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
The drawer of human teeth
Absolute Class A username!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:34 AM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Absolute Class A username!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:34 AM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I mean, if you asked me "what trait do you share with a surprising number of MeFi mods", my first answer would not have been "has a drawer full of teeth" but here we are, MetaFilter, here we are.
I heard him open the drawer, and there was this long moment of silence, and then he said, "Do you ... do you have a drawer full of human teeth?"
I will admit to a rare burst of literal out-loud laughter upon reading that.
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 9:11 PM on June 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
I heard him open the drawer, and there was this long moment of silence, and then he said, "Do you ... do you have a drawer full of human teeth?"
I will admit to a rare burst of literal out-loud laughter upon reading that.
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 9:11 PM on June 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
In other words, uh, you know the drill?
posted by mochapickle at 2:03 AM on June 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 2:03 AM on June 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
Geez I’ve been rooting for you guys to come up with something suitable to say for days but no such luck…
posted by Namlit at 1:40 AM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Namlit at 1:40 AM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m more domasticated than you think
posted by Namlit at 2:50 PM on June 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Namlit at 2:50 PM on June 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
*gives Namlit the brush-off
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:34 PM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:34 PM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
Several Y2K-era Macs linger in my closet in various stages of decrepitude. This one won’t boot off any internal drives but it has a functional FireWire port. That one has a dent in the case but did you know that’s the fastest PowerPC chip Apple put in a laptop? This other one has something wrong with the DC power circuitry but ...
I’d like to get rid of a few but I want to see them avoid the junkyard. There’s a fellow in Kansas, I believe, who does amazing things with those logic boards—Frankenstein together multiple G4 chips into a box that is crazy fast (for 2003).
posted by Monochrome at 8:56 PM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’d like to get rid of a few but I want to see them avoid the junkyard. There’s a fellow in Kansas, I believe, who does amazing things with those logic boards—Frankenstein together multiple G4 chips into a box that is crazy fast (for 2003).
posted by Monochrome at 8:56 PM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm proud to tell you all that I just finally got around to sending off my first PCB order in three years, thanks in part to the kick-in-the-rear from this thread. So (fingers crossed) in a couple of weeks some of my useless electrotrash will be marginally more useful electrotrash connected to a microcontroller and onward via USB HID/serial to simulators!
posted by Alterscape at 8:39 AM on June 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Alterscape at 8:39 AM on June 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
And, because folks favorited that update: received the PCBs, built up a set, and they worked! My first four-layer board, too! I had a phone conversation with my dad, who built hardware that's probably still in orbit around the moon, or crashed into the moon, and the way a combination of design automation software and cheap automated fabrication processes have replaced about 25% of his career is simultaneously cool and horrifying.
posted by Alterscape at 8:11 PM on July 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Alterscape at 8:11 PM on July 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
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posted by Greg_Ace at 5:40 PM on June 12, 2021 [22 favorites]