The game is afoot

January 2, 2023 3:17 AM

Hello, everyone, and happy beginning of the week, beginning of the month, and beginning of the year. Amid all these fresh beginnings, some new old things are afoot. We've long been told that the best things in life are free, and now The Best Things in Life Are Free is also free. As are Sherlock Holmes, Metropolis, Puttin' on the Ritz, and screaming about ice cream, apparently. Also, of course, this thread, so come at once if convenient – if inconvenient come all the same!

(Serious post about Public Domain Day over here, btw)

posted by taz (50 comments total)

I'm pretty stoked at having just finished my first two woodworking projects that involve classic hand-cut "through" dovetail joints. They came out surprisingly good after some minor gap filling!

I've been thinking about a mega post of hand tool woodworking resources and tutorials in some kind of guided "from newbie to intermediate" format. Getting started is now probably easier than ever, thanks to YouTube. But compiling it would involve going through literally hundreds of hours of my watch history over two and a half years, and I still couldn't really do the topic justice (e.g. I don't know jack about woodturning or carving, two massive subtopics, practically entire schools in and of themselves). But we'll see.
posted by jklaiho at 4:20 AM on January 2, 2023 [19 favorites]

I present to you: mock-I rolls (not my blog), an unholy thing which I vow to try this year. Might have to send in a rescue party afterwards, but that’s life. Culturally-approved shout of strengthening and fortitude!
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 5:42 AM on January 2, 2023 [9 favorites]

In the spirit of mock-i rolls, I’ve occasionally made savory twinkies by wrapping polenta around goat cheese and baking it. It’s delicious and really looks like a twinkie!
posted by moonmilk at 5:53 AM on January 2, 2023 [12 favorites]

jklaiho, that would be relevant to my interests and I would be delighted if you were to put it together.
posted by Jeanne at 6:08 AM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

I've been thinking about a mega post of hand tool woodworking resources and tutorials in some kind of guided "from newbie to intermediate" format.

Please, do! It doesn't have to be perfect, remember when we get the algorithm running, it will help us find the rest.

Today, I left home at 7:45 to be at work before 8. In complete darkness and rain and that type of cold that is not really cold, just horrible. And I ripped my coat on something. Technically, the sun rose at something like 8:45, but the clouds were so dense and dark, no one noticed. When lunchtime arrived, it turned out that no one at our many cafeterias and snackbars had expected us at work (how? why?), so there was no lunch.
And still, it was a great day! My colleagues are great, the students are great, the kitchen was clean when I got back home.
It's still raining, but when I walked the dog the air felt fresh and full of promise. It's a new dawn, it's a new day...
posted by mumimor at 6:09 AM on January 2, 2023 [10 favorites]

Back to work today. We get a two week break for the holidays, which I always appreciate, believe me. But this year I really really needed it worse than ever. The second half of 2022 was tough. I did absolutely nothing at all work related, I caught up on a bunch of stuff on Netflix, we did a camping trip with the pups, and I rode almost 100 miles to get started training for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic (because in a moment of being a dummy I signed up for it.) Tine to finish my coffee and get on the road.
posted by azpenguin at 6:19 AM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Went snorkeling at Windmill Beach yesterday with my new fancy non leaking diving mask. Saw so many fish!

Little iridescent purple and green ones that ignored me even when I went right up to them. A big flat silver guy, and a beautiful cream-and-brown creature with lots of lip and eye liner. A school of slender little silver ones grazing in the shallows, and a burgundy fellow who looks a bit like a butterfly.

I am a bit ashamed that I don't know their names.

Other lovely things: the bottle of sun lotion broke, so I spread on huge amounts of it on myself rather than letting it go to waste in the sand. Turns out a scrub of warm sand and sun lotion mixed feels incredibly good.

I had the phrase "fuck around and find out" repeating in my head the entire day, overlaid over the baseline of Faithless's "Insomnia".
It worked really well as an internal soundtrack to cycling through crazy holiday beach traffic.

One of today's moments of pleasure was finding a paper entitled Object personification in autism: This paper will be very sad if you don't read it
posted by Zumbador at 6:26 AM on January 2, 2023 [21 favorites]

So far today, I have fixed the vacuum cleaner, put tentative dates on a slew of ancient family photos I scanned in at one point, sent a GrubHub gift card to my friend who had their baby yesterday thank god what an epic, written in my journal, meditated, petted the broken approximate elderly cat, done a Duolinguo lesson in French, and sort of planned my day. I note all this because I have a tiresome cough and it's January, so as usual I am sure the singularity that will annihilate the universe is already in progress. It's pleasant to remind myself that the End of Everything isn't actually my problem.

In other news, I have to go to Louisville on Thursday and get a Lifetime Achievement Award for something I do for fun and am about to give up doing, and I don't wanna. Not Louisville, not award. Not the people. Not the plane. I am, according to my friends, being a grouch, and my reaction is when did exactly you realize this?
posted by Peach at 6:37 AM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

jklaiho maybe break it up into smaller pieces that you post periodically. I often find the exhaustive megaposts exhausting anyways.
posted by Mitheral at 6:53 AM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

jklaiho, that would be relevant to my interests and I would be delighted if you were to put it together.

Same! I'd be happy to throw you some links to videos that have been helpful to me.
posted by bondcliff at 7:27 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

jklaiho maybe break it up into smaller pieces that you post periodically. I often find the exhaustive megaposts exhausting anyways.

Agreed... Megaposts are fun but I also really enjoy quick, short posts about things people love simply because they love them, so both options are great. I have some plain but lovely vintage dressers that were done with dovetail and they're a joy to look at.

Also, I'm doing two more IRL events before I take a planned break from online for a bit:

• January cleaning over on IRL starts today! Last year was incredibly helpful and we had a good time. Come join us and spruce up your space. Today's task is to organize a drawer.

• Jami Attenberg's Mini 1000 runs from Jan 7-12 (IRL link). I'm writing a second draft of a short story I worked on in November, part of a what seems to be becoming a series about women and disability. I haven't tried her 1000s before so this is new for me.

Come join for either or both!

And happy new year to everyone!
posted by mochapickle at 7:38 AM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

There's been between 60 and 70 family members staying here on the farm over the last couple of weeks. It's been super fun, especially for the kids (who all seem to be 9 years old), but I am tired and socialed-out. People are starting to trickle away back to their normal lives now, and summer holidays.
Of course, everyone wants to come and see what renovations with made to this house (that was abandoned for ten years), so it's been pretty full on with people popping in even if they're staying with someone else. My veggie garden is a disaster, I gained too much weight, I need to learn some carpentry (bring on the mega-thread) and I need to do some exercise.
Holiday season is great here and I wouldn't change it, but boy is it tiring.
posted by conifer at 7:44 AM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

2022 was not great but it was also the first full calendar year I have been completely sober for since 2012. That feels pretty great, and it turns out I really like being sober as well which is great, too.
And, I did this as 2022 rolled over into 2023. I think it might be my 4th major style shift as a painter in the last 25 years. It's acrylic on wood panel, 36 by 35 inches, so there's that as well.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 7:45 AM on January 2, 2023 [23 favorites]

Woodworking was a thing I became interested in during an extended hospital stay. I am subscribed to many channels on YouTube at all levels, from strictly hand-tools woodworking to hold-my-beer-we-gonna-build-our-own-tools. It's remains a fascinating topic that is somewhat out of reach of my current physical condition, sadly.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:47 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

jklaiho, I'm starting from scratch, so there's another vote for help here. Even just a partial posting would be great!

The problem I'm running into is finding resources that cover really baseline stuff. I see a lot of "put your workbench here", with the assumption that you have a workbench. But I almost never see "here's how you find and buy/make the right workbench when you have nothing and can't really afford to get the wrong one".

My current project: refinishing a wood floor from the eighties. With 1/8" bevels between pieces. That's mounted on a wall. My poor sander.
posted by SunSnork at 7:48 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

But I almost never see "here's how you find and buy/make the right workbench when you have nothing and can't really afford to get the wrong one".

Check out the various workbench books written by Christopher Schwarz over at Lost Art Press. The Anarchists Workbench is especially good. Basically how to build the perfect bench using construction lumber.
posted by bondcliff at 7:54 AM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

I still have today as a vacation day, so I'm watching the Rose Parade.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:38 AM on January 2, 2023

I sometimes chill to luthier youtube for my woodworking fix. It's all far beyond putting up a shelf, more a lifelong career. Rosa String Works and Crimson Guitars are good channels. Good people too, they love the work and they're proud of it. Seems like a good life.
posted by adept256 at 8:58 AM on January 2, 2023

Coincidentally, last week I tiptoed into using power tools for miniature woodworking, with surprising success.

I'm officially on sabbatical tomorrow, so I have my away message prepared to go and everything. Happily making arrangements for UK archives, buying my coach tickets, and so on.

As someone who teaches a Sherlock Holmes course, I'll be intrigued to see if his last bow from copyright generates anything intriguing. A lot of recent Holmes pastiches have been a bit dire, with some notable exceptions (e.g., Gordon McAlpine's Holmes Entangled).
posted by thomas j wise at 9:19 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ha ha ha, apparently I am in mild trouble because I didn't stay glued to my work email over the Christmas shutdown for the university.

Yes, I am sorry I had COVID and was super sick, I will try to be a better worker bee jfc
posted by Kitteh at 11:52 AM on January 2, 2023 [9 favorites]

Fully a third of the hair on the left side of my head has fallen out due to stress in the last couple of months so I’m spending the day trying to decide if I should buzz off the rest of it before returning to work tomorrow.

I feel like the worst thing to do is look like I’m attempting a combover or am unaware of how it looks.

So far my wife has succeeded in talking me down.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:04 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Last day of the Christmas break and it dawned fine, so we looked at the list of jobs that need doing, said bother the lot, loaded the dog into the car and headed for the coast.

It was a perfect winter's afternoon down at West Wittering (South coast UK, for those not from these parts): flat sand, tide out, no wind and not too cold, the dog going wild running about, and a perfect winter sunset in a pale blue sky. One to remember.

And back to work tomorrow, but the train drivers are on strike so I'm working from home, which eases me back in gently.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:15 PM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Chiming in to support woodworking content on the blue! Seems like there is a little community here for it.

I resume work tomorrow and am dreading it, although trying not to dread it. Hope the therapist and career coach will be of some help this week.
posted by graticule at 12:23 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I continue to eat this wheel of cheese.
posted by Wordshore at 12:24 PM on January 2, 2023 [22 favorites]

I don't really have the space or funds to take up yet another hobby I won't spend enough time doing, but I would without a doubt vicariously enjoy any and all woodworking posts.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:10 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Same. I spent just enough time in woodshop in junior high to realize that woodworking would never be in my personal skill-set, but nostalgia is, as they say, a hell of a drug, and my dad and his dad were both carpenters.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:28 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

The soup I made last night restored my basic s3nse of wellness, and took the regved edge offa everytbing. Musta needed electrolites, or just massive soup goodness. I bought roadside corn, "Up from Mexico," I used it, but it must have been fuel corn, or corn for feed. There was no sweetness, I boiled 4 ears and put a tablespoon of cane sugar in the water, still no sweetness and a heavy, gluey, consistency. It was all I could do to cut the kernels off the cobs, still chewy after simmering long. But oh the soup! Hooray!
posted by Oyéah at 1:33 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

How much wood would a woodworker work if a woodworker’s wood wouldn’t work?

About as much as I do.
posted by jamjam at 2:39 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

My last vacation day too and I have NO energy to clean up the house, it's pouring out again, I can't find my favorite umbrella, just the broken one, and all I want to do is sit and knit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:43 PM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

A former college chum was semi nearby and came to visit me for an hour. It was a wonderful slice of normalcy and adult conversation.
posted by mightshould at 3:28 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

This won't mean much to anyone else, but last night's storm finally peeled off the loose panel of the sheet metal roof on the derelict house down the hill from me and I'm happy about that because

• no more random metallic clanging sounds as an approximately 6' x 15' section of metal gets lifted up, only to slam back down in the middle of any significant wind, and
• it didn't hit my house or the house of my friend next door when it finally went airborne

I've been after the property owner to do something about it for years but I'm honestly not surprised that the wind got it before the owner fixed it.
posted by Nerd of the North at 5:03 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think the Twitter thread is closed but I ran across this recording of Musk on a Twitter live stream where the bro-genius thinks he’s had a brilliant idea about targeting digital advertising.
posted by interogative mood at 5:46 PM on January 2, 2023

I ran out of steam this evening, so took a long break to watch the log cabin video log. I recovered enough to dust my large bookcases (an annual project). I'll get the shelves back in order tomorrow.
posted by mersen at 6:05 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I spent the weekend in the mountains with 7 people, 4 dogs, and one "friendly tornado" (aka a 7-month golden retriever male), in a house a bit too small for all of that. In the hammering rain, when we had planned to go snowshoeing and cross-country skiing and hiking.

We made the best of it, with Scrabble, Ticket to Ride, and a bunch of British murder shows (Shetland and Vera, specifically), and I made my first pavlova, which came out quite good.

But every time we walked the dogs we got soaked through. And the dogs were a lot: 3 of them are quite young and wanted to play play play, and the 2 old ladies just didn't GAF.

Anyway, New Year's Day was stunning: clear and sunny, and 5 of us took my little hybrid up the road to the fresh powder, and stomped around in snowshoes for a few hours, and exhausted the little pit-mix. And then we had homemade sushi and drove back to the Bay.

I have had worse holiday weekends, but it's nice to be home -- I'm quite sure my middle-aged GSD is happy to be away from all those rambunctious youngsters. And I made myself a steak for dinner as a treat to start the New Year.
posted by suelac at 7:37 PM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

Well, I don’t know squat about woodworking except for turning, and I say any video by Richard Raffin is likely to be a good one. Though I don’t know that “hand tools” really covers the whole wood turning thing unless you’re willing to use a treadle lathe.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:08 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Quite unexpectedly, I picked up a rare (in Canada, at least) computer I'd been wanting for years: an Acorn BBC Micro. It's a really nice machine: well made and very clever design
posted by scruss at 8:50 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well, first day back at work since before Christmas, and my morning is already fully booked with meetings set by my boss, and my team - some of whom I haven't seen in several weeks due to vacation/holidays, etc, also all need to check in. So there goes any of my plans for the first day back.

I think I said last year that a big part of the plan for the year was figuring out what else I could do career wise, and it feels like I need to really make that a front-burner priority this year. I'm just not feeling like this is a healthy place for me.
posted by nubs at 7:39 AM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

nubs, I think you should. Otherwise you'll always wonder.

And looking back at past jobs from my present vantage, I can think of many more times when I've stayed longer than I should have than times when I left too early.
posted by mochapickle at 9:36 AM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Today at the supermarket, a lady who very clearly has mental health issues asked for my opinion on margarine.
I answered, and then we talked for 50 minutes. It was literally crazy. On the other hand, I went away feeling it was a good thing. Before my break-down in 2015, I could be sure to meet a vulnerable person every time I went down on the street. But while I have been struggling with my own mental health issues, no one has talked to me at all. If this is a sign that the therapy is working, I don't mind planning for longer shopping trips.
posted by mumimor at 9:44 AM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I continue to eat this wheel of cheese.

This sounds like a cry for help. If so I'm right here.
posted by loquacious at 12:58 PM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm really excited about this particular copyright day. I've been working on an online version of the best selling 1927 Ask Me Another books which set off the first big trivia craze. The descendants of the authors are awesome people and excited about the project, but nobody can figure out how to figure out whether or not exclusive contracts were signed with the publishing company that has now been acquired by other companies three times without paying a lot to a lawyer. Fortunately, procrastination has made that unnecessary. Unfortunately, procrastination means it's not ready to launch yet. (It'll be in projects eventually.) Then, on to the 1938 sequels.

I made the last minute decision to join a friend on a 3000km road trip to visit her family for New Years. As an introvert who finds conversation exhausting, 30 hours in a car and sleeping in strangers' homes isn't usually what I think of as a vacation. But, it was really fun. There aren't many people I can talk to 18 hours a day non-stop for several days and emerge feeling energized rather than shattered. It's exciting to discover another one. (We've been friends for decades, so it's not entirely a surprise.) Just getting out of town and seeing people in person is also part of it - I've been going a bit stir crazy lately and haven't traveled except for work in a long time.

Less happily, I also watched an ICU nurse go through the arduous decontamination procedure she's been doing on arriving home every day for the last three years after dealing with intubated COVID patients on New Years Eve, then stopped at a dozen crowded gas stations and restaurants where not a single person except my car mate and I were masked, including staff. It's hard not to feel demoralized. I genuinely don't get it. Most of you wear socks, half of you wear bras, why not wear a mask? I can't wear a wristwatch and hate socks. . . masks are fine. Why not mask? (At least nobody fucked with us, which I was slightly worried about in the rural southern US. I'm not sure if it's luck, or that we're both pretty good at being confident without being intimidating. Maybe both.)
posted by eotvos at 1:12 PM on January 3, 2023 [9 favorites]

A male relative of mine got harassed for wearing a mask in a Tim Horton's recently--by customers who took it upon themselves to police their little fiefdom of a coffee shop. So, it still happens and in places where you wouldn't necessarily expect to encounter it (although I guess if you're going to get confronted anywhere in Canada, it would be at Tim's--thanks Stephen Harper and every other Conservative politician who followed in your footsteps).
posted by sardonyx at 2:49 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

It restored my basic "sense of wellness," and took the ragged edges off, but sadly didn't restore my baseline proofing skills. That corn though, I have never experienced corn on the cob, like that. I am catching up on things after 5-6 weeks of upper respiratory crud, not covid. I had a day of self caring, putting away things, eating soup, laundry on the sunny line, putting things away, throwing things away, it feels like spring, and I sat in the sun for a long time. Yay life!
posted by Oyéah at 7:11 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Last night Mr Zumbador wanted to go for an evening cycle.

It's mid summer here and the sun goes down really late, so we have these amazing long, gentle evenings with the light fading really gradually.

We cycled along the coast, in a light misty rain, lovely after several blasting hot days.

I saw seven ravens! First a group of 4, closely followed by another group of 3, all flying in the same direction.

On the way home I saw a cat catch a small rodent, probably a young rat. The cat ran away carrying the poor little thing, still alive, I could hear it squeaking.

Gave my own little rats extra cuddles when I got home.
posted by Zumbador at 9:28 PM on January 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

Went out for a walk very late last night. I was adequately bundled up for the cold and rain. The walk included sighting a very fuzzy bunny and a skunk the size of a really big skunk.

I also made cinnamon rolls this morning out of leftover pizza dough. They are (surprisingly) extremely good, but no amount of sugar, cinnamon and butter rolled in can hide the essential heft of pizza dough. I am making happy doughy burps* even now.

---
*: I've said on here before that I can't burp. I very, very seldom burp is more like it. These are tiny burps faintly reminiscent of cinnamon.
posted by scruss at 6:26 AM on January 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have decided to start very small with yoga, so yesterday and today I did a short easy yoga practice on Youtube after finishing work and before dinner. (Usually this is before walking the dog, but the weather is hella stormy right now so she doesn't get her usual evening walk.)

I hope I can keep the commitment sufficiently minimal that I will actually keep up with it, and putting it in the evening means I won't have to wake up early to do it (which would keep me from doing it at all).
posted by suelac at 6:29 PM on January 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

After five years of not-very-effective two days here, three days there striking, my union is now making noises about indefinite strikes in the very near future.

I'm lucky enough to (probably) be able to pick up some short-term temp work elsewhere if I need to, but it's still going to sting if it lasts too long. Fingers crossed. :/
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:09 AM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Almost my entire town got blacked out in the last storm last night around midnight. My power came on about 12 hours later, but most of town still has not. My theater show is canceled today since power's still out there. And they're forecasting ANOTHER bad one of this nature oh, TONIGHT again.

I am frantically microwaving and putting everything on chargers while the power still works.

I was chatting with my friend whose dad is a Famous Water Expert (he gets quoted in everything in the news) and she said he gets asked the same three questions over and over again: is the drought gonna end (no), is it going to flood (depends on where you live), and will we get more rain (check the weather report).

I find it depressing that no matter how much rain we get and how much damage it gets, it's literally never enough and never going to be enough. She said he's very "cautious answers" on that topic though.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:35 PM on January 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is so embarrassing, but I had to say it to someone, so I thought the bottom of this thread would be the best place: I can't not look at Keanu Reeves on TikTok. His channel is so incredibly redundant, it is beyond imagination. I love you Keanu!
posted by mumimor at 2:39 PM on January 8, 2023

I’d love to connect with MeFi who are interested in woodworking….or if anybody knows a community that's woodworking/books type of people and not woodworking/gunloving/flagonthewall/you'redoingitwrong types.
posted by brachiopod at 3:44 PM on January 22, 2023