Tell us what's happened to you recently (that's interesting)

kerzain · 2010-01-21T20:31:06.000Z

It’s official: Scrax creeps me out.

Tankero · 2010-01-21T21:17:58.000Z

Coming from you, that’s something…

kerzain · 2010-01-21T21:29:45.000Z

Tankero:

Coming from you, that’s something…

Nah, I’m not creepy, so it’s all good.

Omniscia · 2010-01-21T21:31:19.000Z

Pics or it didn’t happen.

BaconTastesGood · 2010-01-21T22:15:29.000Z

Just back from seeing the Xanadu musical. Awesome in a totally campy 1980 self-referential trying-a-little-too-hard kind of way. Not as good as Wicked, but I liked it more than Rent.

Rimbo · 2010-01-21T22:20:10.000Z

WarrenM:

My US passport arrived yesterday! So I’m done. 100% American and finished with immigration forever. LOVE! Now to get on with living the rest of my Americanized life. Heh…

yaaaaaaaaaaay!

Raife · 2010-01-21T22:55:22.000Z

WarrenM:

My US passport arrived yesterday! So I’m done. 100% American and finished with immigration forever. LOVE! Now to get on with living the rest of my Americanized life. Heh…

Did you get your free VIP Patriot Disco Machinegun yet? I’m not sure how that works with naturalized citizens.

Hans_Lauring · 2010-01-22T00:41:24.000Z

Brendan:

Cool, what is the topic?

It’s made by our sister magazine which is a popular science kinda thing, so it’s a bit cliché, but the title is The Digital Revolution. I consulted on all topics and wrote the chapters on movies, games and filesharing.

Hans_Lauring · 2010-01-25T05:25:19.000Z

Hi diary, it’s me again.

As I wrote we installed a catflap, that reacted to our cats RFID, so other cats, rats or small dogs in the neighborhood couldn’t enter our house.
That worked well. The cat learned to use it and didn’t wake up my wife at night anymore.

Then the other day the kid woke me up early after a night of playing MW2 for too long. So I made breakfast and while they were watching tv I slept on the sofa.
Suddenly I woke to screams from the kids and a weird flapping noise. I looked behind the sofa (it’s in the middle of the living room) and saw black fluffy snowflakes in the air everywhere. Blinking my eyes a few times made me realize it was feathers - a fact made clear by the blackbird that took off and flew straight at me. Half a meter from my face a red blur rose from the floor and took the bird down. Our cat was playing. This happened once again and then the bird managed to escape under the sofa.
I consoled the kids. Put the cat outside a captured the bird - this I showed to the kids (“See, still alive and well”) and then I released it on the opposite side of the house.

When everybody stopped being scared and the living room was vacuumed the kids did agree that our cat was a pretty awesome hunter. The cat on the other hand prowled the house for full day looking quite insulted that his snack had been disappeared.

I really look forward to the day he brings home a rat…

Griddle · 2010-01-25T05:34:52.000Z

So, I know now why terriers are regarded as great hunter/killers… I was playing catch with the littler Cairn terrier yesterday before the storm. On one of the throws, he all the sudden layed flat as a pancake, and wouldn’t move no matter how loud I told him to come back. Then I saw a little movement in the grass, it was a rat(yeah yeah, I know, eww rat, but this is very near the city, we get those). The Cairn tears off faster than I’ve seen him move ever, all the sudden I saw this streak of terrier, he grabbed the rat, and with one amazingly fluid motion flings it in the air after one shake that broke its neck, then picked it back up and brings it to me and drops it at my feet. Talk about badass, I’m loving this little dude, he’s pretty awesome.

The cool part is that between the one cat that lives outside, and captain barny badass, you never see any rats in the yard.

WarrenM · 2010-01-25T05:47:19.000Z

That’s awesome. If he’s bringing you dead animals, you’re in. You’re his human! :)

Griddle · 2010-01-25T06:06:25.000Z

WarrenM:

That’s awesome. If he’s bringing you dead animals, you’re in. You’re his human! :)

Ha, now I just need to wash my hands more when he licks me… Dead rat breath.

Sarkus · 2010-01-25T22:49:46.000Z

I got home from work about an hour ago and one of my roommates was doing laundry. I heard him cursing up a storm in the laundry room, so when he came out I asked him what was going on. His response was “I forgot to wash my work pant; this is the fourth time I’ve forgotten.”

“Pant?” I replied, “You only have one pair of pants for work?!”

“Yes,” he said, “and I keep forgetting to wash them. I’m really mad at myself for forgetting to do things.”

He worked 40 hours last week. . .

Griddle · 2010-01-26T05:26:34.000Z

Sarkus:

I got home from work about an hour ago and one of my roommates was doing laundry. I heard him cursing up a storm in the laundry room, so when he came out I asked him what was going on. His response was “I forgot to wash my work pant; this is the fourth time I’ve forgotten.”

“Pant?” I replied, “You only have one pair of pants for work?!”

“Yes,” he said, “and I keep forgetting to wash them. I’m really mad at myself for forgetting to do things.”

He worked 40 hours last week. . .

Likely he didn’t forget to wash them, they were just hiding because they went sentient, lock your door at night, they hunger…

Gordon_Cameron · 2010-01-26T13:38:32.000Z

Did a two-week trip to Eastern/Central Europe (Prague/Vienna/Budapest) during Christmas and New Year’s. It was the first time I’d been in Europe since a trip to France just after graduating college. Amazing experience – it’s still all sinking in three weeks after coming home.

I uploaded a bunch of pics to Flickr here:

Europe Vacation Christmas 2009

Couple of highlights:

The statue of Archduke Charles at the Heldenplatz in Vienna:

The Chain Bridge in Budapest at night, crossing the Danube toward St. Istvan’s Cathedral:

The Parliament House in Pest seen from Buda after sunset:

The Vltava River in Prague, seen at night from the West bank:

Leah_C · 2010-01-26T14:18:36.000Z

Exciting adventures in new house land: it’s skunk mating season and there’s a whole family of skunks under our house making babies! ACC located the skunks but won’t go in and catch them for obvious smelly reasons, so there are traps set all around the yard. Two were caught this morning and one of the two quickly escaped. Great! We’re stuck with the smell until all can be humanely captured and relocated. It’s very very hard to resist the urge to go out and look at the traps.

So, uh, how do you get the smell of skunk out of the heating system?

mouselock · 2010-01-26T14:28:20.000Z

Leah C:

So, uh, how do you get the smell of skunk out of the heating system?

Flush it with tomato juice!

Raife · 2010-01-26T14:45:09.000Z

Leah C:

So, uh, how do you get the smell of skunk out of the heating system?

Take away its nose. Oh, wait…

Lorini · 2010-01-26T15:21:39.000Z

Love the pics Gordon. Eww, stinky stinky Leah :)

Dean · 2010-01-26T16:30:09.000Z

Leah C:

Exciting adventures in new house land: it’s skunk mating season and there’s a whole family of skunks under our house making babies! ACC located the skunks but won’t go in and catch them for obvious smelly reasons, so there are traps set all around the yard. Two were caught this morning and one of the two quickly escaped. Great! We’re stuck with the smell until all can be humanely captured and relocated. It’s very very hard to resist the urge to go out and look at the traps.

So, uh, how do you get the smell of skunk out of the heating system?

Dirty Jobs did an episode with a skunk removal guy. They didn’t say anything about how to get the spray off the house, but they did go crawling around in the foundations and found a dead skunk down there. Extra cool when the skin came away while trying to put it in a garbage bag. What smells worse than a skunk? A rotting skunk carcass!