Random randomness

[Daehawk]

Apparently my ISP has entered into a long-term partnership with Comcast and today seems to be the day they officially rolled it out, with a service rebrand from "Rogers Ignite" to "Rogers Xfinity". In true Comcast form (given what I hear from American friends who are Comcast customers), I've had one full outage (modem going offline) and two service disruptions (DHCP service going down) in the last 3 hours. Should be a fun day if this keeps up.

Good luck with ComCrap. They are hated in my neck of the woods around here.

[Max Peck]

The closest I have to direct knowledge of Comcast is a friend in Texas who streams on Twitch. Her service has been extremely unreliable for weeks, to the point where it just randomly disconnects her, and they've been giving her the runaround about sorting it out. Rogers is normally very solid for me, so it struck me as being very funny when it fell over multiple times as soon as they did the Xfinity rollout.

I just got the email notifying me that they've closed the ticket, so hopefully the issue is sorted out.

[hitbyambulance]

as bad as Comcast/Xfinity CS is, Qwest/Lumen/CenturyLink/Quantum/whatever-they're-calling-themselves-now-to-try-to-hide-their-legacy is far, far worse

[Blackhawk]

20 straight years of Comcast and all I can say is that if there were anything at all comparable in speed around here, I'd have switched 19 years ago.

I have one account issue I've been trying to get them to solve, including literally dozens of hours on the phone, since 2007.

[Daehawk]

Last night laying in bed trying to watch a ASMR video on my tablet I realized if I just had some type of an arm that attached to my headboard and came up and over me and was adjustable it could hold my tablet in front of my face without me having to hold it.

I was about to come here to OO to ask and figured Id Google it even if I wasn't sure what it would be called. So I just described it...and the first ones to pop up were on Amazon and exactly what I was thinking of

SO I ordered one. Should be here Sunday. This should be a neat and even more relaxing way to watch ASMR...hands free right in front of me with me on my back under the covers and earbuds in my ears. Sleep here I come!

No its not for porn...actually that thought just occurred to me.

[Blackhawk]

Last night laying in bed trying to watch a ASMR video on my tablet I realized if I just had some type of an arm that attached to my headboard and came up and over me and was adjustable it could hold my tablet in front of my face without me having to hold it.

I was about to come here to OO to ask and figured Id Google it even if I wasn't sure what it would be called. So I just described it...and the first ones to pop up were on Amazon and exactly what I was thinking of

SO I ordered one. Should be here Sunday. This should be a neat and even more relaxing way to watch ASMR...hands free right in front of me with me on my back under the covers and earbuds in my ears. Sleep here I come!

No judgment.

A year or two ago I had some problems with bursitis. I had to lie on my back when my knee up for most of every day for a couple of weeks. Thanks to my paralyzed shoulder, I can't lay with my arm above me holding a book, so I rigged a gooseneck tablet holder and a couple of old bookends to do the same thing, holding my tablet and/or Kindle at arm's length directly above my head while lying down. I also grabbed a remote page turner for my Kindle. It was so relaxing that I kept it all in place afterward, and it isn't unusual for me to get in bed, turn off the lights, crank my tablet brightness way down, turn on the bluelight filter, and watch a couple of videos before I fall asleep.

[Rumpy]

I can't speak to what happens when they take over your other provider and how long it will be until that provider is Comcastized.

That wouldn't be possible. They wouldn't be able to take over a Canadian company of that type. There have been efforts from Telecommunication companies to enter the Canadian market, but they've all been shot down by the regulatory committee in years past. The most that can happen is a partnership and licensing deal, but the companies have to be 100% Canadian. About a decade ago, Rogers and Comcast had a production deal when Comcast was running G4TechTV. While in the US, they would eventually drop TechTV from the name, they couldn't do that in Canada without going back to the regulatory comission and changing their content license, which can be expensive. In Canada it continued being G4TechTV for many years after that, and as part of the deal, they were able to produce a new version of Call for Help with Leo Laporte, first in Toronto, then in Vancouver, giving him a long commute for 2 weeks of every month it was in production.

[hitbyambulance]

I also grabbed a remote page turner for my Kindle.

newer Kobos (with Bluetooth) can use the Bluetooth presentation clickers or gamepads or mini-keyboards as page-turner remotes now:
https://github.com/tsowell/kobo-btpt

(this will not work with Kindle, as its Bluetooth implementation supports audio-out only)

the clickers will work natively with e-readers that use Android as their base OS (Boox, Bigme, etc) and probably PocketBook (some other Linux distro) as well.

[Jaymann]

Let me get this straight. Swiping a finger across a page is just too much effort.

[Blackhawk]

Let me get this straight. Swiping a finger across a page is just too much effort.

When you're flat on your back for medical reasons, you have one paralyzed shoulder, you're under blankets because it's the middle of the winter, and the kindle is hanging from a springy gooseneck that bounces after every page swipe (requiring time to quit bouncing so it can be read), yes.

[Blackhawk]

I also grabbed a remote page turner for my Kindle.

newer Kobos (with Bluetooth) can use the Bluetooth presentation clickers or gamepads or mini-keyboards as page-turner remotes now:
https://github.com/tsowell/kobo-btpt

(this will not work with Kindle, as its Bluetooth implementation supports audio-out only)

the clickers will work natively with e-readers that use Android as their base OS (Boox, Bigme, etc) and probably PocketBook (some other Linux distro) as well.

I am very much looking forward to swapping my Kindle for something - likely a Kobo - as soon as it makes sense.

[Isgrimnur]

Nothing more I love than trying to bring in a grocery delivery on Halloween Night and managing three dogs that more antisocial than I am. Thanks, wife.

[Unagi]

I'm getting sloppy with my hands and key presses lately - and I'm discovering a lot of fancy short-cut keys that invoke OS and Browser functionality.

[LordMortis]

Man, they pack a lot of calories in brownies and I just can't figure out how to eat them slowly and savor them. I could put away 3600 calories in brownies one sitting and go to reach for more only to discover I already ate them all and be sad they were gone.

[Punisher]

Man, they pack a lot of calories in brownies and I just can't figure out how to eat them slowly and savor them. I could put away 3600 calories in brownies one sitting and go to reach for more only to discover I already ate them all and be sad they were gone.

The best solution is to get more brownies.

[LordMortis]

I only have the fixings for one pan at a time and apparently that is for a good reason. I kept myself to 2 and they were 800 calories worth of gone in an instant. The next few days will be same, I'm sure.

[Max Peck]

Sausage-maker thinks he’s found the answer to Germany’s raccoon problem

A butcher in northeast Germany has come up with what he believes is an innovative solution to the country’s growing raccoon problem: turning them into sausages and other meat products.

Michael Reiss, a hunter who set up a butcher’s shop in Kade, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) west of Berlin, in 2022, told CNN Wednesday that he developed the idea after trying to think of a standout product to take to the Green Week international food fair.

He realized that raccoons who are killed as pests are simply thrown in the bin, and decided to ask local officials if they could instead be processed and turned into food.

After receiving the green light, Reiss started making his “raccoon balls,” meatballs made from raccoon meat, which he said turned out to be a hit at the fair and with customers at his shop, which is called Wildererhütte.

Soon Reiss was selling online, and he now makes a total of seven raccoon meat products, including salami.

“We’re the only place in Europe selling raccoon meat,” Reiss told CNN.

I'd bet they're the only place anywhere selling raccoon meat.

Perhaps this is the solution to NYC's rat problem as well...

[Isgrimnur]

Stew-art Little.

[Unagi]

I'm not a vegetarian by a long shot, but I get sad when I hear about new animals being added to our menu.

I've also always been kinda fond of Raccoons, even when they mess with my garden

[Kraken]

Bah. I’ll bet they taste like porcupine, but without nature’s toothpicks.

[LordMortis]

I'm not a vegetarian by a long shot, but I get sad when I hear about new animals being added to our menu.

I'm sort of like this. I find that when I was younger, I used to leave lots of meat and fan on the bone. Now when I buy, as example, a rotisserie chicken I clean it very tightly, often chewing on more digestible bonse, only short of using the picked skeleton for broth. Now I feel if something has to be grown and die for me to live, I should at least have the courtesy of not being wasteful of the corpse.

[Max Peck]

Raccoons are an invasive species in Germany, so if they're going to be culled anyway and the meat is edible, why not?

[hepcat]

I'm not a vegetarian by a long shot, but I get sad when I hear about new animals being added to our menu.

I'm sort of like this. I find that when I was younger, I used to leave lots of meat and fan on the bone. Now when I buy, as example, a rotisserie chicken I clean it very tightly, often chewing on more digestible bonse, only short of using the picked skeleton for broth. Now I feel if something has to be grown and die for me to live, I should at least have the courtesy of not being wasteful of the corpse.

I'm the same way with long pig.

[Max Peck]

only short of using the picked skeleton for broth.

You're missing out. I lurve me some good bone broth.

[LordMortis]

I know I'm missing out. It's just not something I am yet prepared to do. Maybe sometime in the foreseeable future I'll go through what it takes to prepare such things.

[Max Peck]

I never tried it before getting an Instant Pot, but that makes it super easy. I use this recipe as a guide, but I usually ad lib it in terms of seasoning, depending on what I have on hand.

[gilraen]

After Thanksgiving dinner, we pick all the meat off the turkey, and the bones go straight into a pot with celery, onions, and carrots to make soup.

[Brian]

It happened again.
Jen & I met for lunch and as we were at the table the server approached us from behind and greeted us with, "Hello ladies."

"Ladies?"

"I'm so sorry, sir"

We all had a good laugh about it.

[Blackhawk]

Get a haircut, hippie!

[Brian]

No.

[Daehawk]

They did that in womens clothing stores at the mall back in the 90s with me. My hair was to my waist and Id be standing there with my my wife's purse while she was in the gitting room. I always had a lot of fun with that.

[Blackhawk]

All these long-haired freaky people just keep on applying.

[Max Peck]

The best thing about this morning's foray into the topic of poultry carcasses is that it reminded me that I had a container of chicken bones and scraps sitting in the freezer. My kitchen now smells like soup.

[Daehawk]

The oil you cook your food in

[Kraken]

I default to EVOO, of course, but for special use cases I keep on hand vegetable oil, canola oil, peanut oil, sesame oil, and bacon grease. I even use Crisco to grease a pan for one particular pizza recipe that frowns on me for not using lard. Based on that linked report I can easily phase out canola, although I suspect that generic "vegetable oil" isn't any better. One does need a neutral oil with a high smoke point sometimes. I doubt that these things matter if they aren't your daily go-to oil.

Gods, I can’t wait to get my new kitchen set up. I’m 80% done but still stuck with heating/reheating prepared food for another week. Real cooking has to wait until I liberate all the parts that are still in boxes and get everything properly stowed away. I haven't made a real meal in 2 weeks. I just found my spice rack today!

[Isgrimnur]

[Holman]

We've got a huge plastic barrel arrangement for collecting rainwater and saving it for the garden.

The barrel is easily the size of a large wine cask (probably a "tun"). It has Greek words stamped on one side, and at some point I realized it was actually a repurposed container for importing olive oil.

[Kraken]

I once fantasized that I could hook my rain barrel up to a soaker hose and keep the garden watered that way, but I didn't reckon with the low water pressure. It was a 60-gallon drum so the water weighed a lot when it was full, but not enough to drive a hose. I only used it to fill a watering can for some potted herbs, and I left it behind when we moved. It would've had marginal value if we lived in a dry climate, but (current flash drought notwithstanding) we don't.

[Brian]

He was in late-stage jaundice.

[The Meal]

Sin City?

Also, it’s illegal in Colorado to collect rain water.