81 thoughts on “For the weekend”

  2. My 5 1/2 month old is fat, weighing in at 19lbs 8oz at 5 months. He was seriously pissed off at us when we gave him his first solid food, looking at us as if to say “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN KEEPING ALL THIS GOOD STUFF!!!”

  3. My 8 month old is @ 18lbs, and she gave us basically the same look — CARROTS, I LOVE CARROTS, WHY DO MOMMY AND DADDY DEPRIVE ME OF THIS AMAZING STUFF AND FEED ME FORMULA.
    However the most crushing look has been reserved for the past few weeks as we are trying to introduce finger foods in the form of Cheerios and rice cakes — she thinks we are crazy to consider rice cakes anything more than funnily textured hand toys and NOT FOOD! She refused to even gum them despite the fact that she routinely tries to stick our cats’ tails in her mouth to relieve teething pain.

  4. she thinks we are crazy to consider rice cakes anything more than funnily textured hand toys and NOT FOOD!
    She learns fast.

  5. Man walks into a bar . . .
    I was going to try and make a Michael Vick joke regarding the poor Chihuahua, but I do not find Michael Vick funny.
    I remember writing in an open thread that Vick, once he served his time, deserved a second chance in the NFL. But now that he’s playing for the team I grew up rooting for, the Philadelphia Eagles, I can’t imagine cheering on a dog murderer. (My mom greeted me the other day by cursing the Eagles.)
    The dog-fighting ring was bad enough and I keep hearing how Vick was caught up in a cultural thing. What I really can’t stomach is the idea that he, or anyone, would electrocute or drown a dog.
    I’ve stayed out of Vick talk at work, where I’ve heard a handful of guys say “it was just dogs” a lot lately. I think that tells you a lot about the character and humanity about a person, at least Vick himself is acknowledging his guilt.

  6. I am glad Vick is at the Eagles: I would love to see the Eagles try something new, have McNabb and Vick on the field every play, never knowing which one will get the snap, both can run, both can throw…it could be some exciting football.
    RE: Dogs. I ate some cow, pig, and salmon last night. It is just hard to think that Vick should be punished more severely than he already has given that I eat animals on a daily basis. Granted I hope the ones I eat aren’t tortured, but I don’t think the typical slaughter house is a picnic.
    I suppose it is fair for the vegetarians out there to still think Vick got off easy, but for the meat eaters, it seems hypocritical.

  7. jrudkis: Vick paid a stiff price, which, to his credit, he never whined about. But his acts featured such sadism that I wonder what’s in the man’s heart and can’t bring myself to cheer him on.

  8. Killing animals to eat them is a lot different than killing animals for kicks, I think.
    I’m more puzzled by the Eagles’ taking Vick than I am offended. But I think he should have to work at an dog shelter (under constant supervision) in his otherwise free time as a stipulation of his contract with the Eagles. He should spend lots of time in the company of people who dedicate their lives to the welfare of dogs, particularly abused and abandoned dogs. It might get his head right over time.
    I see half back options, fake flea-flickers, real flea-flickers, direct half back snaps and other neat stuff on occasion in the Eagles’ offense later this season.

  10. bedtimeforbonzo
    I agree with you. But a couple of years in jail and the loss of over 100 million dollars, perhaps much more, ought to be penance enough.

  11. I saw an interview with Vick on Sixty Minutes.
    I’m a vegeatarian. Well worse than that! I’m a veggitarian who doesn’t buy leather products or items tested on animals or wool from Ameican sheep farms or things wrapped in plastic (unless there is no choice.)
    So what would it take for me to forgive Vick? I just want him to have a change of heart. i want him to have empathy for animals.
    Hhe is doing volunteer work for the Humane Society these days, visiting shcools to talk about dog fighting.
    BTW we have a new dog: a collie/German shepard mix with big beautiful brown eyes which she bats flirtaciously at everyone. Her name is Jodie and she is sweetness itself.

  12. Von:
    My wife and I spent all of last weekend trying to come up with a present for our 6 year-old nephew’s birthday. Knowing his mom (my sister), we tried our damnedest to get him something educational, but we couldn’t find anything (at least within our budget) really cool. Then we spoke with my sister and she told us that he’s currently obsessed with toy guns.
    Right then I knew the perfect gift: NERF VULCAN!
    Thanks for the recommendation.

  13. wonkie,
    Congratulations on the new dog. She sounds lovely. Enjoy.
    Having some experience with a much beloved (by me and others) German shepherd/husky(?) mix, I have always felt, without much to back it up, that shepherds are a much-maligned breed. They are smart and strong and easy to train, and hence easy to use for nefarious purposes. But my feeling is that the common attitude is unfair and they are not inherently vicious/nasty/etc., but actually rather loyal and intelligent.
    What do you think?

  14. Vick paid a stiff price, which, to his credit, he never whined about. But his acts featured such sadism that I wonder what’s in the man’s heart

    Given what I know what’s in my own head, I can’t bring myself to condemn further someone who has done his time and paid a price. It’s all provisional, anyway; if he stays on the straight and narrow, fine and good, but if not…

  15. Shepherds are the textbook definition of loyal and intelligent.
    wonkie, cool that you have a new canine family member.
    This guy had a tattoo “on his neck or arm”? Somebody needs an anatomy lesson…
    Talking about kiddies, Sunday I get to meet my new grandniece, born on the 4th of July. My sister, her grandma, is seriously in love.

  16. But a couple of years in jail and the loss of over 100 million dollars, perhaps much more, ought to be penance enough.
    Bah. My wife’s stepfather, who spent a few years in prison in his 20s for some relatively minor drug offenses, and who never killed anyone or anything, spent an entire career working as a draftsman and designer because his felony conviction prevented him from ever being licensed as an architect. Actions have consequences.
    I suppose it is fair for the vegetarians out there to still think Vick got off easy, but for the meat eaters, it seems hypocritical.
    No more so than it’s hypocritical to believe that a woman should be able to abort her own pregnancy, but that another party shouldn’t be permitted to cause her to miscarry. Unlike things are, well, not alike.
    The dog-fighting ring was bad enough and I keep hearing how Vick was caught up in a cultural thing.
    It speaks poorly of the culture that entertains itself by torturing animals for amusement.

  17. Since this is an open thread …
    My dryer seems to be giving up the ghost, which brings me face to face with the one and only imperfection in my house: the doorway down to the basement is about 24.5″ wide. Last time I considered buying a new dryer, I was annoyed by the fact that no one seems to make a decent capacity dryer that’s only 24″ wide (can I be the only person with a narrow doorway leading into a large basement?)
    But now it’s worse: as far as I can tell, there are NO gas dryers that will fit down my stairs being sold, period — except as parts of a washer/dryer combo whose parts cannot be separated. Every dryer in this size is electric. What sort of market failure is this?
    (And no, I don’t have a nearby 220v. outlet. So, yes, I would need an electrician. Sigh …) (Plus, I suppose I’d have to cap the gas or something …)

  19. Hilzoy,
    All you need is a pair of wire cutters, and two 110 circuits. And some electrical tape.
    It works.

  20. Why not hang your clothes up to dry? That’s what I do. My sister does it, too. (She doesn’t even own a dryer.) Outdoors when it’s sunny. Indoors when it’s not. Dryers use a whole lot of energy.

  22. Or one of those where underwear is not allowed to be dried in public (especially not male and female on the same line)
    —
    I could not keep pets
    a) allergies
    b) I would likely not treat it responsibly
    c) Something alive cannot be controlled and I, as a potential messie, hate to lose it.
    d) what, if it bites me?
    Apart from that I find huskies beautiful, esp. the slender black and white ones with blue eyes. Otherwise I’d prefer cats.
    Decades ago we made a try with fishes but with the first the males ate the female’s scales and with another species they all died (after one or two breeding sessions) of some disease. we gave up.

  23. Hartmut: I consider myself a dog person and never talk about my cats, Tiger and Baby, but couldn’t imagine life without them. Tiger talks more than some humans I know, loves to attack my feet and follows me around like a dog. Baby is jet black, chubby, born without a tail and is happiest napping next to or on me. They’ve been part of the family since the mid-90s.
    Good luck with Jodie, wonkie. I’ve come around to seeing my wife’s concerns and see, that now that we are down to one dog, we should stay that. Hamilton, our 13-year-old Beagle, was freaking out last night because we were hit with some pretty bad thunderstorms. When we went to bed, he scurried underneath it — I did not think he could still make it under there, but determination seems to be a Beagle trait.
    CoCo used to seek cover in the tub during thunderstorms. Meanwhile, the cats aren’t fazed one bit. What’s with that?
    I went home feeling as if I sounded unforgiving about Vick, which wasn’t entirely my intent. I do think he deserves a second chance; I just find it hard to embrace him with open arms, but that may change if he continues to make amends.
    —
    I spent a lot of time in the seering heat and sun this week and developed blisters on my exposed arms. It’s irritating. Any suggestions for a good lotion?

  24. btb, when I got sunburnt over summer vacation, (and I know this is sort of the old tried and true) I used some Aloe gel that really made a difference. Not sure about the maker, but this link shows how to get the stuff from the leaves.
    A bleg, does anyone have any experience with Amazon’s Mechanical Turk?

  25. wonkie: yay about the dog!
    My back yard is really tiny, too much so for much clothes-drying. Besides, there are thunderstorms, and winter.
    It just puzzles me that apparently no one markets a gas dryer that would fit through my door.

  26. I’m not sure you put lotion on burn blisters. Isn’t that a no-no? I can remember treating sunburn redness and soreness with over the counter sunburn lotions but my mommy always said to leave the blisters alone.
    Jodie is the only dog in the world that gets along with our elderly, grumpy, possessive corgie mix Blackie. His outbreaks of jealousy barking (which provoke outbreaks of yelling in us humans) only confuse her and hurt her feelings. She gives no indication of wanting to bark or bite back.
    Un fact she imitates his more endeearing behaviors. Blackie typically greets me with lots of bounces and friendly finger tip nips (it’s a corgie thing). Jodie watched this interaction and thought,”Oh, the humans think that’s cute!” So now when I get home I am greeted by TWO bouncing dogs. Thankfully she doesn’t try to nip my finger tips.
    About Vick: I would be more inclined to forgive him if he put remores for what he did to the dogs first rather than remorse for what he did to himself. But he does clearly take responisbility. I just think I’d like him better if his dreams were haunted by tortured dogs instaed of lost money and reputation. Heck my dreams are haunted by tortured dogs and I didn’t do it!

  27. “(can I be the only person with a narrow doorway leading into a large basement?)”
    The liberal healthcare plan before Congress has language addressing this conundrum.
    To wit: Erick Erickson’s granny (who should have known better) shall be lead via a narrow doorway into a liberal’s large basement where Obama’s death panels meet to discuss her (cough) end-of-life care.
    As a subterfuge to calm granny beforehand by giving her the false impression that she retains her productive status in society, she shall wash and rinse the liberal’s laundry by hand in the kitchen sink. She shall take the laundry via basket to the backyard and stand musing at the clothesline, staring beatifically into the distance, a single clothespin clasped in her mouth, and thinking wistfully about how the noxious Erickson line could have been nipped in the bud before it accomplished so much damage if she had only kept her legs closed on that fateful drunken evening, lo, those many years ago.
    Now, little mother, shall we see what the basement holds for us? Here, sidle through the door (she’s roomy the hips). Let me get the light for you.
    Go on. It’s O.K.

  28. I haven’t had a clothes dryer for 15 or 20 years. Even in the summer I rarely bother to schlep the clothes outside, I just hang them on a chest-high wooden rack (I like ’em better than the plastic ones). The only thing I miss the dryer for is dewrinkling shirts. (Of course, I don’t have to get dressed up very often. Then again, even when I do “have to,” I usually don’t. 😉
    If you have a big basement, the rack(s) could go down there.
    Not having a dryer makes a noticeable difference in the electric bill too, though maybe that’s not much money in the big scheme of things.
    As for the market in dryers, obviously I don’t know a thing about it. 😉

  29. Pentagon Shift Gives Names of Detainees to Red Cross .

    In a reversal of Pentagon policy, the military for the first time is notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross of the identities of militants who were being held in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by United States Special Operations forces, according to three military officials.

    I’d blog about this at my own blog, but as always, there seems little point in blogging there about big news items that everyone else will blog about, given how few people read my own blog.

  31. Duck With Diamond Necklace Stolen At Longshoreman Bar
    Police Seek Man Whistling “Farmer in the Dell”

  32. Since this is an open thread:
    Gary, I’m halfway through reading “Star Wars on Trial” and I’m curious if you have any thoughts.

  33. hil: “It just puzzles me that apparently no one markets a gas dryer that would fit through my door.”
    At 24.5 inches wide, they aren’t making a lot of people these days that would fit through your basement door.
    Hire a carpenter. Standardize the door to between 30 & 36″.
    But surely you’ve thought of that…? I know it’s an old house, but 24.5″? How the hell you get anything down there?

  34. xanax: alas, it’s not just the door that’s 24.5″; it’s the ensuing passage down the stairs. (Maybe it’s all of 25″. Who can say.) One wall or the other would have to go.
    The mystery to me is how the washer got down there. The existing dryer is only 21″ or so deep, but the washer has to be more like 25. I hope it doesn’t break in the near future.

  35. Though, on reflection, one of the walls might be the chimney-esque thingo through which the gas is (or was) vented. (Neither the hot water heater, the furnace, or the dryer vents there now; the venting status of the stove is unclear to me.) Hmm.

  36. “Gary, I’m halfway through reading “Star Wars on Trial” and I’m curious if you have any thoughts.”
    Haven’t read it, though I’ve read some of the same writers on the topic elsewhere. Also there’s this film in progress.
    Otherwise, I’m not sure what to say beyond that different people have different opinions about what Lucas did with the prequel films, and Star Wars in general, and sf writers have always had debates and differing opinions about every topic related to the field.
    Back before the internet, those sort of intra-writer debates were what filled several fanzines largely devoted to that sort of thing. (Zines by people whose names you wouldn’t recognize, like Dick Geis, and for a while, Frank Lunney, and others, back in the Seventies and Sixties.)
    I have my own opinions, of course, but in short, Star Wars are lots of fun, and is not at all sf, but science fantasy. I can otherwise debate the pros and cons of each film, and the separate trilogies, as to what my personal opinions are.
    David Brin, who once held me trapped for about forty minutes against a wall of a publisher’s party I once threw, back when I worked inhouse for that publisher, by talking non-stop, a trick he displays on numerous occasions, has written lots of stuff about why he thinks Star Wars is a lot of bad things. Brin is a bright and interesting guy, who has written some excellent sf and nonfiction, and I suppose I shouldn’t be one to complain about someone talking too much, but I’ve tended to find him rather over-worked up on the question of SW.
    On the specific “charges”:
    * Charge #1: The Politics of Star Wars Are Anti-Democratic and Elitist.
    Could be; we don’t really know anything (from the films; I’ve not read any of the Expanded Universe books, though I’ve played a bunch of the computer games) about the internal politics of the planets/systems — we’re told the “Queen” of Naboo is an elective office, with term limits, and the Republic is all about “democracy,” and the Rebellion is about Restoring Democracy And Freedom, but we really don’t see anything abut that on screen otherwise, which is fine, because if we accept those statements, we don’t need to know more; as it is, one of the major complaints about Phantom Menace is that the crawl and plot are about a trade embargo.
    The Jedi are pretty much an elite by definition, but we also see them, in the prequels express great concern about ever interfering with the Senate, etc. They don’t rule planets, or anything like that, either. They just go around doing good, although that does involve a lot of self-appointed chopping off arms and killing as seen as necessary, to be sure. But only strictly as necessary, and apparently they’re clearly authorized by the Senate, before Palpatine stages his coup and makes himself Emperor. So that doesn’t seem to make them particularly different from any police force. Aside from having magic powers, which are sort of simultaneously claimed to be inherent in some people’s blood, and a product of training. I imagine there’s more dealing with that in the novels; obviously a lot of people were very unhappy with the whole “Midi-chlorians” retcon. My reaction: eh. It’s not hard sf, anyway, so why get worked up about that point? I’d otherwise be start with wondering how spaceships fly like airplanes, and how you get gravity on small ships like the Millenium Falcon, etc. But it’s not sf, it’s fantasy set in space.
    * Charge #2: While Claiming Mythic Significance, Star Wars Portrays No Admirable Religious or Ethical Beliefs.*
    Debatable.
    * Charge #3: Star Wars Novels Are Poor Subsitutes for Real Science Fiction and Are Driving Real SF off the Shelves.
    Eh. There have always been novelizations and formula series, back through the pulps. I don’t see any significant change with the Star Wars and Star Trek books, which, with different authors, vary a huge amount in quality (I’ve read *some* of the ST books, and some are quite good for what they are, some are wretchedly horrible, and a lot are mediocre; some of this has depended on the editing team at the publishing house, as well).
    * Charge #4: Science Fiction Filmmaking Has Been Reduced by Star Wars to Poorly Written Special Effects Extravaganzas.
    Somewhat true, but mostly there have only very rarely been any truly good sf films anyway, and especially pre-SW, so there’s more of an argument that SW has simply led to more sf and pseudo-sf films, period, both mostly bad (as was always the ase), and a rare few good ones, which are mostly non special effects based (Gattaca, say). Kind of a whole topic unto itself. It’s not as if there were a slew of great, well-written, science fiction films before Star Wars.
    * Charge #5: Star Wars Has Dumbed Down the Perception of Science Fiction in the Popular Imagination.
    Eh. SF has always been dumbed down in popular perception. If-it’s-good-it-isn’t-science-fiction has been a theme of mainstream critics and writers and many since literally decades before I was born. It continues. Certainly the literary acceptance of sf, while quite incomplete, has only grown in recent years. (I just had an exchange with Cheryl Morgan about that yesterday.) Dave Langford continues to publish denigratory quotes from one news source or another every month. [LINK DELETED for next comment to keep to under four.]
    * Charge #6: Star Wars Pretends to Be Science Fiction, but Is Really Fantasy.
    Completely true. But also nothing new in the field: James Blish first wrote his “William Atheling” criticisms of sf on the theme of “call a rabbit a ‘smeerp’ doesn’t make it sf,” again, before I was born, and science fantasy has been around since the pulps of the Twenties and Thirties, including a bunch of Leigh Brackett’s work (relevant because she co-wrote Empire Strikes Back, as well as, irrelevantly, The Big Sleep).
    * Charge #7: Women in Star Wars Are Portrayed as Fundamentally Weak.
    One can argue both sides of that. For instance, on the one hand, Leia gets the metal bikini and momentary slavedom, but on the other hand, gets to singlehandedly kill Jabba the Hutt. Etc. Evidence on both sides.
    * Charge #8: The Plot Holes and Logical Gaps in Star Wars Make It Ill-Suited for an Intelligent Viewer.
    Oh, I suppose, but that goes for most popular movies, really, as well.
    All in all, I have trouble getting worked up over the idea of taking Star Wars seriously in any fashion, as opposed to either just enjoying them to whatever degree, or hating them to whatever degree, as is the individual’s wont.
    I’d reword Charge 5 to something rather different, and make it, though, which is that it did tend to make the general public think of sf more as space-adventure/space opera, to some degree, which most of the thoughtful sf is not, but it didn’t originate that tendency; it just increased it somewhat.
    (And led to a lot more slush pile submissions along the same lines, just as Tolkien and post-Tolkien imitations of Tolkien led to an endless slew of both published and slush fiction with endless variants of dwarves, elves, wizards, magic swords, collect-a-magic-item books, and the derivative D&D-derived fiction subgenre, as well.)
    That should be enough of an answer, I hope.

  38. Hmmmm… cut a trap door from the kitchen and drop the dryer in place?
    Burrow under the house with a dryer-sized burrowing tool and come up in the basement (think “The Great Escape”)? Build a laundry room addition onto the house? Buy all new clothes every time the old ones get soiled? String a dry-line across the library and have guests over for tea and frock-drying? Add a “picture window” to the basement and shove a new washer and dryer through prior to adding the glass?
    Buy a new house?

  40. Hilzoy,
    My mother had EXACTLY your problem earlier this summer. Naturally, I had to deal with it.
    The first thing is, can you define “giving up the ghost”? Over the last 10 years I replaced the drum belt once and the igniter element twice, specifically to avoid having to deal with the narrow-basement-door issue. Replacement parts are easier to get downstairs.
    Second, I don’t remember the exact width of my mother’s basement door, but it was 25″ or so. Last month, when she decided to bite the bullet and get a new dryer no matter what, I was prepared to dismantle the door if necessary. Nothing is permanent.
    Anyway, as you say, the DEPTH of the new dryer is what matters. I got my mother her new dryer the old-fashioned way: by walking into Sears and telling the salesman my problem. He steered me to their cheapest (or maybe 2nd-cheapest) dryer, available in either electric or gas, with a 25″ or so depth. It just barely squoze through. Actually, since the basement door is low as well as narrow, the dryer’s WIDTH was also a tight squeeze.
    The old dryer went out in pieces. I mention this because the front panels on these things come off quite easily, shaving an inch or two off the depth. Usually, too, the stop bars (strips? blocks?) on doorways are not hard to take out, gaining you another inch or so.
    Good luck. If I lived near you, I’d happily volunteer to help, being an expert now:)
    On the grander scale, you’re right: the free market provides us with abundant choices, but sometimes not abundant enough. My own current peeve is the choice in cordless phones. I have an old one that really does need replacing. All the new ones, however, have handsets too small to hold against my ear with my shoulder. Small is beautiful when it comes to the electronic guts of things like telephones, but why nobody offers the smaller, lighter, guts inside an old, human-scale carcass of a handset is beyond me. I may have to take it on as a DIY project.
    –TP

  41. All the new ones, however, have handsets too small to hold against my ear with my shoulder.
    Isn’t holding a phone like this supposed to be really bad for your neck and shoulders? Bad as in “consistent use requires lots of physical therapy to recover” bad? If I weren’t so shocked to hear that you still have a land line, I’d suggest a cheap bluetooth headset used with Skype or your favorite VOIP service….
    Gary, thanks for your thoughts. I was just curious what your take was.

  42. I have been inspired to inspect my basement steps further, and it seems even more hopeless. The left side of the door frame is flush against a wall. It’s lath and plaster over bricks (with electrical wiring in place), but while I might remove the lath and plaster, there’s also a beam underneath it — a big one, which looks as old as the house itself, and as though it’s supporting something, like the floor, and possibly the stairs above it. If I did anything to this side, I’d have to cut out (as opposed to merely moving) the door frame as well, since the wall is flush against it, and it in its turn is flush against the dining room door.
    On the right, there’s a removable bit of wood that I didn’t take into account in my individual measurements, and a removable switchbox, ditto. I could, I suppose, cut out and then replace a bit of the door frame (an inch at most). After that, though, it’s the kitchen wall, on the other side of which is a sort of enclosure holding the refrigerator (which already sticks out a few inches into the very tiny kitchen.)
    So maybe I could get it to 25.5″ without starting to move the walls, which is above my pay grade, and (imho) less desirable than just getting an electric dryer. Sigh.

  43. Also, Turb: if you don’t have a land line, do you carry your cell around with you wherever you go, even when you’re at home? I can’t hear my cell if it’s on my kitchen table and I’m in my study, whereas since I have several land phones, I can always hear them.

  44. Hey, Hilzoy, I have an idea: install me in your basement, I’ll pay you a nominal rent of, say, $150/month, and hand wash all your clothing! 🙂
    Turbulence, I forgot to mention that, not having read, or even seen, the book, I was responding from this web page.
    xanax: “My 7-year-old son just read my answer to you and said, ‘Wow, dad. Not very Metro Green.'”
    Presumably the way to making one’s environmental footprint the lowest possible is by killing one’s self, but it seems a bit extreme.
    I haven’t kept up, though: what do Deep Ecologists think of living in trees, and eating only nuts and berries?
    TP: “Small is beautiful when it comes to the electronic guts of things like telephones, but why nobody offers the smaller, lighter, guts inside an old, human-scale carcass of a handset is beyond me. I may have to take it on as a DIY project.”
    There’s always this or this, but probably not what you’re looking for, either.
    But, seriously, I think most people use a Bluetooth earpiece/microphone to be an entirely handless option, rather than going with the old balancing-on-your-neck way.

  46. I think this “Wonderwash” is the same thing, though I’m not 100% sure, but it’s got more detail, either way.
    To be sure, it’s not exactly a time-saver.
    Wait, I know! Hire a servant!
    Or maybe a chimp?
    A grad student/TA? 🙂 (I’m sure that would be ethical!)

  47. * Charge #8: The Plot Holes and Logical Gaps in Star Wars Make It Ill-Suited for an Intelligent Viewer.
    There are no plot holes or logical gaps (save one) in the original trilogy. The prequels are another matter, of course.

  48. Have you talked to local appliance wholesalers, particularly any who claim to do specialty work? They’ll know more about the entire product lines than the big box stores, and there may be some special order units.
    As someone else suggested, try a good repair service. In addition to the possibility that the existing dryer can be fixed, they’re the people who will know every possible trick there is in terms of partial disassembly. Saw a neighbor’s washer go in once where the installer had basically taken the entire outer housing off and gained at least a couple of inches.
    There are some stackable units that meet your width criteria; used appliance places might be willing to sell you half the stack.

  49. GF: “Hey, Hilzoy, I have an idea: install me in your basement…”
    Do you come in the slender (+/- 24″) model?
    GF: “xanax: “My 7-year-old son just read my answer to you and said, ‘Wow, dad. Not very Metro Green.'”
    Presumably the way to making one’s environmental footprint the lowest possible is by killing one’s self, but it seems a bit extreme.”
    I thought of that a while ago but hilzoy – all around good guy and professional bioethicist that she is – talked me out of it.

  51. I had a friend in college who built a harpsichord in his dorm room, only to find at the end of the semester that he couldn’t get it out the door.

  53. “There are no plot holes or logical gaps (save one) in the original trilogy.”
    Actually, there were a ton, until the prequels explained most of them away. Do I really need to start listing?
    Many — setting aside the Weird Non-Science sort of things Scalzi mentions in the piece I just linked — remain: in a universe with zillions of droids and robots, imperial troops wouldn’t think that a pod showing “no life signs” is worth checking? Boy, aside from from not being able to shoot anything, aside from in the first scene of the original movie, those troops must be complete morons.
    Luke knows Obi-wan, and Uncle Owen know “Ben Kenobi” is “that old wizard,” and we learn in Empire Strikes Back that Yoda considers Luke “too old” to train (as is emphatically reconfirmed in the prequels), but Ben never bothers to start training Luke earlier, because…?
    I can be here all week with this, if you like.
    “Do you come in the slender (+/- 24″) model?”
    That’s a rather personal question, really.
    Depending upon how you read it.

  56. “I can be here all week with this, if you like.”
    ESB: “That boy is our last hope.” “No: there is another.”
    Obi-wan has, what, forgotten Leia exists?
    ROTJ: the Emperor and Darth Vader duel: all those years, and Darth never asked “say, how do you do that Force Lightning trick? When will you get around to teaching me that?”
    SW: The Death Star waits to orbit the planet, so as to blow up the rebel base on the moon, why? When it could just blow up the planet, and destroy the moon immediately?
    Etc., etc., etc.
    Or maybe you were just kidding?

  57. I read (and own) Star Wars on Trial and found it an entertaining enough read, although it amuses me the degree to which Brin has a bug up his ass about this stuff. I don’t watch and read SW in a search for meaning; I read it because it’s fun. (Which I suppose to Brin might make me A Bad Person, but anyway.)
    Interestingly, the Expanded Universe novels, over the past five or six years, have been interrogating a lot of these points, especially the relationship of the Jedi and their use of the Force to the rest of the galaxy and whether they are inherently dangerous and elitist. And in some cases, they’ve incorporate plot developments that almost investigate Star Wars’s relationship to the world of sci-fi and entertainment in a meta way, with characters musing about and worrying about their depictions in popular entertainment in The Galaxy Far, Far Away and how it affects peoples’ behavior.

  58. Oops. Bold off.
    And welcome back, Hilzoy! (I’m probably seriously late, but I’ve only just returned to the blogosphere myself.)

  60. Also, Turb: if you don’t have a land line, do you carry your cell around with you wherever you go, even when you’re at home? I can’t hear my cell if it’s on my kitchen table and I’m in my study, whereas since I have several land phones, I can always hear them.
    Being male, all my clothes have pockets and I usually have my cell phone in my pocket. Plus, my apartment is small.
    If either of those things weren’t true, I’d probably just get a cheap VOIP plan, some wireless handsets and configure google Voice to ring both my cell phone and the VOIP number. But there’s probably an easier way to get the same effect.

  61. Gary: in a universe with zillions of droids and robots, imperial troops wouldn’t think that a pod showing “no life signs” is worth checking?
    “Besides, they let us go. It’s the
    only explanation for the ease of our escape.”
    Luke knows Obi-wan, and Uncle Owen know “Ben Kenobi” is “that old wizard,” and we learn in Empire Strikes Back that Yoda considers Luke “too old” to train (as is emphatically reconfirmed in the prequels), but Ben never bothers to start training Luke earlier, because…?
    He’s not actually too old? (prequels are out under my rules)
    Obi-wan has, what, forgotten Leia exists?
    He hasn’t realized Yoda has given up the charade.
    ROTJ: the Emperor and Darth Vader duel: all those years, and Darth never asked “say, how do you do that Force Lightning trick? When will you get around to teaching me that?”
    Huh? Clearly that didn’t matter too much to Darth.
    SW: The Death Star waits to orbit the planet, so as to blow up the rebel base on the moon, why? When it could just blow up the planet, and destroy the moon immediately?
    I think maybe the Death Star can’t just blow up planets willy nilly, energy must be collected, lenses must be calibrated, etc.

  62. but Ben never bothers to start training Luke earlier, because…?
    It might alert Vader and the Emperor to their presence? Training a Jedi — one of only a handful left — would certainly cause a disturbance in the Force.
    ROTJ: the Emperor and Darth Vader duel: all those years, and Darth never asked “say, how do you do that Force Lightning trick? When will you get around to teaching me that?”
    If you look outside the movies themselves, SW lore says that Vader is not sufficiently “alive” — being “more machine than man now” — to produce Force lightning.

  63. Emails to the designer of Imperial equipment.
    Ugh: “Besides, they let us go. It’s the
    only explanation for the ease of our escape.”
    They would do this with the plans for the death star, why, exactly?
    “He’s not actually too old?”
    So, sticking with just the original three movies, Yoda is just wrong about how to do Jedi training?

    Obi-wan has, what, forgotten Leia exists?
    He hasn’t realized Yoda has given up the charade.

    The charade Yoda is putting on for Obi-wan’s benefit? There’s no one else on the whole planet.
    Who, exactly, would Obi-wan be worried about overhearing them, and why would his IQ have suddenly been lowered to 65, even if he is just a “Force Ghost” or whathave you?
    “Huh? Clearly that didn’t matter too much to Darth.
    It’s a major Force power, and he Just Wouldn’t Care? Although, to be sure, knowing the Emperor is dumb enough to build a Throne Room with a Giant Shaft To The Energy Reactor so he can be thrown down it does raise the question of which one of them is stupider.
    “I think maybe the Death Star can’t just blow up planets willy nilly, energy must be collected, lenses must be calibrated, etc.”
    Now you’re just making up stuff out of whole cloth. Like, you’re just trolling me with all this, aren’t you? 🙂
    I can believe that the Death Star can’t fire off shots every five minutes, or even maybe every half hour. But the whole point of their trip was to blow up the Rebel Base. It’s not like, whoops, all of a sudden they just randomly ran into the planet, and weren’t prepared!

  64. “It might alert Vader and the Emperor to their presence? Training a Jedi — one of only a handful left — would certainly cause a disturbance in the Force.”
    That at least has some plausibility, though, damn, that Force is both powerful, yet conveniently erratic, if over a couple of decades it never lets either the Emperor’s Awesome Force Powers, or Luke’s own father, detect even his existence, or lets Anakin/Darth detect the slightest clue that Leia is either his daughter, or Force-sensitive, when he’s, like, standing there being pissed off at her, and torturing her and all, and neither the Emperor or Vader ever have a clue old Obi-wan is hanging out on Tatooine, but one little bit of Force training — which, incidentally, neither Darth nor the Emperor ever sense in the faintest in the first movie, after all — would, somehow clue them in if it just had happened more and earlier.
    I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s asking a great deal of an awfully weak retcon, at best.
    “If you look outside the movies themselves, SW lore says that Vader is not sufficiently
    ‘alive’ — being ‘more machine than man now’ — to produce Force lightning.”
    That has more plausibility than anything yet said on this thread on the topic of defending SW plot holes. It’s consistent with the idea of why the Emperor would want Luke as his new apprentice, just as Dooku was replaced with Anakin, and also why Darth never got around to trying to overthrow the Emperor on his own, but wanted Luke to “join me, and together we can…,” etc.

  65. Another point: ESB: Luke splits up with Han and Leia and Chewie when he leaves Hoth to go find Yoda. The latter three go off, get chased by the empire, land on an asteroid, run away from a giant asteroid-living-inside creature, run from the empire some more, and wind up at Cloud city; This all seems to take a few hours. Meanwhile, Luke has landed on Dagobah, found Yoda and done through all the force training he’s going to get — in about a day.
    Okay, maybe all this take, what, two days> Three? Are there any indications at all that Luke has had more than three days of Jedi training before he zooms off to get his hand cut-off and help save his friends, and scream at daddy, after which he gets no more training at all, unless Ghost Yoda and Ghost Obi-Wan are giving him Lessons From The Beyond, but somehow by the time the third movie rolls around, he’s Fully A Jedi (albeit one incompetent enough to not just tell he standing in a trap door, but unable to hear a warning from his robot that “Master luke, you’re standing on a—!!”
    Great Jedi reflexes there. Which supports the idea that he had 2-3 days training, and I guess Darth is just sucking wind up his ass on ESB when he says “Obi-Wan has taught you well,” but then pretty easily beats him.
    But it doesn’t all exactly hang together smoothly.

  66. Gary:They would do this with the plans for the death star, why, exactly?
    “Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they’ve obtained. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe.”
    So, sticking with just the original three movies, Yoda is just wrong about how to do Jedi training?
    Clearly not, he trains Luke anyway.
    The charade Yoda is putting on for Obi-wan’s benefit? There’s no one else on the whole planet.
    No, for Leia’s benefit. Clearly Luke can hear them (ROTJ: “Yoda spoke of another.”), so Obi-Wan is still protecting her, but Yoda realizes that isn’t necessary anymore.
    It’s a major Force power, and he Just Wouldn’t Care?
    If he doesn’t need it to kill off the Emperor, why bother?
    Although, to be sure, knowing the Emperor is dumb enough to build a Throne Room with a Giant Shaft To The Energy Reactor so he can be thrown down it does raise the question of which one of them is stupider.
    There’s no accounting for taste.
    Like, you’re just trolling me with all this, aren’t you? 🙂
    Not really, I’m actually enjoying this.
    But the whole point of their trip was to blow up the Rebel Base. It’s not like, whoops, all of a sudden they just randomly ran into the planet, and weren’t prepared!
    But they were tracking the Millenium Falcon from afar, so they knew what star system it showed arrived at, but not exactly where. Plus they wasted all their scout ships going to Dantooine.
    which, incidentally, neither Darth nor the Emperor ever sense in the faintest in the first movie, after all
    Not true, Darth senses it in the trench.
    I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s asking a great deal of an awfully weak retcon, at best.
    No no no. The Force is dormant until awakened, simple as that.
    run from the empire some more, and wind up at Cloud city; This all seems to take a few hours.
    Nope. Hyperdrive didn’t work, sublightspeed travel takes a while.

  67. However elegant they appear in the abstract, in practice football teams are small, violent corporations whose product is victories and whose ideal employee is a brutal violent man who does what he’s told. Thus, Michael Vick.

  69. However elegant they appear in the abstract, in practice football teams are small, violent corporations…
    Indeed. And like many other corporations, most of the 60-minute “game” time is taken up with committee meetings. I maintain that they stop the clock on incomplete passes and when the runner goes out of bounds to limit the effect. How many other sports spend 40 seconds on the clock in a meeting and then spend 10 seconds doing something athletic?

  70. I share TP’s frustration in finding a good, cheap cordless phone. We have been using the same black set in the kitchen to the point where the Caller ID no longer works and have kept replacing the battery instead of buying a new one since the old won’t fits nicely on the wall.
    We’d do away with the landline — I find that more than half my customers only have cells these days — but my wife talks to her mom in Russia once or twice a week and phone plans have become cheap, so it’s worth the better reception and reliability.
    I remember growing up before my mom and dad split up and, as a housewife with no job, mom would always use the clothesline. But that’s time consuming: I need a different logoed shirt every day and Danny is one 10-year-old who seems to create an awful lot of wash.
    Anyone seen “Julia and “Julie”? This is the type of movie I will no doubt watch on cable and, if I had the money and time, might see it in the theater. I have read glowing reviews and always thought Julia Child was a larger-than-life, genuine personality.
    wonkie: Jodie sounds like an excellent pairing for Blackie, who will hopefully grow to like her company.
    lj: I have used Aloe for the past two nights and have appreciated its soothing. Just wish I could find some quick curing lotion. Very strange that I skipped a sunburn altogether and simply developed rash-like blistering.

  71. bedtime — I saw “Julie and Julia” last night, a momentous occasion since to say I’m not a movie person is the understatement of the century. But my daughter was at loose ends and so was I, so she talked me into it.
    I enjoyed it a lot, laughed a lot, was inspired to get back to cooking more (we’ll see how long that will last, but it was already under way and the movie helped).
    In my skimpy movie experience, I have nevertheless always liked Meryl Streep. She did a great job as Julia, and I say that as someone who’s old enough to have seen a lot of the original on TV.
    The other roles seemed well-cast, and “Julie” was incredibly cute. 😉

  72. What sort of market failure is this?

    My solution: have a fried who’s extremely handy remove the casement moulding from around the doorframe, and then remove the doorframe itself. That should give you a few extra inches. Then reinstall or (even better) widen the existing door frame and install a new door.
    I’ve actually done this before: removing a door frame and reinstalling it. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, but it’s much easier than you might expect.
    I know: all that for a new dryer. But it’d be problem solved, no?

  73. The Death Star waits to orbit the planet, so as to blow up the rebel base on the moon, why? When it could just blow up the planet, and destroy the moon immediately?
    The Death Star can blow up habitable planets–e.g., earth-sized–blowing up gas giants is another matter.

  75. Slarti, did you miss this part?

    alas, it’s not just the door that’s 24.5″; it’s the ensuing passage down the stairs. (Maybe it’s all of 25″. Who can say.) One wall or the other would have to go
    Posted by: hilzoy | August 22, 2009 at 02:08 PM

  76. Oh. Should have read the rest of the thread. It appears hilzoy’s basement door is basically keeping the entire ground floor together, and tampering with it just might bring the whole thing tumbling down.
    Don’t all old New England homes have a set of storm cellar doors?

    The Force is dormant until awakened, simple as that.

    There might be something to that. Obi-Won and Qui-Gon didn’t exactly have their Force-hackles err…erected by the nearby presence of Anakin. They actually had to test the kid to know for sure.

  77. Why to keep the landline: Because you can’t trust voice-mail systems, and when they have delivered a message disastrously late, the company a) is not responsible and b) will not admit that it happened. Whereas the phone answering machine always works.

  78. Why to keep the landline: Because you can’t trust voice-mail systems, and when they have delivered a message disastrously late, the company a) is not responsible and b) will not admit that it happened. Whereas the phone answering machine always works.
    The probability that your landline or answering machine fails is likely higher than the probability that your carrier’s voicemail system. Then again, if you’re relying on any voicemail system (including your own answering machine) for important messages, you’re already in trouble.

  79. Slarti: I’ve pretty much reconciled myself to getting an electrician down there to install a 220v outlet. Even though I sort of suspect there isn’t room for one, so the task of replacing the dryer will turn out to involve another circuit box thingy.
    Sigh.

  80. I guess your alternative is to dismantle the gas dryer into component parts, then re-mantle them in the basement.
    Which might void the warranty. But what’s life without some risks?
    Old houses. Whaddaya gonna do?

  81. Maybe the first Death Star had a long reloading/cooling down time, so blowing up the planet and waiting for the weapon to be ready again would have taken longer than just going round the planet to get to the moon.
    The second, and much larger, Death Star might have had improved lasers, more intermediate storage batteries etc., so it could fire at shorter intervals.

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