Tuesday grab-bag

Coffee emergency

The coffee grinder at Southern Belle's house broke down. I had some ground coffee in the freezer. I expect a report from her with regard to whether it was still drinkable.

Handsome Hombre was born in Central America and coffee in the morning is mandatory.

Applesauce

God willing, today will be another applesauce day. Maybe I will even get some potatoes dug.

Winter Squash

We had a night when the temperature dropped below 50F. This is probably a good time to start harvesting the winter squash. 

Rumblings

Exotic materials have exotic failure modes. They also have pedestrian failure modes. Availability of the elements required to make those exotic alloys is one of those pedestrian failure modes.

The magical materials that allow Mach 3 SAMs to swat hypersonic missiles out of the sky require elements that are currently Unobtainum. Slow-and-stupid wins when there are enough slow-and-stupid weapons/targets. The assumption that nobody could ever launch a strike on US refineries and our power-grid because "we have the best defensive weapons" is no longer a great assumption.

Shopping list 

Reminder to self: Buy a manual meat grinder, ginseng seeds, Pheasant Eye Narcissis, coffee and vinegar.

In a Captain Obvious moment, it occurred to me that the primary value of sugar is that it is far more compact to store than vinegar but it can be converted to 5% concentration at a 10:1 ratio. That is, one pound of sugar can be converted to 10 pounds of 5% acetic acid vinegar. In turn, that amount of vinegar is sufficient to pickle about 30 pounds of cucumbers or other vegetables. 

A modest proposal: The new "Picture of your medicine cabinet"

There is a meme that says:

"Don't send me any pictures of your body parts. I already know what boobs look like."

"Send me pictures of the medicine bottles in your bathroom cabinet. I need to see the kind-of-crazy I am getting into" 

In all fairness, it seems like a man or a woman ought to be able to scrape the last three months of their new romance interest's social media history "...to see the kind of crazy they are getting into".

Not only that, but they ought to be able to read the posting history of the three content creators who get her highest "engagement". That is, the content creators that she comments on the most frequently. 

It is the equivalent of "meeting her family". You aren't just dating her. You are also dating her on-line tribe. You could be dating an entire coven of harpies or they might be the sweetest people imaginable. She might play her cards close to her chest or she turn out to be a cyber blabber-mouth after downing a couple of Long Island Iced Teas.

Better to get a handle on the-kind-of-crazy before you become emotionally invested in her.