Archive for October 8th, 2013

Stop! You’re doing it WRONG!

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

I had the day off yesterday, so I spent some time with my mother helping her run errands. (One of the disadvantages of those Dyson vacuum cleaners is that they’re a real rhymes-with-witch to get into and out of a Honda Civic. Another disadvantage is that important pieces are made out of plastic and seem to break easily.)

We decided to check out the new Trader Joe’s and the new Wheatsville co-op, because, you know, reasons. (New! Shiny!) I note that neither store had any sort of “No guns allowed” signage, much less a legally compliant 30.06 sign. But I digress. Again.

I found this at Wheatsville. Click to embiggen.

jerky

In case you can’t read it, that’s “Primal Strips” “meatless vegan jerky” in “Texas BBQ”, “Teriyaki”, and “Thai Peanut” flavors.

“meatless vegan jerky”. Couldn’t make this up if I tried. What is it with vegans/vegetarians and the emulation of meat products?

In a related vein:

They held signs featuring photos of animals in pairs: a kitten with a fluffy yellow chick, a puppy with a piglet.
“Why love one but eat the other? Choose Vegetarian,” the signs said.

“Why love one but eat the other?” Oh, I don’t know, Bob: maybe because chickens and pigs taste good, while dogs and cats don’t. (I can’t say for sure: I’ve never eaten dog.)

Or maybe it has something to do with charisma; dogs and cats have it. I’m dubious that pigs and chickens do, though there was the great pot-bellied pig boom of a few years back…

Posted in Food, Guns, Photography | 3 Comments »

Random notes: October 8, 2013.

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

Why would someone buy a mansion for nearly $350,000, then sell it at a $40,000 loss?

Could it be…Satan?

Nothing matters more — even the horrors that took place — than perception. That’s especially true in the case of Resnick’s mansion, where Bell says no evidence supports stories of ghosts and mob murders.
But people believed what they saw on the TV show, which Resnick says was filmed inside the house without his permission. After the show aired, police calls to the vacant house exploded. Some young troublemakers and trespassers even posted on YouTube their own ghost hunts at the house.

Interesting legal question: if the owner can prove that the TV show was filmed on the property without his permission, and if he can prove that the TV show led to his loss on the property, does he have a course of action against the producers? I’m inclined to say, “Yes, but he’ll have a high bar to prove both those things.” Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer.

Yesterday’s NYT ran an interesting article about the Inverted Jenny re-issue, about which I have written previously. I have actually already received my Inverted Jenny first day cover (it’s very nice – I am tempted to scan it and post it) but I did not order a full sheet of stamps. (Because $2 per stamp x 24 stamps = more than I was willing to spend.)

“We thought, wouldn’t it be funny if some of the inverts came out wrong, and actually got printed right side up?” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “And we started thinking, what a great way to recreate the excitement Robey must have felt when he found that first sheet.”
As a result, 100 of the new sheets actually show the airplane flying upright. Each sheet is individually wrapped, so no one can see the stamps before they are bought. A note is included with the right-side-up rarities, alerting buyers to their true nature. Lucky finders can obtain a certificate signed by the postmaster general.

So, wait. The original stamps were valuable because the plane was printed upside down. So they’re making new rare stamps by…printing them correctly in the first place? Excuse me while I go take some headache medication.

The uncharted scale of Detroit’s bankruptcy — it is the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in the nation’s history in terms of both the city’s population and its debt — suggests that it may also become the costliest, experts say. City officials offer no estimate for a final tab, but some bankruptcy experts say the collapse could ultimately cost Detroit taxpayers as much as $100 million. As of last week, 15 firms had contracts with the city that could total as much as $60.6 million, city records show.

Posted in Clippings, IANAL, Law, Obits, Stamps | Comments Closed