Short Takes

[jducoeur]

One of the main reasons I follow The Economist, despite being perpetually way behind on it, is that their science column is full of the most delightful little articles. In the "the world is stranger than you can imagine" category: it turns out that there is a type of deep-sea sponge called the Venus flower basket, which has an exoskeleton made of fairly high-quality optical fiber. Not only does this exoskeleton transmit light well, but it is stronger than man-made fiber and forms (somehow) at conventional temperatures, which has significant advantages over the high-temperature methods we use today. No one is entirely certain why it has this -- there is speculation about the sponge harboring and enhancing bioluminescent animals, and using them to attract food, but for now it's a mystery.

Now really -- if you put an animal like that into a science fiction story, people would say that it was a preposterously convenient deus ex machina. It's a very interesting experiment to occasionally step back, look at the world around us, and realize just how strange it really is...

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Just saw an ad for Mad Mad House, the Sci-Fi channel's new "reality" series (we have the Quantum Leap marathon on as the background music for the day). High concept is amusingly stupid: take a bunch of the weirdest people imaginable, put them all together in the same house, and then make a bunch of "normal" people live with them. With every passing show, the term "reality" has less and less to do with them, though.

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msmemory just pointed out an article in the paper about a commemoration of Prince Hall Masonry, the black offshoot that is just now beginning to remerge with "regular" masonry, after a more or less racist split that persisted for a couple of hundred years. Apparently, the first meeting of African Lodge #1, the first Prince Hall lodge, was on July 3rd, 1776. There's a rich opportunity for metaphor in that...

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I am now the proud possessor of a new storage unit. For a number of years, we've been storing a great deal of stuff in a 10x20 over at Storage Depot (which has just changed hands to Extra Storage), but we've never been entirely happy with them -- it's a slightly scungy old warehouse, divided with plywood and chicken wire, with inconvenient hours, high prices and mediocre management. The unit is nearly full, which tells you just how much crap we have. Now, Public Storage has opened a bespoke building about the same distance away from home: better prices, better units, better hours -- precisely how Extra Storage plans to compete, I'm not sure, since they say they're not going to lower their prices.

Anyway, for now we're renting a new 5x10 at Public Storage for my comic books -- if I store them 5 high, it ought to be large enough, and it'll open up some space in the big unit. And if that works out well, we'll probably figure out how to move the piano across town and move the whole kit and kaboodle to Public Storage.

Someday we will get The House, and have enough space to unpack all this stuff properly...

Comments

[cellio]

How are you storing your comics? Dani says he won't stack 'em more than three boxes high because of all that weight on the bottom layer, but, well, the guy never gets rid of any, and he's been collecting for a while, and I think you see where this is going. :-) Have you found sturdy crates or the like for the bottom couple layers, or what?

[jducoeur]

Actually, I simply stack 'em high (usually five high). I've only once or twice had a box give way, although I can't deny that some boxes are weak.

That said, I'm thinking of putting a sheet of plywood in, every couple of layers. If the weight is spread across three or four boxes, I'm not terribly worried about them giving way.

As for never getting rid of any -- I quite understand. I *think* I'm up to around 75 boxes at this point, although I'll have a clearer idea once I've moved all of the post-sort comics to the new unit. (I did a full sort in mid-1990 -- those are staying upstairs, and slowly being inventoried. The post-1990 comics are the ones going to the storage unit.)

[cellio]

As for never getting rid of any -- I quite understand.

Oh, so do I. And if I actually point fingers at his comics, all he has to do is point fingers at the videotapes (taped TV, mostly) that I haven't actually re-watched in many years. Fair's fair. :-)

I *think* I'm up to around 75 boxes at this point

I was going to comment that this seemed low based on the comments you've made in the past about your collection, until I got to the clarification that this is only the post-1990 part of the collection. :-)

[jducoeur]

all he has to do is point fingers at the videotapes

Yeah, sounds familiar. We're up to around 1200 or so videotapes, which is more than a little ridiculous. We're planning on switching to DVDs soon (once the recorders get a little cheaper), and maybe try to get into the habit of *not* recording the series that we're just going to buy anyway. (And dumping the VHS copies of series that we have on DVD.)

this seemed low based on the comments you've made in the past about your collection

Truth to tell, it probably *is* low. Intellectually, I suspect the total is more like 90+ boxes -- it seems to be growing at a fairly steady 4 boxes a year. But forgive me my denial...

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

Just saw an ad for Mad Mad House, the Sci-Fi channel's new "reality" series

I saw an ad for this too. Let's look at this bunch of "weirdest people ever", shall we? From the scifi.com website (http://www.scifi.com/madmadhouse/alts/) (with commentary added by me):

a Wiccan [over half of my friends practice one form of new-age religion or another], a Naturist [a nudist vegetarian -- certainly a minority, but just as certainly not that rare], a Modern Primitive [basically, according to his bio, a guy who's covering his body in tribal tattoos and practices spirituality based on Native American traditions... this is odd how?], a Voodoo Priestess [yes, folks, a THIRD polytheist to mock] and a real-life Vampire [ok, he qualifies as weird, given the fact that he claims to regularly drink human blood. But whether his claim is true or not, he just needs a smack upside the head with the stop-being-a-pseudogoth stick, and potentially some therapy. We certainly don't want to expose the countless pseudo-goth 13-18-year-olds who will watch this show to him, or they'll get ideas.]

Now then, excuse me while I go slowly kill some network execs.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I suspect that network execs would [redacted; read become orgasmically excited] if they could somehow get "contestants" to volunteer to actually perform some of these extreme/unusual practices. (Okay, the commercials imply that people run around naked. Big freaking whup. If it's warm enough outside, I'd do it, too.) Let's see how many piercings we can attach to odd parts of your body...for the tiebreaker!

Look at Fear Factor for contrast where they actually get people to do stuff for a chance at money or whatever. I squick out just from the commercials.

[baron-elric.livejournal.com]

When they first announced the show we looked at the people who were clearly there to freak the mundanes and I realized they were missing one essential part of the mix. A Klingon.

Out in Califormia we know a guy who speaks Klingon and does Trek cons in that mode. He's also a Celtic priest, with a massive raven tattoo covering half his upper body. (And an old-time SCA person.) He'd have been perfect for the show....

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

The Economist is excellent, though you should take their scientific pages with a grain of salt as they are not always as accurate as their politics and business coverage. Nonetheless, fascinating plant.

If you want a hand moving stuff across town, let me know. I would advise not storing a piano in a storage facility, though, unless you don't care much about it. They tend to be rather finicky about environment.

Piano

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

If I could figure out how to shoehorn the piano into our house, I would. But I've had it in storage for 2 years now. One of the many attractions of Public Storage's building, vs. Storage Depot/Extra Space, is that it attempts to be climate-controlled.

I'm currently thinking I'll get Guys to move the piano and the mahogany sideboard, and friends to help move the boxes and small furniture pieces.

[jducoeur]

The Economist's science coverage is sometimes a tad breathless -- they are very fond of a promising idea, even if it's a shade early. But it's a lot of fun. And hey: it's a good shade more reliable than Wired.

If you want a hand moving stuff across town, let me know.

Thanks, although I don't anticipate mass movement quite yet, and the comics are mostly a one-man job. Once we do think about moving the whole kit and kaboodle, we might well get the movers to do the whole job.

As for the piano: actually, another advantage of Public Storage is that it's climate-controlled; Extra Space is only kinda vaguely. But it's a relatively cheap piano as pianos go -- we only have it because msmemory's mother was going to dispose of it if we didn't take it.