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Smaller Things Even Less Worthy of a Thread of Their Own


Datepalm

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All my animals decided to chase me around the house this morning and poop in whatever place I decided to drink my coffee. :(  I have fled the house in search of fresh air to breathe.

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5 hours ago, Wolfgang I said:

I just discovered that you can set the wake word of the Amazon Echo to "Computer". :D That feels so.... natural. Much better than hey Siri or OK google. Years of Star Trek damage at work. :D

Yeah, my Echo Dot is closer to the TV, than my Echo, so I changed it so they both knew who I was talking to, and also that it didn't respond to Amazon Echo commercials on the TV.

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My neighbors moved and gave me their fish pond and 4 fish because they couldn't take them with them and they didn't want the fish to die. 48 hours later the biggest of the fish is dead :(   It's a good thing I'm better at kids than fish.  (last night's wind was really at fault--that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

I can't tell them, so I'll replace it before any pics go up on facebook. I'm a deceitful murderer. 

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How do you give someone a fish pond? Aren't they in the ground? 

 

And unrelated... my husband bought his mother a really ugly piece of pottery for Mother's Day (it was an auction for work). We aren't seeing her for a few weeks so it hasn't been given yet. I usually pick the gifts and I am afraid that she will think I picked this out. What do I do? 1) mail it with insufficicent packing and hope it breaks?  2) leave the bowl on the counter and hope the cat swipes it off? 3) give it to her, but make sure she knows I didn't pick it out? 

(And before you think anything else, my daughter said "Gramma won't like that" plus, my BFF says it's ugly, too.)

 

Hubby also bought me a rather uninspired photo of Edinburgh Castle at the auction. It's meant to be for my Mother's Day gift, but since it was taken by a friend of his, I'm  going to suggest it go in the home office, which I rarely use. 

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45 minutes ago, Whitestripe said:

How do you give someone a fish pond? Aren't they in the ground? 

Some of them are made of fiberglass and sit in the ground but are transportable?  Similar to this

 

Yesterday I received a notice from the USPS that I had a package waiting for me at the post office with POSTAGE DUE.  It's a new tablet I ordered online with "free shipping".  What lovely service.

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In the latest round of weird comparisons, the BBC report about the unexploded WW2 bomb in Birmingham stated that it was about 8 times as heavy as the average Labrador retriever.

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1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

In the latest round of weird comparisons, the BBC report about the unexploded WW2 bomb in Birmingham stated that it was about 8 times as heavy as the average Labrador retriever.

LMAO :lol: tell the people what the know 

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I just need to let it be said that today I asked a girl out and she didn't laugh in my face. She even said yes, with some caveats.

Also I didn't make a complete tit out of myself while talking to a French person at lunch, on my way home the train doors closed in front of me when I got onto the platform, but then inexplicably opened again and let me on and I ate an ice cream.

Today was a good day.

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On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 8:50 AM, Whitestripe said:

How do you give someone a fish pond? Aren't they in the ground? 

 

 

On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 9:36 AM, Ded As Ned said:

Some of them are made of fiberglass and sit in the ground but are transportable?  Similar to this

 

Yep.  She had it in the ground, but i's only 18" deep, 4'x6' (very similar to the one linked), so she just pulled it out.

My fish pond is slightly bigger: I made a 6'x8' 12" deep hole, then put the solid pond form in the middle of it (so mine will be "mostly" the unmovable type)

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I was the logistics person for organizing a conference on an Africa-related topic at the uni last week, and now some guy who planned to attend (but then didn't) apparently stuck my email address on some list for his weekly Kenyan food stand at some kibbutz craft festival someplace. Because anyone with any connection or interest in any issues related to anything in Africa is obviously just dying to go all the way out to whatever geodesic dome you're living in for "REAL KENYAN COFFEE".

I'd send him to spam and ignore it, but there's a number of other circumstances I find slightly more obnoxious. The biggest one is that I know where he got all the supplies for this Kenyan lemonade stand. I have a collegue who was working in Kenya last month and this guy somehow got hold of him through mutual aquaintances and begged him to bring him suitcases of Kenyan food. Said colleague is a generous soul and took it as an innocent, even romantic, gesture, assuming it was for his Kenyan wife and newborn, ("She must be so homesick and stressed! It's the least I  can do!" Seriously.) and even going so far as to feel bad about not dropping it all off on this remote kibbutz himself (which the food-stall guy asked him to do!) I'm hoping he at least paid him for the stuff, but strongly suspect it was all waved off in a friendly manner. Not two days after I listen to this? Yup, come pay me for the stuff I had someone haul here for free.

Other than that, I also actually slightly know this guy - we met like two or three times a few years ago (he either doesn't remember me, didn't put it together from my email) and also know a collection of various stories about him from a few more mutual acquaintances, all of which show this kind of repeated pattern of taking advantage of others' basic generosity and try and translate them into various favours and projects (all with 'social purpose' and 'change-making' and 'lets save Africa',) though this is the most nakedly commercial so far.

Thirdly, and he's in no way to blame for this, but it connects to the growth of this particular group in general, which started out very small and very academic, and while it's great that its gradually pulling in more activists and random curious members of the public, we're also starting to pick up obnoxious racist flakes and worse. (To wit, someone he put in touch with us came to the conference and ended up the perpetrator of a pretty serious case of sexual harassment (bordering on assualt) on one of the students who was also attending when they all went off to hang out that night. It was also an incredibly racist situation - student was African, she white - and, yes, a genuine case (and I don't say this lightly) of a male victim and a female perpetrator.)

All that together, to get back to the lighter topic and what is in my control (the harassment is actually being dealt with fairly comprehensively by the university)  I'm wondering if, at the very least, I don't tell him to take me off his goddamned list, for one thing, if only pointing out that this is my professional email and was used for professional purposes, but maybe also putting out a similar message to the research group, many of whom I assume he's also been spamming - something along the lines of not endorsing any commercial activity and sticking to academic work, etc.

I feel like he's over the line here, regarding a group of people that have nothing to do with him or his projects as some kind of natural audience because, hey, "Africa stuff". Ignoring it would be no big deal, but letting more and more various initiatives and persons in to our lists, groups and spaces start to look like it turns us into some focal point for any and all racist wingnuts who have some halfbaked project. I mean, another colleague, an economics professor who researches the effectiveness of microfinance, has been dealing with some flaky pensioner telling her how her work is worthless and Africa needs ACTION and TECH and STUFF (in capitals) at ridiculous length for days after we made the mistake of looping him into the economics working group email chain.

Basically, I'm increasingly administratively involved with an Africa-centric teaching/research project. Its growing and pulling in more people from different disciplines with an interest in the continent, which is great, but simultanously - more and more irrelevant, patronizing, vaguely duplicitous or commercially-minded weirdos and plain racist assholes. Should I shift what has been a deliberate policy of oppenness so far, and start working to keep them the fuck out?

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When the board can guarantee me that none of the ads it serves track me, I'll consider white-listing it.  In the meantime, I'll try to find an ad blocker that websites can't detect, to avoid the annoying message.  I value my privacy as much as the board values its revenue.

I posted it here, rather than board issues, because I'm not requesting any change on its part.  I just react badly to coercion.

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