I propagated this #houseplant from a pot my sister left behind. Just found out it was originally planted by my grandfather. It’s almost 50 years old.

I purchased the new expanded edition of “The Letters of J.R.R. #Tolkien” from the Apple Book Store, which now suggests “You might like The Fellowship of the Ring”. Maybe; I’ll give it a try.

There’s an old adage that a comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny. The funniest thing I ever heard #BobNewhart say was, “Is this one of the guys at the office?” RIP

Just got junk mail advertising oceanfront property in North Carolina. I opened it, just to see if they had the honesty to name themselves “Greater Fool Realty”. Nope. #climate

It’s been so dry this summer that when I go fishing, I use bottled water as bait. #drought

The cucumber vines are completely indifferent about which way they grow, but the birds are unanimous that the cucumber trellis is the best thing ever. 🌱 #gardening

I have been to the grocery store three times today. My pioneer ancestors are shaking their heads, sadly.

The forecast says 50% chance of rain. I watered the garden. Neighbor cleaned up the swimming pool. Think that will be enough to make it happen? #gardening 🌱

Winthrop Mackworth Praed, most precocious and most prolific of the poets of society, began his literary career as a schoolboy, and for twenty years flooded the periodical literature of his day with songs and satires, ballads and legends innumerable, all of which are forgotten. #sicTransitGloriaMundi

For the 19th-century journal “Notes and Queries”, does anyone know where to find a mapping from volume/page to issue number? 📚

First rainfall since June 5th. I’ll take it. #gardening 🌱

This is what Gerhilde looks like to me now. www.youtube.com/watch #Valkyries

A poem where alternate lines are missing a foot, like “I sit beside the fire and think/Of all that I have seen” is called “brachycatalectic”. I was going to call it “iambic triskaihemimeter”. 😀 #TIL #poetry

Apropos of nothing: Sky Harbor in Phoenix, AZ is the best airport name.

If cherries didn’t have stones, I would probably eat them at a rate inconsistent with good health.

Morning commute. Podcast. Got car back from shop yesterday. Sounds of trickling water. 😱 Pause podcast. Trickling stops. 😅

Now a Robin is stealing my mulch. 🌱 #gardening

Eventful morning by the banana peppers. A robin has been looting earthworms since dawn, until he was chased off by a mockingbird. It was only a tactical withdrawal, though, to the cucumber trellis. Mockingbird started to snack on some seeds, but as soon as she took her eye off the sky, the robin was joined by his wife, who took turns dive-bombing her. She executed a nice flip maneuver to get her talons in Mr. Robin’s face, and everyone retreated to the fence. From the top of the fence, they can see my neighbor’s bird feeder, but where’s the fun in that? #gardening

Just turned my car into the parking lot of the big-box wine store. A school bus turned in behind me.

Sign at the big-box garden store: “One year guarantee on perennials.” 🤔🌱 #gardening

This is the time of year when I go out and pick a bunch of sugar peas in the morning for my wife’s breakfast, and accumulate enough Husband Points to keep me in positive territory for months. #gardening 🌱

I’m too young to have seen a case of botulism from badly-canned food, but old enough to have gotten multiple warnings about it. Then this evening, half a century later, I lifted the pull tab on a can of salsa verde, and the contents sprayed all over the kitchen. The other can also has the tell-tale convexity. I’ll be taking it back to the store. Thanks, teachers and scoutmasters! #FoodSafety

We are under (1) a tornado watch and (2) a cloudless sky. #weather

Bret Devereaux muses on what makes Alexander “the Great”. The two the-greats I know a bit about, Alfred and Charlemagne, had a different answer: promote literacy and scholarship, so the historians will be well-disposed toward you to start with. 😀 acoup.blog/2024/05/2…

I’m not worried about Microsoft #Recall. It will play out like this: 1. Recall takes a screenshot while I’m programming. 2. It OCRs the code and stores it in an SQLite database. 3. MS exfiltrates the database and uses it to train their AI. 4. My artisanal bugs become standard practice. 5. The entire software industry collapses.