I can’t be the only one here who uses book weights on paperbacks at the kitchen table just to have two hands free for my sandwich (edit: generic internet picture—I just use one at a time).
When I was doing it, it was much more homemade solutions. These days, more like:
Or the equivalent on my 10" tablets.
That’s the design on my (physical) appointment book.
My favorite Costner movie wasn’t on the list, so I opted for Bull Durham.
My favorite was The Big Chill. He killed in that role!
I was a kid in the early '70s, when toy product safety standards aren’t as strong as they are today (hell, we had a Jarts set). One day, when my sister and I were with our mother at the store, we begged and pleaded for Wham-O’s “Super Elastic Bubble Plastic,” which was a toothpaste-like tube of some sort of liquid plastic, with a straw; the idea was that you would put a blob of the plastic on one end of the straw, blow into the other end, and cause the plastic to inflate into a vaguely balloon-like object.
Our mom bought it, but when we got home, she took a look at the tube (and, I assume, the ingredients). She then blew exactly one bubble for each of us (not letting us do the blowing ourselves, which disappointed us tremendously), and then threw the tube away; I am sure that she didn’t want either of us inhaling the exceptionally toxic fumes ourselves.
In the decades since, our mother has had a lot of health issues; in the back of my guilt-ridden mind, I always wonder if any of it was caused by her exposure to Super Elastic Bubble Plastic.
I still remember how that stuff smelled!
And I totally misplaced this post. It should have been to the Costner thread in Cafe Society.
My bad.
The thing about the Slip N’ Slide was only one family on the block needed to own one. It wasn’t us.
I voted that I “watched some” of the debate, but technically I didn’t watch it; I listened to it on NPR as I drove home from work. It was mostly just out of habit – I always listen to NPR during my commute, and that’s what NPR was broadcasting at the time, and I just didn’t feel like changing the station. Although by the end I really wished I had changed the station.
I hadn’t planned on watching it. But mrs. dirtball wanted to, and we ended up tuning in about five or ten minutes after it started. So I can’t rightly say we saw the whole thing, but almost.
I “watched” it in the sense that it was on the TV. Muted. All the while I was here reading the “Watch Along” thread and unmuting/rewinding the good stuff I was alerted to. Never had to hear a word come out of that…former president’s yap.
I would definitely be on board with having a negative-vote option.
Anybody know why a big fat hen?
30 seconds on google was nonproductive. I grant that longer might be.
[ETA: I know that’s how the rhyme goes; at least, the way I learned it. But I don’t think I ever learned what, if anything, it means.]
Maybe the artist who illustrated an early version wanted something to draw?
I found an 1883 version with “a big fat hen”
It goes up to twenty
I’ve used the free version of chatGPT just to play around. The number of times it has give me the wrong answer means I don’t trust it. At least it apologizes when you tell it the answer is wrong.
I did use it to make my wedding speach. I asked for a generic thank you for coming wedding speech and then I used that format to rewrite it myself.
“Other” is I don’t remember whether it’s open the door or shut the door. (Despite having read @Zyada’s link.)
At first, I couldn’t remember that either, but “open” doesn’t scan, and “shut” does.
I was tempted to say that “scootch” (or however you want to spell it) doesn’t properly have a spelling, since I’d only ever say it, not write it.
I chose “scootch” since I assume it’s a variant of “scoot,” but I wouldn’t insist on it.
I also chose “scootch”; but I think my real answer is “I don’t know how to spell that, though I can certainly say it.”