Take a sad song and make it better

Jun. 15th, 2025 10:21 am
christopher575: Photo by Ed Cook (Default)
[personal profile] christopher575
About 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave for Seattle on Wednesday, I was heading back in from the back yard and made a horrible discovery. There was a bat stuck to the flypaper we had hanging next to the door. Somehow flies always end up hanging around the back door as well as the one upstairs leading to the deck, and a strip of flypaper hanging next to each always seemed like a smart solution. But it's one I should have stopped using even sooner afer finding a few feathers stuck in the same one that then had a bat writhing around on it. I wasn't confident it could be unstuck without major injuries even if we could find a place that would try it in a timely manner, so I did what felt like the next best thing and took it out of its misery rather than let it starve in place.

I felt horrible about it and still do. But now that I know there are bats around here I decided to welcome them with a safe place for them to roost. A very cool goth-looking bat box is on its way and will go up somewhere on our property soon. I hope the box ends up being a popular spot for them, and if that happens, I'm guessing they'll provide even better insect control than fly paper ever could. In the meantime, I've thrown away the box of fly papers we had and the product is banned from my home forever.
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
I have a question about eye safety, maybe someone here can advise me on.

Apropos of the protests going on, I've seen a lot of helpful pointers about preparing for getting tear gassed or pepper sprayed, such as not to wear contacts and to have tight-fitting chemists' goggles. But not wearing vision correction is not an option for those who need it, and the alternative to contacts is glasses, which are apparently incompatible with most eye protection from gas or particulates.

I am aware of the existence of some models of full-face gas mask that have internal mounting hardware for glasses, but in addition to being expensive themselves, they require getting lenses made and fitted to the gas mask (i.e. not compatible with regular glasses). I'm surmising the existence of these means that other, cheaper, spectacle-compatible eye protection doesn't really exist, but I thought I'd ask.

My personal interest in the topic is less about protecting myself from chemical ordnance at protests – I only wish I could attend protests (though if things got spicy in the right location I suppose I could collect my fair share of tear gas at home) – than from wildfire smoke. The conjunction of the No Kings protests and the local air quality alerts from fires in Canada reminded me I should really be doing some preparation in this space.

I'm allergic to smoke. (It turns out it wasn't con crud I kept getting at Pennsic.) My reactivity to smoke only seems to be gradually getting worse over time. So when I've heard reports or seen pictures from the left coast of the sorts of wildfire smog they have there, I'm like "...not enough steroids in the world." I mostly manage this threat by not crossing the Mississippi, but it could happen here. Or upwind of here. It has. If not quite so "blot out the sun" bad, certainly bad enough for me to feel it.

So I've been looking at half-face elastomeric respirators, but that leave eyes unprotected.

Any suggestions?

Edit: I'm getting a lot of suggestions that aren't really helpful because:

1) Most safety goggles are for protection against impact or splashes, and as such literally have vent holes that make them useless against gases and airborne particulates.

2) Involve buying a prescription eyepiece. The whole point of my question was looking for alternatives to buying additional prescription lenses. Like I said, I am already aware of options that entail ordering custom lenses, I am looking for alternatives that don't involve that and are compatible with regular glasses the wearer already has.

There may not be any*, which would be good to know, but that is the question.

Allow me to put a finer point on this. If there is no affordable, readily available option for eye protection against gas/powder attacks for people who are dependent on vision correction, then that implies something important about protest safety that is entirely missing from all of the discourse of the sort that recommends having a gas mask to go to a protest.

* Since posting, I learned the term PAPR, and am now wondering why they're so expensive and whether that's a technology ripe for DIY.

I made a linktree

Jun. 11th, 2025 03:38 pm
phosfate: Extreme close-up of a menacing squirrel captioned LARIMER (Larimer squirrel by benedict)
[personal profile] phosfate
https://linktr.ee/annlairms

And started a Patreon, which is free. Come visit the deeply stupid TOS stickers.

Important update

Jun. 11th, 2025 08:51 am
christopher575: Photo by Ed Cook (Default)
[personal profile] christopher575
Garrett dyed my hair! Garrett dyed my hair!
Garrett dyed my hair! Garrett dyed my hair!
Garrett dyed my hair!

Garrett has always wanted to try dying my hair, and he did a great job! We had to take the shaved part all the way off with a razor because some of that got bleached and would end up showing no matter how short we took it with the clippers. That's fine, though. I shaved my head with a razor for 11 years and miss it.
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
2025 Jun 7 11:40 am: [profile] benjalvarez1 on Twitter:

WATCH THIS: https://x.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1931375699786334704

Click through to see the video. You really, really should. Sound is irrelevant.

Text: "Tanks, fighting vehicles and howitzers arrive in Washington, D.C. ahead of next week's military parade. They departed from Texas on June 2." Two minutes and forty seconds.

Allegedly that train is a mile long and is transporting:

• 28 Abrams tanks (M1A2 main battle tank)
• 3 armored recovery vehicles (M88)
• 28 Bradleys (M2A3 infantry fighting vehicle)
• 5 Paladins (M109A7 self-propelled howitzer), and
• 28 Strykers (infantry carrier vehicle)

Source: 2025 Jun 6: @USAMilitaryChannel on YT [not official military channel]: "1-Mile Military Train -Texas to D.C. with Tanks, Armor, and More for Army's 250th Parade". I do not know if that source is reputable or if that inventory is accurate.

USA Today is reporting that "The military vehicles will be joined by 1,800 soldiers". (Source: 2025 Jun 6, USATODAY on YT: "Watch: Tanks, fighting vehicles head to DC for Trump's military parade", CW: face full of Trump, alt: screenshot).

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that maybe the guy who attempted one coup already bringing a well-armed military force into our capitol city and, crucially, within artillery-range of the Pentagon, is just throwing himself a birthday party, but also maybe not.

ETA: For those of you confused by this, thinking, but doesn't he already control the military? You might want to watch this video about the rise of Xi Jinping.

Now, obviously, Trump would never play a long game like Xi did. But, 1) there are other ways to achieve the same end and 2) he doesn't have to, because his buddies, the Dominionists, did.