Not by you or by your significant other, unless you’re dating Big Bird: these German-designed flats are actually composed of compressed birdseed, and presumably your feathered friends will drop by to nip at your toes. I don’t think I’d wear these while mowing the lawn, and I don’t think they’d be particularly useful if your favorite outdoor activity is kicking squirrels in the, um, nuts. (Purely parenthetical note: The working title for the wacked-out Sixties single “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman,” by the pseudonymous Whistling Jack Smith, was “Too Much Birdseed.” Obviously some pop Nostradamus anticipated these things.) On the positive side of the ledger, you have to admit, they’re not as hideous as Crocs.

(Via Hippyshopper.)

You’re probably expecting something computer-related here, and I suppose I could do something obvious with two to the eighth, but instead I’ll bring up something I’ve never actually seen in real life: the 256th, or “split,” screen in Pac-Man.

After which, you should split for Dodgeblogium, where the 256th edition of Carnival of the Vanities, dubbed “Cancer,” is already chowing down.

Most of the termites in this state — and we have lots of the little SOBs — live underground and only manifest themselves at dinnertime. The state, unsurprisingly, has a keen interest in seeing them go hungry, and if you’ve bought a house here in the last four years you’ve had to deal with the dreaded Form ODAFF-1, the Oklahoma Official Termite and Wood Destroying Organisms Report. I duly paid for an inspector, who informed me that so long as I continued annual inspections, they’d cover the cost of treatment should the buggers show up.

Today makes inspection #5, and so far, so good: if they’re dining in the neighborhood, someone else is buying, and that suits me just fine.

It’s pretty much always been, right? Trini’s had this urge for cashews for the longest time, and it’s had to go unfulfilled, because every time someone brought home cashews they turned out to have been either in proximity to peanuts or actually processed in peanut oil, and Trini is the sort of person who has to leave the room if you so much as open a jar of Jif.

Meanwhile, I’ve been known to grumble about dried fruits, mostly about how much they cost and how little you can actually taste them.

To the rescue: Tierra Farm, a vendor of organic fruits and nuts based in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Trini’s mom actually found their Web site, sent it along, and we browsed, salivated, browsed some more, and finally ordered about a cubic foot of various fruits and nuts. The prices looked reasonable; more important, the stuff tastes great. Shipping to the lower 48 is a flat $6.95 via UPS Ground — order was placed on the 16th, arrived today — and it’s free if you go over $100. If we’re not careful, we might.

I think of myself more as unmotivated: I will buy something if I can invent a need for it, if I think I will derive tangible benefits from it, or if not buying it would cause me great inconvenience and/or hardship (cf. yesterday’s water-heater purchase). I’m not particularly adverse to the act of buying, though I definitely dislike being among crowds when I’m performing that act and will shop online when it’s feasible.

The next step beyond me? About like this:

Your Curmudgeon absolutely hates to shop, especially for clothing or shoes. Therefore, he buys items that will minimize the necessity. His style and color choices allow him to wear anything he owns with anything else he owns … well, apart from his cherished Mickey Mouse Club beanie. His preferred makers are known for the durability of their offerings: they’ll survive several seasons of wear and tear before they become so threadbare that even your Curmudgeon would hesitate to be seen in them. Accordingly, when he shops, one of the things he’s “buying” is a respite from having to shop again soon, a consideration that would not occur to persons who like to shop.

Although it would occur to me, and I’ve made adjustments where appropriate: for instance, I tend to buy clothing in units of two or three or six, mostly so I need do it again only one-half or one-third or one-sixth as often.

On the larger question of “Is [such-and-such] worth it?” I found this to be dead accurate:

In the broadest sense, the “is it worth it?” question is answerable only subjectively, and will remain so for all time. But one’s answer to the question is not guaranteed forever to remain what it was at the moment of purchase. Does it continue to give good service? Does it evoke good secondary consequences? Has it saved money in an extended sense? The answers can confirm or refute one’s earlier evaluations, and provide important lessons applicable to future purchasing decisions.

I am no less subject to buyer’s remorse than the next fellow, but I’m sure his criteria are different from mine. And those criteria are subject to change at the last minute:

As a practicing plebe, I’ve always felt that if you want a Camry, you should buy a Camry, and forgo the big L badge. But there’s another side to this story: suppose, just suppose, that the guy who buys the Lexus, knowing he paid the big bucks, actually does a better job of taking care of his pricey little beastie?

Which is how I wound up driving an Infiniti when I probably could have saved a good chunk of change had I bought its Nissan-branded cousin instead. And the local Infiniti store, in my judgment, has worked harder to earn my future business than I had any reason to expect any of our Nissan dealerships to do. (The one Nissan dealership I did once buy a car from has since faded away for reasons apparently unrelated to their business practices.)

I remind myself, as I review the invoice for the plumbing work, that while each item is priced as a unit, each of those prices reflects three different elements: the actual cost of the item, the labor involved in installing that item, and the expertise of the installer. It’s possible to price-shop for the the first two, though the range is small; it’s insane to price-shop for the third. This firm had never done plumbing for me before, but they had done some HVAC work for me, which I deemed a tad pricey but solid and thorough, and I presumed that their plumbing division would perform similarly. I was not disappointed.

Up to now, China’s tax on motor fuel has been zero, and the price at the pump, converted to US dollars per gallon, is somewhere in the $2.50 range. Instead, the government has collected a “road tax” (based on vehicle weight) and lots of tolls.

This is about to change:

The Chinese media are currently reporting that Chinese people should be preparing in their hearts for a fuel tax that could send fuel as high as 10rmb per liter. In March 2008, the Chinese government is doing away with road tax, and highway fees in favor of a new tax on fuel which would be easier to collect.

If the tax is imposed in one fell swoop, it’s five bucks a gallon overnight. What are they thinking?

Beijing’s idea is that car companies will be pushed into developing other alternative fuel cars whilst the driver gets pinched in the pocket and has to take public transport. Clearly the Mandarins in Beijing have not taken public transport in China in the last decade and the last place I’d like to be on a Monday morning is on a packed diesel fume spewing bus with my nose pushed firmly in someone’s armpit.

American consumers won’t like this any better than Chinese motorists will, since everything we buy from China (which is, well, pretty much everything) will get more expensive, even as demand for gasoline slackens and (theoretically, anyway) American pump prices drop.

(Via AutoblogGreen.)

Last night at Nemo’s:

Tonight at my house we’re having white rhino steaks, preceded by an appetizer of seal pup sushi served over a bed of crushed genuine arctic circle ice.

Then we’re going to turn on all the showers at full heat — it’s “Rain Forest” night, which the kids always love. It usually takes all six air conditioners about two hours on maximum cool to get the temperature back down below 90 degrees before bedtime.

Remind me to ask him if spotted owl tastes like chicken.

Now let’s be fair. The triumvirate at EatAroundOKC.com don’t come across as food snobs, or indeed as snobs of any sort. Indeed, there’s a category called Shady Restaurant of the Month, in which they highlight places with respectable food in dubious surroundings. As the disclaimer says:

If you choose to go to one of these establishments be aware that these are normally cash only, don’t always have proper air conditioning / ventilation, and should never under any circumstances be visited alone. Chances of being approached by a vagabond, prostitute, or teen runaway looking for a compassionate soul to provide them a meal is greater than 50%. I will in no way be held responsible if you finish your meal and return to your car only to find that it is on cinder blocks and the wheels are suddenly for sale across the street.

Okay, maybe a little snobby.

Still, whom are you going to believe: the guy who posted the Zagat review after too many reruns of The Splendid Table, or the guy who actually ordered the Redneck Club Sandwich at Jaime’s Grill on the Hill? (Actually, you might give the Zagat fellow a second look, especially if he can spell “Jaime.”) Besides, everybody knows about Deep Fork and such; it’s the oddball places you want to hear about.

Phillips-head, about four inches long, 3.9 inches of which I discovered embedded in my left rear tire as I backed out of the garage.

If you were wondering about the perfect end to the perfect day, well, that wasn’t it.

On the upside, all the plumbing is done, and I mean all of it: not only is the new tank in place, but the modifications required by code have been completed, including a new gas line, a new flue, and a nifty little overflow pan that looks for all the world like something I used to collect Pennzoil in. What’s more, while the old tank was draining, the guy replaced the leaky faucet at the kitchen sink, which was the next item on the repair agenda, on the basis that the sooner I get this stuff over with, the less I have to worry about it.

The new standard for 30-gallon tanks, it appears, is 28 gallons, which is not exactly progress. On the other hand, the piezoelectric pilot is kinda cool, especially since I don’t smoke and therefore don’t generally have a lighter at hand.

Total damage caused by leakage: zilch. (It pays to stay on top of these things.) On the downside, usually I have to go out of town to spend money this fast: this little excursion into plumbing cost more than my last trip to the emergency room. Probably did more good, though.

Or not much, anyway, according to this:

World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.

Because we all know how peaceful it is in all those places where there’s lots of the stuff. But to continue:

The German-based Energy Watch Group [released its study in London on 22 October] saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 — much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.

And furthermore:

Global oil production is currently about 81m barrels a day — EWG expects that to fall to 39m by 2030. It also predicts significant falls in gas, coal and uranium production as those energy sources are used up.

It occurs to me, sitting here on the edge of the Oklahoma oil patch, that we’ve been running out of oil pretty much ever since we started using the stuff, and as the phrase goes, when in doubt, predict that the trend will continue.

Adam Gurri, however, thinks this is a load of dingo’s kidneys:

Now, I want everyone to remember these empirical predictions:

1. Oil production peaked in 2006

2. Production will fall by 7% a year from now on

For I am predicting that both will turn out to be wrong, and there’s nothing more frustrating than predictions that are used to dredge up panic which are then forgotten after the allotted time has passed and the predictions proved inaccurate. Well, maybe there are more frustrating things than that, but it’s definitely in the top 3.

Paul Ehrlich, call your service.

I’m mentioning this here mostly because if Mr Gurri is right, I want to double the chances that someone will notice. (And if he’s wrong, well, nobody reads me anyway, right?)

Sunday’s child is full of grace:

[I]n the seventeenth century, in his great work, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and one of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of his time, declared, as the result of his most profound and exhaustive study of the Scriptures, that “heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water,” and that “this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine o’clock in the morning.”

Standard Time, no doubt.

The last page of the Centennial issue of Oklahoma Today (November/December ’07) contains some projections for the bicentennial in 2107, utilizing the time-honored SWAG technique. Some of them strike me as being a bit on the low side. For example, I can’t envision the state population to be a mere 5,349,192 a hundred years from now; there’ll be that many people snarled in traffic on International 35. And surely we’ll snag more than six additional Miss Americas between now and then.

A few of these numbers, though, seem way high: seventy-four McDonald’s in Oklahoma City? What, are they going to put one in every Starbucks?

And this one is just upsetting:

Cost of an OU-Texas football ticket in the student section purchased through the OU Athletic Ticket Office: $813.

Versus $95 today. This is an increase of 950 percent, far greater than this:

Cost of resident undergraduate tuition per credit hour at OU, including fees: $440.

Which is up merely fourfold.

If any of you are still around in 2107, feel free to dig this out of your personal copy of the Wayback Machine and tell the world how wrong I was.

Last month, poor Fillyjonk had to replace her water heater, which prompted this unfortunate (as in “ill-timed”) comment from me:

I’m dealing with a gas leak which has yet to be repaired; I’m betting that the moment we crank it back up, the old water heater (I know not its age, but it’s obviously not too recent) will blow its top.

I subsequently learned its age, which is twenty-two; I also know when it died, which was the twenty-second of October.

And for icing on the cake, 1985 installation practices are light-years away from 2007 code, which means further expense.

On the upside, the water line has been shut off, and leakage into other rooms seems unlikely at this point.

Or, lacking that, the Senate?

(Via J. M. Branum, who doesn’t talk like this. I think.)

Five years ago, this was an issue:

Airports have three-letter codes. O’Hare in Chicago is ORD; Los Angeles International is LAX (I often wonder about those guys wearing “LAX Security” patches); Baltimore-Washington is BWI. Sioux City, Iowa is SUX, and you can imagine what they think of that.

Now the Hawkeyes have opted for the “make-lemonade” option:

City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport’s unflattering three-letter identifier — SUX — and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport’s new marketing campaign.

The code, used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags, will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport’s new slogan, “FLY SUX.” It also forms the address of the airport’s redesigned Web site.

I like it. The only problem I can see is that airport-security types are famously devoid of anything resembling a sense of humor, and as you arrive in [fill in name of overworked airline hub] for your connecting flight, wearing your Sioux City shirt, you might well be hassled for mocking their cherished profession.

(Via Fark.)

As part of my ongoing effort to hide in plain sight, I offer here an image of my faded and much-punched Student Activity Ticket from my freshman year of college, recently uncovered by a cousin of mine (hi, Linda!) after a bout of spring cleaning (whether she’s early or she’s late, I’d just as soon not know) and added to the archives. (My actual Student ID is around here somewhere; unlike this thing, which is cardboard with formerly-transparent laminate, the full-fledged ID is genuine plastic, and in accordance with the data-processing dicta of the time, it’s punched like an IBM card.) The photo had to have been taken during August 1969.

Photoshop disclosure: There’s a reason the “Signature” line looks kinda ragged. Also, I engaged in some slight contrast adjustment, though evidently not enough to do any good.

And needless to say, fees have gone up.

The climate changes, little by little; the weather changes, sometimes a lot; but one thing that never changes, apparently, is the fact that some people have a gift for coming up with odd search strings. (And another is my willingness to exploit that gift for my own nefarious purposes.)

toll road expense Omaha to Oklahoma City I-35:  Aside from the fact that I-35 doesn’t go through Omaha at all, if you take I-29 to Kansas City and then I-35 the rest of the way, the Kansas Turnpike Authority will relieve you of $5.25 for the stretch south of Emporia.

Interstate 35 and Red China:  I-35 doesn’t go through China at all. First go to Omaha, then follow the instructions above.

prime numbered streets:  Among others, 2nd, 3rd and 5th.

kim possible costume crossdress:  I like the idea, but have you seen that girl’s waistline? You’re going to have to be laced in with high-tension wire.

size of the biggest men’s penis in Nigeria:  According to one letter I received, it’s eleven and a half inches; however, its owner has died, and if I wire $10,000 to his heirs by next Saturday, I can have four and a quarter for myself.

Mo Rocca and Ann Coulter in a Hot Tub:  This search is useless without pictures.

do they plug the rectum of prison inmates before execution in the electric chair:  Ask the poor soul who gets to clean the chair.

aanr “shed”:  As an AANR member, I think it’s safe to say they’re using it as a verb.

urinal cake not really cake:  It’s not? Well, piss on it, then.

rush limbaugh’s yearly income?  Probably enough to pay for his own damn health insurance.

are priuses really green:  Most of them seem to be either gray or silver metallic.

frequency of 10 inch penises:  1 Hz.

But this evening, I pushed the little slider on the thermostat over from COOL, past OFF, and onto HEAT. With rain on the way and temperatures no better than 50 tomorrow, now’s the time. It will be a while before the place cools off enough to kick the furnace on, but it’s going to happen some time tonight.

I particularly liked this suggestion:

Best way to fit in couple time
Make it nonnegotiable. My husband, David, and I bought season tickets to the Civic Center in Oklahoma City so we’d be forced to go somewhere other than the local drive-in with the kids.

Although if I’d had a lick of sense I could have asked her myself.