When I’m at the grocery store, buying perishable products, I’m always careful to check the expiry dates (aka Best Before dates.) I can’t afford to throw food out so I’m always very careful not to buy short-dated stuff.

Especially milk (aka half-and-half creamer). Gotta have some widener in my coffee, or it’s all hot and black and uncreamy. So when I buy my coffee milk, I am very careful to check the date on the carton. The 10% stuff is usually good for 6 to 8 weeks, and I usually go through it in 10 days, so it’s almost never a problem. Nonetheless, I always check the dates.

(I also have other rules, such as I never take the first one or the last one… the first one is half-exposed to the unrefrigerated air in the grocery store, and the last one is suspect by virtue of hiding at the back, so I always take one from the middle.)

Anyhow, so I recently stumbled onto a new conspiracy with these so-called best before dates. See, I brought home a carton of coffee milk, and put it in my fridge. No big deal. The following morning I took the carton out, and was surprised to find that the best before date said the milk was going to expire in a week. I know it said it was good for a month, when I bought it.

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The mythical city of snails, spoken of only in hushed whispers since time immemorable.

Or maybe it’s just my 38-gallon snail aquarium. You know, one or the other.

I’m actually sorry I missed this… During thunderstorms, I like to sit out on the back porch and watch the lightning and listen to the rain come down – the more violent the better. Not in the habit though of doing that for winter storms… too cold and snowy.

Nonetheless, this must have been pretty darn exciting when it happened. I was probably at work though. Meh.

The branch is about 3 or 4 inches across at its base, and when it broke fate was kind enough to make sure it formed something of a natural point.

The limb is perhaps 20 feet long in total, though it tapers off and branches out towards the end.

In the 8 years I’ve lived here, this is only the second time I’ve had a tree branch come down and cause damage. The first time was a couple years ago when a much larger limb came down in the summer and crushed my BBQ.

Fun times…

If we gathered up lots and lots of pocket lint, bellybutton lint, and dryer lint, we could build it into a big huge pile. Then we could get a couple elephants and coat them in glue, and then roll them around in our huge lint pile. When we were finished, they’d be all colourful and fuzzy I think. But they still wouldn’t be wooly mamoths.

Even if they aren’t wooly mamoths, I think we should do it anyways because big fuzzy colourful elephants would be kind of fun.

Plus, we could tell kids that they were really wooly mamoths after all, and they’d probably believe us, at least for a little while.

It’s important for children to have plenty of opportunities to learn things.

Good: Blair’s Death Rain potato chips. The spiciest, hottest chips there are.

Bad: Getting a piece of the spiciest chips in the world jammed into the hole in your gums where your wisdom tooth was recently removed.

Worse: Continuing to eat the chips anyways.

Good: Codeine. Not just good, it’s f-ing great.

Bad: Quickly developing a resistance to codeine.

Worse: Running out of codeine.

After about 2 1/2 years, I finally got around to fixing my wristwatch.

Way back when, I accidentally dropped it and when it hit the floor, the second hand popped off, and was rattling around under the crystal. Second hands are so incredibly thin and fragile that I was worried if I kept using it, the second hand might get trapped between the other hands and get bent or jammed up.

So for about 30 months, the watch has been sitting on my workbench, waiting for attention.

Then I found myself going into my watchmaking toolkit as I needed one of the micro screwdrivers, and that’s when I found myself looking at the watch. So as soon as I finished the other project, I got the watch, case wrench, tweezers and loupe, and went to work.

It really didn’t take much time – most of the time I spent was trying to remember how to release the stem. Some of them you have to unscrew a set screw slightly, other ones have a push-release. This one is a push-release.

Then it was pretty straightforward to get the second-hand with the tweezers and press it back onto the spindle thing.

I forget the correct terms. It’s been 5 years since I was into watchmaking, I’ve forgot all the terminology.

But now my watch works again!

Now I’m the sort of person who wears a watch.

Sometimes.

I had my last wisdom tooth out earlier today. This time there was no crunching at all, which surprised me as all the previous ones were very crunchy. And when it was over with, I did ask what makes the crunching noises. They said that it’s not one thing, but a combination. Some of it can be the pliers forceps digging into the tooth as they grasp it, sometimes if the tooth is unhealthy it can get a bit crushed or it can break up, and sometimes they have to break the tooth up intentionally and remove it in pieces.

So that’s the answer. But today, no crunching.

The needling was ouchie, it felt like he stuck me 4 or 5 times, and the stuff they put in seems to hurt when it goes in, but of course after a minute or so, things are numbing up very fast.

I was really tense and nervous today, more so than last time, but other than the jabby needle stuff, it went pretty quick. Now I’m just achy and grumbly.

At least it’s over, though.