Although the cable no longer serves any purpose because the TV signals it carried now come over WiFi, the cable is completely functional. And who knows, some day, I may have a use for it.
But I threw it out.
I'm a 64-year-old man and I threw out something that could possibly be useful some day.
This might mean that people, specifically me, can change.
On the other hand, I've probably got four or five hours in which to change my mind.
I got a Pixel 5 smartphone a few years ago and even though it is past its support date from Google, I am still learning how to do things with it. For example, when looking at photos, some of them showed movement on the phone. When I uploaded them to my desktop, they were still photos with no movement.
Then, a few weeks ago, I learned how to export them as GIFs and preserve the movement.
In honour of the current heatwave, here is my first GIF - Manon at Rideau Falls on February 14. That frozen mist in the air was cold, let me tell you:
From last week, a very large wasp or hornet that wanted to get into my house:.
From this morning, Manon picking service berries in an effort to thwart the squirrels and maybe get a enough for a pie:
Just in case there is someone out there who would like to do this and they have a Pixel 5, or maybe some other phone that works the same way, here is how I saved these photos as GIFs:
1 - In the Pixel 5 photo app, tapped the 3-dot menu icon on a moving-photo
2 - Swiped over to the word "Export" and tapped it
3 - Selected "GIF" and tapped "Export"
I have to say, making GIFs this way is an awful lot easier than how I did it before - importing a video into Gimp and doing all sorts of stuff.
The only thing is, I haven't learned why the Pixel 5 sometimes takes a moving picture and other times takes a single still picture.
For about ten years, Canada has been announcing that incandescent bulbs are being phased out and last August the United States banned the sale of most incandescent light bulbs.
The sales ban is to help fight global warming. Incandescent bulbs use more energy to produce the same amount of light as LED bulbs. This is largely because much of the energy in incandescent bulbs goes to creating intense heat. If you've ever touched a turned-on incandescent bulb, you learned this the hard way.
While the heat makes incandescent bulbs less efficient for lighting, it makes them useful for heating things. For example, old Easy-Bake Ovens used a 100-watt bulb to cook Betty Crocker treats.
And I need incandescent bulbs to heat the wax in my lava lamps and create the spooky flowing movement inside them.
It seems that Hasbro has developed a heating element that can replace the 100-watt bulb in an Easy-Bake Oven. But a heating element alone won't work for a lava lamp because you need light to see the hypnotic flowing lava. Without an illuminated incandescent bulb, a lava lamp is a dull bottle holding a dull lump of wax.
After some research and experimentation, I have the following recommendations.
For smallish lamps (16" high, 3" diameter):
[While it is easier to find 40 watt bulbs with E17 bases and an R14 or R39 shape, I suspect it is a bad idea to use the stronger wattage. It might also be unwise to use a globe-shaped S11 or a cylindrical T8, but I'm prepared to do it when my R14s and R39 burn out and can't be replaced. I did once melt a hole in a plastic-based lava lamp using an S11 globe-shaped bulb.]
For the larger, original lava lamp (16" high, 4.5" diameter):
If you get excited and think you've found some R14 shaped bulbs with E17 bases for a really good price at Rona and then two days after you get home with your super cheap bulbs you realize that they are actually 40 watt bulbs that are only good for your big lava lamp that needs an E26 base, I have good news. You can order E26-to-E17 socket adapters on Amazon that work just fine.
Every time I've been in a hardware store in the past few years, I've checked for bulbs. Often, there have been none but when there was one or two, I bought them. They haven't been cheap. It has been many years since I've seen a suitable bulb in a grocery store or a dollar store.
Amazon has Haraqi R39 E17 25w bulbs at $14.99 for six ($2.50 each).
Lowes, Rona, Home Hardware and Home Depot don't seem to have any suitable bulbs.
My best wishes to any of my fellow lava lamp lovers. I'll be happy to share any news I get on this crisis with you and will be grateful for any news you have for me. And while I hate to talk about future projects, I have been thinking that it's time for me to make my own lava lamp (and could use any tips on where I can find perchloroethylene.)
In the better-late-than-never news category, I am happy to report that the Stick Library now has signage in French. [Dans la catégorie des nouvelles, il vaut mieux tard que jamais, je suis heureux d'annoncer que la brancheothèque a désormais une signalétique en français.]
The Stick Librarian wishes to thank our friend Aline for the French name and she apologizes to her translator friend Patricia-Anne for taking so long. But the Librarian's assistant bears some of the responsibility for it taking so long. [La branchothécaire souhaite remercier notre amie Aline pour le nom français et elle s'excuse auprès de son amie traductrice Patricia-Anne d'avoir mis autant de temps. Mais l'assistant du brancheothécaire porte une part de responsabilité dans cette lenteur.]
I am happy to announce that yesterday, the Stick Librarian reopened the Stick Library here at the corner of Lebreton and Louisa.
The library assistant has been instructed to not add any sticks from the inactive stacks to the lending portion of the library without informing the librarian because she will be carefully tracking the annual statistics this year.
Previously in Stick Library news:
With the upcoming reopening of the Lebreton-Louisa Stick Library, the Stick Librarian was concerned that the branch's stacks were getting low.
Unfortunately for some neighbours, but fortunately for the library patrons, a recent windstorm brought down an old tree and the librarian was able to source replacements that just needed a little work this morning with a pair of loppers and an electric saw.
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| The library assistant/retired urban lumberjack lopping a branch |
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| Sawing a branch |
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| The Stick Librarian is happy the stacks are ready for a new borrowing season |
Things were getting shaggy, so I asked the lovely Manon to give me a trim on Saturday.
She suggested changing things up from my usual all-over #4 or #6 and instead did the sides with a #2 and left the top alone.
Yes, we've been watching two episodes a night of Peaky Blinders for a couple of weeks and Manon wanted to try giving me a Tommy Shelby.
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| Arthur and Tommy Shelby |
I'm very happy with it, except I feel an inexplicable compulsion to take over someone's bookmaking operation.
[I was thinking this was the first time I've had a TV-inspired haircut, but then I remembered that in 2009, I got an all-over buzz so I could be Mike Holmes for Hallowe'en.]
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