Last Night as I Lay Sleeping...

[rain_gryphon]

So, this afternoon as I was taking a nap, my floor lamp collapsed and clobbered me. I'd just drifted off to sleep, and a rather violent daydream about Dragons had just shaded over into an actual dream, when I caught a couple pounds of metal and plastic right in the face. That's a disorienting way to be awakened. Now I've got a whack mark across the bridge of my nose.

Oddly enough, the Qat seems to have had no hand in this. It looks like I did a questionable job assembling the lamp, and it finally caught up with me.

*****

This makes me contemplate revisiting my abandoned plan of building a shell enclosure over my bed. It was primarily meant for environmental control (it seems stupid to heat or cool the entire apartment for those eight or so hours each day when the Qat and I are occupying only the bed), but it would also serve nicely to deflect unexpected debris.

*****

I'm forced to the conclusion that many, if not most, of the people in the apartments where I live have never driven in the snow. I lost track the past few days of the number of times I saw someone trying to break a stuck car free by standing on the gas. One fellow was making a try at rocking it free, but it was plainly a technique he'd heard about rather than seen. He'd go forward as far as he could until the tires were spinning futilely, then use the brake to hold it in place while he shifted into reverse, then try it backwards. Over and over, while his whirring tires polished the troughs smooth as glass...

It's fun tooling handily around in my little Cruftmobile while people with 4-wheel SUVs are stranded, because they lack the most basic grasp of the needed driving skills. SUV drivers seem to expect that their car will transcend the laws of physics.

*****

John Frum Day. I absolutely love the idea that these people still exist, even if they're hard to believe in. Some part of my mind suspects that they sit around laughing their asses off after the gullible Americans have gone home.

If I were rich, I'd hire a plane and drop cargo on them, just because. I wonder how much it costs to mail stuff there? I'm tempted to pack a box full of my surplus stuff, and send it to them.

Apparently, there's also a village on Tanna which worships Prince Philip.

Comments

Awoken by things

[whiffert.livejournal.com]

Nasty lamp!

My worst wakeup caused by an inanimate object was way back when I was a kid. I had made a delft clock from a plastic kit and just as I was dozing off, the escapement let loose and the chain and weight went whizzing to the floor.. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZBAM!

If took my parents 15 minutes to unstick me from the ceiling!

Re: Awoken by things

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Heh. I used to have a Black Forest clock made from a plastic kit. You could used to get much cooler kits than you can now. I never see that kind of stuff anymore.

[patch-bunny.livejournal.com]

Eh. If I were there I'd be doing the same stupid things in the snow :(

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you've lived all your life in non-snow places. I can't credit the idea that all of these people just recently moved here. There're too many of them. Plus I think you'd prolly switch tactics if one plainly wasn't working. These guys don't.

[rcoony.livejournal.com]

Back around New Year's I was up in Fort St. John, BC, at a little truck stop for the night. Another truck parked next to me and got stuck there, and spent what seemed like forever just spinning his wheels. Maybe an hour, at least. I'm not sure because eventually I finally managed to get back to sleep. I have no idea how he got out of that; when I woke up, I found eight perfectly-shaped, smooth six-inch deep holes in the ice.

I would have though people up there would have some idea how to drive in snow, and I just don't imagine very many southern truckers coming that far north.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

And for reference, if you're ever in snow: If the tires are slipping when you try to take off, use the bare minimum of gas. If you stand on it you'll just sit there. If you start at a crawl, you'll usually go. This is the part the SUV guys never seem to grasp. Sometimes it helps to use a higher gear to keep the torque low, so the wheels don't break free.

If the car sticks in a low point and you have nobody to push, rock it forwards and backwards with the clutch and gas. You're trying to use gravity to help you make the oscillation a little more extreme each time, so the car eventually pops out of the rut.

If there's a ridge of frozen slush or the like that you're having trouble getting over (this is common in parking lots) back up a little in your tracks and take a run at it. Be very conservative in this, and try just a little more each time if you don't get results. It's better to have to take ten tries than to blow over it and go spinning uncontrollably.

Cargo Cult!

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

I do have to wonder myself how seriously they *really* take it, but... if you get the address to mail them some goodies count me in for a box of Hershey's bars. ;^)

Re: Cargo Cult!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I certainly shall. I love the idea of these guys sitting around, marvelling at the things that came from America. :D


And I've got my suspicions that maybe they worked out sometime back that Americans will fall for this, and give them presents, but it would still be fun.