PENDING: Cow liver

People give away really strange stuff on Freecycle sometimes.

I've gotten some nice things from Freecycle and also used it to get rid of old things that I didn't want/need but were useful to other people. So I'm glad to see that there are networks in Malaysia and Singapore too.

Curb shopping

• SubZero Under Armour mock turtleneck: $50 at REI (and you can't get pink either at REI or Dick's).
• Nike Shox: can't find specific model but I'm guessing around $80 based on other models.
• Safety 1st Easy-Fit baby gate (for some friends with an incipient first offspring): $25 at Amazon.com.

"Curb shopping" when people move house and throw stuff at the side of the road: priceless.

I'm really going to miss American consumerism and wastage when I go back to Asia and can't get nice stuff free any more, seriously. Also, wondering whether I should just sell the shirt on eBay for a little cash because it looks like it's never been worn and I don't "work out" per se.

20°C today

:looks down:

Guess it's time to shave my armpits.

Also, while I was taking Lina for a walk, we passed a lady wearing binoculars around her neck. I think she gave us the evil eye. Taking a cat for a walk is a great way to learn about birds - that is, their alarm calls and what they look like in flight.

Faded Kitty

Things not to say in America

EDIT: one more thing I forgot last night - in British English "knock up" means "wake someone up by knocking on the door". In the US it means "impregnate".

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Apparently in Bangladesh some English speakers still call cigarettes "fags" after the British usage. One Bengali student, after coming to the USA for college, learned that "to bum" was the colloquial term for "to take without paying". So he went to a friend and said "Hey, can I bum a fag?"

The startled American replied "Dude, if you find a fag, you can do whatever you want with him, I don't want to know."

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My family first came to the US together when I was 13 and my siblings were in primary/elementary school. We were warned ahead of time to call rubbers "erasers", but my sister in sixth grade still managed to forget anyway. In front of her whole class. It only happened once.

I also had an Italian coworker ask me for a rubber once, I guess nobody had warned him.

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Chickadees and tits are small songbirds that eat seeds and berries. The funny part is, if you search for "great tit" you will get the bird. If you search for "great tits" (assuming you turn off porn filtering) the results will be drastically different.

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One of my friends said something in her Facebook status about her 80-year-old neighbour helping her to put on falsies. I was shocked until it became apparent from her local friends' comments that falsies in Australia versus the US are prostheses for very different parts of the body.

Magic sword

me: This is my magic sword! When I get angry, it becomes a three-foot claymore and I morph into a warrior princess with huge boobs.
Adam: What do I have to do to make that happen?
Brock: You? Basically nothing.

Actually it's an Ed Halligan P.E.C.K. Spectra (Precision Engineered Compact Knife; the Spectra is this version that's coated in titanium and rainbow-anodized).

I bought this knife to replace my Spyderco Starling that broke. Both are tiny little pocketknives that are shorter than 3 inches when closed. I've been carrying a pocketknife regularly for the last several years (apparently the knife-world term for this is "everyday carry" or "EDC" =P ) and would use it at work to open packages a lot because we get these big boxes of lab supplies. After the spring in the Finch broke, when shipments arrived I would reach into my pocket, do a double-take, then grumble and go looking for scissors.

Actually, I've been obsessed with knives since early childhood. When I was in Standard One (first grade) I would keep buying little 10 sen pocketknives that were practically made of foil and bring them home and carve twigs and stuff with them, even though my mother kept taking them away (when your pocket money is 50 sen a week, 10 sen is a lot!!!). When I was older I discovered the art of paper cutting, which I like doing with an X-Acto even though in the Chinese and German (scherenschnitte) traditions, small scissors are normally used. See here for an example of my work. I also have a bolo that was a gift from a Filipino farmer - the blade is crap steel but the wooden sheath and handle are beautifully carved.

(Just in case anybody's worrying 'cause I'm female, my interest in knives has nothing to do with self-mutilation. If you're interested in knives because you use them to hurt yourself, GET HELP NOW.)

But, when I was shopping for a new pocketknife, I discovered a whole other level of knife obsession. There were knives that were ostensibly for military use, pages of details on knife anatomy and engineering, fancy knives with inlaid handles, etc... I would go so far as to call it knife porn. I mean, they're pointy things that cut stuff. You can only spend so much time on one before it becomes ridiculous. I won't argue that a beautifully-made knife is a work of art, but honestly...stop pretending you're doing all that fussing over it for utility! I never really got the "magic sword" thing in fantasy fiction either, much as I like Tolkien.

Anyway, here's a picture of the P.E.C.K. blade-on. The blade is kept open by a "frame lock" - you can see in this picture that the tang butts up against part of the frame. To close it, you just push the piece of the frame aside with your thumb. It's the mini cousin of the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Super Simple) knife, so made of minimalistic parts. The interesting thing is that the blade is exposed when it's folded. It lies flat against the frame, so you're only supposed to sharpen it on one side. So far it seems to work - I haven't been poked or scratched after 2 days of carrying it in my pocket.

Passive-aggressive

I spent like an hour this evening looking at Passive-Aggressive Notes. It's a really funny blog because it showcases the bitter side of human nature; I guess schadenfreude is one of my hobbies (not very Christian of me; I also enjoy Fail Blog). But anyway, when I got home and opened my mail, I found the perfect opportunity to write my very own passive-aggressive note: on the THIRD F**KING SURVEY the ACLU has sent me within the last couple of months.

I have never given the ACLU my address. Apparently if you ever donate to charity in the USA your reward is craploads of junk mail. Maybe I should suggest to them a campaign for keeping people's names and addresses private.