It’s toast.

 Our 10-20 year old (who keeps up with how old a toaster is?) toastmaster toaster stopped working last week. After a quick shake to make sure no bread crumbs were jamming up the works we gave up and started shopping online. No made in USA toasters, the made in England dualit is $299 and the cheaper dualit is assembled in England with Chinese and British parts. The lovely toaster from Italian company Smeg in colors like Seafoam green is made in China and $200. Honestly very tempting just for the color. I’ve upsold myself on a more expensive iPhone just for the color but that’s another story. The China toaster at the grocery store is $20. Oh well we punted buying a toaster down the road and like savages have been toasting bread in a regular oven.

Today armed with time and a Phillips head I decided to take a shot at fixing the toaster. The internet thinks it’s just jammed w breadcrumbs. Nope. A plastic part broke off  the pushie (technical term) from years of fatigue. After a few false starts I attached a piece of plastic from the junk drawer to the pushie and after numerous test cycles it works! I just saved $20-299! Or staring at bread in the oven until I burn it!

Best of all I now know how a toaster works. If you have trouble sleeping just ask me sometime. It involves electromagnets and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Protesting Tesla is Dumb and Hypocritical

Let’s protest Tesla to decrease sales and stock price and financially impact:

1. An innovative American company that makes the “most American” car by content.

2. Innocent American employees, stockholders, and car owners. 

3. AND Musk, the non-founder 13% shareholder CEO and world’s richest person with multiple sources of wealth in order to protest his impact on innocent Americans.

If you want to protest actual Nazi car companies, try BMW, Porsche, and VW. Actual Nazis including Hitler involved!

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

Dragons!

Onyx Storm (I personally say “ONYX STORM!!!” in my best video game announcer voice every single time) by Rebecca Yarros is the third book in the Empyrean fantasy series. Or should I say Romantasy series. This means you get your dragons and magic with a helping of graphic sex scenes and some characters expressing their undying love for each other EVERY TIME THEY MEET. Right now I’m personally trademarking the new category of scifi romance as Science Friction. Alien sex! Space ship thrusters! Beep beep boop boop indeed!

Currently Onyx Storm is #1 on the NYT bestseller list with the first two books Fourth Wing and Iron Flame in the top five. This series is hot! But the romance and chapter-long, graphic sex scenes are kind of not. With all the potential that magic and creatures in fantasy could bring, it’s rather trite and a lost opportunity to define this new genre. You would think people with magic powers would use them to ENHANCE things in the bedroom, right? Erecto Leviosa!

I would rate this book and series as Borrow from the library. Come for the romance, stay for the dragons.

Holly by Steven King. A book review.

Fresh from watching the Mr. Mercedes series I decided to read Holly, only to find out afterwards that it’s the fourth book in the series. Luckily it doesn’t matter. Holly is a private investigator on a missing person case while navigating life during the Covid pandemic. Professors Rodney and Emily Harris are an elderly couple, outwardly living as semiretired academics while secretly doing some heinous stuff.

I enjoyed this book so much that I delayed my reading of the hot new release Onyx Storm (dragons!). There’s something so entertaining about two elderly villains up to no good while dealing with the challenges of old age. 

I did find some of the writing about Trump and Covid heavy handed and preachy. The fact that Steven King’s author’s note spends time defending his treatment means he knows it too.

If you’ve read my past reviews of King’s and sons’ work (see post “like father like son”) you’ll know they have a reputation of making mistakes about guns and vehicles, especially about them writing about revolvers having safeties. So I yelled in surprise when I read “There’s a dry click as the hammer falls on the chamber Holly has left empty, as Bill taught her…because revolvers, unlike the Glock that was his service weapon, have no safeties.” Wow! The only logical conclusion is that Steven King read my blog post and fixed his gun mistakes!

You’re welcome!

Happy 2025!

The first post of the year begins with a belated The Loot 2024. 

Shagmaster 2. Thirteen years later and the original Triple Aught Design (TAD Gear) Shagmaster hoodie is ready for lighter duty/ retirement. It has been my default cozy cool weather insulation due to its fuzzy fleece, spacious hood and great pocket configuration. It’s not completely worn out; it just doesn’t fit me anymore. It must have ahem, shrunk. 

In anticipation of future shrink, Santa got me the still made in USA Shagmaster 2 one size up. Ahh…a much better fit. The design is mostly similar to the original except for the brim stiffener in the new hood and the new main zipper seems to be a lower gauge. Hopefully it’s as durable as the original.

Also fuzzy but a lot wilder, Ghost(-faced killer) is a stray cat that started hanging out in our yard chomping on our wildlife. I’ve seen him tear up a chipmunk, toy with another chipmunk until I rescued it and abuse a rat snake until I rescued it as well. Ugh, the second we started feeding it I knew we’d end up owning him. When we started worrying that his outdoor cat bed and umbrella shelter wouldn’t be warm enough we took him to the vet for all the fixin’s then locked him in a spare room to slowly assimilate him to the other cats. We are still waiting. I don’t think he’ll ever stop attacking the other cats and our hands look like they’ve been in a blender.

An f-ton of chocolate. Chuao, L.A. Burdick, Lindt, Tony’s Choco Lonely, Hersheys, Reese’s, Russell Stover. Supposedly one ounce of dark chocolate daily is good for you. I just need to limit to one ounce and not finish the whole stash in a month. 

L.L. Bean Boat and Tote. Size small. While it’s good exercise, walking up and down the stairs to get stuff can be inefficient and annoying. Santa got me this Bean made in Maine classic so I can carry all my stuff around in what is basically a purse. 

Laneige Sleeping Lip Mask. It’s some kind of chapstick that comes in a jar and has its own applicator wand. It’s supposed to soften my lips while delivering intense moisture and antioxidants while I sleep. Santa says all the girls on YouTube have it in their what’s in my bag videos. And now I have it…in my purse.

Happy New Year!