The First World Whinging Thread

I think it depends on the inanimate object. I swear like a sailor at my old, slow, quirky computer... I tell you, it then becomes MORE obstinate.

 

Have you tried beating it? Always works for me.

 

Reminds me of The Xanth stories by Piers Anthony. There were curse burrs that get stuck on your clothes and won't come off until you curse each one out.

 

He is still writing them at 76 years old, think that he is up to book 30-40 by now?
Though the first 27 are the original Trilogy novels, and Bink isn't in the new ones.
(At least he isn't the MC anymore.) P A has a funny concept of what a Trilogy is.

 

I have a signed copy of Vale of the Vole. I'm not a huge Piers Anthony fan, tbh, but my boss was long, long ago in Florida. He was deeply fascinated with the way the book mythologized the straightening of the Kissimmee River and all the subsequent fallout.

 

I was never a big fan myself, but I read one or maybe 2 of the books (don't remember which ones, probably the 1st and/or 2nd). It was definitely fun, though sometimes he went way overboard on literalizing the silly puns.

 

I enjoyed all the Piers Anthony stories. The less popular ones like Mercycle(?), Tathum Mound, Battle Circle, Tarot, and shorts like the one about the dentist. I enjoyed his quirky characters, like the Quincipedalion(?)

 

For pranking your friends I guess. "Just smack the top of the bottle, mom."

 

I could just cry.

Finally this year I figured out a sort of Rube Goldberg approach to keeping squirrels from my bird feeder, consisting of a pair of soft window screen squares around the pole one above the other, just below the box holding the feed. Then I greased the pole. My wife (who is not yet retired and therefore has less important things to worry about) laughed, but I found delight in watching the squirrels dash up the pole, try to get around the screens, then slide slowly down and wander off frustrated.

I drank my morning coffee in quiet celebration.

Two mornings later I went out to the screened back porch and found that the squirrels had chewed a hole in one of the window screens and managed to open the bucket with the feed, and apparently had themselves a bacchanalian orgy. Rather than worry about the few seeds in the feeder, they had gone for the Mother Lode.

I mended that screen and reinforced it with chicken-wire, swept out the porch floor, and moved the feed to a secure spot in the garage.

Next morning I saw a couple squirrels munching away atop the feeder.

But I will gird my loins and try try again. Evil shall not prevail.

 

Seeing the above quotation without context is, um, interesting, to say the least.

 

This reminds me of an old cartoon scenario.

 

If squirrels didn't have bushy tails, they would be called 'tree rats'

 

I think you need a spike pit surrounding the feeder. I've seen squirrels jump maybe 6 feet, so I'd make the pit with a radius of about 7 feet. Should be wide enough. Sharpened stakes should work, fire hardened with a dab of poison on the tip. Put them on the sides of the pit as well so the squirrels can't climb out. Soon enough you'll have a buzzard feeder too

 

So far I've been avoiding any capital punishment. But now that my animal-loving daughter has left home and my frustrations are growing . . . .

 

Squirrel baseball, squirrel #3wood, squirrel launcher, squirrel zapper, backboard for arrow, and knife throwing...

 

I remember years ago when my departed black cat, Sam, was young, he would sit under the hazelnut tree and chatter his teeth together watching the squirrels.
One evening in the summer, I went out to get something from the garage and stopped dead in my tracks because Sam twitched and dodged something. I wondered what the hell it was, then I saw another.

I kid you not - the squirrels were throwing hazelnut shells at him. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in my life. I've NEVER seen that in a wildlife documentary.

 

But strangely enough I remember it from some old cartoon, maybe Tom & Jerry or Chip and Dale... I know I've seen it in animated form, just never knew it was real.

 

I don't think you're allowed to take squirrels over the state line.

 

"What you in for?"

"Illegally transporting squirrels across state lines..."

"Make sure they have their papers in order next time."

 

I forget sometimes how dinky your Eastern states are; I suppose what you call "interstate" we would call a trip to the corner store. My first job after college was as the social service worker for a county of 1,400 square miles, with three towns, 5000 people, and at least as many cattle and jackrabbits. I understand you folks in RI have more than a million people in 1200 square miles, a bunch of Rhode Island Red chickens and a varying population of squirrels.

 

State border. Pneumatic squirrel launcher. Problem solved.