Take a picture of your stuff, share the story
16Everybody’s got a “conversation starter” or two. What’s yours? I found this skull pretty much as clean as it is now. Sadly I think the antlers mean the deer had a broken leg, but if it helps you can think he was a committed hype man who got stuck on one side of a “heeeeyyy hooooo” thing in the 90s.
What little knick knack do you have that has an interesting story?
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Can’t talk right now, sorry
@therealjrn You are so sick.
Many people here on Meh already know about Fenris, my giant inflatable wolf, but I’ll show him again!
@PooltoyWolf I love Fenris!!
Are those plush capybara??? Plus I see you found your Coke can, as a Dew drinker I forget to look for them
@llangley The Mac Coke can was actually a gift from a friend! The plushies you’re seeing (I think, near the floor by my couch) are a pair of wolf slippers! Scattered around the room are also Robin Hood and Maid Marian, Chase from Paw Patrol, and various plushie and inflatable wolves and huskies. Oh, and a vintage Lassie inflatable swim ring that’s 60 years old! I could have easily featured her as my conversation piece…
@PooltoyWolf hahaha. I see that now…I have the EXACT same slippers and they look just like that (capybara)
@llangley Now I’m curious…where did you get yours? I ordered mine from an old mail-order catalog called Collections Etc., I believe. Or maybe it was the National Wildlife catalog…
@PooltoyWolf I think it was Kmart, probably 20 years ago. I’ll try to remember to take a pic when I get back home
@llangley Sure!
Small thing, but this is a jar of highly refined magnetic sand, extracted by me from a beach on the island where I grew up, about 40 years ago. Must have spent a few hours refining it by simply lifting it with a magnet from one heap to another over several rounds, leaving behind most of the non-magnetic grains each time.
@Undulat LOVE that! How big was your original pile of beach sand?
@llangley Thanks! It was 40 years ago and I was < 10yrs old, I honestly can’t remember. But magnetic black sand washes up on the beach now and again and can be seen as darker patches or stripes among the other sand, so I would imagine I had to start out with a fairly large pile. I do remember I was very determined to get the purest magnetic sand out of it. Had plenty of time back then you know…
@Undulat Neat! I didn’t know you could even do that. Reminds me of an experiment we did in 6th grade where we crushed Wheaties cereal and stirred it in water with a magnet, collecting all the iron. Blew my mind.
@Undulat Do you mind revealing where you grew up?
@Undulat That is really cool, and exactly the kind of thing I would’ve obsessively spent hours doing as a kid, while neglecting my homework or any other responsibilities; it’s the kind of thing I’d still, today, spend hours doing obsessively, while knowing full well that I’m just distracting myself from all the adult responsibilities I’m neglecting.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Limewater Not at all. Island called Jomfruland on the coast of Norway https://www.google.com/maps/@58.8667967,9.5464856,13.1z
@Undulat hello neighbor from the other coast.
@Undulat
I love every single thing about this. Thanks for sharing!
@Limewater @Undulat absolutely breathtaking! Found a Google Earth street view “Photo Sphere” at the Jomfruland observation deck
I’d take a picture of my stuff but I don’t think I’m allowed to post it here. As for the story, what’s there to say? I was born with it, I’m rather attached to it, and I’ll share it when the situation warrants.
@cinoclav
/giphy dirty boy
@cinoclav I think that’s your ‘junk’…
@chienfou My junk IS stuff!
@chienfou @cinoclav You stuff your junk?
@cinoclav stuff, stiff… whatever…
So mine looks a little silly, but it is one of my favorite items in my house.
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to Sicily, a bucket list destination for me. I stood in the town my family immigrated from (great grandparents) and found their graves, baptismal and wedding records, etc. It was an amazing soulful experience for me. The town where they originated is on the coast and has a famous (in Sicily) beach. On several occasions I found myself on a beautiful deserted beach (late spring). I was able to sit there and just listen to nature. I also spent time looking for shells, sea glass, etc.
What you see is the remains of my finding (after family took a few here and there). Since I could not bring the town with me, these shells remind me of where I come from, my family history.
Oh and the turtle is from a gift shop across the street from the Palermo Cathedral. No story, I just like turtles and thought he was cute!
@tinamarie1974 Aww… I lived in Sicily for a couple of years, last century. Which town is yours?
@OldCatLady lucky you! I fell in love with the country. My family is from Balestrate. Where did you live?
@tinamarie1974 Pedara, and Motta Santa Anastasia, near Catania. Just north of Siracusa, my villa was halfway up Mt. Etna. Great view . (Spellchecker doesn’t like those names.) We explored as much of the island as we could.
@OldCatLady I am so jealous! I would love to spend an extended amount of time there.
I was only able to visit for a week, but I think I did a fair amount of exploring, once I exhausted options on tracing my family tree.
I made it as far south as Belice, as far West as Trapani, and as far east as Palermo. Not nearly as much as I would have liked to see but I had limited time.
This is the beach in Balestrate.
@tinamarie1974 YouTube has some lovely videos.
@OldCatLady that was nice. Thank you
Here’s a pic of my prized treasures – my childhood marbles and fallout shelter candy. Both I keep in Planter’s 75th anniversary commemorative peanut jars.
The candy is from a 1950’s fallout shelter in downtown Wichita. It was closed up in the late 60’s. A friend, who worked in the building, stashed away all of the candy. Why? I don’t know. I’m not gonna eat it.
I keep my childhood marbles as proof that I haven’t lost them.
@Barney Neat! I have no idea where my marbles went; I didn’t have much attachment to them but the huge green glass jug I kept them in was really cool.
Probably good you aren’t eating the candy though, I just found an article that said the red ones had cancer-causing Red Dye 3. Irony!
@Moose Not eating the candy. I guess that’s one good thing I’ve done in my life.
This is my mother’s old purse where I used to keep my marbles when I was little. It also served as a front seat perch, in our old Chevy, so that I could see out the windows. This was way before seat belts and kids’ booster seats.
The car dash was made of metal, which I hit with my chin when my dad had to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. I was okay, but I left a dent in the dash.
Yep, I think car seats and seat belts were pretty good inventions.
@Moose Oh! Oh! Look what I found in the purse – two 10 cent bags of marbles. The one on the right is supposed to have a shooter in it, but it doesn’t. Maybe that’s why I never opened it.
(That cable company has got to get out here to fix my internet. The two and three hours between my postings are killing me.)
My great great grandfather was a farmer and whittled in the winter. He made some pretty cool stuff and lived to 103.
These are each made from a single piece of wood.
@sammydog01 So maybe this is where you get all that patience to put those kits together, huh?
@sammydog01 that chain is crazy! hard to imagine it was 1 piece of wood?
When I was in the Navy one of our port during the cruise was Rota, Spain. So, I had the chance to see a local soccer game. Below is the scarf that I purchased outside the apparently championship game at the time.
@Targaryen thank you for your service.
@RedOak @Targaryen Yes… If it wasn’t for the US military I would be speaking German now (My family is all French and came to US in the 50’s after WWII)
@chienfou your family is French but you’d be speaking German???
@chienfou @Kidsandliz Not real big on your WWII history are you teacher?
@therealjrn Germany didn’t win the war and it took more than the USA to win it. You aren’t real big on being nice are you?
@Kidsandliz I agree, yes, it took more than the US to win the war, but until they (finally) joined in the fray, things were pretty bleak, and it didn’t look like the UK was going to be able to turn the tide any time soon. The Russians weren’t in too big a hurry either.
The French caved quickly (which is why Paris has a lot more older buildings than London). Not really their finest hour.
@chienfou Yup, and it was specifically the US military that liberated France. Vive la France!
@therealjrn or today in particular… allez les bleus!
@chienfou Go Blues!
@therealjrn OK, I’ll take the STL reference even though I was talking about the FIFA Women’s world cup win over Brazil today.
@chienfou I knew what you meant…Should I have said Go Blue? Did I say it wrong?
@therealjrn no… guess I am still in awe over the STL Stanley cup win… Though technically the translation is “go the blues”. But either way, both teams played super well in their series. Looks like France will be headed to a match up with USA if they can dispatch Spain tomorrow as anticipated.
@therealjrn Guess I’ll have to find a bar with the game on in MGM tomorrow while I run errands…
@chienfou Good luck! and GO THE BLUES!
@RedOak Thanks I appreciate that.
@Targaryen Here is the wikipedia entry for the team that year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003–04_Valencia_CF_season
In my house, you can never pick just one thing. And I didn’t even pick all that would be needed to paint an adequate picture of me, because well, i left the F&SF art out the deal.
The first thing you all think about when it comes to me other than occasional snark is probably
And yeah, that’s just a part of my coffee gear, I’ve posted more before. And yes, i am a coffee snob.
But other things I like are sharp objects. This one is a gag gift given for Yule by a friend a few years ago.
It hangs on the wall as you might guess.
40 years or so ago, the image many of my friends would have given you would look more like this
Not the Raven book end and the half of a Darwin fish. and although I’m addicted to my nook, I am still surrounded by books.
When I hit that mid life crisis thing, I didn’t act like the stereotypical guy (since I’m neither stereotypical or a guy) and by a fast red sports car. I bought his instead
Yep, a high powered gaming tower (well it was at the time, needs a rebuild, but I’m lazy) and yes, it is bright red. Makes me happy.
And the other part of me, no longer broom closeted most places, well an image to represent can out kinda crappy. But posting it anyway.
Hope you all had a blessed solstice last night, and went dancing in the moonlight around the bonfire, or candles or at least in your dreams.
Merry we meet
and Merry we part
until we Merry meet again
Blessed be.
@Cerridwyn Nice.
I only have a few things that I truly consider ‘special stuff’. One of my favorites is this seashell that I made into a necklace.
I found it while walking out to the Cabuya Island cemetery off the coast of Costa Rica with my wife several years ago. The island is only accessible during low tide, and hosts several really cool old plots with amazing tombstones and interesting back stories. The entire trip was great, and this is a wonderful reminder to stop and look around myself as I travel since you never know where your next ‘neat stuff’ will come from. (If you look closely I believe this is the same necklace I am wearing in the ‘show yourselves’ thread pic I posted. If not, it’s another similar one from a shell I picked up on that cruise. I like unusual seashells, what can I say…)
Over the years I have gotten more comments from that necklace than any other thing I wear. It seems to be intriguing to all sorts of folks.
@chienfou That is pretty cool.
@Barney yeah, that was an awesome trip. We rented a little 4x4 and drove all over the place… stayed a few days in a little hotel near Cabuya that was run by a German lady that moved there and did immersion Spanish lessons for Germans. It was really cool, and she had a bunch of folks from all over staying there with her.
At the tail end of the trip we spent the night on a coffee plantation near San Jose and drove to see the volcano before heading to the airport. Guess it’s gone off again since then (we were there around 10 years ago, I think) but still, it was really cool.
OWLS! TOWELS! JOWLS! AWESOME!
when i parents moved into their house, i found this way in the back of a closet under some shelving the previous owners left behind.
they contacted the previous owners who said they could just keep it. so, of course i took it. it’s a single pull, brass and mahogany, with the following inscription:
as far as i can tell, it was made some time in the first half of the 19th century, somewhere between 1806 and 1852(ish - since Jones died in 1852).
i kind of think the coolest part is that the original leather case survived this long.
@carl669 A single pull what? Spyglass?
@therealjrn you and your fancy words. it’s a single pull thingy that makes other thingies look closer.
@carl669 That’s a very nice pull thingy. Do you pull on your thingy a lot?
@therealjrn i prefer when others pull my thingy.
@carl669 That’s really cool. It’s amazing how well some things can survive through time and other stuff goes to shit in a short time.
How’s the glass in the ‘thingy’? Is it still pretty clear, or is there a bunch of crap inside it that you can see when you look thru it?
It pretty cool to think about what the history of that piece may have been (old sea-faring family member? military? pirate? voyeur?)
@chienfou the glass in the thingy was in pretty good condition from the start. there was a little bit of crap in the field of view, but nothing too bad. i did open it up recently and clean all the glass. that was an adventure in and of itself which consisted of me saying “how the fuck do i … ??” a lot.
i really wish i knew more about the history of this thing. but, there’s really no way to tell. the exterior and interior wood is in really good condition, so i doubt it spent any significant amount of time at sea. i’m guessing it was in someone’s home purely for voyeuristic purposes. those brits are perverts you know…
<british accent>
“Elizabeth, come look at the flat across the street. Margaret’s strolling about in her bloody knickers. Half rats, she is.”
</british accent>
i thought about selling it (best guess is $300-400) when i initially found it, but it was just way too cool a piece to let go.
@carl669 @chienfou
@carl669
<british accent> </british accent>