Category Archives: Mrs. Charm

iPod meets washing machine, part 2

Posted on July 14, 2013 | 4 comments

This time it was Mrs Charm who sent it through the washing machine (and the dryer) without noticing that it was clipped to a shirt she’d scarfed up to wash.

Just like back in 2011, when it was me who done the deed, the iPod Shuffle worked intermittently, then skipped through tunes without warning before finally dying for good. Oddly, perhaps, the earbuds seem to be okay.

Mrs. C. mentioned trying the rice trick, to dry the iPod out, but I recalled it didn’t work last time. So, like before, I found another used one at Amazon for $16 and ordered it.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Mrs. Charm, Music

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My life as a teenage hoodlum

Posted on June 1, 2013 | Comments Off on My life as a teenage hoodlum

Mrs. Charm was so annoyed at Mr. Boy’s second-in-a-row email complaint from his sixth grade art teacher about his misbehavior in class that Mrs. C. put him to washing off the patio furniture in the back forty this morning. She was pleased that he did a credible job with only a minor amount of fussing.

When he went back to playing Wizard 101, I thought to mollify her by confessing that when I was in sixth grade I spent most of the year in the principal’s office. Well, actually, on the bench outside it. Which the secretaries called the “mourner’s bench.”

Well, said Mrs. C. who was one of those strange people who actually loved school, at least you learned your lesson. Oh, I did, I confessed, but not for quite a while. The mourner’s bench designation didn’t fit me as I wasn’t in the least repentant and, indeed, I spent a good deal of seventh grade also sitting there for things I am still loathe to confess in this public forum.

UPDATE:  Fortunately Mr. B. does not attend sixth grade in Maryland. Indeed, I’ve been realizing for some time now that things I did in school in 1956-57, which were then merely grounds for suspension, could lead to arrest and jail nowadays. The country is far less free than it was and getting less so all the time.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm

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Pols should be required to do their own taxes

Posted on April 19, 2013 | Comments Off on Pols should be required to do their own taxes

If they were required by law to do their own federal income taxes, the rules would be a lot simpler for the rest of us to understand and follow. Although that might diminish the livelihood of accountants like our friend Donnie Greenspan.

Still, as Instapundit says, the current complexity is a human rights violation

Mrs. Charm did our federal taxes fairly quickly again this year because, as usual, we have no deductions. Only had our mortgage interest payments to deduct in the past but they’re too small now to quality because the mortgage, which was low to begin with thanks to our foresight and planning, is almost paid off.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, The Economy

The kolaches of West

Posted on April 19, 2013 | Comments Off on The kolaches of West

You’d expect the daily to go heavy on the fertilizer plant explosion in West, not far up the interstate from the rancho, and they have. Indeed, they even mention the famous Czech kolaches sold there. Famous because so many people buy them, often when enroute to Austin from North Texas.

Mr. B.’s grandmother usually brings us a box when she visits, having stopped in West for a snack on her way down from Fort Worth.

We never thought of West as a location for a disaster of such proportions, with estimates of “around 35” people killed and several times that number injured. Estimates because some homes and buildings were leveled, including a small apartment block across from the plant whose rubble still is being searched.

If we’d known there was a fertilizer plant in West we might have thought differently. Grain elevators can be volatile enough. Fertilizer, of course, was the chief component of McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bomb. Even country icon Willie Nelson is doing a benefit concert this weekend for West. He came up as a boy near there.

As for me and Mrs. Charm, we’re a little numb from all the recent tragedies, in Massachusetts and now closer to home. We’re just glad nothing on those scales has happened here. So we’re selfishly talking about pasteries and hoping grandma will still be able to stop off in West and bring us a box when she visits.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

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Portable bacteria colonies

Posted on March 19, 2013 | Comments Off on Portable bacteria colonies

Liberal Austin has banned stores from giving away plastic bags to hold purchases. Are we proud? We’re Portland South now.

All those folks (like Mrs. Charm) who felt so superior toting their green canvas bags—Ann Coulter delightfully refers to them as portable bacteria colonies—to and from the grocery are now diminished by the fact that most everyone carries them.

Well, most everyone. Not me. I prefer to pay 25 cents (so far) at the grocery for one of their recyclable brown bags (actually made of plastic, but I’m not telling). When I get home, I just stuff them in the kitchen trash and, next time, buy another one.

I am considering buying a washable cotton string bag, though five for $32 at Amazon does seem pricey. Maybe I’ll even get a (ha-ha) plastic one. Since all the liberals want to emulate Europe so bad (even unto government bankruptcy, apparently), why not go whole hog and become a German hausfrau with a string bag? Then Ann won’t be able to laugh at them risking infecting their children with salmonella or, gasp, e. coli.

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Posted in Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

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Catastrophist follies

Posted on February 4, 2013 | Comments Off on Catastrophist follies

It’s the disaster the catastrophists missed entirely. They’ve done population bombs—with attendant agricultural, pollution and war issues—to death in fiction and politics (which are closely-related, actually). First their end-of-oil-and-gas baloney was laughed out of real life by fracking. Now declining birth rates are kicking them when they’re down. Serves ’em right.

Meanwhile, the anti-plastic bag enviros (including our favorite progressive Mrs. Charm) are reaping unintended consequences, from bacteria-caused ER visits to actual deaths. Environmentalism is all about feelings not about facts.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Also from Insty, with a great title: What to Expect When No One’s Expecting.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Mrs. Charm, Scribbles

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Gender discrimination

Posted on January 19, 2013 | Comments Off on Gender discrimination

Gender discrimination is just fine when it’s women teachers imposing it on little boys.

This item about the first grader in Maryland being kicked out of school for pointing his index finger at another kid and saying POW! doesn’t surprise me. It’s not the first time either. We have that malarkey even in Texas.

I still see Mr. B.’s b**ch of a second-grade teacher at the grocery now and then and have a hard time not giving her my middle finger. She acts as if we’re all buddies now. Pig.

She’s apparently forgotten what she did when she saw Mr. B. drawing knights fighting monsters with swords and later with machine guns. She insisted that he was potentially dangerous and that we take him to a psychiatrist. Mrs. C., being the compliant type when it comes to authority, agreed and we did.

The psych had a meaningless little chat with him about his likes and dislikes and then wrote a prescription for Ritalin, or one of its generic varieties. I refused to fill it and Mrs. C. agreed. In the trash it went. At least they didn’t kick him out of school. If he’d done the finger gun, however, they might have.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Guns, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Texana

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