matthew

When I string beads, I use beads... It takes too long to make them out of dental floss...

Dragon

I once made a large wind chime made out of tiny terracotta pots. The crafting instructions called for plain pots and a rub on decal. All the decals were rather horrid floral patterns or little dancing bears or something similarly awful so Dragon decided to do a little painting instead. I painted 1/2 of them metallic crimson and 1/2 of them metallic emerald green (Dragon's do love jewel tones, they go so well with our hordes ). I then painted an asian dragon on one side (green ont the red pots and vice versa) and the chinese word for dragon on the other side. These would have been painted upside down if the pots were going to remain pots instead of becoming a windchime. I suspended these from a large gold ring with the type of nylon(I believe) line they had recommended. Each pot hangs slightly lower than the one before it so they can just touch and they make a surprisingly pretty sound. The nylon line was slightly stretchy and made getting the pots to line up perfectly quite a nightmare. It looked really good when I finished and I decided to punish myself one more time by making one for my friend (I painted hers gold with hieroglyphics on them as she's crazy about anything ancient Egyptian). Once I finished these I was quite done with being creative for awhile and took a break.
I think Baldur would have agreed that this type of nylon line was awful what with all the stretch and the fact that it too was difficult to knot.

Baldur

I certainly do agree Dragon.
Your windchimes do sound marvelous and probably actually do sound marvelous. That sentence makes sense in an odd way.
It should rain all day tomorrow so it will be indoor domesticities again at Chez Baldur.

Today Baldur received a crate full of used jewel cases in the mail, having purchased them on Ebay a couple weeks ago. 'Jewel' cases are not as sparkly and wonderful as they sound, I refer of course to those dreadful plastic containers that compact discs come packaged in.
We needed replacement parts for quite a few of the jewel cases in our music library.
Someone should truly design a better alternative to the fragile and annoying contraptions.
The little hinge-tabs are designed to be flimsy; they break off despite the great amount of care that we exercise on them here.
Then there are the spider-clamps, which is my own term for those starburst shaped struts that are supposed to hold the discs in place. If you look at one of those sideways it will never work correctly again.

This summer as you will all recall we renovated our family room, that is where the music library is housed. In the process Baldur went through all of the approximately 3000 cds and inspected each and every one.
Then he cleaned up the cases that had remnants of tape on them.
Is there indeed any way that one can unwrap a new cd and remove every trace of sealing tape?
Then I took out of circulation and case that had a problem.
This amounted to perhaps 100 discs.
Some of these were functionally OK but were those dreadful slimline cases.
These are only about 50% as thick as the standard jewel case and have no provision for adding a label on the spine.
How is one suppose to ever find the disc again if it is shelved among a collection of others?
Anyway that being done Baldur started looking at the options for replacing the defective pieces.
One can buy clean, brand new virgin jewel cases at any large office supply store, and many electronics store. But they are not cheap.
Here the best price was just a shade under $1 a piece, and in most instances I didn't need the whole thing, mainly I needed a lot of lids and a few spider clamp inserts.
Baldur shuffled around parts amongst the bad ones and did get a few good complete cases assembled, leaving the others in even worse shape.
So, I checked the place that has rescued me more than once :
eBay

Baldur

Ebay actually had lots of options, including someone who was selling just the lids. That was exciting news, but he was charging $1 a piece, plus shipping.
Then I found someone selling lots of lots of used ones. He cautioned that they weren't in perfect condition, many also had the old artwork inserts still in them.
But nonetheless Baldur was able to purchase a box of 60 jewel cases, the complete cost with shipping came to $22.
A minor victory.

Baldur

and -d +y =any

Baldur

This was also a 'green' solution, it felt good to know these were used and being kept out of a landfill.

So this afternoon the 'Great Compact Disc Shuffle' began.
Every problemous case was sent off to my own recycling bin, the discs are now all housed in functional packaging.
All that is left will be typing up labels for the ones that had never had spine labels before, and making cover art for a few that lost their original inserts somehow.
Luckily it's a simple matter of finding an image of the original online and printing out a copy.
This all won't be finished anytime soon, but today approximately 30 discs did get reshelved.
Things are looking up.

Baldur

There was one horrible moment that occured during all this excitement.
Whilst Baldur was removing old inserts from the cases I ran into something that was amazingly bad,
It was the cover art for some R&B singer I had never heard of.
The photo was OK, the guy was sitting there smiling at the camera, but emblazened across the front was the title of the album:

'To Hot To Handle'

Baldur checked, the same spelling was on the spine, and used as the title of one of the songs.
Nobody in the record company, or even the print shop noticed this?
Dear Lord

sheftali52

Sheftali shares your dismay, Baldur, with the butchery of the English language.....

maddyjean08

Really? If it's not much trouble, explain to me why it's bad? Other than it being a really stupid sounding song...

matthew

I submit this to your listeners

Can anyone help???

I have been sick for 2 weeks now... I had gotten a cold with fever that lasted 5 days...

I had one day that I felt good, but then fluid began to build up in my lungs & has been kicking my butt since...

I have been taking Mucinex to break up the fluid to no avail... Any home fix'ns?

Baldur

maddy jean, the phrase should be 'TOO hot to handle', they used a common mispelling.

Now matthew, your malady is something Dr Bear does have some success in curing.
He recommends you sweat it out of your system.
Bundle up warmly in a sweatsuit preferably under warm blankets and drink a very hot mug of tea spiked with a shot of whiskey or rum. Whichever you prefer. You can sweeten the tea or not as you like but it should be very warm. If the alcohol cools it down too much put the mug in the microwave oven for 30-45 seconds.
You should get very drowsy and sweat profusely.
Nap for a few hours and you'll wake up soaking wet but otherwise feeling much better.
That should knock it out of your system.

maddyjean08

Doctor Guy recommends gurgling, and possibly swallowing salt water for stuffy nose and cough...

Baldur

I have a friend that recommends pouring salt water into your nasal cavities and then letting it drain out.
Baldur has no idea how one is to do that without drowning in the process, but he insisted he was serious. He was boggled that I didn't comprehend the procedure.

maddyjean08

Breathe out of the mouth.

solosater

At the back of the nasal cavity there isn't a barrier between the nostrils. If you tilt your head to the front (to keep the solution from draining down your throat) and to the side the saline solution will run from one nostril to the other and out again.

I use warm distiled water and sea salt but there are over the counter mixes with menthol and such that can be nice too. You can use a "nasal pot" (a small tea pot looking thing with a long spout to pour the solution) or a bulb-style nasal aspirator (baby bugger getter, to "shoot" the solution) and my mother actually just cups the solution in her hand and sucks it up her nose, that is beyond my capability to do and not choke but you could try.

First blow your nose to clear the passages then apply the saline solution in your preferred method. Do both sides. No rinsing is required. It takes some getting used to but once you get the hang of it it is really quite effective. There will be drainage for a bit so have plenty of tissue or hankies available.

solosater

The salt mixture should be where you can just taste the salt in the water so not too heavy on the salt.

matthew

Well, I have no nasal congestion... Only lungs... So I guess I should get drunk & sweaty...

solosater

I don't know how effective it would be for chest build up but for the nasal congestion it cannot be beat. Other "nasal decongestants" generally use steroids that initially shrink the passages but over the course of a few days actually swell the passages making the problem worse. The saline solution just breaks up the mucus and cleans the passages without drying them out or irritating them and there is some help with secondary infection prevention as well though I'm not sure exactly how that works.

I'm for the "hot toddy" cure myself though it isn't a traditional hot toddy, the heat and the alcohol is better than anything Nyquil has to offer and it tastes way better! Lemon and honey with the hot tea and whiskey/rum should also help.

If you are up to it a hot bath with ground ginger root sprinkled in the water would also help with the sweating. The ginger root actually will make the water seem hotter than it is. I get lobster red and sweat for at least an hour after I have a ginger bath (then I need a shower 'cause sweatin's gross). I use about three tablespoons of ground ginger root (or more) in a bath full of hot water. You could try doing hot compresses with ginger root too, just hot water and ginger soaked towels wrung out and applied to the chest, it can be irritating though so you may need to rinse off after. This is great for muscle cramps and any sluggish system (bowels, lungs etc).

solosater

If nothing else the heat will relax you and you can rest while your body heals itself.

Feel better matthew!

solosater

Oh and just fyi, if you are going to add lemon do not add milk! You likely aren't going to anyway what with the congestion but for future reference, citric acid curdles milk. Eeww!