If you have the wonderful Balmuda Toaster Oven, then you’ll be interested to know that a “Quarter Sheet” silicon baking matt, cut in half, gives you two inserts that fit perfectly inside the tray. No more need to use tinfoil or parchment paper for easy clean up!

Here is a typical baking mat of the right size, which considering that you’ll end up with two after cutting, is nicely priced.

If you do the math, that means the Balmuda tray is One Eight Size, which you can find if you need a replacement tray, but probably not under that designation. See my previous post about Pans that Fit the Balmuda Toaster Oven.

Enjoy!

Published in 1970, this is the most contemporary book in my Dark Shadows collection. It’s lucky number thirteen in the series (of 32) so I have a long way to go if I choose to continue.

The title of the book is a bit of a puzzle to me — aren’t all ghosts mysterious? Nonetheless, the adjective was used several times in the story, so I guess my opinion was not shared by the author or editor.

As I have skipped a couple of volumes, I’m left wondering what happened to Victoria Winters, who is not only no longer in the house, she’s not even mentioned. Clearly, I missed some significant events.

In fact, there aren’t many Collins family members mentioned at all. This is definitely not a good place to begin reading the series; it would give a false impression of its gestalt.

Another thing that stood out to me is the more traditional vampire lore that’s reflected in this volume. And I do mean reflected, as a key moment occurs when Barnabas can’t be seen in a mirror.

I am pleased that the “wan drinking game” I proposed earlier would still be playable with this book. Cheers!

The writing continues to pull me in, and I found myself laughing out loud at the observation that “our own hippies wear clothes of ancient style,” in defense of Barnabas’ manner of dress. How 1970!

I’ll continue avoiding spoilers, but will note that the book sets up a fantastic treasure to be found in a future volume (I presume).

I’ve been using Selznick Scientific Software’s PasswordWallet for a couple of decades. (Seriously, it has been that long. The oldest entry in my wallet is for the ACM Digital Library, and it was created in 2001.)

However, in the last couple of macOS updates, PasswordWallet has developed a few annoying problems, and I’ve found myself relying on Apple’s keychain instead. With the release of macOS Sequoia’s Passwords.app, it is time to say goodbye to my beloved PasswordWallet.

On macOS (only), Passwords.app allows you to import data, but what the new app expects, and what PasswordWallet exports, aren’t compatible. Sadly, the user guide for Passwords.app doesn’t give any useful information about importing. (But it can help you find the Import menu item, if you’re unable to do that. 🙄)

Before you begin, use PasswordWallet’s local sync function to merge all copies of your wallet (such as from your iPhone) with the wallet on your Mac. Make a note of how many total entries you have. (Mine has nearly 1000.) Then, make sure PasswordWallet’s search field is clear and use the export command to save a text file of all your entries. Then do the following:

1. Open the exported file in BBedit and change all the tab characters to commas.
2. Save the file with a .csv extension, which is what Passwords.app requires.
3. Import the csv file into Numbers for further manipulation.
4. Only the first five columns are needed, so use Merge Cell to move any information from columns six and beyond into the fifth column. (This will become the Notes field in Passwords.app)
5. Delete columns six and beyond.
6. Add a Header Row that names each column as follows: Title, URL, Username, Password, and Notes.
7. Save the .cvs file.
8. In Passwords.app, use the Import function to open the cvs file. (Importing takes a surprisingly long time. Be patient.)
9. When the import finishes, you’ll see a list of entries that were skipped. In my case, about 20% were not imported because they were duplicates of what I already had in Passwords.app (based on the item’s URL). You may want to compare each of these with what you have in PasswordWallet and manually re-enter any Notes that you want to retain.
10. As a sanity-check, compare the reported number of entries imported with the total entries that were in your PasswordWallet.

To finish up, I recommend using PasswordWallet to save a backup file of its data, for safekeeping. It will be encrypted and require PasswordWallet to open, should you need it. You can also save your import files, but as they are in plain text, I strongly suggest doing so using an encrypted archive or disk image. In any case, be sure to securely delete your import files so they can’t be recovered. (Another point that the Help book fails to mention.)

I would appreciate it if there were a way to assign imported entries to a group, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do that. It might be possible by adding columns to the spreadsheet, but doing so is left as an exercise for the reader.

Good luck!

The underlying theme of this eighth volume (1969) in the Dark Shadows series is the futility of trying to change the person you love. (Or, perhaps, just that women try to change men.) It may be that the incessant meddling that Barnabas endures is the “demon” of the title.

Another theme is that of Second Sight. In the story, we learn that both dogs and horses possess the ability, as does, ironically, a one-eyed man.

We also learn about ghostly flowers, that can be smelled, but not seen.

Physically, this book likely has a higher word count than the others I have read. It would explain the denser formatting, and maybe even the typographical mistakes such as repeated lines and even, surprisingly, a line printed entirely upside down. How did these mistakes make it into print? Was a demon at play?

Aside from the obligatory use of “dark shadows” as an adjective — which I continue to appreciate — this story brilliantly features a deaf-mute manservant. Barnabas must have felt very secure having an assistant who would have few employment prospects elsewhere, and also couldn’t well communicate the things he witnessed.

And, yes, the raw material for a “wan” drinking game is still very much present. Bottoms up!

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this volume so much is that it’s a narrative, not a mystery to be solved. (I enjoy reading mystery novels, but don’t try to solve them.)

The ending of this volume is very poignant and presumably sets up a future story line. (No spoilers!)

This 2024 book by Peter McIndoe and Conner Gaydos is subtitled “The True Story of Mass Avian Murder and the Largest Surveillance Campaign in US History.”

Nothing makes me giggle more than seeing some dude holding up a “Birds Aren’t Real” sign at nearly every protest and sporting event. It tickles me even more than the “John 3:16” nutters. So when I found this book on the closeout rack at Barnes & Noble, I couldn’t resist buying it.

Have you ever watched a comedian who has a very finely constructed long joke that you really appreciate? At the payoff you think “wow that was really nicely done.” You can see where they’re coming from, and they obviously spent a lot of work refining it. You really appreciate the bit, but, what you don’t do, is laugh. That’s pretty much what this book was for me.

As I learned by studying at the Second City, good satire doesn’t overly rely on a wink-wink-nudge-nudge. Which this book leans into too heavily. Also, as I learned from Discordianism, not being able to tell if it’s meant as a joke is key to a good psychosocial-conspiracy.

For me, the authors made a terrible mistake in the early pages. A key moment in their historical timeline relies on events that occur at a Waffle House in Boise, Idaho.

But there is no Waffle House in Boise, Idaho. You see, as a magician, I am careful to avoid asserting evidence that can be easily, and concretely, refuted. If they had written “a waffle house,” that would not have blown apart my suspension of disbelief. How unfortunate.

That aside, there are many fun and compelling things about the book:

• The discussion of a hummingbird drone and the JFK assassination
• The description of online research as “YouTube videos of men yelling at their phones inside of trucks”
• The revelation that bird poop is a synthetic tracking liquid applied by drone birds to help surveil people
• The reason that ”birds” perch on power lines is to recharge their batteries. This is also the secret reason why many communities have not replaced overhead lines with safer, more reliable underground power.

My hat’s off to the authors, and overall this book is a fine accomplishment. I have been spoiled by the tighter, funnier, and more convincing shaggy dog tales proffered by the Discordians, and even the Church of the SubGenius. If you’d like to learn more about the Bird Truthers movement, pick up a copy at Amazon. However, if you want a real mindfck, go for The Illuminatus Trilogy instead.

23 Skidoo!

In The Home as a Place of Production, Karen Rosenkranz asks: “So what would an alternative vision for the home of the future look like?”

I think some clues are to be found in the past. In the pre-industrial era, the domestic dwelling was where most work took place. From shoemakers to blacksmiths or scholars, skilled workers made things out of their homes. Food was produced within or around the house. This was all part of life – making, mending and feeding oneself. The duality of life and work hadn’t been established yet.

via Dense Discovery

Today, I wasted a good half-hour of my life trying to find refill tape for my Brother P-Touch “Home and Hobby II” PT-85 Label Printer (catchy name). I have the old, empty cartridge and it clearly reads “M-K231 12mm 1/2”. Do you think that I can find a new one to buy? Nope. The Brother website literally has zero results for any combination of those words, and it is their product! A search on Amazon returns an overwhelming list of results, none of which are Brother-brand products, and none of which have the same part number or size.

Some third-party tapes are close. They have variants that are similar to M-K231, and they are nearly the same size (0.47”), but not a one of them is an exact match for what I need.

I’m guessing that Brother has stopped making this size tape (all their part numbers start with TZe), which isn’t surprising given that the label machine is easily 20 years old. What is surprising to me is that the no-name replacements sold on Amazon can’t be bothered to make it clear that they are compatible with the actual Brother part number.

Despite middling reviews related to adhesiveness, I ordered one of the knock-off label cartridge from Amazon. My irritation at how hard it was to find is exceeded only by my anxiety that what I receive will work or be any good. Stay tuned.

Update: The replacement tapes have arrived and they are physically identical to the Brother cartridge, but are labeled slightly differently than described on Amazon, and still different from the Brother cartridge. Reviews on the site mention that the labels are hard to peel, but the ones I received a split-back, so go figure. The cartridge does work just find, and the adhesive seems fine, although to my eye the black print isn’t as dark as it is with the Brother cartridge.

This is the third book I’ve read in the series of novels by Marilyn Ross that are based on the Dark Shadows TV show. However, there are a few books between this one and the others I’ve read, and the gap might explain some of the changes that I encountered.

The setting of the book is 1968. (It was published in 1969.) The other books aren’t specific about their time.

In this book, the house is now known as “Collinwood,” which is almost certainly an attempt to match the television show, even though tho these books are not part of that universe.

No spoilers, but in this book Barnabas is living in a pub room (not in the Old House), and the story features a Spiritualist Medium which really adds a nice occult element. We also learn that Barnabas can only feed on females, which justifies the many romances interweaving through the series.

This time, I didn’t notice any Hitchockian references to “dark shadows” in the story, but I am beginning to think that a drinking game based on the author using “wan” would be killer.

You can find a copy of this book at Amazon, of course, but wouldn’t it be more fun to let fate decide if you’re fortunate enough to encounter it in a used bookstore?

Writing for the once-great Chicago Sun Times, the fabulous columnist Neil Steinberg discovers what techies have known for years: Google can pull the plug at any time

This is very much a cautionary tale, and the lesson is that writers need to own their words. Sure, if someone is paying you for “content,” you don’t own that instantiation (pardon the programmer-speak), but you do morally own the product of your labor. Save it. Keep a plain text backup of every. single. thing. you. write. Always, and forever. I accomplish this in two ways: First off, I compose anything I intend to publish in Ulysses, so there’s a copy inside that app’s library. Secondly, I publish using MarsEdit, which also keeps a copy of what’s pushed to the website. That’s two back-ups, so to speak, built into my workflow. I don’t even have to think about it, as long as I follow my process.

For other things that I write — notes, email drafts, etc. — I do all that using Drafts. This app also has an automatic library of documents where I can find anything unfinished over the last few years. Again, it happens automatically, so long as I follow my self-imposed process of always using either Drafts or Ulysses, and nothing else.

On a related note, if you’re running your own site, WordPress, Ghost, and the ilk, are quick and easy, but have no longevity. For the technical among you, read, savor, and follow this: This Page is Designed to Last: A Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web

The irony that you’re reading this on a TypePad-hosted website is not lost on me. I’ve been publishing here for over 20 years, so there is a lot of inertia against leaving the platform. TypePad is very much a zombie service, and they haven’t been accepting new customers for years now. I’m grateful the owners keep it running (sort of), but there’s no doubt that someday I’ll have to move. But when that pain-in-the-ass day comes, I won’t lose any of my words.

Today, the news hit that Richard Simmons has passed away. Now anyone who has ever seen me perform knows that I’m not exactly a fitness-centric person. However, Simmons’ death made be recall that when I was young, Jack LaLanne was the only guy preaching exercise. He was such a novelty that when he was a guest on Johnny Carson (which was frequently), he had to explain what he did and how he made his living. A fitness coach‽ An exercise instructor‽ It all seemed very Hollywood to me and my family.

Then came the era of Richard Simmons, and he changed everything. Followed, of course, by Jane Fonda. If you weren’t alive during this time, it might be difficult to imagine having just one or two fitness advocates, but that’s how it was before the “fitness industry” era.

Today, thanks to Peloton and Apple Fitness+, there are hundreds of professional exercise instructors and “fitness celebrities” to learn from. But just a few decades ago, there was one who started all, and another who brought it to the people. Hit the showers, Richard Simmons.