Cheapskates

I was reading Tender is the Night and was puzzling over the typesetting.  The foreword and the index is set in a very clear, narrow typeface, while the text itself looks old and worn.

This is unfortunately an annotated edition, which I loathe.  I wouldn’t have bought it if I’d known.

But that doesn’t make sense.  If it’s a new, annotated edition, why does is look so worn and old-timey?

Then I noticed.  Just look at it.  The single line that has the annotation “15” is set in a narrower typeface that also looks crisper.  Just look at those to “but”s.

So the cheap bastards just cut out the lines where they wanted to have an annotation, re-set it in the narrower font to make room for the annotation, and then pasted the result back in.

I didn’t know that doing stuff like that was even possible in these digital days.  It’s practially midieval.

Useful Consumer Review

I bought this catch-and-release fly catcher…  gun… a few weeks back.  But, despite the warmest March ever (or something), I hadn’t seen a single fly since getting the device.

Until today.

It works!  I caught the fly and released it out the window. I didn’t really think it would work, because the suction kinda sucks.

So humane.  And fewer streaks on the walls.

Springtime

 A decade ago I decided to buy lots of plants.

I don’t know what this is…

I’d always had a couple of plants, but they’d always die on me.  Since I’m basically enthusiasm-driven, I realized that the only way I’d ever be able to have any non-dead plants on my windows was to buy lots and lots of them, and force myself to pay attention.  If something falls below my enthusiasm radar, it just doesn’t get done at all.
So I got like a hundred plants or something.  When I get enthusiastic, I get…  obsessed.

This has to be a crassula
This can’t be anything but a bromeliad
Citrus.  Of some kind.
This is definitely an aloe
That’s a myrta
Uhm…  schiffer?  Schifferia?
What are these called?  Haworthia?  Or something?
This is probably something

I’ve cut back a bit since then, and plants still die.  I travel quite a bit, and any plants that don’t survive without water for a week or two suffer.  So I have to replenish the windows sills once in a while.
These are my new recruits.