Jump to content
SASS Wire Forum

Subdeacon Joe

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    55,394

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    657

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Subdeacon Joe

    What would be the simplist and easiest way to remove fingerprints from loaded ammunition?

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    Well, after your lengthy word problem description that included Farmer Jones on a train going NNW at 33 1/3 mph, Suzi with apples, and Johnny harvesting 99 44/100 acres of wheat before 3:10 in Yuma, I've decided that dipping your magazines in mineral oil wouldn't be a good idea. 

     

    There is a not quite zero chance of police being able to recover usable prints from expended brass. A couple of articles I found put it around 0.12% to 0.15%.

    • Like 1

    "Oh! That's obviously AI!"

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    Or "FAKE!" or "Never Happened!" or "More FAKEBOOK  garbage. "

     

    And you know what?  I DON'T CARE if it's not true.  I don't know if it's true, it probably isn't,  I'm not going to try to track it down. No more than I'd try to track down the truth of Asope's Fables.  

     

     

     

    The MESSAGE is what matters. 

     

    "I spent 40 years carrying a gun. The cruelest takedown I ever witnessed, though, happened in a diner. The weapon? A smartphone. The victim? A teacher.

    My name is Frank O'Malley. I’m 72, and my pension from the city is just enough to keep me in coffee and newspapers. For forty years, I was a beat cop. I walked the same twelve blocks until the soles of my shoes wore thin. I knew every shop owner, every kid, and every stray dog.

    My spot is at the counter of The Bluebird Diner. It’s the last real place left. Sal, the owner, still writes your order on a paper pad and yells it at the cook. The coffee is fifty cents, but the refills are free. It’s my church.

    I was in my usual seat, trying to read the sports page over the hum of the 24-hour news on the TV nobody was watching. That’s the world now, I thought. Everyone’s broadcasting, nobody’s listening. "Neighbor" used to be a verb. Now it’s just a word for the person you argue with about property lines.

    That's when she came in.

    She couldn’t have been more than 24. She was swimming in a faded red sweatshirt with a smiling elementary school mascot on it. She looked wrecked. The kind of bone-tired I used to see on rookies after a double shift.

    She didn't sit. She just stood by the register, her voice a whisper. "Just a black coffee and a blueberry muffin to go, please, Sal."

    Sal, bless him, poured the coffee and bagged the muffin. "That'll be $4.50, sweetheart."

    She swiped her card.

    A harsh beep. The little screen flashed red. "Declined."

    Her face went pale. "Oh. That’s... that's wrong. Can you run it again? Please? My paycheck was supposed to clear..."

    Sal, a gentleman to the end, ran it again. Beep. Declined.

    She started fumbling in her pockets, her hands shaking. "I just... I must have... I don't..."

    And then, the sound.

    It wasn't a shout. It was worse. It was that smug, nasal voice of someone narrating their own life. A woman, mid-fifties, was sitting in a booth, holding her phone up. The little red light was on. She was filming.

    "And here we are, folks," the woman said, her voice loud enough for the whole diner to hear. "It’s ten o’clock on a Tuesday. And this is one of our local teachers. Not in school, holding up the line, and she can't even pay for her coffee. This is where your tax dollars are going, people. Absolutely pathetic."

    The young woman froze. But she didn't cry from shame. She broke from pure, unadulterated exhaustion.

    "I'm not in school," she said, her voice cracking, "because I was at school until 11 PM last night setting up the 'Reading Week' book fair. I'm here to get coffee before my first parent-teacher conference, which is unpaid."

    She slammed her hand on the counter. "And my card declined because I just spent $220 of my own money on books for kids in my class. Kids who don't have books at home. Kids whose parents... kids who..."

    She choked on a sob, shoved the bagged muffin back at Sal, and ran out the door.

    The diner was dead silent. The woman with the phone had the nerve to look proud. She was still filming.

    I’ve seen a lot of ugly things. Bar fights, domestic disputes, stick-ups. But this felt different. This was cruel.

    I took my wallet out, the leather cracked like an old catcher’s mitt. I put a $20 bill on the counter.

    "Sal," I said. My voice was rusty. "The teacher's coffee and muffin. And the rest? Start a 'Teacher's Tab'."

    Then, I stood up. I'm not a big guy, but 40 years on the beat gives you a certain... presence. I walked over to her booth.

    She kept the phone up, right in my face. "Can I help you, grandpa? You enabling her?"

    I didn't raise my voice. I didn't have to. I used the voice I saved for telling a man he was under arrest.

    "My name is Frank O'Malley. Badge 344, retired. I walked this beat before you owned that phone."

    I pointed at her screen. "We used to have a name for people who aired their neighbors' dirty laundry in the street just to feel important. We called them 'busybodies.' We called them 'troublemakers.' Now you call it 'content'."

    She lowered the phone.

    "That young woman," I said, "is building something. She's teaching kids how to read, how to be decent. You? You're just tearing things down. That's all that phone does. It tears down."

    I stared at her until she looked away. "Pay your bill. And get out of my diner."

    She sputtered something about "free speech" and "customer service," but she saw Sal standing behind me with his arms crossed. She saw the other five people in the diner staring at her. She threw some cash on the table and stormed out.

    I went home. I figured that was that.

    I was wrong.

    I came back the next Tuesday. The diner was packed. I mean, standing-room-only. And on the counter, next to the old cash register, was a big glass pickle jar. It had a piece of masking tape on it. In Sal's handwriting, it just said: "THE TEACHER'S TAB."

    The jar was overflowing with fives, tens, and twenties.

    I looked at Sal. He was grinning.

    "Oh, she posted the video, Frank," he said, wiping the counter. "She posted it all, callin' you a 'tyrant' and me 'an accomplice.' But she made a mistake. She left your face in it. And everybody in this town knows Frank O'Malley."

    He gestured with his rag. "They started comin' in an hour later. Old folks. Young folks. Even a couple of firefighters from the station down the street. They all just said the same thing: 'This is for the Teacher's Tab.' Ms. Evans? She eats free for a year, I figure."

    I sat down at my spot. A young man at the next table over raised his cup to me. "Mornin', Officer O'Malley."

    I looked at that jar. I looked at all the people talking to each other, passing the cream, laughing. The TV in the corner was still on, still blaring about some crisis, but nobody was listening. They were too busy being neighbors.

    Maybe the "good old days" aren't gone. Maybe they're not a time. Maybe they're just a choice.

    The internet is where we go to shout. The real world is where we still have to live. Stop broadcasting the noise. Start building the quiet. #fblifestyle:

     

     

    • Like 7
    • Thanks 4

    Chump Change

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    9 hours ago, watab kid said:

    i would have thought it dated to the 20s or maybe 30s , but i never gave it much thought as i was generally speaking a chump that never had change - i respected what i earned and saved and spent as wisely as possible - life is too short 

     

    That's what my wife and I thought. I even considered as early as the 1880s since lots of colorful phrases came from the late 1800s.  

    Chipped beef

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Dr. Zook said:

    Have any of you ever heard or had a sliced onion & lard sandwich?

    It was popular I guess in Polish & German households as I was told my great-great grandparents would sometimes eat that along with making their own horse radish in the farming communities outside of Philly. 

     

     

    Open face, on black bread. 

     

    There's a Romanian version that uses cold, sliced cornmeal mush for the bread. 

    Of Viands and Victuals

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    More Chat GPT fun.

     

    Picture a Victorian parlor on a snow-quiet evening, all lace-curtains and brass lamplight. A fruitcake sits on a porcelain pedestal like a poem that forgot to rhyme but remembered to taste wonderful. Let’s bake that.

    Below is a Victorian Poet Fruitcake built for a loaf pan, draped in the quiet drama of dried cherries and cranberries. It’s dark, fragrant, and a little brooding in the best Dickensian way.


    ---

    Victorian Poet Fruitcake

    (Dried Cherries, Dried Cranberries, and Tea-Parlor Elegance)

    Makes: 1 loaf
    Texture: dense, tender, aromatic
    Mood: candlelit sonnet

    Ingredients

    Fruit soak

    1 cup dried cherries

    1 cup dried cranberries

    0.75 cup strong black tea (Earl Grey or English Breakfast), hot

    3 tablespoons dark rum or brandy (optional but period-correct)


    Cake

    1.5 cups all-purpose flour

    0.5 cup dark brown sugar, packed

    0.25 cup molasses

    1 teaspoon baking powder

    0.5 teaspoon baking soda

    0.5 teaspoon salt

    1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

    1 teaspoon ground ginger

    0.5 teaspoon ground cloves

    0.5 teaspoon grated nutmeg

    0.75 cup unsalted butter, softened

    2 large eggs

    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

    Zest of 1 orange

    The soaked fruit plus any remaining liquid

    0.5 cup chopped toasted walnuts or pecans (optional but very Victorian)


    Instructions

    1. Let the fruit drink its tea.
    In a bowl, combine cherries, cranberries, hot tea, and rum if using. Cover and let them steep for at least 30 minutes. They’ll plump like tiny velvet cushions.


    2. Warm your parlor.
    Heat the oven to 325°F. Line a loaf pan with parchment so the cake lifts out like a proud stanza.


    3. Blend the dusk flavors.
    In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until soft and friendly. Beat in eggs, molasses, vanilla, and orange zest.


    4. Whisk the dry chorus.
    In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.


    5. Fold the two worlds together.
    Add the dry mix to the butter mixture. Stir until it forms a thick, old-soul batter.
    Drain fruit if there is a lot of liquid, but usually you can pour it all in. Fold in fruit and nuts.


    6. Bake the poem.
    Scrape batter into the loaf pan. Bake 65–80 minutes, or until a skewer emerges with only a crumb or two. The top should look like a well-worn leather book.


    7. Let it rest.
    Cool completely. For true Victorian gravitas, wrap the cooled cake in parchment, splash with a spoonful of rum or tea, and let it ripen for 1 to 3 days.

    Serving

    Slice thin. Serve with milky tea or port. If you want extra elegance, warm a little marmalade and brush it over the top for a glossy Victorian glow.

     

    • Thanks 1

    Chipped beef

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, Alpo said:

    What country's cake are you talking about?

     

    Luxury-wedding-cake-10006.jpg

     

    That's a wedding cake where I come from.

     

    Well. Yeah. It can look like that.  What is inside?

     

    ratio3x4_1920.thumb.jpg.f1e578814d0271b131543fb5fb2db80c.jpg

    two questions about diesel engines

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    7 minutes ago, El Chapo said:

     

    New injection systems may not like a more viscous fuel, but certainly diesel engines will run on all forms of oil if it is injected correctly, which older diesels will absolutely do.

     

    Ships routinely run on an oil that is so thick it has to be heated even to pump through a large pipe.

     

    Thanks.  Last diesel that I started some 40 years ago was a '50s or early '60s vintage.

     

    I guess maybe the technology changed just a little since then.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept