Fire at our favorite hotel

Kelly and I don’t stay in hotels very often, but there is one hotel that we try to stay at once a year.  It’s the closest we get to a regular vacation.  Every May during the big antique show in Brimfield, we try to go for a long weekend and we stay at the Publick House in Sturbridge.  We truly love the place.  We bring our dogs with us, and they have a good time too.

So obviously we were quite alarmed when our friend Carron told us that she saw on the TV news that there was a fire at the Publick House.

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Pity the poor cockroach

Geoff and I were watching an episode of Criminal Minds the other night and a super familiar thing happened.  It’s something that happens a lot on TV and it always makes me roll my eyes, but this time it irritated me enough to make me want to come here and get all science-ranty about it.

I should probably say before I get started that I genuinely like Criminal Minds and that I’ve been watching it off and on since Season 1.  This problem is not specific to any particular show but to all TV and Movies that need a Big Scary Bug and science be damned.

Btw, there are photos of bugs after the jump.  Lots of them.  You have been warned.

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A very good year for swears

As most of you know, Geoff and I go out of our way to keep from swearing in this space.  This is mostly because this blog is read by our parents and both our mothers have been known to need smelling salts if they encounter too many F-bombs.  That being said, we both swear like sailors IRL and, as Geoff has said many times, he learned his particular talent for blue language in Cub Scouts and then basically got a graduate course in Foul Language in the Army.

So this post, both as it pertains to swear words, social media, writing, and the evolution of language, is very interesting.  I’m posting it here knowing that it will likely make our mothers reach for the smelling salts.  Be that as it may, the social science behind it is really interesting.  Also, the Strong Language blog is quite a read and worth checking out.  More after the jump.

~Kelly

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The whaling fleet lost in 1871 has been found

It seems that at least two of the whaling ships lost in the great Arctic whaling fleet disaster of 1871 have been found off the coast of Alaska.   It is believed that their discovery may lead  marine archaeologists to the sites of the other 30 odd ships lost that terrible autumn.  The loss of these vessels, 22 of which were from New Bedford, Massachusetts, helped further the end of the whaling industry in the United States.

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Antiques & Art – living side by side

I promised the other day that our next post would be about the awesome things that we saw at the antique show we went to.  I might have overstated that a bit.  There was a lot of great stuff.  Then there was this.

It's a door. It was for sale.
It’s a door.  Yeah.

Thankfully I didn’t see it, Geoff did.  What Geoff and I spent a lot of time looking at though was this amazing marriage of art and antiques that was in a booth at the back.  The work that this guy does is truly one of a kind.  Check it out.

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Cultural Appropriation & Antiques

Today Geoff and Amanda and I went to the Boston Antiques & Design Show in Wilmington, MA.  We’d never been to this show before and we actually heard about it in a book we found at a used book sale at MIT.  The book was awesome, it’s here if you want to check it out, but it may have mentioned that the show is held in a Shriners Auditorium.  Shriners, like the guys wearing little fuzzy red fezzes.

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2015: A Year In Review

Before we get to the year that was or the year that will be, here’s your annual Christmas card.  Brought to you by the little dogs that keep us happy, on our toes, and forever finding rawhide chews in the strangest places.

All of us, yes, even Scratch, wish you the best in the New Year.
All of us, yes, even Scratch, wish you the best in the New Year.

 

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Baby it’s cold outside

Yes, Geoff is correct in the post that he just put up.  It isn’t cold outside.  At all.  But I’m not talking about actual weather, I’m talking about that blasted song.  I’m talking about that “Christmas Song” that’s commonly referred to now as “The Rapey Song.”

You know the one.    Once you actually listen to the words you get uncomfortable each time you hear it.  It’s a duet.  It’s ostensibly about flirting, a date, and a storm.

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Dear universe – I want New England weather back

So tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the temperature is going to be soaring up to a record-breaking 25 to 35 degrees above normal.

No.  Just no.  In fact, hell no.

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Things you should be reading right now

Yes, we know that at midnight tonight you’ll be dressed up and in a theatre seeing Star Wars.  (We’re waiting to see it with our nephews and niece after Christmas.)  But, this is some of the stuff that we’re reading right now.  We think you should be reading it too.

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