My microwave oven just died. It started making funny noises, and I look to see big clouds of smoke coming from the kitchen. So I have the windows open and a fan blowing the smoke outside, despite the cold temperature....

Tommyrot, have you done anything with this?

Generally that symptom means that a piece of food or some other material has gotten inside the small flexible screen over the magnetron inside of your microwave.

If you look in there, you can sometimes take off the screen, clean off the screen by scrubbing the charred stuff off, and put it back in. Then test the microwave briefly with a piece of bread or something else which you would be able to 1. find out if it still smokes or 2. find out if it works.

Slide projectors are so 1970s and I can't find one at my school to use and I don't want to buy one.

Our public library lends them out. But then, we're usually about 30 years behind out here in the midwest.

Tommyrot, have you done anything with this?

Naw, I was gonna throw it away. The smoke that was comming out had a burnt plastic smell to it. So there must be something going on besides food burning.

It's like 10 here. I was all excited, thinking, "Finally, it feels like winter for once." Winters in Chicago usually feel too mild to me.

So this is all your fault, then. So noted.

So this is all your fault, then. So noted.

Heh. Must be my Finnish blood. Which would also explain my fondness for vodka.

So we got our snow last night, and now it is raining. This bodes ill for locomotion of any kind. I'm hoping it will have stopped this nonsense by tomorrow.

Yes, I'm at work today, and we're in for a half day tomorrow. Then I fly. If the planes are going up and down in a reliable way.

Heh. My Finnish blood is going "It could be warmer." I mean, it's bearable, but I prefer 10 to 15 degrees warmer and snow.

Vodka is hit or miss with me. I love some of it and hate others. Though I haven't done enough testing to know which brands I like.

HA!! Pffffft. It's on record as being -7 here, with a "feels like" of -24. I'll bet it's actually more like -14. And no snow to insulate any of it. I mock your 48F.

Go ahead and mock away. After an Ohio childhood, my blood had thinned out to a nice Southern California level and now 48 feels like, well, not -7, but maybe 10.

I'm greatly reassured by the fact that by noon or so, it should be up to about 65F.

My next class to teach is on the Middle Ages (the one I have slides for). I was going to do just Feudalism and the Church, but maybe I'll reach back and do the Byzantine empire, mainly so I can play "Istanbul (Not Constantinople). I'm just worried I won't have enough time.

I don't necessarily want it to be 10 degrees for any lenght of time; it just feels like that's the way winter should be.

eta: Winter in San Francisco freaked me out....

For me snow is what makes it winter. The bitter cold between snowfalls is just an unfortunate side effect.