
alright YOU KNOW WHAT. the point of this channel is just, stuff i got beef with, right? it's the time of year where that which i have beef with is this stupid fucking thing. 


SPEAKING OF TIME.
I tell people i'm a software engineer, but really that's just what i do when i get a minute to spare. what i do full time is maintain this fire. 
nobody but me reads the manual to anything. (that's why disney is allowed to murder your wife.) 
..oh you think i'm exaggerating? no for real, the dude fell for a contract that included a forced arbitration clause. Disney *allowed* an exception where he could go to real court, this time, as a one off. I cannot stress enough that arbitration clauses exist so a corporation can *literally*, no hyperbole, no joke, no "cap" if the kids are still saying that, really for actually real get away with **murder**.
anyway, in the manual somewhere is a line... being an appliance that involves a flame, it's expected that you're always around with a fire extinguisher.

Theoretically, if I followed the rules i'll be held accountable to, I wouldn't be allowed to leave the house or sleep.

but more than that, the thing burns through a log pretty quickly, especially when it's on full air. So you'll have to feed it every couple of hours anyway - if i worked a real job, i would commute out, do a work day, commute back, and when i got home... the fire would be out, and I'd have to start from scratch again.


the notion of a heat source that requires constant attention, in this the year of our lord... when was this house built, 1940-something? yeah, humanity had solved that problem by then.

using a thermostat, we can tell an electronic device to turn on or off. amazing. so if you have a good heating system, when does it turn on?
when it's cold. duh.
and when is it most often the most cold?
at night.
you know, night! it's that time interval when you're permitted to sleep.

so this fire that needs to be fed pretty constantly is going to burn down to its minimum while you're asleep. Which is the time that you would need it the most!


in this cursed state full of boomers, people act like it's the fucking frozen tundra. constantly worrying about warmth and heat, but cooling is treated like decadence.

so how much heat do you need?
i know. i'm a freak in this regard.

but most of us aren't the iceman. You only need a certain amount of heat. this particular heat pump is rated for a house twice this size, in norway. where it *actually* gets cold.

i kind of feel guilty owning this, when some more typical nutmegasaurus would really enjoy being way too hot all winter.


so for my part, i wish this thing had a "low" setting. oh well.
for the environment's part, there are ways to produce *more* heat, more efficiently.
The first year i was here, I tried to buy firewood. The only guy who had a not-insane price missed our appointment. I tried to follow up, he goes "oh, sorry." i go "so... when are you coming to deliver?" and he was never heard from again.
facebook marketplace is a nightmare. sure, meta has done all the work they can to make it a pain in the ass to find what you're looking for, but nutmegasauri just enjoy the ritual and pageantry of commerce. 
i'm not convinced anyone has ever actually made a transaction.

Anyway, i did the math. this apparently too-good-to-be true price for wood was like 3 times the price of using the electric baseboards installed in the 80's. And yeah, the baseboards were installed by someone who is going to be so stoked when he learns of the existence of furniture, but at least the heat is distributed throughout the house. and you have a continuous dial, in every room! what fanciful imagination brought such a wondrous future to us! 
well, not us. previous generations. as usual, we get simulacra. Hey remember that school who got "smart" lighting "WiTh ThE pOwEr Of ThE cLoUd", and then the dumbass provider went out of business? Did they get the ability turn off their lights this year?

That's the financial cost. The gold price, as it were. what about the iron price? 
It is known: all tools require a blood sacrifice. 
well, not my heat pump. I've yet to get sliced open by it. 
But if it would hit the temperature i've actually told it to, and not consistently 10 degrees too hot, i probably wouldn't mind sparing a gil or 2.

the burning hunk of iron in the center of my living space, however, loves to burn me.
yes, i know. skill issue, johns, get good etc.

maybe you say, "burger, surely you have PPE for this?" Yes! i have a nice pair of gloves, generously provided by the home's previous owner. hopefully he lives somewhere with a modern heating solution now.
and they're "gauntlet style", meaning they don't just stop at the wrist, they go further up! to here. just below this year's newest mark.
actually, most of that is road rash. Fell off a motorcycle in november. Don't worry, she still runs, absolute fucking miracle. Pick your favorite deity and offer them prayers of thanks. Didn't even lose my magnet! but she does need a new handlebar. and i can't imagine paying eight hundred fucking dollars for a replacement gas tank, maybe i'll try some quote-unquote life hack to handle that. or, nothing, it's fine.

right, but. big hot thing you have to physically interact with basically constantly. Most of all, the very first thing you do when you wake up, before you've had coffee, while you're still suffering the emotional momentum from  dreams, when your single highest aspiration in existence is to take a piss, is to feed this thing. 
unfortunately, burns.
Hey isn't that the motto of that youtube channel?


you may say, "but at least the cottagecore vibes are impeccable".
I mean, it is mulled wine season. or, Glühwein... 
shit, no oranges. I was going to walk you through my recipe, but we'll see if future me likes it.
here, that's a good one. do that instead.

anyway. Yes, if you have have an excuse to leave something on the barest, sliiiightest simmer for like 2 solid days.. 
I submit to my fellow researchers in the field that this is the coziest possible method.

however. The point of this little jaunt is so i can show you the busted enamel. 
There's a version of this that's just black cast iron. absolutely *my* vibe. but even if you prefer this kinda maroonish brown, i imagine you'd switch colors if it meant the surface wasn't inevitably going to get irreperably marred.


my house is a shoes-off kind of house. The habit was instilled when i was a kid. when i started paying to rent my own square footage, i guess wanted to truly experience the carpeting i was indebted for.
Or maybe it's just that i don't have any love for footwear. there are people who do, and i mean really do, have love for shoes. I can't fathom it, but hats off to them.

so when i indulge in our former vice-president's most hated human endeavour, and my ladyfriend insists on continuing to feature her clunky New Balances while on the clock, she tells me it's because my floor is atypically filthy.
There's a certain amount of what my mother would call male-pattern-blindness, i can't deny. But the biggest contributer is ash. Ash, and splinters. i'm constantly sweeping up the detritus from this damn near simean primitive ritual. 
Lulu can't handle this!
...lulu can't handle lots of things. Look, she's doing her best. Even if her best is... well.. let's move on.
you're doing fine, honey!


when i moved in to this house, i knew that the first priority would be the human necessity that this entire cursed place full of nutmegasauri seem to think is a decadent luxury: actual, effective, air conditioning.

holy crap, getting an electrician to come to a building and electrify part of it was absolute clownery. the nearest hvac place, in spite of all their aggressive advertising, said it was *impossible* on this house. Cowards.
the most aggressively advertising electrician insisted on a consultation during my job's morning standup meeting. I told him that i can't have a meeting with him at the asscrack of dawn because my corporate masters already have dibs on making me get up early for a meeting at the time, and I kid you not the actual words he said were,
"are you sure?"
gen-x-ers and boomers say shit like this all the time. I guess it's encouraging that they're not just self-entitled spoiled bitches to us, it was also to their employers when they were young!

so when i finally did find some brave innovators to drive to a house and plonk down a heavy thing.. which they inexplicably put a mile away from the wall for some reason?? whatever, it's fine.
when i finally found someone willing to take my money, i picked up a new trigger phrase.


I heard this primarily from people who are scumbags overall. They heard everything you've heard so far, and either none if it sank into their thick skulls, or they just enjoy being assholes. (in several cases i'm pretty sure it's the latter).

so i started saying "if you tell me to keep the wood stove, you're going in it."

so, if someone out there wants to buy this massive heavy hunk of metal, and have some way to transport it yourself, get in touch. I just need to have a couple of friends over first ;)




