Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

@ajn142@infosec.exchange - steel wool.

Reseasoning Panic #2 - The water-vinegar bath seems to be making the rust problem WORSE. It's definitely more orange now, and the rust patina isn't coming off.

Beginning to think I need to give this to someone to fix and then just put it away where I won't ruin it. I don't want to be the one who ruins an heirloom.

Listening to the Vesna album while working (procrastinating) on the office. Here's another good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw-eFiBJ2ss

@kf4yfa - I can at least give you the torillas now:

3 cups flour
3/4 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup very hot water

Hand mix all ingredients at once in a large mixing bowl until dough just comes together.

Remove from the bowl and roll and knead dough on a flat surface until it's got a bumpy slightly tacky texture.

Return the dough to the bowl and let it sit, covered by a damp cloth, for up to 8 hours (at least 30 minutes).

Remove from the bowl and roll and knead dough on a flat surface until it's got a smooth and still slightly tacky texture.

Return the dough to the bowl and let it sit, covered by a damp cloth, for five minutes.

Break the dough into 15 balls.
Roll out each ball with rolling pin into flat round tortillas, thin as possible.

Cook on a griddle just above medium heat. Flip when tiny brown marks appear on the bottom side.

@socketwench - I used steel wool, as it was all I had. This isn't so much flaky chunky rust as it's a "rust patina" I just couldn't get rid of last year. I'm terrified that seasoning it with rust already there will continue to rust the poor thing.

@andyy - Comal is the word for "griddle" in Spanish. :)

You know, I didn't think China was up to something, even when they started poking around Taiwan's airspace.

But the balloons over the US (who would come to their defence) and hearing about a balloon over Central America (which contain a few countries who still have official ties), have me thinking something is up.

I'm not so sure WHAT anymore, but at the same time, I'm not so sure about a non-invasion of Taiwan anymore....

Reseasoning panic #1. The rust removal gel wasn't a gel when I opened it. This wouldn't have been a problem if I'd found this out BEFORE I SCRUBBED clean the comal. And I didn't want to reseason it with the rust patches. But I couldn't just LEAVE it.

Found another de-rusting technique using water and vinegar, so the comal is soaking in that right now. Hopefully that will do the trick.

If not, I'll just reseason it with the patches and try again next year with de-rusting gel. And this time CHECK the gel before I start.

Sudden Instant Winter Advisory

About to re season my grandmother's comal. I'm actually terrified when doing this. This is a working heirloom, so I actually do use it to cook. But it's also incredibly old and I don't want to be the one who breaks this.

On top of that, when re seasoning cast iron, you do absolutely everything you're not supposed to to cast iron. Scrubbing with soap and water and everything.

It went well last time I did it other than not being able to scrub all the minor rust patches out. I'm hoping the rust treatment I have will take care of those patches this time.

Another reason I listen to these overseas radio is that I get to discover music I've never heard of. It was through Radio Prague that I learned about Manon Meurte.

This week they played the debut album of Vesna, who have a pop song in Eurovision this year. While the pop song didn't grab me several songs on the debut album, Pata Bohyne, were incredibly beautiful and actually got me to stop cleaning to listen.

Never heard of these folks before, but I very much want to listen to them now.

The full broadcast is here: https://english.radio.cz/broadcast-english-02122023-8774851

https://youtu.be/fRZYo9AljXQ

Most of the house has had a good deep cleaning. Everything but the office. Gonna work on the office tonight, but don't plan to finish it before bed.

Plan for tomorrow is to reseason the comal with some rust remover (it's not got bad rust or anything, just a light orange coloring, but I'd rather it be seasoned with no rust on it at all).

Was listening to Radio Habana Cuba while cleaning house today, and I stopped for a second when they announced they have a set of X-Men stamps. Then went into a deep dive of who and what the X-Men were.

Wasn't expecting that.

And the Games Database is complete. I have 1488 games, of which I've completed a paltry 106. I'm workgin on three games right now, and have officially abandonned one of them for being far too hard.

Wanna take a look?. Google makes the sheet look ugly, but it's far more readable in Libreoffice Calc on my end.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qkFBSWrdQ9vxgXUTV0CuHb5flNCDBpng_0k6M9I9GU4/edit?usp=sharing

Going through my old DOS/Windows archives, and forgot about this completely bonkers and massive tradrmark violation of a game: Rom Check Fail. Warning: staticky sound and random intervals (on purpose!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdcABPCjn0k

Last Night's Dr Who was "Father's Day."

I remember when I first saw this, it was the first of the New Who episodes I really felt I'd connected with, and I thought "Okay, this new show's gonna be alright."

On the re-watch the episode is actually incredibly powerful, and I might even put it above The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances as Eccleston's best. But really, it's not Eccleston that makes the show. It's the dynamic between Pete and Rose Tyler than sells it. And while Jackie is pretty unlikeable for most of the episode, when she comes around to Rose, it really does feel like an earned heartfelt moment.

A really REALLY good episode.

@sclower @ke7zum - I got some really good stuff this morning on 7255 7390 7410 9760 9800 11570 11660. Reception in Seattle isn't normally very good, but these were coming in so clear this morning they could have been local AM stations.

@kf4yfa - For me, the thing that got me into DXing was picking up KIII out of Corpus Christi in San Antonio. KENS in San Antonio wasn't showing Saturday Morning cartoons at the time, but KIII was showing the same ones. I thought it was a new station until I saw "Corpus Christi." Since then, I've been into getting long range signals. :)

Downside was, until I got into Shortwave, I never got another log distance signal for thirty some years....