by hilzoy
Yesterday I was about to assemble some shelves to put in my dressing room (yes, my house has a dressing room tee hee), and I thought to myself: self, isn't the best time to deal with the bulging, cracking paint and/or plaster on that wall before, rather than after, you put shelves in front of it? And in a moment of folly, I thought: why yes, it is. And since there are a few other cracking places in this room (not many in the house as a whole; most are in this one room), before I knew it I had taken off a good bit of paint and plaster.
The relevant walls are exterior walls: they have about a quarter inch of plaster over a slightly thicker layer of some heavier substance (different plaster? I don't really think it's concrete), behind which are the bricks of the brick walls of the house. I have previously repaired lath and plaster walls, but it struck me, after I was well into the demolition phase of this, that I have never repaired exterior walls before, and that my knowledge of replastering, based as it is on the assumption that you have to deal with either a crack or a gaping hole, doesn't really include the answer to such questions as: what do you do when you just need to spread a bunch of plaster over a pretty large expanse of somewhat crumbly old wall? Are there tricks to prevent it from sagging and dripping, and to make sure it gets a grip on what's behind it?
Also: under one window, I discovered a bunch of crumbliness extending maybe a third of the width of the window. (The window itself seems to be quite well anchored.) Some part of it is crumbly wood -- not the main piece under the sill, but a piece that sits in front of that one, maybe half an inch deep and an inch high. Some part of it is, I think, crumbly mortar -- maybe an inch high, an inch deep, three inches wide of crumbly mortar. Should I put a new little piece of wood where the crumbly wood used to be? What should I replace the mortar with? Is there some way to take advantage of this situation to insulate/block drafts from underneath the window? And what should I do to diagnose and correct whatever problem led to crumbling, given that I do not have the capacity to do anything involving taking out the window?
I tried asking at Home Depot, but they were quite uncharacteristically ignorant. (I asked what the difference between normal and spackling plaster was, and in what circumstances one could use one in place of the other, and the guy in charge of that department looked at me as if I'd come from Mars and said: well, they're completely different. Spackling is a paste. (Duh.) My attempts to get even one molecule of information about the differences in their properties once they had dried were complete failures; as he said, "no one uses plaster anymore." -- Except those of us who live in houses with plaster walls!, I nearly said, but thought better of it.)
Anyways, if anyone has any useful advice for me, I'd love to hear it. I have all sorts of useful materials (including some sprayable insulating foam that I got yesterday -- I've never used anything like that, but it looked kind of fun and potentially relevant.)
Oh: and what does one do about a largish gap between the baseboard and the plaster that seems to open into a nameless void? -- This I'm sure I can deal with, one way or the other, but while I'm asking...
Thanks. Have a nice open thread!
Plus now he's "paging" you for his own misunderstanding, that's pretty funny.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 02:55 PM
err. wow.
just, wow.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 03:03 PM
Now you're required to retract and apologize for arguments you didn't make. Doesn't get more Bizarro than that. I think you should cut and paste in John Cleese's apology from A Fish Called Wanda.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 03:11 PM
BANNED!
wow. what a bunch of idiots. and Moe? my god. what a tool.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 03:11 PM
I'm actually surprised you didn't get banned for your first comment, good work! I really am going to have to read the copy of The Trial I bought a few weeks back. Which reminds me, I'm not sure Bizarro World quite captures the spirit of things over there, perhaps Kafka World is better, or Kafka Bizarro World?
Well, now I'm name calling.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 03:17 PM
Kafka's Bizarro Looking Glass Echo Chamber World .
that was a truly crazy little adventure.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 03:21 PM
Well, at least it distracted me from the tax code for a while. I thought your point was clear and when someone threw out the "chickenhawker alert" I had to go back and re-read to see what prompted that comment, and really had to twist your words and impute to you all sorts of bad faith before I could tease out how one could think you were chicken-hawking. Even then, it clearly was not the point you were making.
And I did enjoy the "you're showing your ignorance" by not knowing someone named "Raven" was in real life a military recruiter. I mean, it's obvious to anyone who reads my comments that in real life I'm Tax Galactus, Destroyer of Revenue, but not everything comes through that clear.
Of course, Moe's banning comment is great where he gives the little "no text" notation in the subject line and then puts text in the comment anyway.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 03:33 PM
it's obvious to anyone who reads my comments that in real life I'm Tax Galactus, Destroyer of Revenue
:)
i'll have to address my letters to my accountant that way.
really had to twist your words and impute to you all sorts of bad faith before I could tease out how one could think you were chicken-hawking
totally. it was so utterly out of left field. i gotta hand it to whoever dropped that word in there, it completely destroyed the thread. the mere suggestion that i might be a "chickenhakwer" (is that a righty word?) drove them all crazy, all at once. well played, whoever you were.
f course, Moe's banning comment is great where he gives the little "no text" notation in the subject line and then puts text in the comment anyway.
when it happened, i was in the process of putting up a little post asking Moe if he could send a little 'posting rules' advice to the guy who was trying to get me to atone for the sins of all my Loser Buddies (or whatever he said). shoulda typed faster. i'd like to have had that one dangling out there, neglected, for all eternity.
looks like Moe's a little too fond of his Super Banning Power.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 03:46 PM
I don't like anything about Red State but I'd prefer it if people avoid bashing Moe here.
Posted by: rilkefan | October 25, 2006 at 03:50 PM
any reason?
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 04:33 PM
Moe founded this blog, and I'd like to think that someday he'll move away from RS and back towards us. Just my preference, I claim no moral authority.
Posted by: rilkefan | October 25, 2006 at 04:39 PM
and I'd like to think that someday he'll move away from RS and back towards us
that'll be the day i stop coming here.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 04:57 PM
I agree that Moe misread, but I think even Moe has bad blogmanagement days.
Possibly he'll unban you when he cools off. Me, I have banned a few people in my day, and I have no doubt that I've made some mistakes in doing so. That's looking back, which bestows some heretofore unavailable visual acuity.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | October 25, 2006 at 05:09 PM
Possibly he'll unban you when he cools off.
I don't know, he's really adopted a sneering, condescending tone over there lately (giving people "assignments," "paging" cleek), AFAICT.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 05:15 PM
Possibly he'll unban you when he cools off
nah. now that i see what he's like, i'm a bit turned-off by the prospect of not knowing from one comment to the next if he's going to take some ridiculously off-base reading of something else i write and ban me again.
they can keep their echo chamber, and their capricious moderator.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 05:26 PM
Hey, what's wrong with 'paging'?
Posted by: CharleyCarp | October 25, 2006 at 05:40 PM
What is 'paging' in a blog context? I tried to find the posting rules over there without success. Seems to me they ought to make some effort to make sure that the rules are easily accessible given their haste to ban.
Posted by: Andrew | October 25, 2006 at 05:44 PM
"I tried to find the posting rules over there without success."
As near as I can tell, the only rule is don't say anything against Republicans. Violations of this rule are punishable by banning by the most juvenile method the management can think of.
Posted by: Dantheman | October 25, 2006 at 05:46 PM
I tried to find the posting rules over there without success.
they used to be easy to find, up front. and they used to look like this:
Pursuant to the mission statement, this site is explicitly meant to serve as a conservative and Republican community. Postings, comments, etc., contrary to this purpose fall under the rubric of "disruptive behavior" and will result in banning. You may or may not get a warning -- it depends on how harried the moderators are. If you are coming from a non-conservative, non-Republican context, you are still welcome here, but you must respect the site's stated purpose.
the new rules aren't as remarkable, but they're moot, since they are clearly still enforcing the old rules.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 05:56 PM
Seems to me they ought to make some effort to make sure that the rules are easily accessible given their haste to ban.
That presumes that they have an interest in not banning people. I don't think that's a safe assumption to make.
Posted by: Josh | October 25, 2006 at 05:59 PM
What is 'paging' in a blog context?
Moe was pointing out in one comment that he had asked cleek to apologize in another comment, and cleek hadn't done so.
I tried to find the posting rules over there without success. Seems to me they ought to make some effort to make sure that the rules are easily accessible given their haste to ban.
Yep, definitely more like Kafka World.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 06:00 PM
OK, cleek, this:
. . . was the best thing EVAR, and I'm including pencillin, internet porn and The Empire Strikes Back in that estimation.
Sure was nice to see ol' reasonable ol' Moe Lane, that ol' reasonable guy, the one whom He Who Shall Not Be Named wept for when he saw him driven from the ObWi fold before the catcalls of the unreasonable masses. Yep, he sure was reasonable.
Posted by: Phil | October 25, 2006 at 06:05 PM
Roy Edroso also does not care for RedState so much.
Posted by: Phil | October 25, 2006 at 06:17 PM
OK, cleek, this:. . . was the best thing EVAR
i wish (oh, how i wish) i could take full credit for that, but the checklist format has been in use at Slashdot for a while. and my little effort pales beside some of the things i've seen over there.
nonetheless, thanks. :)
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 06:44 PM
I thought the checklist was pretty good too.
I would say one thing in defense of Kafka/Bizarro World, I can see how if they set out to have a Republican/Conservative community that they would like to keep certain people out, and therefore go about banning people. But the way they've gone about it has created such an echo chamber that even reasonable differences of opinion lead to banning if one of the Editors™ decides he (or she, I think there is one female editor) doesn't like what was said. Perhaps that's inevitable, but it certainly doesn't lead to enlightened discussion.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 07:08 PM
the checklist format has been in use at Slashdot for a while.
And on USENET for at least 10 years before that...
Posted by: Anarch | October 25, 2006 at 08:08 PM
And on USENET for at least 10 years before that
there is nothing new under the sun, only new ways to talk about it.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 08:45 PM
Perhaps that's inevitable, but it certainly doesn't lead to enlightened discussion.
it certainly doesn't. they can make no claim at all to honest discussion, they can only congratulate themselves for being unified in their agreement with whatever the moderators decide is acceptable speech. yay.
i hope they don't mind if the US falls lower and lower in the Free Speech Index.
Posted by: cleek | October 25, 2006 at 09:37 PM
i hope they don't mind if the US falls lower and lower in the Free Speech Index
Well, they had a post mocking the fall of the US in the press freedom index the other day, so apparently they don't.
Posted by: Ugh | October 25, 2006 at 09:54 PM
Well, you should be in good company soon cleek, hilzoy begins her march towards a redstate.com banning.
Posted by: Ugh | October 26, 2006 at 06:42 PM
The juxtaposition of hilzoy's comment and the one three comments down entitled 'Yeah, Coulter's the best' is amazing.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 26, 2006 at 06:49 PM
The juxtaposition of hilzoy's comment and the one three comments down entitled 'Yeah, Coulter's the best' is amazing.
Moe banned that guy for "mobying," FWIW (I guess he has his good days).
Posted by: Ugh | October 26, 2006 at 06:59 PM
hilzoy begins her march towards a redstate.com banning.
they run and hide from plain facts. she needs to throw some good ol' fashioned snark in there. come on Hilzoy, i know you got it in ya! snark 'em!
Posted by: cleek | October 26, 2006 at 09:15 PM
Funnily enough, there's a prominent ad for the Dixie Chicks movie on Redstate at the moment.
Posted by: spartikus | October 26, 2006 at 11:30 PM
FWIW (I guess he has his good days)
though isn't mobying when someone from the opposite side pretends to be a whatever to raise the temp and make that side look ridiculous? So Moe is just banning someone because he thinks he's from the left. So it's not like someone has gone over the line and he's reining things in.
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