ArtieShaw

Under cabinet manual jar opener. It's flat and mounts under your cabinet of choice. Easy to use, but also easy to forget it's there! I sometime find myself jar in hand and half-way to wherever my husband is before I remember that I no longer need his skills.

Electric candle lighter. Rechargeable lighter with long neck. Eliminates the need for matches or standard lighters. The noise it makes does scare one of the cats, though. I haven't tried it on campfires yet, but I think that was something the ad said it could do.

Chicago suburbs. It's sort of an interconnected area, so this takes place over two adjoining towns.

There was a very public and stupid feud that took place between two middle aged men. Some of it played out in real life and some was documented on that now defunct website, Topix. One of them had been close friends with the the police officer who was convicted of killing at least one wife. I think he was also a cop. In any case, he was very vocal in defending Drew and anything the other guy said about the murder trial really seemed to get his goat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Peterson

The other guy claimed to be connected with the Chicago outfit. Or the cop claimed he was. I don't remember.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Outfit

Basically, it was two vaguely mobbed up guys in their 50s engaging in a very public and embarrassing battle of fists and wits in an otherwise unassuming suburb. They would trade insults on Topix, get into slap fights with each other at the local supermarket, and generally just behave like leaded gasoline sniffing idiots. Neither could just walk away from it. Both used their real full names.

I like some of the names from Puritan New England.

Cutting Moody

Tristram Coffin

I like some of the names from Puritan New England.

Cutting Moody

Tristram Coffin

I love these little dolphins. They're from the era when the first coins were being invented and it seems like people hadn't settled on "round, please."

They're also cast bronze, which ended up being unusual for the Greek and later Roman world. The vast majority of ancient coins were hammered by hand using dies and heated metal disks. Coins in China, however, were made by casting for thousands of years. China also had some interesting ideas about money (ant money, spade money) before they settled on the traditional "round with square hole" design.

This feels like it needs a Far Side caption. "Honey, I'm going hunting with Thag from the Cave Bear clan. Where did you put the good crystal?"

Joking aside, this must have been quite a treasure.

That's the sort of horror story that's going to keep me stabbing my potatoes.

Same here! Last night I was stabbing a couple out of habit and felt like the question needed to be asked.

I would fear an eggplant more than a potato. Higher moisture and tougher skin. Not going to take any chances.

Now that's the exciting outcome from my worst fears.

I'm reasonably local to the area and watched that fiasco play out over the course of several years. I'd wager I have a few more facts than you do.

I'm not a fan of Chappelle's work in the last 10-12 years, so just throwing that out there.

The housing might appear to have been affordable to anyone not familiar with the region, but it was a basic bitch suburban sprawl neighborhood that would have been sold at market prices. Oh, and those market prices are already 1.5 to 2 times the local average because it was located in Yellow Springs. As a concession to local sensibilities, the developer offered to donate 1-acre of out of that 30-acre corn field to a local charity connected to one of the town's councilors. That one acre would have been a mix of park land and affordable housing.

There were a mix of proposals at different times, but many of the "affordable" solutions were clearly untenable. The example I gave was the final form. All were shitty.

I also remember that this corn field was offered for sale at around 1.5 million shortly after Chapelle purchased his adjoining property, but years before serious talk of development. It was a grift/extortion from the moment he moved there.

For context, Chappelle's house on 5 acres cost $750,000. That same house would probably have been half of that if it were anywhere else in the region. Affordable housing in that town is the topic of intense discussion, but nothing has looked even remotely as dodgey as that particular proposal.

So, random Chapelle Fact: For the past couple of years Dave Chapelle has had a 24/7 police presence on his property. I assume he's hired them off-duty, but they sit in a county sheriff's car near his front gate. I assume someone made a credible threat to him for some reason, but don't know full details.

Timing-wise, the police presence started close to the whole "Dave opposed affordable housing in his neighborhood" story - which was repeated enough times to make it into the popular consciousness, but also pretty much untrue.