Re: Dear Diary...

1

I so cannot believe that you told them about that!

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2

FL,

Of course it was life-changing for me as well, even if I - hmph - was only allowed to watch during your beer bottle experience. I'd just like to point out that I'm not actually bald. I'm one of those annoying guys who shaves his head even though he's not balding.

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3

With enough home-practice, next time you can participate, I promise!

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4

Were you guys performing at some political consultant's birthday party?

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5

I'm one of those annoying guys who shaves his head even though he's not balding.

I saw that Seinfeld. I remember how it ended, too.

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6

Gosh, I didn't see that Seinfeld. How did it end? I hope the artificially bald person was crowned with laurels and fetted by the rich and famous. As is only appropriate.

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7

IIRC he was exposed as the leading contingent of a race of extragalactic super-beings bent on domination of humanity and extraction of our precious bodily fluids. Jerry and Elaine fought valiantly to expose the plot before it was too late, but they were betrayed by George, whom the aliens offered a regency over their Earth colony.

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8

I'm one of those annoying guys who shaves his head even though he's not balding.

People like that exist? Every time I've seen a head-shaver with stubble on his head, it's shown up in a distinctly balding pattern. (Not that there's a thing wrong with bald, says the woman who finds her husband in crowds by the blinding reflections of the sun off his head.)

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9

Careful, Chris! My great-grandfather, noticing in his mid-twenties that his hair was thinning, heard that shaved hair always grew back thicker. He was bald as an egg for the rest of his life.

[Cue ominous music]

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10

That's pretty much what happened to Mr. Breath. His hair (blond, wispy) started thinning when he was 19 or so. When he was around 21, a friend was giving him a haircut with clippers, and accidentally went way, way too short. He's been putting sunscreen on his head since.

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11

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/Columnists/dalyacolumn3.htm

Mr. LB, of course, is a stud like JM's great-grandfather.

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12

"And after that I went to Brooklyn and slept (intermittently) next to the noisiest radiator in the city."

I'm fairly clear from this that you didn't grow up in Brooklyn. (It was lovely toasty on my feet, though, come this time of year; the banging was something utterly forgotten; it might take a year or five, though; I'd have just gone crazy with nostalgia, myself.)

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13

The banging is weird. This is the first time I've lived in an apartment with radiator heat, and I remeber one night a month or so ago hearing this sound like someone was banging on my window. Freaked me the fuck out.

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14

In my last apartment building, my downstairs neighbor would come up in the middle of the night and demand that I stop banging on the radiator. Like the radiator isn't hard enough to sleep through, I have to have some crazy person knocking and ringing the doorbell. I kept trying to explain that it wasn't me and finally had to have the super sit down and talk with her.

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15

The banging noise results from imperfectly sealed valves somewhere along the pipe. Supposedly, you're supposed to leave the radiator open (on) all winter or cinch them shut. Once my super sat me down and talked with me about the pipes, I stopped closing my radiator at night and bought more moisturizer.

For other banging noises, see here.

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16

I didn't even know I had control over my radiator. Hmm.

That poem is so awesome.

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17

The banging noise results from imperfectly sealed valves

Also, it can be from radiators that do not drain properly -- in this case cold water can remain in the radiator when steam is not coming up; then the steam comes up, hits the cold water, which boils very quickly and causes outlandishly loud knocking noises. This happens more frequently with baseboard radiators than standing ones.

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18

16--Yeah, I just wanted a broader audience for Rilkefan's work.

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