The kitchen lighter

lighter

We bought a used gas barbecue grill without a functioning lighter. So I bought one of these for a few bucks. I was amazed how quickly it ran out of gas. Taking it apart, I see that, even though it has room for a regular lighter’s worth of gas, they’ve made the tank smaller. Because they can. Because you can’t see it. What a rip!

So I’m back to turning on the gas and throwing a match through grill. *POOOMP*

Yesterday this was a house

burnt-house

A bit before 10:00 last night, at the corner where Syd and I unleash dogs before wandering 170 hectares of scrub land, thee was a roaring fire, and explosion, and the end of a small, neat wooden house.

garafa

The explosion would have been the garafa, or 13-kg “supergas” tank. Interesting that it shows just this small tear.

Anyway, no one was home, and perhaps — some people here speak in a very garbled manner, and the neighbor is one of them — someone untied the Boxer dog in the yard before the explosion, though that’s a little hard to imagine. And he said that two guys on motorcycles had essentially firebombed the house.

The bomberos arrived in a fire truck 50 minutes later.

I think I know how I’ll decline to donate to them when they next come around begging for donations.

 

Disgusting

There is a reported case of Dengue Fever in Pocitos, one of the most upscale and populous regions of Montevideo. And a couple dozen more suspected cases.

So, what’s a government to do?

Why, the obvious: freak out and poison every living thing in the vicinity, assuredly killing every bee, butterfly, and ladybug, and probably severely impacting the health of small pets and children as well. Oh, yeah, and I guess it kind of wipes out any songbirds too

poksmok4
poksmok3

But you can be sure it’s perfectly safe, and that the HAZMAT suits are just a fashion statement. Some politico went on TV to say that rather than shut themselves inside, residents should open all their windows to allow the lovely curative chemical vapors to permeate everything in their living space.

Reminiscent of the USA in the 1950s: running behind the DDT truck…

Just another day in Yesterguay.

Pocitos photos courtesy of Lee Nelson. DDT photo shamelessly kited from somewhere.