Complex Numbers

Nuts To That

"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+]:
14. Roast Chestnuts Day
Every Christmas holiday we all sing about "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...."
But, have you ever roasted chestnuts!?

"JAFBG"  [XGC]:
It's reverse Christmas! You get to steal one thing from someone else and claim it as a gift for yourself. What are you taking?

Who's Chet and why are we roasting his- Oh. CheSTnuts. Clearly, I need glasses. Fortunately, I have an optometrist appointment today. Unfortunately, there is still a fucking pandemic going on.

Speaking of pandemics, 150 years ago, there were billions of chestnut trees in the US. Now there are, like... two? Anyway, here's what happened to them.  . I guess they weren't properly socially distanced.

In colonial America, chestnut was a preferred species for log cabins, especially the bottom rot-prone foundation logs. Later posts, poles, flooring, and railroad ties were all made from chestnut lumber.

I've stayed in cabins featuring the distinctive chestnut wood. It has survived all this time. The actual trees did not. I recall hearing that at one point, American chestnut trees made up as much as 1/3 of the forest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Don't quote me on that, though; I didn't go looking to verify it.

Despite its decimation as a lumber and nut-crop species...

That word does not mean what they think it means.

Anyway, not only have I never roasted chestnuts, I've never, as far as I can recall, even eaten the little bastards. I've simply never had the opportunity. Sounds like a lot of work. If someone else wants to roast them for me, though, I'd be willing to give it a shot. I also don't know why, other than the song (which I very much want to parody but can't be arsed right now), they're associated with the holiday season, but while I'm at it, what do you mean "we all sing...?"

And the only other line I remember from that song is "Jack Frost nipping at your nose," as if that were some sort of happy thing. No. The cold can go blow itself. All due respect to Nat King Cole (who didn't write it but was the first to perform it), that song sucks worse than most holiday songs.

...I don't have a clever segué into the other prompt today. Steal something to keep as a gift for myself? That sounds like that stupid gods-be-damned White Elephant gift exchange bullshit that I ranted about a few days back. But there's nothing I covet enough to steal, except for maybe a private jet, and even if I did steal that I'd never be able to keep up with the maintenance, insurance, operating costs, etc.

I suppose I could say "All the cash Bezos has in tax-evading offshore accounts." Then I could use that to buy the airplane and maintain it.

But no, I'd still feel bad. It's just not in me to steal, except, you know, writing ideas. "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." Hell, I once accidentally stole a pack of chewing gum from a supermarket. It had fallen between two large boxes that the cashier didn't move while scanning. I was putting my stuff in the car when I noticed this, and my first impulse was, "Go back to the store and pay for this." But then I was like, "It's. A. Pack. Of. Gum."

I'd make a horrible thief.