A pretty kettle of fish

“A newly opened can of surströmming has one of the most putrid food smells in the world.” I’ll explain. Surströmming is a traditional Swedish food that is prepared by marinating Baltic Sea herring in just enough salt to prevent it from rotting while it ferments in a can for up to a year. It is recommended that the can be opened out of doors, and that’s advice from people who like the stuff. Several international airlines have banned it. So it’s unsurprising that there are a lot of Italian restaurants in Sweden but not so many Swedish restaurants in Italy.

Cranky Codger Chronicals

There once was a library service called Ready Reference where you would dial a phone number and a person would look up facts in actual books and give you your answer. These were some of the finest people in the world. Now instead we have Wikipedia and YouTube, which is like going to a library where the reference section is curated by deranged bonobos. Still, on occasion you can pick up unexpected tidbits of arcane knowledge. I have learned, for instance, that using one of those chin-up bars that you install in a doorframe will lead immediately to coccyx-shattering hilarity.