Ok, Space Pilgrims, in no way shape or form do I need (nor, precisely, want) this Shin Godzilla branded tape dispenser [LGT: godzilla.com1].
I’m mostly just impressed it exists.
The Ultimate Being, indeed.
=wyrmis.com stapled on the end, this is not an affiliate link. It’s a long standing tradition of mine to annoy the data gatherers. ↩︎
I have a little bit of a backlog of stuff going down so will do some catch up, starting with this: The Pillow Washing Incident.
I have used the same pillow for years. I don’t know if twenty is the right number, but it feels right. To be safe, we’ll lean towards fifteen-years since I started using the pillow.
The kind of pillow that is neither the same color nor shape that it once was. The original structure has been consumed by time and replaced by a strange new realm.
And it slept perfectly.
But like all such things that once were pillows, you have to wash them to keep the gods-of-nightmares away and it has been some time since I have washed it. How long? Well…
It has been a time.
I figured last Friday was a good time to wash it up and threw the vaguely orange tesseract into the vortex of a Hygiene+ wash cycle. It went perfectly fine for the first 95% of the process. Then, right at the end, when it should have just been bringing the ray of light to Doug’s sleep-land, something occurred.
The stitches on the corners of the pillow-esque thing popped out in the final spin cycle and two-decade-old (give or take) fluff, albeit clean and once again white, exploded into the washer and as it went to drain out the water, the water-saturated fluff got sucked into the works.
How many works, you ask?
The drum had fluff in and around it. The drain hose was clogged. The filter was clogged. Water was spewing out of the system. There was the extra spice that it was Halloween when this occurred and Kaz and B were off doing some Halloween-themed things. Which meant it had to wait until we could teamwork it.
I had a washer half full of water, half full of a poem entitled “The Deconstruction of What Was Once a Pillow,” and half full of despair. It was a 150% situation. I did what you do: I watched Blacula and Trick ‘R Treat.
The next day (November 1), Kaz and I had to work on clearing it out and getting some of the water and still-water-saturated fluff out of it. Thanks to some YouTube videos and finding an English-language version of the manual, we got the drain hose out and slowly got the excess water out and then was able to get the filter clear.
I did not take any photos of the process, which is a shame, but you can roughly replicate it by just staring at Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights,” especially the right-hand piece.
Then we had a few cleaning washes to get the rest of the fluff out.
As of right now, the system is working as intended and, thanks to some sunny weather, we are getting some speed drying done to make up for the backlog.
What lessons did we learn, Space Pilgrims?
LESSON THE FIRST, wash your pillows more often.
LESSON THE SECOND, either tie off the pillow case or get some sort of laundry bag that zips up, just in case.
LESSON THE THIRD, every screw up is a good time to learn some new valuable life skills. In this case, how to drain and repair and gunked up washing machine.
We have yet to figure out LESSON THE FOURTH, which is where in the heck do I buy a new pillow in Brussels? I suppose at some point in time, I’m going to figure out what the IKEA is like.
In better news, here’s a blurry photo I took last night before bed to show off how bright the full moon was. My phone camera is not the best at night photography, but I appreciate the mood.
After this morning’s rainy walk, there was a lot of waiting out the rain to finish. Got in my work out. Showered. Ate “second breakfast” [read: a banana]. Drank tea. Did some online errands.
Finally, got a slight break before what looks like round 4 or 5 hits, and so went outside to pick up a couple of things that had gotten blown around a bit like the bucket we use to our restafval1 and just checking the outside plants. Remember, one of the previous storms took out our granny statue.
Anyhow, while knocking water out of buckets and such, I saw this absolute unit of a slug:
I would guess around 10-12cm. Not the chubbiest I have seen but still an impressive chad.
I know it’s a common features of expat blogs, of which this tangentially one, to focus on “10 things which shocked me!” type content but while there have been two dozen stacks of things to which I have had to adjust, I am not sure if many are really “shocking.” There’s a few I might share because of humor and anthropological studies type reasons, but overall I am pretty boring in that regard. Stuff is kind of the same but definitely not the same the world over.
There is one thing of which I was previously aware intellectually but in everyday practice has taken a bit of adjustment: the later morning sunrises.
That was taken at something like 07:08 this morning [2025-10-20]. My phone camera slightly lightened it. The sky was more true black at that angle though the light pollution of Brussels was pushing through a bit to the south.
I think you should at least get the idea. Squint a little while looking at it.
I appreciate this is a reality for millions of people and not really a big deal. It is fairly new to me, though.
I grew up in southern [aka Lower] Alabama in the United States. For most of my life, there was a rough idea of sunrise and sunset being similar throughout the year (there’s a four hour swing but Daylight Savings Time imbalances this to the evening side). 7am was pretty definitely post-dawn. 4pm was pre-Dusk. It got fuzzier after that.
Up until my 30s, all of my travel was across the American Southeast region. Alabama, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana. Probably in that order, though maybe more LA than GA. I think the furthest north I had ever been was Norfolk, VA. The furthest west was near-ish New Orleans, LA.
Occasionally I would read books like Dickens’ Pickwick Papers and it would talk about the sunlight fading at 11pm [aka, 23:00 in here terms] and I would be confused. I was aware of stuff like the so-called “midnight sun” but it took me a long time to really appreciate the difference. Even when I traveled to places like Boston, it never quite stuck.
My trip to Scotland, near Glasgow, in 2018 was probably the first time where I had that all important realization of proper first-hand experience. Around midsummer, the days were delightfully long which was probably terrible for jet lag but it was nice having a practicum.
It was similar to student-era me figuring out that integrating a curve = acceleration & area under curve = total distance traveled by an accelerating body. The kind of thing I could rationalize but actually using the math to predict real life objects and extrapolating that into new formulae was a big deal for me in my astrophysics days. Or when I began to work out multidimensional math and how frames of reference could be shifted and calculated in high school.
All that said, moving from a place with something like an 4-hour swing to a place with an 8-hour swing has been kind of neat. The ultimate practicum. I’m sure I’ll be fussy around mid-winter but we’ll see.
I’m going to be absolutely real: I suck as a tourist.
In this context, I am not a tourist right now but I am a currently a long-term visitor in a strange land — and I feel like Belgium counts as a strange, if delightful, land — who at least generally should be engaging in a bit in the culture.
Which I totally do. I talk to magpies and crows and hang out with cats while just enjoying nature and some old streets.
I finally decided to correct my first statement with a visit to Brussels’ Museum of Illusions with Barbara and Kaz. It is a smaller collection of full-sized illusions, mirror tricks, and puzzles. Kind of place you could spend an hour or two. It is quite nice and absolutely surrounded by all kinds of shops and destinations if you wanted to make a day of it.
If nothing else, take these two points to heart:
Once you get up the escalator/elevator there is a bit of confusion about where to go because it is a highly visual place. You come up about 1/3 the way into the exhibits. My natural tendency to curve right almost lead me to enter into the place without paying. Barbara had been there before — as had Kaz, who was joining us very slightly later — and helped point out the desk to pay for entry. I would have spotted it eventually, no doubt. It is not hidden, just also not super obvious compared to some of the kooky fun on display.
Once paid — €17.50 for adults, €14.50 for children of Barbara’s age — you then have the option to get a lock and key to put your stuff into a locker, which nice, and the guy behind the counter double checked that we did not have balance issues — I am a fall risk, after all — or epilepsy — I am just light sensitive enough that one of the attractions (The Vortex) was pushing it for me.
There a few dozen features. They are numbered but the precise count escapes my memory. Maybe half of those are fairly quick images or wall-mounted illusions. The kind of thing where one line looks longer than another. They did a good job of curating some of the more interesting ones and several have been redesigned to have some interactive elements.
Then there are several larger, more interactive pieces. The aforementioned Vortex is the larger carnival classic of walking through a dark, swirling tunnel of lights. That was my one mistake. I should probably have skipped it.
Besides that you have rooms with angled floors and carefully designed wallpaper so that a person on one side looks a lot larger than the other or looks like they are leaning.
My favorites tended to be the pair of rooms playing with lights and the handful of exhibits based on mirrors. The above image show the top of my head is a fun little item where angled mirrors allow you to see yourself and the room from multiple angles. That’s a single photo showing more or less every angle of myself.
There’s an “infinite room” where you can throw your own rave party with hundreds of yourselves. An upside down room where you can your best “clinging to the ceiling.” A hatch that looks like an infinite spot into darkness where you can take “falling” photos.
Then there are a trio of large scale puzzles. A pair of several kaleidoscopes that make for some trippy pictures. A forced perspective chair.
In general, the place is pretty heavy with photo opportunities and your enjoyment will be based on (a) how many fun photos and videos you want take; and (b) how carefully you pay attention to the balance-or-epilepsy warnings. Those wanting a more hands-on variation of learning about light and optics tricks can get some good learning done.
The staff and the other attendees were all perfectly chill and it was a heavily positive experience. It is not necessarily a regular outing type of place but I imagine we’ll go back a few times while in the country.
Here we go. Here’s a decent “first real post” besides the classic “hello, world” type posts with with which blogs are stricken.
Every once in a while, I get into a mood for new music. It tends to be the kind of thing where I am beholden to The Algorithm™ to actually find anything. Bandcamp. Youtube. Maybe Google searches. A few other places.
One trick is to find a song/musician I liked. Search that/them. Look for other stuff recommended or discussed around them. Dip toes in. Keep going. Follow the trails. “Truffle hunting,” we sometimes called it while working at the library. Find a resource, see what it linked and cited, follow those and keep digging until you have a better scope.
Except, you know… The Algorithm™.
At any rate, one of those songs that I drummed up earlier this year while cruising through a mix of Durry’s build up to This Movie Sucked, trying to find new Japanese pop music, and trying to find new Belgian/French music (prior to the move) was Ghost and the King’s “Dreamin'” off their 2024 self-titled album.
I quite enjoyed it. Pleasant tune. Fair lyrics. I liked the set up of the video [including some very low budget Legend of Zelda cosplay]. I miss that personal vibe for Youtube. It feels like a passion project.
A handful of times since then I’d go back and listen to it. I even bought the album. I consider the album as a whole fair. “Dreamin'” is my still favorite song, but you can sample tracks “Don’t Often Sing the Blues,” “Nightingale,” and “Give a Damn” if you want to get a vibe for the rest.
With my most recent rewatch, I saw that only had 250 views (on Youtube, not sure about Spotify since I don’t really hang out in the latter anymore unless someone insists it upon me). Which seems low. I wanted to go ahead and give a shout out. Left a comment. All in all just trying to poke The Algorithm™.
It is currently the last video they posted and I don’t much else about it or them. Their online presence seems to be mostly social media. I’ll leave that to others to share.
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