Thor joke? Communism joke? Baggy pants joke? Abstruse track-and-field joke? So many options.
Just start frailing away at it
4" won't necessarily get you above the framing. You may be trying to nail into metal framing, or into the metal thingies that go on wooden studs to keep you from driving nails into wiring. Need more info!
This is going to be the least helpful thread ever, isn't it.
For little skinny nails, what I'd do is do it wrong. You're supposed to hammer nails with a big full arm swing and the whole weight of the hammer, so it goes in with one or two blows. But if they're bending, and you're hammering little nails (into wallboard? Plaster?), I'd do a gentle tap-tap-tap-tap routine. But maybe you're doing that already.
I spoke too soon! Thanks, Jesus.
I actually tested hammering in a nail, near another old nail, and it bent there, too. So it's something about these walls, and me, and these nails. And maybe this hammer?
The building is super old. At least old for these parts - I think it was built in the 20s. And it's brick on the outside. What are walls made out of in old houses?
Do you have low-hanging fruit a stud finder?
8: In Texas? Horsehair and the ground up bones of Indians, would be my guess.
8: Probably plaster, and old plaster can be terribly hard. Give up on the nails, and get a power drill and some of those little plastic masonry anchors from the hardware store?
Don't listen to LB, she's giving you the reasonable answer. I'd go with really big nails and a sledgehammer. (But if you do go with her suggestion, get a masonry bit for the drill.)
Try hammering on the wall without a nail there, for practice.
Use a sawzall to cut a hole in the plaster about the width of the curtain rod, clear out all the insulation and stuff, and then use masonry anchors on the inner surface of the brick.
Might look kind of ugly, so spraypaint it black.
1 - locate big burly man
2 - flutter eyelashes. "Oh poor girly me can't drive a nail."
3 - Watch big burly man impotently attempt to drive nails into rock hard wall. As his frustration grows be sure to say things that imply his manhood is at risk if the task is not completed. He will not give up until your curtains are hung or the wall is destroyed.
4 - Clean up huge mess made by BBM. If curtains are hung, you win. If wall is destroyed move to a new office and try again.
Clean up huge mess made by BBM
Low squishy fruit!
Noone's asking the really important questions. Like: what color are these curtains you're intending to hang?
If you know the color of the carpet but not the drapes, I want to be at that party.
12 is right. Which, I'm assuming, will send you back to the store. If you can't bear to do that, use one nail to go through the plaster and then pull it out (because it will be blunt and probably bent) and put in a different nail when you get to the lathe.
I should add that without using a drill, you'll have to hammer enough that you might put cracks in the plaster.
When I'm hammering into plaster & lathe walls, I drill a pilot hole with a tiny (1/16") drillbit, for 2 reasons:
- Prevents plaster shipping/cracking
- Helps the nail pierce the lathe, which otherwise tends to bounce.
That said, I'm mildly surprised that a plaster & lathe wall is bending nails; usually the plaster will chip, but ultimately surrender to your pounding away. Is it possible that these are simply inadequate nails, intended for lightweight use, such as fastening balsawood airplane models?
24: Fellow alums! But much, much younger. And more successful.
Ahem.
27: The CMU Department of Window Treatments?
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Speaking of success, an update:
We got a letter from the SNAP people today, which basically said, "you're earning too much." But they refer to gross income, so the reduction in car payment may still figure in. Or it may be that they don't believe that my business has expenses. I'll probably have to fill in my Schedule C early to satisfy them. Jagoffs.
Frustratingly, they want proof that I'm not still working at the firm I left 4(!) years ago, the existence of which they only know of because it was on the list of "past employers." Dumbasses. We're hoping that the letter accepting my resignation will suffice, because I appear to have thrown away all my pay stubs and the company basically doesn't exist anymore.
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30: College of Attaching Things to Walls. AKA CAToW.
I have a collage of things attached to walls. Mostly because I wanted the house to look like a TGIFridays.
at the firm I left 4(!) years ago
24 years ago? Wow.
JRoth, I hope you kept your not-getting-paid stubs so you can prove that you were not working there. Me, I have warehouses filled with them. Every Fortune 500 company sends me one every pay period.
34: Ooh! I discovered an awesome visualization tool for understanding the area beneath curves, and I thought of you, Heebs.
My drafting program has an animation function for making walkthrough videos. So you set a number of 3D views that you want to "walk" between and drag them into the timeline for the animation. The X axis is seconds and the Y axis is units (inches, in my case) per second, in logarithmic scale. As you drag in a new 3D view, it connects it to the previous view with a curve. You set how fast the camera is moving at the 3D view and how many seconds since the previous view.
The key thing is that the area under the curve has to represent the distance traveled between views. So if you have 2 views a foot apart and you want them close together in time, you can have a flattish curve. But as the speeds increase, the curve dips in the middle (including into the negative, although it won't let you run the video that way). If the points are far away but you put them close in time, then you get a big hump as the program speeds you up in the middle to cover the ground.
Anyway, it's really interesting to watch the curves move as you locate the views, and, as I said, helps visualize that the area under the curve means something.
I apologize if this explanation is totally confusing. Turns out that verbally describing something that's an effective visual explanation for something that's hard to describe verbally is hard.
Poor neb, forced to click every link that is put up on Unfogged.
...the area under the curve means something.
Only if you're in love.
Jagoffs.
Way to blast them in colloquial Pittsburghese, JRoth. Yinze'll hafta do better'n nat.
They make special plaster nails, sharp, skinny and hardened... hardware store should have them.
41: I was wondering this, but didn't actually know, and googling "masonry nails" was getting me things designed for concrete, not plaster.
40: I've never actually heard anybody say "Jagoff" as a noun. The real Pittsburghers I've heard just use standard terms like "asshole" or something.
The administrator lady came by and asked what I was doing, and had some bigger better nails.
We had a funny standoff. She went back to her office to get her nails. I knew she'd want to do the hammering, because she considers herself generally handy and she's Type A. But I wanted to do the hammering because I had opinions about small details.
So I picked up the hammer while she was out, thinking possession was 9/10ths of the law.
She returned. As we were chatting, she reached to take the hammer out of my hand. I held it a little tighter and she withdrew her hand. Still with the friendly chitchat. She reached for it again, more firmly, and I felt like I had to relinquish it.
So she won. But one of the curtains is up now! She left me nails to do the one for which I need to clear off my desk, to stand on.
I totally love this battle between nosflow and teo. I am thinking that teo's not going to run out of XKCD to link to anytime soon.
Don't keep us in suspense. Try the other one so we know if your admin lady is really handy or not.
43: You need to get out of the East End more, Mobes.
I am thinking that teo's not going to run out of XKCD to link to anytime soon.
It's an eerily perfect complement to the subject matter of Unfogged threads.
47: I get out of the East End all the time. I go to Mt. Lebo. I go to Fox Chapel. I go to the South Side.
Sounds like a similar problem I had a while back. The only difference is: you're using nails; I was using screws.
22: Could you explain that xkcd to me, Teo?
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This afternoon I'm going for my annual Xmas haircut. I look forward to this haircut all year because my barber basically runs an open house with lots of liquor and snacks. People just hang out, chat, and drink. Very gemütlich. Or whatever an Italian would call it.
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52: Is that the old guy on Murray people keep telling me about?
50: I had a similar problem as well, except I was using my head, and heebie was using a hammer and, Will was using a drill.
Poor neb, forced to click every link that is put up on Unfogged.
All I have to do is mouseover, dork.
I totally love this battle between nosflow and teo. I am thinking that teo's not going to run out of XKCD to link to anytime soon.
I'm torn between the impulse to think that in a neb/teo dispute, neb must be the unreasonable one, and the impulse to think that XKCD is way overrated and generally not that interesting.
49: 2 of those 3 are culturally indistinguishable from the East End. And the South Side is only distinguishable once you get off E. Carson.
55: But why would it bother you if you don't click through?
53: No, Golden Razor, Bloomfield. I've been going there for 10 years now.
57: Nobody can tell when I make a joke?
55: But why would it bother you if you don't click through?
To see where the link goes, obviously.
Nine years here so far, and I've nver heard "jagoff" or "yinz". "N'at", though, several hundred times.
Will was using a drill.
LOL. First time commenting here and I'm already cracking up a storm. It wouldn't be so funny if it weren't true.
60: I thought it was, but South Sider natives are about as yinzer as it gets, so I had to be literal about it.
64: Unless the natives start to become a big portion of the shoppers at REI or Joseph Beth, I'll probably not see many of them.
I spent most of yesterday trying to seal up my giant windtunnel of a balcony sliding door. I put a bunch of holes in the wall and used a few pthalate-filled caulk tubes, but i still have a nice freezing breeze going through my place.
62: I think I first heard it my second year, and I was kind of stunned: the (lady) janitor was about to clean the shower in the dorm, so she said to me, "Yinz can just go dahnstairs to shaher." I was speechless at hearing such an intense Pittsburgh accent.
When I graduated and started working construction and handyman jobs, I was exposed to a lot more of it. I'm sure it's less common than it was 40 years ago, as most American regionalisms are, but it's still out there plenty.
65: "Yinz go'n t'the Gi'n Iggles and buy some kolbassi n'at?"
Are you [all] going to Giant Eagle to buy some kielbasa and related items?
65: "N'at" is the best window treatment designer in town. He gives frequent, public lectures on the topic. You'd have to be exceptionally keen on window treatments to have heard him several hundred times.
68: My wife's people say 'Yinz' frequently. (Actually it's more like 'Yenz' when they say it, but they're from out of town a bit.)
Could you explain that xkcd to me, Teo?
Sure. Dude meets a lady with a striking hair color, asks if the color is natural via a cliched and borderline inappropriate analogy, and she answers by extending the analogy in a way that doesn't make any obvious sense then walks away, leaving the dude confused. It's not among the better strips he's done, admittedly, but it was topical.
and she answers by extending the analogy in a way that doesn't make any obvious sense
Maybe she was truthfully answering the question that was asked, rather than extending the analogy.
I'm torn between the impulse to think that in a neb/teo dispute, neb must be the unreasonable one, and the impulse to think that XKCD is way overrated and generally not that interesting.
It's definitely overrated, and many of the recent ones in particular have been pretty bad, but I still have a soft spot for it. As we were discussing in a thread a while back, it's trite and treacly but in a way that I'm a total sucker for. Also, the subject matter overlaps with Unfogged to a remarkable degree.
73: That is another possibility, yes.
It's about as good as anything he's done.
It's definitely overrated, and many of the recent ones in particular have been pretty bad, but I still have a soft spot for it. As we were discussing in a thread a while back, it's trite and treacly but in a way that I'm a total sucker for.
Wow--it does sound just like unfogged.
I eagerly await nosflow's excursus on the genius of Achewood, the appeal of which continues to elude me.
I like the Heathcliff strip because it isn't as intellectually challenging as Garfield.
Achewood has gone downhill significantly in the past two years.
Can someone refer me to something that is still going up hill, or that is skittering along the top of the mesa? I need a reason to believe in the future.
MS Paint Adventures makes my head hurt.
That settles it. Bave, no matter how real shit gets, I can never pose as a team with you.
MS Paint Adventures is good, but I don't read it much for reasons related to 86. The guest strip the guy did for Dinosaur Comics was insane.
83: Prince Valiant is trying to rescue his lady from the underground lair of a giant version of the kind of bugs that make me want to stay out of my own basement.
What's insane is the amount of exegetical attention MSPA gets in its forums.
H!AV has gotten a lot of attention but I can't help but feel that it only intermittently merits it.
68: A good friend of mine grew up in the 'burgh and I appropriated "gum band" from the first moment I first heard her say it.
92: You could say the same about the smoke detector when I'm cooking.
93: My wife still does that. I've tried it on, but I feel self-conscious when I say it.
92: Perhaps, but I think it's improving rather than declining.
93: Unless you mean you steal rubber bands, in which case, I do that.
72: Thanks, teo!
I really didn't get the analogy at all.
I like the Heathcliff strip because it isn't as intellectually challenging as Garfield.
I like the Heathcliff strip because it won't let life or death stand in the way of the sublime and funky love that it craves.
98:
gum band = rubber band
gum ≠ condom
Which meant I was unnecessarily disappointed at one point.
101: I had an unfortunate incident during my brief experience with middle school in the US when I discovered that "rubber" doesn't mean "pencil eraser" over here.
Other PCVs teaching in Samoa ran into the same problem in the other direction. ("She stole your rubber? You're in the 9th grade and this is a classroom!")
With confusion in such relatively simple matters, I'm glad that I don't have to discuss complex subjects like window treatments in a cross-cultural context.
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Though slate-contrarianism is usually frowned upon, this seemed like an article that might warrant discussion on unfogged.
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44, ditch adminlady and borrow Snoop Pearson's nail gun .
103: This exact incident occurred at my middle school. This was around the same time that we had a "Donna Martin Graduates" walk-out.
106: This is better.
Also I pwned you with that link but I'm too lazy to look it up.
This also seems like it might warrant discussion on Unfogged.
It is the most impressive blog that rewards one's requests before they have even been made.
In other words -- the pwnage, it burns.
52: What a disaster that was. 1 of the other customers was a misogynist rightwing blowhard, abetted by 2 others, one a misogynist and the other a blowhard. I was actually confronted iwth someone claiming that "America has the ebst healthcare in the world." I knocked it down, but to little effect.
Grumble. At least my hair looks good.
The only really good H!AV strip is Dude Watchin' with the Brontës.
I love H!AV, but I'm fairly sure the reason for this is: History! Cool! (Which was pretty much the content of my personal essay for graduate school applications, come to think of it.)
I am very fond of Kate Beaton's work, even if not every strip is a tsunami of rip-roaring greatness.
You must have really nailed the GREs.
121: Seriously, no idea why they let me in. I went back and read that essay and cringed, and cringed, and cringed some more. And I only nailed half the GREs. Fortunately, the half more applicable to my field.
I dread the thought of looking at my personal statement.
My law school personal statement probably bears up much better, actually, not that I intend to look at it either.
Ok, that one's pretty good too.
You were just practicing your needless contrarianism as a prelude to getting a gig at Slate. We understand.
O! My back groans beneath sting of the backlash of the contrarian whip!
Possibly the most cleansing thing in the world is throwing out your old grad school applications.
I also like the first installment of "Hipsters Ruin Everything".
And this.
129: Reading about white gold upthread made me think about selling my wedding band. I don't think I have old gradschool applications to throw out or I could do a head to head comparison.
132: Sweetheart (forgive me), that would presumably be a hard decision. Yes, harder than throwing out old application essays, I admit it! Tempting, though? Someone told me not long ago not to toss things too readily, for horrible regret would come.* All I could do was project forward in time: will I regret this then? Then? What about then?
Good luck with that.
* This was in connection with my mom's stuff, cleaning out her house.
i like freefall http://freefall.purrsia.com/ffdex.htm
mostly because it is accurate about space lfight. it isn't funny often.
133: No sweat, sweetpea. I won't do it for a while, but I think there might be a little ceremony when I do. I've thrown out stuff I wish I hadn't, but this is extraordinarily unlikely to lead to regret.
Sorry if I skipped past this, but why are you using nails to put up curtains? If you are using curtain rods, you most certainly need to be using screws. Are you nailing the curtains to the wall?
Sorry if I skipped past this, but why are you using nails to put up curtains? If you are using curtain rods, you most certainly need to be using screws. Are you nailing the curtains to the wall?
Sorry if I skipped past this, but why are you using nails to put up curtains? If you are using curtain rods, you most certainly need to be using screws. Are you nailing the curtains to the wall?
Would you, could you triple post?
Post it! Post it! Post the most!
NAILING CURTAINS TO THE WALL
NAILING CURTAINS TO THE WALL
NAILING CURTAINS TO THE WALL
YEEEAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHH
Oh, I just bought a couple dowels and am just resting them up over the window, with nails.