Unsolicited Advice

I am saddened to report that Casper left us to rejoin his brother late on Wednesday night. It was very quick. One moment he was fine; the next, there was a sudden flurry of noise from his cage, as his legs failed him and he fell off a shelf. I sleep through normal rat sounds, but this was unusual. I bolted awake and went to see what was wrong. Cas was never a lap rat. I wasn't even allowed to pet him, when he first came home. Mickie wanted to live in the armpit of my shirt forever, but Casper permitted me only to politely boople his snoot through the cage bars. Actually picking him up was reserved only for dire emergencies, like the fire alarm. This was a touch awkward when it came to play time, since I needed a way to get them from the cage onto the bed where their rat-safe blanket and boxes were set out. But if he didn't want to be picked up, he didn't want to be picked up, and I wasn't going to argue with him too much. Instead I just offered them use of the box they ...

The last load of Amazon boxes contained a microphone. It is a Shure SM48 handheld vocal mic, with dynamic cardioid pickup. This is a piece of professional audio equipment. Not a pricey one -- they're about $40 -- but not the sort of thing you'd buy for fucking around with your friends on Discord. It hooks up with balanced stereo cables, and you have to run it through an amp to do anything with the signal, or an audio interface box if you want to get the sound into a computer. It is well-fortified and feels like it was carved out of a chunk of solid metal. It would probably survive being used to drive framing nails. Or being handed to your drummer. Same thing. It came with a stand adapter, a zippered case, and a warranty card. It did not come with any instructions. They figure if you've got one of these you probably already know how it works. It was on my Amazon list because these things are really good for general environmental sound. I've used them at work to mic every...