Trey Springer

this place is not a place of honor. no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. nothing valued is here

[Trey Springer @umtrey]

pizza commentary genuinely shocked me (in a good way!

[Daniel Franke @dfranke]

You buy a German anvil. It contains 83 moving parts and requires winding twice a day. It's forged from excellent steel, holds tolerances across all three striking faces to within three microns, includes a beautifully indexed horn-adjustment mechanism nobody asked for, and requires a proprietary 11-point spanner should you need to replace the rebound calibration bushing. It runs flawlessly for years, but one day it starts up in limp mode because the onboard anvil-management system detects that it's overdue for its 50,000-strike inspection.

You search AliExpress for a Chinese anvil, and are presented with a multitude of offerings from such household-name brands as DUKXJYIBF, HDBTGMXI, AND UEJQIP. They're all priced to within a few pennies of each other, appear completely identical except for the nameplate, and obviously all came out of the same factory. You text your blacksmith friend to ask if they're legit. He tells you he got one like that from KIXJBU a few years ago, and that it's been great and a terrific deal. You thank him, but KIXJBU seems to have folded so you buy the one from UEJQIP. When it arrives, it feels suspiciously light. You scratch it and realize it's iron-plated aluminum.

You buy an American anvil. It's five times the price of the competition, but it comes from a brand that your great-grandfather used to love. It comes boxed with a warranty registration postcard, twenty pages of safety instructions, assay certificate, and a regulatory slip which lists its FCC certification and ITAR registration. It looks just like your friend's KIXJBU. There's a "Made In China" sticker on the bottom.

You buy a Russian anvil. It arrives coated in cosmoline, wrapped in newspaper from 1974, and weighing 40% more than advertised. The finish looks like it was machined with a shovel. The face is not flat, but somehow this does not matter. You drop it off a truck, accidentally leave it outside for six winters, and use it to straighten a bulldozer blade. It's fine.

You buy a Swedish anvil. It comes flat-packed in a long cardboard box with cheerful Neo-Grotesk lettering and a line drawing of a smiling man assembling it with an Allen key. The instructions contain no words, only pictograms showing the anvil face, horn, waist, feet, and 112 identical-looking fasteners. Halfway through assembly, you discover that the pritchel hole was installed upside down, but only because you used peg B17 where you should have used peg B71. Once assembled, it is clean, stable, and works better than it has any right to. You immediately wonder whether you should have bought two.

You buy a Japanese anvil. It arrives wrapped in rice paper inside a paulownia box, accompanied by a certificate bearing three generations of signatures and a photograph of the first production example being presented to the Emperor. The face has been hand-polished by a seventy-eight-year-old master whose family has made striking surfaces since the Muromachi period. You are given detailed instructions for oiling it with a cloth folded in a specific way. It is the most beautiful object you own. You never quite work up the nerve to strike it.

[Life Grips @ptrkbrn]

We live in such a strange, complex world

[College Basketball Content @CBBcontent]

Michigan is vibing before March Madness practice 😁

[pokey pup @Whatapityonyou]

I can’t stop laughing at this book title

[Mike Solarte @MikeSolarte]

Lost in the shuffle of Scottie Scheffler winning the @PGAChampionship I failed to post this moment of Bennett Scheffler standing for the first time (I think). Mom's reaction is so pure. Just adorable. #PGAChampionship #Scheffler

[CIRA @CIRA_CSU]

Simply incredible satellite imagery of a dust storm hitting Chicago this evening.

[Qagggy! @Qagggy]

This parking lot generation software is the most American thing. It's like an eagle flying a fighter jet over a french fry factory.

[Trey Springer @umtrey]

the joy continues

[Trey Springer @umtrey]

the rapid oscillation between cackling at tweets making fun of ohio state, and getting emotional at the thought that my son has never known michigan losing the game. the brain is a land of contrasts,

[Trey Springer @umtrey]

GO BLUE AAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

[Craig Shimala @cshimala]

Take 36 seconds out of your day and enjoy these passing lake effect clouds flowing behind the Chicago skyline over Lake Michigan.

[Matt Lindner @mattlindner]

Chef Tee from Cozy Noodle ran a 3:30 Chicago Marathon today and is not only on his feet but is actually working tonight and that is a level of fitness and dedication I will never know. Man is a legend.

[Brendan Roose @BrendanRoose]

Ignoring all content on my timeline that is not about the Michigan “I voted” sticker design contest

[Just Mets @just_mets]

The streaming feed of the Mets game just cut to a mariachi band playing “Higher” by Creed during the commercial.

The vibes are wild right now 🤣

[“CLASSY” FRED BLASSIE @megantheevalium]

haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since yesterday

[Brian @BrianJNBA]

I believe that belongs to Mr. Gilmore!

[NewAmericanPathways @newampaths]

Your 2024 EDSBS #CharitibundiBowl fundraising total is:

$1,171,087

[Visa is doing marketing consults (see pinned!) @visakanv]

this is a 1996 guide on how to help someone use a computer. it’s strikingly resonant with ‘how to be a parent’, or really ‘how to help anyone with anything’. a nice example of “the universal within the particular”

[Trey Springer @umtrey]

wait a second, feist is singing for the bachelor? since when do they have artists people know for these awkward one on one date dances?