Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

We will not go back.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

T R E 4 5 O N

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Mystery Object Open Thread

Mystery Object Open Thread

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So this object lives on the screened porch of our beach rental. It’s made of bamboo. We have no clue what it is. There’s a barcode on it, which I scanned. But not even Google could enlighten us. It was made in Vietnam. Any ideas?

Please discuss whatever.

UPDATED: I switched out the photo, so hopefully it won’t be sideways now. I moved the thing out to the driveway for a better view (it wasn’t really attached to the house in the original photo; it just looked that way from the camera angle). It’s about two feet tall. It has a solid floor halfway down and is hollow at both ends. WTF?

Reader Interactions

162Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    And it’s fucking sideways! Gah! I hate posting with a goddamned iPhone. Can y’all see TWO sideways pictures or just one?

  7. 7.

    quannlace

    Looks like a kind of boot jack. You know, a thingy that helps you pull off your boots. Course the fact that it’s hanging of the side of a house argues against it.

    Edit: Oops. didn’t realize the pic was sideways. Maybe it’s to help scrape sand off your feet.

  11. 11.

    Chet

    I think it’s a bucket, but maybe the next picture could have it lit from the front?

  13. 13.

    Chris

    @shortstop:

    Clearly, it’s a guillotine.

    It says something about what a history/politics nerd I am that that’s the same thing that immediately jumped into my mind.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    People are commenting on the thread that appears when you click on the pic too.

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    have no idea…but you must be having one helluva vacation to where you can relax to the point of researching this

  17. 17.

    sharl

    How do they keep all that water in that vertical alignment, without it draining downward?
    Hah, gravity has been defeated on Earth at last! Someone alert Michelle Malkin regarding this good news! (h/t TBogg)

  23. 23.

    NickT

    Outdoor bathroom tissue dispenser for when nomadic giants happen by.

    Or possibly some sort of washing line hook-up point.

  26. 26.

    scav

    Bamboo hanging vase is my (v. dull) guess. Part one of an all’Mercan build-it-yourself water system for the post-zombie-gay-women-with-income-tseunami is behind door number two. Pen1s gourd speedo is a late-breaking #3.

  30. 30.

    jl

    If BC doesn’t know what it is, this post is a bleg, not a mystery object open thread.

    I expect and answer from the distinguished front poster at the end of this thread, or I am suing this damn blog, that commits post title fraud.

  31. 31.

    piratedan

    or to paraphrase what my Grandfather used to say when confronted with questions like these…. “whatever it is, it sure is a dandy one!”

  32. 32.

    Suffern ACE

    I don’t think you should keep that outside. It’s for use on a boat. In areas where whales are few and far between, it is used in the whale watching industry to attract them. I’ve seen captains wave them, and a few minutes later, a herd arrives with very big bottles of beer. Whales always forget to buy brands with screw tops.

  33. 33.

    Somsai

    It’s a bucket. You carry it on a pole with another one at the other end of the pole to balance. The pole has slight notches so the buckets don’t slide. Far from roads, in places where people have few store bought goods, they use these.

    The water is downhill or sideways of the village and can’t be piped via bamboo halves. It’s women’s work, every day, maybe four or five trips. To feed the pigs and chickens and water vegetable gardens. Sometimes they load the buckets into tall packbaskets and carry them on their backs with a taught line to their foreheads.

    Women also cut the young bamboo and peel it to cook and feed to the pigs.

    They husk rice with a foot powered mortar and pestle. They weave cotton, they hunt for half their protein. Few villages left now. Governments move them to steal the land for timber and rubber.

    Time passes.

  34. 34.

    Fred Fnord

    Ah, those. I remember those. I used to have one but the wheels fell off.

    Good times, good times.

  36. 36.

    j

    I know what it is. It is held during prayer in certain religious rites, like a rosary or a prayer wheel. I think the ones praying use the hole to align their faces with the setting sun.

    I saw something on PBS about an American architect who was commissioned to design a new seminary for the sect/order (Ankor Wat, maybe??), and he saw the students holding a smaller version of what you posted during evening prayers, so he built their bell tower to look just like it.

    I’m trying to find pictures of it and the explanation of how the design came about.

  40. 40.

    JPL

    @Somsai: Erick Erickson wants to know how much females are being paid for their labor. It’s important to know for those that watch Fox Business channel.

  41. 41.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    Aw jeebus, it’s a wớng. Good luck finding a xêung to make it work.

  43. 43.

    mark

    No idea what is is now, but if the talking points change it will become the biggest scandal since Watergate.

  45. 45.

    Emma

    Water bucket. The “solid bottom” is the bamboo node. If you cut too close to the node you can damage it, so you leave a piece of the other internode. It also probably makes for a better balance.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @quannlace: High around 90 with afternoon / evening storms to cool things down. I have to stay on the porch during the hottest part of the day. I got sunburned in the 20 seconds it took to snap that photo.

  53. 53.

    PhoenixRising

    Bukkit. You need the second one and the pole to parry any decent quantity of liquid, though.

  58. 58.

    Lavocat

    It’s a fermentation vat for bandersnatch urine.

    Mmmmm … bandersnatch urine!

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @MikeJ: Nope. All it says is that it’s made in Vietnam.

    @TooManyJens: The thing on the handle is a silver twisty-tie with old bits of tape clinging to it. The mystery deepens!

  63. 63.

    ulee

    It’s an extra dimensional object. Everything is involved in the taco. It is all repeating itself. Watch the news.

  67. 67.

    kindness

    Oh Nohs! You ran the bar code? OMG!!!!

    That is the Omega-13 module and running the bar code activates it. Ahhhhhhh!

    I for one will welcome our new overlords, as long as they are TeaHaddist sociopaths.

  69. 69.

    ulee

    The quarterback that died near the river in Michigan said he was leery. He had entered an extra dimensional situation. It is coming quickly now.

  72. 72.

    Southern Beale

    I moved the thing out to the driveway for a better view….

    Nooo!!!! You didn’t MOVE it?! Have you not seen ANY horror movies from the ’70s! Now you’ve unleashed the Krakken!

  74. 74.

    Hannity Hussein

    That, my friends, is the last woman “dominated” by the esteemed Erick Erickson.

  76. 76.

    raven

    We met with the city utility folks and I don’t think it could have gone better. They obviously are not going to admit any kind of guilt but they do acknowledge that their GIS map are wrong. They are going to have to do survey and design work but we may be up and running by September. They were very nice, not that taking the princess along had anything to do with that!

  78. 78.

    srv

    It’s a well bell

    Hanging well planter and wood bell.

    Or it could be an elephant dildo

  79. 79.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @ulee: Oh you mean “Bill E Pilgrim” is like “Billy Pilgrim”?

    Huh. You’re right. Never occurred to me.

  82. 82.

    JWL

    It’s a cylindrical breathing tube template the Viet Cong employed in construction of their network of tunnels. The cross-T handle on top was typically driven 1 to 2 inches below ground level, lifted out, and re-used in incremental spacings along the length of the particular tunnel. The breathing holes thus created were then camouflaged to appear as solid terrain.

  86. 86.

    srv

    In other news, Harvard is lowering the bar for sociopaths:

    Getting into Harvard Business School just got easier. At least, the application form did.

    HBS announced that applicants seeking admission for the Fall 2014 incoming class will no longer need to submit two 400-word essays, and may not even have to write anything at all.

  90. 90.

    piratedan

    @srv: well it’s not like writing essays helped those two asshats that brought back Dickensian economics. Maybe they’re replacing it by demonstrating a knowledge of how to use Excel.

  96. 96.

    JGabriel

    srv:

    HBS announced that applicants seeking admission for the Fall 2014 incoming class will no longer need to submit two 400-word essays, and may not even have to write anything at all.

    So, Harvard has determined that writing skills are no longer required to be trained as an economic sociopath?

  101. 101.

    scav

    @JGabriel: Talking points come pre-packaged (even tweets are outsourced). Might add a screen test though, especially if they can make them appear wired and digitally with-it.

  102. 102.

    Suffern ACE

    I don’t read Salon that often any more but I found the article on Ford Motors’ Panel on Millenials kind of interesting. http://www.salon.com/2013/05/30/millennials_dont_hate_cars_they_cant_afford_them/

    In the era of Big Data, it would appear that no one in marketing actually knows how to do anything but spout off anecdotes about the kids. I don’t actually interact with many people under 30 on a regular basis, but those that I do know don’t seem to be anything like the young folks described by the panel of experts.

  103. 103.

    jl

    Schlafly decides to join the Wisdom of The Donald and help the GOP decide to head for extinction. I like their outreach program so far. It seems a success if the idea was to limit but solidify support among older white male bigots.

    Conservative Icon Calls GOP’s Need To Court Hispanics A ‘Great Myth’
    Catherine Thompson, TPMLivewire

    Phyllis Schlafly of the “pro-family” group Eagle Forum called the GOP’s need to reach out to Hispanic voters a “great myth” during a conservative radio program Wednesday.

    ‘ “The Hispanics who have come in like this will vote Democrat and there’s not the slightest bit of evidence that they will vote Republican,” Schlafly said… ‘

    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/conservative-icon-calls-gops-need-to-court-hispanics

  106. 106.

    jl

    @cathyx: Of course. When I get up early, like around dawn, to walk along the beach, I see fishers using things like this all the time to dig bait.

  107. 107.

    raven

    @jl: It’s just that the clam digging devices have T handles for twisting into the sand and that handle doesn’t look like it would be easy to apply much force.

  112. 112.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: You’re right about the handle not being too sturdy, but I am leaning toward the clam digger theory. Maybe it’s just a crappy clam digging implement.

  113. 113.

    scav

    A) the continued existence of the barcode might argue against it being anything employed usefully in damp sand (although it might have been aspirational). But I may B) just never have been impressed by the functional utility of random objects found in rental vacation houses.

  116. 116.

    scav

    @Betty Cracker: Betty, is the bottom of the tube (away from the handle) open or closed? Critical detail distinguishing two common, if duller, hypotheses.

  118. 118.

    Betty Cracker

    @scav: Open. It’s open at both ends with a solid floor (possibly the naturally occurring bamboo node wall as someone suggested earlier) about 8 inches from either end. I’m guessing its about 2 feet tall if you include the handle. It’s big enough around to drop canned goods into it.

  120. 120.

    Maude

    It might be Art.

    John McCain had his picture taken with a group of kidnappers who kidnap pilgrims in Syria.
    Go, Johnny, Go.

  121. 121.

    scav

    @Betty Cracker: that helps (plus scale), if only increases the general weirdness to some degree! not as stupid a bucket contender as I once thought as the bamboo is on the larger end of the scale, although still smallish in light of usual water demand.

  127. 127.

    Meg

    @Dupe70: Yes, it looks similar to the wine bucket I linked above in #117.
    I think it is for you to carry wine for a beach picnic.

  128. 128.

    p

    made of bamboo, no discernible function? the idea that it’s a guillotine is amusing, given fla (for the tiny minds of the state’s politicians? i have neighbors who’d use it for the squirrels that eat the distributor cables in their cars).
    a memorial?

  129. 129.

    p.a.

    Rea beat me to it. Anyhoo, that place looks nice- invite me down. I’m reasonably housebroken. But I am a yankee.

  130. 130.

    kindness

    You people are funny. Have none of you ever actually dug clams? Growing up on the shore in CT I did every week either for bait or for the clams to eat.

    Soft shell clams (the ones with the long neck) burrow deep so we used a pitch fork shovel. These clams live at the inter-tidal zone so you walk out when the tide is out and dig.

    Hard shell clams live in in deeper water but in sandy/muddy bottom pretty shallow. Those we used an actual clam rake.

  131. 131.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    It’s an ashtray. Fill up the bottom with sand to make it heavy and stationary. Put sand in the top to stub out cigarettes in.

  135. 135.

    JasperL

    I’ve used something like it to pound fence posts into the ground – hollow tube with a solid core. You put the tube over whatever you want to drive into the ground and use the tube as a guide. Then lift the device up keeping the fence post in the tube, and bring the device down like a hammer to drive it into the ground. Easier than a sledge hammer – don’t ever “miss.”

    So it might be useful to pound things (like a rod holder, or umbrella stand) into soft sand, depending on how sturdy the device is – hard to see from the picture. You might even be able to use it as a device to push things (rather than hammer them) into soft sand.

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tweety asks why Democrats are always on defense, why aren’t they talking about jobs, and then brings on Sherrod Brown and…. Harold Ford. Ford uses his time to speak for something called “regulatory certainty for the broadband industry”– I don’t know what he means, but I don’t trust him– and for building our “pipeline infrastructure”. Gee, Tweets, I can’t figure out why the Democrats can’t change the conversation. Why don’t you ask Harold Ford?

  140. 140.

    raven

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hate to say it but Mornin Joe was funny this morning with Howard Dean and a panel moaning about the press “scandal”. They all got in their argument and then Joe said “I’m going to be Harold Ford”, I agree with you, you, you you and you. . .”

  141. 141.

    kindness

    @Trollhattan: Quite cool. Way more technology than what I grew up with.

    No, living in the Bay Area now I just buy clams in the market like everyone else. Hardly ever fish any more. But I’ve had a feeling of wanting to make some Boulliabase. Mine tends to be more shellfish stew than fish stew so I suspect I will be visiting those markets soon.

  148. 148.

    Bucky Reynolds

    I have seen these in a series of sizes and they are used as a gong instrument.

  150. 150.

    SG

    It is, I believe, a bamboo Japanese Ikebana vase. Google “bamboo ikebana vase” images for some similar examples.

  152. 152.

    Jebediah

    @Mnemosyne:

    She’s pretty bossy with Chucky – she goads her into playing, then shuts it down with a (tiny little) bark’n’snarl when Chucky gets a little too rough for her taste. But no caretakeriness. Chucky is young and spry, so I guess Juno figures she’s on her own. (And I love that you remember details about my doggies!)

  153. 153.

    sacrablue

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s why I can’t watch Tweety anymore. I think he had Lanny Davis on the other day. FSM forbid he should have anyone under the age of 50 on his show. Somebody need to tell him that it is not 1982 anymore. MSNBC wants to know why they are losing viewers? Argggh!

  155. 155.

    maya

    Though I have been unable to find a facsimile I’m pretty sure it’s a cog from a water wheel. Picture a wheel with many of these attached by the handle end to the wheel. The wheel goes round, water fills in the upper floored chamber, the lower open chamber acts as a ballast holding the cog against the wheel until it spills into whatever spout draws the water away. They can be replaced very easily. There are bamboo water wheels in Viet Nam of all different types, but this has an aesthetic design to it as well, so, an ob-jet. d’art

  157. 157.

    kwAwk

    Given that it is on the screen porch and in Florida could it not just be an umbrella stand?

  160. 160.

    Debbie(aussie)

    Apologises if this has all ready been stated- I thi k it might be a tool do sucking up sand likely to contain worms pull it out empty sand and check for yabbies, just my guess

  161. 161.

    Ashin Sopāka

    Reorienting the pic seems to have deleted my comment.

    It’s a “gong” used in Buddhist temples.

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