I am now the proud owner of a Soviet-made Moskva portable typewriter.

Moskvas are some of the most enigmatic typewriters on the planet, as not much information about them escaped the iron curtain. But I’m hooked up to some knowledgeable people now, and information is trickling through slowly. I’m still hungry to know anything and everything about this machine, though, so if anyone out there happens to be a Moskva expert, do speak up. Now would be a great time to show off your geekiness.

It’s in the original case and everything… and it’s in fantastic cosmetic condition. See more photos here.

I love the night life, I got to sWeety:

She’s so lucky that she has to run off all those sweets:

You go to check on the bees, and… surprise!

Where I come from, it’s called “grave robbing”:

Photoshop people inside joke:

As long as one of those functions involves getting me some coffee, we’re cool:

Hell looks kind of nice, actually, now that she’s cleaned it:

The dangerous zone of not conventional negatives:

Although I can’t seem to shut up about it everywhere else, I don’t think I’ve mentioned here how crazy the weather has been this summer… if you can even call it a summer.

In past years, as you know, Antalya has regularly seen temperatures over 50° (122°F) in July. At night, in a typical summer it rarely goes down under 35° (95°F). This year so far, however, we haven’t even seen a temperature as high as 35° during the day. That is beyond insane. And, and… clouds. Lots of them. Normally there are no clouds whatsoever between May and September, but the above photo was taken today, and about half an hour after I came home from taking pictures, it actually started to rain lightly. Surely these are signs of the Apocalypse.

To say that I’m happy would be an understatement. I’ve never been a fan of Antalya’s short but brutal summer, and ever since we got the air conditioner last year I have dreaded our summer electric bills. But this year, the air conditioner has been on only a handful of times, and only for very short periods just to combat the humidity.

Nights have been wonderful— still cool enough to need the blanket, but not so cold as to need the duvet. I hope it stays like this straight through until autumn.