tigertoy

It's National SAD Day, the day we switch to Daylight Wasting Time. Because nothing says "we love you" to people with Seasonal Affective Disorder like throwing away an hour of daylight just when the axial tilt is making it so precious.

The more I type on this laptop keyboard the less I like it. I need to get a decent USB keyboard. Sadly I'm not sure they make them anymore. I want moderate travel and tactile feedback but not the noise of the IBM buckling-spring keyboard. Many years ago Fujitsu made the perfect keyboard but I haven't seen one like it in ages.

My postal mailbox had two things in it today: an enormous credit card bill and my Cheshire Moon kickstarter CD. One of these things makes me happy.

Armored Gopher Games, my friendly local game store where I've been spending my Friday nights playing magic for the last 5 years or so, is closed. Dave the owner was burned out. Things were supposed to be arranged to sell to the original owners, but the wheels came off the deal at the last minute. Right now we don't know if it can be salvaged, and I don't really know the details but it doesn't look very good.

I went to FNM at the other game store in town, Titan Games, for the first time yesterday. Titan's not a bad place but it didn't feel like home. I don't know if it can become that for me, or if I'm going to drop out of magic again. Playing magic helped me get through some tough times, but I haven't felt as much into it the past few months as I used to. But not having it in my life feels scary.

Thanks for all the good times, Dave. I hope things work out for you. I hope things work out for me.

So, many months ago, one of the hinge mounts on my guitar case handle half broke. I could still carry the case, but one side of the handle was not held quite as well as it should have been, and it looked like it would probably break at some point. So, after some while, I thought to ask at Upper Bout (the new guitar store that's in the same commercial building as Titan Games where I often play games) if they could fix it. They said no, but there was a guy who could and they gave me his number.

Last Friday at OVFF, as I was taking my guitar down, the hinge mount finished dying. The handle was now only attached at one end, which felt really awkward and also like it might fall off at any moment. So today, I called the number the guitar store gave me. The guy answered the phone, "Shoe repair." This sounded slightly off, but I told him my problem, and he said that he used to do that kind of work, but it often didn't work out, so he decided to quit and just do shoes, and he doesn't have the parts any more. And he doesn't know of anyone else who does it, so I'm on my own.

So I looked a little closer at what was broken. The brass bit that attaches to the case was actually broken, but the longer part still seemed to be securely attached to the other brass bit that actually is connected to the handle. The rivet that had held the broken bit was simply gone. I looked at it and decided that if I could bolt this metal bit back on, it would probably hold, even though only being anchored at one end was less than perfect. This would also have the drawback that one end of the bolt would have to be in the case, and I'm not up to re-upholstering the inside, so it would stick in. But I checked how the guitar sits in the case, and it conveniently protrudes into an empty space; the guitar shouldn't come near it. Just to be sure, though, I decided that it might be better to have a scrap of cloth over the metal. I can't manage a scrap of cloth that will look like it belongs, but I can manage a scrap. So a few bits of hardware out of the collection, a quick drilling, and some tightening, and I think I can use my guitar case again.

Which is good, not because it's an exceptionally well-made case, but because I would be very sad to have to retire the collection of stickers.

For years, I've had this notion of how to make a bookshelf. This week, pushed by the fact that I was about to not have the car with the cargo capacity to easily carry larger stuff, I bought the lumber I needed. For the last couple of days, I've been drilling and screwing boards together. There were a couple of bumps along the road, like when I realized that I'd gotten a couple of the wrong boards. But happily, a couple of 6'6" boards fit into a Civic sedan. And as it came together, realizing just how unequal the lengths of a lot of nominally 6' boards were. But I got it all together. And now I have all of my books on shelves, and a certain feeling of accomplishment.

A short walk at Kickapoo (couple of miles) today -- don't really feel up to more. But three proper signs of spring:
Spring peepers
Comma butterflies
A brown thrasher singing away

A fine little walk.

The next person who says anything positive about snow gets kicked in the junk.

When I came home last night at 2:30, at least there were very few other cars on the road. It took almost 40 minutes to make a 25 minute drive. There was only a few inches and I was able to drive into the garage. Unfortunately, it kept snowing for the rest of the night, and by the time I got outside, there was enough of the white crap that I would have to shovel it if I wanted to get out.

I've got a bit less than half of the driveway clear and I'm taking a break. Hopefully I can finish the rest of it before I run out of day, so I can get to EFRC tomorrow.

After I got home from a long day at EFRC, extremely tired and ready to fall over, I put my ice pack back in the freezer, and noticed there was a pool of gunk in the bottom of the freezer. I quickly discovered that all the meat in the freezer is thawed; I have maybe 25 lbs. of meat to throw away. Things don't seem to be cold enough in the regular fridge either.

My fridge is 22 years old -- I bought it when I moved in. So I'm probably due for a new one. But I don't have money for it, even on a non-panic basis. I don't think there's a good time for this to happen but coming home on a Saturday evening, totally exhausted, and with things to do tomorrow other than trying to shop for a new appliance, this seems like a particularly bad time.

My car is not fixed. They had it taken apart, they said everything seemed to be OK. They put it back together with the new clutch and slave cylinder and it would not shift -- the transmission seems to work when they shift it by hand but it doesn't work when connected to the hydraulics.

I think I need a new car, and I don't even know where to start. What I've been able to find with Google so far has been very unhelpful -- all the sites start by asking what make and model you want. I don't know what make and model I want, I want as cheap a car as I can find that fits my needs: has to be reliable, has to get decent gas mileage, I would distinctly prefer a hatchback with a manual transmission. I don't care what make it is as long as it's not something exotic that's super expensive to maintain.