Real Life and What's Happening...

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So today my #1 spawn brought his kindle to me, wanting it charged. It turns out now that he's wrecked four charging cables and the only one I can find to charge it up is my perennial old one that seems to have survived his tender mercies. He is not pleased that I've taken his kindle off him so I can give it time to charge unmolested - and make sure I have a working cable to charge my phone with afterwards.

#1 spawn is not flavour of the month.
My wife is like this! Holy shit what do these people do to cables?!?

In some fairness though those USB sockets can get dirty and require cleaning to charge properly.
 
It turns out now that he's wrecked four charging cables and the only one I can find to charge it up is my perennial old one that seems to have survived his tender mercies. He is not pleased that I've taken his kindle off him so I can give it time to charge unmolested - and make sure I have a working cable to charge my phone with afterwards.

My wife is like this! Holy shit what do these people do to cables?!?

My kid stretches the cable to what often turns out to be the breaking point. Plug it in closer to the outlet! An external battery from which the phone can be powered turned out to save me money on charging cables.
 
My kid stretches the cable to what often turns out to be the breaking point. Plug it in closer to the outlet! An external battery from which the phone can be powered turned out to save me money on charging cables.
I'm pretty sure my wife likes to bend it 90 degrees while it's stretched out.
 
Our washing machine died and was stuck full of laundry and water. Repairman removed the water and declared the engine dead. Since he couldn't repair the machine he didn't charge us any money. Fortunately my wife had some cash in her wallet so we gave him a 10€ tip for the trouble.

Went out and bought a new machine which will be delivered and installed sometime next week. Meanwhile we're stuck with a drying rack full of smelly laundry standing in the living room...

Also, I wrote an email to my shiftleader complaining about the behaviour of one of our operators. Retard is using the microphone and amplifier that were installed last year for bossing people around and constantly shouting stupid commentary across the workplace. Needless to say that was not what the mic was installed for. A lot of people were complaining but they're all scared to say something. It is rude and annoying and I decided to inform our head shiftleader and ask him to put a stop to it. We'll see what happens. If it doesn't stop I may take it to management or HR.
Update:

We got a new washing machine today. It's so silent!! I love it.

350ecde98d0542d5d99ccb11ce9f4c09.gif


Operator's moronic and rude behaviour has been addressed by the shiftleader so hopefully we'll be able to work without any distracting macho retard inappropriate shouting into a microphone.
 
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I have embarked on a new hobby. I enjoy the outdoors and really like old style/tradition outdoor equipment and gear. (Backpacks, tents, axes, saws, and etc.) Nowadays there is tons of ultralight weight super strong things. Which is great. But I'm a believer in outdoor gear should be made out of steel, brass, wood, canvas, and leather. To that end I have purchased a hand cranked sewing machine that can sew canvas and leather. I plan on making pouches, packs and, well stuff. I have materials on order. So I've been eyeballing different designs of things for ideas, and inspiration.

One of these kind of things?

Cobbler sewing machine

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There is a guy on one of my machining sites who is converting one to use an electric motor. They are quite cheap and seem to work fairly well based on youtube videos I've found so I've got one on my possible future project list.
 
Still haven't sewn anything yet. Still waiting on my delivery of canvas.:sad:
 
Yesterday morning a friend took me to the comic book store, lunch, and the game shop before we played "Star Wars '78." At the comic book store, I dug into the bargain bins and he bought me a stack of Star Trek comics from the early 1980s (late birthday gift):
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I didn't see anything particularly interesting at the game store except some plastic Star Trek miniatures from Modiphius, but they only had the Borg and I'm not that interested in any Star Trek after the original. I wouldn't mind acquiring some reasonably priced Star Fleet, Klingon, and Romulan miniatures if they make them for the original series versions as well. The Modiphius game materials I saw all looked to be for the Picard series.

The backroom was crowded with guys playing various miniatures wargames, but I don't know which ones. There was also a table at which a game of Call of Cthulhu was being played by 5 men and women probably in their late 40s or early 50s, so that was kinda cool to see. Oh, and for some reason there was a table of 4 elderly Asian ladies playing Mahjong.

At lunch I had a damned tasty piña colada shake at a café in Serra Mesa that I didn't know existed. My friend told me there's a new comic book shop on Waring Road closer to my home that we should check out. We're trying to figure out when. I hope it's good because the one we have been visiting off and on for the past decade has gone downhill--the owners raided the bargain bins and removed almost everything pre-'90s so finding anything worthwhile is sometimes like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. There was a time we'd go there and find too much good stuff and regretfully put back a stack of 1970s Daredevil comics (for instance) just because we couldn't spend so much. (The bargain bins are 12-for-$10.)

Then I ran "Star Wars '78" Session 4, where Lando Calrissian and Vuffi Raa (his astromech droid from Lando Calrissian novels) showed up, which I'll write up in the "Star Wars '78" thread when I get a chance. Here's Vuffi Raa on the bottom-left of the book cover:
lando+calrisian+and+the+mindharp+of+sharu.jpg
 
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Yesterday morning a friend took me to the comic book store, lunch, and the game shop before we played "Star Wars '78." At the comic book store, I dug into the bargain bins and he bought me a stack of Star Trek comics from the early 1980s (late birthday gift)

I loved those DC comics. I followed the whole run from issue #1 to Issue #51 where no store in the area would carry the book anymore (the book continued on to #55 when Paramount caused it's cancellation and format changed). But Peter David was on the book at that point, and honestly I've never liked his Trek stuff much. I felt those last issues weren't very good.

The highlight of the DC run is the Mirror Mirror storyline which ran directly following Star Trek III. I think that storyline is issues #9 thru #16(?) or so.

DC would also use material from the FASA game. So Romulan Nova battleships show up in a couple of issues.
 
So today my #1 spawn brought his kindle to me, wanting it charged. It turns out now that he's wrecked four charging cables and the only one I can find to charge it up is my perennial old one that seems to have survived his tender mercies. He is not pleased that I've taken his kindle off him so I can give it time to charge unmolested - and make sure I have a working cable to charge my phone with afterwards.

#1 spawn is not flavour of the month.

Those damn cables lose their ability to connect with insane frequency in my house too.
 
Finally got around to replacing my old LJ5100 that got bashed around in transit. A shiny new 13 year old LJ5200 arrived today, costing the princely sum of £270.

HP.jpg

The first thing that jumps out is that they are obviously not the original trays but they seem to work just fine.

I was younger than this printer when I first went to high school, but old HP's never die.

As an aside, ex-lease A4 models like the 4200 or 4350 go for peanuts on the secondhand market (often $100 or less) and cost about 1-2c/page to run. If you get a model ending in DN or DTN they have a duplexing unit and will print on both sides of the page. If they start jamming it's almost always going to be the rubber on the pickup rollers perishing and you can still get roller kits for them for $20-$50.

If you can live without colour, the per-page costs are about 1/10 of a colour laser and even less in relation to an inkjet.

On the down side, if I want to proof to U.S. letter on this side of the pond (which one may want to do if prepping for print) the paper is about 5x the cost of the equivalent in A4.
 
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Finally called the place I ordered my canvas from to see whats going on. Being that I ordered it a week ago. Was lied to and told it was on back order and just got in and will be shipping out today. Then a couple hours later got an email showing magically, it was finally shipped. It should be here Thursday.
 
I loved those DC comics. I followed the whole run from issue #1 to Issue #51 where no store in the area would carry the book anymore (the book continued on to #55 when Paramount caused it's cancellation and format changed). But Peter David was on the book at that point, and honestly I've never liked his Trek stuff much. I felt those last issues weren't very good.

The highlight of the DC run is the Mirror Mirror storyline which ran directly following Star Trek III. I think that storyline is issues #9 thru #16(?) or so.

DC would also use material from the FASA game. So Romulan Nova battleships show up in a couple of issues.
I haven't read any of the stack yet but I have 16 of the 18-issue Marvel series from 1980, so the crew is wearing their awful taupe and baby blue pajama uniforms throughout, and about 30 of the first DC volume, starting with #1 but then there's a gap until I think #13 or #16, and then most of the issues up to #55. I must have seen #1 before because the characters Bryce and Bearclaw seem very familiar to me. Could be I had some of them back then. The shop had a bunch of the second DC volume as well, but frankly the interior art looked substandard despite some good covers so I didn't get any of them. I'll have to keep an eye out for the FASA material when I get a chance to read the DC issues.

Right now I'm reading another from the stack of novels. Terrible cover, but the story is interesting and very Star Trekky so far.
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Three out of four kids sick with a fever. This is going to be a long day with lots of walking. On the plus side I should burn some calories and hatch some Pokemon eggs.
It's surprising how catchy "Up your butt with a coconut" by Perry Grip is.
 
Pretty happy at the moment. Had a good workout this morning, I get to run my home Savage Worlds game tonight with six of seven players attending, and I have a four-day weekend! (Friday & Sunday are my regular days off this week, I'm using a vacation day on Saturday, and Monday is the Presidents' Day holiday). :smile:
 
I took the day off for Valentine's Day, romantic that I am. We went for a meal in a Turkish Restaurant yesterday, in case the weather was rotten today. found that the toilet was leaking when flushed, last night, so phoned for a plumber to come out. Fortunately, I work for a company that sells plumbing insurance and have a free policy. Decided to get a TV guy out to look at the TV cables in our flat, as I could never get the ports in the bedroom to work. They came around at 1115 and 1215, so were all done by 1pm. Went into Walsall and had a coffee at Coffee Republic, well I had a hot chocolate, then went for a meal at a new buffet restaurant, then bought a new TV for our bedroom and spent a couple of hours setting it up.

So, not the Valentine's Day I was expecting, really, but still good, in its own way.
 
Taking vacation for the weekend, out on the coast with my cousin, her family, and my uncle and aunt. We got A nice little rental with bunks for all of the kids, and so did they. Good stuff, should be a nice time, though I would like to spend some of it tinkering with cyberpunk ;)
 
Taking vacation for the weekend, out on the coast with my cousin, her family, and my uncle and aunt. We got A nice little rental with bunks for all of the kids, and so did they. Good stuff, should be a nice time, though I would like to spend some of it tinkering with cyberpunk ;)
Whereabout?
 
Yesterday morning a friend took me to the comic book store,... -snip-
...Oh, and for some reason there was a table of 4 elderly Asian ladies playing Mahjong.

For some reason I find this to be the most intriguing part of your post. The denizens of every comic book, and game store, gaming area are pretty well standard types the world over. However, 4 elderly Asian ladies playing Mahjong, well that's something else entirely. I love people watching, and creating a whole back story in my mind when someone interesting catches my eye. I don't know how many NPC's have been introduced into my games over the years this way. If I ever run a cyberpunk game in the near future these ladies will somehow be worked into the game...
 
My wife is like this! Holy shit what do these people do to cables?!?
I'm generally very careful with cables, but I used to have an issue with phone cables where I would fumble for my phone while still half-asleep, forgetting the cord, then yank it towards me. The placement of the outlet means the cable would reach its limit before I got the phone to my face or ear, potentially doing damage to it.

I now have a wireless charger on my bedside table, which has solved the problem.
 
I'm generally very careful with cables, but I used to have an issue with phone cables where I would fumble for my phone while still half-asleep, forgetting the cord, then yank it towards me. The placement of the outlet means the cable would reach its limit before I got the phone to my face or ear, potentially doing damage to it.

I now have a wireless charger on my bedside table, which has solved the problem.

I bought my kid a 3 meter long cable but it didn't help. I was also recently informed that the cat has taken to chewing on phone charging cords; I expect that the cat resents it when the phone gets more attention.
 
I bought my kid a 3 meter long cable but it didn't help. I was also recently informed that the cat has taken to chewing on phone charging cords; I expect that the cat resents it when the phone gets more attention.
Micro USB cables are designed to be sacrificial. The plug bends before the socket in the expensive device is broken. I've lost count of the number of charger cables we've gone through due to our spawn wrenching tablets off the charger cables. USB-C is designed to be stronger.

The zen of micro-USB is to buy bulk packets of no-name cables off ebay for a few quid each and plan on there being some attrition. Usually the packets contain 3 cables but I've seen ones with as many as 10.


I've also seen ones where the plug is held onto the cable with a magnetic dohickey, so you pull the cable off without damaging the plug.
 
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My wife wants to move the Peleton into the back bedroom. Somehow that has transformed into cleaning out all storage spaces in the entire house before thAt can happen. It all sounds a little logical in pieces but wtf?!?;
 
long and somewhat personal post -

Been out at the coast with family. This is somewhat odd for me as normally it’s not all my family, but rather my wife’s family. This time it’s all my kin - cousin and her crew and my uncle and his wife.

there is a bit of melancholy here as I’m having conversations with my uncle I probably should have enjoyed with my dad. Not as much as you might think, because there are still some serious issues there, but it’s easy to see how a good chunk of how I am is genetic.

It is certainly easier to talk with my uncle than most folks. There are nuances about his way of speaking that are CLEARLY family traits. i Have no doubt my dad would have been there with us chatting away and exploring the topics and taking different sides and views.

back a good many years ago, my step mother and I got into a serious altercation that resulted in her taking some swings at me (unreturned, I was younger). I went to my father and informed him of this and he was quite skeptical of my story. He took no apparent action, he did not follow up with me, and His wife’s behavior did not change.

That episode pretty much left me in the position that I couldn’t rely on him to defend me against her outside of seeing first hand direct physical confrontation, and i wasn’t sure of that. frankly, I’m still not sure I could have - he was not a man to stand against his first wife (my mother) and she, while no saint and definitely willful, is nowhere near the tyrant that my step mother is.

so this ended up driving a wedge between us. I couldn’t have a reasonable relationship with him that didn’t involve her, and her behavior has not altered. Now that he is gone, I have no reason, and little desire to interact with her in any way. She, of course, is interested in having a relationship with her step grandson, but is unwilling to go about building any trust with me to make that happen. I doubt she even understands what would need to happen for me to allow this.

so here I am, somewhat ruing the lack of the relationship with my father, enjoying the one that I’m getting with my uncle (and no doubt he’s enjoying, as he lost his only son a decade or so back, very young), realizing there is nothing that will change those events Now, and pretty sure nothing would have changed them then.

A weird coincidence in all of this is that one of my best friends (maybe my best non-spousal friend) reminds me very strongly Of my uncle. If he and I are walking down the street, our shadows look like my dad and my uncle, our speech is similar, our discussions similar, even our roles in them are similar. So I suppose I can see my dad in myself to some extent.
 
Enjoy that relationship with your uncle before lamenting what you have lost. I’ve spent a good amount of time in my life looking backwards lamenting what I lost or didn’t do and not forwards and it didn’t do any good. It makes you an old person faster, if that makes sense.
 
It does, and I try not to spend to much time on the past. Dad’s gone and I can’t change any of that now. Wishing I could doesn’t make that happen. I’m happy I have my cousin around and we get along very well, though they are pretty different from us in many ways.
 
I had my first Colonoscopy last Friday.
I'm a culinary student, so not only was I unable to eat what I normally eat for Breakfast lunch and Dinner, I also couldn't taste the food I made in class all last week for the Prep.
It was Fry food week, Sauteing, Pan frying, Deep frying and roasting.
I'm so glad the nightmare is over.
 
I had my first Colonoscopy last Friday.
I'm a culinary student, so not only was I unable to eat what I normally eat for Breakfast lunch and Dinner, I also couldn't taste the food I made in class all last week for the Prep.
It was Fry food week, Sauteing, Pan frying, Deep frying and roasting.
I'm so glad the nightmare is over.
Welcome to the over 50 club!
 
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