Stir Crazy

[howeird]

So bored today. I was hoping to make another batch of pickles, but not with temps in the mid-80s. So I went to Starbucks and had a strawberry frap as a change of pace.  No eye candy at all, the place was mostly empty, despite the aircon. I guess this is a good sign, Starbucks at mid-afternoon tends to be more crowded when people are out of work.

Went back home, spent some quality time with Domino, who needed a brushing. Pumpkin magically landed on my arm as I was channel surfing. MSNBC looks like crap these days, it's embarrassing that they are mostly on my side. CNN, on the other hand, gets more professional looking every week, but their bias and coverage sucks lemons through a garden hose.

Cooked up some popcorn in the microwave, which confirmed my suspicions from the last couple of nights that the turntable motor was seeking Nirvana. The rock group, as well as the state of being, from the sound of it. This machine has lasted since 1997, so I went online and ordered a replacement. I think I got the wrong one, though. When it arrives next week I may need to return it. I think the one I have is 1.5 cu ft, the one I ordered is 1.2 cu ft. What fooled me is the manufacturer calls the smaller one "family size" and the larger one "full size". I had it backwards. No biggie, I'll deal with it when I get it.

The boredom got to me. One of the side effects of the lousy economy is there are fewer things being advertised on TV, and they mostly only have one ad, which is played ad nauseum for as long as you are on the same channel, or a channel owned by the same company. Used to be there were several different ads for each product, and you would only see a particular one once an hour. Also used to be illegal to advertise prescription drugs and attorneys. And car ads did not need speed-o-light disclaimer copy.

So here I am at Borders' back room coffee shop, which is beautifully air conditioned, well lighted, and full of eye candy. Just for grins, I pulled up the Furball Hall Cam and checked in on the cats. They were both asleep on the couch. Typical. One of the nice things about my apartment is the downstairs is in the shade until late afternoon, and stays cooler than outside. Upstairs not so much. Yesterday I turned off the thermostat and shut off the gas to the furnace. That helped a bit, too.

This morning I took apart the livingroom lamp and replaced the 1-way light socket with a 3-way. It didn't make a difference, the bulb still acte like it was in a 1-way socket. Boo, hiss. Next step is to put the 150W non-daylight lamp back in and get some actual light in there, green tint that it may be.

Tried sanding the glue off the dashboard, but mostly did not make much of an impact. It did get rid of the distracting shine, though.

Got a call from my cardiologist's office, and will pick up the video of my heart probe tomorrow. Will put it on YouTube if it is more than just a blur.

I did take the first step in the pickling process - put the jars and lids in the dishwasher. I have 20 cucumbers in the fridge - one of my favorite veggie markets had pickling cukes on sale for 49 cents a pound, which is way cheap.

My cousin Brian in the UK is running for town council for Bourne End (in Wycombe) - the election was today, and votes are counted tomorrow at, appropriately, the Sports Centre. I like to think of Brian as what I would have become had I managed to actually marry the cute little red-headed girl from grade school and settled down. Not that I regret my checkered past, more that it is kind of like having a parallel universe across the Atlantic in which someone a lot like me is living my alternate history. I should write that book.

Interesting. One diff between Borders and Starbucks is Starbucks tends to attract women in need of day care help, job interviews, and Type A personalities who make it their office. Borders has little of that, but instead has several people using it as a tutoring center.

Plans for tomorrow:
Pick up the CD from cardiology
Think seriously about making pickles
Get ready for my weekend train trip.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I was intrigued by the lamp problem, which made very little sense to me, having rewired a few lamps in my time. A google search found a possible explanation. http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/wiring/msg0310031528392.html?6

Drat those cheap defective imports. That's what happens when we exploit cheap foreign labor and bust unions.

[howeird]

Thanks, but I failed to mention in this post (I mentioned it in an earlier one) that the bulb is not an incandescent. There are no filaments.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

If the bulb you're using is a 3-way fluorescent, I believe the contacts work the same way, but the unit actually contains 3 fluorecents in one rather than 3 incandescent filaments. The article says the problems are in the contacts in the chinese sockets not being manufactured correctly. So, are you trying to use a 3-way fluoresenct with a standard socket, and was the socket made in China?

[howeird]

That actually turned out to be a clue. Because of the placement of the screws which hold down the lamp shade, I was using an extension between the bulb and the socket which essentially made it a single contact. When I tried to put the bulb in without the extension it broke, but I had a standard 3-way fluorescent which worked just fine as a 3-way without the extension.