Today I took a nice little outing to an antique mall in a nearby town. There, I found a pen I've been looking for for many years: a vintage Parker "51" pen. While this specific specimen is the "special" variety (a cheaper version of the same pen at it's introduction,) it's no less exactly the pen I've been after.
Needless to say, $10 later, and I'm the proud owner of a circa-1960 Parker "51" Special, in the Forest Green colorway, in fully working order.
Today I repaired my Razer mouse. It wasn't a very long or complex process, but I figured I'd at least document it here. Over the past few weeks, whenever I had the mousewheel in "freewheeling" mode, there was a pronounced ticking noise being generated by it, even though it should be smooth and basically silent.
I realized that there was some debris trapped in the freewheel mechanism, and in order to remove it I'd have to entirely disassemble the mouse. As usual, the four screws holding the mouse closed were under the skates (the teflon/PTFE pads on the underside) requiring that they be removed in order to take the mouse apart. This is the worst place that a manufacturer can place these screws. This mouse has a magnetic palm rest that would have sufficiently hidden them, so placing them under a consumable part that must be replaced when removed is just silly.
After finally getting the two halves unscrewed from each other, I was able to get to the wheel mechanism. This is a single block that's designed to be removed and replaced in it's entirety - not that they expect you to ever do so, given the construction. The mousewheel is set into a frame, with the encoder mounted around it's shaft before it's inserted, but then the encoder gets glued into place on the housing. I found that the encoder glue is completely unnecessary because there is a positive attachment mechanism in the form of a small plastic hook underneath that clips onto the encoder. Once the glue was defeated, the entire mousewheel and encoder could be snapped up out of the housing and freed.
Finally, after removing the mousewheel, the debris (a small wood chip, likely from one of my many projects) fell out into my hand. The reassembly process was only slightly more complex than disassembly, as I didn't realize there's a small slot for the encoder to fit into before snapping the mousewheel back down into the little housing. After figuring this out, it went very quickly, and the mouse is back to working shape. A quick Amazon order bought me a new set of mouse skates (better than the original even,) and we're back in business!
All this to say right-to-repair is great and I love not spending a hundred bucks all over again to repair a 50¢ part.
Today I said something that I'm rather proud of, and I'd like to share it here.
You are a human being; a chemical-reaction-powered flesh mech being piloted by the most complex meat-and-fat computer we've ever discovered. Sometimes wires get crossed in construction and that makes every single human different. We're not stamped out in a press, we're organic beings grown from two cells. Give yourself a break.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Today, I've finally started putting real time into work. Around five hours today, almost eight hours yesterday. I'm happy about this, as I have pretty bad ADHD and working for more than just a couple hours at a time (or even per day) is really quite difficult for me. I'm proud of myself. :)
Well, today I heard that Discord has decided it wants to die like Tumblr did years ago. They've implemented AI age verification for all users in all countries. I'm all for keeping the kiddos out of places they shouldn't be, but this is getting to be too much. If this goes through, I'll be deleting my account on Discord. If you have me on Discord, please be so kind as to add me elsewhere on my contacts. Shame on you, Discord.
Today is a better day. The depression is still there, but it's a bit more muted today. Breakfast consisted of pizza and youtube, which is always good for my mood (mmm, tasty). I think I'll see how much real work I can do today. Money is also good for my mood!
I hate that I feel the need to talk about this, but it's important so I guess I will. I'm depressed. I take antidepressants, but the often just don't quite cut it, and recently it's become a problem. It's the one thing I wish I could just... turn off about myself. I can't stand that I constantly feel like a failure or that the fact that everything just feels kinda bleh. It's causing me to have trouble with work, trouble with personal projects, and I'm sure it's what's causing my trouble with my memory. Oh hey, alarm just went off as I type this. Time for my meds.
I'm really fine, I guess. I don't have "SI" or any of the other more severe symptoms, and I feel like talking rather than hiding it, so that's positive. I guess what I really need is to get my thoughts out somewhere that's actually productive. Eventually I'll get up the nerve to go to a therapist, but for now I'll stick to airing out some thoughts here where it's just me and a keyboard. And anyone who reads it, I guess. Heh.<
Getting started setting up a silly little pure-html5 blog here on envs. Still a work-in-progress, but I'm planning on putting my more rambly, stream-of-conciousness content here rather than on Mastodon.