dreamshark

Every few years a microwave dies suddenly on our kitchen counter and we are amazed to discover that we no longer know how to get through a single day without one. So we go to Costco and buy their model du jour (there is rarely more than one). According to my notes, the last two were Magic Chef, which is actually a pretty terrible brand. The first one broke within 2 years and we forgot that we never really liked it and bought ANOTHER Magic Chef. That one cost only $65 dollars and we kind of hated it, but it managed to survive for 9 years. Well, on Wednesday it finally transitioned to the Great Beyond (i.e., the alley by the garbage dumpsters) and off we went to Costco again.

This time there were no dumpy white Magic Chefs in sight, just a sleek black Panasonic Inverter Microwave. I'm pretty sure that it is a much better appliance than the last two, but HOLY SHIT, is it complicated!! The front panel is nicely designed and deceptively simple, but that's because every button on it has multiple uses or cycles through a long list of cryptic settings. The instruction booklet is 20 pages long!!

I guess I didn't HAVE to RTFM. I could have just used the 30-second / START button combination that is the only thing I ever did with the old one. But I was curious about the Sensor Cook and Sensor Reheat buttons, and about what makes an Inverter Microwave different from a regular one. Well, the manual is long, but amazingly uninformative. The only thing it was really good for was explaining how to set the clock and turn off the F-ing Child Safety Locks (one of which is SET BY DEFAULT, the other of which is very easy to set accidentally). But I had to turn to the Internet to figure out what Inverter Technology actually is and why I was getting no satisfaction from Sensor Reheat.

But now that I have the child locks disabled and figured out that Sensor Reheat will never work if you follow the suggestion in the manual and cover your food with a casserole lid, I think I'm going to like this thing. If nothing else, it is a lot easier to get the glass turntable settled in place than on the old microwave.

What settings do you use on your microwave? Have you ever tried Sensor Reheat?

Like most Americans, I have drawers, boxes, shelves and other respositories full of stuff I haven't used for years. In many cases decades. I oscillate between shame at my inability to throw these things out (as decluttering experts are always declaring we should do) and being glad I kept it.

Today is one of the happy days in the second category. I've been trying to come up with DIY embellishments for my scrapbook pages, mostly disappointed at the commercially available packs and products aimed at scrapbookers (who are evidently an incredible goldmine of mindless spending for the folks who are making their living riding the back of this trend). I admit that I have been sucked into that commercial whirlpool and have spent some $$ on tools and materials. But before I went out and bought another little baggie of disappointingly crude "embellishments" or an expensive decorative punch It occurred to me to take a look at the residue of some of my abandoned hobbies.

Well, look what I found in my box of old bento box supplies! Decorative punches for making little dots and starbursts out of sheets of dried seaweed! Yahoo!

And then, of course, there's that scary drawer full of random sewing and jewelry making embellishments, including at least a few things that are 2-dimensional enough to glue to a scrapbook page. Whee!

Starbursts and colored dots are always fun, but I'm still looking for decorations for the travel pages. I actually bought a little pack of those (only $3 at Joanns!) but found only a few of them usable - mostly they are clumsily drawn clipart of over-sized cameras and open suitcases in weird candy colors. Anybody have any ideas? Or some old magazines or travel brochures with small pictures that could be cut out and pasted to cardstock?

So after I finished moving the comics cabinet so I could get to the outlet and then replacing everything, I inexplicably ended up with one box of comics that didn't fit. It's not just that there wasn't a space on the shelves for it, the box itself was an inch or two too long to fit in the shelving unit. So... where did it come from? It was labeled "Vertigo," and did in fact contain some Vertigo comics, but mostly not. About 1/3 of the box was a nearly complete run of PS238, a delightful comic about an elementary school version of Professor X's school for mutants, which of course I sat down and started reading. Then I leafed through the rest of the box and just reflexively started sorting them into DC, Marvel, and Other. Some of the comics were completely new to me, but of course most of them were just handfuls of issues that had gotten separated from their siblings. I knew right where some of them should go, of course. But in most cases I just knew that there was a run of, say, "Hawk and Dove" somewhere, if only I could find it. So I started pulling down boxes with cryptic labels like "Underground and SF" and "Short DC series, Bronze Age." While I was at it, I started looking for comics that might be suitable for Lena and moving them to the box with the PS238s. As more boxes came out I started finding more early issues for comics that are now old enough that they might be worth something, so I got out the comic supplies and started doing a little bagging and boarding.

So now there are boxes ALL OVER THE SEWING ROOM. And a small stack of comics that I think I'll read before I put them away, like that Free Comic Book Day issue of The Umbrella Academy. And the 12-cent Lois Lane that purports to explain how Lois went from hating Superman to loving him (that one features a cover with Superman running a kissing booth at a local carnival and Lois ripping up her tickets to said kissing booth, because those Silver Age Superman comics were nothing but classy from cover to cover).

I have mostly been concentrating on getting rid of stuff, but occasionally I get sucked into the vortex of unwanted goods and emerge with some new things for myself. I drove out to the western suburbs this morning to pick up a cute little 4-cup coffee maker that I really need for Amber's visits. Usually I'm the only one drinking coffee, so I just use a pour-over filter, but that gets awkward when Amber and Olin want coffee too. Anyway, on my way to that pickup I stopped at a couple of yard sales and look what I found!

Another bucket set of wooden trains to add to my collection! It's not the highest quality and a few pieces are missing, but more is better when it comes to chuggy trains.

All by itself, this is kind of a crappy set. There aren't even enough pieces to make a decent connected track (even if the two missing pieces were here). I found reviews of this set online and one of the complaints was that it was not possible to make the layout shown on the front of the bucket with the pieces provided, which is pretty shoddy packaging. And even though it SAYS that the pieces are double-sided, most of them are not! However, every set, no matter how cheap, has some special qualities. This one gives me 2 pieces that I did not have; that little blue bridge piece in the back (which is not actually in bridge mode in this setup because one of the risers is missing, but is still a nice piece). And.. those two switch pieces in the front. Yes, my other sets came with the usual Y-shaped switches, but these are different, with one flat side and one curved. That lets you make the very cool hanging inner circle designs. So I'm happy with it.

Oh, and see that little silver lamp peeking over the top of the mountaintop box? The one that looks like the star of the Pixar opening credits? I got that for $1 and it is EXACTLY what I needed to illuminate my keyboard when I'm typing in the dark. Also, I got a dorm fridge to replace the one in the attic that keeps blowing the circuit breaker. So... win win win!

And yes, I did finally finish the exhausting Comix Cabinet project. Which was briefly satisfying, although the only obvious outward improvement is that I am no longer tripping over a long, heavy extension cord on my way to the bedroom. It's a little like getting a roof replaced - it needs to be done, but your house doesn't really seem any different afterwards (except maybe when it's actually raining, if the roof was in that bad a shape).

This is the one I've been putting off for literally years where I move this comics cupboard so I can get to the outlet hidden behind it. The power strip that was plugged in there burned out, so the only way I can plug in my iron and vacuum cleaner is via a 15-foot extension cord into the bedroom.

Simple in concept, right? But there are SO MANY STEPS. Starting with moving 36 boxes of comics out of the cupboard so that it is possible to move it. Just touching this thing dislodged a stack of old rolled up posters cleverly stored out of sight on top, which unleashed 35 years worth of fluffy dust that had to be vacuumed up, using a vacuum cleaner plugged into that aforementioned extension cord. This cupboard is 7 feet high and solid oak, so even empty it is not easy to move. To make it even trickier, it was sitting on an isolated rectangle of ancient shag carpeting. Because, y'know, when I removed the rest of the carpeting 20 or 30 years ago I wasn't about to move this damn thing so I just cut around it. We actually managed to slide the cupboard off the carpet and onto the floor without capsizing, whereupon I could finally see whether the outlet still worked or if it blew out back when the power strip did. Along the way I had found a second dead power strip curled up on the floor, so I was a little concerned about that.

Halleluiah! The outlet works just fine! And it's closer to the edge of the cupboard than I realized - I don't need the 9 foot heavy duty extension cord with flat plug that I bought to plug in back there. So maybe I'll go to the hardware store and buy a shorter extension cord with a flat plug. But first... sigh I guess I should tear up that piece of hideous gold and brown shag carpet. That means finding gloves, a utility knife, and a nail puller...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ETA 4 hours later. Pulling up the carpet was easier than I expected, but involved several more rounds of vacuuming, emptying the little vacuum bag, and unplugging the hose. The thin backing board was pulling loose at the bottom because a bunch of the nails had fallen out. I picked up the ones I could see and pounded them back in, and sent Richard off to find more nails. Okay, now the backing is on tight. Yay! And I found the missing shelf support that had come loose and fallen through the loose backing board. Yay again!

BUT! One of the heavy leg pieces on one side has partially caved in sideways, further endangering the stability of a cupboard that is meant to be leaning on a wall, not free standing. I had the guys hold the cabinet while I whacked it into position with a rubber mallet, but when Richard and I tried to move it, the leg started to cave in again. Well, fuck. The three of us can probably contrive to move the piece straight back so we don't dislodge the leg, but two of us can't move it without wiggling it back and forth, which turns out to be a bad idea. And of course Thorin picked this exact moment to go for a walk.

ETA: 10pm. OKAY! Cabinet is back in place, powerstrip affixed to the side, plugged in and working! Tomorrow I still have to put the shelves and comics back in, but I can do that myself. Now we're going to check out the new Sandman series.

I've been using BuyNothing and FreeCycle to give away items we no longer want. Of the 15 items I have listed, about half were easily and successfully gifted, with recipient showing up and taking the item approximately when they said they would (give or take 24 hours). Two items attracted no interest. The rest of them have been a PITA. People express great enthusiasm, promise to show up at a specific time, then just disappear. No pickup, no response to further messages. Or they don't pick up but claim to still be really excited about the item when I message them and keep rescheduling their pickups but somehow just never manage to show up. Then I have to guess when they have finally lost interest and list the item on the other platform. Oddly enough, that has worked more often than not, but doubles the effort.

One woman failed to pick up as promised on multiple items and then had the chutzpa to message me asking for a group picture of all the items I was giving away so she could browse through them and pick out what she wanted! This was interspersed with various messages from her explaining that she hadn't shown up because she had lent her car to her sister for the week or something about her husband bicycling to work (which was maybe an explanation why she didn't have a car that day???). That one was a piece of work. She never actually took anything.

And in the last two days I have had respondents who wanted the item, asked for my address, promised to pick up the next day, and then emailed something to the effect of "I'm sitting in front of your house but can't go up stairs so someone will have to bring it down to me." Mind you, I would have been willing to do that if these ladies had let me know in advance when they were coming (something more specific than "maybe tomorrow."). In one case the woman in question managed to inveigle a handy passerby into going up the stairs and knocking on the door; Richard answered and brought her the garlic roaster. The other one just sent an email saying "On my way. BTW, I'm in a wheelchair and can't go up stairs." Maybe she showed up or maybe she didn't. I don't know. When I saw the email I took her item down to the sidewalk and left it there all afternoon but she neither picked it up nor responded to my query afterwards. I'm offering it to someone else. Screw you, sweet old biddy in wheelchair.

I need to have a project or two in motion, and this year's master project is Getting Rid of Stuff. This also crosses over into sorting and keeping, a little bit of fixing and finishing, and sporadic episodes of deep cleaning. But some of that is really hard, so I don't really get through a lot of the side projects I start. The easiest source of instant gratification is giving away stuff that I don't want but hate to just throw away.

Periodically people recommend the Facebook Buy Nothing group to me, but I do not do Facebook, so... nope. But I just discovered that BN has branched out into a standalone phone app that works surprisingly well. You just take a picture of the offending object with your phone and quickly post it to the local group - no messing around with uploading the picture to the computer like I do with Freecycle. Just photograph and post, boom! Trying to navigate the responses is a bit challenging - I keep getting "comments" mixed up with "private messages" and have not found any way to display the full thread of both PMs and comments in one place - but I'm starting to get the hang of it. There are the usual annoyances of people who REALLY REALLY WANT the listed item and then can't be persuaded to come and pick it up off the front steps. But... in the past 2 weeks I have rehomed the following impressive list of household detritus:

A big brown wool blanket
A 1970's vintage home yogurt maker with a couple of pieces missing [perhaps the most surprising success]
A multi-colored spinning party ball [the most popular item so far]
A small Star Wars lamp that allegedly resembled R2D2, presumably for a child's room
Six matching plastic storage containers for nuts, cereal, grains, beans, etc.
A handful of canning jars
2 40-year-old books on bike repair
A small aquarium heater, never used

Still in process: a swirly-patterned glass serving plate and a Wok stand that had gotten separated from its wok

TODAY'S LISTINGS

a stainless steel replacement coffee pot for a 12-cup coffee maker
a mini-food processor that I got at a yard sale for $3 15 years ago and used 3 times
a small covered dish for roasting garlic cloves

If anybody local is interested in the new listings, let me know.

This is not exactly a NEW project, just one that I keep going back to when I need opportunities for some small sense of accomplishment. First, of course, I have to make a list so I have something to check off. Then I have to update my voluminous notes files. I have a lot of notes on how to get rid of stuff, which probably tells you how often I start and restart this same project. Then comes the not so fun part, pulling things out of closets and back rooms and garages, vacuuming off the dust, and sorting it into boxes. Then matching it up with the notes. Is this:

Something that somebody else might conceivably want?
Recyclable trash?
Ordinary trash?
Hazardous waste?

Today was Hazardous Waste Day #2. You'd be surprise how many things turn out to be Hazardous Waste. Old landline telephones, for instance. NOBODY wants them, even electronic recycling places. I found one electronics recycler online (Techdump, not recommended) that would take them (reluctantly) for a purportedly small fee ($.50/lb). But it was a bait and switch - when I got there they wanted $10 PER PHONE, and I had a box of 5 or 6. So I drove to the nearest Hennepin County Hazardous Waste Dropoff facility, which was Brooklyn Park because I was already way the hell up in the northwest corner of the metro, and they took them for free. Once I got there, it was quick and easy - no line at all. And kind of attractively located in the midst of a pretty patch of prairie, so that was nice.

But that was actually Hazardous Waste Day #1, a week ago. Today I was focused on the most dire of all hazardous household waste, fluorescent light bulbs. There was a box of 4-foot fluorescent tubes in the garage when we bought the house 35 years ago, and today I finally got rid of them, along with 2 or 3 burned out Compact Fluorescents (CFLs). BTW, did you know that you can't throw CFLs in the trash because they contain mercury? Somehow that aspect is rarely mentioned when eco-activists are urging you to replace all your lightbulbs with CFLs. Even LED bulbs have something sinister in them and are supposed to be recycled as hazardous waste. Just in case you didn't know. Anyway, the amazingly accommodating Minneapolis Residential Recycling Program (which takes old CRT TV sets!) will not take them. And not even the South Transfer Station (which takes tires!). So it's off to the Hazardous Waste Depot with the light bulbs.

I also dumped about 5 lbs of old alkaline and lithium batteries, 2 swollen phone battery cases that had semi-exploded when the batteries wore out and were probably a fire danger, 3 expired fire extinguishers (sadly no longer in condition to put out the potential battery fires, which fortunately didn't occur), and a box of random cans of toxic substances from the garage.

The Bloomington site is much closer to my house than the Brooklyn Center one, but OMG the traffic! It wasn't even 3pm, but southbound 35W was already impassible. Note to self: try to get out of the house before noon on the next trip. Anyway, that's done.

It's an HP D110 Photosmart printer, about 10 years old. Print/scan/copy all in one. It prints fine (for a 10-year-old inkjet printer) but the paper feed is balky. The great thing about it is that it fits on a 10" deep shelf. Paper loads from the front, which is what you want for a shelf printer.

It works fine as a scanner (8.5" x 11") even if you don't want to use it as a printer.

Free for the asking. If nobody here wants it I'll try Freecycle and then FreeGeek.

Taking advantage of the spring cleaning urge by tackling my closets, looking for stuff to donate to Goodwill. I managed to fill a couple of medium sized boxes with decent donatable clothing and two grocery bags with rags and throwaways. According to The Internet, larger thrift stores don't mind getting rags - they actually have avenues to recycle them that ordinary folk have no access to. At least ever since the old Rag Stock went hipster upscale and stopped taking donations of rags. Anybody else remember when it was called The Rag Factory?

I also unearthed a surprising number of perfectly wearable, surprisingly nice looking pieces of clothing that had just gotten log-jammed in the back. Now I'm in the middle of a project to add pockets to as many skirts and dresses as possible, which is also a nice way to use up scraps of fabric. Know what makes really good pockets? Old pillow cases and sheets.

At Richard's suggestion I expanded my throwaway projects outside and got rid of the 4 tires that some asshole had dumped behind our garage. Man, is it a lot of work to dispose of tires!!! In keeping with its general policy of offering superb garbage and recycling services, Minneapolis does have a way to do this for free, but it's a multi-step, time-consuming process. It's actually harder to get rid of tires than hazardous waste. If anybody ever discovers a cheap, easy way to recycle rubber, the planet will breathe a sigh of relief.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/484166.html

So, we went to the North Shore and ended up spending a lot of time sorting rocks on the beaches looking for agates. We found some that MIGHT be agates, but even if they aren't they have lots of interesting colors and patterns. Dug out our old rock tumbler (a 1970's model with obscure origins - probably found at a yard sale years ago). It seemed to work, so we invested in some new coarse grit. After 5 days it was still working, so I ordered some medium grit from Amazon. The next day the motor started making the kinds of noises cars make when they are thinking of throwing a rod, and intermittently stopping and starting. Oh oh. I think it's toast, and certainly not worth fixing. But new ones are expensive. Does anybody have an old one gathering dust in basement or attic that they would be willing to part with?

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/475131.html

I called the Mpls Solid Waste number and after a couple of runs around a voice mail loop got someone who told me to just put it out with the garbage labeled "solid waste." Yay for Minneapolis and their stellar waste collection services!!

So Richard and Thorin rolled it up and tied it with a couple of ropes and then all three of us heaved it out the back window. Yow! As Lydy warned, that thing is freaking HEAVY. The guys seem to think that they can wrestle it to the alley without me, so I'm letting them work on it.

Meanwhile, the wooden water bed platform has some drying out to do. Turns out it was leaking in more places than we realized and there is a lot of wet wood. Fortunately, the platform seems to be made of extremely good quality plywood and shows no sign of splitting or rotting. I hope there's a new liner in that waterbed mattress box, as the old one was pretty much done for and is rolled up along with the mattress.

ETA: I knew that was too easy. When I opened up the box with the new waterbed it did NOT contain a liner. I double-checked the invoice, and it definitely listed a liner as part of the purchase. Called the store. Apparently a miscommunication of some sort - he seemed to think that I had decided to get the "value package" without the liner after he had already typed up the invoice or some such thing. That wasn't my understanding. And I didn't feel like another 50 mile round-trip drive to pick up the liner. So he agreed to "send it down on the truck," which would get it here tomorrow. But then he called back and said the truck had left already so it won't arrive until Thursday. *sigh* So two more nights in the guest room. At least that will give the plywood time to dry out thoroughly.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/473087.html

So far so good. Following tips from seekerval (LJ only) and

lydy , we trekked to the far NW suburb of Anoka and purchased a replacement waterbed mattress. There was, guess what, construction on Hwy 169, but other than that it was a pretty easy trip. But by the time we got home it seemed too late to start a major project so we both slept in alternative locations for yet another night. Today we stripped the old waterbed, ran a hose through the window, and started draining it. I vaguely remember last time we did this trying to pour water from a pitcher into the end of the hose to get the air out (WTF?). This time we turned the hose on long enough to fill it with water. Duh. What were we thinking? Anyway, working fine so far - hose is currently watering the highly invasive buckthorn hedge.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/472634.html

I don't know how old our current waterbed is, but I'm pretty sure it's over 30 years. We bought it either when we moved from Toonerville to Dream Park or when we swapped bedrooms with the kids, so 1985 or 1988. So if it is finally worn out, it's hard to grumble about the quality. There have been small leaks over the years, but fairly easily mended without having to drain the bed. But now those old repairs seem to be springing new leaks and our attempts to fix them with more glue and patches just isn't working. It's barely possible that the third attempt today will hold water, but I have little hope. So now what? Can you even buy waterbeds any more?

In the meantime, I'm sleeping in Amber's Room (aka, the Guest Room, the Sewing Room, the Laundry Room) and Richard is sleeping in the big chair downstairs. Sub-optimal.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/472369.html

I am working on Dave's estate. The two items of value that I have promised to sell for the family are his condo (corner of Nicollet and Lake) and his car. We're still working on the paperwork to probate the estate, so the vehicle will probably not be available for purchase until sometime after New Years. However, if you are thinking of buying a nice used car sometime in the next couple of months, keep this one in mind.

I have no intention of spending a lot of time on this - I hate selling things on Craigslist. If I can't sell it easily to someone I know I am just going to sell it to a dealer for whatever they will offer. So if you are willing and able to pay at least as much as that, you can have it. The ballpark value seems to be somewhere between $10K and $16K, based on a quick Internet check.

It's a 2012 Camry SE 4-door sedan with about $3600 of options. I haven't actually checked the mileage yet, but it is ridiculously low (probably in the 10-20K range) and the car has been garaged its whole life. Dave didn't drive much and when anything was wrong he had it fixed right away, so it should be in great shape.

Contact me if you want to know more.

--- Sharon Kahn

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/464474.html

Leaving on our first road trip of the year TOMORROW (driving to Oregon!). The van is all cleaned out, the oil changed, the magic van seats reconfigured, and I'm well on the way to being packed. But I am inconsolable because I can't find my National Parks Passport Book! Last year I traversed South Dakota (twice!) and got stamps for everything from the Badlands to Devil's Tower. This time we're going through North Dakota for a change, and I won't be able to get my book stamped for the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Waaahhh!

What really makes me a poster child for First World Problems is the astonishing number of places that passport might have been, but wasn't. Is it in this box labeled Travel? This bag of Laura Ingalls Wilder souvenir booklets? This file drawer full of maps? This pile with the Roadside America books? This other pile on the little table by the stairs? One of the pockets of my bike luggage? Maybe it's with that favorite scarf I haven't seen since Minicon. I did unpack after we came home from Minicon, didn't I?

Crossposts: http://dreamshark.livejournal.com/457834.html

Thanks so much to

quility and Terry (not on DW/LJ?) for their help with my degenerating phone charging cases. Terry kindly brought along an impressive box of soldering equipment to last Friday's game party and swapped the new battery from the defective case into the old case with the dead or dying battery. When I slipped my phone into the rehabilitated case the phone took a charge. Yay! That's the first step.

The next question - would the case recharge when plugged into a USB cable? Early attempts were not successful - the light on the charging button just kept blinking red for hours. Having nothing else to lose, I got aggressive -- grinding my finger down on the charging button, bending the case in various ways. My hope was that I was somehow improving the connection between internal components.

Unlikely as it may seem, this seemed to work. After a brief interval of steady red light, the LED went back to blinking red. But the next morning it was green! Unexpectedly, the poor old case had started charging again. Still remains to be seen if it will take a charge a second time, but right now it is charging up my phone. Thanks, Terry!

Crossposts: http://dreamshark.livejournal.com/450691.html

I have a broken iPhone charging case with a good battery in it, and an identical (but not broken) case with a worn out battery. I took both cases apart, hoping I could swap the practically new battery into the old case. Unfortunately, the battery doesn't just plug in: it needs two itsy-bitsy little wires to be soldered. It looks like something that would take about 5 minutes for someone who has a soldering iron handy and knows how to do it properly, but that's not me. Any volunteers?

Crossposts: http://dreamshark.livejournal.com/449717.html

Working on cleaning the attic (which I still think I'm going to renovate before the end of the year). Started by getting rid of my lifetime supply of vintage computers, which Thorin kindly hauled downstairs for me and stashed in the van. I then drove them over to FreeGeek Twin Cities, over in the industrial end of Seward Neighborhood. I strongly recommend this option if you have old electronics, cameras, cables, chargers, and even small appliances to get rid of. I think I gave them 6 computers, and put the 7th (an iMac with embedded CRT) out in the alley for the City of Minneapolis to take care of. FreeGeek charges $5 for CRTs, but the city takes them for free.

While I was over there I also made a purchase - a sturdy old Hitachi receiver/amplifier/tuner, which I connected to my computer to drive the speakers that have been hanging on my walls since the last old amp died. I think it sounds better than the mid-range powered computer speakers I was using.

Even without the rest of the features, it really is a hell of a watch. It works fine right out of the box, but it is definitely worth taking the time to customize the available watch faces. Besides the time, widgets include date, calendar, moon phase, sunrise/sunset, weather, fitness summary, alarm, timer, stopwatch, battery life, world clock and stocks. You can also customize colors and in some cases the graphics. So I managed to spend at least 3 hours yesterday customizing the 10 watch faces currently available (you can switch between them fairly easily).

MOST USEFUL: Modular, Simple, Utility. With these 3 I have every "complexity" (a technical watch term) I am likely to want.

CUTEST. That has to be one of the animated faces. Mickey is not only cute, but usable. The Motion faces are visually impressive, giving you a choice of wobbling jellyfish, blooming flowers, or flapping butterflies, but thoroughly impractical. Not only are there no extra widgets available here, too many of the animations are basically white, making it hard to read the time (which often overlaps the animations). Mickey is pretty cool, though. In lieu of a second hand, he taps his foot once per second.

MOST PERPLEXING. The Astronomy face is lovely, and you can play with it. But I'm not sure what the point of it is. The lower left corner shows an animation of the moon changing phases. It does not, however, show you what the current phase is. If you click on the icon in the lower right corner you get a top down view of current planetary positions in the solar system. This might be useful to some people, but not to very many. Oh, I see. Once you select the moon or planet view you can turn the watch stem to see the phases change or the planets move, with a popup telling you how many days you have progressed. Okay, that's pretty cool. But not something I'll need very often. The second face below is called "Solar" and is even weirder. It shows the sun's current position in the sky. Turning the stem moves the sun backwards towards dawn or forwards towards sunset, with a popup telling you how many hours you have moved. Oooookay. The 3rd one, "Chronograph" is so impossibly complex that I have yet to figure out what all the little dials are for. It kind of makes my head hurt just to look at it. I may just delete that one from the progression.

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dreamshark

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Style: Ivory Alcea for Mobility by branchandroot
Resources: Mitsuba Aoi

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Entries tagged with stuff

When did microwave ovens get so complicated??

Repurposing old hobbies

Again, one thing leads to another

Achievements!

Ridiculous Project underway

Why is it so hard to give things away???

Buy Nothing Rules! The quest to divest continues

My new project: getting rid of stuff

Anybody want my old Printer?

Posting from the back of my closet

Anyone have an old rock tumbler?

Waterbed Defenestrated

Waterbed Drama Continues

Waterbed Woes

There will be a car for sale soon - 2012 Toyota Camry

First World Problems

Soldering worked, cautiously optimistic about the rest

Do I know anybody who likes to solder?

Yay for FreeGeek

Getting to know my watch (face first)

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