Old Folks Day
I had a little excursion today.
I had been [deliberately] putting it off for some weeks but yesterday it became more important.
Yesterday I was testing a plug-in hard drive which had been behaving somewhat oddly [it kept disconnecting itself and reconnecting again which was really fucking irritating. I had to replace it.
Now the bulk of the stuff I had to get [and had been putting off] was stuff for the Hell Hole Back Room. There was paint, a reel of satellite cable plus connectors, a bedside lamp and a can of anti-mould stuff. I knew that lot would be expensive but today is Old Folks day when they knock 10% off everything.
Now I obviously had to go to two separate shops so rather than having to drive all over the county and hassle with parking and the like, I picked a centre where there is a computer shop and a hardware side by side. The trouble is that that meant a trip to the suburbs of Dublin.
The drive wasn’t too bad and I only had one near miss [a fucker behind me didn’t realise the lights had changed. Luckily his breaks were good and he stopped a hair’s breadth from my rear end].
So I’m back now laden with stuff which is counteracted by a lighter bank balance. I’m knackered but that is explained by the hardware crowd who never keep anything in a logical place. Satellite cable? No sweat – I found it amongst the reels of cable. Plugs for the satellite cable? Half a fucking mile away in a different section. It may have been less than that but it felt like it especially after my attempts to find anti-mould paint
Now I have to find out how to remove a satellite remote control from a heavy duty plastic bubble that defies even a carpet knife.
Can opener might do the trick with the plastic bubble.
Aren’t these REALLY annoying?
I must try that. That’s a great tip. Those plastic packs are a menace as they never cut clean. Once you get it started, after risking life and limb, the cut veers all over the place. Nasty things.
I always find they cut VERY clean – in fingers!
“Who never keep anything in a logical place”
Takes me back to my telecom days – everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) was allocated a number in the “Rate Book”. Fine, but this was arranged alphabetically, in order of the TYPE of item. So Bog paper (Izal, by the way) would be in the same section as a sheet of carbon typing paper*. If you wanted to smooth some metal, all the files were in order of length and type, which wasn’t how most workshop people would know them. Asking for a long, half-round file would get you funny looks from the storeman – but if you asked for a “File, 12″, Half Round”, then no problem…
* I wonder how many of your followers are old enough to remember what that is?
I remember it well: filthy messy stuff: but then I also remember Roneo & Gestetner duplicators for which a typist typed on a waxy stencil, making little holes in it. This was then affixed to said contraption and the handle cranked like mad to produce the required number of copies. Today’s office juniors just put a number on a computer screen then pick ’em up from the office laser printer.
PS
Yes, I’m a verified antique: I’m even marginally older than our highly esteemed host!
My junior school had a Roneo & Gestetner duplicator. I also remember one episode of the US show “NCIS” had a plot line where a cyber attack caused a major power outage. Naturally the younger “Geeks” had no idea what to do when their screens & mobile phones went blank, but Jethro Gibbs (well known for not trusting modern tech) dug out his old Gestetner and showed the astonished crew how to use it.
My end of term exams were all “printed” on Gestetners. Half the time they were illegible!
My memory was that the first few copies were invariably over inked, and splodgy*, but after [maybe] a dozen or so they faded out until a fresh run had to be carried out.
* Not sure if that’s a proper word, but I’m sure you know what I mean!
I remember those “duplicators” well enough alright. When was a lad my mother used to type up the blurb that ended up in the church bulletin every Saturday morning using carbon paper and every Saturday afternoon I was in the church office with that carbon paper wrapped around the drum of the “mimeograph” (what we called the duplicator over here) running off 200 copies or so of the church bulletin.
I swear those ink stains took a week to get off despite my best efforts not to get them on my hands in the first place.
Izal – now there’s a scratchy memory.
My dad worked for a company which supplied paper requisites to commercial users, including bog-paper: they only ever stocked Izal/Bronco – remember Bronco? My light-fingered dad kept our home supplied with bog-paper for free: in fact it was only when he retired that my mum had to start buying bog-paper for the first time in 30+ years – at which point she discovered Andrex and realised what she’d been missing all those years.
Izal/Bronco didn’t so much wipe as scrape – zero absorbency, maximum pain. Progress is sometimes good.
“Remember Bronco?”
‘Fraid not! I never quite saw the point of Izal, for a large business. Did they really think it would stop people stealing the odd roll? Even if that strategy works, the need to use dozens of sheets to get your arse (reasonably) clean must have negated any possible theft savings…
“…Plugs for the satellite cable? Half a fucking mile away in a different section…”
That’s modern marketing. The more you traipse around the emporium, the more likely you are to make impulse purchases of all sorts of additional stuff.
If I want milk, bread or sugar in an unfamiliar shop I always head straight for the back, as that’s where they are normally kept. The exception of course is freshly baked bread which is always near the door to make the punters hungry with the smell.
In most of our large supermarkets the bakery* is at the rear of the premises, but the ventilation systems are designed to push the “Fresh Baked” smell to the entrance area.
* Since these invariably do little more than finish off frozen bread & rolls, delivered in bulk from factories elsewhere, I wouldn’t call them Bakeries. I frequent a little corner shop which does the entire process, and has ovens just feet from the counter. Now THAT is a proper bakery…
Plasma or water jet cutter would have no trouble getting through it. Bit of an expensive investment for a few plastic bits though…
I’m sure I could find other uses?