Ramble on

3 04 2017

Oh, hey, hi! Hi! ‘Memba me? I ‘memba you! Hi!

Yeah, no good reason for the light no posting. Reasons, yes, but not good ones.

So what’s new?

WELL. I bought a new coffee machine. An expensive, fancy-pants coffee machine that readers of a now defunct website (ie, Gawker) declared their favoritest coffee maker.

I’d bought a cheapo coffee maker oh, a year ago, and never really liked it. That it was cheap didn’t bother me, but it was too small (Heyyy, why not get a 5-cup pot?) and every time I filled the water re-cept-a-cle I dribbled into the filter.

(Yes, I could have filled the water, first, then plopped in the filter, but THAT’S NOT HOW I DO THINGS—at least, not coffee things.)

Anyway, I didn’t love it, but it worked, so, whatever.

But then I saw the defunct piece on the expensive, fancy-pants coffee machine and I thought about my unspent Christmas money (why yes, I’m middle-aged and my parents still send me Christmas money—don’t yours?) and it was on a little sale (i.e., under the threshold at which I’d buy it) and so I bought it.

And. . . it was fine, at first. It has an insulated carafe, which I thought Whoo-hoo, no more burnt coffee (burnt and flavored coffees are the only bad coffees), and that first cuppa was, well, it was really nice.

But the second was a bit. . . not hot. And the third, even more not-hot.

Huh, I thought. And then thought no more.

Next day, same thing. And then, instead of just staring out the window with my lukewarm mug o’ joe, I took a look at the coffee maker. Whereupon I noticed that there was no warmer.

Huh.

Makes sense, really: the carafe is supposed to keep the coffee hot. But it didn’t, not really.

No problem, I’ll just return for the one with the glass pot. At which point I began reading the Amazon comments which I apparently completely blanked on before buying the damned thing, and lo, there were the observations about not-hot joe!

Well, what about the glass pot option? Glass pot breaks. Many commenters: glass pot breaks.

Me: That’s no good.

And then the weird little shit about this model—the filter sits directly on the carafe, there’s no place to store the lid when the coffee’s a-brewin’, and then no place to store the filter when the lid’s on, the carafe realllllly likes to hang on to that last bit of coffee that I otherwise insist belongs in my mug—all of the stuff that I shrugged off in those first, delirious days of fancy-pants coffee making, all of that was no longer charming and do-able but annoying and oh-my-god-I-paid-how-much-for-this-fucker.

So, glass breaks and annoying shit? No. Next model, please!

An hour or so later, after checking this machine and that (all expensive), I landed on this one. It’s programmable, about which I care not one whit (which is good, given that commenters complain that the programming gets fritzy), but I do like the removable water tank (if only for cleaning purposes), and that I can adjust temps.

And yes, I got the red one. I’m not usually much for red—the color makes me nervous, to be honest—but I thought, Ohhh, that’s nice.

It’s still too goddamned much for a coffee maker, of course, but as this officially counts as A Splurge, I officially Don’t Care.

On the other hand, if I don’t like this one, I’ll go back to the cheap-ass options and spend the difference on a bottle of scotch.

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I press Execute

15 02 2017

What a pain in the ass.

Buying a new computer, that is, or, more directly, trying to figure out which computer to buy.

I’m going low-end full-on laptop (non-gaming), meaning something in the $500-700 range. I thought I’d found a month or so ago what I wanted to buy, but tonight as I was clicking around, I got caught up in this review and that and ohmymotherpuppinggoddess by the end I was convinced that no matter what I’d choose, I’d choose wrong.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

Anyway, I think I’m going to go with what I’d originally settled on. It seems to have the combination of features I want, it’s at the lower end of the price range, and, y’know, given that this baby is 8 1/2 years old, anything I get will be better and faster than what I’m used to.

So tomorrow (payday!), or Friday, I’ll finally hit BUY. Then I’ll worry. Then it’ll arrive. Then I’ll instantly love/hate it. Then I’ll get used to it and it’ll be fine.

All of this agita for . . . and it’ll be fine. Shees.





Shopping never end

30 03 2015

Bought the chair.

Assembled the chair.

Sat in the chair.

Adjusted the chair.

Sat in the chair.

Adjusted the chair.

Adjusted the chair.

Adjusted the chair.

Disassembled the chair.

Returning the chair.

~~~

I did want to like this chair—and not only because I’ll have to schlep this sucker to a UPS store and eat the return shipping cost—but it did not work for me. I don’t know that it would work for any short person.

The flip-up arms I liked? Yeah, it was nice that they flipped up, but when down didn’t go down far enough. I had to put a cushion on the chair as a kind of booster seat in order to rest my arms comfortably.

Synchro-tilt? Yeah, no. I don’t know what I was thinking on this—I guess that the there’d be more “give”, or something, but as a lounger, I felt bunched-up.

Lumbar support? Feh. Again, I like lower-back support, but this was, I dunno, aggressive? Or just badly positioned for a shrimp? Either way, even with an added small pillow, it was a no-go.

By the way, have you noticed that with a new chair I needed a cushion and a pillow for it even to approach comfortableness? Riiiiidiculous.

There was one review from a guy who thought the chair seat could have been a bit larger, but said, hey, I’m a big guy (6’4″), so, y’know. Well, given how massive the seat was, he was probably HUGE.

Anyway, this would probably work fine for someone who is, well, bigger’n me.

I’m currently looking at these two chairs. The first chair is more expensive (tho’ it’s available for less thru a different seller), but it really well-reviewed. The second chair, well, the second chair has no reviews—and on the manufacturer web site notes both that is has asynchronous and synchro tilt, so, y’know. . . .

Blegh. I hate shopping.