@#$%^&*

Aurora AU1210MA Paper Shredder
This is what we ordered to replace the dead one. $120.

For every benefit of the modern world, there is a price that must be paid, a price of annoying bullshit. Our paper shredder died this week. We got it a few years ago, back when worrying about criminals stealing account information from the 'important' papers you threw in the trash was the big fear of anyone who had a couple of dollars. I think that was the same year that it became illegal to burn anything in your backyard. You can still have a fire to cook food which lets your barbeque grill off the hook, but burning a bale of office paper to get rid of it would likely get you in trouble with the Karen Fire Department. I think this was our third (paper shredder). We had a beginner's model that lasted about a year, and a compact desktop unit. . .  Hey! Where did that thing go? It was small and as you would expect, feeble, but it was handy. And satisfying. Done with that piece of paper. Does it need to be shredded? Yes? Well, here's a cute little baby shredder that would just love a little snack to gnaw on. Like I said, it was kind of feeble. If you were feeding it a hundred sheets a day it would only last a week before it's innards disintegrated and it ground to a half. But feed it a three or four sheets week and it would probably last forever. Well, a couple of years anyway.

Anyway, this one is bigger and more powerful, and was able to shred a dozen sheets of paper in a single pass. It could shred a dozen sheets, but it was really straining to get the job done. You could do that a couple of times, but then you had to let it cool down for 15 minutes. However, if you fed it one sheet at a time it would chop away merrily for quite a while before it overheated, tripped the thermal override switch and took a nap.

Phillips Head Screw

Torx Head Screw

Anyway, this week it bit the dust, and because I am who I am, I wanted to open it up and see if there was something that could be fixed, like maybe a wire that had broken off of a switch. I am certain I was not going to be able to do anything about a burned out motor or a busted gearbox, but maybe it's just something little that CAN be fixed. So I tried open it up. Pull out the dust bin, turn it on its head, and lo, three screws buried in their screwy little worm holes. Well, this should be easy, a Phillips screwdriver ought to do the trick. Um, no, not so fast bucky, they aren't Phillips head screws. Pull up the Magnifier app on my smartphone (okay, one more app that I have added) and turn on the flashlight. Didn't really need the magnifier, and sometimes it is more trouble than it is worth, but there is a flashlight control front and center, so that's what I do. There are probably a dozen different ways to turn on the flashlight on a smartphone, but I don't care, I don't want to learn about any other ways, I have one way that works reliably, so that's the one I use.

My motley assortment of Torx drivers

Anyway, (What? Again with the 'anyway'? Can't you write no better dan dat? Hey you, shut up, this is my blog and I'll write it any damn way I please.) they aren't Phillips head screws, they might be Torx, so I pull out a couple of my medium size Torx screwdrivers, but they aren't doing the trick either. 

Common Screw Heads

Take another look down the screw worm holes, and you know, those look like they might be security Torx head screws. Fortunately, I have a set of just such weird screwdriver bits. It was a present from IAman for Christmas a zillion years ago. Also have a cute little screwdriver for driving these bits. It has a magnet in the tip that will hold the bit and the screw. The best part is the magnet is mounted on a telescopic radio antenna, so you can extend it to use for retrieving small metal parts from inaccessible locations, or accessible locations, if you've a mind to.

Set of special screwdriver bits and screwdriver with telescoping magnet

Load up my cute little screwdriver with my pick hit from the box of specialness. It goes into the wormhole and it feels solid, like it magically slid right into the screw. Well, maybe it did. It turns like it's engaged with screw, just the right amount of resistance, but after a dozen turns I realize it's not going anywhere. Try it on the other two screws anyway, even though you know that we are going to get the same result, but you know, maybe not, and even if it doesn't work, we may gain a bit of information that will allow us to say Open Sesame. No luck. Conclude that the wormholes are very slightly tapered and just the right diameter that the shaft of the cute little screwdriver just slides right into place and stops with the bit just millimeters away from engaging the screw.

Makita Cordless Driver-Drill

Don't you know resistance is futile, paper shredder? I pull out the big gun, my super duper powerful Makita cordless driver drill. The biggest bit I have here is 3/8" and it might be as large as the shank on the cute little screwdriver. I give it a shot. It serves up a few scraps of black plastic, but it doesn't help. I have large drill bits over at the new house, and I have a countersink bit that might do the trick, or they might eat all the way through the wall of the screw worm holes, and then we wouldn't need the screwdriver at all. Plus it would make a big mess of plastic and you wouldn't be able to reassemble it if you did manage to fix it. Oh, I suppose you could epoxy it back together, but then I wouldn't be good American. A good American doesn't waste time trying to fix cheap junk, you throw it away and go buy a new one. Keep the economy rolling, keep the minions busy minioning.

Anyway, a bigger drill bit is a possibility, but if I am going to an make unrepairable mess, I could use my chainsaw and have a bit of fun in the process. Well, fun's great, but then you have to pay the piper. Sweeping up isn't the odious chore it used to be, but we still have problem of how to get rid of it. It's not that big, and the dust bin can be filled with garbage, but it still takes up space and our garbage is already over capacity. And no, I'm not going to belly up the bar and order a larger can. Those things cost money, and the money they cost is the absolutely worst kind of money, the money you have to pay every friggin' month.

So I got a couple of ways to go, but now, since I dealt with my big headache this week, I can ruminate on my options.

LG Refrigerator Model Number LFXS24623S

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the fancy refrigerator that came with the new house bit the big one. I didn't know how old it was, but I figured whatever warranty it might have had had long since expired, and even if it hadn't, it would probably be more effort that it was worth to try and collect on it. Still, it's like a $1500 fridge and other than not doing its job, it seems to be in fine working order. So let's see what we can do. Maybe it's just some kind of electronic do-dad and it will only cost a couple hundred bucks to get it fixed.

I find an appliance repair website they can send someone tomorrow morning. $60 to come take a look. This seems reasonable. Yannick from Cameroon shows up, runs his tests. Osmany (the Cuban) interrogates him. The upshot is that the compressor is shot and fixing it is going to run $1,000. Well, no, I ain't doin' that. Buy another one at used appliance store and get the old one hauled off in the bargain. You will notice that getting rid of shit is a continuing problem. Used to be you could put old appliances on the curb and before the day was out, the scrap man would haul them away. It's still like that up in ne'er-do-well St. John's. Not so much in fancy-pants land. You pull shit like that in that neighborhood and you would be hearing from the neighbors in two days, max. And the scrap man knows that, so he don't cruise the byways of fancy pants land. Probably got the cops called on him once-et, and that was more than he wanted.

I was mulling my options when demanding daughter demanded to know just what was going on and after listening to the discussion for a while she decided she was going to handle it. Seems that while the fridge had a one year parts-and-labor warranty (which has long since expired), it also has a ten year warranty on the compressor, and that has not expired as the refrigerator is only seven years old. I spent some time on the phone with LG yesterday but I didn't get anywhere. I was talking to a non-native speaker who was working from a script. It was painful in the extreme. I expect you know what I am talking about. The non-native speaker is not a problem, it can be a bit of challenge to communicate sometimes, but at least you are talking to a person, but the corporate bullshit you have to endure is just horrible.

We shall see if she has any success.

Which brings us to my headache of the week. I've been trying to get a building permit for a remodeling project from the City of Portland Building Department. I've been working on this for months. It doesn't take a lot of actual time, but is as annoying as f**k. It's as bad as doing your taxes. Half of the problem is that they seem to be swamped, partly due to a building boom and partly due to staffing problems because of COVID-19. The other half is that they are the nit-pickiest mothball fellows who ever picked a nit. I send stuff in, they send it back, it's not good enough they tell me, fix it. So I fix it and send in again. Wash, dry, repeat. And every cycle takes a minimum of two weeks. If I had known it was going to be so friggin' awful I would have gladly paid someone to handle this for me. Of course I knew. I just chose to ignore my inner monitor screaming his head off that this is the road to hell. Shush, little worry wart, it's going to be fine. And you know what? He was right.  Meatloaf flavor.

I've been trying all week to get my stuff in order and I finally did it this morning. Will it be good enough for the gods of the copybook headings? The work I did to prepare the 'package' for submission was trivial. It was the wading through the marlin fooling instructions that was bad. I swear it is worse than the IRS instructions for the 1040. I maybe an old coot.

P. S. The plural of antenna is antennae. I don't think that's very helpful, it might make some word nerds happy, but it's just going to confuse everyone who says 'antennaes', which is pronounced the same way as 'antennas'. We just add the extra 'e' when we spell it because it's French, you know.