Sunday

Concrete Blonde - Dance Along The Edge
Johanne Blanco

I need some better loud speakers. Mostly I listen to music at a low volume, not loud enough to get excited, but every once in a while a tune comes on (like this one) and I feel compelled to turn up the volume, and the little Bluetooth speaker I've got just doesn't cut it. I have some better speakers but they quit working and I am still nursing the idea that I can figure out what's wrong with them and fix it. More likely I will poke around a bit and decide it's beyond my capabilities / not worth the effort, but I still feel compelled to at least look into the problem. I did cut the speaker boxes open after all.

I also need better speakers for my bike rides. I've been riding my daughter's Peloton exercise bike. What a racket. Near as I can tell some people like listening to recordings of people talking to them while they are riding. WTF? I don't, but then I'm an alien. There are a selection of videos of riding through various scenic locations that are accompanied by music and they aren't too bad, but I've been through all of them and have no desire to watch them again. And the music they play is just garbage. Maybe if you are young and stupid you might like it, but then again I'm the alien, so I think it's crap.

So today I hooked up my laptop and pulled up a YouTube video that was decent enough, but the music was crap, so I muted the volume, open a second tab and loaded one my YouTube playlists and that kept me entertained.

I've been trying to figure out what is wrong with our Dyson vacuum cleaner. The roller brush wasn't spinning. It was totally clogged and when I cleaned it out I discovered the bearing on one end was shot, so I ordered a new brush. Put that in, but it's not spinning. Check the power, nothing. So I take the switch apart. That was a mistake. What a freaking nightmare. Dyson vacuums are pretty clever, lightweight, make good use of high strength plastic and fancy injection molding, but this switch is just insane. It;s like is was designed by a demented demon. All it needs to do is turn on the power to the two motors, but there are a umpteen parts and it has to be assembled blind. It's just frigging nuts. Hopefully I'll be able to give a full report on just how fucked up this contraption is, but right now I'm just trying to get the roller brush to spin, and it's not.

It looks like there might be a break in the cable that runs from the switch to the brush, but why would it break? It's just a cable, well protected. More exploratory surgery tomorrow.

I was supposed to be working on the vacuum today, but there's only so much bullshit I can tolerate, so I spent the day reading Dark Voyage by Alan Furst. Quite the adventure. Got a largish post going on that, it should show up here soon.