Monday, September 14, 2009

Surfacing

  • I'm gradually getting on top of my work-pile, digging out from my biannual code development cycle. Not as many posts here as late, but I'm still following all of you, and heaping out tiny doses of sardonic abuse on The Facebook.
  • Our first rainstorm of the season over the weekend has put me in the mood of autumn, my favorite season, although in this part of California it is practically come and gone in a single weekend. This unusually-early rain was heralded by the even more rare thunderstorm. The crash and boom at 3 A.M. knocked the kids out of bed, but to me, that's a lullaby.
  • We're gearing up for the second birthday of my youngest child. Just flicking through my pictures from her birthday last year makes me realize how fast it's gone. Two, and she's talking in paragraphs.
  • Still plotting away on ideas for the 2009 NaNo draft, and secretly scoffing at those who would dare to wimp out. The Brigade needs you. We actually forced the NaNoWriMo powers-that-be to lock the old topic because we'd posted so much that it threatened to melt the forum software. There's another topic to take the brunt of interest until the forum wipe in October-ish. And yes, Virginia, typing with small children underfoot is possible.
  • Not much to report by way of retrotech. I'm still hard at work knitting up another typing pad with some horrible, possessed yarn I found at the thrift store for two bits a ball. It's awful, scratchy, poop-brown and keeps pulling apart at inopportune moments. I'm looking forward to tormenting it in a very hot wash cycle.
  • Local Craigslisters have awakened again and discovered the mile-high-club prices from MyTypewriter.com, which is probably a good thing, since it's preventing me from doing anything more than coveting from afar. Way, way afar.
  • That said, my middle child has started piano lessons, and so we've co-opted my ugly green typing table as a keyboard stand for her. This has forced my standard machine into a box next to the bed for the time being. There's a metal stand at the thrift store, and I feel my resolve weaken every week I check and it's still there, holding up a lampshade.
  • I'm still trying to finish up a roll of black-and-white film in a homebrew pinhole camera. (I like to have enough exposed film on hand to make suffering the stink of Caffenol worth it.) I have, however, noticed a conspicuous lack of photography on your own blogs, despite my award-winning how-to writeups. Consider yourselves glared upon with a Stern Eye.

7 comments:

Olivander said...

"Local Craigslisters have awakened again and discovered the mile-high-club prices from MyTypewriter.com"

It's not just your neck of the woods. This was part of a Hermes 2000 ad on the Minneapolis Craigslist today:
"IF YOU GOOGLE IT YOU WILL SEE THEY ARE WORTH OVER $600!"

Monda said...

I feel the glare of the stern eye. I just can't get all my ingredients working in concert on the picture-taking thing. Clearly, I was meant to find another talent.

Monda said...

Oh, and life's too short to use icky yarn.

mpclemens said...

@Olivander: I think my favorite is the person selling their Corona for $450, with the link right to MyTypewriter. "L@@K!" indeed.

@Monda: It's a mercy knitting, believe me. I had to get it, if only to prevent some hideous misshapen garment from being brought forth from its tangled, scratchy awfulness. Knit up, it's actually not bad, but felted it will be better. It's go nowhere to go but up.

Anonymous said...

Hey, there. I've added your site to my blogroll. I share a love of typewriters, and I enjoy the things you have posted here. I don't get a lot of traffic on my site but is that cool that I've added yours?

-Justin

deek said...

I will admit that the first couple times I looked up my typers I was surprised to see such high prices attached to them.

Its an easy mistake to make when you look at MyTypewriter and auction sites.

But as long as "we" don't buy them for those prices, they will come down!

mpclemens said...

Justin: not a problem, and I'll take at look at your blog as well.

Deek: it's laziness and optimism, flavored with a healthy spoonful of recession-thinking. Everyone hoping that grandma's old battleship-grey Royal will cover the next balloon payment on the mortgage.