Reporters as fans

I was not handy but have myself replaced the antenna motor in my old Honda: replaced the blower motor in my freezer; replaced the heating element in the water heater; replaced all the gas supply tubes in the stove after I broke them all; installed numerous oven ignitors; hung doors; rebuilt my garage doors; installed a garbage disposer; installed faucets; reglazed windows, and learned Perl to update our publishing software at a past job. Years ago I sewed my goalie equipment when needed.

I'm good at following instructions.

 

I remember the pathetic whirring of the antenna in our 1990 Honda Accord, trying to raise itself up every time we started the car.

My wife and I made Viagra jokes at the time.

 

A horse pulling a hansom cab outside the Holland Tunnel mistook the antenna for a breadstick and ate it.

 

A big can of Beef-A-Reeno could help that antenna get on through.

 

Not so I can tell. Our Bosch dishwasher and refrigerator are aces.

 

Bosch is typically overengineered, and you pay enough for it. OTOH, there are typically zero complaints about quality and durability.

They're notable exceptions to dixie's point. My mother bought new appliances when she overhauled her current house. That was barely four years ago. She's already on her second refrigerator. She will not touch that manufacturer again. Tough to blame her.

 

Economic hardship is the designed-in step-child of planned obsolescence. Some years ago I received a Sony 8mm video player as a gift. It broke the second time I used it. Went to the long-closed Sony store and they wanted $125 just to look at it.

There's a reason why my town has two electronics recycling days each year.

 

We had a Whirlpool washer and dryer for I don't know how many years. With two kids, and sometimes their friends over, we washed a lot of clothes. When the washer went out and could not be repaired, my wife bought an LG "green" front-loading washer.

It's terrible. It doesn't completely drain water. If we put too many clothes, especially towels, it doesn't spin as well because it isn't powered adequately. It has a drain tube and filter that has to be cleaned/drained every couple of weeks or it smells bad. The drain hole gets clogged with clothes fuzz, hair and stuff, so I have to pick it out with a toothpick. If a sensor or chip went out right now I don't know how long it would take to repair.

I know time makes better memories, but years ago some things were built better and lasted longer.

 

When I was a one-man small-town SE, playoff time was a pain, especially in winter, when we would have a ton of teams go deep in the playoffs.. Which led to this conversation between me and my boss, who, nice guy, but always had visions of Hoosiers.

Boss: “It’s great all these teams are going so far.”

Me: “Not really.”

Boss: “Why?”

Me: “Because it’s a lot of extra work and it’s tough trying to get everything covered.”

Boss: “Yeah, but you get to cover teams in the playoffs. It’s compelling.”

Me: “True, and I do get to earn a lot of overtime pay and rack up a lot of mileage money.”

Boss: “Ummm”