July 29, 2007

[king_arthur]

Since Sundays are usually a really slow Roll Call day, I'll step up and pose a QotD:

Are you the kind of person who (a) takes care of stuff so it doesn't break, (b) fixes stuff as soon as it breaks, or (c) learns to live with broken stuff? Do you wish you could do differently than you actually do?

I'm definitely a type (c) - learn to live with broken stuff until it just absolutely has to be fixed or replaced. Especially things like, "we have two VCRs, one of them broke, now we have one." Whenever stuff breaks, I wish I was a type (a), who took better care of things, but it takes a lot of planning and willpower for me to actually make that happen, and since "taking care of stuff before it breaks" is more of an ongoing process than a "do it and be done" thing, that's especially tough for me. Most of the fixing or replacing happens because the Mrs. is a lot less patient than I am with broken stuff...

Sunday morning, wishing the new title was posted so I could start working on it... since the Gawk is in this week's fight I'm going to make an effort to do reviews this week.

Today's a mostly unscheduled day, church in the morning and my mom's for lunch, and then figure out what to do with the rest of it. I taped most of Star Wars 3 last night (on our one working VCR); I've probably seen it, but have absolutely no idea what happens, so maybe I can find a few "TV watching" projects and combine that with SW3.

It was actually almost cool out this morning at 4 a.m., walking the dogs. Would've been a perfect morning to watch a Grand Prix race, but it's a testing week...

Charles (KA)

[Mostess]

I'm a solo parent for the week. Day 1. Waiting for 2 antsy girls to fall asleep at naptime. If anyone can email some spare patience, I can pay you back in a few years.

As for the question of the day, I'm probably an (a). I don't pound on stuff, and I like cleaning things. Plus I'm awful at fixing things, and I hate to throw things away. After college, I moved around a lot, and that's when it hit me: I was dragging lots of stupid, broken crap around with me. It wised me up kind of quickly.

My wife studies hoarding behavior, how some people fill their houses with old newspaper and boxes and used plastic bags and garage sale finds... So we're pretty keen on thinking about why we have what we have. Every year we go through stuff and get rid of as much as we can. My favorite one so far was books: just get rid of most of them. There are libraries everywhere. Amazon will have anything at your doorstep in 2 days. And the cost of rebuying the couple of books you'd like to re-read but didn't keep and can't borrow from friends or libraries is much less than the cost of packing and unpacking all the books you think you might like to re-read someday.

[jack]

interesting question Charles. i'd have to say i'm a C.

the concept of hoarding has actually been on my mind lately, and i've been on a real mission to reduce and purge shit....clothes, old paperwork that can be shredded, shoes, old computers and printers, etc....and good point mostess on the books!

my goal is to reduce the amount of shit i have by 20%.

[fluffy]

For me it depends on the sort of thing. USUALLY I fix things after they break (b), sometimes I prevent things from breaking to begin with, and if it's something I don't care too much about I just don't bother to fix it, since often if it gets beyond the point of repair it means it's something I didn't really care about to begin with.

Sometimes things will break in a way that I can still use their core functionality in which case I'll just put up with it for a while (for example, the video switching on my stereo stopped working a while ago, but the audio switching is fine so I just changed to using the video switching on my TV). Of course as soon as I move I'll be replacing the stereo with a better one (with HDMI switching, now that I have multiple HDMI components).

Also, what about type (d), throwing stuff out when it breaks and just replacing it (or living without it)? I tend to do that (see above).

In my experience, trying to keep most consumer items running after they break quickly becomes more expensive than just replacing it with something non-retarded. Like, when my Roomba's battery stopped holding a charge, I kept the Roomba around until I finally got around to replacing the battery (which is expensive), and after I did that I found that its touch sensors got screwed up so now it only moonwalks everywhere and doesn't actually clean anything. And yet I still always have the Roomba in its charging station in case I decide to try it again. (I tried repairing it myself but like all consumer electronics it's pretty much non-serviceable.)

One of these days I'm going to get burned really badly when my car breaks down since I only change its oil based on mileage. It's been about a year since I got its oil changed, since I've only driven about 1500 miles in that time. Before I drive down to San Francisco I will of course get an oil change. I just kind of figure that the stuff was in the ground for a hundred million years, so what's another year? (I know it doesn't quite work that way.)

[Niveous]

Are you the kind of person who (a) takes care of stuff so it doesn't break, (b) fixes stuff as soon as it breaks, or (c) learns to live with broken stuff? Do you wish you could do differently than you actually do?

I'm the son of a handy man so I've lived my life as a B guy. It breaks, I fix it. Things work well for me that way.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'd say I'm more of the "b" type. I love fixing things. Fixing something that's broken is so much more rewarding than working on something that already works just fine. I'm terrible at preventative maintenance, with the exception of my cars, like oil changes and such. But my general rule is, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".


Oh, and Charles, you really need to step it up to an DVR or Tivo type thing. Most cable companies offer them pretty cheap. I was about to buy one, but my cable company had a special offer 2.95 extra a month for a dual tuner DVR. I'll never go back to tapes. I also have a TV top DVD recorder, so if I record a concert or something I want to keep, I then record the show on a DVD.
The other cool thing about a DVR is that you can record two shows at the same time and watch another one. And I'm sure they probably have even better ones to do even more. Also, renting the equipment, I just get a new one every year free and the same for the remote. My house hold is notorious about breaking or losing them.

[roymond]

I'm a B kind of guy. But some things just fall through the cracks.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'm a B kind of guy. But some things just fall through the cracks.

I suggest that you do your repair work on a table without cracks.

[fodroy]

I take care of stuff so it doesn't break. It annoys me when I see people abuse their things, especially cds and dvds. Just put it back in the case when your done with it! Don't put your fingers and fingernails all over it either! Bah!

[fluffy]

Taking care of things is different than preventative maintenance.

[Hoblit]

I'm B but then C and sometimes D (see fluffy's post)

I'm almost never A unless it's musical equipment. Then I'm A all the way.