There is a lot to talk about today, many travels both past and future, but first I need to relay how I used my mind to fix a wobbly leg on our air hockey table.* It's one of the smarter things I've done in my life.
*The title of this post is an homage to Richard Feynman. In his book of memoirs, "Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", he tells a story from his childhood about a neighbor who had a broken radio that nobody could fix. He went home and thought about what could be wrong with it, came up with an idea, and then went back to his neighbor and immediately fixed it. He become known as the boy who fixes radios with his mind. Like many (most?) personal anecdotes, this is probably an embellishment that makes the storyteller come off as cool as possible, but still, it's a good little tale.
Lil' S2 was home without much to do on Thursday. I was also home, working remotely, so I heard him downstairs rustling about in our basement. I figured the PlayStation controller must have come disconnected again, so I went downstairs to fix it. And before I continue, allow me a quick tangent to say that I absolutely hate our PS5. We bought it about seven years ago, and I couldn't be more unhappy with it. The controllers, which are not cheap (neither was the console), work for a few weeks, and then they start to "drift" (as is the parlance among gamers, I believe) and become completely unusable, and we have to buy new ones. Of the four we've purchased through the years, only one is still good. Two are drifty and one constantly disconnects for no reason. And even the good one isn't actually good, as it disconnects also, but slightly less frequently than the other one. I figured out from YouTube how to reconnect controllers, but it's a whole process that involves powering off and restarting the machine, and it doesn't always work, so I often have to do it three or four times before it finally takes. It's infuriating.
I've done some Googling, and I've learned that I'm certainly not alone in my hatred for PS5 controllers. Although they seem to work fine for some people, there are myriad threads, articles, and videos devoted to the topic of how shitty they are. I think part of the problem is that we bought our PlayStation shortly after its release, so they hadn't yet worked out the kinks. And what makes this even more annoying is that we almost got an Xbox instead. The kids said they wanted a video game console for Christmas, either a PS5 or an Xbox, they didn't care which one. I don't really play video games anymore (I basically stopped at the Sega Genesis), so I asked around and was told by numerous people I trust that they're both good, and it doesn't really matter. So, we basically flipped a coin and got a PS5 (or rather we told S's parents to get a PS5, as they wanted it to be their gift to the kids). Then, of course, right after the purchase, Lil' S1 said he actually wanted an Xbox. It would have been a huge hassle to switch at that point, so we just stuck with the PS5, and I'm reminded almost every day what a regrettable decision that has been. I don't know if the Xbox is actually any good, but it would be difficult to be worse than what we have now.
Anyway, back to the original story, the PlayStation controller was in fact disconnected, but that's not why Lil' S2 was stirring about. He noticed the leg on our air hockey table was wobbly, so he was looking for the duct tape to "fix" it. Now, I'm very much a DIY patzer, but even I knew that tape was not the right solution to this problem, so I looked under the table and saw right away that two screws that were supposed to be securing the wobbly leg were missing. Okay, that's an easy fix, even for an 8th-grade woodshop D-student like myself--just screw the screws back in--except I couldn't see them. Presumably, they had fallen into the hollowed out cavity of the table leg. You can see in the picture below: The right two screws were the ones missing, and the wooden piece below them is one side of a long empty column of a table leg. It seemed clear that the screws had rattled out and dropped into this abyss.
First off, terrible design. They capped off the wrong end. If the top had a piece of particle board covering it then the screws could not have fallen in. If the bottom did not have a piece of particle board covering it then the screws would have dropped all the way to the carpet, and I could have retrieved them by lifting the table a little bit and having Lil' S2 slide them out with something. (That would have taken some effort, but it's doable.) Second off, how were we going to get these things out? The leg is too long to reach the bottom by sticking your arm in, and there's not enough room between the top of the leg and the bottom of the tabletop to fit anything of length into the hole. We tried using BBQ tongs, but they didn't even come close to working.
The first good idea I had was to use my phone to verify with certitude that the screws did in fact fall in. I snapped a picture, and, yep, they were in there alright.
Now, I just had to come up with a plan to get them out. I thought about using a magnet tied to string, but I didn't know if our kitchen magnets would be strong enough and the only string I could think of that we have is dental floss, and I wasn't sure exactly how I would tie it on. Still, it seemed like a reasonable thing to try, so I went upstairs to get some magnets and floss. My phone battery, in a stroke of good fortune, was a little low, so I decided to charge it while I put my plan into action, and when I set it on its charging pad, it clicked in place like it always does, but this time something clicked in my brain also. It's magnetic! That's how it sticks on! And it has a long cord on it! My iPhone charging pad is literally a magnet on a string! This was right up there with the time I solved the Monty Hall Problem while walking between classes as the greatest "Eureka!" moment of my life. And it totally worked! I fished out the screws using my charging pad, refastened them, and the leg is wobbly no more. Life is beautiful!
But of course I used all my scheduled blogging allotment to talk about this one stupid (but awesome) thing, and so I have no time to tell you about my trip back home nor my upcoming trip to India. But so it goes. I'll hop back on and post something before I leave if I get the chance. If not, then it will be several weeks until I post again. It's a long trip.
Until next time...
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