Entry 817: The Man Who Fixes Air Hockey Tables With His Mind

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... 

Entry 816: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Short entry today, as I'm headed out of town tomorrow and have a bunch of stuff to get done before I go. It's a combination work-and-pleasure trip, in that order. I'm flying into Tennessee for a two-day conference, and then I'm flying into the PNW to visit family and friends and attend my 30th high school reunion. I'm annoyed that I couldn't get a direct flight from Memphis to Sea-Tac--I don't think one exists, I looked for quite a while--but so it goes.

It's just me, no wife or kids. We explored the possibility of them coming, or some proper subset of them coming, with me but it didn't work out financially/logistically. Airfare is not cheap, and the fact I'm flying straight from the work conference would make travel arrangements tricky if I weren't going alone. Plus, nobody has much interest in tagging along with me as I relive my glory days with my old pals, anyway, certainly not S. Whenever we visit my family, I can feel her eyes roll, as I tell her for the one hundredth time how my friends and I used to climb the fence and goof off in the gravel quarry that is now a golf course. So, I won't have a plus-one for my reunion, but I already have my line picked out for why S didn't make it: "I just think it would have been too awkward for her to meet all the girls I didn't hook up with." I can't wait to use that one.

Until next time... 

Entry 815: Independence Day 2026 Top Fives

It's a holiday weekend across the country with some big festivities on tap here in our national capital. I, however, will be avoiding such festivities like the coronavirus in 2020 (hopefully more successfully). I will spend the weekend cooped up in my basement streaming TV shows, movies, and soccer with my family, lifting weights, and working on crossword puzzles. I have little desire to spend the day outside in triple-digit temperatures, where the only relief from the heat will come from scattered thunderstorms, and I have even less desire to partake in the de facto MAGA rally that will completely spoil what could be and should be a nonpartisan celebration of our country's 250th birthday. Sometimes I wish we lived closer to to all the action in DC. Days like today, I am very glad that we do not.

One thing I will almost certainly do this weekend is finish the Hulu series High Fidelity. Even though it dropped over six years ago, I didn't know there was such a show until last week. (Perhaps the biggest problem with TV these days is that there is too much of it, and it's scattered across the various streaming services, so it's hard to find.) I heard somebody mention the show on a podcast and give the "hot take" that it's better than the movie. I like the movie quite a bit, so I started watching the show half out of curiosity and half out of a desire to prove the podcaster wrong. I'm now eight episodes in, and I must admit, I agree with the take: The TV show is better.

Why is it better? I'm not sure exactly--I just like it more. I think it's because the characters are a little bit more likeable. In the movie they are all very amusing, but that's in part because they are all kinda dicks (and not just the one named Dick). In the show, you--or at least I--can sympathize with the characters more, especially the main character Rob, played beautifully by Zoë Kravitz (who is quite beautiful). She's more messy and goofy, but goodhearted, whereas John Cusack's Rob in the film is more self-serious and egotistical. I would rather spend my time with the former than the latter. Although, it's possible that one is better suited to a 10-episode series,* and one is better suited to a two-hour movie. So, I guess, my conclusion is that they are both great, and it probably doesn't make sense to compare them.

*There is only one season, which makes me sad. I hate it when shows go on too long, but it also sucks when they don't go on long enough. At least give me two or three seasons at Championship Vinyl.

One thing I love about both High Fidelity's is the top-five lists. I love making rankings for stupid things. In that vein, here are my top five Independence Days.

Top 5 July 4ths of My Life

5. 2004. It was my first month back in DC for grad school. I went up to West Chester, PA to visit some pals. I don't remember the details, but for some reason it was just me and two of my girl friends. Note the space between "girl" and "friends." Neither of them was my girlfriend (I was single at the time), and in fact they both had boyfriends that I was friends with. I also don't remember what we did, but I do remember it was fun.

4. 1986. I'm guessing on the year here, and it might not have been exactly July 4th, but it was a fireworks game for the Tacoma Tigers at Cheney Stadium. The Tigers pounded their opponent, scoring over 20 runs, which the stadium couldn't display on its old-school scoreboard, because the ten's digit could only be 0 or 1. There were so many people trying to come throughout the game that they let fans sit on the warning track for the last few innings (that sounds crazy, but I swear it happened). I didn't love that, being a little baseball purist, but it couldn't spoil the evening. The Tigers won big, and everybody oohed and aahed at the sky explosions afterwards.

3. 2007. I went to my aunt's and uncle's vacation house on Chautauqua Lake for a makeshift family reunion. I was the only one there from my immediately family, and I saw a bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles that I hadn't seen in decades. I also saw my grandma for the last time. The night of the 4th, we all sat around the campfire, and watched the lights. As I recall, in lieu of fireworks, everybody put up lights on their docks, and it was a spectacular visual. It's funny, if this event happened a few years later I would have dozens of pictures from it, but it went down just before the widespread adoption of the camera phone, so I don't have any. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure.

As a somewhat related aside, I was thinking the other day about how it's weird that almost everything that happens today is recorded on camera in someway, when the first 4.5 billion years of Earth elapsed with nothing being recorded on camera. But then I thought, well, what if it was? Who's to say some alien species hasn't been recording our planet clandestinely from afar using super advanced technology? What if they came here and showed us a documentary they made of all of human history? How cool would that be? I mean, it probably wouldn't outsell Aquaman 851 at the box office, but it would still be awesome.

2. 2005. I was dating a grad student in the English department, and we got a little motley crew together of literature and math folks to go to the fireworks show on the National Mall. This was back when we could all enjoy things together, and it didn't matter who was president--like, I didn't even think about what somebody's politics was when I met them, and it was glorious. In retrospect, I took that for granted. Anyway, things didn't last too long between me and the lit chick (I broke up with her*), but we had some fun times together, and this night was one of them. It just felt cool being out in the city with a group of weird, smart, young people. 

*That's an homage to High Fidelity, by the way. I'm not bragging about it. Breakups are the worst, regardless of which side you are on. 

1. 1988. I'm just picking a random year from my childhood, because so many of my preteen 4ths have blended together in my mind. We used to go over to our family friends' house and eat barbecue and run through the sprinkler and light off fireworks. The parents let us kids light them, which is something I don't think would fly today. It was pretty safe--we would set a firework carefully on the ground, light the fuse with a punk, and then hightail it to safety--but I still don't think parents of my generation would let their kids do that. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that this was in the rainy Puget Sound region before climate change totally fried the world, so the fire risk was not as high as it is in other places of the country today. And it was fun! I loved those days, which is why this is number 1 on my list.

I just realized that I left off several July 4ths spent at my buddy DK's lake house. We had some wild times there, and I probably should bump something above to add one of them to the list. But I don't have time to do that, so they get honorable mention here. Plus, they got legit dangerous at times. I'm surprised nobody Jason Pierre-Pauled themselves.

Until next time...