My Life is 100% Minutiae

This morning I decided it was time to get around to taking on a project I have been planning for quite some time. I ordered the cheapest electronic keyboards available, and I'm going to rig them up so Marv and Maynard can play them by pulling cords. I realize I am inviting a world of pain, but I can't resist. Imagine the Youtube potential. If it doesn't work, I'll be out 20 bucks, max, but at least I'll know I tried.

The problem with this idea is that parrots always hate the toys you think they'll like best. You know what really gets Maynard going? TV remotes and washcloths. A washcloth will entertain him for three solid hours.

I'm considering having Maynard tested for steroids. I looked at a bunch of other citron-crested cockatoos on Youtube, and it seems like almost all of them are way smaller than he is. He claims he's innocent, but then so does Roger Clemens. I guess it's possible that he's just a mutant.

Marv fixates on random words from time to time. His current favorite is "turd." So now we keep having this conversation:

MARV: TURD!

ME: TURD!

MARV: TURD!

ME: TURD!

MARV: TURD!

ME: Okay, you win.

MARV: TURD!

I apparently got very lucky choosing these two types of bird, crazy as that sounds. Greys are very independent and not too loud, and among cockatoos, citron crests are unusually calm and quiet. Other cockatoos scream all day, and they pull their feathers out. Apart from picking the right species, I also ended up with two very well-adjusted birds. Marv is always happy, regardless of whether it's appropriate, and he almost never bites, and when it comes to handling him, the only thing he won't put up with (any more) is feather trimming. I mash him ruthlessly all day, like a throw pillow. Maynard virtually never bites (me), and although he's kind of mopey, he has never picked his feathers or caused any problems. I'm horrified by the things I read about other birds. They bite constantly. They scream. They won't leave their cages. They won't go back in their cages. They pluck themselves bald. The worst I have to put up with is verbal abuse.

I have to get myself to Northern Tool today for the last part I need to get the compressor into service. It's the only place I can find that has any real air fittings. I'd use brass plumbing stuff, but I've noticed that it tends to have a low pressure rating, and I'm not anxious to go to the ER to have shrapnel dug out of my head.

I was annoyed to realize that fittings with 3/8" ID threads don't work with 3/8" hose. You have to have 1/4" ID threads to make the connection. So I stepped down from 1/2" to 3/8", figuring it wasn't a big loss, and now I have to step down all the way to 1/4". I'm not sure why my compressor came with a 1/2" ID ball valve. Does anyone in the entire world use 1/2" ID hose and fittings? I'm beginning to doubt it.

Once I get the fitting I need, here's what I'll have. Half-inch ID ball valve to 1/2" ID pipe. Pipe to 1/2" ID regulator. Regulator to 1/2" ID/1/4" ID reducer. Three-eighths ID hose. From studying physics, I know one or two 1/4" bottlenecks won't have the restricting effect fifty feet of 1/4" hose would have, but I'm sure it will make a difference, and it still seems like a stupid idea.

What else is going on? I'm waiting for relief from the cold. A week or two ago, I bought myself an electric blanket, locally, for $150. That's apparently a reasonable price for a good quality blanket. I was flabbergasted.

I did a little research, and I noticed that people complained a great deal about the failure rate on these things. Evidently, the manufacturers don't really expect them to last more than a year, and they go bad frequently. Unacceptable.

I returned it to the store and found myself a good online deal on a heated mattress pad. They're cheaper, and you can leave them on the bed all year, so there's no storage. Unfortunately, Linens and Things would not honor the price locally, so I had to order it online. Ha ha. I'm so smart. I saved twenty bucks. But wait...I bought it on the 29th, and it turns out the damned thing won't be here until at least January 11. I can't believe it. It got down to 34 degrees here a couple of days ago, and NOBODY I know has heat that works. Everyone here has air conditioning, which is fine for dropping the temperature twenty degrees. But when you need heat to raise the temperature forty degrees, your central air isn't worth a crap. We just don't build houses to be heated down here. Some rooms are warm. Some rooms, like my bedroom, are cold. So when it gets below 55, I absolutely have to have electrical help in order to sleep.

I figure that by the time that stupid thing gets here, a third of the cold nights will be behind me. I will have lost maybe fifty hours of sleep. But I saved twenty bucks! I'm a genius!

Like most men, I am inept when it comes to all aspects of homemaking, and the blanket failure is a good example of that. But I managed to improve one thing: my pillows. Mentioned it recently. For a long time I had been having congestion problems at night, and I kept changing things, and nothing really fixed the problem. I think I'm making progress, though, because I got me some new pillows to replace the old greenish-gray ones detergent no longer seemed to affect, and they appear to be helping me breathe. The price wasn't too bad for down, either. Here they are, in case your pillows, like my old ones, are starting to grow feet. I got the soft ones, because medium pillows are similar to concrete blocks.

It took a while for the new pillows to work, because they stank of potpourri. The marketing assholes at LNT apparently believe women won't buy anything until it reeks the way women themselves reek when they pass middle age, lose their sense of smell, and start buying perfume that smells like rotten fruit. That potpourri stench drove me crazy for about a week. It was like sleeping with my head on Helen Thomas's belly. But it is finally subsiding. Ladies, here is a tip. If you're over 60, let your daughters pick your perfume from now on. It's no coincidence that one of older women's favorite Avon products turned out to be a powerful insect repellant that drives hungry mosquitoes shrieking into the night. When I go fishing, I have a choice. I can be bitten by bugs. Or I can smell like my sixth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Melville.

God rest her soul.

By the way, Warner Brothers just killed HD-DVD by moving its catalog to Blu-Ray. So maybe now we'll see some progress in the disk market. I'm still buying regular DVDs for my collection, though, because it will probably be six months before a decent Blu-Ray player becomes available. Right now, they all suck or cost tons of money. I have added Get Carter (the original), To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, Dark Passage, Dr. Strangelove, O Brother Where Art Thou, On the Beach, The Fountainhead, and some other crap I can't remember.

That's my interesting day for you.