Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

day in the life

Speaker Quandary

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My very friendly and generous South-Philly co-worker AnnaMaria bought herself a surround sound system for Christmas. It didn’t work out in her living, so she returned it, but she was unable to return the assembled stands she bought for her speakers.

Our system came with front stands that we co-opted for rear stands; our front speakers have always sat on our front window sills. However, due to the recent parlor-reorg, the speakers are now being a bit obscured.

I volunteered to take the stands off of AnnaMaria’s hands, thinking that we’d use them for our fronts (and maybe the rears too). However, once she brought them over i realized that their system of being screwed on isn’t compatible with the screw-holes on the back of my speakers (thumb included for sense of dimension).

Now, you might have never done a shop-call with me, so let me explain to you that i’m hardly shy about doing things with tools and powered drills and custom-cut bits of wood. However, i am mightily shy when it comes to doing such things to things i own and rent.

So the question i pose is – how would you mount my speakers onto AnnaMaria’s stands? If it isn’t possible i am going to put the stands on Craigslist on her behalf, but i’d prefer to keep them.

So far the only idea i have is that they can be held on by a single screw through the top hole on the speaker through the top hole on the flat side post, which would be the only way that would provide stability. Not ideal, but at least they’d be used.

If you figure something out, please email me at uprush dot org, to the address krisis (or, if reading on LJ, just comment on the CK-feed).

Errata

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Some random stuff.

Boy, does this site render weird in FireFox. Not bad-weird, just weird. Gotta look into that now that i’ve finally ditched IE in my mad retreat from the neverending CoolWeb inhabitation of my computer.

So, cast-iron stomach aside, i got sick. Sick to the tune of using a SEL day and lying on the tiled bathroom floor at 4am vaguely twitching as to try to distract myself from being sick. It was not a good scene. Luckily, mom is just a numeric page away, and she generally arrives bearing legal narcotics. I swear, it’s worth sending a member of your family to nursing school just so you know you won’t kill yourself over a stomach flu.

Note that this ended my Seinfeldian abstanation from fever-induced nausea. Damnit. By the way, did you know that fear of vomiting is called emetophobia? [cue “The More You Know” theme].

If you’re a LiveJournal user, you can now subscribe my RSS-feed to your Friends list. As Blogger doesn’t allow formatting of our RSS feeds, i don’t think there’s a way to make the permalinks in my RSS feed point to the real homes of my posts, rather than the bastardized version they currently lead to. Click through to see what i mean. Advice, as always, is appreciated. b2Evolution, a fantastic and easily installed MoveableType alternative, is looking more attractive EVERY DAY (but i’ve always been a fan of having the place i post and the place my posts post be two difference places, for redundancies sake. Did that make any sense?).

Shafted is still alive. Approximately three of my known readers understand the relevance of this fact. It has nothing to do with “Shaft, The Drexel.”

I have bought eight new CDs in the last 10 days. I am still formulating opinions on them, but here’s quick rundown, from best to worst (with comments, if you care):
Lisa Loeb, The Way It Really Is //

Butterfly Boucher, Flutterby //

Mike Kovacs, Writing On Water (Part II) //

Scissor Sisters //

Heart, Dreamboat Annie / Little Queen //

The Honorary Title, Anything Else But The Truth //

Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous.

There you have it: errata.

Caffinated Brain Disco

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No time to edit, just free-writing today.

They kept on feeding me coffee, even though they know what a bad idea it is. Caffeine hits me in pulses, strobes, contractions of my brain, spasmically birthing new thoughts. Like cocaine through a straw, I whispered to my co-worker, the next idea strobing through my brain that I might be giving her the wrong impression.

I’ve talked about caffiene before.

Today one of my projects was going well, and I broke into the twist in the middle of the aisle, a perfect combination of Travola/Thurman slow-grace/sexual-tension (with a dash of mad watusi), singing “firing on all pistons, firing on all pistons.”

I never before realized how hard this job is, until this weekend a friend of Elise’s asked me what I do, and when I told her she made a little “oh” with her mouth and asked – “Are you on the good side or the evil side?” And, it just made me think, god, all we do all day is try to make our communications come out on the good side, arguing with senior management and tweaking every sentence until I think my head will explode from the twenty drafts and two reams of paper I have gone through in the past week.

Sometimes I think everyone should have Elise’s friend ask them that question once a year. Are you a good witch, or a bad witch? Which one are you? Are you being good to yourself and evil to everyone else? The reverse? The inverse?

Sometimes I wonder if we make our own futures through the process of elimination, discarding the best fantasies we have because they might offset that good/evil balance too much.

Sometimes I close my eyes and see myself, lids as mirrors, and sometimes I see nothing.

Sometimes I really have to fucking pee after I drink so much coffee.

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Laying on Elise’s sister’s floor last night i dreamt that i was in Paris.

It’s funny how my brain works when i dream these things, because in my dreams every time i left the apartment to walk around on the street, or to head to the Eiffel tower, i spoke french. And, i spoke quite good french, though i couldn’t seem conjugate any verbs in the past tense. But every hour or so i would wake up and realize that we were in Jenny’s studio apartment, in Washington DC, which is nothing like Paris at all. Well, maybe a little.

So now i’m in Washington DC. Jenny and Elise and Rob decided they wanted to see a Harry Potter movie, but it seemed like such a waste to me. Washington DC, on July Fourth, and in the rain, which i think is a little bit romantic.

So, while they planned their trip to the movie theatre, i planned my trip wandering around the city.

I’ve only wandered in two cities now, both times with Rabi, so i feel a little displaced doing it by myself – not knowing that you have to swipe your card to exit the subway (i think i was almost arrested). But, here i am, three hours of my own, on my own, in this strange city that operates in ways that i’m not used to – swiping your card to get out of the subway, numbers counting down to tell you how long you have to cross the street.

It’s peculiar, and i’m wet, but i don’t mind. I don’t have anything with me but my cell phone, my wallet, and my day pass, and i’ve got three hours to learn my away around city number four for Peter. (originally an audio post)

https://crushingkrisis.com/2004/07/108896658141001659/

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Three related paragraphs that have absolutely no bearing on anything.

I am so chirpy on the phone. “Thanks so much for your help!,” i expel with force. “You have a great holiday!” i command with enthusiasm. I suspect the clerks in guidance offices across Montgomery County hardly know what to say to me, which is apt, because i hardly know what i am saying. I imagine fielding a phone call from me is like trying to catch water from a great stone fountain in a meager paper cup … the stream steady with random variation, the force and volume too great for the vessel.

Last night i was walking down Walnut street, thinking about how everyone wants to be famous. Everybody does. Not all face-famous, of course, not all actors or politicians, but famous for something; inventing, writing, singing, designing, growing record-sized pumpkins, etc. I always thought i’d be a good famous person, because i think i understand what a public expects from someone in possession of fame. But, to be famous you must become famous, and to become famous you or your product must be recognized, and i and the three or four products that i consider to be eligible are currently incognito, embedded in our stealthy and unnoticed positions until further notice.

Sometimes i think that i will take on a character, change my carriage and manner of speaking, to see if i am somehow different than before. When i arrive in the office to find it full with dozens of perspective students, or when i step into a store i’ve never been near before. What great acting it would be, what a superb lie, to alter myself not according to a script but in every facet of my ongoing self.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/11/106986643165083879/