Day 172

Not only did the telephone company repairman show up today, but he actually managed to fix the kitchen phone. I was amazed. The last repairman said that the line couldn't be fixed and that I needed to make a separate appointment to get a new extension line installed. This guy was a little smarter. He confirmed that the line had indeed broken inside the wall somewhere. Then he said "Hey, I see four wires inside this line and the telephone only needs two of them. Let's see if we can get a dial tone using the other two wires." This plan worked like a charm. No holes drilled in the sheetrock. No unsightly cables stapled to the baseboards. Why it has taken three months and countless calls to AT&T to get to this point, I'll never know.

Coincidently, today was also the day I recorded the Skype interview for The Horror Movie Show podcast.  Skype usually works fine for me, but today it was crashing and dropping calls every few minutes. It was embarrassing that I was clearly the weak link in the podcast. The shows two co-hosts sounded loud and clear, while I sounded like I was calling in from the dark side of the moon. I never could get Skype to behave on my computer, but eventually finished the podcast sitting right next to the cable modem and talking into a small Belkin Wi-Fi phone. It would have been so much simpler to just do the interview from the now working wall phone in the kitchen, but the show's host said we needed to use Skype. At one point during our conversation they asked me why I called my blog "Some Assembly Required" and at precisely that point the phone went dead. When the connection was re-established, I answered "because things like this happen to me every day of my life." "Nothing is easy," I said. "There is always some assembly required."

Actually, a lot of things did go right today, even if my entire Skype interview ends up on the cutting room floor. I finally fixed the little broken sculpture and hung it back up on the wall. I also nailed a 4x8 sheet of plywood back in place on the carport that had come loose and was getting dangerously close to falling on the roof of my car. I even got the little door in the dishwasher to flip up again and dispense soap like it should. This was probably just a fluke though. I'd be amazed if it works again tomorrow.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day