Tedious Minutiae Theatre

Things are happening and stuff! Constantly! Zzzzoooommm.

( So yeah, dump post. )

And that is what's up.

Bike work causes graphomania, film at 11.

Bikeshop accomplished! I overhauled my headset! Even better, duder and I solved a mystery. Since I've had Brigadelle, her headset has had an irritating tendency to loosen itself over time. At first, I was like what the fuck; after I'd adjusted it once or twice, I started chalking it up to me not reefing down hard enough on the locknut. Then, after the pros at Olybikes tightened it down (it was in for something else and they were like "whoa"), it came loose AGAIN, after which I once again didn't know what the hell was going on. But today... Today, I learned the shocking truth.

( Cut for the interesting but not actually particularly shocking truth. )

Dep't of Disseminating Vital Information: To tell whether your headset is de-adjusted, you basically raise the front of your bike by the handlebars and drop it back down on the wheel, and if it clanks instead of thudding, consider getting it looked at. Alternately, you can lift the front end of the bike, keep the bars straight, and pull/push the wheel+fork forward and back, and if it rocks and clanks, trouble. It's generally not a life-threatening issue, but the longer you ride on a maladjusted component, the more likely you are to need expensive repairs down the line.

(Supposedly you're supposed to get your headset overhauled once a year, but I'm pretty sure this one hadn't been dismantled since at least 2006.)

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Also, I gave in and bought myself a fancy-pants Apple chiclet keyboard. Bit of a splurge, but I'm already way more comfortable at this desk, and it's just going to make reading and writing a shit-ton easier. It's a tool of my damn trade; I figure it's worth it. (Plus, it looks like they're popular enough to actually hold their value well, so a: getting one used won't save you any real money, and b: if times get tight, I can sell it for 70-80% of its new price.)

I got a wired one, because I still have a functional wired Mighty Mouse to use with it, and I went with the big version with the numerical pad. My theory is that Apple dropped the 10-key pad from the new pack-in keyboards because these side-by-side keyboards are a kind of hacky design, and are really only suited for right-handed people who mouse with their left hands. —Which is to say, me.