chezmax

The couches are listed on FB. I've had a couple of nibbles but we'll see if they pan out.

If nothing happens in a week or so... I may skip right to the part where I phone the Furniture Bank to arrange for a pickup. They'll send burly lads to do all the hauling, clean 'em up and send them on to someone who really needs 'em, and then give me a tax receipt for an in-kind donation at generous valuation.

If it comes to that, they'll get the coffee table, the TV bench, and the bedframe, too.

Hopefully they'll pick up during the final week of December, otherwise I'll be spending the last few days in this place sleeping on a mattress on the floor, watching a TV also sitting on the floor, while I perch in the only chair left.

In the listing I called the blue couch "my favourite piece of furniture I've ever owned", and that's not an exaggeration for marketing purposes. The Eames lounger, the Aeron chair, the curved-headboard bed, they're all good, but man, that couch is great. Comfy without too much sink, wears like iron, doesn't creak. For the space I originally had it in, the perfect size (my current living room arrangement is literally my California living room transported here).

It's not perfect: the bump out is one long cushion which is constantly needing to be pushed back in. Without a cushion behind the head the angle of the back is a bit off for the ideal lounging angle. But these are nits.

But we can't keep things forever, and that goes double for large pieces of soft furniture. I'd like to say I'll miss it when it's gone but... well, experiences are fickle. Perhaps I'll think of it 25 years from now. Even though I liked now-departed my vintage green sectional a lot, I'm not sure I ever think of it idly at all.

One can only hope the next couch will be as good.

Maybe.

I bought a Pixel 7a when those came out in early 2023 and it's still more than fine for everything I need a phone for, which to be honest, is not really that much. But Google is (naturally) doing a Black Friday sale, the trade-in value is only going to fall further, and it's not like I have a use case for an old phone.

But the counterargument is not complicated: I still get over a day's worth of battery life, and it's not like there's anything that my existing specs struggle with or a shiny new feature I'm interested in. For me the real right time to buy a new phone is "when the current one dies" or "the battery no longer lasts for a full day".

I dunno, I used to be a "get a new phone every two years" kind of person, but it helped that the employer used to pick up the tab. 2.5 years with the 7a and it's still performing adequately.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has taken to describing iPhone as "the phone for people who care about their phones" whereas Android is for people who don't. As a long-time Android user (15+ years!) I found this irritating but there's possibly a kernel of truth in it. I am just not on my phone that much.

I have admittedly not been doing my best work lately at maintaining my 2022 resolution to just go outside every day. The podcast backlog can attest: an extra hour every day of listening time adds up.

The cold and dark hasn't been helping, but today I did manage a 2.5km loop of the neighbourhood. Just keep building on that success. Because it is one: I did the thing.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day edition.

This is less of a period piece for me than the first one, probably because it's 90% sets instead of being filmed on the streets of downtown LA.

The craft of this edition is superior: the actions scenes are excellent, the effects cutting-edge for the day, the stunts incredible (a helicopter literally flies under a highway overpass at speed like it ain't no thang). Also Arnold got a lot better at acting in the interim. But the plot of the first edition is better: let's be honest, John Connor is a whiny jerk, Sarah Connor really does sound schizo, the ruthlessness/effectiveness of the T-1000 sometimes serves the story.

4/4. Also the music is no longer in 13/16.

What a shame there are no more movies in this series. None whatsoever. So strange for a high-grossing pair of films! Oh well, I guess Cameron moved on to other things, like boats and big blue aliens.

Perhaps foolishly, I volunteered as President and Treasurer to go sit in the lobby tonight from 6 to 7 to field resident questions from anyone interested. Ostensibly they were to be budget-related, but going in I wouldn't have bet on it. I felt strongly that if I was going to tell people their fees were going up by as much as $600/month for two years, the least I could do is look them in the eye and explain why.

I had no idea how this is going to turn out, but I did remind myself that no one bestirs themselves to say "well, things are okay".

As it happens, the only takers were the two people who left the Board at the last AGM when their terms expired and we had a nice casual chat. Could have been worse.