Today I assembled this rolling file cabinet/cart thing so a new Brother laser printer and some files could have a home. It took forever. It’s the first piece of office furniture I’ve assembled that actually required the use of dowels and wood glue. I pleaded with the salesgirl at Staples to sell me the floor model, but she wouldn’t. And after that injustice she had the audacity to pimp their extended warranty for $29.99. Feh. So building ensued. Here’s the finished product:

This was taken in my parents’ living room, hence all the Weimaraner trophies in the background.

Also spent a lot of time today reading Scott Adams’ Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!, which is sort of a treasury of his best blog posts. It’s really good. The chapters average something like 2.8 pages in length, so I find myself repeatedly thinking, “I should go do that thing, but maybe just one more chapter since they’re so short…” And poof — three hours wasted. I think reading it on the Kindle makes the timesink more deceptive too; you’re not really aware of the real quantity of pages you’ve gone through and it takes less effort than a book (easier to hold, no page-turning).

This bit really resonated with me since I’ve moved a lot in the past three years (Seattle, Federal Way, Pullman) and will be doing it again (Pasco) quite soon:

Have you ever noticed that you can’t remember how painful it is to move to a new home until you are actually doing it? I mean, conceptually you know it will be “hard,” but you never fully appreciate the fact that your entire soul will be water-boarded for about four days. At some point during the middle of the process you start thinking, “I will never move again until I die and other people have to carry me.” But a few months later, the memory of the horror fades.

How true!

What’s today’s topic? Housework? Hm. Well, I started watching this BBC America show on my parents’ DVR called How Clean is Your House?. If you’re not familiar, it’s this show where these two British ladies storm into someone’s home, say all sorts of horrible things about how filthy the inhabitants are and how they should be ashamed, then proceed to clean their house for them. Along the way they give cleaning tips and talk about the health risks associated with living in squalor. In small, infrequent doses it’s pretty good.

It’s kind of sick how watching other people clean can make you feel like you did something. This Old House does the same thing. Or is that just me? I find the feeling’s especially strong when they do masonry or tile… after watching Tom Silva cut and lay tile I usually feel like I deserve a refreshing drink.

Anyway, housework. Two things have made housework way, way easier for me: A bagless vacuum and a dishwasher. Man, I love my dishwasher. It was my birthday present last year. My new house will come with one, but I’m going to keep my old one too (it’s a portable-island model, so there’s no installation necessary). As long as I stay on top of things, we’ll never have to leave dishes in the sink or put them away — we can just alternate machines; one for clean dishes, one for dirty. Well, I dunno, we’ll see how that works out in practice.

Here’s a cleaning tip I learned the hard way: Don’t use steel wool on porcelain (e.g. toilets). It leaves weird gray marks that you can’t get out.

(Huh, when I sat down to do this entry I was worried about not having enough to write about.)

Okay, that’s all for now. Busy day tomorrow: Got some computer work to finish up then I’m driving back to Pullman. Need to track down some more Handel on the Law podcasts for the trip.

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