My toes are done and other things

OK I did my toes yesterday and picked up my meds. The toes were the same cost as usual, but my meds went up almost 500%, 471% to be precise. My usual pharmacy changed suppliers on this med and where the old supplier had a discount for monthly prescriptions the new one doesn’t. The new pill looks completely different in shape and color from the previous one. While I was going down the road I went ahead and got my bag limit for check-ins on my phone game, which is also working like it’s supposed to work. I just cashed in the gift card I earned last week and I’m close to getting another gift card on the side quest mission, just two more days to go on that one.

On the Mini Sprint-T I have been playing with the windshield frame from the donor kit to see if I can make it lay down like mine will with the posts I got from Speedway . Short answer: Yes indeedy. Unfortunately it takes both hands to hold the frame aligned with the body without using glue and since my mockup adhesive has gone walkabout I can’t put it together to take a picture. Since I have to visit the LRK early in the AM I’ll stop by the hardware and pick up another tube of Goop and some drill bits to install the tail light on the seat of the new bike. The mounting bolt measures ³/₁₆” so that’s the drill I’ll be looking for or maybe a thirty-second larger.

Well, I have to get up at Oh-Gawd-Thirty in the Aye-Emm so I’m going to let it rest now.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable

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Expanding on part of yesterday’s post- Media Aware

In my last post I postulated that I have become aware that I’m a character in a series of stories after reviewing my life and realizing that shit like that doesn’t all happen to the same person outside of fiction. And that my writer(s) are apparently a bit on the hack side as writers go.

As a f’rinstance my wallet showed up in the mail today with my ID and everything still inside it. The only thing missing was the $10 bill, because I need the ID to sell my plasma and start making a steady income of sorts. It showed up in a padded mailing envelope with my full deadname and no return address. What makes this suspect was the timing, yesterday I posted that I needed a source of income but I couldn’t do it without my ID and today there’s my ID again, in a padded mailing envelope with no return address. Now most people would just thank their luck and continue on with their lives, but them most people haven’t been hit by trucks and survived 3 times when the trucks didn’t, haven’t gotten caught in a shooting revolution that one side wanted to kick you out of the country if you survived, haven’t learned to fly, haven’t built race cars and bicycles… See what I mean? One or two of those things is an interesting life, this is a character in a story.

And part of the reason I know I’m a character in a story is I’m a writer so I’m more aware of things like that. I read fiction, I try to write fiction, so I recognize the things that happen in fiction that don’t happen in real life. Like someone getting killed and “waking up” when they are scraping the body off the pavement. Like money just dropping into my life at particularly opportune moments and running out at precisely the time when it would make a plot point. And a whole bunch of other things I don’t want to relate because I have a hard time believing it myself.

So, our “real life” is someone else’s “storyland”, and I suspect the reverse is true hence the entry in TVTropes. And as soon as I finish this post I’m going to ride my bike. I have been stretching my hip, the tires are pumped, the weather is nice, so Ima go for a bike ride.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable

When I get my ID I’ll be in business

Now I’m waiting on my ID and ATM card to be replaced so I can start selling my plasma to buy groceries and hot rod parts. Since I need the ATM card to pay for the ID that’s more important right now. Then the ID so I can start making some money and buying raw stock and parts (and tools) for the hot rod, and groceries, too. Mrs. the Poet and I agreed that about half the money would go for buying groceries since pretty much all her retirement goes to household expenses.

Things that are on hold right now because the guy writing the script never got around to fixing that dangling plot line:

1) Broken bike pump, still need to have a printer to print the return label.
2) Cats still “broken” need getting fixed.
3) Riding bike, see: Broken bike pump.
4) Reprogramming PCM on hot rod, suspect that is in a later chapter after I actually get the donor car.
5) Hole in shower wall and toilet that needs a new wax ring because water gushes from underneath it every time it gets flushed.
6) Something to cover the bare concrete floors where the ratty carpets had to be pulled up.
7) Getting Mrs. the Poet’s back fixed so she can walk better without pain.

And if this seems a little random, one of the things I like to play with is we are all characters in someone else’s stories. I mean how else would you explain my life except as a series of novels and short stories? Sometimes I get good stories, sometimes I get the Book of Job. And sometimes I get something in between. What I suspect now is my current writer has written themselves into a corner in that the main character has discovered he is immortal but not invulnerable. As another character in a similar position has put it, “Just because I can’t die doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when someone tries to test it out.” As an author what can you do with such a character? Do you have him heroically jumping into situations where people may die knowing it will hurt like Hades for the rest of his life which effectively means forever, until every waking moment is constant agony or stupor from painkilling drugs? Or make him hyper cautious because forever is a long time to hurt? I don’t know either.

The biggest plot problem facing my writer is a lack of income caused by previous events, it’s real hard to do anything without money, usually lots of money. Some writers just have things magically show up without any plausible means of paying for them, but that’s not happening here (unless you count the free donor car). But yeah, source of income is usually overlooked when writing a story, but right now it is literally the biggest problem I’m facing. How can I be a hero when I don’t even have money for a day pass to get there? And whoever heard of the hero riding to the rescue on the bus? 😀 I think that might be the subject of the next story, setting me up with enough income for the rest of the stories to come. My devious nature just flashed to those Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes prizes of $5k/week for life won by a guy who lives forever. “It’s 2218, he’s been set up financially for life since 2017, and they want him DEAD!” Well, I hope this gives my writer or writer team some options.

Moving to more current and real-world things, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Hug your sweetie, swap candy and/or spit as appropriate, and have a good time.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable

I just got a check from Facebook

I’m going to be quite honest about this and say I had forgotten completely about the issue that resulted in my getting the check, to wit Facebook using my name and avatar picture for advertising purposes without requesting permission first. This took place shortly after MySpace started censoring the sh!t out of links in my blog and I left MS for WP and FB.

So anywho, I have a check for $15 that I will now spend on useless things like groceries and comic books. Probably more groceries than comic books.

Also while I am doing a post, I bought a keyless chuck for my Dremel tool through Amazon using the gift cards I get from the mobile game, and a set of tiny drills to use in the chuck from Lowe’s using the card that I can’t use everywhere but I can use in a few places they pay me with at another one of my side gigs. This means I can finish building the scale SBC for the Mini Sprint-T. And yes I’m still building the Mini Sprint-T even though the full-scale car will now be mid-engine with a Mopar V6. One slightly ironic thing is the Sprint-T had to have an automatic transmission because there was no room for 3 pedals between the transmission tunnel and the side of the car, while the mid-engine car will have a flat floor and acres of room for pedals but no manual transmission available, just a full manual controller on the slush box.

While on the subject I have mostly finished redesigning the frame for the switch from front to mid engine. One thing I changed was the location of the forward hoop of the roll cage, which was also a crossmember of the frame, that had a diagonal running from the top of the rear hoop to the bottom of the front hoop. On the front engine version this ran through the passenger compartment, but on the mid-engine version I’m moving the bottom rail out from under the body and the bottom of the hoop likewise meaning I don’t have to figure out how to get the painted body back on the frame with parts of the frame under and over the body and one big part running through the body, because that “one big part” will now be outside the body. It will be a close fit but it will clear. The other thing changed was the location of the front coilover mount both on the axle and the frame. The new axle mount will be as close to the end of the axle as possible without the back of the spindle making contact with the unit at the ends of the turning travel, on top of the axle tube. The new frame mount will be high above the axle so that the front wheel doesn’t hit the diagonal from the frame mount to the bottom of the front hoop of the roll cage at full compression and full turning travel. This is a very unlikely place for the wheel to be but it is possible so the frame has to clear the tire. This has the secondary effect of increasing d which increases the torsional rigidity of the frame, meaning better handling.

And that’s about it today, go ride a bike. I’m still stretching to be able to ride mine again.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable Badass