Adieu, Jerker

My Ikea Jerker desk is officially gone, via Craigslist, for free, to a woman who seemed very excited to receive it and came over to pick it up within 20 minutes of the posting. I'm a little nervous that she won't be able to assemble it without the instructions, but Nick tells me they'll figure it out. In searching for some pictures online to send her for guidance, I happened upon this Ikea Jerker Tribute site.

It warmed my heart to see that others share my affection for this desk that so many, including most if not all of my former and current housemates, have viewed as "hideous." I bought the desk in 1997, before the Bay Area even had Ikea. My brother imported it for me from the Southern California store. Assembling it by myself in my new apartment was one of my first realizations that I was on my own in this world, and that the road ahead wouldn't always be an easy one.

Sitting at my Jerker, I played many, many computer games. I wrote a novella and a lot of other stuff that may never see the light of day. I wrote a lot of stuff that did see the light of day. I listened to countless phone messages on the answering machine, stored conveniently on one of the swivel shelves. I watched my little TV that fit perfectly on the upper shelf. I applied for many a job from it during my period of unemployment. My cats sat on its various shelves for hours on end. And I disassembled and reassembled it at least six times that I can remember. (But it feels like more.)

It's fair to say I loved that desk, even though I saw its deficiencies. Namely, it has no internal storage, so the cables for all your stuff are always visible. And though you can adjust the height of all the shelves to your liking, doing so is a ton of work, so you usually leave it the way you set it up the first time out of laziness. What made this worse was that in our last move, we lost most of the essential screws, so three of the four shelves stood unattached, cluttering up our office for the last few years. I suppose I could have gone to a hardware store and gotten replacement screws (I couldn't find them at Ikea despite several attempts; I think they've redesigned the new Jerker to use different ones).

The truth is, though, that I was outgrowing the Jerker. It never really fit well in our home office, and a large desk like that no longer served my purposes. Plus, Nick hated the Jerker, and he eventually convinced me it was time to let the thing go. (I did fight though....) But hearing how happy this woman was to find out that it was still available, and the fact that she also took the zebra print chair that matched the desk perfectly, made it easier for me to say goodbye.

I just hope she figures out how to assemble it without the instructions.

Chantal from ANTM!

I totally spotted a former America's Next Top Model contestant (Chantal) on a the cover of 7X7 magazine at Mollie Stone's the other day. I have to alert my favorite blogger, FourFour! I'd have posted a jpg but I'm way too tired and there's not a good one available on the site :(

Trucks

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Originally uploaded by generaltsao.

My little guy has taught me so much about trucks. I never knew quite how many trucks there were out there in the world until I met Alex. My whole life I pretty much thought it was just like... truck. Big vehicle that you can haul stuff in. In college I learned that there were specific brands of trucks--because my one friend (Andrew McLelland--are you out there? We need to get in touch!) sometimes said "it was like I got hit by a Mack Truck." I knew that trucks were super handy for moving furniture. I knew people who owned trucks were always getting asked to help other people move. Still, I pretty much thought of trucks as...trucks.

But now I understand.

Garbage truck is a very generic term, and it describes many different kinds of trucks. There's the garbage truck that's actually a dump truck. There's the garbage truck that lifts garbage cans and dumps them. There's the garbage truck that lifts *dumpsters* and dumps them. There's the garbage truck that compacts garbage or gobbles up organic stuff (like old Christmas trees) in the back. I'm sure Alex knows of other garbage trucks. I'm kind of a novice here.

Then there are cement trucks. Like garbage trucks, these come in many colors and are incredibly interesting to watch in action. Cement trucks are a rare sighting and must be studied for the entire time they are in view.

And don't forget the many different types of delivery trucks--they all rattle along so loudly, and when they stop on the street, loud guys unload all manner of interesting innards from their cavernous depths. We live next to a building with a lot of rentals, so moving trucks stop in front of there frequently. Every one of them just fascinates Alex. With certain delivery trucks, you can see their inventory just by looking at them trundling along in motion: panes of glass, bottles of water, bales of hay, cars...for a little person like Alex, these things are incredibly exciting.

We also have the pickup trucks that ordinary civilians drive. These might merit a simple comment from Alex, but not a prolonged stare. No, those are saved for the bigger, more exciting pickup trucks with railings and storage lockers that contractors drive. (Our neighbor Svi has one of those, and it's always filled with sundry construction items.)

I haven't even gotten to the crown jewel of the genre: the firetruck. It has only been through Alex's eyes that I even started to notice all the subspecies of firetrucks, from the full-blown engine with hoses, ladders, instrument panels, and dedicated staffs all the way down to the simple Jeep-type things that zip around everywhere--playing the lead at a small domestic scuffle but just providing a supporting role at a multi-building, four-alarm fire. (In reading this over my shoulder, my husband has pointed out the many subtleties of this particular genre, and I'm realizing how much I'm outclassed, and how firetrucks clearly merit their own post. That Nick and Alex may have to write in later years.)

I don't think I can even get started on big rigs.

Was it the two Tonka trucks Alex received for Christmas? Or a fascination that was going to come out one way or another, nature triumphantly asserting itself over my cluelessly feminine nurture? Either way, I'm quite happy to have the chance to see the world of trucks through Alex's eyes. Let's hope we can get trucks running on renewable resources, lest this endlessly captivating vehicle become a quaint relic of the oil days.

Teletubbized

I woke up this morning to the sounds of "UH-oh!" coming from Alex's room. This has become his latest catch-all word. He does use it in the "appropriate" context, such as when he spills food or milk and needs to clean it up. But he uses it much more often--most cutely when he wakes up in the morning or from a nap. He'll just stand in his crib and say "UH-oh!" over and over and over until we come get him. It may be because he's thrown his pacifier out of his crib in protest, and he's saying "UH-oh!" because it's on the floor. Maybe not, though. He also just sorta says it when he's run out of other words.

I fear he picked the word up from his favorite TV show, The Teletubbies. He did seem to learn "Bye-bye" from them, and it wouldn't surprise me if this word also came from them. Their version doesn't quite sound like Alex's; it's more like "Eh-OH" with the emphasis on the second syllable. I think "Eh-OH" is a Teletubbized version of "Hello." (Most of what the Teletubbies say turns out to be baby-talk versions of real words. I only realized this when we watched it once with closed captioning on, and I discovered that what I thought was incomprehensible babble actually comprised real words!)

Some aspects of the show freak me out (the robotic "Time for Teletubbies Time for Teletubbies Time for Teletubbies" chant; the creepy pinwheel; Tinky Winky's voice). But the simple words, shapes, and slow pace of the show make it really captivating for Alex. I can't deny that the producers definitely "get" the infant mentality.

Yeah, I know infants aren't supposed to watch TV. Mine does. UH-oh!

Latest EGM Live*

We taped a fun little segment recently for EGM Live* about women in gaming. Check it out around minute 50:00. Make sure you listen all the way to the end!

Buying Less, and Why Black and Decker Aren't Green

(NB: I really buried the lede here. To help those looking for the point, I've denoted the important part of the story with a line of asterisks, because the preamble came out way longer than I expected and I'm too tired to edit :)

I have been reading A Year Off Sale, where an entire family is spending this year attempting to buy only things they "need" rather than all the stuff they "want." It's very interesting and something I myself have thought about a lot lately. I give a lot of stuff to Goodwill, and recently it started to occur to me that the lifespan of some of my purchases is really short. If I'm not certain when I'm buying something that it's going to fulfill a specific need, I often end up admitting it wasn't quite right or necessary, and it ends up in the Goodwill pile a lot sooner than I'd imagined. Plus, I just feel overwhelmed by "stuff" so often that I have basically been attempting to bring less "stuff" into my life.

This family is doing exactly that, but very admirably and aggressively. I don't have that dedication right now, but I'm glad to see others doing this. If the demand for crap is lessened, maybe companies will produce less crap, and that can only be good for the landfills.

One particular entry about a badly designed appliance reminded me of an outrage I wanted to blog about a few months ago.

I bought a Black and Decker Toast-R-Oven about a year ago. This was to replace the previous Black and Decker Toast-R-Oven I'd gotten in 2000, which had had a broken door for about two years before recently stopping working altogether. We spent about $100 on the new toaster oven. I could have gotten a similar model for about $70, but I fell into that marketing trap where I figured that we might as well get the slightly more expensive model, because it probably was just a little better--more features, better functionality, etc. It was at least slightly larger, and it matched our kitchen decor.

I was very irritated to discover a few months into our ownership that, indeed, the thing didn't work very well, and definitely no better than the cheaper, older model I'd had previously. You'd think it was toasting your English muffin or bagel, because the timer worked and the light went on. But about 50% of the time, the elements just wouldn't get hot. I think the fact that it worked half the time actually made the problem worse; I didn't take it back immediately because I assumed it would work most of the time. Even when I realized it really only worked half the time, I still decided not to worry about it. I didn't want to waste a perfectly mediocre toaster oven.

The plot thickened the first time I burned myself on the handle. When I realized that the handle was partly constructed of a metal that got really hot when the toaster was on, and this metal was located in such a place that you could almost not avoid getting burned if you opened the door all the way, I started to get mad. When I realized that I was accidentally burning my hand every few times I successfully used the toaster oven, I got really mad. What kind of idiots designed this thing? Were they better or worse than the fools who manufactured it so badly that it didn't even work half the time?

One morning when I had a few extra minutes, I called Black and Decker's customer service as I ran my finger under cold water to soothe the latest burn. When I complained about the fact that I was getting burned all the time, the woman very calmly and coolly told me that there was nothing they could do about that, because the user information that came with the toaster oven clearly stated that one should use an oven mitt when opening the door. I found this irritating--they didn't even care about my customer feedback on their poorly designed product and only seemed concerned with covering their corporate asses in case I was gonna get litigious on them (which I had no intention of doing). I was mad, but I didn't argue the point.

Instead, I went on to complain about the fact that the toaster oven didn't actually work half the time. I figured this was also something that they'd want to know about. Interestingly enough, the woman perked right up.

"Oh, well that's a malfunctioning product, so we can replace that," she said.

Great, I figured. I asked her how I should go about returning the toaster oven. What she told me enraged me even more.

"Cut the power cord off the back of the product and mail the cord to the following address with your name and info," she said. "When we receive the cord, we'll send you a new toaster oven."

What was I supposed to do with the existing toaster oven, I asked?

"Please dispose of it," she said.

I cursed them on behalf of Mother Earth.

Isn't Black and Decker somehow responsible for "properly" disposing of their own faulty products? Isn't it irresponsible of them to fill the market with poorly made crap and then refuse to take it back when people can't use it for its intended purpose? And anyway, the toaster oven worked some of the time. At worst, shouldn't I be able to donate it to Goodwill or give it to my friends who'll adopt it, knowing its flaws, because they're trying to save money? (I also couldn't "cheat" by sending a lookalike cord, because they'd asked me for the serial number on the plug's prongs at the beginning of the call.)

After my anger settled down a bit, I decided to take a stand, however small. I just couldn't bring myself to mutilate a working toaster oven, however crappily it actually did work. I just couldn't hasten its journey to the landfill, and I didn't want any new Black and Decker products in my house, even if they were provided free of charge. I know my friends and family get tired of my environmental crusade, but I do feel the little things add up, and suffering with the stupid toaster oven became one small way to avoid creating more trash. I vowed to write this blog post and send them a copy. It took me a while, but thanks to that other blog, I got motivated tonight.

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Boycott Black and Decker! Their products are terribly designed and badly made, and they're environmentally irresponsible! Write to them here and tell them how you feel!

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Wonderful Lurkers

My call to lurkers in my last post had the laughable effect of seeming to invoke writer's block in most of my friends/readers. I've heard from several of them that they want to comment but haven't because they're...

...still thinking about the right answer (true overanalysts after my own heart)
...eager to help but haven't a clue where I should go on vacation
...unable to figure out how to login in order to leave a comment
...secretly enjoying watching me beg for comments and receive only one (OK, I made that one up)

It is nice, however, to hear from people in response to something I wrote here, and I don't mind if it's in the form of a text, IM, or (gasp) real-life conversation!

In other news, insomnia strikes again... Could it be the two-hour nap I took earlier today when I had a major headache?