Gratuitous self horn tooting

I've recorded my first number one hit album. The Stolen Minks ep Family Boycott, of which I recorded five out of the eight songs and mixed two others, has reached the top of the Canadian campus radio charts this week.

I'm pretty excited about this, though I feel that honestly I can take very little of the credit--they would have gone number one no matter where they had recorded their album. Congrats, Minks!

It's also worth noting that Ranch alumnus B.A. Johnston has been doing very well on the charts as well, currently sitting at number 7 with his album Call Me When Old And Fat Is The New Young And Sexy. It's the seventh week on the charts. Well done Christian.

Nothing like a half-assed handyman session...

...to make me feel like I've stuck it to the man. The man in this case being the GE repair centre.

Backing up a little bit, I've had this GE washing machine for a little over nine years. It's endured thousands of loads, two moves, and a lot of loose change. In other words, it doesn't owe me a lot. Last week, I tossed in a load, set it and went about my business. When I came down a couple hours later, I opened the washer up to find that the agitator and come completely off the drive spindle in the centre of the tub. What. The. Not only that, but the top of it (the largely useless to me fabric softener dish. Really though, who uses liquid fabric softener during the wash cycle?) had been rubbing up against the edge of the tub so much that there are now massive knife-wound-like gashes in it, rendering it more useless than ever.

Okay, easy fix, I think. Just put it back on the spliney drive spindle, and we're up and running again, right? Right. It turns out that this particular model has a bolt that keeps the agitator in place. This bolt had come loose and was now rattling around inside the agitator. You'd think they would make the agitator in such a way that taking it apart would be easy, but no. There's a bottom piece that is held in place by eight very solid and not easily pressed tabs. The fin parts that spin around seem to be connected to the rest of the agitator by magic. After several attempts to open it up, I gave up, defeated.

Not having a washing machine presents a serious problem, particularly if you like wearing clean clothes. We're all pretty big fans of clean clothes here at the ranch. This had the potential to make the great shower repair incident of 2006 seem trivial by comparison. Hey at least back in February I could go to Jade's place to shower, and Robbie could go to Tiina's. But now...where could we find anywhere that has laundry facilities? NOWHERE! Really, somebody should get on that. I bet if you set up some kind of establishment where many people could do laundry for a small fee, it would be very popular. You could make a killing! I digress.

I called the GE repair service. I knew that it would be a simple repair given the right tool. Open up the agitator, get that damn bolt, and screw it back onto the drive, right? Done! Five minutes and we're in clean laundry again. It turns out that repairs for GE appliances are handled by a company called MABE. As in, MAyBE we can help you out. Upon talking with Mr. MABE, I learned that it would cost $80 just to have somebody look at it! And then on top of that is the cost of the repair itself! I doubt the washer is even worth more than $50 were I to sell it. And he said since it was so old, they might have to send a specialist over and order fancy tools! So old? Nine years is old? Has washing machine technology advanced so much in the past decade that my machine is now obsolete?

Forget you pal! That night, I went home, took some epoxy and glued that fucker back to the drive shaft. Problem solved. Total cost: zero.

Sure, I've pretty much guaranteed that if anything ever goes wrong with it ever again that it's unfixable, but who cares. Live for the moment! Wear clean clothes!