Want to see something really scary? My wife, who spends a lot of time watching horror films (for professional reasons as well as fun), was amazed at how well suspense was established and maintained throughout this little delight.
My wife also grumbled about not having access to a space like this for her projects.
†I worked a couple of days at the end of last year that NO ONE ELSE did, so the start of this week redressed that balance. I am now a strong advocate for a 20 hour work week.
No film last week, no update yesterday– you might think something terrible had happened to me. Happily, it’s just a quantity of unpleasant distractions demanding that I use my time otherwise.
I won’t try to penetrate the veil of traumatic amnesia which obscures the New Year’s Eve duties that ate my lunch hour, but the thing that kept me from yesterday’s (lack-of-)progress report has some grim amusement in it which I’m willing to share.
My intent was to add some air to a tire that wasn’t holding air particularly well. This is a tire that has been giving me trouble for a long time, and that should have been a hint– the problem extended through switches between summer and winter tires.
[An aside– I may have said this previously, but if you live above 45ºN in the Americas, get winter tires if at all possible. I had taken all-season tires at their word for years, but having tried winter-specific tires, there’s such a difference in traction that I have to urge them]
I will at this point mention that the weather here has been… I don’t think “abominable” is too strong. Most of the last fortnight has had lows under -30C, and most of this week the highs have been below -30C. A tire looking a little squishy is to be expected, but this one was VERY squishy. Using the front end of the lunch period to run to the gas station for some air was sensible, and even more so when I applied my tire gauge to it– a mere 15PSI, less than half what it should be.
[Second aside; yes, I use Centigrade for outdoor temperature and PSI for tire pressure. I’m a GenX Canadian, and a lot of us are wired that way thanks to the fifteen year conversion of Canada to Metric with which we shared our school years]
I applied the air hose to the valve, the sound of inflation followed, and when the tire looked more itself, I removed the hose to check the pressure. The sound of rapid deflation followed.
That ain’t right.
Let me show you my tire valve.
More than usually portable…
The cold weather was probably the last straw for this little fitting, but as this is the second time I’ve had this happen. The previous event was explained to me as an exercise in cost-cutting by vehicle manufacturers. In earlier ages, the main element of the valve stem was made of brass. Now, with this vital part being an exterior manifestation of the pressure monitor system, brass is considered too expensive for OEM parts. What we have now is “pot metal”, which is the foundry version of “100% unknown fibres”. It is given to failure.
I’ll leave this to you to decide if this is a manifestation of the wickedness of capitalism.
Yesterday was thus devoted to swapping flat for spare at -31C while apologizing to the dozens of other people wanting to desquishify their own tires whose efforts I was obstructing.
So, with that as a foundation, let’s have a progress-free report for the week.
Now, as a final disappointment, I’ve run out of time for this session to select a film. Hopefully next week will see a restoration of normalcy. I’m also DESPERATELY hoping that this week is not a setting of tone for the year, because that would be pretty hard to take.
I’ve given myself license to lounge, writing-wise, until the new year when I shall spring into action like a crowd of Harryhausen skeletons. Dealing with the still-air temperatures this week is enough creativity.
I’ve just realized that a couple of my published stories are past their exclusivity dates and in anthologies that are not easily accessed online. Stand by for action on the other site!
Building the ending from its current kit form of mostly coherent points, at a glacial pace. Also, coming around to the realization that it should be in third person rather than first.
When I was a kid, the “Space Race” was just winding down. I was thus pretty thoroughly steeped in a kid’s notions of what it would take to be an astronaut– the Rotor, the Zipper, and the Tilt-A-Whirl were all, in my mind at the time, the same as the training centrifuge that almost killed James Bond when he was Roger Moore.
Which means that this development seems to me to close a circle metaphorically as well as being an enclosed circle.
On a side note, while I’m not a huge fan of a lot of recent neologisms, “yeet” amuses me deeply.
Well, I was indeed away last week, and without a hint of communication. The otherworldly horror of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild Annual General Meeting was just too much to deal with.
I think I make up for it with this lucky find from TV history, though. It’s a sort of successor to Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast.
Speaking of Welles… why don’t we toss that in from the same source?
Also, as a final treat, I’ve just posted something over on my other site, a free goodie for the season called The Centennial Legacy. Happy Hallowe’en to all, and make sure to touch each of your children with an iron nail when they come back with their loot, just to make sure they are who they claim to be.
Today’s pen: Faber-Castell e-motion (an eerie cylinder of bone-white material, etched with an eldritch pattern) Today’s ink: Herbin Éclat de Saphir (the colour of the water around the upper edge of a ‘blue hole’, into which divers may vanish without trace)
What's up at Ravens March. 
