#Cheap piece of particle board crap

[mandsleanan]

Browsing through Facebook Marketplace, looking at aquariums, and some of these listings are bonkers.

My fellow fishnerd, you are not going to receive $3+/gallon for your used, mineral-encrusted tanks. Aquarium stores regularly have $1/gal sales, and anyone willing to pay more than that is looking for something way more expensive than your gently loved Aqueon. I'm not even willing to match that for something I need to spend an hour scrubbing with alcohol, water-fastness unknown.

Honestly people would be better scrapping the glass tank and just selling the stand, especially if it's one of the heavy, solid wood ones that you can't find sold anywhere now. I don't think any company is even making them, given that the stands carried at the same retail price now are all particle board. Not even plywood. Particle board.

Enshittification has finally reached the aquarium hobby.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Waiting for The Plumber, Or Someone Like Him...

Got up to get a drink of water this morning and trotted right into a small lake.  Evidently the old kitchen faucet (cheap home-depot apartment-level crap) had finally taken its last breath, and had been leaking water all over everywhere during the night.

Opened the cabinet and it had gone all down the wall, behind/under the piece of linoleum they put down to “catch leaks” (ha ha ha)...all dripping into/onto the electric outlets for the dishwasher and disposal.

So I set about sopping up water and leave message for landlord.  Plumber won’t be here for a couple hours...it was 8am when I called, so they brought up big industrial squirrel-cage fan to start drying the very wet particle-board cabinet and floor.

Plumber ended up not getting here until nearly 3pm.  Sigh.  At which point, I had to run to put my last $25 into my account so the goddamn comcast bill doesn’t bounce tomorrow.

All I knew was that ‘you’re getting a whole new faucet”, and I figured it would be another POS like the one that broke.

Uh-uh!

Holy crap...it’s...it’s beautiful!

Frankly, I’m gobsmacked that they put in something, you know, NICE.

So it all ended well, I got the money in before the comcast bill posts.

And we got this...this groovy thing.

Yes, Babies...when you get old, you can get excited by absolute mundane shit.

[orderrup]

Procedurally generated art poses an existential threat to art the same way mass-produced MDF and particle board (for simplicity's sake, IKEA) furniture poses a threat to woodworking.

There is a hell of a lot more cheap IKEA furniture in the world than hand-carved or assembled furniture. The craft is also much smaller than it was in my parents' and grandparents' day. However:

Almost everyone knows that while the IKEA furniture serves a function in the house, it isn't ideal. It has advantages like portability, and ease of assembly, but it also absolute trash quality and is often the first thing to get replaced when you have a bit of money laying around.

The problem with IKEA furniture isn't that it's "not real" furniture-- or even that some of the pieces aren't pretty good quality, and last unexpectedly well. It's that it's kind of... shlock. It's just not very good at doing what it's supposed to for extended periods.

To complete the analogy: AI art is rising in prominence. We will all see and interact with it. It has the veneer of art, but most AI pieces lack "staying power". When people crave something more substantial, they'll need artists and craftspeople.

In the meantime: We complain endlessly about how our current world produces way too much crap that breaks way too fast, and that planned obsolesce is killing us. If you want to strike at the beating heart of why AI, and job loss, and cheap shlock is making you miserable, you need to strike at the *system*.

Is enforcing copyright more strictly a good way to prevent an exploitative and capitalist system from marginalizing a workforce of artists? I don't know. I don't think so. I think it's a good way to give up the few rights we have as creatives in a sacrifice to ward off a very indifferent god.

TLDR: I don't think we are scared of AI. I think we are scared of capitalism finally getting to chew up and spit out art like IKEA furniture.

[bakafox]

My chair's back is being kept on at this point by 2 loose screws out of 4 original screws and they're really hard to tighten, the holes are kind of ground out/out of whack. This is the same chair that lost an arm within 4 months of purchase and assembly in a way impossible to re-place on because it tore up the cheap particle board so screws won't go back in.

I never tried returning it because my brain said that was too much effort and it was too late when that happened... it cost like $500US and it is such a piece of crap and I probably should replace it but having been burned so bad on this chair and with the trust having very little money left in it I am hesitant to reach out to Trustee Aunt like "Yeah I need a few hundred bucks again to replace the chair we spent a few hundred bucks on about 2-3 years ago."

[dzpenumbra]

7/20/23

Today has been... kinda crap, honestly. I didn't really do anything and I've been very depressed.

I woke up after 2 hours and had this dream that was... basically like a YouTube video but as though I was the camera. And it was in this style that's been growing in popularity of like... AI-generated scripts and storylines and dialogue and shit. And it just really upset me. This is really the next extension off of reality TV, where the primary goal is to produce as much "passable" script and material ("content") as possible to flood the market, to optimize your chances of getting views. Then... farm the ad revenue. Aka the new business model for entertainment media.

It upset me deeply because the theme branched off into... it being about how YouTube is blatantly and openly marketed towards families... read that as - marketed towards kids. So.... what I was seeing... was a generation of children being raised on stories that not only don't have any specific lesson to teach or moral to pass on... but are essentially just scraps of other stories mulched by an AI algorithm and pasted together as something passing as unique. Like that cheap particle board that all fucking furniture is made of nowadays, just chipped pieces of wood glued into a mass that looks like a board, that's covered in paper painted to look like woodgrain. And we're doing that... with the socialization and cultural education of an entire generation of children. And I fast-forwarded 20 years and imagined how that generation would grow up. And it made me really sad.

I don't really like this world, honestly. I don't like this culture. I don't know why everyone is in such a hurry all the time, or tries so hard to stay busy as much as possible. I don't know why we always need more more more, and need to push the edge further and further.

I really hope it's not everyone. I really hope there are people out there that are content with a simple life. That still appreciate someone taking the time to tell a story, or share their own story, or to make something by hand, out of real things. Rather than take short-cuts in order to mass-produce. I swear, any idea I have... I feel this social pressure to immediately ask myself "but how do I make 5000 of these?" Fucking why? Why the hell would I want to make 5000 copies of something unique and special? What does that contribute?

The more I see people content in imitation, the more it makes me feel like... the world doesn't really have a place for what I feel compelled to do.

And yeah, I guess I'm kinda in a depressive existential rut right now. I didn't paint the board today. I just kept putting it off and never came back to it. I added a second coat of wax to the beads, I'll see how they look tomorrow.

I'm just... kinda exhausted and depressed and weighed down. And that just kinda turned into a day of sitting around and watching YouTube. I wish I had been more deliberate about the decision to take the day off, I wouldn't feel so bad about it.

I just don't really know what my place is here. And I'm getting a lot of conflicting ideas pouring into my life about... setting goals. Like... a lot of the "live Here and Now" stuff is very contrary to making life plans. So... if you're truly living in the moment... why would you ever apply for a college program? Why would you ever sign a lease? Why would you plan a long-term decision... like taking courses for qualification in a career path. What's the point? Because you're supposed to just... do whatever comes your way and make the best of it. Because setting goals leads to suffering. Even if you achieve your goals, it's never what you want, and the gain is fleeting and then... gone. Where true bliss is being in the moment and making the most of it. So... what's the point of aspirations?

I don't know. I have a lot of conflicting ideas floating around in my head, and that combined with... feeling like I don't have a lot to show for my efforts...

Okay, here's the core of it. My work is my contribution to society. As a member of society, of Life, of the history of the Universe... my contributions are my work. My words, my stories, my thoughts, my experiences, my poetry, my music, my drawings, my paintings, my creations. It feels like society doesn't want them. Any of them. And they are direct reflections of me, just as a writer's writing is a direct reflection of the way they communicate. I don't feel valued. I don't feel... wanted? I feel like a burden on society.

I just smelled a skunk. XD What a wake-up call! Talk about "not valued by society..." Hey, at the end of the day? People are more willing to tolerate me "wasting" all my time painting designs on skateboards or polishing rocks or wooden beads... than they are tolerant of just letting a skunk live its fucking life. So... I guess I can count myself as lucky?

Ever since I truly applied myself to reconnect with my artist-self 5 years ago, and kicked my own ass out of critical creative block... I have been constantly pressured by every source around me to simply do ANYTHING else. I've even asked, what do they want me to do other than this? Because I've really felt this sense of urgency from them... as though my vacancy from where I'm "supposed to be in society" is causing problems in the mechanical function of society. As though others are suffering because I'm choosing to make art instead of... deliver pizzas? Am I supposed to be stocking shelves at a soon-to-be-extinct brick and mortar shoe store? Am I supposed to be checking out groceries at a grocery store right next to the self-checkout? Am I supposed to be prepping vegetables for the chef of a trendy vegetarian restaurant? Am I supposed to be helping customers at a board game shop? Where am I supposed to be? And the resounding feedback I have gotten has been essentially, "yes, any of those, literally anything but what you're compelled to do with your existence." It makes me wonder... if my compulsion as a human was to... teach... or cook... or repair cars... rather than make eclectic art and dabble in spiritual practices and write a ridiculous amount of stream of consciousness journaling every night... Would I have gotten support? Or would I have gotten the same message? To just pick literally anything else, because fuck me. To go work for someone else, who did have social support, who did have investors, who did have customers, who people were willing to take a "risk" on. Who society gave the thumbs up to.

Yep, whenever I talk like this... the depression is hitting hard.

I just don't really know what to do with my time. I have so many ideas that I really would love to just sink all my time into every day... but it just seems like... like I'm talking to a wall with every piece I make. Like none of my accomplishments and achievements mean anything at all to any other living being. Like my contributions to society are entirely meaningless.

Yep, that's definitely depression. And isolation. Yep. I'm not gonna feed that beast anymore, he got his fill. I'm gonna go take a late-night shower and try to watch something funny to cheer up before sleep. Therapy tomorrow, after 3 weeks of isolation. 1 hour of real human interaction. We'll see how it goes.

[ams-info-blog]

READ // Fast furniture is hurting the planet - so think big next time that ‘bargain’ is bundled in to the back of the car!! And consider I t’s time to end fast design! + With the Ikea catalogue surpassing The Bible as the most printed book in the world (?!!!) with 200 million+ copies annually - it’s astounding to learn IKEA use 1% OF THE WORLD’S TIMBER - that’s 1%!! + Being mainly cheap particle board - not recyclable - made from wood chips x glue - the lion-share of this resource feeds landfill. It’s not just @ikea - with @colessupermarkets Introducing a $10-35 homeware collection to improve the #retailexperience 😞joining @targetaus @kmartaus & other chains knocking off trends fuelling what we call #disposabledecorating - it’s time to #chosewellbuyless & invest in furnishings we keep for life! + Vote with your wallets people!! Furnishings are an investment - not a trend. We need to be responsible. + If we embrace ethical food supply & avoid palm oil or unsustainable fishing - is it time to address #fastdesign #fastfurniture? + If we’re horrified about the ethical, environmental & human impact of fast fashion - should we apply that thinking to furnishings? + How often do we see a dumpster full of cheap furniture? Businesses saving a buck to buy cheap crap or #replicafurniture only to replace it again. And again. + Or homes seeking a ‘decorator look’ / #knockoffs vs investing in pieces that are made to endure, pieces with character, meaning & things we care about. + Take a stance - help educate yr friends & family. Be informed. Inform others. + #replicaisfake #stopdesigntheft #getrealybuyrealsupplyreal #supportoriginaldesign #authenticdesign #authenticdesignalliance #thedesigndirectory + 🙏thank you @livingedge For sending this. Living Edge are a founding ADA Member & continue to support us as Platinum Members + If yr keen to support our campaigns for change pls become an ADA Member 🔗link in Bio ☝️ https://www.instagram.com/p/B1fArbDFAzU/?igshid=9kh4sj9yy5dj

[hangonimevolving]

Sewing Table Refurb: The Backstory

I’ve got a little less than an hour to spend today, updating all you lovely people about a project I’ve had going on for some weeks now.  

So, I sew sometimes.  I would like to sew more than I currently do, and I’ve decided that this is the year it’s gonna happen.  I believe I have talked about sewing on this blog before, namely with regards to various reupholstering and quilting projects I’ve taken on in the past.  I think I’ve even introduced you to two of The Girls - - i.e my sewing machines.  I’ve got a 1964 vintage Sears/Kenmore sewing machine that I purchased off of Craigslist back in Boston for $60, which included a beautiful midcentury solid wood cabinet that conceals the machine when not in use (talked about it here and here).  

It had its original midcentury-era drawer pulls when I first purchased it, but I switched them out to more updated knob pulls back in 2007 because I was being anal-retentive and wanted the hardware to be brushed nickel, to match other crap in our condo.

I also have a substantially more modern, and in “like new” condition (but actual age, maybe 20 years old) Husqvarna Viking serger (discussed here).  I remember feeling like a frigging rock start for scooping it up at $100.

Last year, during a giant Slipcovering Bonanza undertaken by me and my mom to guard my ginormous, beautiful double-sectional West Elm sofa from my destructive children and cat, my old Kenmore started giving me a little bit of grief.... my mother convinced me that I owed it to myself to buy a new sewing machine, if I was serious about continuing this hobby.  She said all the right things about how I deserved a newer machine with a few more features and a little less of the wheezing and attitude of an older machine.  I took the bait, and bought myself this Gorgeous Lady: a Janome HD 3000.

I’m incredibly pleased with this machine.  I paid under $500 for it on Amazon, and this included a bunch of “free gifts” and accessories like a bunch of special presser feet, extra bobbin set, and some other doodads.  

I love the machine.  But.  (there’s always a but, isn’t there?)....  I am a brat.  After sewing on my old-school Kenmore machine in the built-in cabinet for so many  years, I got accustomed to having my needle plate sitting flush with the tabletop while I sew.  To those of you who have no idea what the #$%^ I’m talking about - -the short version of the story is, I missed the ergonomics of how my old vintage machine was set up.  Here is a graphic that might explain:

(I stole that image from someone on Pinterest, but I’ve left their handle name up there in case someone wants to go search for it)

Here’s another image that might allow a non-sewing person to understand what my problem was.  This is also from IKEAhackers on Pinterest.... in summary, see how this machine has been set INTO the table a bit, instead of just having its base sitting on top?  This allows you to work fabric through the machine’s needle without having to hunch your shoulders.

Anyways.  Thus far, I had been working on my new Janome machine either at the dining table or on my desk in our home office, or sometimes, on top of my old Kenmore machine’s cabinet with the hinged tabletop still shut.  All of these setups were making my shoulders and neck pissed off at me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it unless and until I was ready to start thinking about coming up with a proper furniture solution.

Somehow, about a month ago, I got a little fed up with my shoulders and back muscles hurting, and after my second round of Botox injections in my levator scapulae muscles in as many years, I decided I really ought to do what they say in my MMA classes... “protect ya neck.”  It was time to find a sewing table with a drop-in shelf that would allow my machine to sit with its needle plate flush to the work surface.

Naturally, my first thought was to buy a table that was ready made for this purpose.  So I perused the interwebz.  

I found a number of tables like this and this and this.  And these are perfectly fine options.... for someone else.  NO judgment if you own and love one of these tables.  But they weren’t for me.  They either looked too flimsy, too particle board-y, too not my style, or too expensive for me.  As I said before, I am a spoiled, spoiled brat, who lucked out and got a wonderful vintage machine in an almost MORE wonderful solid wood cabinet many years ago, and it happens to be EXACTLY from my dream design era of the midcentury modern years.  So I was totally ruined on any kind of commercially-available table that was out there to be purchased.

It was time for me to do things MY way.  And we all know what way that is. The way that starts out exciting, unique, and very cheap, but then snowballs into some giant, physically-involved and exhausting project that in the end costs more than one of those readymade tables would cost.  HAHAHA :)  I am so extra, as the youngsters say.

So off I went!  I spent hours and hours on the internet trying to brainstorm ideas, educating myself on what it would take to buy a nice solid wood console table or desk, and DIY a cutout and drop-shelf for my machine.  I did a daylong “research” trip to some big box home furnishing discount stores in my area, to see if I could find an inexpensive but solid wood table that I could modify.  But I came up empty-handed - -nothing was my style, in my price range, or - -a dagger - - easily modifiable.  Bummer.  

Stop #2 on my sewing table option train was to spend hours on Pinterest reading with great curiosity how there’s a whole world of sewing people out there who have successfully, and relatively easily, converted this one particular table from IKEA into a sewing table: the IKEA Ingo dining table.  A woman at the blog Blue Dinosaurs was the pioneer of this conversion, and since then, many (she speculates thousands) of others have followed her awesome tutorials.  I considered this briefly, but was always put off by the dimensions of this Ingo table, which, sadly, would be too wide and cumbersome in the sewing space I have in my home (our guest room, which also houses a queen sized bed, two side tables, and a long 6-drawer dresser, as well as my old Kenmore cabinet and the serger table).

Then, I sat and thought about it: hmm, if I was willing to entertain the idea of converting a table, but I didn’t want to do a dining table....what kind of table would be the easiest to convert into a sewing table?  Duh, maybe a SEWING table.  Now one might wonder why I didn't think of this earlier.  I didn’t immediately think about finding a vintage sewing table because I was stuck on the notion that the cutout for a vintage machine wouldn’t fit my newer machine precisely.  But I realized, if I was willing to learn how to cut into a solid tabletop, I could probably teach myself to modify and elongate an existing cutout even more easily.  SO!  I was newly energized.  This time, I took to the app Letgo, which is the newfangled and more mobile device-friendly version of Craigslist.  It also happens to be relatively popular in my area.  It only took a few days for me to stumble upon a BEAUTY, listed for $55.  I contacted the seller, she replied within hours, and by 10 am the next morning, I was in possession of My New Baby:

Ain’t she GORGEOUS!  Look at those amazing drawer pulls!  Look at those GAMS!  I was smitten.  It was love at first sight.

Okay, warning: I’m about to nerd out for a second.  If you have no interest whatsoever in sewing machine history, please feel free to stop reading here, and stay tuned for my next installment of the Great Sewing Table Refurb!  

Nerd time: She’s a vintage Singer sewing cabinet.  I happened to meet the seller and her mom (the former owner of the table), and talk with them awhile.  The seller didn’t sew herself, but she tried to sell me a box of accessories that went with the original machine that was housed in this cabinet, including a shitload of switchable stitch discs.  I declined because I knew they would serve precisely zero purpose at all to me, with a brand-new modern machine of a different brand - - but I was fascinated, looking through the box of stitch discs and interesting accoutrement.  She also showed me - and I could just KICK MYSELF that I didn’t take photos of it, or even ask her to give/sell it to me!!! - the original catalog and manual for this cabinet and the machine that went with it.  I’ve been haunted ever since that I didn’t note down the information, but here is what I do remember and have been able to piece together.

This table housed a vintage Singer sewing machine.  I have been able to deduce that it was likely either a 401a, 500 Slant-O-Matic, 503 Slant-O-Matic (the “Rocketeer!!!") or possibly a 513 Stylist.  I think I recall seeing the date 1957 or 1958 on the catalogs and manuals she showed me, which would mean it couldn’t have been the Stylist, which only was released in the late 60′s-early 70′s.  Also, the fact that she had a box full of stitch discs that she was trying to sell me corroborates the fact that it may not have been a 513 Stylist, because the Stylist didn’t use removable stitch discs, I don’t believe (but I could be wrong?) - - so I’m super excited b/c that means this is a true MCM (midcentury modern) piece of furniture.  I distinctly remember that the catalog showed several cabinet models, including the well-known Singer “Copenhagen” cabinet, which was produced from about 1957 for a few years, and was almost identical to this table, except it had different cabinet hardware and a stabilizing cross-beam on the right legs.  However.  The only exact photos online of my particular cabinet all have 513 Stylists mounted in them.  Hmm.  This may mean NOTHING to anyone out there, but if you know anything about antique sewing machines, this is all sorta interesting.  Dude. Sewing machine history is VERY INTERESTING.  I’ve been learning a lot through getting to know my new love interest.

History buffs, or those willing to hang in there with me: check out these pics!

Original hang tag off of a Copenhagen cabinet, published 1961.  Also, helpfully for my purposes, listed the precise materials used in the construction of the cabinet (walnut wood and walnut wood veneer)

Helpful screenshots from the encyclopedic website of the International Sewing Machine Collectors Society (ISMACS).

This is all evidence that my cabinet dates between 1957-1962 or so.  However, I found a few images online at auction sites like this one that give me reason to feel some doubt, that perhaps my table is newer, and originally held a Singer Stylist??? Hmm.

But ACK!  I just found another one, and this table is housing a Singer 306/306K, which ISMACS tells me dates to 1954-62, so overlapping the 401/500.... 

So, yeah.  I dunno.  Now.  Does it even matter what frigging model of machine this table once held, or when it was built?  Does it even matter if it truly dates to the midcentury modern era?!  I love the styling, and its going to fit my needs.  I know.  That’s all that should matter.  But I am A NERD, and nerds die hard.  Nerds love nothing more to do than nerding out.  So this has given me something new to nerd out about for awhile, and its been delightful.  

And... since I’m still, specifically, a liberal arts research nerd at heart, here are some screenshots and a link to an awesome article on the importance of the Singer Sewing Machine company to the history of American (and world) furniture production.  Read it here!  

Teaser screenshots:

Alright.  Laters, people!  This is just the first part of my long-winded refurb story, and I look forward to bringing you the rest soon!