11 Tips to Painlessly Assemble the Computer Desk
Some insight from a recent experience:
- If at all possible, talk the person insisting on buying the desk out of it. If the person buys it without asking in advance, assuming that you will perform said assembly, consider cutting your losses, burning down the house with the kit, and starting over.
- Assuming you are unsuccessful at step one, the proceed. Examine the room in which the desk is to go. It will inevitably require 2 7/8-inches more in length than is available. Resign yourself to rearranging the furniture.
- During step 2, when you wonder why the bookshelf won't move, before you disassemble it into its constituent parts, check the top, just beyond where you can see, in case you had cautiously used a bracket to screw it into place. You screwed it so it's screwing you, which means you are the shelf. It's a zen thing.
- Examine the room again. You will have to put semi-assembled parts everywhere and you don't have enough floor space. Build an extension before unboxing the kit. Once you're committed to the process, it will be too late. This will also help you put off the assembly project for another few months.
- Open the box and read the directions. You will need to write the company for the original in whatever language it was penned because success will require a new translation. Hope for good pictures. Even if they don't help you to build the desk, they might be pretty.
- Look at the list of required tools. It is a lie. You will need more than what the instructions suggest, including the following:
- electric drill
- flathead screwdriver
- Phillips screwdriver
- several types of drivers you've never heard of before and that are unavailable at the local hardware, lumber, and auto parts stores
- a winch
- three critical screws you were shorted in the package plus an additional 3 that rolled under the couch only to fall into your little part of the Bermuda Triangle
- a machine shop
- a distillery
- a chapel
- The instructions may say that you can build this by yourself although a few steps might benefit from the assistance of another person or two. Actually, only step 13 can be done by yourself. The others require three additional people, including one named Eddie who sports several prison tattoos. Don't make any sudden movements, as you may startle him and that is something you do not wish to do.
- You will need to set aside some time. Actually, a fair amount of time. Actually, how many weeks of vacation do you have left? That's all? Hmm. Well, give it a try anyway. If you work on this part-time, you may be done by spring or before your significant other is ready to shoot you, whichever comes later.
- Page six of the instructions is a misprint and is intended for a different piece of furniture. Ignore it. Try praying for insight. (See step 6 for what you will need.)
- At one point you will try to put the sheet metal screw into the metal tube and find that no matter how hard you push and turn, it won't go in. The trick is to find your electric drill to finish the pilot hole. Unfortunately, you won't be able to find your drill bits, so you'll have to head to the nearest hardware store. When you return, it will become apparent that the pilot hole actually was drilled through. You just need to push harder. Eddie can help, but you probably don't want him standing behind you. Don't judge, as we all have our quirks.
- Toward the end of the process, you will have to connect three pieces of the desk. They will almost go together. Consider the imperfection endearing unless you want to start over.
Labels: humor
Book of Oldest Jokes Has Dead Parrot Ancestor
I've written about the
world's oldest recorded joke, which, truth be told, wasn't very funny. (Guess you had to be there or be an ancient Egyptian or both.) Now a new translation of a fourth century Greek joke book has a
story similar in structure to the "Dead Parrot" sketch of
Monty Python fame.
Labels: humor, jokes
How Do You Entertain a Pharoah?
Q. How do you entertain a pharoah?
A. Sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and tell the pharaoh to go fish.
That joke was recorded in 1600 B.C. (or B.C.E. for those not fond of a Christian-centric approach to global dating) and is the result of some research that the
University of Wolverhampton took up in conjunction with a humor site that now has the
ten oldest recorded jokes listed. Looking through them, I'm convinced that the reason we don't have more recorded humor from ancient times is a lack of gag doctors.
Labels: humor, jokes, university
Book Launch 2.0
This post's title is actually the title of a
Youtube video by author
Dennis Cass about the pain of an author trying to promote a book in a Web 2.0 world. It's very funny in a low-key way, and I'm tempted to buy his book as a show of support. Actually, if I were really with it online, I'd probably find a way to download the book for free, helping to make all his marketing work for naught. No wonder writers drink.
Labels: authors, books, humor, marketing
Happy Belated Birthday, Douglas Adams
I meant to post this yesterday, but, ironically, was tied up with deadlines. How can you not celebrate the birth of a man who said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
Check Wikipedia for a
short biography of the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the name of which he apparently came up with while flat on his back, drunk in an Austrian field. Although many people are familiar with the book and movie, I think the ultimate form of the piece was the original BBC radio series, which was funny as all get out, although here's a tip of the hat to
Alan Rickman's portrayal of Marvin, the miserable robot with a brain the size of a planet.
Labels: author, books, humor, science fiction
Government Eavesdropping in Collections
From the only-in-America department and a Department of Justice audit (via AP, in this case), we learn that the some
telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps of suspects for lack of payment. Here's an interesting paragraph from the AP story:
A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.
Out of 990 bills to five FBI field offices were not paid on time. One office had outstanding charges of $66,000.
This has me wondering about the collections process. Does the FBI getting reminders and dunning phone calls? Does the collections office have a ten most wanted field office list? And are suspects happily buying telco stock?
Labels: government, humor
Stop (In the Name of the Law)
Apparently the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn has found that drivers are distracted these days, and not necessarily paying attention to the little things in life, like stop signs. So officials
have added secondary humorous stop signs below the regulation ones at 50 intersections. The additional placards are shaped like traditional stop signs, but have different wordings, so the combination between the two might be "Stop Right There Pilgrim" or "Stop In The Name of Love." A blog called Neatorama has a
fuller list of signage. The town's administration hopes that the attempts at humor will yield better attention. Then again, yielding is probably not what they really want in Oak Lawn.
Labels: Chicago, humor, signs, stop
