Posted by: You Know Who @ 5:49 pm
This latest doorstop will have to stay outside as
it’s a little oily, well, a lot oily. It’s a Remington
14″ Limb and Trim Electric Chainsaw and served
us well over the past 11 years clearing our
property and cutting up fallen limbs. It lived in
the shed and died of fatigue. The plastic body
cracked in a couple places so when you crank
down on a limb, the plastic transmission goes
a little out of alignment and doesn’t catch.
Considering the tonnage of trees and limbs this
little sucker has gone through (much of which
ended up heating our house), this old friend
was a real hard worker and will be missed
(sniff).
Posted by: You Know Who @ 10:04 am
OK the computer we had for internet and office
work finally bit the big one . . .
It’s been turned on since 1999, ran win98se and
could barely surf the internet without crashing.
The cdrom and dvdrom haven’t worked in years
and the panic button caved in a year or so ago
so we’ve been restarting it with a plastic knife
(see below).
Posted by: You Know Who @ 7:12 pm
Ahem, this use to be a really fine sounding set of computer speakers
with a sub-woofer hooked up to our internet computer. It’s the
Boston Acoustics BA 375 and actually stayed turned ON for about
10 YEARS. Not to shabby for a one to two hundred dollar price
range compact system. They started humming a little a couple years
ago (leaking some voltage I guess) and recently started really
crackling as loud as what you try to listen to. I did actually reclaim
the speakers . . .
. . . and while I had the sub-woofer tore apart, found the reason
for the wretched sound. The glue they spray indiscriminately around
the jacks to hold them onto the circuit board for increased stability
eventually rots and becomes brown and CONDUCTIVE!. 
Especially evident around the warm little jack where the power
supply plugs in. Cheap ass construction but hey, can’t complain
considering they were left ‘on’ for 10 years.
Posted by: You Know Who @ 6:57 pm
Alright, this Philips CDRW 400 Series CD burner won’t write
or read a cd and sometimes even tries to eat them. Not any
longer, though. It’s actually been sitting in the computer work
station for at least a year with its power cord and USB cable
tangled up with all the other cords so when I cleaned all that
speaker mess (above) out of there, I got this extra bonus laser
door stop . . .
Posted by: You Know Who @ 9:46 am
We use mic stands at the gigs all the time to prop a door open.
Can’t explain why it took so long to figure out that at home, there’s
nothing better than a ragged out dysfunctional mic stand for a
door stop . . .
. . . note the functional but duct taped leaf blower to the right,
it’s NOT a door stop . . .
Posted by: You Know Who @ 8:55 am
This is a sad little doorstop. It’s actually not dead but the head
flies off when you swing it over your head, at which point you have
to run in the direction you think the hatchet head didn’t go. This is
a really nice little number with a hammer shaped butt on the back
and a little prying notch just in front of the handle. It looked old
when we found it out in the garage ten years ago. We used the
heck out of it and now the handle around the head is very worn.
They had some axe handles at Home Depot but nothing this small
so I asked for a new hatchet for Christmas. Tony got me a nice
modern one you can really lean into and this old fellow is actually
sitting in a place of honor on the bookshelf in the studio.
Posted by: You Know Who @ 10:00 am
Wow - now I have a matching pair of UPS doorstops - kinda
makes sense. We bought them both at the same time and it’s
still more expensive to replace the battery than to buy a new
one. Kind of like ink cartridges vs new printer.
Posted by: You Know Who @ 9:31 am
Yup, what better reason to resurrect this blog than a cheap toaster
from Fred’s that lasted two days. Don’t buy this toaster. We got
a new one at Aldi for $16 (the Fred’s one was $8) and it’s metal,
heavy duty, stays down when you push it down - and it’s still
working. This doorstop is a Kitchen Selectives TS-16 and once
you start looking, there’s no UL sticker to be found. Makes a
great doorstop with its little rubber feet.
Posted by: You Know Who @ 5:37 pm
Yup, that’s right, Lily’s checkin’ out the new doorstop and it’s a
doozie. An uninteruptible power supply. Battery’s dead, a new
one costs more than a whole new better unit, yadda yadda,
blah blah blah. It’s quite heavy, too. Should hold much better than
that old DAT machine. :-)
Posted by: You Know Who @ 9:52 am
OK - it’s been a long time since the last entry but I’ve started
redesigning the website and playing bunches of gigs. Life is
wonderful and this little doorstop is wonderful too. It’s a con-
sumer DAT machine (digital recorder that stores info on tape)
and I’m thinkin’ that it’s not worth a $50 bench fee + parts
(if you can even get them) to fix the tape transport and door
which only opens once in a while and only after you first turn
it on as the lever under the tape saddle gets all the way to the
left AND before it starts going back to the right. Heck for $75
you can get a line-in mp3 player/recorder with no moving parts.
It was a great machine for a long time - recorded many fine
gigs, Labor Day jams, Carols and mastering projects. It’s
a doorstop now but I’ll always remember my first digital
recorder (sniff, sniff).