Happy New Year

Lets hope it sucks less than last year.

Woodwork

For about… 12 months or so now, I’ve been working on building a bar with my dad. He’s not been too well of late. Very not well, in fact. So not well that it was imperitive that I finish the bar, if you get my meaning.

Anyway, aside from the sanding and the sealing/varnishing/whatevering, it’s done. And my god is it heavy. I’d say it’s easy more than 80kg. I thought it might be a little unsteady with just 2 straight sides on it. No frigging way.

Here you can see the front:

And the back or business side:

The construction process was not without its ups and downs. For example, I made two left-hand sides at one point. Also, the finished item is not quite what my original vision was, but it will suffice. The last oppsie was this:

The last 2 screws I put in, I thought were going into the wood surrounds. Turns out I was wrong. It can be filled. And if that’s the worst, I’ve gotten off easy.
It was fun to argue with Dad, and put forward my ideas and solutions to problems. Being an ex-ship’s carpenter, and making a lot of things in Mum and Dad’s house (including the false fireplace in the loungeroom), he had his way of doing stuff, and it was good to show him I’d learned a thing or two from watching him do stuff for all those years.

So now, just sanding. I’ll probably varnish it. Staining seems like a big job that can go horribly wrong if I use too little here, too much there. Varnish is clear.

I will need to get on with the sanding tho, Dad’s gotta have a drink at the bar we built.

Bloody Microsoft

Now that the prevoius post is out of the way.

Bloody Microsoft.

I got a call back a week or so ago to update me on where I stand with my return. Microsoft has changed its policy regarding disputed tagging of consoles as modified.

The policy of allowing a customer to pay the out-of-warranty repair fee to send the unit back for examination, and have it refunded if it is proven not to be modified, has been revoked.

Microsoft will now no longer allow any machine tagged as modified to darken their door, lest they become tainted by the unclean.

I don’t think that’s very fair at all. Nor do Consumer Affairs Victoria.

Updates pending…

Merry Christmas

And all that jazz.