I promise to post something more entertaining later, but, here’s how I spent some good drawing time –

I’ve been able to address this part of the house, so this much of it looks o.k. – but if I pulled the camera back, you’d see all the parts that still aren’t.

The switch that was here had been dysfunctional for decades. The original switch had trouble holding the “up” position. Last night, I finally got around to that item on my long, long list of fixes. This new switch is wired totally different than the original 50 year old switch – which was a three-way switch (two switches controlling one light). So we’ve got two extra complications here – the new switch is different because a ground was added, and it’s harder to understand how it works because it is a three-way switch. It took several trips to the internet, and several wrong attempts at wiring the new switch, to find the correct arrangement of wires.

And now it works right, and with the new metal wall plate it’s super pretty –

If you made it this far, here’s a pro tip – most cleaning jobs can be made easy with the right brush. That won’t sound like much until you have to apply it, then you’ll realize how big a difference such a mundane piece of knowledge can make in your life.

These little outlets and switches collect dirt and gunk, and look awful. A toothbrush and rubbing alcohol will get the dirt out, and the alcohol will evaporate away.

Most of you will never live in a log cabin, but if you do, a tire brush with bristles shaped to go around a tire works just as well on logs. Logs are terrible about collecting dust, and there’s no other good way to clean them.

I know this isn’t exciting, but, the absence of practical knowledge will have you beating yourself up over things that aren’t actually hard to do. Then you’ll end up living life poorly, for no good reason.

Since we’re moving to a civilizational model where everyone is alone with their internet buddies, we’ll all need to learn how to do the practical stuff. There’s no more splitting chores with a spouse anymore, for most of us. Most of us will have to learn it all and do it all.

So when you go into a store, look at their brushes. These things punch far above their weight. Some good ones show up once, and never again.

I’ve got a ticket filed with the web host. Couldn’t figure it out myself, the first layer tech support people couldn’t figure it out either. It should be working.

In the spirit of that video, here I am trying to fix this old car (again) –

I can’t believe we’re going back to the cars from my youth, but now normal vehicles cost 50-100k and last about as long as wet toilet paper. Anybody buying a new car is an idiot. If you think you’re going to survive without mechanic skills, good luck with that. I imagine most people with new cars are losing whatever disposable income they managed to make, and many are teetering on the edge of having their car repossessed.

I’m pretty lucky in that I’ve ended up with three old vehicles that are fundamentally good, albeit high mileage and in need of repairs. Unfortunately the situation has degraded while I’ve been back in college, having neither time, nor money, for cars. This vehicle hasn’t run since January, when I spotted a radiator leak. Between classes, working, and repairing the awful house I inherited, I have not had the time to look at this vehicle until today.

I filled the radiator up and the leak is faster than I thought it was –

The engine sounds like it’s got other problems too, which is unexpected. It ran great when I parked it. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it.

I need to rebuild my water heater too. The hits just keep on coming. I’m glad the traffic for the site peaked up. I don’t know why, the lack of interactivity is concerning, but at least something positive is happening. The fixing and repairing and rebuilding is wearing thin.

A fifth of Gen Z is still underage, but, in previous generations, few would wait until they were 18 if they had the opportunity to get it on. So the point still stands.

If you ever wondered why brakes squeal, this is why.

It’s actually caused by lack of lubrication on the back of the brake pad. You can see here the areas where the two pistons contact the pad are still lubricated, but the lubricant has worn off everywhere else.

It’s actually kind of interesting how the vibrating pad has worn through the paint –

Strangely enough it was only on the outside pad. The inside pad didn’t lose any lubricant –

And here’s the problem pad with new copper anti-seize applied –

Although the squealing sound itself is only annoying, not dangerous; in this case it caused a real problem because it started at the exact moment as an emergency brake was failing. I thought I only had one problem, and it was in front. Because I’d replaced all the pads and rotors recently, my first thought was that the wheel bearings (nearly 200,000 miles on them) were going. I jacked the truck up and tried rocking the wheel, it was rock solid. Maybe the bearings were only starting to go? Maybe a 4WD half shaft was starting to go? I thought that up until the moment an emergency brake shoe broke loose and disintegrated; which made a sound like the back end of the truck had exploded. That was a nasty surprise, and I just happened to be riding down Main Street at rush hour when it happened. Better that then the highway, I guess. I might have found the problem if I hadn’t let myself be convinced the problem was up front.

I moved all the music into its own section. I didn’t keep much of the bloggie stuff, but what I kept is now in its own blog section. All of the blog posts and music will now be down here in the blog section. I’ll try to update it a couple times a day, since that seems to have something to do with the traffic increase.

The site actually had 6400 unique visitors in June, which may be tiny compared to big comics, but it’s staggering for this comic.

The 29th alone had nearly 800 uniques. I don’t see that number showing up as readership of the comic though – the highest post view count showing in Toocheke is 441 for M.3R and M.4R pg 46. Which only has 441 views. Some of the posts only have view counts in the thirties. Since no one left a comment, even though I sent Yaoi Hokkaido to beg like a dog for them; altogether it would seem to imply no actual interest in the comic.

Yet it’s hard to believe there would be strong, steady growth over three months if people came, didn’t like what they saw, and didn’t come back.

I could believe a quick spike in growth if a famous person posted about Way of the Waifu, but it wouldn’t last for three months, and show a steady upward trend. Surely not.

As usual, I can’t explain it – but I’ve put more effort into the site because of it; and now the comic will read better.

I’m trying to figure out how to have an archive with individual pages, instead of just chapter entries, but Toocheke either can’t do that, or the setting eludes me. I’ll keep looking.