@#$%!

I'm not really prone to cursing. I'll make non-word sounds of frustration and annoyance, but I rarely reach for curse words in my vocabulary.


Yesterday progressed... okay. There were little annoyances at work including, but not limited to, procrastination of a project on the part of someone other than myself. I peeked on the MUCK during the day to be annoyed at events not because of the events, but because people seemed to be all overwrought about them.

Then I got word that the parts ordered for the dryer at home were in and could be picked up. This should have just been good news, but was frustrating due to not having the cash I wanted to use with me and being a game night at home. But still, I was able to get over there with enough time before going home and pay by credit, so it wasn't really that bad.

I got home and took a crack at replacing the thermostat parts in the dryer while waiting for people to show up. One of the parts, however, was not the same as the one being replaced by it. It had instructions for this scenerio, which was good. The instructions involved cutting the ends off a couple wires and putting on new connectors. Well, I don't have special tools for that, but I can cut wires and I've got pliers. Still, I put that off for later.

The game was... Well, I had a decent time hanging out with friends. The game itself kinda sucked from where I sat. The whole party being prisoner of dark dwarves doesn't allow for much action. The spellcasters got to do a little (mostly getting around to where healing could be done). The "big dumb barbarian type" acted out and was injured for it. My ranger-like character pretty much bit his tongue to keep from receiving similar treatment (nevermind that he couldn't see a thing most of the time anyway). Just before wrapping up, we got in about one round of combat. Whoo. My character's single real action in the entire session was to make an unarmed attack at a myconid. Yep, he punched a mushroom. Yay or something. One of the players commented to the GM "Man, if we'd escaped, you'd have been all bummed about not getting to use this mushroom grove, wouldn't you?" That struck me as funny largely because I felt most of the session was improvised as the GM tried to figure out how to not just have the party killed outright. As it was, said barbarian appears to be dead due to a less-than-bright move on his part.

So I was dissatisfied, but not really upset when I logged on to the MUCK after the game. I said my hello's and was filled in on some things that happened - which, naturally, annoyed me. Not because they happened, but because it painted a picture of this plotline (which I'm peripherally involved with via an NPC) is progressing slowly and it seems like those who've been involved are making it difficult every step of the way. Things I thought were taken care of apparently weren't, only to be handled now in the most agonizing way possible. Why do they have to make these things so difficult for themselves? In my declining mood, it also dawned on me that events are conspiring to make this NPC less interesting to me. I'm not even sure I want to bother so much at this point.

A bit grumpy and not wanting to risk getting mired in similar moods of others, I logged off and decided I'd take a stab at being productive with the dryer. I cut and stripped a couple wires, fitting the new connectors on the end and crimping them down as best I could with the tools I had. In the end, they seemed stable and the copper wires were held down against the metal. Next to the old ones, my work didn't exactly look professional, but it seemed functional. So I connected everything, plugged the dryer in, and turned it on. It warmed up and ran okay. Of course, that wasn't the main problem before. So I opened the door. The motor stopped as it should, the air felt... hot, but it's hard to tell if it was overly so. Then I noticed the heating coil was still glowing a nice, toasty orange. Unplugging the machine caused the coil to cool down out of the visibly-hot range in a few seconds. I plugged it back in (without starting it) and the coil warmed back up. ... Now, I don't have the back of the dryer open unless it's not working, but that can't be right. The heating elemental cannot be designed to stay on whenever the dryer's just plugged in. That would be stupid and dangerous. So... Something's still not working right. Odds are, I screwed something up somehow. If I messed up one of the ends in some way, it'll probably mean ordering a new kit or something.

I gave up on that for the night and crawled into bed absolutely livid. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't sleep well. This morning, I'm just grumpy - which is improvement at least. But the dryer still doesn't work, I'm probably going to have to sink more money into it one way or another, and we're to the point where I'm probably going to be putting in time at a laundromat this weekend.

Fuck!