Anachostic

The Mission

Posted by anachostic on June 18, 2019 No comments

What are your thoughts when you read a company’s mission statement? On first blush, it usually reads like bullshit. It’s usually a bunch of feel-good words with a touch of fake humility and naïve optimism. Mission statements are an easy target for people who want to attack a company for not fulfilling any promise they may or may not have explicitly made.

Who is the mission statement made for? Cynics would say it’s for the owners and executives to make them feel like they’re changing the world. Less cynical people would say it’s for the employees of the company to be inspired and motivated to do their best for the company – working for a higher good. And then some people think it’s part of the company’s marketing strategy.

I was following a box truck for a company that had that particular viewpoint. On the back of the truck, covering the entirety of the door, it read.

Our mission is to fulfill the specific needs of each customer by offering quality product, exceptional customer service and exemplifying Jesus Christ in every facet of business and life.

I have many issues with this. First, I don’t believe a mission statement is a marketing statement. Can you tell what business they are in? No? So, there’s your marketing success. Then, the statement is so generic, it wouldn’t even inspire an employee or even an owner. Every company wants to offer the best product and service, right? Then, there’s the obvious. You are putting your religious beliefs in your company’s mission statement. Since there is nothing else differentiating your mission statement from any other company, and you are choosing to use your mission statement as marketing, your business proposition boils down to, “Do business with us because we are Christian.” That’s about as compelling as saying, “Do business with us because we’re white.” Oh wait a minute, that doesn’t make my point at all.

My primary point is that this is a dumb use of advertising space on your company vehicle, unless you feel the need to remind your employees of what they are working for every time they close the truck door. What is their goal? Be like Jesus. No pressure, guys, just try to be the son of God while you’re on the clock. And off the clock, too. You did notice that little bit in our mission statement, didn’t you?

UberBastards

Posted by anachostic on June 17, 2019 No comments

I just got a piece of spam mail, to my Uber email address. I don’t recall saying I was ok with that.

The email is sketchy as fuck. A company name of “Opinion Research”? None of the proper CAN-SPAM hallmarks like indicating what email address this was sent to, or why it was sent. Only because I use unique addresses for every account, do I know this came from my Uber signup.

The survey is run by Qualtrics, which doesn’t mean much, since they’re just a survey platform, like SurveyMonkey. This company has their own subdomain, opinionresearch.co1.qualtrics.com, so they’re at least somewhat legit (as legit as it looks so far).

As you see in the email screenshot, I did click to unsubscribe, which I thought would bring me to a page asking if I was sure. It didn’t, it just took me off that list. and it gave me another link to unsubscribe from all lists. ALL lists? How many have I been put on?

It’s really not a big deal. If I see that my Uber address suddenly gets spammed, I’ll shut it off and create a new one. But really, the point is, Uber has sold me out. Those mother fuckers.

Then, I clicked on the privacy policy. In bold type, in very simple to understand language:

No fucking thank you. Recall what the original email said, “…will not be used to sell you anything.” However, they will tailor the ads you see to the information you have given to them, then will ask you why they were or were not effective, so they can try harder next time. What is this world coming to?

As a recent implementer of Pi-Hole (maybe a future post on that), this wouldn’t have worked at all for me anyway because my entire network is actively ad-blocked. Suck my dick, Opinion Research!

Not A Fan – You Thought I Was Capable

Posted by anachostic on June 14, 2019 No comments

If you had read the previous post about issues with my car’s cooling fan, you might have the impression that I had a clue as to what I was doing and everything was going to be awesome. Well, think again. If you thought things were pretty ridiculous before, the sequel kicks it up a notch.

To recap quickly, my car was lacking heat, so I got the thermostat replaced, then the car started overheating, which I determined was caused by a large frog stuck in the cooling fan. Then, the car started overheating again, which I determined was the fan blades separating from the fan motor. When we left off, I was going to save myself hundred of dollars by installing the fan myself. Silly me.

To start the task off right, I begin working on the car in the late afternoon on a weekday instead of first thing in the morning on a weekend. You know, giving yourself a few hours with no backup plan for the next day is the proper way to work. And I got to disassembling and removing all the pieces involved. That only took about half an hour, which is reasonable.

What became unreasonable very quickly was how many hoses and wires were secured to the fan assembly and additionally, how little space was gained by removing everything I did. There simply was not enough space to get the fan out. Not without removing the front bumper, that is. And is that what I wanted to start with the sun going down? No. So I put everything back together for the night.

One of the pieces that I had to take out was the ECU, which is the brains of the car. After I got done reassembling everything, I planned to give the car a quick start to reset everything. The reason for that is when you disconnect the ECU, there is some recalibration that the engine has to do on first startup. But, for whatever reason, I got distracted and didn’t remember until after it was dark outside.

When I did remember, I tried to start the car and it was dead. The warning lights were lit up everywhere and the gas gauge didn’t move. Well, this is a wonderful turn of events. It’s now dark out, I have to go to bed to go to work tomorrow and I have no working vehicle. I wondered if I somehow fried the ECU while I was working on it. If so, that’s the end of this car. But I can’t think about that now. I have to get to work tomorrow.

I go online and get a rental car for a week. The next morning, I use Uber for the first time to get to the rental office. Days go by and I finally return to the car to find out what’s wrong. My primary thought was that I reversed the plugs to the ECU and I hoped that didn’t ruin it. When I dug down into the car and got to the ECU, I discovered you can’t mix up the plugs in any way. So now what? I posted a question on a car forum asking for help and the unanimous response was, dead battery or bad battery connections.

The next day, I pulled the battery and charged it up (from 95% to 100%, so I doubted that was the problem). When I went to reinstall the battery, I looked at the terminal clamps. The negative clamp had a thick layer of corrosion around the inside of it. It wasn’t noticeable from the outside, but clearly it was interfering with the electrical connection. A quick effort with some sandpaper cleared that up right away and boom, the car started right up. I’m back in business!

I decide to make the most of my car rental and drive it for the remainder of the week. Monday, I returned the rental and got back to the house. I started up my car and headed out to lunch. A few miles down the road, the engine starts overheating. Not a problem, I crank the heat and fan like I normally do to cool it down. But no heat is coming out, and the temperature is climbing very quickly.

I make a quick decision to head back home and since I can’t make it back before the engine would seriously overheat, I stopped in a parking lot to let it cool down. Since I can’t get any heat from the engine, I make the diagnosis that I introduced some air into the system while I had all the hoses disconnected. That would prevent the coolant from circulating into the heater core. Once I got the car home and let it cool, I could “burp” the system and get the air out.

Mid afternoon (again), I start the burping process. I add some water into the reservoir and begin. But still, no heat before the engine begins overheating. I check the reservoir and it’s empty again. I add more water. And more water. Where did all the coolant go? I hear it gurgling. Then, with reservation, I look under the car and see where all the coolant is going. On the ground.

I don’t remember missing any hoses when I was putting everything back together, but I checked anyway to see if there were any loose connections. There was one. Except it wasn’t loose, it was snapped off. Apparently when I was yanking on the fan assembly, trying to get it out, I snapped off one of the connections to the radiator. The reality hit me like a sack of money. Now I had to buy a new radiator. That’s it. I give up. I call and reserve another rental car. Get another Uber ride to get the car. Then I broke down and called a mechanic to replace the radiator and install the cooling fan.

Let’s now summarize how much money I saved by doing this work myself. Initially, I was estimating $700 to have a dealer replace the fan. I bought a replacement fan for $150. I was confused by a bad battery connection and spent $300 on a rental car for a week. The new radiator and install is about $900. Plus my second rental car, which will be about $150. Plus towing the car to the mechanic, maybe $50. It will literally cost me more than twice as much to do this myself.

As it turned out, my insurance’s roadside assistance considers rendering your car inoperable in your own driveway a valid roadside assistance request, so my tow was free. I got the call from the mechanic the same day that my car was ready, but the rental office was closed, so I just planned to pick it up the next day after work. The bill was actually less than I was quoted, so I assume they found the radiator cheaper than it was estimated.

I was able to drive all the way to work with no overheating and AC on, so I think it was a successful fix. The AC is hissing now, so I think I’ll need to pick up a recharge kit and… wait a minute. $50-some dollars for a recharge kit and the chance for me to ruin something else, or $100 to have a professional recharge it. I think I’ve finally learned my lesson here.

My Non-Concern For The Coming Robot Apocalypse

Posted by anachostic on June 7, 2019 No comments

I’ve heard the warnings. I’ve read about the myths. They say a vampire can’t enter your house unless invited, and one would surmise the same would apply to robots. But I have added a new automatron to my brood, without consulting its natural-born enemies, the cats. It’s a new Roomba, my future Terminator.

Since I’ve recently replaced all the carpet in my house with laminate, I now have all hard-surface floors, which is a virtual playground for a Roomba. I’ve considered buying a roboto vacuumo a few times in the past, but, damn, they were expensive. Now, it seems you can get the older tech pretty cheaply, so I was able to justify the purchase based on the lack of interest I had in cleaning my floors and the amount of stuff that was on the floors.

With two cats, the biggest things I have to deal with are: cat hair, cat litter and the dust that comes with it, and shredded cardboard from their scratchers. I suppose I shed a lot of hair, too. But, without kids or dogs, I don’t really have to deal with wet things: puke, slobber, drinks. So a Roomba to pick up all the dry items blowing around like tumbleweeds is perfect for me.

But, back to the idea of extinction. I’m certainly not afraid of robots killing us off. Even watching Boston Dynamics nightmare videos doesn’t do it. I have no fear because really, robots actually suck pretty bad. I mean, they work, but they’re in no way autonomous. It’s also why I will never own a self-driving car in my lifetime. Autopilot? Mmmm hmmm. Sure.

My first experience with the Roomba was when I set up the charging base and set the vac down on it. It lit up and started charging. I went off to read the manual and I heard something talking. The robot was talking to me. I have no idea what it said, but when I came back, it was blinking a couple of lights at me. They looked like alert and battery lights. I assumed it was because the battery was run-out dead and needed to get an initial charge, but an hour later, they were still blinking. I pushed some buttons and it spoke to me again. “Charging error 1!” Ok. Research says this could mean a failed battery or a poorly-seated battery. I took the vac apart – and to iRobot’s credit, this is extremely easy – and pulled the battery and reseated it. The Roomba was now charging.

My next experience was when it was on its maiden voyage around the house. I was satisfied with how it was behaving and the cats were generally spooked by the same. I went out to dinner and in line for my food, I get a message on my phone. “Clean roller brush!” Yeah, this vacuum can complain to me remotely. How wonderful. Since I’m away from the house, I am unable to serve my robot’s demands and have to wait until I get home. I find that the little death machine has sucked up a washcloth and became inoperable. I’m so worried for my life.

The last experience of the night was when I was winding down for bed and the Roomba was wandering around under the watchful eye of the little cat. I heard it bumping into things over and over and over. I looked across the house to see it had gone into the bathroom and shut the door, trapping itself in the room. I’m sure the floor is pretty clean in there now, but again, I’m not worried that robots are going to figure out every potential way a door can be blocked in order to get through.

And that’s my first night with my new Roomba, the T-671.

Social Media? Not Much Anymore.

Posted by anachostic on June 3, 2019 No comments

Today, I’m walking away from another another Internet forum that I’d been involved with for over a decade. It’s kind of sad for me, because I used to feel welcome there and would participate pretty regularly. But, I guess I’m just not cut out for that kind of interaction anymore.

A wise piece of advice that is frequently given is to not surround yourself with negativity and don’t waste any time being around people who put you down and don’t lift you up. The problem with that advice is, it leaves you with very few options, especially now on the modern Internet. It’s pretty well-recognized that being online exposes you to nothing but anger and conflict. Even if you are not participating, simply being exposed to it is damaging enough.

My quitting of the forum is actually the third step away that I’ve made. The first step was when I was particularly irked that some of the moderators – the people that are supposed to keep the peace and keep the place running smoothly – were actively engaging in attacks on other members. In the particular forum I was in, it’s kind of like the wild west where rude behavior is more tolerated, but there was something sinister about having the leadership jumping into the fray instead of monitoring from the sidelines. At that time, I trimmed back my profile of any personalizing marks and became more of an anonymous member.

The second step was when I quarantined myself from the political section because it was doing nothing but depressing me. Seriously, nothing but bickering back and forth with trolls (some even moderators) that can’t be defeated. And after a while of not viewing any of those posts, I began to realize, there isn’t really anything going on outside of those sections. I began to wonder why I was coming back if there was nothing good to read.

The final step was when I asked for some assistance with, of all things, sunglasses. There was a discussion about sunglasses, and since the population of the forum is higher-class, I thought someone could give me a recommendation for an upgrade to the glasses I had. To my surprise, I was insulted. The first reply could have been seen as a lighthearted joke, the second reply asked if I was a troll or just stupid (this was from a moderator), then it became agreed upon that the style of glasses I was asking about were for douchebags.

As Eric Cartman would say, “Screw you guys, I’m going home!”

I’m sure there’s a lot of people who might look at this situation and say, “What drama!” or “The butthurt is strong in this one.” And you know what, it’s true. There is a lot of butthurt. We’re talking about being in a community for a decade, where you feel you can be yourself and be accepted and suddenly, you’re not. And adding up the other issues I’ve been experiencing there, well, it’s just not welcoming anymore. It’s not a place for me.

Actually, this isn’t the first or worst betrayal I’ve gotten from that place. One time in a moment of weakness, I posted a picture of myself on the forum. One particular member made a series of photoshops of my picture and posted them. Unfortunately, I know that those pictures will live on forever. Since that event, I had to watch everything I said and did so that someone wouldn’t randomly repost one of those pictures and start it up all over again. As I understand, the member that did the photoshops has since died, and good riddance to him.

And now, good riddance to that whole place.

Like the dust, which settles all around me
I must find a new home

Afterglow – Genesis

Where To Go, What To Do?

Posted by anachostic on May 29, 2019 No comments

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazon-to-unleash-a-long-feared-purge-of-small-suppliers/ar-AAC1xhQ

For me, it’s the growing dawn of a new realization. It’s not really anything revelatory; it’s a topic that has been bantered around for years. Essentially, the thought is, Amazon is getting too big and too powerful, much like Walmart was before.

It sure is easy to be addicted to quick shipping, which is what Amazon is very good at. I was disappointed by an online order from Lowes that took a week to arrive, and an item I ordered on Ebay just the other day is going to take a week to arrive (shipped from Canada, so, ok…). Some other things, I’ve ordered recently have also taken time to arrive, like a new kitchen sink, or lights, or CDs.

But notice something, all of these items were not purchased from Amazon. That realization is somewhat important to me. Amazon is not the one-stop, end-all, be-all shopping destination for me. And, with recent news like this, I feel I should wean myself from Amazon’s grasp further.

It’s not all bad. There’s a lot of things that don’t need to be received in a couple of days (and there are some that do). There are times I’ll use Amazon’s no-rush shipping option, and never claim the little reward they offer for doing so. Price-wise, other places can be competitive and sometimes even much better. Home Depot beat out Amazon by almost 50% on one item I needed. When it comes to selection, not even Amazon can match a specialized online store, especially when it comes to furniture and other home goods. And in a lot of those cases, Amazon’s selection is only much broader because they have a massive selection of cheap import products. If that’s ok with you, EBay can be just as fruitful.

I’ll admit, sometimes, I find what I’m looking for on another site and will check it against Amazon. If Amazon is close in price, I’ll usually order it from Amazon. This is solely because I don’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating a new account on a new site. But, with my planned dependency-reduction, I may begin doing so to spread the wealth a bit further. For some people, this might not be as feasible, because if you are reusing your email address on many sites, you are increasing your risk of having your email harvested for spam. Since I use a different email address for every site, I don’t have this worry.

This reliance on Amazon for a lot of things is sort of a downward spiral. As we buy more stuff online, stores make fewer items available to purchase in-store, which forces us to buy more online. I wish there was a way we could reverse it. Some places have an in-stock check, like Lowes, Home Depot, and Staples for example. So you can check to see if an item is there before driving to the store. And if it’s not in stock, well, would you order it from there to be shipped or held for pickup, or would you just return to Amazon to buy it? I know I’m going to have to be more proactive in that choice.

Why can’t someone with more business connections than I have make a website that tracks who sells what. This should be easy as hell. Any store that has an electronic point of sale system must have a list of products they sell, and that list of products would contain a UPC. It should be trivial to upload a list of UPCs to a website to indicate what products your store sells. The website allows someone to search by product and a list of who sells that product is displayed. It could work the other way too, where manufacturers upload a list of UPCs and the retailers they distribute to. The data is there, it just needs aggregated.

The Fan, Of Which I Am Not A Fan

Posted by anachostic on May 28, 2019 No comments

In the middle of a record-breaking heat wave, I’m going to go without AC in my car. Not by choice, mind you. This situation is the result of a series of issues, not unlike tumbling down a hillside.

The first issue, quite ironically, was that my car didn’t have any heat. Initially, it didn’t have heat for an extended period, then it had none at all. You would think this wouldn’t be a problem in the middle of summer here, but it actually is. My complaint was that in the morning, when it is cool and foggy, you need to use the defroster to clear your windshield. Without heat, I was just blowing pure AC at the glass, which made it fog up – on the outside. So I would have to run my wipers for about 20 minutes until I got some heat to balance out the temps. And also, during that time, I am freezing my ass off.

I know that this symptom can be caused by a failed thermostat, which prevents the warm coolant from getting to the heater core inside the car. So I went to the shop and requested to get the thermostat changed. It was much more expensive than I expected – $400 – but I agreed to it. While they had everything disassembled, they said the coolant had sediment in it which probably caused the failure and they recommended a coolant flush. Fine, now it’s $500. Whatever.

The next day, I had heat. Things were back to normal. On the drive home that day, I suddenly had heat when I shouldn’t have. My AC turned warm and my engine temperature gauge started climbing. I followed the standard procedure for engine overheating, which was to roll down the windows, crank the heat and fan to max and roast in the convection oven until the engine cools down. At the time, I thought it was a fluke because I was stuck in traffic and it was a ridiculously hot day. But the next day was just as hot and the car overheated again at a stop light.

I called the shop and asked if they could have a look at it, since this wasn’t happening until they did their service. They agreed, but when I showed up, they were too busy to see me that day. So I went home and determined to troubleshoot it myself. My first thought was that they left the cooling fan harness unplugged, because I hadn’t heard the cooling fan run since the service.

I took the car apart and was somewhat disappointed to see the cooling fan plugged in. But the fan still wasn’t turning. I moved the fan blades and found out why. There was a large, desiccated flog jammed in between the blades, preventing it from turning. After extricating the frog carcass and changing out the fuse which had blown from the motor being blocked for an extended period, I thought I was golden.

The next day, I was sitting in the car, talking on the phone for about half an hour, and the AC went warm again, the temperature gauge climbed again, and this time, there was a piercing smell of burning plastic. Things have gone from bad to worse. Over the weekend, I pulled everything back apart and found the fan blades had detached from the motor shaft. I assume the burning smell was the shaft spinning freely against the plastic and melting it like a Dremel.

Ok, I now have to replace the fan assembly. A quick search online suggests that this is a $700 service at the dealership. But, but, I can buy a new fan assembly for only $150, and the install is just unbolting about four things and dealing with a few clips. I made a quick purchase from EBay for the new fan and my heart sank when I got the order confirmation email that said delivery would be in about two weeks. That’s a long, long wait in Internet time.

And now I wait. And I have to keep alert in the car to make sure it’s not overheating. And I have to drive with the windows down, like it’s the 1950’s and AC isn’t standard equipment. It’s so retro.

Better Than Nothing?

Posted by anachostic on May 24, 2019 No comments

I keep some notes of ideas for potential blog posts and when I happened across the list today, this item stuck out at me – “T-shirt sweatshop interview”. Oh yeah, I remember that event. And maybe it stuck out to me a little harder today, since I am actively looking for a new job (shhh!). But it also gave me some other thoughts about the current job market, and a bit about those that are unfortunate.

So here’s the story. I had been fired from my first job after I sliced my finger open, because I didn’t follow safety protocols. I went jobless for quite some time. One of my friends gave me a lead for a T-shirt printing business that was looking for help. In fact, he worked there, so I had an “in”. So, one day, I made my way out to the company, which was located way off the beaten path, which is saying a lot when you’re already living in sticksville. It was the kind of place where deaths go unreported.

And I showed up and said I wanted to apply for a job. I filled out a paper application (how quaint) and then I was ready for my interview. The “interview” was nothing involving talking or getting to know me or what my background was. It involved taking me onto the floor, giving me about a minute of instruction of how to use a manual screen-printing machine, then seeing how productive I could be in 30 minutes.

Of course, I didn’t know any better at the time, but I’m sure no one would get away with this today, with liabilities and unpaid labor laws, and on and on. But I was a teenager in a rural shop in the heat of summer with no AC, and I worked that machine for my 30 minutes. At the end of my time, I was told I would hear from them soon.

Soon came and went, and I drove back out to find out what the holdup was. The person at the office asked if I did my test. I said I didn’t know there was a test. So, she took me back onto the floor and showed me the screen printing machine. Guess who got an extra 30 minutes of free labor? Now, guess who didn’t get a job after all that?

Now, after that experience, I did eventually get a job in fast food and I went to school, and began my professional career based on some connections I had made along the way. But, what might have happened if I did get that miserable job, sweating for hours at a job that would probably destroy my fingers from CTS? I had a job. Would it be good enough? More importantly, would it keep me from being able to find something better?

To expand on that last point. There are times I see panhandlers on the roadside, and on days when my cynicism is low, I would like to offer to take them to a restaurant for a dinner. Most of the time, I would expect that they would just ask for money instead. Being cynical, yeah, they just want alcohol. But, not being cynical, what if the reason is that they can’t afford to leave for a meal because every minute they are not begging is a minute that they could miss a dollar. Although the meal would be free for them, they could lose more in cash by taking the time to eat.

So, what if the time I was spending making a little bit of money was holding me back from being able to get a job that makes more money? How many others are in that same trap right now? You can’t get ahead because you’re just getting by. That’s a reality that so many people don’t see.

I’m not exactly advocating quitting your job to focus on finding a better job, but… sometimes you have to make a drastic change to have a dramatic change happen for you.

Micro-Macro McDonalds Views

Posted by anachostic on May 19, 2019 No comments

In an older post, in passing, I wrote about how I sometimes clean up a store where I enjoy shopping at, to make it nicer for me and for everyone else. Tonight, I saw it being done by other people.

I was slumming it at McDonalds. not saying McD’s a slum, but I was really dressed down, something I don’t really do when I go out, even for McDonalds. But tonight, maybe more than usual (I don’t know since I hardly ever eat there anymore), the place was really a disaster. I really shouldn’t be surprised. I bitched about their new kiosks years ago and knew that it wasn’t going to change anything service-wise.

So of course, the place is understaffed, just as it should be. One person at the counter who had to take orders, prep orders, deliver orders to tables, and also keep the whole dining area clean. Fucking yeah. What a load of crap. So it’s no surprise after the dinner rush that all the trash cans were full.

But on top of that, it seems that the customers are… worse? There was trash left on tables, food on tables, food and paper on the floor. It’s something I just can’t get over in any environment. How can someone come into a place, which is in a certain state of affairs and purposely leave it worse off than when you arrived? Doesn’t matter if it’s a restaurant, store, house, park, or anything. Ok, I understand accidents, like you drop your drink at a convenience store. But even then, you should make an effort to clean it up until an employee tells you they will handle it.

And that’s kind of what happened tonight at McDonalds. While I was waiting for my food, a woman walked up to the counter carrying a stack of trays. One of the employees met her and seemed confused. The woman said, “I packed down all the garbage cans as best I could, but they’re going to need changing.” They employee replied, “We really appreciate that…” and seemed like he was going to say it was unnecessary, but the woman had to explain. “We come here all the time and blah blah”. I didn’t catch the rest, but I pretty much understood. This was a place they enjoyed being in and they didn’t want it to be a shithole. Yeah, I understand that.

When I did get my food and walked back to my table, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of someone sweeping the floor and knew without looking further it was that woman’s husband. The person working at the counter followed me out and confronted the man. “Sir, our store doesn’t allow customers to do any employee work.” The guy jokingly said, “I forgot my hat.” She replied, “I’ll get it, thank you.” The guy handed over the broom and the floor got a quick sweeping.

What a sad state of affairs, that businesses staff their stores so poorly that customers feel compelled to help out? And maybe I would feel some compassion for the business because taxes and competition and it’s so rough being a small business owner today, but this place is a fucking gold mine. There is rarely a time that I don’t see it busy, with drive-through lines out to the street. This place isn’t hurting at all.

But, back to this old couple, and people like them. It certainly does seem the world is in decline on many fronts. And when that does happen, what do you do? … I was going to say, do you let it go or do you fight? I quickly realized “fight” is not the right word, whereas, “help” is. That word choice suddenly made a lot of things uncomfortable for me. Because, as we know, there are a lot of people who see the world declining in different ways. What is their choice of words for their solution, “fight” or “help”?

That’s something I don’t want to dwell on.

But, Is It Art?

Posted by anachostic on May 14, 2019 No comments

I’ve started an art project, which is usually bad because I am not good at art. To forego any buildup and drama and suspense, the project is painting my couch.

You might have an image in your head of a early 1900’s couch with velvet cushioning and a painted wood frame, but that’s not it. I have a modern couch, entirely wrapped in white vinyl, no wood. And now you may have some confusion. Painting your couch? Yes, did you know you can paint vinyl? Vinyl is just plastic and you can buy paints for plastic, Krylon being one well known brand.

My couch is nearly 15 years old. It’s probably due for replacement, actually. As I said, it is white, but that white is not as white as it used to be. It’s that sad kind of off-white now, with some stains that refuse to come out. The original idea for painting came as an outgrowth of an idea I had that maybe I could dye the vinyl bright white again. Do they make white dye? I don’t think I ever got a good answer to that, and I stumbled on articles talking about painting vinyl furniture. So that’s where I am.

They do have white vinyl paint, but I figured if I was going to fuck something up, I should at least fuck it up in a bold way. So I decided to change the couch to grey, which is another common vinyl paint color. The paints I was buying were intended for car upholstery and dashboards. I guess if you want durability, a car seat is going to take a pretty big beating, so this paint should be pretty solid.

The paint isn’t available for store purchase, so I had to order it to be shipped to a store. Home Depot was probably about 50% the cost of Amazon (really). I bought a 6pk of spray cans, not just so I would be sure to have enough, but because that’s the only cost-effective way to buy them. The paint showed up in about a week and I brought them home and got ready to fuck it all up.

I made a shitty little paint booth in my garage, which just means I draped a sheet over things I didn’t want painted and stuck some fans in the windows to pull out the fumes. I took one of the cushions off the couch, wiped it down with some degreaser, and set it on my little painting pedestal. Ok. There’s no ctrl-z on this, let’s hope it goes well.

I sprayed the paint on and immediately noticed it was actually kind of a brownish color. This better work out. I tried to keep in mind the tips I’d read in the articles I’d read. Try for multiple light coats. But, I do suck at painting of any type, so at the end when I surveyed my results, I was underwhelmed. Hopefully it would dry better…

After a little while, I came back and checked on it. While the color really did turn out grey and not brown, the coverage would be what I would call blotchy. Definitely not uniform. And that was even after I tried to even out spots that seemed too light the first time. Some of it seemed to be caused by the “grain”, as if there is a grain to vinyl. But what’s done is done. I have to keep going now.

And that’s a little problem. Just that one cushion used up almost three cans of paint. I have another cushion at least as big as that one, plus two frames that have to have at least twice as much surface area. That night, I immediately ordered a second case of paint. I might need to buy a third, too. That would put my art project budget at around $135. Granted, that’s nowhere near the price of a new sofa, but based on the results of my first cushion, if I don’t level up my painting skills as I go, this is going to end up pretty embarrassing. Well, I’m sure a thrift store could use a new donation.

Back inside, I removed the legs from one section of the frame and a realization came over me. I think my couch is handmade. The couch was not purchased at a large retailer, it was from a tiny retailer that specialized in modern design furniture. I think they built the couch themselves or maybe bought it from a builder. The first thing that struck me was that the legs were held on with drywall screws, not wood screws. Then, while I had the couch on its side, I wondered where the little tag was: “UNDER PENALTY OF LAW, NOT TO BE REMOVED BLAH BLAH”. There was none, which is concerning when you know why that tag is required. It’s there to guarantee to the buyer that the cushion and filler are made of all new material, not reused materials. And not only that tag was non-present, there was no other indication that the couch was made by a company. No stamps, labels, tags, nothing.

So you can take that however you want. Either I have a custom, handmade, one-of-a-kind couch which is really awesome, or I have a handmade, one-of-a-kind couch that is seriously sketchy. “Nice couch, what brand is that?” “No idea.”

The next day, I hauled one half of the couch frame out for painting. I managed to complete an entire coat with most of one spray can left, so it’s possible I can do the whole couch for two cases of paint. On the plus side, my technique did get a little better. Even so, you can’t mistake there’s something “off” about the final result. It’s probably good enough for a staging picture, but when you get closer, it becomes more obvious. Oh well, I’m going to take this project to the end and the couch will serve me well for a couple more years or whenever I decide I really want something different.

Halfway done; before and after:

And here, fully complete:

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