Month: October 2006

So today was supposed to be laundry day. I actually woke up early this morning, before 1pm, but that’s probably because I thought it was 3pm already and that we had daylights savings time change last night. Oh yah, don’t forget to update your clocks/watches. Remember, it’s “fall back”, so decrease your clock by 1 hour.

Anyway, when I woke up, I brought my laundry down with the intention of doing it sometime later in the day. I had a notion that I needed to go out to buy food or other stuff, but apparently there was no need this week. I still had enough food to last another week. If not, there’s always take out.

Anyway, time sure flies and before I knew it, it was already 7pm. I was watching At Home Dad (a new Japanese drama that has Abe Hiroshi – the guy from DragonZakura and The Guy Who Can’t Get Married), and it featured the father trying to do laundry and didn’t know how to start the machine. This triggered my brain and I went to start my 1st load. When the water started pouring in, everything seemed fine, but as I was dumping clothes in, the filling of the tub finally stopped, but I heard water trickling sound. At first, I didn’t think much of it, so I continued putting clothes in and closed the lid. When the washer started to spin up, it was rocking back and forth like crazy. I think this was actually another problem unrelated to what I found later. I read somewhere that the clothes have to be balanced inside the washer (can’t have more clothes on 1 side than the other). I can’t verify that anymore, but I guess it works like a centrifuge and as Mangerino always stated, always have an opposite test tube on the other end when you’re using the centrifuge.

Anyway, while trying to make the washer not rock back and forth, I noticed water coming out from the bottom. I’m like, oh shoot. There’s a leak. The washer was working fine 3 weeks ago (you can tell how often I do laundry). Anyway, I started grabbing towels and old laundry and started soaking up the water coming out. I waited while the run completed, since I wanted the water purged out of the washer and there wasn’t a button to do so. I even got out the mop and started soaking it with the water and draining it out at the sink.

The run finally completed and the clothes inside were still soaked. I dumped them into the dryer and started that run. That run actually took 3 hours or so, but I did a bunch of stuff in the mean time.

So when all the water was removed from the floor. I pulled out the washer and tilted it back and tried to see where the problem was. Earlier, I had shone a flashlight through the bottom and saw water trickling out. I actually used a 24 pack of Dr. Pepper and used it to hold the washer from coming down. Underneath the washer was a motor (which was rocking crazily) earlier and a huge cement block. I couldn’t tell where the water was coming from, but I did find a cork on the floor. I have no idea if this has part of the washer or not, but if you know washers and the cork is suppose to go somewhere, PLEASE CONTACT ME. I decided to start a run and fill it with some water to see where it was leaking. It turns out to be a small hole that was rusting. It might’ve been a few small holes, but since it was tilted back, it was only coming out of one. I thought about taping the hole(s) up, but this would only be a temporary solution. Either way, I didn’t have waterproof tape lying around.

And my 2nd load of laundry hasn’t even started. It contained all my undergarment, which when I run out is the sign that I need to do laundry. I had several options:

• Wear used underwear,
• Find a friend and borrow their washer
• Go to a laundromat

I believed option 3 to be the easiest.

So I used Google Maps and Live Local and searched for Laundromats in Bellevue. Stupid systems both showed a bunch of dry cleaners that weren’t related and at which point I wasn’t even sure if a listing was a dry cleaner or a laundromat. I then hit the Yellow Pages and I guess no one in Bellevue uses a laundromat because the closest laundromats is listed in Renton or Redmond. There was one in Bellevue, but at Crossroads, which is basically Redmond. Either way, that one closed at 6pm on Sunday. The one in Redmond is actually quite close to work (next to Safeway). This one closes at 10pm. I got there around 8 and the guy tells me last load was at 7:30pm and that they actually close at 9pm nowadays. What ever happened to 24/7 laundromats? Then again, the only laundromats I ever used was the one in the dorms and the one in my apartment complex, but I always thought laundromats were 24/7 since they’re like vending machines, but instead of spitting out candy, they wash and dry your clothes. You don’t need people to guard them.

Anyway, I told him my story, hoping he’d feel sorry for me and he bought it. Well actually, he asked if I had a washer at home, and because I told him my clothes were soaked, I thought he was going to suggest me to just dry my clothes. However, upon retrospect, I think he was going to suggest I wash my clothes and take it home to dry. Well, either way, I got to wash my clothes. He even let me stay around and used the big dryers and I got my 2nd load of laundry done. Total cost: $2 (excluding gasoline and my time of course). Anyway, he was an extremely nice guy. Apparently he works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Poor guy. I can’t blame him for wanting to go home early on Sunday and sleep. Either way, I left the laundromat around 8:45pm. My clothes were still somewhat wet, but oh well, I have a dryer at home, and my underwear is clean.

I get home, and my 1st load of laundry still isn’t dry. I put a portable heater next to the washer to dry up the remaining floor. One thing I forgot to mention was the water actually soaked through the bottom. I had a tiny puddle next to my car in the garage. The ceiling was also showing water. Anyway, that’s not something I have to worry for now, since I don’t expect that place to be normally flooded.

After this whole mess, I took a shower, dumped some clothes in the dryer and it’s actually quite nice to wear warm clothes after a shower, especially on these cold nights. Weather has also been a crazy today. I woke up to rain. Sunshine came out shortly. Then it started to rain and followed by hail. Then sunshine came out again. (You can see why I didn’t want to go out today).

Anyways, it looks like I’ll need to spend $500 and get a new washer. The dryer still works fine, so that one I can keep.

Wow, it’s been awhile. It’s also been quite a hectic at work recently. The week before last, I worked over 60 hours, pulling about 12 hours each day and a couple more on the weekend. But it looks like our product (at least version 1) is ready to be shipped. Last week has been quite chilled, but I was busy catching on stuff I missed while working so hard, which included:

• WarCraft III – I’m almost done, just the Elf campaign left
• ドラゴン桜 (DragonZakura) – Another Japanese drama a friend recommended to me that has the guy from 結婚できない男)
• Heroes – Season 1 – Story is getting interesting. Hiro is awesome!
• Veronica Mars – Season 3 – Just started watching
• Random anime episodes which I didn’t have time to watch

Cat – I think there’s a spy among us… (from Esca)

Black cat adoptions banned on Halloween – Like many shelters around the country, the Kootenai Humane Society in Coeur d’Alene is prohibiting black cat adoptions from now to Nov. 2, fearing the animals could be mistreated in Halloween pranks — or worse, sacrificed in some satanic ritual.

Amazon River Flowed Backwards in Ancient Times (from Cari) – South America’s winding Amazon River flows in an easterly direction across the continent, dumping water into the Atlantic Ocean. But in eons past, it flowed from east-to-west and, for a time, in both directions at once, a new study finds. This is actually quite interesting. The also have a map of showing the flow patterns at LiveScience.

Statue of Dennis the Menace stolen – The mischievous Dennis the Menace has gone missing — except this time, he’s not hiding because he broke the rules. … Police said the statue, which is 3 feet tall and weighs 125 pounds, is worth as much as $30,000. The city is offering a $5,000 reward for its safe return. Article wasn’t that interesting, but I loved the cartoon when I was a kid.

Who on earth would pay $1 million for hell? – HELL.com was among hundreds of Internet domain names up for auction in Hollywood, Florida, by domain asset management provider Moniker.com, a unit of marketing services firm Seevast Corp. The owner put a minimum price of $1 million (527,000 pounds) on the underworld’s domain, confident of high interest after the salacious address, Sex.com, sold for about $12 million earlier this year. But there were no takers with bids failing to reach the reserve price.

Irishmen hit paydirt selling soil to the New World – Two down-to-earth Irishmen have set up a business selling soil to nostalgic Irish Americans who want a handful of “the mother country” on their graves. Pat Burke, 27, and Alan Jenkins, 65, have just shipped their first $1 million (about 528,000 pounds) load of “official” Irish soil to New York — at $15 per 0.75 lb bag — and confidently expect it will be followed by many more. Wow! Now, who could’ve thought of that! I bet there are more countries where this would be a suitable business for. I hope they didn’t patent selling of soil from another country. ;p

U.S. sex offender given “exile” in Canada is freed – A New York state judge had allowed Watson to live in Canada on probation rather than have him spend time in a U.S. jail. Ottawa, unhappy about what it sees as U.S. courts dumping unwanted offenders in Canada, wanted Watson to stay in jail until a hearing to determine whether he should be kicked out of the country. When I first started reading this article, I also thought it was quite weird that we can exile someone, especially a sex offender, into Canada. Wouldn’t the Canadians be pissed? I mean what would we do if Canada exiles their criminals into the US?

Rapist Search (from FuzzyWuzzy)
I actually laughed out loud.

Toddler gets stuck in vending machine – When she turned her back to get another dollar for a second try, Robert took off his coat and squeezed through an opening in the machine. He landed in the stuffed animal cube. … “He was having a ball in there, hugging all the stuffed animals,” Bierdemann said. “He was so good-natured, but I was shaking like a leaf.” Of course he wasn’t scared! If I were him, I’d be having the blast of my life. Being able to hug and play with all those cute plushies, it’d be like heaven! That statement will still hold true today.

Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits (from /.) – Lik-Sang.com, the popular gaming retailer from Hong Kong, has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Sony claimed that Lik-Sang infringed its trade marks, copyright and registered design rights by selling Sony PSP consoles from Asia to European customers, and have recently obtained a judgment in the High Court of London (England) rendering Lik-Sang’s sales of PSP consoles unlawful. I’m not sure if you’ve been following the Sony circus, but once again, they’ve managed make me even hate them more. Guess the Sony brand is going to be marked off from the list of TV brands I’ll be looking at.

A Hand Drawn Revolution (from RayAlome) – This video was an entry for a contest to win a Wii. The total time spent was close to 80 hours between drawing and editing on the computer. A really neat animation done with pencil and paper.

“Weird Al” Yankovic – Bob (from /.) – It is a song by Weird Al done completely in palindromes