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Battery Terminal Cleaning – The terminals on my car battery were the rainbow of verdigris and aerugo that comes from copper compounds oxidizing into at least three different states and while beautiful, probably didn’t help the functioning of my car.  I removed the terminals, scrubbed away the corrosion and found that there wasn’t enough terminal left to actually connect to the battery post.  Hazaa.  So I borrowed my dad’s car to get new terminals and go to Michael’s.

Candy Melts – Candy melts are bits of chocolate one melts down to use as coatings for fruits, confections, and other things that should be covered in chocolate.  They’re largely vegetable oil which was maybe passed over by a cocoa bean and the industry seems to be dominated by the lone firm of Wilton’s much like Arm & Hammer is the world’s only producer of baking soda.  Michael’s had candy melt but only in pastel colors.  Assuming color in candy melts are subtractive, I reasoned that adding together pastel green with pastel blue, with pastel red would make a very non-pastel black, I purchased these in equal parts.  Later, I found out they did make black, or eventually did, I lost track of my double boiler and the pot seized leaving me with a darkened cocoa brick.  I opted to just use morsels on the next batch of truffles to coat and avoided the color conundrum.

Frames – Michael’s once stocked SSFs “simple shitty frames” but seems to no longer.  I had a coupon for 50% off all frames in a purchase and simply wanted a piece of acrylic with black plastic around it.  I buy frames to protect and highlight the photo, not subdue it.  All that Michael’s had were terribly garish “FAMILY” and “LOVE” frames that were either almost Baroque in ornamentation or in odd (to me) dimensions.  I did find what I’d call “frames” but these went by the name of “acrylic photo display boxes” which, of course, was not included in my “frames” coupon.  I guess I go back to buying out Joanne’s Fabric’s stock next time they have a sale.

A day of failures, but a productive day in that I got them all out of the way before lunch.

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My car radio has been steadily declining over the past few weeks and started to exhibit odd behavior.  Whenever I switched on my high beams or activated the turn signal, the radio would cut out and restart.  Additionally, the iPhone dock on the radio stopped working with my phone and I initially assumed it was the age of my phone combined with a basic problem of the radio and my crappy wiring casing these problems.  These concerns disappeared after the battery terminals on my car were cleaned.  Battery terminals, really?

I left at around 9 AM with the intention of reaching Fayetteville by 11 PM and things were going fine until I approached Roanoke, VA.  Traffic slowed to a crawl and I soon saw why: a truck that appeared to be made out papier mache was upturned and surrounded by something that looked like glitter.  Either a million defective champagne party poppers went off or a bunch Liberace’s stunt doubles had undergone spontaneous human combustion.   I met Doug Bowser for a late lunch, had the world’s tiniest chicken sandwich and bought out the remaining InterroMugs and InterroGlasses.  Doug refused a cookie as he was eschewing carbs and I continued to Fayetteville.

Carl and I have played TF2 together for about two years and he invited he into his home while he was under the influence of one of the biological weapons his kids brought home from school.  We watched a slew of Science Channel shows and in thanks I offered him a cookie.  He refused as nothing was staying down.  When I showed my frustration at having been cookie-blocked twice he replied with, “earlier my asshole was in the toilet.  I needed a fishing net to get it out.”  Ok, then.