InterNutter

Indie writer seeks audience with an audience. Paying customers welcome. [pronouns: ze/hir] Daily free stories happen because it is an excellent counter to Writers' Block.

Burpengary East http://www.cmweller.com 12145 posts

...that lay in the house that Jack built.

We need to bend wire to make the walkways to finish the kitty cat shelter. To do that, we need to make a Metal Bending Brake. To do that we need to learn some metalworking skillz like... welding.

To do THAT... oh boy.

  • Obtain some li'l extras that required the unpacking of an Aldi's brand MIG welder Beloved acquired five-ever ago
  • Return home and assemble everything according to instructions
  • Aldi's brand MIG welder has the motor going the wrong way. It's supposed to pull the wire out from the box, through a nozzle and into the business end of the welder. It pushes the wire back IN.
  • We fart around with the settings for like an hour before calling the service people

Them: Hi and thank you for giving money to Aldi
Us: Yeah we have one of your MIG welders and the motor for the wire is going backwards.
T: Lol your wire's in back-to-front.
U: ??? But? We followed the instructions like good customers?
T: No, your wire's in backwards.
U: Backwards how?
T: You're reading page [NUMBER] of the instructions, right?
U: Yeah, we have the spool on the thing and it says to have the wire coming off from the top...
T: Try it upside-down.
U: Uuuuhhh... how is that going to make the motor go clockwise instead of counter-clockwise?
T: ...
T: ...
T: Uh. Yeah. Maybe you should get a refund on that thing.

Sigh.

  • So now we need a working MIG welder because the refund/replacement process is a 20-week can of arseholes for sure
  • BACK to the tool ppl to get a decent MIG and a welding table because -hey- we're already spending $700 on a MIG, why not have the whole kit?
  • Home again, home again, to watch some tutorials (better late than never) on how to actually firkin MIG weld
  • Whoops, we need more shit
  • Go out and acquire more shit
  • Come back and realise time is running out (2PM) and also we don't have nearly enough of the right cable to reach the shed
  • Beloved goes out for cable, leaving me the task of welding table assembly
  • Welding table comes with mixed bag of screws, nuts and bolts and a complicated exploded diagram in lieu of instructions
  • I barely get the first set of screws out and first two pieces together before -whoops!- Bratrun O'clock
  • Wait for Chaos' bus
  • Realise where my wallet is (Beloved's car) and message them about needing that shit to fetch Mayhem
  • Beloved returns before Chaos and I get my shit together
  • Fetch Mayhem
  • FINALLY get all our stuff together and weld! But we practice on some scrap first because we're not total idiots
  • Something is heinously wrong because all we can make are blobs that don't do shit
  • Research and investigation reveals we were doing everything wrong

UGH

And that was our entire yesterday eaten up by random bullshit.

Challenge #02387-F197: Very Strange Creatures

I always believed that humans were these unstoppable beasts, until I met one of their infants. -- Anon Guest

Elsewhere Station. Here there be Humans. Seryk watched hir step. Ze only wanted to hire one human for the exploratory mission and this was one of the Edge Territory stations where they were reputed to swarm. So far, Seryk had seen numerous Edge species, but few Humans.

Those who were present were busy at other occupations. Seryk searched for hours, but found few

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Okay. I've Got This

Today, my Beloved is having a day "off" to finish building this dang metal bending brake that has vexed us, last weekend. And since I woke at 3AM again, I'll be doing my utmost to get my content out before I have to use all the daylight I've got to build a tool to make the thing so we can finish the cat cage.

It's turning out like The House That Jack Built around here.

Fortunately, I already acquired the steel to

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Challenge #02386-F196: Please Ask

When you have an interest, you have something to enjoy in the humdrum of daily life. -- Anon Guest

Welcome to Podunk Station. Mind the legos. This is a natural result of leaving three to five Humans largely alone for long periods of time. Though their daily duties are many, Humans are naturally lazy and figured out how to streamline the humdrum necessities of daily existence... and then sought out new ways to keep busy during their non-active hours.

Fortunately, some of

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I Have a PLN

Today: The instant Chaos is off to school, I paddle on out to Bunnings and get some steel for bracers for the metal bender. I know we're going to need them, but Beloved is still in denial. We shall see who is correct.

Tomorrow: Beloved is taking a day off, so don't expect much in the way of my output until either the work is done, or we run out of daylight. Be warned.

The stories and writing happen whenever I have

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Challenge #02385-F195: How Lucky

A scientific analysis crew of aliens hire a human bodyguard. The human has a strange power over fauna, as in they become friendly/borderline domesticated like earth pets. The human is confused as it's happened in many planets/stations. Meanwhile the scientists are having trouble between making sure to get the data and making sure the human stays on as a permanent crew member. -- Anon Guest

It is a known rule of the universe that Humans will attempt to pet anything

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Week 2

So. Making a tool to bend metal for us is harder than it looks. Big shock. I'm going to have to go out for extra matts at some point. Both Beloved and I are very, very tired of all this taking so long. The steps involved seem easy, but... they're not that easy.

A video that takes ten minutes to watch secretly hides two days of agonies. Blugh...

So Beloved is taking a day off later in the week to get these

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Challenge #02384-F194: Attitude Adjustor

There always a foul-mouthed human within every group, but when there a kid nearby, they put on a mask and they're the politest creature you ever met. -- Anon Guest

They say that people who curse a lot are more likely to be honest. If that is true, then Human Nor was the most honest being in the known universe. If they came with a censor beep, others might be mistaken for believing they were speaking in morse code. Unfortunately for those

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Uuuuuurrrrrgh...

If firkin course it didn't work out like I had pln'd. Turns out we needed mor tools, mor mats, and mor bits [not mor dakka, but it was a close call].

Sigh.

We resume faffing about later on in the AM.

If I actually get to work on anything during these wee small hours, it'll likely be more of Episode Nine of Inter-Mission.

...my soul hurts, but I still PLN on learning how to weld, and making the firkin walkways at bloody

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Challenge #02383-F193: No More Pencils...

Can we hear more about the changes in intergalactic schools? (And can two of them be the removal of perfect attendance "awards" and school lunches that even the most well behaved child can't choke down?) -- Anon Guest

The Cogniscent Rights Committee had a lot to say about Terran Standard Schooling, especially that of the pre-shattering era, relics of which can still be found in Terran colonies. Nothing it had to say about the school system was polite. They tried, but there

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Shenanigans!

Today, thanks to my numerous errands and trials, we will not be wasting half of today getting matts and tools.

Nope.

TODAY will be halfway wasted by making a tool out of the matts I fetched. Yay!

At least I'll be learning how to weld. Woot.

So this morning is going to be devoted to those episodes of Inter-Mission that I'm lagging on. By the way, you may have noticed that the link to my podcast has changed sites. That's because Soundcloud

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Challenge #02382-F192: It's Just a Hobby

Captain: "You have nothing to worry about. Our only human crewmember is one of the nicest, sweetest humans you will ever meet."

Human: "I found my knives! Now, WHO THE HEY HID THEM FROM ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!?" -- Anon Guest

Rule Eleven: Never go anywhere without a knife. -- Leeroy Jethro Gibbs, historical Terran hero.

Civilisation in general holds certain truths to be self-evident. Such as the ability to make and safely use sharp things as one of the stages

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I Run Around... From Town to Town...

So. Yesterday, I had to get a whole bunch of stuff so we can bend the metal mesh and thereby make the walkways. Metal-bending tools exist but the CO$T is more than we can bear. Besides, you can make your own for like $300.

I only forgot one thing - C-clamps :P

So today:

  • Clean the house
  • Write the instant
  • Get the C-clamps
  • Also acquire cream and sour cream
  • The Brat Run

So yeah. I'm a busy li'l bumblebee today. I

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Challenge #02381-F191: Viva La Revolution

The peppy one with beautiful blond hair is always in black and the one with dyed-black spiky hair is always in soft pastels. -- Anon Guest

She wore braids. Neat, tidy braids she wound into a knot of a bun in the back of her head. The only thing that changed about that 'do was the length and volume of the hair, and that was progress that was annually cut back. The rest of her choices were pretty much anything she liked

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OK now what?

I did my 3K words this week, leaving me today and tomorrow to fart around with building the kitty kondo(tm).

Thing is, we need stuff to do the thing. Bending that much metal needs a metal-bending press, which needs materials to make. Unfortunately, the design is in Beloved's head. So about all I can do is gather the mats and hope the crafting doesn't take long when Beloved returns to actually make the thing.

As I understand bending tools, you need

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