Nate Beaty's Brainfag

But I did fix my laserprinter..

posted in Home Jabber on March 13, 2004

Being a cheapass has once again nearly proven disastrous. I bought a ghetto universal toner refill kit that didn't list my exact printer model from Fry's the other day and poured it in my new $200 laserprinter. It immediately started vomiting awful gray garbage, and I found myself mumbling a common "OH MY GAWD I AM AN IDIOT." Scott came over and we vacuumed out my toner cartridge, then refilled it with a ghetto universal toner refill kit that listed my printer model. It spit out happy black pages with only a few fuckups. Big sigh o' relief.
I also fixed my turntable yesterday, for the most part. It now just wobbles like every record I put on it is just a wee bit warped.

This was the turntable that I bought on eBay which was shipped with the heavy platter in place, thereby completely tweaking the bearing assembly. And the motor mount was all jerry-rigged. And the counter weight was missing. And the dust cover was broken because it also was left on during shipping. Lesson learned: school your seller on shipping if it's a delicate item.
The other distraction from painting for the day was repairing a set of Bose 301 speakers. This is the third set of speakers I've replaced the woofer suspension on, and I realize now I love doing it. What a satisfying repair: immediately after completion you can play music on a new set of speakers.

I did just about finish my first watercolor for my upcoming April show. I'll post some scans when I get more done. The drawing above was warm up -- and most likely a fine example of how the colorblind should steer clear of flesh tones.

Recently watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which was good, but my favorite part was the DVD Featurettes, and more specifically the tour of Robert Rodriguez's home studio. After almost choking on a profuse output of drool, I found myself scheming how I could make my own home movie studio with my paltry network of G4 Powerbook, 1.4ghz PC, a 300mhz Linux box, 3 monitors, various Casios & modded Speak and Spells, a four-track and an XBox.