Hey Everyone!
I’m taking a break from trying to install a light switch/outlet combo. I’ve been watching YouTube videos so I don’t accidentally electrocute myself. The irritating thing about all these videos is the electricians always seem to get excited about the tab on the switch. “You can just snap this thing off otherwise your face plate isn’t going to be flush with the wall...”
Every single video I looked at contained about a five minute section on this. Then they glossed over the parts about what you need to do to not electrocute yourself. After about the third time this happened, I stopped being angry and started thinking it was funny, and that was my cue that I should stop for today.
I also have to wait for the volt tester I ordered to arrive. Apparently you’re supposed to test the lines you’re working on to see if electricity is running through them before you start scraping them with a screwdriver. I finally saw that in the last video I watched.
Russian fail videos
Oh, the other videos I’ve been watching lately are Russian fails. For example, here’s one about a typical playground in Russia. It’s just so perfect, especially the fact that some semi-drunk guy gets pressured into trying out every horrific toy.
I like how everything looks like it’s made from recycled farm equipment. All the counterweights are kind of scary. There’s just so much potential for very severe injuries.
It’s like a playground for developing fighter pilots. The ultimate goal seems to get every kid spinning and inverted.
Russian playground developers look at American playgrounds, snort, and say, “What fun is dis, the child is never inverted!”
I wonder if they ever stopped and asked a kid if he thought being inverted was any fun. But, in all fairness, I bet no children were consulted in the development of American playgrounds either.
I laughed until I cried watching that Russian playground video, I’m serious.
Last week
Anyway... it’s been a slightly less frustrating week. At least I’m almost done with the sink in my daughter’s room. The nice thing about installing a sink is that you can’t get electrocuted. They work on water pressure, that’s why.
I told you that Robin Wilding was nice enough to interview me on her YouTube channel. Here’s that video. I wonder how many of the tips I mention will be useful to people (perhaps I’ll come across like those electricians who forget to mention how not to get killed). If you watch it and have questions, please ask me. Every time I talk to other writers I get insight into the kind of advice that is actually needed.
A lot of the time, I’m in a head space that isn’t particularly useful to package up and offer as advice. Getting back to basics can be helpful for me too!
I just went and checked my Medium stats. I did four articles last week, none of which received a boost here they are:
American Terrorist Mass Shootings Have to End
Once You’re Down in a Rural Town You’re Never Getting Back Up
Why Shouldn’t Schools Show the January 6th Hearings?
How Readers Are Coerced Into Relinquishing Control of What They Read
I feel the one about Relinquishing Control and the one about the Rural Town should have both been Boosted, but they weren’t. I’m at 4 Boosts for October and I don’t expect to get any more. I think I mentioned last week that I wasn’t checking my earnings until November. That’s what I do when I find myself getting ornery, I just put down my head and write.
Free Audio Book Code
It just occurred to me that I have some free codes for audible copies of Beyond Birkie Fever. I figure these copies might as well go to my loyal substackers!
If you’re an audible member, message me and I’ll send you the code. Please remember to write a review. I expect these codes will be easy to redeem, if not, find a helpful YouTube video by a distracted electrician to explain it to you.
If you’re not yet an audible member, I recommend you sign up. They’ve got a referral plan for that as well, so I might as well give you the link for that too (using these sends me a bonus, so that’s awesome for me).
Signing up for Audible in the US.
Signing up for Audible in Canada.
If you’re not an audible member, you can request a code anyway. I don’t know if it will work, but it won’t hurt anything.
Upcoming stuff
I’ve been debating whether or not to do an article on whether writers can judge the quality of their own work. I think there’s some superstition out there that it’s not possible. The problem with superstition is that people start to believe it without evidence... or they fabricate evidence that seems to prove their preconceived beliefs.
There seems to be a perpetual state of tension between writers and the mysterious entities that control the distribution chains. Well, what do you expect? Writing is dangerous. We can’t have people running around influencing large masses of human beings just because they have talent, compassion, and empathy! That would be the end of the world.
There MUST be some safeguards in place! For example, we must keep writers in a perpetual state of poverty! You know, the kind of thing that keeps them from being able to afford an electrician.
I digress...
But I really am looking forward to giving those audible codes away. From what I’ve heard, the narrator does a good job (it’s not me, and, no, I haven’t listened to it).
As always, leave me any questions in the comments!
"...we must keep writers in a perpetual state of poverty..." And they have, too, with only a few exceptions. I don't make much and I have to fuel my career with what I have.
We at least have avoided (so far) the indignities placed on Eastern European writers during the Soviet era, where the bureaucracy insisted on personally vetting everything a writer wrote before it was published. The more politically critical writers like Solzhenitsyn were treated like criminals until they were forced to escape to the West to do what they wanted.
But it is also very obvious that electricity is just a dangerous game. Watch out for those live wires!