Perils of Allen wrenches and other tools

Posted by dgtized Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:00:00 GMT

The past week or so has been full of frustrating experiences with things that are supposed to work one way, but spontaneously decide to work in ways in which they don’t work.

Of Allen Wrenches

Specifically, they aren’t supposed to strip the head of the associated screw. Given that the associated screw is on the wheel axle of a rollerblade, it makes it very difficult to replace the wheel mounted on the axle. Since said wheel is the rear wheel and a centimeter smaller in diameter than the new replacement wheels, it makes the rollerblades, and by association the newly purchased wheels unusable for their intended purpose.

Needless to say I was not impressed. My options at this point appear to be

  1. Drill out the screw/axle and buy a new axle.
  2. Find a skateshop that can replace the axle through some similar process
  3. Give up on rollerblades alltogether

Unfortunately this city seems to be short on skate shops. Ordering online is probably possible, however that means another week or so of waiting, plus actually finding a drill to remove the axle.

Of Perl Duct Tape

I am considering permently removing perl from my resume. It’s just not worth the pain. I want real objects, and real references, and significantly less kludges. Remember kids, not only is perl the duct tape of the internet, it’s also made of duct tape itself. It is in fact, recursive duct tape. Now the problem with duct tape is there are random things it simply will not hold together, but one is never sure of what exactly these items are. Perl appears to have the same problem, except it nearly always sticks to everything else, but it slowly unravels internally. It also leave sticky residue all over anything it’s used on, consistantly requires re-duct taping, and frequently the jury-rig gives up entirely and needs to be replaced with a shiny new jury-rig, all set and primed for it’s own impending doom.

Actually this one is less of a problem in the last week, so much as a general gripe for the whole summer. Down with perl! Up with ruby, and possibly the snake language! Viva la revolution!


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