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mysterious ways
Feb. 5th, 2005 06:46 am.
The battery died in my watch, so I stopped off on my way to work to find a new one at Target. I ended up getting a Coleman watch, because it had big numbers and plastic buttons. Plastic buttons are a must, since one of my watches met its end from metal buttons -- the watch kept resetting to midnight, January 1, and it turned out that it was getting a static zap from the plant by my office door. It also has a compass on the band, a source of endless fun as I try to get it to point definitively in one direction and then ascertain whether it's even close to being accurate. Living on the Virginia peninsula, it's not as much fun as it might be, since I'm still not sure which direction I'm facing in most of the time.
So after about a month, this watch goes all Dada on me and starts showing numbers that don't exist on earth. Apparently some segments aren't showing. A pity, as it's still keeping its accustomed time, which requires resetting every few days. I gave that watch to Sarah, who was delighted, and bought a new watch. A slightly different Coleman, with big numbers and this thing on the band which tells the direction. It worked for a couple of days, then surprised me in the bathroom at work by going hyperalarmic and gibbering at me every couple of seconds until I got the watch into my office and fumbled the back off. Further fumbling got a contact off the battery so it went silent, and I found a reset button that got it back to telling time. As a side benefit, I noted that it wasn't beeping annoyingly every time I pressed a button. The watch is my alarm clock and my lunch nap timer, so I was a little concerned when I didn't hear my wake-up alarm at lunch. Next morning confirmed that the alarm had gone silent on me. Perhaps it was ringing into a police station somewhere.
The situation was slightly sticky. The watch cost $20. I didn't want to lose that, but I didn't have any receipt for the watch any more. The store I got it at was a little out of the way for going to work, and would cost time there. Time! Money! Einstein was right. (Wait a minute, what's opium again?)* Faced with a sea of troubles, I took the back off the watch again. I poked the reset button. I tested the alarm, which was beeping at a homeopathic level that I could just discern when I put my ear to the unit. I took the watch viscera out of the case and pushed the buttons some more. I pretended that two black things were some sort of controls and pressed them to my heart's content. Finally, I gave up and put it back in its case.
It started cheeping at me before I got the screws tightened. It works again, and it's worked ever since. I have no idea what that was all about.
* Volunteers was a funny movie, you know that?
.
The battery died in my watch, so I stopped off on my way to work to find a new one at Target. I ended up getting a Coleman watch, because it had big numbers and plastic buttons. Plastic buttons are a must, since one of my watches met its end from metal buttons -- the watch kept resetting to midnight, January 1, and it turned out that it was getting a static zap from the plant by my office door. It also has a compass on the band, a source of endless fun as I try to get it to point definitively in one direction and then ascertain whether it's even close to being accurate. Living on the Virginia peninsula, it's not as much fun as it might be, since I'm still not sure which direction I'm facing in most of the time.
So after about a month, this watch goes all Dada on me and starts showing numbers that don't exist on earth. Apparently some segments aren't showing. A pity, as it's still keeping its accustomed time, which requires resetting every few days. I gave that watch to Sarah, who was delighted, and bought a new watch. A slightly different Coleman, with big numbers and this thing on the band which tells the direction. It worked for a couple of days, then surprised me in the bathroom at work by going hyperalarmic and gibbering at me every couple of seconds until I got the watch into my office and fumbled the back off. Further fumbling got a contact off the battery so it went silent, and I found a reset button that got it back to telling time. As a side benefit, I noted that it wasn't beeping annoyingly every time I pressed a button. The watch is my alarm clock and my lunch nap timer, so I was a little concerned when I didn't hear my wake-up alarm at lunch. Next morning confirmed that the alarm had gone silent on me. Perhaps it was ringing into a police station somewhere.
The situation was slightly sticky. The watch cost $20. I didn't want to lose that, but I didn't have any receipt for the watch any more. The store I got it at was a little out of the way for going to work, and would cost time there. Time! Money! Einstein was right. (Wait a minute, what's opium again?)* Faced with a sea of troubles, I took the back off the watch again. I poked the reset button. I tested the alarm, which was beeping at a homeopathic level that I could just discern when I put my ear to the unit. I took the watch viscera out of the case and pushed the buttons some more. I pretended that two black things were some sort of controls and pressed them to my heart's content. Finally, I gave up and put it back in its case.
It started cheeping at me before I got the screws tightened. It works again, and it's worked ever since. I have no idea what that was all about.
* Volunteers was a funny movie, you know that?
.
