I’m working on fixing a battery charger at the moment, and last night it got me thinking about all the electronic devices that have broken in the past year or so and are waiting for me to fix. I’m surprised how many there are:

• Charger for Ryobi battery drill – stopped dead, no LEDs;
• Ryobi drill – NiCad batteries won’t take full charge (two of them);
• Technics portable CD player – no output from headphone socket. Mind, it’s about 30 years old now;
• Pioneer DVD player – gives audio but no video, second one to fail, different fault;
• DVD player in roof of Honda – DVD stuck in, won’t eject;
• Radio reception in Honda – fault in antenna feed;
• Verada, faulty power antenna – being replaced;
• Sony combined DVD+VHS machine – both transports won’t play or eject media;
• Sharp MD+CD+radio amp – MD disk stuck in, won’t eject;
• HP computer – won’t boot past POST screen;
• Sony Betacam portable – playback colour won’t lock;
• Sony Betacam full size player – power supply dead.

I think that’s all. Yow, these all need fixing! I thought I’d retired from being a tech. Luckily there is so much information available on the web, so many spares are available on eBay and a Jaycar electronics shop is only 10 mins away that repair is possible now. Plus I have some good test equipment. For the Sony Betacam gear (broadcast machines ex Ch7) I was able to buy the service manuals and download them from the web for $10 each. Good copies, too.

So why am I wasting time writing this blog? Better get stuck into it.

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I’ve just had a text message that a book I ordered from QBD at Joondalup has arrived, so being such a nice day, I think I’ll take Vera for a drive and get it. Now that the brakes have been completely renewed, I can drive it with confidence and I’m enjoying it. It feels sportier than the Magna for some reason, I suppose because you can manually shift and hold it in the gears. I’m still bloody glad I bought it.

That’s Vera on the left, Maggie on the right.

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I sold my smaller Aldi table saw on Facebook marketplace last week for my asking price and I’ve got another item up for sale now, a Fractal Design Disk Array computer case. I bought it about eight years ago but never got around to using it because it wasn’t what I expected and the bloody shop wouldn’t let me return it. I’ve advertised it as brand new in box, which it is, but it being a bit exotic, I’ve had little interest. I started at $100 but have had to come down to $70 to get any bites. I’ve got two enquiries now and as the Trump Dump Chump says, “We’ll see what happens.”

Later: it took several days and I had to drop the price to $50, but eventually a guy bought it. He came here to collect it and seemed to be a computer support tech. Some of the offers I got were an insult. People seem to think you’re desperate.

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PS: after mentioning the book I had waiting for me at Joondalup, I looked out the door for any mail and there was a package waiting for me. But when I opened it, behold, it was the same book I had ordered at QBD. I’d forgotten I’d ordered it through Amazon last week, and here was my delivery.

Luckily I was able to phone QBD and tell them the blunder and they were quite happy to put my order on the shelf for a general sale. It’s the latest novel by Robert Goddard called One False Move so it should sell easily. I recommend this author; he’s written 27 novels so far, this is the 28th, and once I’ve read this one, I’ve read ’em all.

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I was at Aldi at about 2pm and afterwards, since it was just nearby, I weakened and had lunch at Macca’s. Crumbs, I had a Fillet o’ Fish and a chicken wrap, with a small chips and a sugar free Coke. My bill came to $21 ! Wow, no longer is a burger a cheap lunch. But while I was eating school finished and all the kids flooded in for their afternoon fix. At these prices, how do they afford it? Generous pocket money, obviously.

This amount is too high for me – I usually spend no more than $16 on lunch. This was my first time this year, by the way. I don’t eat junk food very often. Beer and wine, yes…