I can sleep with another man's lass and still be welcome to my ayn

[rolanni]

Let's see. . .

Wanted a particular scene to appear in the current book. Always a bad sign and you'd think I'd've learned better by now, but -- apparently not.  Tuesday, I wrote the scene.  It didn't feel Quite Right, but that's often the case, first swing.

(Conversation I've actually had:  Them:  What are you doing tonight?  Me: Rewriting the chapter I did yesterday.  Them: Rewriting it, but -- why?  Me: Because it's not right.  Them:  Well, but -- who told you it wasn't right?)

The back brain happily threw up a possible fix while I was busy elsewhere, so I came home from the hospital gig last night and put in the fix.

Still didn't feel exactly right, so I put it aside to read with my first cup of coffee this morning (about which more in a moment) and!  I know what's wrong.

The scene is too heavy for its place in the story.  I need something lighter that still gets me to the same solution.  Which means I don't get to keep that scene that I Really Wanted.  This was of course, foretold, as above, but -- I'm still disappointed.

Well.  Today I get to rip out the scene I worked on for two days, and write another, which will be Good, really, but -- sigh.

We have one of those programmable coffee pots, which I personally adore, because who doesn't want to wake up to fresh coffee?  It has tiny little control buttons that I can barely see to push, and a tiny screen that displays the current time, the time when tomorrow's coffee ought to start a-brewing, and how strong it should be.  Ours has been set to 7:30 am since Forever.  Except, this morning, when Steve arose at 7:00(!) -- the coffee had already brewed and was waiting for him.  I just now tried to see what the brew time is set for and -- I can't see the screen.  At all, under any light I can jig up; the screen's just Too Tiny (and to be fair, too dim, even at Maximum Power) to read.

Well.  Maybe after I've had my coffee, I 'll figure out a way to cope with that.  In the meantime, I guess that one of the important features for the next coffee pot will be a Big, Bright Screen, and usable buttons.  Back when I was making cowboy coffee in a tin pot on top the stove, I don't think I envisioned a time when my coffee pot would even have a screen.

From the Department of Timing is Everything, Steve and I finished reading Lightning that Lingers on Tuesday night; yesterday's mail brought the next two Night Watch books.  We started reading Men at Arms last night.

In other news, I've started the process of updating the catalog pages at Pinbeam Books.  This will take a while.  I do realize that, in the Scheme of Things, we really haven't written very much, but the echapbooks nonetheless make a Pretty Considerable Pile, all by themselves.  So!  Work goes forth, slow but (we hope) steady.

That catches us up, I think.  Everybody have a good day.

This morning's blog title is brought to you by Gaelic Storm, "Barnyards of Delgaty."  Here's your link.

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I'm not a morning person. I need coffee in the morning, but I don't make coffee in the morning. Real coffee, I mean. I can't be trusted. So I make instant coffee, saving the real coffee for after dinner when I can appreciate it. To illustrate my morning before coffee incompetence, I've been known to turn on an empty microwave for the 2 1/2 minutes it takes to heat the instant coffee while leaving the cup of instant coffee on the counter next to the microwave. What I seem to really need in the morning is a brain transplant ;/

The screen on my microwave, like that on your coffee maker, has gotten dim with age with no way to increase the brightness. Modern electronics, cheaply made.

[sraun]

Could the answer be Daylight Savings Time? If the coffee pot is not DST aware, and you set it during Standard Time, the brew time would be off by an hour.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

If you have a handy digital camera of some sort, you could try taking a picture of the tiny screen's current settings....

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

A while ago, in one of my classes, I popped up a PowerPoint slide, and realized that I had too much stuff on it, so it was unreadably small. But I looked and one student had a tablet lifted up, as if taking a picture of the slide. When I asked him what he was doing, he said to come look. Turned out he had it in camera mode, then expanded so that he had a huge view.

You could do that with your coffee machine?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

The problem with the coffeepot was two-fold. The screen, even at full brightness, was too dim for me to read. And! The images on the screen that I could (kinda, sorta) see were too small too read.

Another helpful reader, over on Blog Without a Name (http://sharonleewriter.com/2016/08/i-can-sleep-with-another-mans-lass-and-still-be-welcome-to-my-ayn/) pointed me to this magnifier app for my phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mmapps.mobile.magnifier&hl=en

So! I waited for it to get dark enough in the kitchen that screen actually appeared to be lit, then I deployed the magnifier function.

The problem was that the coffee pot's onboard clock had been advanced by one hour -- whether by a malfunctioning DST program, or the Assistance of Cats -- which of course meant that the brew function began one hour early.

So, yay! multipart solution.

[gerald heaton (from livejournal.com)]

My coffee maker is about 8 yrs old and loses it's tiny mind 2 - 3 time a year.

Priced new ones and HATE the size of the screens, and the blue back lights.

You would think that for 150.00+ + + that there would be a larger screened one out there.

Years ago I had a Krupps that not only made the coffee, but ground the beans FRESH first.. Can't find one that I'm willing to spend the money on now.