Week 82 — The many lives of Dishy

• No public holidays or long weekends this week ;)
• Our dishwasher kicked the bucket over the previous weekend. This meany washing dishes by hand and trying everything under the sun to bring “Dishy” (as it’s known) back to life. The error code we got from the machine was super unhelpful — it could have been one of; the hose is too high, too low, or has a kink in it. After several attempts at trying to get the hose at the right level (we had moved boxes and stuff out of the cupboard the hose ran through, so we thought they were keeping it steady) and several runs that sounded promising, Dishy was still in the dishwasher afterlife. At this point, we were so close to calling a plumber — but maybe just a few more tries. Yesterday morning we sent some vinegar and bicarbonate down the drain and wiggled the drain pipe furiously and much to our surprise, we heard the drain-gurgle or life! Dishy lives! And now think of all the things we can get it to wash!
• We also bought tiles for our new place this week. One of the places (that shall remain unnamed), charged us for 2 pallets to ship our tiles on. Fair, we bought a house worth of tiles! But then they called and said we can’t ship yet because “the boys in the warehouse” said they’ll need to load them on to 3 pallets and we need to pay the diff. Nowhere did I see a “boys in the warehouse” override clause in the terms of sale, so I pushed back and said that we had settled the bill, new charges discovered by “the boys” because their website can’t calculate the volume of a tile is none of my concern. It was at this point that “the manager” said they could cover half, and Sebastian started to cry on my lap. So I accepted their terms because you can’t win them all, and hopefully this gets them to fix their shit.
• Abby and I finished Split Fiction last night. What a joyfully imaginative game that was. The platforming was challenging but doable, the boss fights were more a test of memory than skill, and the story was not there to be taken seriously. Each vignette of the main game was really well thought out — none of them felt like the same thing just re-skinned as sci-fi or fantasy. Even the side quests were super fun and playful. But the ending sequence was the icing on top. Both a technical work of art and a delightful time. 100% would recommend especially if playing local co-op.
• Speaking of finishing things, I finished reading Hardboiled Wonderland and the End Of The World this week. Only my 2nd book by Haruki Murakami, but two things stand out. His prose is so easy to read, and (maybe this ship has sailed) he needs an editor that knows how to write female characters. In general, it was a really fun read. Many authors have written dream sequences that are hammed up to feel like a dream, but the End Of The World sections of the book put them all to shame. It’s such a natural an effortless dream-like world. That said, once I kinda knew where things were going, this was the section I skimmed through to get back to the action and exposition in Hardboiled Wonderland. All in all the story was a fun exploration of the conscious and subconscious mind, asking some interesting questions and not leaving everything tied off neatly. I might have to revisit this one again in a few years.