Tag: nanopoblano

The Tale of the LoveSac

On By StevenIn Life At Home18 Comments

I mentioned in the previous post that I purchased and returned an uncomfortable, inadequate sofa. This is the story of that sofa. It begins with the arrival of my previous sofa, on the day that the movers brought my furniture.

The Sofa was an Ikea Ektorp, a fairly comfortable seating arrangement, but one made of pressboard and held together with little metal fasteners and happy thoughts. When the movers set it back up, I noticed that there was a big ripped and stained hole in the cover.

No biggie, I thought, Ikea sofas are designed with replaceable covers and the contract with the movers included insurance for just this eventuality. I didn’t realize just how broken the couch really was until later when I finally tried to sit on it. It had a variety of damage to the undercarriage, and it wasn’t level in all sections. It had the look and feel of a sofa with a broken spine. I won’t bore you with a photographic record of all of the damage I found when I looked more closely, but here’s the most egregious part.

broken ektorp

When I realized how broken it was, I put in a claim with the movers and they paid me replacement cost minus my moving insurance deductible. With that money in hand, I set about trying to find a replacement sofa.

I settled on the LoveSac Sactional. I’d seen them before, years ago. There’s a LoveSac store in the Town Center Mall in the Boca Raton. Aside from the exceedingly silly name, LoveSac’s idea of modular furniture is pretty neat. I like the idea of being able to design the furniture to meet your needs, choosing sections, sides, and covers to shape how you want.

I went to the LoveSac store in a nearby mall, not far from the Pentagon. I sat on several different chairs and weighed my options. After some deliberation (and a little waffling) I took advantage of a Labor Day sale and ordered my LoveSac Sactional, a two seats/four sides configuration. I thought it would be wide enough and if it wasn’t, I could always order another seat and side later to expand it. It arrived fairly quickly, packaged in a bunch of boxes.

Once the new sofa pieces were here, I disassembled my poor Ektorp and took its main pieces down to the trash room. I put aside the sofa pillows, not sure yet if I wanted to do something with them. This proved later to be a very good decision.

Assembly of the modular LoveSac Sactional was fairly straightforward. The two largest boxes contained the seat, cushion, and back pillow. The other four slimmer boxes contained the sides, and the two smaller boxes included all the covers. The boxes themselves had unboxing and assembly instructions printed on them. All the clamps and accessories I needed were included. It was difficult to pull the covers onto the individual pieces- it’s probably a lot easier with a second person. Ultimately, I was able to muscle them into a proper sofa shape.

I sat on the LoveSac Sactional for a few weeks, and I was dissatisfied in the following ways:

  • It wasn’t as comfortable as I had hoped. When I sat on the floor models in the store, I thought it would be fine, but at home I found that the foam seats were not firm enough. I sank into the foam every time I sat down- some people might enjoy this sensation, but I did not. I need a firmer seat.
  • I need a sofa with a taller back piece. The sides are all the same height- that means that the back support is only as high up as the armrests in the completed Sactional photo above. The pillows are taller than the top edge of the back pieces, which meant that if I leaned back, it was just weird, with the top edge sort of jamming into my back.
  • The Sactional wasn’t long enough to lay down on. Laying down on the couch after a long day at work or any time I want to pass out for a little living room nap is absolute bliss, and it’s absolutely necessary. Laying down on the couch is an important part of my life and I couldn’t do it on this one. The width of LoveSac seat parts are just a little bit weird- the modular sections of a LoveSac seat are 35 inches wide by 29 inches deep. You do have the option of doing the sections sideways, to change the width. I tried orienting it the other way and found that the back pillows were too wide and smushed together. 35 inches is a weird width- the two sections were just a few inches too short to be comfortable for laying down. If I had added a third section, I would have been able to lay down, but then my sofa would have been almost ten feet long.
  • Last, but certainly not least: LoveSac Sactionals are on the pricy side of things. They’re relatively well made and guaranteed for life against manufacturer defects, but I never really felt like the Sactional was worth the more than two grand I shelled out to purchase it. Mine was a relatively small example, too- for a bigger room, you could easily shell out eight or ten thousand dollars for a Sactional.

Ultimately, I decided it wasn’t for me. After 24 days of life with the Sactional, I disassembled the thing and boxed it back up to ship back to LoveSac. Fortunately, they have free shipping and a 60-day in-home trial, so this was quite simple.

Allow me to pause my retelling for just a moment to talk up how amazing LoveSac’s customer service was throughout this process. It’s easy to complain online about bad service, but truly excellent service is rarely commented on, and it should be. LoveSac was so great throughout all of this that I am willing to consider them again in the future- their giant beanbag thing, the hilariously named SuperSac, does look kind of amazing. Here’s how they excelled: First, their in-store help was amazing. Secondly, when I reached out to return it, the process was dead simple. They sent me FedEx shipping labels and boxes, and when I had boxed it all back up they arranged a FedEx pick-up to come to me and cart them away. All I had to do was disassemble and rebox them. Once the boxes were received back at the mothership, I was given a full refund. The service was effortless and so much less difficult than I expected.

In the time since I boxed up the LoveSac and sent it on its way, I’ve been using the cushions of the old Ikea Ektorp on their own without the rest underneath, just set up on the floor- I call this the Boneless Sofa. It’s comfortable enough, in a Bohemian sort of way.

The Boneless Sofa

Ultimately, I know that this isn’t a good permanent sofa. While the Boneless Sofa has been acceptable for the very short term, I do want a proper couch in the future.

I’ve already located a part of Falls Church that I refer to as the Arlington Sofa District- a place with at least five different stores that have sofas within approximately a single square mile. I’ll go there some weekend in the near future, sit on a bunch more sofas, weigh my options- and then I’ll probably just order another Ikea Ektorp.

This is my process. I’ll get there, eventually.

What kind of couch do you like to sit on?

23/52 (and 2 of 30!)

Nanopoblano and a brief update.

On By StevenIn Life At Home, The D-M-V20 Comments

Back at the start of the year, I said that I was going to try to do at least a post a week, thinking I should be able to come up with something bloggable that frequently without too much difficulty.

Then the pandemic happened, and most of the things that are interesting enough to talk about went away- travel, concerts, going outside a lot… each of these things vanished and I spent more than half of the year (so far) in my apartment, without anything interesting happening. The blog posts have fallen off as a result.

Enter Nanopoblano! Nanopoblano is “the Internet’s least-official November blog challenge.” Basically, it’s a bunch of people who commit to following one of several paths- some people will post every day for thirty days, some will commit to engaging with the other participants. The recommended way forward is “10 days of posts, 10 days of reading/commenting, and 10 days of sharing posts through any other platform.” I’m going to go my own way a bit and try to do the 30 posts in 30 days route. It might be the kick I need to make blogging a habit again. I might suck at this too, but I’m at least going to try.

Team Tiny Peppers, 2020!

Now that I’ve got the Team Tiny Peppers housekeeping out of the way, I can detail some of the myriad ways that I’ve been spending my time since I arrived via the Amtrak Auto Train in the last post. The last post which was nearly 90 days ago.

  • I’ve been setting up my apartment, more or less, once the movers brought my stuff. There are still lots of things to do.
  • I’ve been exploring my neighborhood.
  • I’ve updated my voter registration and been to the DMV.
  • I’ve been working a lot, naturally. I enjoy my job- it’s challenging and busymaking and really doesn’t require more comment than that.
  • I’ve been ordering a LOT of GrubHub- like too much. Seriously it’s so easy, which is very empowering for a wannabe agoraphobe.
  • I’ve explored a few local monuments and touristy things and taken lots of photos- I’ll make a post out of these because I’ve got pictures.
  • I had a houseguest for one weekend a while back when my longtime friend Lorrie visited. We went to some of the aforementioned local touristy things and even had lunch with another friend who went to high school with us.
  • I purchased and returned an uncomfortable, inadequate sofa. This is also going to get its own post because I have analysis, lessons learned, and – of course – photographs.
  • I’ve been to a crazy number of different grocery stores since my arrival because I still haven’t quite settled into a preferred grocery option. Long time readers will remember that I had the same problem with grocery shopping when I got to Germany. It’s really tough to top Publix. This is probably going to get its own post as well.
  • I’ve been having at least one meal out every week or so with one of my local friends, but I haven’t gotten to see everyone I know around here because some of my local people are skittish about going anywhere during a pandemic. I don’t blame them for being more cautious than I am, but I miss seeing them. I did have dinner once with my cousin but then got wildly side-tracked with things- I definitely need to share more meals with her now that we’re geographically close for a change.
  • I went to an actual concert in an actual venue with an actual live act and an actual audience. And it was actually weird.

And that’s pretty much it! I nearly traveled to Florida for a family thing, but did not. I’ve had lots of canceled events and trips, and it’s just been day in and day out of the same stuff, most of the time. There are seeds in the above list of longer posts that are going to be coming throughout the month, but this is where I’ll leave it for the moment.

See everyone back here tomorrow! Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

How have you all been for the last 90 days?

22/52 (and 1 of 30!)

A Fork in the Road

On By StevenIn Life At Home7 Comments

As we roll into day 30 of National Blog Posting Month and Nanopoblano, I find myself surprised to have completed the entire month.   When Rara asked me in late October to participate, I initially said that my life is too crazy-busy right now to do a blog post every day.  Nevertheless, on the first of November, I posted a thing.  On the second of November, I posted another thing.

One a day, every day, until we reached today.   I didn’t even write ahead and schedule posts to go up in the future until Thanksgiving- I wrote a new post each day, or had three-fourths of a post almost ready to go in the drafts folder, needing some polish.

The truth is that I’m kind of grateful to this little project, because it’s been a wonderful distraction.   I’ve mentioned only a few times in the blog that my employment is ending on the fifteenth of December, but I haven’t really shared just how terrified that makes me.   Writing something new every day has helped me to stay sane and to keep the stress at bay.  I didn’t know that my blog could do that-  I’ve never really used it that way before now.

I didn’t realize until just recently how much of my identity is tied up in what I do.   And I also wrote a while back about how my highly specialized product knowledge will be useless after this job ends.

This is a fear that I have-  I worry that my skills won’t transfer to a new job, or that even after more than fifteen years doing tech work, I won’t be any different than any other resume on some hiring manager’s desk.   I worry that I won’t stand out enough to get hired.  I worry that if I do get hired, I’ll hate the job and be stuck in a soul-crushing perdition from which I cannot escape.

I worry, also, that this might be the last time in my life that I can really choose a career path different from the one I’ve been on.  I’m two days from 44, and I still haven’t got the foggiest idea what I want to be when I grow up.

I don’t really know if I want to keep doing this kind of work.  I don’t really know where I want to live, although Orlando and Portland are both very appealing to me.  (And, frankly, Orlando is the more likely of the two because it’s right there and it has Disney!)

The image attached to this post is my laptop wallpaper right now, because I find myself  at a fork in the road.   For just this moment, I’m not attached to a lease.  I have, thanks to some creative application of time off, roughly six actual days left in the office before I’m unemployed.

And I don’t know what to do next.

Except to keep blogging,  I guess.   Probably not every day, though, because I have a feeling things are about to get a lot busier around here.

fork-in-the-road

What was your favorite post from my last thirty days of bloggery?

Editor’s Note:  I’m attempting to blog every day in November with CheerPeppers.  I don’t expect to succeed because life be crazy, but any blogging in excess of my previous post-free month is a win, right?

My Favorite Scream

On By StevenIn Life At Home2 Comments

Have you ever heard of the Wilhelm Scream?  It’s been in over 200 movies, and it’s so recognizable that if you didn’t notice it before reading this post, I’m sure you’ll start to notice it everywhere.

It was introduced to modern cinema by all-around amazing sound guy Ben Burtt when he was designing the sound for Star Wars in 1977- he used it for a sequence where Luke shoots a Stormtrooper across a chasm while trying to escape the Death Star.  When the trooper falls, you hear the Wilhelm Scream.

Ben Burtt didn’t create the sound, though-  he just found it in the studio sound archives, on a reel labeled “Man being eaten by alligator.”  The scene described there is from the 1951 movie, Distant Drums.  In that movie, a cowboy in the Everglades was indeed eaten by an alligator, yelling out the scream as he is dragged underwater.

The scream was used again in the 1953 movie, The Charge at Feather River, and it’s heard by several different people as they die.  One of them is a guy named in movie dialogue as Private Wilhelm, and he makes the scream when he is shot in the left leg with an arrow.

When Ben Burtt found the sound on the “Man being eaten by alligator” reel, he also found the Private Wilhelm footage, and it was Ben Burtt who named it the Wilhelm Scream.  He went on to re-use the Wilhelm in all the remaining Star Wars movies as well as the Indiana Jones movies.  It wasn’t long before other sound designers started to use the Wilhelm in other movies, and now it’s all over the television and movie landscape, including Toy Story, Batman Returns, Aladdin, Howard The Duck, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit, Lethal Weapon 4, and many many more.

Everything up until this point is material that I knew as I began to write this post.  There’s one interesting fact that I didn’t know until I started researching to write this up:  It is now widely believed that the voice of the Wilhelm Scream is none other than Sheb Wooley, known to most for his novelty song, “The Purple People Eater.”  Ben Burtt found notes at Warner Brothers which indicated that Wooley was on a short list of people who recorded dialogue for Distant Drums, and he recorded material for several types of screams.

Here’s two short compilations of a bunch of Wilhelm Screams:

What’s the last movie you saw containing a Wilhelm Scream?

Editor’s Note:  I’m attempting to blog every day in November with CheerPeppers.  I don’t expect to succeed because life be crazy, but any blogging in excess of my previous post-free month is a win, right?

A Speedster, an Archer, and a Kryptonian Walk Into a Bar

On By StevenIn Life At Home6 Comments

I mentioned this a few posts back, but tonight is the start of a four-way crossover on all the CW network’s superhero shows.   It starts towards the end of tonight’s Supergirl, continues tomorrow on Flash, then on to Arrow on Wednesday, concluding with Legends of Tomorrow on Thursday.

This is the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a live-action Justice League.   It’s already better than next year’s Justice League movie with emo-Flash, Aqua-grunge-man, and Batfleck.

Just look at this line-up!   This picture contains Supergirl, Green Arrow, Flash, Firestorm, Atom, Vixen, and a bunch of other people!     Honestly, this is the closest we’ve ever come in live action to the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, which was always kind of amazing and wonderful.

fourwayteamup

I’ve been enjoying the hell out of The Flash ever since his first pre-lightning appearance on Arrow in season two.  I love that they leaned into the comic book aspects and showed that not everything has to be darkness and grunge and pain.   In this respect, the DC television universe is infinitely better than the DC movie universe, which was so loathe to do Superman as bright and hopeful that they didn’t even call him Superman until the last few minutes of Man of Steel.

At the beginning of this season of Supergirl, they brought Superman onto the show and he was everything that the movie Superman isn’t.  He was charming and colorful and true to the original comic vision for the character.   He was optimistic and hopeful, which is how Big Blue is supposed to be.  I feel like the people behind the movie iteration have forgotten this, if they ever knew it.

On the television side, however, they definitely know it.  Superman, Supergirl, and Flash are all characters who inspire hope.  That’s part of why Arrow has floundered a bit since the first two seasons-  this version of Arrow is heavily Batmanned-   full of darkness and broody angst.   (And let’s face it- the 1941 first appearance of Green Arrow was obviously trying to cash in on the success of the 1939 first appearance of the Caped Crusader, right down to the Arrow-Car.)

It’s kind of interesting that although Arrow paved the way for the current crop of CW Superhero shows, it’s the one that is the least comfortable with embracing the fantastical nature of comic book heroes.  Arrow has, for the most part, tried to keep things grounded.  They didn’t do superpowers until after the Flash had premiered, and they waited until season four to bring up the idea of magic, not counting the Lazarus Pit.  Even with powered characters like Firestorm and Hawkgirl running around the “Arrowverse,” the show that started it all still prefers to work with non-powered characters.

That’s part of the fun, for me though-  one of my favorite parts of bringing the Flash into the Arrowverse was seeing Diggle’s reaction (and stunned disbelief) at what Barry could do.   The first time these two had a proper team-up, I was super psyched, even though Oliver is kind of a dick to Barry most of the time.

The cross-network Flash-Supergirl crossover last year was much more satisfying.  Barry is way more at home in Kara’s world than in Oliver’s.  The entire episode, from start to finish, is just fun as heck.   (Kara’s reaction when Barry demonstrated his super-speed by getting everyone in the room ice cream is one of the best moments on television so far this year.) The Legends of Tomorrow, while not the strongest show in the current line-up is still entertaining enough, and it takes its tone cues more from Flash than from Arrow.

Tonight, the whole lot of them start to battle an honest-to-goodness alien invasion.  It’s gonna be great.

And I can’t wait to see how Diggle reacts to Supergirl.

Are you a DC or a Marvel?   What’s your favorite live-action superhero adaptation?

Editor’s Note:  I’m attempting to blog every day in November with CheerPeppers.  I don’t expect to succeed because life be crazy, but any blogging in excess of my previous post-free month is a win, right?