Conveniences and Inconveniences

I guess we don't watch as much TV as some people do, but when we watch it we watch it. We either watch TV or we talk, we don't do both at once. I can't imagine watching TV and playing with my computer at the same time. We do watch it while we eat supper, but we don't watch just anything. If there's nothing on that we want to see, we pop in a DVD while we eat. The nice thing about a DVD is that you can turn it off and come back to it later. I can't remember the last time we watched a whole movie in one sitting. We mostly prefer the older stuff to what they're putting out nowadays. Right now we are watching an old Sherlock Holmes series from the 1950s. We got four movies and 39 half hour TV episodes for $5.95 plus shipping. We get most of our stuff from the Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company catalog, out of Falls Village, Connecticut. They are a discount house that buys up remainders and odd lots of books, CDs, and DVDs, and sell them really cheap. Shipping and handling is $3.50 per order, no matter how many items you buy. The catalog doesn't take plastic, although they do have a web site where you can order stuff with your card, but they charge an additional $3.50 for that service.

Remember when we bought those books on Amazon? Well, that was the first time I ordered anything from them. I don't buy a lot of stuff online, only when I can't find what I want anywhere else. We always used Chore Boy copper pot scrubbers until the only store in town that carried them quit carrying them. We tried other brands, but didn't like any of them. I googled them just to see if the company was still in business, and discovered that I could get them from Amazon. Who would a thunk it? I wonder if I can get a new stock for Old Betsy from Amazon?

Remember how I taped up that cracked stock last year just to get through the season? Well, I have been trying all year to get a new one from the company that made the gun, and you wouldn't believe the run around they have been giving me. First they said they were out of them, they were on back order, and I should check back with them in a month or so. After I did that a couple of times, the guy said he could order one specifically for me, and I should get it in three or four months. That was in July, and I didn't need it till December, so I told him that would be fine. I told him that the warrantee on the gun had long expired, so I didn't expect to get a new stock for free, but he said I wouldn't have to pay for it unless I needed it right away, and then I would have to order it from somewhere, he didn't say where. If you can't order a replacement part from the manufacturer, from whence can you order it? I guess I should have asked him, but he seemed determined to give me one for free. Free is good, but not if you don't get it. Well, the muzzle loader season opened today, and I still don't have my new stock, so I taped up the old one again, and it seems to be working all right.

I didn't get to go hunting today because the brakes failed again on my pickup truck yesterday. I set out for town to catch up on some errands before season, the brakes went soft, and the alarm went off, just like it did two months ago to the day. It was the same problem, a ruptured brake fluid line, but not the same line that ruptured last time. So my truck is sitting in the shop till at least Monday because they had to order parts. I don't need the truck to go hunting, but I need it to run those errands because I'm running out of beer and a few other essentials. I can use my hypothetical wife's car for that, but not till tomorrow because she needed to go grocery shopping today. My gun wasn't ready anyway, but now it is, so I should be able to go hunting Sunday if something else doesn't got to hell on me. You know, we take our gadgets for granted until they break down, and then we wonder how we ever got along without them before we had them.