If you were having coffee with me I would welcome to you my corner of the internet and wish I could offer you some ice, its been rather hot this side of the world.
Some iced coffee or just even plain water with ice would snap right now. If you think about it ice cubes in cold water are kinda hard core.. imagine chilling in a bathtub full of your own blood ^_^ Don’t mind me, its its Halloween season so I have been watching some scary movies. 👻 I could really use some ice right now.
If you were having coffee with me I would ask if you remember about our electricity situation with the constant power outages, I suspect our good ol trusty chest freezer is collateral damage in the battle for loadshedding.
Now even though the freezer is running…. (if your freezer is running you better put on some shoes and run after it) anyway, even though it is running, it doesn’t get very cold. I hired a technician I saw on a lamp post to come fix it…
The man took one look at the fridge’s innards rattled some pipes and announced that this is what was dead (see image below) According to him; this filter is what converts the oil from the compressor into ice crystals which make the freezer freeze.
Before I could actually ask him to explain that again because I clearly wasn’t buying it, he had already cut off the offending part and replaced it with a new one then proceeded to top up the refrigerant in the compressor with what he called AfriGas when I asked what type of gas he was adding. Before you say that’s what you get for getting an unaccredited fridge repairmen I must point out that the fridge did get a bit colder… for a couple of days … and of course not anymore.
If you were having coffee with me, I would ask if you have any experience in fridge repairs or ever dealt with repairmen who tried feeding you lines of nonsense while doing very dodgy repairs, I once hired this electrician who turned out to be colour blind ….. yeah that was a very shocking experience.
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that in the downtime between waiting for electricity to come back, I made an interesting “discovery” that if I plug in a mouse to my android phone via the OTG adapter… It actually works.
Don’t ask what led to this discovery, I will just call it professional curiosity…. Oh and a USB keyboard works as well… I am tempted to use a USB Splitter and then cast to a TV and pretend I am using a desktop.
The power utility says that the current power outages are not due to loadshedding but instead caused by the wind resulting in faults. I was somewhat skeptical of this, but I have just witnessed a gust of wind causing the powerlines to get all tangled up resulting in a firework display and the power’s gone…. Again.
I called the power utility to report a fault and they said OK, didn’t even ask my address though ^_^ I have doubts about the electricity coming back soon.
Whats happening in your neck of the woods?
~B
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Becoming The Muse 
But with your power issues, I think you can do away with a fridge, that’s what I did a few years back now you are spending on these repairs that don’t make sense, maybe it’s past it’s life
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Right. Maybe dig a bunker and store things underground where it’s cool?
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Hahaha “ice cubes in cold water are kinda hard core imagine chilling in a bathtub full of your own blood” never heard that one before lol 😆 😂 🤣 😅
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If a contractor did ‘repairs’ without my express permission, he’d get the boot!
And a color blind electrician seems like a death waiting to happen. My brother is an electrician so I’m going to tell him this story. He should get a laugh out of it.
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A “shocking experience” courtesy of a colour blind electrician? Genius!
I also got a good laugh at the fridge repair poster. Relatable African stuff.
Thanks for the laughter
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Wow—I love that USB mouse tip! That’s very cool—sorry you’re fridge isn’t. 😢
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Ice cubes in water… I wonder if they are happy when they become an ice cube – like a status symbol (they’re MADE into something less common than just water) and get sad when they melt away or if they hate to be frozen and pleased when they get to melt away and go back to their “peer” water.
RE: the mouse with phone combo – HOLY FCK! Mind blown. Not that I will ever use it, but it’s still a neat party trick.
Sorry about the fridge. It seems that back in the day, people had more ‘useful’ professions than now. Back in the day, a single neighborhood seemed to have an electrician, a plumber, a construction guy, and more. Plus, they all knew the basics of the other professions, too. These days, those people are rarer, which drives the prices higher. Back in the day, since everyone seemed to know a little about everything, you couldn’t just BS them. Plus, if you screwed them over, they wouldn’t help you out in the future when you needed them. These days, people know that they are hired to do something the other person has no idea about. Like you, I’ve been in the position where I’m like: “This doesn’t make sense.” But then they go: “It does. You called me. You have no idea what you are talking about. I do.” And then they leave, and the thing is still broken… So, then you open up YouTube and just figure this BS out yourself.
Here, fall is in the air. It was noticeably darker this morning when I got up. Ughhhh, not a big fan of that.
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It is strange how a power cut some how drains power from the individual. I have had my issues with technicians of many kinds. let me guess, the fridge repairman learnt his skills while working for someone, who had once worked for some one who knew how to repair fridges. Skills by oral tradition not technical training me thinks.
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True true, it’s almost like somehow electricity energises us on some atomic level.
Even when I am doing something that does not involve electricity such as reading a book 📖 if the power goes you still feel a bit…. deflated 🤔☕
Also you are on the money about the repairman, he acquired his skills from a form of apprenticeship by working as an assist for someone who once worked at an refrigeration workshop that shut down.
Knows how to do things from second hand experience but without the technical knowledge of what they are actually doing. Can take apart a fridge and put it back together but can’t explain how it works or why its not working 😅
~B
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I had a post about the mouse hack in 2019 https://wordpress.com/post/europeanafricanhacks.home.blog/160 and I have another about running linux OS on your phone. Can you use paypal in Zim?
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Looks like you copied the URL from within the editor window and so I can’t access the article you shared.
I am intrigued by the running Linux on phone as well do share the links too.
Technically you can’t use PayPal in Zimbabwe but because the internet is not a real place one can create the illusion of being in country where PayPal works 💻🤣
~B
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What is the smile game?
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