old stuff

I think I am an abnormal consumer; I tend to hold on to stuff as long as it still works. For example, I'm perfectly happy with the car I bought new in 1989, and plan to drive it until it dies an expensive death. If I'm lucky, I can hold out long enough for the hybrids to get through beta testing. (Never buy version 1.0 of anything important.)

What brought this to mind is my watch. It's just a generic cheap Timex -- digital, alarm, backlight that stopped working a few years ago, etc. For a few years I've had to use something stronger and harder than my finger, like the back end of a pen, to push the buttons that set the time. But it's comfortable, and how often do you need to set the time anyway?

Twice a year, of course. And this morning I discovered that a critical button no longer works, and I was stuck in daylight-savings time. Worse than being one hour off, though, is being one hour and a minute or two off, and by the time I was done screwing with it, that was its state. (It could zero the seconds, but not change the minutes or hours.) So, off to the store.

What I really want doesn't seem to exist. I'd prefer a watch with a conventional face and hands, but I want an alarm. (I don't use an alarm often, but I occasionally need it.) Oh well. My new watch is a bit on the ugly side, so maybe I'll be less reluctant to replace it next time. I do not, however, intend to apply that logic to my next car. :-)

Saturday

Yesterday we went to the bar mitzvah of the son of friends. Dani went with me, which was very nice of him (he doesn't really do religion). I noticed that he was comparing the English and Hebrew in the siddur; Gates of Prayer is pretty bad about that, and this seemed to provide him with some amusement.

During the Torah reading, when we got to the part about Chava telling the snake that not only was she not permitted to eat the fruit but she wasn't even permitted to touch it, I leaned over to him and said "this may be the oldest g'zeirah" (fence around the Torah), and he had to stifle a laugh. Oops. :-) (A fence around the Torah is when the rabbis rule that you can't take some otherwise-permitted action because it might lead you to a forbidden one. For example, on Shabbat you are not to handle matches; the actual forbidden act is kindling fire. That sort of thing. In this case, God told them not to eat but didn't say anything -- at least that got recorded -- about touching.)

Dani asked me where the tradition that the fruit is an apple comes from. I don't know; I do know that there are Jewish sources that argue for other fruits. (I've heard pomogranate and I think date.) Dani argues for chestnuts on the theory that Mark Twain can't be wrong.

The luncheon was very nice, and several people made a point of thanking Dani for coming (including my rabbi). I was able to steer us toward people he would enjoy talking with, and we lucked into a couple more at the table we sat down at, so I think it went well.

Last night we went to a gaming session. While this wasn't planned, the theme turned out to be robots. When we arrived there was a game of Ricochet Robot in progress, so we joined in. (It's adaptable that way.) I'm not fast enough with that kind of visual reasoning, it appears. Then we played a long game of Robo Rally. I started off doing poorly with navigation -- combination of bad cards and not wrapping my brain around some of the hazards on the board (conveyer belts, gears, pools of slime, that sort of thing). But I recovered and at one point was in the lead, though another player who had been close behind me managed to slip past and win. The last flag was in a really hard spot to reach, and he had a gadget that allowed him to tag it from nearby rather than having to land on it. It was a fun game, though not one I'd play often.

We had exactly seven people, so before we settled on Robo Rally someone proposed Diplomacy. I felt bad about vetoing it under near-optimal conditions (you want exactly seven people), but I really hate that style of game. Sorry, guys. I hope they'll find a seventh and play some other time, because Dani enjoys it and hasn't played in a long time.

(My objection to Diplomacy is all about the politics and not at all about the world conquest, by the way.)