From the Brain of Matty

lawnmower half-life (23.04.06 9:20 pm)

This morning I attempted to mow the lawn; it was rainy yesterday and I didn't get a chance.

The lawn mower is rooted.

I managed to trick it into running long enough to crop the top half a centimetre from the front lawn (with the mower carriage at its highest setting, since any lower would meant it would be chopping grass, which would be too much effort and it'd stall).

At least the whipper snipper started (eventually), and kept running. So I trimmed all the edges.

The back yard is still a jungle, though.

Since I was unable to mow, I decided to do something out there, so I grabbed a pitch-fork and loosened up the soil in one of the two bog patches that between them take up half the surface area of the yard and turn it into an impassible quagmire as soon as a drop of precipitation falls from the sky.

Stupid mud.

I don't think it'll make much difference, but breaking it up might give it a chance to dry out a bit better. Then, if the mower ever decides to work again, I won't need a snorkel to do the back yard.

If anyone has any idea what would cause an engine to conk out whenever the revs drop below abslute maximum, please let me know. Oh, and in case you're thinking "well, don't let it drop below maximum revs" I have to point out the regulator. Even that was enough to make it stall.

Stupid octopus.

I did manage to clean out the undercarriage a bit (it was like a big caste of some sort of weird grassy papier mache substance, until I scraped it out), and noticed that the blades were so loose on the rotary arm that one of them had folded back in on itself and wasn't actually cutting anything, so I straightened and tightened them. Which would be great if the damned engine would run.

Tonight the Australian Big Brother launched its 6th season. The females of the household watched the premiere episode thing. I'm tired of Big Brother.

If I was running a Big Brother season, I'd put everyone in a dormitory with individual plain neutral grey rooms, and no interaction with the outside world (not even with Gretel, the host) until they're evicted. And their interaction with Big Brother would be for the most part like in 1984 - just knowing it's there, watching.

That'd be great. They'd go completely insane. I'd love it.

I wouldn't even tell them what day of the week it is, or who is nominated for eviction, or who is evicted (although they'd find out soon enough, when people stopped turning up to dinner). Imagine going to bed in your neutral grey dorm, lights out at 10pm or whatever, and next morning such-and-such doesn't come to breakfast; they simply vanished in the night.

And I'd pull them out on different days, at different times, (even three or four days after the voting has closed), just to screw with everyone's minds.

In Half-Life I'm currently fighting Nihilanth.

Oops, I got distracted reading about Half-Life on wikipedia. Now it's 11:45pm, and I've been ordered to bed.

Goodnight world. Be well.
Matty /<

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