From: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Self-Assembly (was Caffeine and mornings)
Keywords: grommets
Date: 27 Aug 92 10:23:29 GMT
Reply-To: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Organization: Penicuik People's Revolutionary Sheepdog Liberation Front

In article <1992Aug27.080318.8432@mr.med.ge.com> hinz@picard.med.ge.com (David Hinz Mfg 4-6987) writes:
>
> [ Considerable amount of peeving about self-assembly stuff deleted ]

Self-assembly is probably one of the greatest sources of peeves there is. I
cite the following...

1. My rowing machine. I peeved about this at *great* length (i.e. about the
   same as usual) last year when I bought it.

2. The living-room cabinet. It looks very nice indeed for something that
   was bought as a flat-pack but there just *had* to be something wrong and
   in the case of this cabinet it was the fact that one of the drawers
   opens of its own accord. Either that or we've got a poltergeist.

3. The table for my MIDI system. Now this went together like a *dream*
   resulting in a very nice unit that the big black box can sit on top of
   and with spaces beneath it for those vinyl thingies. However, on the one
   occasion when I decided to move it, I picked it up by the top and...it
   came off. Of course, without the top to hold everything together, the
   structural integrity of the unit was somewaht compromised and it fell
   to bits.

4. The table I bought for my TV to sit on. Again, very easy to put
   together and it looks pretty good, except for the fact that to save
   costs the manufacturers, instead of giving it a proper back panel,
   decided to use what is apparently a piece of cardboard with some
   mahogany veneer sticky backed plastic on it. Which, of course, was right
   in the way when the screwdriver slipped while I was assembling it.

5. My CD racks. Now these are little plastic `cubes' that each hold 10 CDs.
   For some reason, when I bought a CD player I decided these would be
   *the* ideal system to keep my collection into. This decision was not a
   good one.

   i)  The racks hold 10 CDs each. If the CDs are in those slimline jewel
       cases or cardboard sleeves, they flop around. If they're in double
       size jewel cases, you need to buy a special type of rack just for
       them.
   ii) They're designed to link together with the tongue-in-groove
       connections providing added structural strength for the combined
       units. They had *not* bargained on anybody linking 48 of the things
       together in a mammoth block, like wot I have. The height I can pile
       them is limited to 4 units high, since even that suffers from the
       Pisa effect with the racks leaning at an alarming angle. I can't
       fix them to the wall since it would require approximately 100 screws
       to do so and would probably pull the plasterboard off the walls.

    CD rack anti-peeve: When I move I'm not taking them with me. No, way,
    uh-uh. I'll buy one of those nice big 6ft tall wooden cases.

6.  The computer desk. No longer in use as such due to my not having a
    computer any more. However, when you consider that this was designed
    for use with fragile electronic equipment and that the little drawer
    was intended for holding floppy disks, one has to wonder at the sanity
    of the designer who somehow managed to make that drawer into some sort
    of chipboard Van der Graaf generator. You only had to *open* the bloody
    thing to hear the crackle of static and watch massive bolts of
    lightning arc across the drawer. Truly bizarre.

7.  The book-case. When you fill it with books it falls over. Wonderful.

So, in brief, I have yet to encounter *any* piece of self-assembly
furniture with which I am fully satisfied.

As an addendum to my complaints about the rowing machine...

I'd been easing off on the rowing machine, with the frenetic rowing
activity from last November to about March having shed the desired 11kg or
so (about 24lbs for the metrically disadvantaged). So it gradually fell
into less frequent use, being used maybe just once a week if I felt like
exercising a little more strenuously than usual. Over this time it
developed a huge range of highly annoying squeaks which were ignored
because it wasn't in use very much.

However, I've recently decided to make more regular use of it. I'm now
using it on a daily basis, perhaps not as fanatically as I did at the start
of the year (I don't want to lose weight now, I just want to keep in shape)
but still regularly. So something *had* to be done about the squeaks.

I ventured into Peevacentre and, after an inordinately long time searching
(every aisle, it seems, was labelled, except the one I was looking for)
emerged with a little can of WD-40. When I got home that night I went after
the rowing machine with a vengeance. The spray was wielded mercilessly and
the rowing machine emerged after fifteen minutes gleaming and scrupulously
lubricated.

Or so I thought. For it emerges that all my efforts have yielded are a
rowing machine that *still* squeaks, stinks of WD-40 and which I now slide
off regularly because the seat got covered in WD-40. The squeak,
apparently, has no source. It just happens.

--
		Not Al Crawford - Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk
      "Brothers, sisters, we don't need this fascist sheepdog thang"