Bookends & Odds & Ends

The Greater Dumbfuckistan County Fair (colloquially known as the Republican National Convention) has finally ended, after shambling like a drunken elephant herd past any wells of honesty in search of more batshit craziness to dig up.

This cavalcade of FAIL was bookended by The Outlaw Jersey Whale (bwahahaha!) at the outset and the doddering wreck that remains of an actor who played The Outlaw Josey Wales, who spent his stage time talking to a pretend Obama (WTF?) cleverly disguised as an empty chair. There's video at that thar link.
There's plenty of snark at Andrew Sullivan's.

Didn't spend a minute watching any of this crap (more fun to read about in the blogosphere, where the snark flows); spent time reading, organizing, and working on an old flood-damaged Zoom 3030 guitar pedal. It's supposed to do this:







...but mine's not in working condition so far. I scrubbed a film of mineral deposits off of the circuit board, resoldered several of the input/output jacks, and hit the jacks' contacts with a file to clean them up. The last time I tried it out, it was getting input and all the buttons seemed functional (so the processor's good), but there was no sound.

It needs to dry out a little longer before the next power up/smoke test; part of the scrubbing was in a bath of hot water and dish soap. About all that accomplished was to make the board wet and soapy. The mineral deposits weren't impressed. The only thing that's worked so far is rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs--and after a few hours of that, the worst of the tacky white glaze is gone.

Of the three flood-rescue projects I inherited, the 3030's in the best condition. The other two  (a Digitech GSP-5 Guitar Processor and a Digitech RDS 1900 Digital Delay) look a lot worse.