I have been frustrated with earbuds since mobile phone manufactures dropped the 1/8" inch headphone jack - I think this trend started with the iPhone 7 in 2016. After playing around with headphones with proprietary connectors and adapters for almost a decade, I decided to buy wireless ear buds in April 2024. I chose the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II. I haven’t been impressed - mostly due to frustration when they refuse to pair with my phone (my Sony portable speaker is flawless in this regard). My wife/kids seem to do better with various Anker soundcore models. But… the noise cancelling on these Bose earbuds is awesome for sharing a small space, walking in loud urban areas, and traveling on public transit. I had planned to use them until they stop working altogether.

My Epson XP-830 started dropping black ink globs on my prints, which would smudge and wreck photos. As I had recently installed $150 worth of ink, I didn’t want to just go out and get a new printer. I also liked the compact format of this printer, and wouldn’t just buy the same one, as this was starting to look like a doorstop after its 2nd set of cartridges. I wasn’t concerned about breaking the printer at this point, because I was ready to throw it out.

The bar code on my library card has been worn out for a while.  My last few trips, its probably taken about a minute for me to play around with the positioning of the card on the library’s scanner to get it to read correctly.

Years ago, I’d read how my friend Chris created a custom library card with all of his family’s card numbers on it.  Although I’m sure the instructions he provided would work (I suspect the library’s barcode readers handle many formats), the bar codes his method created didn’t match the one on the card.