Status of things

[johnridley]

Generator: Totally torn down. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with it, but I'm leaning towards slapping it together and giving it to my brother. I hate to just throw it away since it's generally acceptable, but I looked around last night and current generators are MUCH nicer. This one has THE most primitive engine in existence, and no muffler to speak of. I may put it back together and just see if the oil problem is something stupid like a leaking breather.

MP3 player: Shorted out in the rain last night. Even disassembly, cleaning with MAF solvent and drying on a heating pad only got it to where it'll play (though it thinks the new battery is nearly dead) and it won't connect to USB right. Oh well, it's a $10 player. I'm going to see if I can find L's old 1G Samsung player. Or maybe that old blue Sansa I had before; it's not ideal but it works, I just don't know exactly where it is. I used the 30G Zen this morning; it's a fantastic player but way too big to carry in a bike much. If I do buy something new, it'll probably be a 2G Zen Stone. Unless Woot puts cheap-ass Sansas on sale again soon. chinavasion has a few interesting looking tiny players with FM radios (required for me) - if they had one that would record from line input, I'd be on it.

Around the house: I've been dealing too much this week with entropy; trying to fix something that just broke, or recovering. Also been spending several hours preparing for the incoming DS invasion. I need to just ignore non-emergency stuff and get the house into shape and prep for next week's trip, or it's probably going to get pretty unhappy in the next few days.

Comments

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

When you leaving? I may bring the battery box over to put in the trailer. Not that it's done yet...

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Not until Tuesday. There should be ample room. Heck, if I really tried I could probably pack in the cartop carrier instead of the trailer.

[whl.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of the Sansa 2 GB Fuze; it has a microSDHC slot, and is pretty cheap.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

The size is right, but $100? That's NOT cheap. I paid $10 for this Sansa, 1GB. Heck, I only paid $160 for my Zen Vision:M 30 GB. I can get full-featured players with video playback, 4GB internal and a microSD slot for about $60 at chinavasion. But I don't really want a video capable screen on my little player, I'm thinking more along the lines of a Creative Zen Stone, $50 for the 2G version.
I wear my little player on the bike. I want something that I won't cry too hard over if I drop it and it gets hit by a car. The stone at $50 is borderline. The $10 players are perfect; if they come up again I'm grabbing 3. I really don't need 8GB for this player. 1GB is really sufficient, 2GB would only occasionally be handy. Most audiobooks are in the 400 to 600 megabyte range.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I have to revise my opinion. After looking around a bit, I was looking at the Sansa Clip, but the battery life worries me a bit. I may just wind up with the Fuze; with a 24 hour ratedbattery life, even if they're being optimistic it still shouldn't be too bad.
I'd go with the 4GB unit; it's only another $12, which isn't out of line. Then maybe drop in another 8 or 16 later when those get to cracker-jack-box pricing (they're already almost there).

My only concern is that at least one review indicates that they're not even moisture resistant; one guy says when he jogs with it, the inside of the screen fogs up. I wish someone made water resistant players. There's a neoprene case for the Fuze which I could try out but generally they don't help much. Maybe someone makes a tough ziplock pouch with a headphone cable hole coming out the bottom, and a neck strap on top.