da | (no subject)

So our house is being haunted by the world's most Trivial Poltergeist. Particularly, the very pretty wooden clock in the dining room is haunted (see the top-right of this photo from d's citizenship party). The pendulum is entirely for show; it's powered by a battery. The Trivial Poltergeist will stop and start the pendulum at random intervals. Recently, the pendulum has been mostly still, and it bugs both d. and me that it won't work. For d., mostly because it looks bad, and for me because it looks bad for my mechanical abilities that I can't figure out a fake clock pendulum.

On Saturday,

bats22 jokingly wondered what would happen if I doubled the voltage. Ding! (actually, *clonk*): two batteries increases the electromagnet's pull, but it doesn't change the frequency. So it swings rreeeallly wiiiide now. Next I'm nudging down the voltage, now that it's kept itself going long enough for me to know this isn't a transient fix (like the last 8 or so have been). Poltergeist bug us not!

There is a punchline, which is that this morning I was going to simply post this entry as a haiku:

The pendulum swings
Under doubled batteries
Faster than we'd like

...I reconsidered, on grounds that cryptic poetry in livejournal may look more dramatic than I intended.

...Not connected to the previous, a note to myself: If you find yourself saying, "I am a river of peace, water washes over me goddammit." You're Doing It Wrong.