Going to have to buy a new charger for one laptop and pay for my other to have the screen repaired. Dropped the latter thanks to a seizure. Rest of it works, got it connected to the TV for a while, but screwed up some software setting or other and never managed to do it again. I want the thing working again, that way I can dedicate one laptop, the more powerful machine of the two, to videogaming, and use the other one as my research database, encrypted and secured tighter than a gnat's dick eye so I can keep, in coded form all my personal research data, and of course, all the great many scientific journal articles I have and am forever downloading. I'll need to get another external drive too, I've got a 2-terabyte external HD, but I want another, one for games and one for my work.
Last thing near xmas I want to have to shell out for is fucking computer repairs, when there are gifts for the family to be bought and more labware and chemical supplies for myself, including a new vacuum pump (although I'll wait until after xmas, just in case anybody gets me a vac pump as a gift, just to make sure I don't accidentally buy myself the same thing somebody got me as a gift. Not that I'd say no to having having a spare vac pump/manifold available of course)
And I would really like, should I still have enough after all that is said and done, everybody bought for, to get myself the parts of a microscale and ultra-microscale set of glassware, matched for connection sizes. (currently I've flask sizes as low as 10ml, and a 5ml pear-shaped flask with a sidearm with integral condenser, but the filth damaged that, and the condenser is snapped off, deliberately from the manner of breakage, and I'll need to get it to a professional glassblower, for it is a delicate piece, and despite my paying a mere $5 or 6 inc. shipping on ebay for it, it was worth considerably more than that, especially considering the main body was integrated into a vigreaux, with the microcondenser coming off the side, even a vac takeoff. I've a similar kind of piece, but its 50ml, and that cost me considerably more. I need tiny microscale kit like that, and a proper set, enough to conduct a synthesis from start to finish just as I would with my regular sized glassware in any joint fittings I have, from beginning to end, but working on a few milligrams to tens or hundreds of mg at a time, and do everything I would with regular size glass, from vacuum or steam distillation, to experiments to test whether a process step works and the principle itself is sound and to what extent, and preparation of analytical samples to an ultrahigh purity level, for use as reference samples in comparative analytical work, purity assays and similar such things as need only small scale and yet the utmost delicacy. I've got some pieces but not yet a full micro and ultramicroscale setup; and my standard go-to 24/40 gear just isn't the type of equipment for it, its just too big, an analytical size synthesis would likely just end up soaked into a filter paper, even if refined with such infintesimal care to get every scrap and microscopic trace off the walls of the glass, all of it, at each and every step, with absolute precision, and lost, even in the hands of a truly expert chemist of a skill way superior to my own. Akin to using an whaling harpoon gun and steel rope to attempt to thread the eye of a needle, or a baseball bat to perform successful neurosurgery (of the kind intended that is, of course to restore health, rather than the kind of neurosurgery baseball bats might be used for by people ill-disposed to the patient mind you)
There's a limit to the kind of improvisation one may manage using the wrong tools and still get the job done right, and sure, an area in between that those who really know their work as well as they know how to wipe their own arse may pull off by dint of expertise and practice, but using 24/40 for ultra-microscale work is past it, pretty much.
Bitch no 2: just went and used some of my battery charge (charger will run the laptop in JUST the right position but not charge the battery) to go get food. And despite having just munched down a full tub of cream cheese I've got room for a few more. Got enough charge left to last about 4 hours or just under, so will go get a new one tomorrow, but before I go to get myself more munch from the food-fridge (you'd not want to eat anything from the other fridge, since the menu would be a choice between maggots, other fish-bait belonging to my old man, and a variety of solvents and the kind of chemicals nasty enough to need the aid of cooling down as far as possible to contain safely as well as a host of various solvents, some nicer , some nastier than others, but certainly not a thing anybody should ever entertain the idea of allowing into their food. Well technically there is, but only in the sense of my keeping the benzaldehyde in there since it is rather prone to oxidation, and keeping the bottles cold slows it, once opened and the deadspace left by that used, back-purged with argon; and benzaldehyde smells most deliciously of marzipan/bitter almonds and in small amounts is actually what you are buying almost certainly should you ever purchase synthetic almond essence flavouring, which is just bland vegetable oil with a bit of benzaldehyde in it. The pure form is a wonder to smell, just opening a bottle at room temperature is enough to render the room heavily perfumed, most strongly with the most powerful scent of marzipan, sweet and delicious.
