Moving along... Updated

 "I used to drink heavily, until one day I passed out and vomited while on my back.  Since that day, my body has refused to allow me to drink any hard liquor without gagging it back up.  So either my body is preventing me from making another life-threatening mistake, or I've died and gone to hell.  It's getting harder and harder to argue against the latter." - Unknown

The microwave oven finally arrived - damaged.  The wife went to town last Friday to pick it up and the box was smashed.  She insisted that they open it before she took possession, and sure enough it had a big dent.  The big dent would have been behind the trim ring, but that's beside the point.  If you are paying full price, you should get the undamaged one.

Yesterday the replacement oven finally arrived, and after work we made a trip to town to get it.  At the same time we stopped at Costco to re-supply our bulk goods - hopefully through most of winter.  The traffic is getting worse and worse - multitudes of aggressive drivers - and dealing with that traffic in icy conditions is even less fun than when it's dry.

 I made a huge batch (7 liters/quarts) of chili yesterday.  It's a pretty easy recipe and it makes enough for several meals.  The best part is that it freezes quite well.  After dinner, the leftovers ended up in several containers in the freezer for future meals.  Yes, we add beans to the chili - I am not a chili snob, and this isn't Texas.

I noticed a while back that the "Low" setting on the slow cooker is nearly as hot as the "High" setting - as in "Low" boils the contents just as readily as "High" does.  Thus the liner.  I got tired of scrubbing hard baked-on food from the inside of the slow cooker ceramic container.

Yesterday I decided to find out how much heat was applied on each setting.  The results are interesting.

Below:  Set to "High" 

Below:  Set to "Low"

Below:  Set to "Warm"

If it were up to me, I'd think "Low" should be 150 watts or so.   And I'm here to tell you that "Warm" doesn't really keep it warm.  It just cools off more slowly than it would otherwise.  Weird arrangement.

Since kegging the beer the other day, the clarifier became available, so I washed it and transferred the cider into it, then washed out the cider fermenter.  None of this was terribly fun, but it had to be done.  

Below: Transferring cider from the fermenter into the clarifier, with a bucket of sanitizing solution on hand.  Pictures of the clarifer after making the transfer.  This is done to get the cider off the dead yeast. 

The old microwave oven is ready for final disposal, once I get the new one installed, it will go away.

And lastly, a new DisplayPort video cable arrived for the computer.  I plugged it in and the display went dead and the computer started acting up again.  And now I may have finally determined what was causing the issue all along - the monitor.  The monitor is acting up when it gets warm.  

The reason this is causing issues back at the computer is that the DisplayPort protocol is a two-way communication between the monitor and the graphics card, so that they stay in sync, and you don't get graphical glitches between monitor refresh rates and graphics card output rates.  They talk to one another to stay synchronized.  When the monitor craps out, the graphics card takes a break and the computer thinks there's an issue.  This issue doesn't happen with the HDMI cable, because that is a one-way communication protocol.

So after work today, it's new monitor time.  Again.  The Sceptre monitor was nice, but it only lasted 3 years, so I'll try a different brand this time.

UPDATE 16 November 23 

I asked the wife what she wanted fixed first:  Microwave oven or Computer.  "The Computer", she said.

"Duuude, you're getting a Dell!"

Fortunately the monitor crapped out at a good time of year - when electronics stores are doing Black Friday sales - all month long.  I found this thing on sale for $229, and it seemed like it had good enough specifications to make a decent monitor.  It has the DisplayPort interface, and it's just a bit larger than the previous monitor.

Out the door with tax it was just over $250, which is fine.  The kid really likes it.  As you can see, it works perfectly well with the DisplayPort cable, so the old monitor was the issue all along.  Anyone need a spare Ryzen7 3700 CPU?

Size comparison, below.  At the time, I thought the previous monitor was enormous.

Oh yeah, and I went to see the dermatologist yesterday, just for fun.  He froze one thing, cut off another, and then cauterized the wound so that I wouldn't bleed out in his office.  Unusual growths always cause angiogenesis (creation of new blood vessels) to support their greedy needs.  

I got froze, cut and burned inside of 10 minutes, LOL.  All good, I just won't make the cover of GQ magazine this month :)  

Wear your Sunscreen.