Friday, May 12, 2023

Heat Waves (热浪, 熱波, 열파)

 Some songs just have that indelible quality of staying with people forever, and the most recent entry into my own collection of forget-me-not songs is "Heat Waves" by the Glass Animals, a hit 2022 song that will probably live until the end of time in people's minds, or disappear into obscure while getting mixed up with the 1963 song by Martha and the Vandellas. Either one. It's definitely more memorable when a heat wave does come around like this time of year, and MY CONDO DOESN'T HAVE FUNCTIONING AIR CONDITIONING AND MJ AND I ARE BOTH STUCK IN above-80 temperatures in our own home. Sigh. Another reason to always try to get a new device/machine/computer/air conditioner/unit when given a choice between fixing an old product vs. just getting a new one. We opted to get the "band-aid fix" last summer to get working AC back online, but less than a year later we're in the same place we were a year ago, having spent hundreds of dollars on an expensive band-aid. I do miss when we moved into a new apartment unit every year; everything was new and everything was working. I'm starting to understand why people call home ownership a "money pit." 

The only consolation to this AC fiasco is I'm learning a little bit about how air conditioners operate, especially in large condo buildings or apartments with lots of individual units. Everyone needs AC, so on the roof of every building is a massive maze/contraption/mess/whatever you want to call it of individual condensor units connected to the individual building units below inside. And when it gets hot, all those condensors turn on almost in unison and start running with fan going. What our AC unit is lacking apparently is pressure, or PSI to create cold air using the frigerant due to some sort of leak inside the unit that's leaking pressure......that's where the A/C guy lost me. But more people really should try going up to the roof of their residence building: it's really quite an eye-opening experience; just don't trip on the wires up there. I also wonder what happens when it rains, most of the AC units are just sitting up there with no real protection from water or other precipitation. Too much above my paygrade; I guess I'm just the customer who winds up getting saddled with the bill for paying for a product that I don't understand, placed in an unenviable position of being stuck without A/C during a heat wave. 

My only consolation about this current heat wave: at least there's Jeopardy, and right now there's a heat wave of episodes coming out with the regular show coming out and FOUR hour-long episodes this week of Masters Jeopardy. MJ and I have watched A LOT of Jeopardy this past week and have gone over a LOT of clues. The Masters tournament clues, while a smidge tougher, aren't exactly the head-spinning level of difficulty one would associate with "Master" level jeopardy players. It's definitely reaching into the nether regions of the Jeopardy canon, a finite universe, but they're not clues that haven't been seen before. The lesson is that James Holzhauer is still the second best player ever in Jeopardy history, after Ken Jennings. Season 38 was fine and dandy and produced a ton of great memorable champions, but mostly because none of them had to play James until now. 

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