Bad Industrial Design Is An Undeserved Punishment

I wrote a big long entry for Saturday over here.

Sunday was spent cleaning the bathroom fixtures[1], kitchen fixtures and the BMW[2]. This means that I had to spend a good half an hour cleaning the stove:

Whoever designed this Kenmore (we think it's manufactured by General Electric) stove should be drummed out of Industrial Design Land. They suck. When I was cleaning this thing on Sunday, I was saying they should be shot, so this is somewhat of a relaxation of my position on the stove.

The first problem is that the stuff that makes the stainless steel shiny makes the glass cloudy (that black stuff on the cooktop is glass) and the stuff that makes the glass shiny makes the stainless steel cloudy. Both are sprays and do not apply well if you put them on a cloth first. This makes it difficult to make the damn stove look good since you have to to things over until you manage to get the separation-of-cleaners-line right were it should be. Furthermore, the stuff that gets the glass actually clean is NOT glass cleaner and does not leave the glass shiny, therefore you have to do it twice. At least. You might have also gotten stainless steel cleaner on it necessitating yet MORE cleaning of the glass.

The next issue is this:

This looks innocent enough. You remove the knobs to clean the glass, yeah. Unfortunately, those brass thingies that hold the knobs? They are not below the level of the glass, so you can't wipe smoothly across and over them. You still have to clean around them. They also tear the hell out of paper towels and the cloth I use on the stainless steel (terry towel) doesn't work too well with glass cleaner. One must use paper with glass cleaner. This is a further pain in my ass, obviously.

Point three:

Those spots on the burner bib? They are rust. This stove was installed on October 13, 2000. Rust! I can hardly believe it. Why on earth weren't these made out of a rust proof material? I've only used soft scrub on them and I certainly haven't used steel wools, so I'm not taking responsibility for removing the finish. That black finish chipped off in just a few months of use.

Two more little things: the timer is useless because it is so hard to set. It's difficult to explain why, but imagine setting your alarm clock with a single button (instead of two, which is the norm) and you might get the idea. I use the one on the dirt cheap microwave because it takes about 1/4 of the time to set.

The door on the narrow oven (there are two ovens) does not like to close. One must deliberately close it. Furthermore, the narrow oven does not have a temperature gauge so you just have to guess if it's pre-heated. I know that most stoves operate this way, but if one of the ovens has one...why not the other one? What would that cost? Like, $10? As if anyone would crank about that on top of the $1800 they are already putting out for this thing.

Don't even get me going on dealing with Sears regarding the propane conversion kit. I have two long rants about that already.

I still like my Kenmore dishwasher (manufactured by Kitchen Aid) and the Kenmore washing machine (manufactured by Bosch) though the washing machine is not without flaws. (that incident with the money? happenned again, but not with the pump, just the drum. stuff should not be able to escape the part where the clothes go, IMHO). And I'm OK with the Kenmore refrigerator (made by Amanda) and I like the Kenmore dryer (Bosch, we think), but mostly because it has a stainless steel interior, which is trick, and a light inside, which I really like.

My knee is angry with me, but not as angry as it could be. I read all about physiology of the knee today (ain't the web great? you can do this shit now without having to spend non-work time at the library.). I don't have any symptoms of anything being torn. I have symptoms of...wait for it...degenerative arthritis. The only things I shouldn't do are lots of standing around and any squatting at all. Stuff like a stairmaster (or hiking up and down mountains) might be bad, but strengthening the surrounding muscles is good...so I just need to go by pain level.

Again, I should keep a low level of an anti-inflammatory in my system to take down any swelling. I'm think I'll use aspirin this time because I'm concerned about my organs and ibuprofen abuse. And aspirin doesn't upset my stomach anyway.

What does seem to upset my stomach is either the water at work or the coffee. I'm guessing the water because even when I don't the coffee, I drink a lot of the water. I'd bet money they haven't cleaned out the filtration thingy in...well...ever. I suppose I need to carry in the 2 liters of water that I typically consume in a day. That will be expensive.

I would swear the coffee tastes worse than usual. It's the same damn coffee, and they have some service sterilize the thermoses the coffee brews into, but who knows about the actual coffee makers. In any case, they have boiling water going through them, so I'm looking that that nasty little water filter instead.

And speaking of coffee, the Starbucks by work couldn't make any espresso drinks today, so I walked out empty handed. They could make Frappucinos, of course, but those are more like milkshakes than coffee (tasty though they may be). While I was in there, there was a guy wearing a mobile phone and two pagers taking apart the Marzocco. He had very strong forearms and he was wearing a Starbucks golf shirt. He must be the mobile emergency Marzocco man!

I have a lot more to say about Starbucks, but my main statement about them is "McDonald's of Coffee", with all the good and bad connotations that would indicate. Maybe I'll detail that out some other time.

[1] The water problem made all those white sinks and toilets and tubs look literally dirty. It left actual dirt spots wherever the water landed, which is pretty much all over the place. The water is now pretty much clear. More on our Plague Of Plumbing Problems in a later entry because the previously discussed water thing was not the end of them by a long shot.

[2] That car is now eight years old, and hand washing it is kind of painful. I get to see all the chipped paint and little dings in extreme detail. It's kind of depressing. Also, the alloy wheels hadn't been properly scrubbed for too long and didn't come all the way clean in spite of my arduous efforts. I bitched to a cow-orker about this and he told me to use Simple Green, undiluted, and to wear gloves. Since I've got some laying around, I will try it next week if it's car washing weather.

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