What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[REPO Man]

Two full days off in a row! Halloween and the day after. That hasn't happened in damn near forever.

Because of everyone's conflicting schedules I won't be able to host a movie night for the kids. I was going show either Gremlins or Return to Oz.

It seems like I never get to see my family as much as one would think, which especially sucks since being able to hang out with my family more often was supposed to be one of the plus sides to not living in NYC. At least in NYC I'd be able to at least be able to have friends to hang out with, possibly with cool events to go to.

[marurun]

To steer us back to topics that really matter and are important to our lives, I'd like to recommend against the generic Caliber transparent tape (sold [exclusively?] at CVS). We have some at home and it's just a pain to use. Go for the brand name stuff. That said, it does stick, if you can get it out of the dispenser without having it wrapped fully round your phalanges.

[Ziggy]

I guess I have somewhat skinny wrists. If I tuck my thumb, I can get a standard 3" core roll of tape to slip past my hand and use my wrist to hold it, freeing up both hands for whatever task. I can't tell you how great that has been when I'm masking things off. I've thought about making something on a chain to hold rolls of tape from a belt loop, but since I can slip them on my wrist I never really had the need. The only thing though is when it's a new roll, it's heavy enough that I can use gravity to quickly get the roll on my wrist. But once the roll starts to get toward the end, it's too light to let gravity drop it past my hand. In which case I need to use my other hand to force it on, so I lose the benefit of the speed hack.

Although sometimes it's beneficial for me to be using two different types of tape at once, in which case the belt loop thing might be handier (I don't really want two rolls of tape on my wrist). For example, when masking, I might perimeter tape with exterior grade tape or purple or blue for interior, but then I want to use a cheaper tape (like standard masking tape) to attach my plastic or paper. It's annoying to have to keep juggling two rolls, so I might make that belt loop thing eventually.

Speaking of masking though, someone turned me on to those 3M masking guns. Man, after using one, there's just no going back!

[Limewater]

When my family made an inter-state move in 2016, we had a great loading crew. It was a three-man crew, with two guys from Moldova and one Russian. They did not use dispensers with their packing tape. They just kept rolls around their wrists.

Those guys were amazing. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, because they were the first moving crew I had ever hired. I wish I had tipped them much better because they turned out to be at least two levels above the unloading crew and the crew that helped us get from our rental house to the one we bought about five months later.

At the time, though, I didn't have any point of reference, so I couldn't properly appreciate their hard work and efficiency.

[Ack]

Seeing tape rolls on rope or webbing is extremely common in my profession. I use a string of Paracord for mine, and I typically put a couple of clips on it as well for easy access. Because different jobs in this world use different kinds of tape, you can often identify someone's role simply by whatever is on their belt.

[Limewater]

Climbing gyms used to use colored tape to mark routes. It occasionally gave me trouble because I am colorblind, but usually they were pretty good about keeping high contrast between neighboring routes.

Then they mostly switched to using colored holds. This is kind of a bummer because it means they can fit fewer different routes on a wall. With tape, a single hold could be part of three different routes. Now it can only be part of one.

It doesn't affect me a whole lot, though. I haven't climbed in years. I wish that I still had time and control over my own schedule enough to do it. I really enjoyed it.

[REPO Man]

Got a visit from some of my niblings. My brother's ex-girlfriend Veronica (not her real name) brought over her kids Paulina (dressed as a cop), Rosalina (dressed as Eddie Munson), Mario & Luigi (one was a character from Bendy and the Ink Machine and the other was a skeleton) and little Zelda dressed in a Spider-Man outfit. Now I'm just watching Prince of Darkness on The Criterion Channel and playing Lovecraft's Untold Stories on my Switch.

[Ack]

But what about tape?

[Markies]

Come to Racketboy for the best discussions and articles about Classic Games.

Stay for the deep discussions about Tape.

[opa]

Last year during Christmas time I ran out of tape. I said eff it and bought a ten pack of those little scotch tape dispensers.

I still have tape to this day, thank you very much.