Friday, July 20, 2007

Silencing the Silent Spinner

The Silent Spinner is an exercise wheel that has a fancy ball bearing thingy that keeps it from sqeaking all night. (By the way, what's up with exercise wheels? Why do rodents voluntarily use a device that seems like something from the Spanish Inquisition? All night? In my room?)

After a year or so, though, my Silent Spinner (well, my mice's Silent Spinner, really) was starting to rattle. I figured the bearing was just cheaply made, but it turns out the problem was actually the way the two plastic pieces of the wheel snap together. I generally take them apart to clean and then snap them back together; turns out that a year of doing this has made them fit together rather loosely.

My solution was to stick a little piece of cardboard into one of the clips that holds the two halves together, like this:


I got the cardboard from one of the toilet paper tubes that I give them to play with, chew on, and browse the internet with. I'll have to change it when I clean the wheel, but at least my spinner is once again silent.

Oh shit! Crayons!

So, I'm going to try this whole blog crap thing again. Don't expect much but the occasional rant or blinky thing.

"Where's the Fish" was taken, and the first name I could think of was "weevil flashlight." This probably means I'm weird.