batteries raze i have this tuner that clamps onto the headstock of a guitar. it calls itself a snark. the name is half the reason i bought it. who doesn't want to own a snark? the snark reads the sound vibrations of the guitar, so you can tune in a noisy environment without worrying about the mic picking up other sounds and confusing whatever circuitry is trying to tell you how sharp or flat a given note is. over a two-year period the lithium battery in the snark has faded in such a gradual way that i didn't notice the LCD display dimming until it was so dim it was barely visible in any light. there's a store nearby that sells batteries for everything, so i went in there and asked a guy with a beard that put mine to shame (and i've been letting mine grow undisturbed for more than a year) if he'd sell me a replacement battery. he opened a drawer, found what i needed, slid it inside the snark, and it lit up like it did when it was new. fresh batteries do crazy things. "how much do i owe you?" i asked the guy with the impressive beard. "have a good day," he said. "come back if you need another battery." "are you sure?" "yep." i'd never been in there before. he wouldn't let me pay. i shook his hand and he held the door open for me on my way out. it's hard not to smile at that. 140416 ... epitome of incomprehensibility The Hunting of the Snark! At least it wasn't a Boojum. 140417 ... raze i have a friend who used to have a show at the university radio station she called "the snark". she played good music, too. everything is connected, except for when it isn't. 140418 ... raze sometimes they explode. the stuff that was caked all over the insides of the two little touch-activated lights we got years ago was a colour i didn't know anything that came out of a battery could be. we scraped out what we could, but those lights will never work again. they were always too hungry anyway. 211119 what's it to you? who go blather from