Clive Thompson: I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by electronic parts... It'll look awesome when it's done. If it ever gets done — I keep botching the soldering. A well-soldered joint is supposed to look like a small, shiny volcano. My attempts look like mashed insects, and they crack when I try to assemble the device.

Why am I so inept? I used to do projects like this all the time when I was a kid. But in high school, I was carefully diverted from shop class when the administration decided I was college-bound. I stopped working with my hands and have barely touched a tool since.

I can relate a little too well.

When a 15-year-old came around asking how to continue his hobbies during a time in his life when finances and time are a bit short, I had a simple suggestion for him: Work on developing his creativity.

Creativity has another bonus: It's also one of 10 traits that can make you rich, if that's important to you.

On one of the train forums I frequent, a legitimate question quickly degenerated into brand wars. And brand wars are one thing, but when people hold their preferred company to a different standard than the other company--in other words, one company is evil because it does something, but their preferred company does the same thing, it isn't productive.

Actually, I see very little reason for brand loyalty as it is. I drive a Honda and I use a Compaq computer. Do either of those companies have any loyalty to me? No. To them, I'm just a source of income from yesterday.

I've spent the last week chasing a scammer, because I'm a sucker for a good story. I have that story, but I'm not happy with it.

In the meantime, there's definitely a need for a procedure to follow if you make a deal on a forum or bulletin board and never receive the promised merchandise.

This is a followup to Friday's post. I really should let this go, but the journalist in me loves a great story, and this story has lots of twists and turns and weirdness.

I wrote on Friday about several people giving gifts to someone they thought was a disabled Gulf War II veteran who was getting into the hobby. As parts of his story began to fall apart, there was a falling out. For some people, the biggest slap in the face came when the gifts they had sent him showed up on eBay.

There's a commercial on TV. It's using a dang AIR SUPPLY song in the background. Would somebody please tell me what product that commercial is for, so I can make sure I never buy it?

Last night my wife and I watched Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, a Steve Martin movie from 1982. It's a parody of film noir movies from the 1940s and 1950s.

I just got back from Chicago. I used to go there a lot, but hadn't been since high school. Consider this my travel diary. I don't expect it to be interesting to most people, but maybe someone else will find it useful.

I run this website on a shoestring budget, using a PC in my office strung off my home broadband connection. I've been doing it this way for something like 7 years.

That was all fine and good, but it stopped being reliable recently.

Sometimes a real gem turns up on Digg. Like the Calvin and Hobbes search engine. Remember the punch line from a priceless strip, but don't remember much else? Key it in, and it'll find the strip for you and tell you when it was published.

I found most of my favorites by searching for "aiee!"

I sure hope bringing attention to it doesn't make it go away...