I've had a pleasant windfall of new toys thanks to an old biology teacher of mine. Thanks to him and another certain blogger who reminded me that people actually sometimes read what I write here, you can expect a windfall of new posts about it all.

That is, after I get through the pile of goods (and bads) that have collected in my office over the last two years. I've come to realize that at the University where I work, we've had a major purge every month of the 7 years that I've been there, and there's no sign of it stopping.

Today I finally opened up a multimeter that I found in storage and which has been sitting in my office for at least three years. Now I love a good crystaline structure as much as the next guy, but when battery corrosion has reached this point, I'm usually ready to let the affected piece of gear call it a day.

Close inspection reveals that almost every component in the thing is affected by the corrosion - not much to salvage, save some beautiful Bakelite knobs. Something of a shame I'm afraid.