#off to price out other potential solutions and re-measure my very tricky workspace

[sarasa-cat]

Today: one win, one lose. A lot of hours wasted. Oh well.

(What was I expecting ordering a bargain basement posh product from Amazon Basics?)

The win was actually a trip win: My body feels almost back to normal. I woke up before my alarm at a pleasant hour — not too early, not whoooa oh too late. Banged out 4400 words of text at record speed (loving this clickity clackity mechanical keyboard lololol) that helps orient/reorient a major writing project. Well, technically, TWO (2) writing projects.

The lose that wasted so many hours of time? So, I have this Cintiq pro that is small — only a 16” one — which is extremely light weight. Like, 4 lbs 4 oz, maybe? Something like that, it’s been a week since I looked at its specs.

It is really really really REALLY REALLY difficult to find a vesa-plate monitor arm thinger with the specs and positional flexibility I need that is capable of holding something lighter than 7 or 8 lbs. THE PROBLEM.

Eventually someone on reddit claimed that they had luck with an amazon basics product that is essentially a reworked Ergotron arm. And it is only US$100. So, fine. Ordered. Waited for it to arrive. Set it up. AND despite the thousands of reviews with a 4.5 star rating, THE FUCKING THING DID NOT WORK.

Well, so I searched 1 star reviews and it seems there is a quality control issue with this product and lots of people end up with an arm that is all locked up (stuck and not fixable) for all of the joints that move in various directions near the vesa plate. after hours of fucking with it — bc the screws it came with didn’t fit so I needed to get different (shorter) screws for my cintiq — I confirmed that I indeed had one of these zero quality control fuckers. You cannot tilt the monitor (cintiq in this case) left or right or up or down. The mechanism the vesa plate is attached to points up to the ceiling 5evah. Which makes it useless for a normal monitor. For a cintiq I can get the lever arm to drop the whole thing into my lap but that is NOT ergonomic. BAD FOR THE NECK! And hard to draw from the shoulder.

Back in the box, processed a return. Risking a replacement but if that one is also a bust I’m giving up on this and back to the drawing board.

Honestly, I am this close to saying ARRRRGGG and purchasing a big fucker cintiq with cintiq’s mounting system and either selling my 16 or using it for travel because it is really very laptop sized and portable and can be used in one’s lap (which is what most people used it for, at least prior to the pandemic). But for ergonomic reasons I need something on a mount that I can swivel around and tilt and move based on how my body feels.

I just don’t spend enough hours per week in digital land to make me feel justified purchasing the big fucker from cintiq but I cannot afford to be taking off 2, 3, or even 6 to 12 months at a time to let shoulder RSI (yes, my fucking shoulder. The final year at daygig destroyed it. When it was at its worst I really did need 9 months of time off to get it workable.)

But also, I don’t spend much time in digital land for my art process BECAUSE I cannot do it comfortably and ergonomically given my set up and/or equipment.

So fuck.

All that said, once I get a highly ergonomic situation going for digital art, I suspect I will switch a lot more of my process to digital. Tbd. I just don’t know.

I need a new shoulder. Honestly, it hurts right now from all of the fucking around with nonsense that did not solve my problem and it did not hurt this morning or all of the past month.

Who needs a bank account with savings in it. (Yes, I am self employed so I cannot ask boss for ok and expense this to some corporation but instead must fuck around every spring with annual taxes to sort the nonsense out)