Totally feel you on that line break thing. It's like poets are playing a percussion instrument with their words, you know? I went to a similar reading a few months back and the way one poet kept breaking lines mid-phrase made me realize how often I just slam dialogue tags at the end of a sentence without thinking. It's like we're trained to write "he said" automatically, but poets force you to slow down and feel where the beat naturally falls. For me, it clicked when I started reading my own scenes out loud and noticed how a comma or a period changes the whole breath of a conversation. Now I'm trying to break up tags more deliberately, like putting them in the middle of a line to create a pause that matches the character's hesitation. It's a small shift but it's made my dialogue feel way more alive, like it's actually being spoken instead of reported.

Yeah I've been there. The trick that works for me is to run a couple brad nails at an angle through the back of the face frame into the drawer box before the glue sets. Just enough to hold it while you clamp. I use 18 gauge brads, 1 inch long, and set them about a half inch from the edge. When the glue dries you just pull them out or sink them deeper. Also helps to put a couple small dabs of hot glue at the corners to lock the position right when you set it. That stuff sets in seconds and gives you enough time to get clamps on.

Tell her to grab a few classic games that actually get played and box up the real collector ones in storage. Nothing wrong with having a shelf that's actually used instead of a museum.

Wait, what's the point of buying a used reg setup from a buddy who probably didn't service it regularly? Seems like false economy when your life depends on it.

The cat is seeing ghosts but didn't get the memo to be subtle about it. Mine does the same thing sometimes and I'm just sitting there waiting for her to start speaking Latin or something. Probably just heard a mouse in the wall or watched a shadow move that I'm too blind to notice. Either way you should probably figure out what's back there before your cat starts charging it rent.