The importance of Neutral, Folks; Neutral

Have you heard of the Consumerist? You know, the website that deals with consumer issues? Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t (though now I guess you have), I only bring it up to ground my upcoming complaints:

Yesterday I read a story on some Consumer Reports testing of stuck accelerator pedal survival strategies. It was in reference to a recentl story about a CHP officer who — along with his family — died in a car accident in their new Lexus thingamajig. What happened apparently sparked a recall by Toyota for some 3.8 million cars & trucks (mine included) because the floor mat got stuck and caused the accelerator pedal to stick. Which is what happened to this dumb CHP officer and his poor, poor family (yes I’m going to Hell with all of my friends to suffer for eternity, I know don’t bother telling me).

They were traveling at like mach 2 and the guy called 911, they couldn’t unstuck the pedal and they crashed & died at 120mph. Cue crying.

OK now here’s where I scream “Darwin” folks, because there’s a really really simple solution to this problem, and actually TWO but one is better than the other. First and less effective is “turn the car off,” because, DUH, if there’s no power, there’s NO POWER and you don’t rocket to 120mph and DIE. The other, better option, is just to push the lever into neutral and brake like normal. I mean, what the hell? at no time PRIOR to calling 911 did he figure to try one of those? or hell, at no point during a 60-second phone call to 911 did he have this — or heck, A (singular) — thought? Really? Really, dude?

OK I got off-track a bit. Because here’s the things that really got my logic all riled. The commenters on the article were all discussing the event in question, and while a special few had the right ideas on what the dumb guy driving should have done (see above), too many to count were chastising the recommendations that would work because these people are a) stupid and/or b) legally retarded.

Everyone and their mother, it seemed, was saying that you SHOULD NEVER turn a car off at high speed because if it’s a newer model with the locking steering wheel function, then you’re stuck without steering at 120mph. This is infuriating to me because these idiots who don’t know are giving out bad advice to the other IDIOTS on the web who might someday find themselves rocketing into a bad situation at 120mph. Because here’s the deal, dipwads: IT’S NOT THE ACT OF THE KEY BEING TURNED “OFF” THAT LOCKS THE WHEEL, IT’S THE COMBINATION OF THE CAR BEING PUT INTO PARK AND THE KEY BEING REMOVED THAT DOES IT.

Which means that if you’re traveling at mach 120mph and you’re panicking on what to do because you have the silly feet and got your mat lodged into your accelerator pedal, seriously, turn the damned car off. It’ll work.

It was so frustrating to read all of that because it’s both wrong, and shows the complete lack of critical thinking skills the commenters are equipped with. Have they ever tried to turn a car off anywhere besides “Park”? No? Well then, probably not the best source of information regarding the matter then, huh? I mean, that’s pretty basic, right? If I want to learn to skydive stopping my local “We’ve never Skydived but we’re experts, trust us” shop on my way home for information is probably not my best bet nor in my best interest.

OK so that information was completely wrong, what else could get my panties all wadded up? Well like I said, that option happens to be the least-effective of the two that would work in the given situation. The more effective option is still to tap the gear lever into Neutral, and stop like normal with the brakes.

The scenario as given was that the car was accelerating like mad and life was on the line. A lot of people were wasting time killing brain cells of all that read their tripe by saying that they wouldn’t and therefore you shouldn’t put the car into Neutral in that situation, you should turn it off and fight it down to a stop against a now non-functional Power Steering unit, and non-functional Power Braking unit. Which while possible, is far from easy.

Their rationale? Because the engine will rev up and bounce off the redline, and BY GOLLY! It could be a really expensive fix to have that motor repaired if it bends a valve or blows a rod or seal.

(Kudos to you if you just pictured a large blubbery sea animal getting… You know what? nevermind)

How far down do you have to pull your stupid hat to come up with this lame-ass reason for not doing the right thing? I mean, we’re talking about a 3,000lb piece of metal hurling itself down a road at speeds man was never intended to travel, with the lives of all inside — and possibly the lives of others outside — on the line. Really guys? You know what, shut the f*ck up. Why? Because you might die, and possibly having to repair an engine is the better alternative, given the situation. So… Why? Why spread such stupidity on the web? Why misinform so many people?

If you have read those comments, if you heard the story and the stupid among you have said anything resembling the above, shut them out, and listen to me here:

IF YOU’RE PRESENTED WITH A CHOICE, THAT YOU’RE GOING TO DIE OR HAVE TO REPAIR AN ENGINE, CHOOSE THE LATTER.

Seriously. Browsing the internet, it’s good to see (sarcasm) that we still have plenty of stock of stupid. Can’t run out of that, now can we? Demand’s just too high.

The Cheez-It Recipe

It happened that I ended up getting a good whiff of Hunter’s ear. Curious, I sniffed his brother’s ear, too. Yep. Guys, I’m almost 100% positive on this — I think I know how they make Cheez-Its. Guys, it’s not all that “air-drop a hunk of cheddar” like they show on TV; they simply shove plain little crackers into dogs’ ears, and BAM! Cheez-its. 

Got a dog? Try it yourself. And then call me, let’s see if we can’t start up our own business on this, eh?

Organizing the Kitchen

These are my new babies. Go ahead, click the picture to see a larger version. What’s so special, you ask? Well, it turns out I am most definitely an obsessive-compulsive personality. Those jars you see? They turned me on. Why? Organization. Ughghhgh…

What you see are four 2-liter jars and four 1-liter jars. There’s more on the way, however, as we plan to add a few 3-liter jars to the mix to hold our bulk quantities items (sugar, flour, prostitutes… what?), as well as some smaller ones to hold other, often-used items in easy-to-reach, easy-to-use sizes.

I know I shouldn’t be so amorous over some glass jars, but c’mon… ORGANIZATION!

We had been just putting the overstock sugar, flour, coffee and the like in the freezer to keep it fresh/safe from ants, but the paper & plastic containers make a royal mess of the freezer unnecessarily. The prostitutes, you ask? No, we didn’t keep them in the freezer, that’s just cruel. Now the stuff can sit in the cupboard, sealed for freshness/ant protection, ORGANIZED, and is easier to get to and manipulate when we need to.

The kitchen’s coming along. We’re getting our systems down, we’re getting it to click, and make it as easy to work in and clean up. Obsessive-compulsive? Yes. So yes, the kitchen must be clean; I’m a big fan of staging areas, I love to have them all around. The jars are a big help in the big ORGANIZATION scheme in a big way. When we come up with & implement some of our other ideas, I’ll get you up-to-date.

In the meantime however, remember: treat your prostitutes well! I mean it.

Adventures in de-carpeting

So yeah, there was more to the “Miles was put down” story yesterday than I told you about initially. Now, I don’t want you to hate me or think that he made a bad so I killed him: I swear to you, he was very very ill, in mucho pain and just generally hanging on so as to sleep uncomfortably and sh!t himself to death anyway. So, yeah. Really.

But anyway. He had been sleeping with us for awhile before the day came, because the boys were loving on him so much as to not ever let him have a moment’s rest, right? I was initially concerned about this arrangement, because I like my sleep, and I was envisioning having to constantly get up and let him out to go potty (piss & sh!t). Surprisingly, this didn’t happen. Much. Well, at all, until two nights before his scheduled “appointment” at the vet. Sunday he had started to crap (sh!t) out his insides. Explosive diarrhea? It exists, apparently. I had no idea. The stuff comin’ out of him? Wasn’t poop, it was liquified death. Straight out of his butt.

Yes this is gross. And it gets worse.

So two nights before his “Appointment” at the vet, he had to go. Luckily I was roused enough to hear it and figure out he wasn’t just looking for a good spot to lie down, he was hoping to god that the door would magically open so he could go outside and spew liquified death from his nether regions. Not once! Not twice! Three times that night. After going weeks without having to do potty breaks during the night, suddenly he couldn’t hold himself. The night before his “appointment” at the vet, it continued. Except this time, I wasn’t fast enough. Despite being faster because I was half-expecting it, he didn’t make it out of the bedroom before he unleashed his liquified death upon the carpet.

So at 2am in the morning, there we were, trying not to puke as we boiled water and mixed pet stain odor destroyers together to form a concoction so powerful the world damned-near knelt before us, quivering with fear. Turns out? Still no match for the liquified death that had been slathered richly over the entry to the bedroom. We struggled in vain for a full day to try and get the smell gone. And then we gave up on that, and got smart:

So we were gonna rip up all the carpet anyway, right? Why not start right now, then? Right. So we put our magical rings together and formed Voltron or something, and got to cutting the carpet out of the bedroom. For the night we just started with the strip that contained the — yeah, you get it — stuff. It was the best idea. That smell permeated the whole of the carpet, the padding underneath, and possibly the first three layers of the earth’s crust.

I’ll be back with more of the carpet adventures. For now, enjoy the picture of the finely-crafted wood floor that some stupid f*ckers oversprayed the hell out of because they’d never heard of drop cloths, the mother f*ckers. Oh, and the f*cking staples everywhere that they stapled down the crappy-ass carpet padding with in the middle of the f*cking floor… 

Ahem. Not bitter. Not at all. Why do you ask?

And then there were Three:

So the day finally came: Miles has left us. It came fast, from being happy & content, to being gimp & sad. He wasn’t doing well his last couple of weeks; in fact, Miles didn’t just randomly pass, I scheduled this day late last week. It seemed bad of me at the time, and in fact the day after I thought to myself that I might have jumped the gun. Butd Sunday solidified it for me, it was the right decision, if a hard one.

He couldn’t got potty. OK fine, laugh, you want me to not say it kiddie? Fine. He couldn’t SH!T, OK? He danced around four or five times before he could even get into position to do it without falling over first. And then, it took him three passes after he started to get to the finish. And then with just a day or two to go, he started pooping out his insides on top of it all. Never a good sign, right? I mean, typically, you want to keep your insides inside & vice versa.

It was time. Clearly. Miles will be missed. My first ever Favorite Dog.