Rants

Say What?

Our plant is No Smoking inside, has been for years, but apparently some people on the off shifts think it is OK to take a few puffs every now and then in the restrooms. First a simple smoldering cigarette with the international red slash through it stickers were placed on all the bathroom doors. Didn’t totally eliminate the problem. Then they placed some official looking signs that had the word NOTICE on top with the phrases No Smoking, No Eating, & No Drinking in every restroom. I guess that wasn’t totally successful either as now we have some 8-1/2 x 11 laminated sheets of paper tacked to all the bathroom doors that say, “Smoking in unauthorized areas of the plant is prohibited and will result in discipline action.”

I’m no English major, but shouldn’t that be disciplinary action?

I have been trying to have a glass of red wine with dinner for a while now, the antioxidants or whatever are good for heart health (I also read Playboy for the articles.) After a bit of experience I have decided that I like Pinot Noir [PEE-noh NWAHR] the best of all the reds. I am working my way through the varieties at my local grocery store in search of my favorite inexpensive (under $15 a bottle) pinot. The latest one I found has three monkeys on the label in the classic see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil pose and it is called Pinot Evil.

Cute, I thought at first, but the more I analyzed it, shouldn’t the label have just one monkey standing upright with his back to us and stream of er, well, you get the picture…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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Official Cheese Doodle of the Boston Red Sox

Wise. They also make the Official Potato Chip of the team too.

“Looks like it is coming down on Landsdowne St, better call 1-800 Fifty-Four GIANT” “Dave how’s your new Azek Deck coming along?” “Now at Papa Gino’s, buy any Rustic Pizza and get a small traditional cheese pizza FREE!”

Not only do I hear all those commercials between innings of the baseball game, but now these guys are squeezing little comments into the middle of their play by play. I’m almost immune to the ads though, but something happened the other day that was very disturbing. When I fired up the media player to listen to the FRS, before the radio broadcast came on there was an actual video commercial. I don’t remember what it was for I was so in shock. Disturbing, I could no longer, turn on the game in progress and get in with the usual 1 minute delay, now I had to wait another minute sitting through yet another plea for my money. At least it doesn’t seem to be an everyday thing, I only saw it once, but my innocence is lost.

Washed the Miata yesterday because it needed it and I figured I was safe because they weren’t calling for rain for about a half dozen days. Today the Weather Channel revised their forecast, it is now going to rain tomorrow or the next day and then there is a small chance of rain for the whole rest of week.

Started down, still down.
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Lave Sus Manos Por Favor

Nearly every public bathroom I have been in in the last decade has had a sign on the door or stickers on the towel dispensers informing folks that for proper hygiene they should wash their hands after using the restroom and employees must wash them.

More recently, the signs are displayed in two languages; English for the majority and Spanish for the soon to be majority.

Tonight we had dinner in a Mexican restaurant and the signs were there, but only in one language. You would think that with 100% of the employees of the establishment being Latino in descent that that language would have been Spanish, but you would have been wrong. Nothing but English.

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That Was Rude

The latest disc from Netflix is House: Season 2 Disc 5. It includes episodes 2-17 “All In“, 2-18 “Sleeping Dogs Lie“, 2-19 “House vs. God” & 2-20 “Euphoria, Part 1“. Part 1? That means there must be a Part 2 and it’s on the next disc. We’re humped. Guess we are going to go to the local video store to see if we can get House: Season 2 Disc 6.

If you are a regular reader here you’ll remember my trials with the lighted keyboard, I guess I need to spend more than $75 to get a quality one. Maybe I just need to spend 25 times that total – Optimus Maximus!. While you are there, poke around the site a bit, some really col stuff there…

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Frack

Paint Shop Pro stopped working. The other day I uninstalled the latest version because I couldn’t figure out how get the media cataloger to not work in the background (which was causing things to work slowly) and a couple of other minor issues. I reverted back to version 9. Tonight for some reason I can’t resize an image. Might be time for the computer version of a high colonic.

I’m almost out of Firefly episodes to watch, just 2 left, and the darn show is starting to grow on me. Oh well, add it to the list of Fox orphaned shows that I wish were still on. Though perhaps it is better this way, a half season of brilliance, before they have a chance to began their inevitable decline into mediocrity.

I have been steady in my resolve to not watch any spoilers (even any ABC promos) for this weeks season finale of Lost. I want to be surprised, but I’m worried. I have been reading interviews with the cast members, who can’t give or haven’t given anything away. In one tidbit I read these words: “The finale will change the way you watch the show. It will introduce new variables that would never even be considered previously.” This damn show is already so far out there that I’m worried as to what the heck that might mean. It is either going to be such an awesome twist that I will be stunned into appreciation or it will be so far fetched that it will jump the shark.

Started up, went down, still down.
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Did Someone Call A Cab?

Lots of interesting cars were racing this weekend. From a little Legends racer to a fresh off the showroom floor 2008 BMW M3 Coupe. A ton of Mustangs, but I bet the biggest percentage were BMWs and there was a father daughter team that took the prize for innovative paint jobs — a Checker Cab and a “Police Car.”

In am effort to broaden our Netflix TV DVD repertoire I spotted something called Flight of the Conchords. It arrived the other day and we finally got around to watching it tonight. The experience didn’t start to well. First was the 2 minutes of HBO advertisement that I was forced to watch, no fast forward, no next chapter, no main menu. Just like the Interpol Warning, etc you are stuck watching promotions for HBO shows. Then when we were through with that nonsense when I hit the button to go to the episode list the DVD locked up. The only way out was to turn off the player and start over. This time I started the disc and switched the TV over to watch a segment of Cash Cab skipping the HBO self promo. But then the DVD player locked again when trying to select an episode. Crap. Tried the disc out on the laptop and it played fine, but after all that, we watched only about 10 minutes of the first episode. Didn’t like it.

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There Is No Place Like Home

Even when the gurgle monster strikes. We were doing some clothes washing when a strange sound emanated from under the house. The really bad news came when a toilet flush bubbled back up the bathtub drain. Eight thirty on a Sunday morning I started dialing plumbers.

First one I called must have a new phone system because when the answerer kicked in it said, “The person you have dialed has not set up their mailbox. Good bye.” Plumber #2’s andwer kicked in fine and I left a message. After thirty minutes they hadn’t called back (and never did), I picked another one to call. My third option was #3 on the list because they are pricey compared to others we’ve dealt with, but a real live person answered the phone. He even called the city for me to get them to come out to see if it might be their problem and not mine while I decided whether I wanted to wait for the city to find out something before committing to having one of his plumbers come out (there is a $125 call out fee for Sundays.)

When he rang back I told him to send away as we had checked with neighbors and they weren’t having issues. Besides we just had the bathrooms remodeled and who know s what might have gotten disturbed after being woken up from a 50 year slumber in that process. The plumber and the city fellows showed about almost at the exact same time 45 minutes later. The three of them spent the next 45 minutes looking for for my clean out. We had no clue, never needing it in the 19 years we’ve been here. Our 80+ year old neighbor from across the street came out and offered up his advise to where to find it. Then the next door neighbor showed up to complicate matters by reminding that these houses were once on septic systems until sometime in the sixties, so the clean out might be in the back. Finally the city guys found it using a metal detector. It was about two feet away from the water meter.

Looking down the hole we could see a trickle of water flowing towards the street. Uh-oh. Just to be sure they stuck a pressurized hose down there to confirm it was my problem and it was. The plumber went to work. He dug up a place near the house looking for another clean out. He crawled under the house trying to chase pipes. He sat in his truck and wrote out my “options.” Number one was snake, starting out from the street, and hopefully reach any clog $$$. Option two was continue digging around near the house hoping to stumble on a closer clean out to use the snake in $$$$. Or option three, redo my entire under house drainage system $$$$$$.

We chose option one and got lucky, he found and cleared the clog with very little snake left on the reel.

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