Look at the beer boat. This is something you could take your children to see at your average Florida grocery store. Subliminal message: if you drink beer, you could win this watercraft, not that anyone would admit to a direct link between the two. Mercy, no! One might ponder why alcohol vendors are even permitted to advertise with things you drive.
If that is not tantalizing enough, consider the reason why, if you drive down your average [Florida] street, the metal grates over the drains have slots parallel to the direction of travel. You know, the exact opposite of logic. If they were perpendicular, your skateboard, bicycle and buggy wheels would not fall into the cracks. As Wallace discovered right after he arrived.We are not getting any younger over here. Wallace and I have great discussions about the advantages of not working for somebody else. One is definitely that you can allocate time to do repairs while they are minor. How many of us have driven a car with a rattling sound all week to take it in on the weekend and discover the repair is a small fortune. It is the kind of thing that regularly keeps you down when you have a job.
The hot weather is creeping up again, and another advantage of self-employment is the afternoon nap. This was necessary today after chasing all over for electrical parts. I really want my main air conditioner back in service before the summer settles in. I have not had such a nap in ages, but today was the day.
One of my earlier students, Howard, called about a slow computer. My first question about using AOL was answered affirmative. You see, AOL has their own browser and do not necessarily tell their clients that you don’t have to use it. It is the software they give you on all those free disks they distribute. It is not an ordinary browser like IE, Opera or Firefox. The AOL browser tends to “take over” your system. After around 18 months of use, it slows your entire operating system and Internet connection to a creep. I particularly dislike their new “security” system – they should revamp their server software so that spam, viruses and spyware are blocked long before they hit your PC, not afterward.
Howard bought a digital camera, one of those over-marketed products that always have twenty features nobody can figure out. Ah, but that is where I come in – I understand the principles these gadgets must follow. His camera was a Panasonic, and for those who follow such collusion, the driver is already on WinXP. I like digital cameras, because they force you into the position of spending 200 hours reading the manual (not an exaggeration) or paying half the camera price to take lessons. Remind me to send a thank you note to such manufacturers. Sony is the worst.
Manuals tend to tell you how each component works, but not how all the components work together. I’ll bet I could have a show of hands on that one. The blight of modern electronics is the multi-function button. You know, the one that does something different (and usually inconsistent) depending on what “mode” you are in. You’d think since the buttons are plastic, they would have one button for each function, but Nooooo!
Wallace, who likes to stop in for a beer at day’s end, cannot do that. He is taking both an anti-biotic and painkiller that forbid the brew. What a thing to happen on a holiday. Pudding is reveling in the attention.
Nobody won the contest. If you’ve been reading, I offered a cash reward to anyone who could identify and tell me where this object was manufactured. Nobody even guessed what it was. The answer is, this is a wind chime that works without wind. The chimes (metal bars) are suspended inside the case. The round holes on the ends are to emit the sound. The sound is caused by tiny ball bearings that slowly fall from the inside of the lid, down onto the chimes. You invert the box, then set is right side up and the bearings fall down randomly onto the chimes for around 15 minutes, less if the weather is really warm (a clue to the operation). Happy? Okay, now tell me how the bearings fall randomly. Remember, there are no magnets, electronics or normal mechanical parts in this puppy.Return Home
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