Rants

This past Monday, the local paper started reprinting Gary Larson’s The Far Side cartoons. They gave a reason, something like, in honor of a new The Far Side compilation book’s arrival in stores on some date in the future. (Although it seems I may have dreamed this up as a quick search of the internet reveals nothing about this event.) Gary’s cartoons were almost always very funny stuff, with very few clunkers. With the ratio of funny to not funny so high I cannot for the life of me figure out why every one of this weeks cartoons sucked.

On the trip home from work today as I made a 110 degree left-hand turn off the main road the car sort of hiccupped. The power was way down, it ran rough and the torque curve seemed way out of whack. I continued to drive home as it was running and not making any ugly noises.

My semi-informed guess is the timing belt jumped a notch. The car had it’s timing belt changed 13 days ago and has run beautifully until tonight. My first thought is that the belt wasn’t aligned right when they changed it, but made it run correctly by tweaking timing and now it is not right because the belt is aligned properly. Or the belt was right when they completed the job but something has caused it to jump a tooth now, like the tensioner was not tighten down right.

Of course now I will have to convince the dealer that their service department messed up and they should fix it for free. They after all, must offer some sort of warranty on repairs.

Tacos for supper tonight and as I dumped the h’burger meat into the pan to brown it, I noticed an orange warning label.

“Thoroughly cook meat to 165 degrees. Use a meat thermometer.”

I know why this is there, because if you heat the meat to that temperature it will kill the bacteria living there. Didn’t they used to have Steak Tartar on the menus of restaurants? Is the warning label there to alert the one in 10,000 persons who might have a reaction to these bacteria? Or is it the more worrisome reason that the FDA has relaxed their standards at meat processing plants to such that bacteria that will harm everyone getting through?

While enjoying our ice cream at Brusters this evening we amused ourselves by making fun of the people already there and the new ones as they pulled up. All in good fun really.

The most fun is watching folks pull in and park, scary. A full size Ford pick up truck pulled into the lot and it looked like he didn’t even try to get in between the lines. Parked at a 60 degree angle to the end of the spots he parked across. The lot wasn’t crowded, so it is not like he was depriving any one of a place to put the car, but what kind of statement was he making? Early to mid 20s couple get out and saunter over to get in line. (Don’t even get me started on the line and the service we received.)

Next in was a Nissan Maxima. Pulled into the side of the lot in front of us and paused. Started to back up and I thought it was to get more centered in the spot. This is like a 5-foot wide car and it was “in” a 10′ wide spot. In is in quotes because the left tires were mostly on the line with the outside of them in the other parking spot. Instead of straightening out, this car backs up across the aisle, where the canted pickup truck is, and stops in the middle of two parking spots. At least she is perpendicular to the lines. Two youngish (late teens?) couples get out and walk across to get some ice-cream.

Brusters in same lot as a Publix grocery store where Donna and I walk over to after eating dessert. We need dish soap as all our silverware is dirty and even though I offered to eat breakfast with my fingers, Donna insisted on buying some Sunlight. It is 9:30 on a Friday night and the store lot is nearly empty. So as not to tire themselves out by having to walk the extra 20 feet to the door another young couple pull right up front of the store, park and get out. At least he was perfectly parallel to the curb (could have been a little closer though.) The guy must have been raised by his mommy and hasn’t got car guy friends, because if he did, they would certainly have told him by now that the loud squealing coming from his brakes, that goes away when they are applied, is telling him he needs new pads.

On our morning walk on the beach we encountered an awful lot of folks bent at the waist digging in and/or poking around the sand. They were picking up shells, gathering the exoskeletons of deceased mollusks. Bone collecting.

Another random beach walking thought: Is it just me or after seeing Jurassic Park III do all pelicans in flight look like pterodactyls or what?

While eating my breakfast cereal this morning I noticed some pain when chewing on the back left. There was also sensitivity to the cold milk.

At 8:30 when the dentist’s office opened for business I gave them a call to see if they could squeeze me in. No problem the receptionist said, come on down. When I got there, I was called right back to the drill and fill office and settled into the chair by Jane the dentist’s assistant. Seems Dr. Boykin is on vacation this week so it was easy to get in, because there were no patients around. Jane took an x-ray and while we waited for it to develop, she took some pictures with this fancy gizmo from Sony. She held my mouth open with one hand and guided the camera into position by watching the monitor. This left no hands free to click on the take picture button on the remote. She handed it to me and told me to click the button when she said so.

When the doctor gets back next week he’ll check it out and make some recommendations. The least of which Jane says will be a crown. Yikes, there goes several hundred dollars. To add insult to financial injury, Jane tells me, “Not to worry, cracked teeth like that are common in men my age and easily fixable.” *my age, sigh*