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Day 734 Thursday January 10, 2019 857 Days to Go

How Donald Trump is like a car dealership.

The other day a friend of mine asked me what she should do. She had taken her car to the dealer and they told her it needed seven thousand dollars worth of repairs. This included $4,500 for a new oxygen something or other on the exhaust system. I asked her the make, year, and number of miles.
I sent that information and the cost of the repairs along to my brother, who lives and breathes cars. (I mean how many people do you know that knew the reason that what’s his name in “My Cousin Vinnie” was innocent before Joe Pesci revealed it? Hint: The car Ralph Macchio was driving didn’t have posi-traction and the car that committed the crime did, so obviously it wasn’t Ralph’s car that was the getaway vehicle. My brother knew that by the model of the car!)
What did my brother say about the repair?
“Dealer quote? That’s bullshit.”

The car in question was a Honda Civic with 163,000 miles. When I tell people that the immediate response is “That car isn’t worth $7000.00.” To which I say, “Duh, I know. Right?”
My brother went on to say that car dealerships do this all the time. What you need to do is to take it to a small shop. Hopefully one that specializes in that type of car. In one case my brother said a friend of his did this and the guy in the shop said, “Listen, this is a car you park at the train station while you commute, right? If you were driving it across country or wanted it to act like when it was new, make those repairs, but otherwise see me in the spring and I’ll put on new brake pads.”

There’s another problem my friend faces in the car repair department. She’s a woman. Many car repair and tire shops are sexist. They see a woman and they think they can snow her. How many of us have stories about some car repair shop telling you a bunch of bunk? Everyone? Okay, you know what I’m talking about. There are several ways to handle this situation. One) prove to them you know your stuff and you aren’t to be messed with. Two) Bring someone along who will strongly suggest by their presence that this person is not to be messed with.
My dad once had a problem when he was in college with a clothing repair and laundry service. His friend said, “Let me go with you.” Dad asked, “What good will that do?” His friend said, “I’ll come into the shop with you. I’ll wear my trench coat and slouch hat. I’ll stand by the door with my hands in the pockets of the trench coat and every once in awhile I’ll adjust the brim of my hat.”
Dad knew it would do no good, but his friend insisted so they went back. Dad went to the counter. The guy looked at Dad’s friend and got real nervous. The clerk couldn’t find Dad’s stuff fast enough. No problem. See ya later.
My brother worked in a truck repair place in high school. One day a woman pulled up in a white Cadillac convertible with red interior. She had a little white dog and was dressed all in white. She asked if they had any old gears from the rear differentials of trucks that they were willing to part with? (This is not a typical situation in a place that repairs garbage trucks and town snow plow trucks for a living.)
The answer was a halting, “Yeah.” She was led out back to where the old rear axles were piled up. The whole shop emptied out to watch. The guy leading her out picked up a gear and explained to her what it was. She immediately said, “No, it’s not,” and proceeded to tell him the exact kind of gear and ratio that it was. It turned out she knew every gear in the place on first sight. She was a sculptress and used the gears, which she welded together to form the bases for her sculptures.
Okay, so my point is that you either got to prove you know what you are doing/talking about, or you got to bring along someone who does or who will scare the bejesus out of them, or you got to use logic and reason. The later case I have not explained yet.
Before I explain the logic and reason method let me repeat that car places can be very sexist. This is because guys are stupid when it comes to women. Guys will “man ‘splain” to a woman. This is when they describe what is obvious or when they talk out of their rear end (ie they know nothing about the subject but act like they do. Women are used to this and either smile benignly and act like they are around a dog that needs his head patted, or they get worked up and either lash out (if they know the guy is being an idiot) or they get scared because they don’t know what he is talking about and they think they should, and besides they really don’t want to deal with this and can’t daddy come and fix it? To which my wife would probably say, “Shoot her and put her out of her misery.” But she would only do that after removing the man’s gonads.)

Okay, listen up. This is what everyone needs to know about cars in ‘Merica. Are you listening? Most cars have pistons in their engines. These cars’ engines are called “internal combustion engines.” Those engines require three things to run: air, fuel, and spark (thank-you Dad for teaching me this.) How those three things get to the engine to explode in the cylinder where the piston is differ, but that’s what they need. btw a gasoline powered lawn mower requires the same three things. There is another type of internal combustion engine and it is called a rotary engine. They need the same three things too. So does a diesel but someone will say it doesn’t need a spark it need a glow to which I say, “F you.” (You need to learn to stand your ground. This is one place where that phrase makes sense.)

The difference between a car dealership and a smaller repair shop is the car dealership will tell everyone they need the $7000 repair. It is up to you the customer to know when that is BS. Not that the car couldn’t probably use those things but is it worth it? And, do you care? By that I mean if the car’s value is two grand, you have to realize based on the year, condition, and number of miles it will still be considered to be worth two grand, even if you put seven into it. Secondly, by do you care, I mean, do you care if your car’s whozemawhatit is up to snuff or not? Will it kill you? (No.) Is it legal if it’s not? (Yes.) Then fugetaboutit.
Okay, here is the determining factor in getting rid of a car. Will it no longer get you from point A to point B? In your heart of hearts have you lost faith? I got rid of a Volkswagen when I could no longer trust that it could make it up hills because the oil was leaking onto the clutch plate so badly that it slipped so much that it had a hard time on the NJ Turnpike. I’ve had other cars when it was just time. You can usually check around and find out what the life expectancy of your car is. Back in the 50s it was 50,000 miles. Then it moved up to 100K. Now some cars are good to 175 or even 250,000 miles. Learn the signs for your car. Volvos need a new water pump and timing belt at 80K, then they should be good, (Emphasis on “should.”)
We’ve got a Toyota Highlander that’s got 180,000 on it. We don’t drive it often and the battery goes dead. It’s a new battery so I trickle charge it over night and it’s fine. I have told Shelby that if it ever doesn’t get her from point A to point B, or she doesn’t feel it will, we’ll get rid of it. Last year we drove it 2,700 miles. Is it worth getting a new car to drive 2,700 miles?

Okay, so there you have it. What you need to know about cars in America. You can learn more, but that’s the minimum. The question is, “How is Donald Trump like a car dealership?”
At a car dealership you have service consultants. They are the red team, the green team and the gold team. You got the techs who work on your car. The techs tell the service consultants what they see that could be replaced or fixed. They probably don’t know if the car is owned by a man, woman, or gorilla; and they probably don’t care. The service consultant looks up the cost of the repairs out of their rate book and add in the parts and tells the customer. It might not enter either the tech or the consultant’s mind that this is cray-cray. I mean, who is crazy enough to spend seven grand on a two grand car? It’s alway fun to ask the service consultant how much your car is worth; have them give you a price, and then ask them with a straight face why they would suggest spending more money on the car then it is worth. They will usually look around, get nervous, and say, “if it was me …” Then you can go for the kill and say something like, “I thought we were friends. I trusted you.” Oh man, they might even feel bad.

So Donnie-Boy is like the car dealership in that he uses people like most folks use toilet paper. He has no conception of right and wrong or of humor or pathos. He is a sociopath. These things don’t enter his psyche. He is lacking in understanding of those characteristics. He has to look to others to see if they find something funny, because he doesn’t understand humor. The same applies to things like “Lock He Up.” If you remember during the campaign he asked people if they liked the phrase. They roared their approval so he said, “Okay, we’ll use it.”
Did he thing Hillary should be locked up? Did he have any reason to believe she should be? I doubt it. I think he came up with reasons later.
When Donald says we need a wall, it’s like the service consultant in the dealership saying you need a new five thousand dollar part for your three thousand dollar car. The tech is not thinking. He’s just repeating something he’s been told. Now, because Donald is not only a sociopath but narcissistic, he can’t look bad so he digs in and insists that we gotta have the wall. The difference with the car dealership is the service consultant could care less (except if they are having some sort of point challenge then he might care.)
Now Donald is dug in. He wants his wall. He’s got to have it or he will look bad. He will (in his mind) be a loser. Can’t have that. So he has an address to the nation on prime time. Just before going on TV he sent out a letter to his loyal followers asking for money. The letter suggests that the money is for the wall, but if you read the letter it’s really to donate to his re-election campaign. When this was pointed out Donnie went crazy calling it fake news.
He and his sycophants also went crazy when the great dealmaker himself was locked in mortal negotiation with a mother of five who when he insisted that he have his wall she told him, “No.”
OH MY GOD! Someone told the president of the united states (I won’t capitalize when it’s Trump) that he can’t have what he wants.
I’m not sure. I wasn’t in the room but I’ve heard multiple accounts of who said what and who did what, but from what I can figure out the president fell to the floor, ran around in circles while keeping one shoulder to the ground (kind of like the old Pinky-Lee routine. You tube it.) and cried. Then he sat on the floor said he wasn’t getting up until he got his wall, crossed his arms around his ample waist, and sat there with his lower lip stuck out. Again Nancy said, “No.”
He pouted some more and Nancy finally said, “Okay, I’ll give you a dollar.”
He ran out of the room crying.
The other Republicans in the room seized on the point that Nancy would only give him a dollar. They said she wasn’t being serious. Not being serious? Are you kidding me? This whole crisis at the border isn’t serious. The only crisis is the humanitarian catastrophe Stephen Miller and the rest of you idiots have created. By the way, the art of the deal man isn’t serious. If he was he’d offer something. He’s offered nothing. All he wants is a show. Like “Lock Her Up” it’s all for show. It’s not serious. (Did he lock her up? Did he try? No. Case closed.)
I mean would you put five billion into something you don’t need, won’t work, and doesn’t add any value?
You would? Cool. Then give money to the president’s re-election committee.
How does that help? I have no idea. It’s your boy’s ask. Why don’t you ask him? We’ve already offered a dollar.

857 Days to Go

PS Dahruma looks pissed off

Day 729 Saturday January 5, 2019   862 Days to Go

I am, and some of you who know me may find this hard to believe, a traditionalist when it comes to many things, like Christmas. There are twelve days to the Christmas season. It starts on the 25^th of December and ends on January 7^th. That’s why I turned on the Christmas tree lights this morning. Let’s enjoy the season!

When we lived on Hatteras we learned that there they have a tradition of celebrating Old Christmas, as they call it, which is January 7^th. In one of the villages they have Father Christmas or something like that, which is a guy holding a wooden replica of a goat. The fellow is usually rip-roaring drunk and shakes this thing in kids’ faces at some holiday party, and kids are supposed to like this. When I lived in the suburbs of Washington DC they had a similar tradition where the local fire department got one member of their crew inebriated, dressed him in  a Santa suit and put him on the back of a hook and ladder truck. They would then go around the neighborhoods with the sirens blaring and Santa on the back of the hook and ladder with those big white fire search lights on him waving at the kids. We’d hear the sounds of the fire trucks for about an hour thinking it must be a five or six alarm fire before we’d realize, “It’s Christmas!” I remember traipsing the kids out to wave at Santa, who was drunk and couldn’t see us because of the bright lights on him. My daughter was crouched down with fingers in her ears terrified. Oh the simple joys of the season.

We now have a new tradition in this country called government shutdown. One Republican congressman wonders why people need to get paid on time. I mean, what’s the big deal? TSA is saying they will need to stop working if they don’t get paid. Imagine you are told to keep working and hopefully when Congress and the president come to their collective senses you should get paid. I wonder how well that goes over with the folks at the payday loan offices that Mic Mulvaney let off the hook and are busy screwing the general population? Pretty soon some of those folks might say, “Hey boss, I’d love to keep working for free but my kids have to eat, so I’m going to go bag groceries. Lemme know when you all figure it out.”

In other shutdown news, no deportations can happen because those courts are closed down. Various government agencies are trying to scrape money from other accounts to keep things going for awhile. 

Hey did you hear the one about the person found dead in a National Park? Been dead for several days, no one was around to take care of it. Hysterical, right?

What happens if TSA folks stop showing up to scan stuff at airports? Do we close the airport or let anyone through?

In other news I had a ten dollar off coupon on tickets – “good until Friday January 5^th.” The next time January 5^th is on a Friday is 2024, so I’ve got what? Five years to use the coupon for a show held in April of this year? Lucky me. 

I think it’s time to take a look at the upcoming year and what to expect, or at least keep our eyes on.

First off is the Russia stuff with Trump. I’m not talking the Mueller investigation per se; I’m talking the way that Donald is demonstrating a coziness with Putin and his government that is un…un…believable? unrivaled? Unprecedented? Unexpected? Unthinkable? Unknown in modern times? (or any time?)

The unanswered question from before the election still is – What were those servers in Trump Tower connected to the servers in Alfa-bank transmitting?

Now we have asked, and the Steele Dossier has shown – What does Russia have on Trump? Is it just the girls peeing on the bed? Is it that they own him because of all the money they have given him via the money laundering he has done for them? Is there more?

And most recently – Why is Donald spouting Russian propaganda talking points and where is he getting that from? This makes one wonder if Jared or someone was successful in setting up a back channel to Russia, because the nonsense Donald is saying – like at the cabinet meeting the other day when he went on about why Russia invaded Afghanistan – is pure Russian GRU nonsense, and is only being espoused by them – no one else. So how is this getting wormed into that tiny Trump brain?

It is also becoming more and more evident to more and more people that Trump is not a great businessman, negotiator, or public servant. 

This leads me to the outrage the right and Republicans in Congress are having over two things:

1 – The new Congresswoman who shouted out “Impeach the motherfucker!

2 – Ms Cortez

Let’s deal with item #1 first. I am – once again – shocked and dismayed at the Democratic response to this outburst. They, the Dems, say it was a freshman mistake. I say, “No it wasn’t! Haven’t you learned anything?”

My god when that idiot Wilson yelled out “You lie!” during Obama’s State of the Union the Republicans got behind him and raised thousands of dollars. That’s what the Dems should do. Have a GoFundMe or some such thing entitled, “Impeach the MotherFucker!” Stop sending me those namby-pamby “Can you rush me $5?” requests or those “We’ll match you 4x. Please send $26.” Hey, I never hear that you actually match whatever I send. But I’ll give $26 to “Impeach the MotherFucker!” I think Tom Stierer (or whatever his name is) is too blasé in his impeachment messages. “Impeach the MotherFucker!”  is something everyone can understand. You don’t need to ’splain nuthin’ after that.

Oh and being offended? Please. Were you offended by “Lock Her Up” or by Ted Nugent calling Hillary a cunt? No. So get over it.

 

Now on to Ms. Cortez, the Republicans booed her when she voted for Pelosi. She was the only one they booed. WTF? She told them, “You’re jealous because you can’t be me.” She’s right. Then they posted a video of her dancing. Wow. Sacrilege. It was taken during her college days (less than a decade ago, as compared to the Republicans who last were students a half century ago.) She and her friends were recreating the dance scenes from The Breakfast Club. Cool. And, she can dance! She danced again outside her office. I challenge any of the Republicans in Congress to a dance off with her. She’s got the moves! She good looking. And you aren’t, and you can’t. Case not closed, because you-all are dumb enough to keep attacking her.

Speaking of dumb. Paul LePage is gone as Governor of Maine – thank god. He left for Florida which is good because he’ll be under the watchful eye of Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott. Before he left he gave a convicted drug dealer and multiple felon a pardon. yes, he was in the local Maine government, and he was white. LePage didn’t do the same for a black man who was married to a white woman that had a minor drug conviction years ago that he had served time for. He overstayed his visa and was a pillar in his community. He got sent back to Haiti.

The new governor signed a bill giving health care to 70,000 Mainers. Something Mainers voted for overwhelmingly but Mr. LePage didn’t enact.

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that members of the Trump White House are getting pay raises during the shutdown, and they’ll be getting their checks on time – thank god. That means Stephen Miller will be getting somewhere of another $1,000  month to spew his hate and venom.

The Dems have put up an omnibus bill (which I think means “its got a lot of stuff in it”?) on reforms to voting etc. Crazy things like: no gerrymandering – a commission would figure out the districts, paper ballots for all elections – so you could audit the results afterwards, dark money groups would have to disclose their donors, etc.

As the old Dilbert cartoon said, “That’s crazy talk!” Such common sense things that the majority of the people want is of little or no interest to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate. And who can blame them? I mean, how do they get richer and stay in power if the game was fair?

Speaking of getting rich. How did Bob Corker come into the Senate in debt and leave worth $69 million? Must have been that hard work, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality they keep preaching to the rest of us. Not that crazy talk like “in my day I went to a community college for $50 a semester and paid my way through college as a waitress” that Elizabeth Warren is espousing? Right? Am I right?

“Chains. My baby got me locked up in chains and they aren’t the kind that you can break…”

I don’t know why that old Beatles tune came to mind. (Which Carole King wrote! Who knew?)

 862 Days to Go

PS Bad Boys, Bad Boys. What ya gonna do when they comes for you?

Day 686 Friday November 23, 2018     905 Days to Go

As one newscaster would say, “There’s a lot to get to today.”

However, I must suspend such discussion as there are more important issues to discuss.

Namely, inquiring minds want to know, “What about the turkey?”

After my initial photo on social media I, or my wife, got several desperate communiques.

Here is a sample:

“You’re not really going to cook that turkey in the living room are you?”

“Good idea not to wear a shirt, why get a perfectly good shirt greasy.”

“He’s not going to do that is he?”

“By the way, in an unrelated matter, I’m going to invest in mobile burn units.”

My bigger concern about that “Before” picture was, “Did the turkey make me look fat?”

I have never gotten such a big response as I got from that photo. In fact, if one more person had contacted me with advise, or encouragement I would have had to add another finger to my hand.

I decided, based on the advise of counsel, to move the operation outside.

I was advised not to do it on the driveway as it would leave a grease stain.

I then moved it to near the steps of the deck, which on my test run proved to be a problem due to two factors:

wind and bright sunlight. The sunlight made it hard to see whether there was a flame.

I then moved the set up to the back yard where it was protected on two sides by the back of the house and the jutting of the back deck.

I made a test run the day before the big day by doing donuts and empanadas in the fryer. 

To paraphrase our president, “Who knew donuts could be so hard?”

Let me clarify. The donuts weren’t hard. The making of the donuts was hard. Not hard just time consuming. I figured I’d start at eight in the morning and be done by ten. I didn’t get started until nine and managed to finish as the sun was setting. Thank God for Shelby. She knew what she was doing and worked all day on it with me. She had all these little useful tools and techniques. Fortunately, the day before Thanksgiving when you are having the whole family over for turkey is the perfect day to undertake such a project. I was lucky that the divorce courts were closed on Thursday.

My brother’s son-in-law emailed me and called me. He had actually cooked turkeys this way and gave me many useful insights. Here’s the biggest pro-tip I can give anyone about anything:

TALK TO SOMEONE WHO HAS ACTUALLY DONE IT!!!

This goes for cooking turkeys or anything else.

Here are some cooking turkey in oil tips:

– Do it outside.

– Do it on the grass to prevent a grease stain from showing.

– Put down a piece of cardboard.

– Have a table nearby.

– Have a fire extinguisher nearby.

– Turn off the flame while putting the turkey in the oil.

– Use a pair of insulated rubber gloves.

– Wear safety googles.

– Wear thick old clothing and cover as much of your body as possible.

– Use three gallons of oil for a turkey. Most pots are 12” diameter and 15” tall.

   You only want the oil to come up in the pot 6”.

– Heat the oil to 375 degrees, turn off the flame, SLOWLY insert the bird, breast side down.

– Cook time is 3 1/2 minutes per pound. Work out the total cook time BEFORE you insert the bird in the oil.

– Cook the bird at 350 degrees. The temperature will drop as soon as you put the bird in the oil.

   The advice I got said to start timing once the temperature got back to 350 degrees.

    It took half my cook time for it to get back up to that temp so I did my cook time from the time I inserted the bird.

– Turn off the burner before withdrawing the bird.

– Have a hooked planter over the pot for when you take the bird out  to be able to hang the bird.

   Ostensibly this is to let the oil drip back into the pot, but it’s also handy to take victory pictures.

– Get a big A** funnel for pouring the oil back into container. Car parts stores have great ones.

– Use cheesecloth to strain the oil

– Wait until the oil has cooled to 125 degrees or lower before pouring 

I got two three gallon containers of oil. Most hardware supply and Wal-Marts sell a three gallon frying oil made up of peanut and vegetable oil. Peanut is considered one of the best oils to use because of its high smoke point, but it is double the price of other oils.

Here are some turkey preparation specific tips:

– Take the turkey out of the bag, remove all the stuff that comes inside and weight the bird.

   I used a travel scale.

– Rinse and dry the turkey

– Injecting the turkey is supposed to get added flavor into it. When injecting make sure the needle is into the meat. Most injectors have two holes: one on either side of the needle. they are at different distances from the tip. Make sure both holes are into the place you want to inject. If a hole in the needle is exposed and you begin to inject a thin stream of your marinade will cascade across the room in a high arc. Not that I know anything about this, personally. If you are injecting near the place in the skin where you stuck the bird put a finger on the skin and press against the needle to prevent said graceful arc across the kitchen.

( If someone wants to talk politics you may wish to try and do a shallow injection such that you could possibly hit them in the eye with that spicy hot marinade. If you do this, act sorry. )

That is all, over and out.

905 Days to Go