Some Blog Site

It’s June, the start of the summer quarter. Time for me to update the theme on this blog. This one is a theme I put together a few years ago. Slight updates, but pretty close to what I had back then.

Enjoy!

Car companies have given various names and labels to the parts of the car. Unfortunately, while those names may reflect the intended use of the part, they don’t necessarily reflect the real-world function.

Here is a handy guide that re-labels the items in a car with what they actually mean:

• Activate the high-beam switch in order to summon oncoming traffic
• Step on the gas pedal in order to induce the car in front of you to brake
• Step on the brake pedal in order to engage the tail-gating abilities of the car behind you
• Activate the turn signal in order to eliminate any spaces between cars near you

Bonus Item

• Turn off the wipers in order to cause the car passing you to hit a puddle

Any other things in your car that need disclaimers for their side effects?

Our central air wasn’t working, so I had to fix it.

The furnace and thermostat were working fine, because warm air was blowing throughout the house. After a couple of minutes and it still wasn’t blowing cold air, I started looking around.

First step, walk outside and see if the fan was running.

It was not.

Second step, look up “central air outside fan not working” on the internet. Also, “how to check air conditioner” and “troubleshoot central air”.
Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t golf, but if I did, I’d get this golf equipment:

Encouraged by a comment from Ricky, I made an effort to write a children’s book. Here is my first attempt. It is in the form of an extended sonnet, keeping more or less with iambic pentameter (more pentameter, less iambic).

I noticed that a lot of children’s books are the ABCs of something. Most of the “something”s have already been used, except for that which is most important to the children of today – websites.

The Alphabet Book of URLs

A is for Amazon, they sell goods and bads

B is for Blogspot, opinions and tales

C is for Craigslist, all classified ads

D is for Dropbox, don’t clog up emails

E is for Ebay, the price might be right

F is for Facebook, waster of time

G is for Google, main search engine site

H is for Homestar Runner, cartoon sublime

I is for Instragram, ruin photos with filt’ring

J is for Jameco, electronics supplier

K is for Kickstarter, more funds it wilt bring

L is for Lycos, search engine old-timer

M is for Moniker, buy a domain name

N is for Netflix, watch films and shows

O is for Opera, browsers are not the same

P is for Priceline, solves travelling woes

Q is for QQ, who knows what they do?

R is for Reddit, vote on your favorite

S is for Snopes, if a story is true

T is for Twitter, short insights you’ll get

U is for Urban Spoon, meal option reducer

V is for Vimeo, simple film hosters

W is for WordPress, a blogging producer

X is for XKCD, web comics and posters

Y is for Yahoo, search, email, and news

Z is for Zillow, a new home you can choose

Now I know my TLDs,
Next time won’t you browse with me?

Due to a small mishap, I ended up with gasoline on my hands for a few minutes before I could clean them. Since I didn’t want to handle anything lest I contaminate it, my wife looked up “how to clean gasoline off hands” on her phone while I did whatever steps she read off. Those steps are listed here, in order.

• Wash with soap and warm water. So that’s what I did. And scrub, it said. So I did. Helped a little, but not much.
• Lemon juice. And scrub. Not much effect.
• White vinegar. Just added a slight vinegar smell to my skin, which soon went away (the vinegar smell, not my skin).

That was it for the official suggestions, so we starting ad-libbing it here.

• More soap and water. Still no effect.
• Thieves oil, which my wife loves to use for a variety of things. This one had the most noticeable effect. After the thieves oil, my hands smelled like cloves and gasoline for a while.
• A little while later, I took a shower before going to bed. In the shower, I scrubbed my hands with shampoo. Just in case.
• Right after my shower, I shaved. So I figured “why not?” and scrubbed my hands with shaving cream.

I forgot to smell my hands before going to sleep. But in the morning, the gasoline smell was gone. So I don’t know which step did it, but if I ever spill gasoline on my hands again I’ll start with shaving cream and work my way backwards through the list.

What’s wrong with this book?

My son checked this out of the library. He said his teacher was reading it to them; I assume he was just impatient with that slow pace.

I saw the cover as he was reading it and asked him to show me the spine of the book.

“Sure. Why?”
“I want to see how the library categorizes the book.”
“What?”
“They incorrectly put it in Fiction. As the sub-title clearly states, this is a true story. So it should be in the Non-Fiction section.”
“No, dad, that’s just what they call it. They also have the true story of the Three Little Bears and other things.”
“Well then, those people must not know what the word true means.”

There are other sub-titles that would have conveyed what I think they meant:

• The untold story of Rumpelstiltskin
• The life story of Rumpelstiltskin
• The whole story of Rumpelstiltskin

Why did they choose to dilute the word true?

I doubt their goal was to promote moral relativism in impressionable children, to muddy the meaning of truth for the next generation. That may be the effect, but I doubt that was their goal.

I assume their goal was to create an interesting phrase – “this one is catchy because it makes people stop and think, how can we have a true version of a fairy tale?” That works for the author’s generation because they know what truth is. But a catchy sub-title becomes popular, and before long, applying the word true to various things that aren’t true becomes commonplace, and then people get confused.

No, I don’t think this one book is going to cause the downfall of Western civilization. But it is somewhat telling of the mindset of people these days. Do people care what words mean anymore?