Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Speaking about doctor...

Sounds like Dr feelgood to me

@HobbitGamer - Nothing like replacing everything halfway down only to find something else even deeper you hadn’t anticipated. Auto care is an exercise in anger management. You can only laugh. I respect your skill and aptitude. A VCG leak is really common. If it’s minor, and pooling/burning up on the block, you can definitely ride it out. It’s probably been going on a while. Well done on the tune up. I hope you lost at least one socket, that’s what good mechanics do.

@NEStalgia - Any given scene from This Old House:
“Hey Norm, I see you guys are taking measurements for the new vanity.”

“Nah Bowb, couldn’t be more owff. We’re actually in the garage, see the cah pahked right thea. We’re making sure this centah support beam is plumb. Why don’t you stand in the cornah and clean my drill bits.”

@bimmy-lee Nope, didn’t lose a socket but I did shear the head off a bolt connecting a throttle plate. It’s okay, the rest of the torque bolt stayed in place 😂. I love that all they did for the 318 magnum was essentially add efi parts to the carb body haha.
The leak definitely is minimal, and only got noticed because I disturbed the crud around the edges. I’m gonna slap a bead of rtv gasket till I get to replacing the vcg, which does look very straightforward. There’s no additional mounts on my covers, just a pcv on one and breather on the other.

@Anti-Matter that name 😂

@HobbitGamer
And speaking about doctor / hospital again....

My brother took us to a Japanese inspired Cafe. I had this.

It was super dense. I was expecting the fish to be a bit more waffle-y

Ugh, never eat at the restaurant. They failed health inspection.

Morph is that ice cream on fried fish? Is it from Fourside?

It was more baked than fried.

It was regular chocolate syrup.

Sweet beans would've been nice.

I bet that was tasty, assuming the fish was salted a bit.

(Please forgive the late reply. It's been a long day, plus I'm up to my eyeballs in paperwork and legalese for my new job)

@NEStalgia Where you're at definitely sounds more populated than where I am. The closest city that most people could point out on a map is about two hours away. XD

There are other grocery stores, but I stick with the Aldi store. I like doing most of my shopping in one place. If I need some weird
ingredient that they don't have (which is rare), I'll likely get it at the local Walmart. The other grocery stores are either meh quality or else are too expensive for my comfort.

I'll take your word for it on the Pizza Hut commentary. It does sound like the ones near you function as take out places more than anything though.

@ThanosReXXX Taxes do tend to vary widely here depending on the state, town, county, etc., as does cost of living. My current bi-monthly paycheck would make people cry in some places, but I can usually get by with a little extra every month once all the bills and essentials are taken out. It helps that I don't currently have a car payment. Plus, I'm a saver and don't take out loans often; the only thing that I'm currently paying off is my house. I also do without some stuff, like TV service. I just don't need it.

There's also the fact that some people feel like they need every new thing or need to upgrade something more often than it needs to be. For example, I had my previous smart phone for over four years before finally switching. Nothing was wrong with it, but it was a Windows Phone. Microsoft had started cutting off support.

@HobbitGamer it was honestly better for the eyes. The fish itself had a dense brownie like consistency, and the ice cream was kinda runny.

I’m flying out of town late morning. I just concluded five days of solo dad duties with two young kids while my wife is in Denver for a conference. The kids are now with their grandparents, and the conference is over; so it’s time to meet up for some fun. I’m probably going to pour an adult beverage on my face after I post this. Have a great week and weekend everyone.

@Morpheel - Wow, that’s adventurous, for me at least. The kind of thing I would really hope someone else would order, and then let me try a bite.

I was thinking more along the lines of seeing a building being destructed minimizing the effect of any pain you might suffer during some procedure on your teeth. It could work as a placebo effect.

Yeah, I know: my mind works in mysterious ways. I almost never go for the obvious. Also because that's usually the most boring option, and if there's anything I can't particularly stand, then it would be boring stuff.

@Tyranexx From what you told @NEStalgia, it does sound like you're REALLY living in the middle of nowhere. Illinois, if I remember correctly?

I could probably never get used to that. In California, I already lived in a small city/town, and now that I'm living over here, I'm completely adjusted to city life, and having everything I need or want within an hour's travel from anywhere. And that hour is only for the outermost regions of the city.

I do always like to visit the country side, though. For a holiday, or a long weekend, just to relax a bit and so on, but I doubt I could ever settle down there. I need all my hustle and bustle, things to do, and places to go to be relatively nearby. In the city, I mostly use public transport, or I just hop on a bike, if the weather allows it, such as around this time of year, and of course in the summer.

And yeah, the whole annual new smart phone thing also still amazes me. I do however switch phones every other year, not because I really need to, but simply because it's a part of my provider's subscription service, and then the previous model goes to my dad, so he gets a relatively new phone for free.

And I always take good care of all my stuff, so he's probably better off than buying a second-hand one from a stranger or in a store...
(edit: not that he ever would, mind you)

@bimmy-lee Well, I hope you have a nice time over there. I'm pretty sure we'll hear all about it, if something interesting and/or funny happens.

@ThanosReXXX - Thanks! It’s a pretty short visit (for me), but we’re going to make the most of it. I think a fair amount of funny, interesting things are going to occur. If any of them are within the community rules, I’ll share the story!

Edit - Oh, quick quip. I bought an outlet timer to run my led grow lights for my succulents and inside trees, and I’m paying my brother in beer to stop by and water them on Friday. I’m officially weird, old plant guy now.

Well that's not so bad. I'm officially old wierd grass guy. Had a patch In my backyard that never grew grass. Tried for years to grow it and it never would. Month or so ago I went to Menards and really splurged on the good stuff and all sorts of bells and whistles. For like 2 weeks it wasn't growing and I started getting pretty ticked. One day I got home from work and voila, started sprouting! I'm out there every day watering and when I'm not, I'm just smiling and staring at it. Makes me wonder what the neighbors think of me

@bimmy-lee Inside trees? As in indoor palm trees, or just large, jungle type plants?
And hey, succulents are nothing to scoff at, nor is having them. Got a couple of them as well, sitting in my window sill. I used to have other plants as well, but I tended to forget to water them frequently, and seeing as I'm the only one living here, no one is reminding me to take better care of them.

The succulents are a bit more resilient and easier to take care of, at least.

Oh, and if any of the stories that you come back with aren't allowed under community rules, we can always use our personal contact details to exchange them.

@NintendoByNature That sounds close to my life. Same struggles with some grass and staring. It was a great day when my neighbor applied Pennington seed across the street on a very windy day 😂

Truck finally ran great this morning. Now I can play games again. Did that Mother 3 come out for Switch yet?

I leave for a few hours and return to find @Anti-Matter dropping the risque funnies. What planet is this?

@ThanosReXXX Sagat (pronounce sagg-it) is a standup comedian most famous for America's Funniest Home Videos in it's 90's height (when a VHS camcorder was a novelty still), and being the father in Full House. It was a big name in the 90's mostly from those two shows. I don't think I ever saw Home Videos after his era. It was the lamest of the lame jokes, it was awful, but it was very "the era."

Yep. The Cayenne things. I see at least 6 a day just back and forth. I also see at least 3 911's. Tons of the various BMWs & Mercedes (equal number coupe/SUV), Audi's. And of course a limitless sea of Lexus/Accura/Infinitiy. A handful of Teslas and Volts, a good deal of Priuses (isn't that your official State Car? ) I've seen more than one DeLorean....not even joking. And occasionally you see the odd Lamborghini, Maserati or McLaren. No Ferraris or Bentleys, weirdly. Supposedly luxury cars make up 6% of the US auto market. Around here it's an easy 45%, maybe more. And of the remaining 55% about 60% of THAT is what I still consider luxury (they maybe Hondas, Toyotas, Jeeps, GMCs, etc, but they're all fully loaded large SUVs or urban cowboy pickups.) Probably about 20% or less of total cars on the road here are normal cars from normal brands.

And of course all those luxury cars have instant pivot turning, stabilization and get annoyed and aggressive when you can't move as fast as they, and ultra bright HID/LED headlights mounted just at eye-level for a normal car. So at night, the whole road behind me will go 5MPH the whole way home. Because I can't #$@$@ see where I'm going. Seriously. At all. Because I have diving lamps pointed directly into my retinas. Imagine the sea of horns. They can buy me a #$%@$@ Cayenne if they'd like. Whomever approved vehicle manufacture without standardized light output and positioning should be tortured in means not even the medieval warlords could imagine.

All food smokes...if you're browning it anyway. Especially meats. I generally brown if I'm cooking something. Plus pan deglazing (unless you're using teflon....tsk tsk....) Trouble is there's a haze through the whole house afterward like it's an opium den.

Hah, well the oil soaked food is really Italian food, so blame them...which is in Europe.... And olive oil is quite healthy. You know I heard for years and years about the "obesity epidemic"....never really saw many such people. I thought it was media hype. Last few years I see it EVERYWHERE. It's surreal. that said, I'm convinced despite media hype and European attention there's something else going on than just "bad diet". Plenty of people have bad diets. I certainly don't eat as the poster child of healthy eating. But I don't look like that. I'd say I have a fast metabolism, but I really don't. Even during holiday times in years when I've eaten more than I could even fit of all the worst possible stuff over weeks with back to back events, I may have put on a few pounds, but NOTHING like that, and just going back to normal eating afterward everything adjusts back down. These people just have REALLY SLOW metabolisms. I'm not sure it's "American diet" related. There's something else going on there. Just eating junk doesn't automatically do that to you. I don't know what the real cause is....I strongly wouldn't doubt it's tied to the pharmaceuticals that pretty much everyone inhales like candy here. Or reactions to additives...or something beyond just eating "too much fat and sugar." The amount of fat and sugar it would take to get me to that point would cause my stomach to rupture first. We're talking about one of the only countries in the world that still fluoridates the entire water supply.....so children will grow strong teeth....despite there being no evidence it actually accomplishes the goal....

Property Brothers...I may have seen an ad for that in a cable company flyer. It might be on here still. I don't get any of those channels, and since YouTubeTV jacked up the pricing because of adding that and other channels....I don't have a better impression of it

@bimmy-lee LOL that is SPOT on for This Old House. I find it funny Vila became the spokesman of Sears. It was an omen.

uhh...