Ace-Garageguy

An unfortunately widely held belief/opinion now is "if you sound smart, you must think you're better than me". EDIT: This statement is NOT referring to people who try to use big words and convoluted word-salad thinking it makes them sound smart. It doesn't. It's about people who genuinely know what they're talking about rather than mindlessly rebleating the dogma-du-jour or what they 'heard somewhere' about (insert any topic here), being attacked by idiots who often equate 'tribal knowledge' or 'consensus' with objective truth.

A media "journalist" who doesn't understand the difference between "casual" and "causal". Really? And you get PAID???

The shop where I'm building the Chevelle primarily does late-model collision repair. They used to do a fair bit of custom work, and the current owner's father built several national-level touring showcars. The '59 El Camino they're wrapping up (that I made several custom parts for, and which is currently being upgraded to Inglese stack-type fuel injection), and the '66 Chevelle I'm doing (that the shop owner will paint) are the last two custom jobs that will ever be done there...because try as they might over the last decade, they haven't been able to hire ANYONE either competent or trainable to work to their standards. The shop still works for insurance companies, but the writer-manager is as tough as they come, knows the business inside out, and gets every penny it takes to provide as close to "undetectable" repairs as you can get. He's ex USAF and ex Lockheed, and isn't intimidated by insurance clowns. The shop owner is the now only bodyman (the best I've ever seen on normal production vehicles) and his BIL (who races SCCA and builds street rods on his own) helps him. The shop owner has a '69 smallblock Camaro he built and painted, it's gorgeous, and also has a matching multi-award-winning chopper built by a very well known shop for him. The collision painter has been working for them part time off and on for decades, and paints semi-full time since retiring from a career in law enforcement. He's also finishing up his own '66 Corvette coupe that is the straightest, best-fitting C2 coupe I've ever seen, anywhere...which he's done all himself except the engine build. They're all hard-core hands-on "car guys" with a very broad knowledge base, and I count myself lucky to have been able to work in a shop for a while with people who are ALL as quality-driven as I've always been...and people who know a lot of stuff I don't, but never pretend to know anything they aren't 100% sure of. I just sometimes wish I'd met this great crew a long time ago.

Branches of gubmint at the federal level in the USA were designed to provide for separation of powers, a system of checks and balances, and limit the disruption those howler monkeys can get up to if left to their own devices.

Life insurance won't do me much good when I'm gone.

Beach babes in bikinis used to really make my day, but I think we're not allowed to notice anymore, especially if we're creepy, old, and toothless.

I don't see why it should be unless you were the one who left the 'deposits' and they were obviously of human origin.

If you mean Testors metalizers, they were an entirely different idea. The metalizers simulated several kinds of bare metal surfaces, in both 'buffing' and non-buffing flavors. Correctly used, the 'buffing' Aluminum Plate, for example, would look just like lightly polished naked aluminum sheet, if that's the effect you wanted. If the metalizers were NOT what you were referring to, never mind.

IIRC, the chopped top was retooled in the latest issue (which I bought to get the really nice chrome-reverse rims). Again IIRC, the retooled version does not have as nice proportions or flow or lines as the old version, and fits even worse. I have most versions of the AMT '36 in stock...but some are in AZ. EDIT: I only have ONE kit of the latest release, and it's possible that the one I have was warped somehow, maybe by being pulled from the mold too early, but my recollection of it, and my putting it all back in the box in disgust, remains. EDIT 2: As Mark states, the kit is easily built into a reasonably period-correct gasser with what's always been in the box.

This is in line, unfortunately, with one prevailing form of idiocy stating that relatively simple math is arbitrary, pushed onto society by some imagined boogeyman 'power structure', and not simply a tool for understanding objective reality. Might be a reason we're seeing more and more things built not very long ago collapse...sometimes even before they're finished. The PEDMAS method you mention exists for a reason, that being to ensure everyone gets the same result. There are NOT two correct answers. For those who don't know, PEDMAS is a rule that defines the order of operations to correctly solve a mathematical expression with multiple operations. When you see multiple operations, you must solve them in this specific order.

Fall off a ladder while cleaning your gutters if you want some time off from work and don't mind a little pain.

Little fella who "works on vintage cars" rents shop space from us in a building we've downsized out of installs Snipers on just about everything he can talk the car owners into (because he doesn't understand carbs...or much of anything else, including electricity and AN fittings, but that's another story). Somehow he manages to make them all run like dog doo, and they're forevermore in and out of his shop as frequently as if they were all running worn out carbs and points.

Call Saul.

His dog's fault.

Vegetables have a pretty good chance of being elected to public office.