Ace-Garageguy

Another $5 score...an old HO scale AHM West Point Textiles boxcar, that goes for around $40 online including shipping. Mine has Kadee-compatible couplers on both ends, and upgraded trucks. Though the model represents a rebuilt USRA boxcar, the color scheme exists on a later design plug-door car, shown below, part of the Chattahoochee Valley collection. A similar livery was in use at the West Point, GA plant in 1960. I'm partial to liveries of "fallen flags" that I remember from my youth, and industries from the steam-to-diesel transition era, particularly from here in my current home state. Also bought his $5 companion, a same-period HO scale AHM 6-dome tank car in an interesting Firestone "rubber latex" scheme I'd never seen before. These go for $20-$30 online including delivery, so I'm pretty happy.

"Choice" beef is cheaper than "prime", but my budget runs more towards "rotten".

Apples and orangutans are often erroneously compared...or is that oranges?

"Gusto" has been appropriated as the name of a payroll app, nicely illustrating the trend towards totally stupid oh-so-cute-n-clever names for apps.

Couldn't find either the "ON" switch on the broom handle or the app on the phone to run it. Oh, the humanity.

A lot of us on the forum are older and are associated with Medicare one way or another...and some folks who aren't particularly tech-savvy or naturally suspicious are easy pickings. Just a reminder from Linkedin: Medicare scam calls have become alarmingly frequent, with seniors reporting calls as often as every 14 minutes. Complaints to Better Business Bureaus have surged by 40% over the past year, while the Federal Communications Commission receives thousands of annual complaints. Scammers typically pose as representatives offering unclaimed Medicare benefits. The broader financial toll of fraud on older adults is estimated to be around $60 billion annually, highlighting the urgent need for protective measures.

Class action lawsuits for megabucks tend to get corporations' attention, as do correctly enforced anti-monopoly laws. "Anti-monopoly laws, also known as antitrust laws, are regulations designed to promote fair competition and free markets by preventing monopolies, price fixing, and anti-competitive mergers, primarily through U.S. acts like the Sherman Act (outlawing restraints of trade) and Clayton Act (targeting mergers and price discrimination). They stop companies from abusing market power, ensuring innovation, lower prices, and better products for consumers, enforced by the DOJ and FTC." A letter writing campaign to the appropriate representatives, maybe overseen and actively encouraged by SEMA or a similar automotive aftermarket trade organization might be a start. But people have become pretty apathetic, and tend to let themselves just be steamrollered en masse. Nothing will change if WE THE PEOPLE do nothing about it.

Common courtesy and what used to be called "common knowledge" are going the way of the dodo too.

Altogether is frequently confused with all together.

Just face it and embrace it. Everything is going to poo. It's not just eBay. I don't know what lala land those folks who say otherwise live in.

Nothing new, just that muh technology is making it oh-so-mo-easier. It's called "progress". And if you don't embrace it with open arms, you're a past-it old Luddite shouting at clouds. Just ask any tech bro.

Age tends to make you get older.

"Right to Repair" isn't just about individuals working on their own cars. I'm still in the independent repair end of the car biz, have been for most of over 5 decades now. My background is mechanical engineering. I left the white-collar world to work on the machines I loved, but even as a shop owner/manager, I was always on the front lines, with dirty hands. To me, the "technology advances" other than sophisticated engine management and improved combustion chamber and porting designs that have enabled impressive fuel economy, emissions, and performance improvements simultaneously, are largely just useless bell-and-whistle add-ons that do nothing but enhance a vehicles marketability (to those who think they need 5-way adjustable heated vibrating color-changing 'smart' cupholders to successfully and safely commute to work or take the kids to soccer practice) while adding layer upon layer of increasingly poorly thought out, failure-prone complication...that's often also poorly supported by the manufacturers from either a parts or service standpoint. I don't care much about owners who want to do their own minor repairs and maintenance, frankly, though I DO believe the information and parts to do so should be readily available. What I AM concerned with is a blatant attempt on the part of manufacturers to freeze independent shops out of the repair business by making access to data prohibitively expensive for the smaller ones...the ones that are also very often the most competent, and that are also often vastly more competent than most of the current crop of vehicle "technicians" employed by dealerships...at least in my area. EDIT: And while we're at it, somebody 'splain to me why a single headlight for a late-model Porsche Cayenne costs $8 THOUSAND and has to communicate with the vehicle's computers. Yeah, I know...bla bla bla multi-individually-controllable LED bla bla bla safety bla bla bla anti-dazzle bla bla bla bla. We're NOT driving these things 220 MPH down the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans, ya know.

Rate-increases are insurance and utility execs favorite dreams.

Peemed.