SfanGoch

Used to see the band at CBGB's, Cat Club and other great and long gone venues.

He racked up all of the awards in the pimpmobile category.

No problem, Peter. 1956 Passenger Assembly Manual

Evidence of convergent evolution?

I found that out the hard way. I used a steel brush to clean out the junk buildup after filing some soft metal with a cheap Chinese-made file. The junk was gone. So were the teeth on the file.

That's what them zany Collyer Brothers might have been thinking. The stuffed over 100 tons of materials and components into a three story brownstone. One of the more interesting items found was a Model T frame. How'd they get it through the door and hallway?!? Brownstone hallways are notoriously narrow once you get past the foyer, the staircase takes up over one half the width of the first floor hall. It couldn't have been brought in through the door under the stoop because there's no space to maneuver it. Absolute geniuses!!!!!!!

Sure, you can modify the design to fit your requirements. Here's the hitch to using a shop vac. Not everyone lives in a house with a garage or basement to deck out as hobby workspace.This was designed with apartment dwellers as primary users in mind because space is at a premium and a shop vac isn't something normally found in an apartment unless one is emulating the Collyer Brothers and hoards useless junk. Other types of exhaust systems which require an exhaust fan and running a hose through a window adapter are, likewise, impractical because, if one lives in a recently constructed building around these parts, you're more than likely to have large, horizontally sliding windows which are 48' tall. That leaves a pretty friggin' big vertical gap to fill with a mounting plate for the hose and building management would have a s**tfit seeing something like that. Almost everyone living in an apartment owns a vacuum cleaner. So, it's easy enough to stick the nozzle attachment inside the box and clean up the resin dust and pieces

That it is, Steve. Over at Armorama, one of the guys was looking into a tool for cutting off those large plugs usually found on resin AM parts for armor kits. There were people telling him that a handsaw, or sandpaper and water are preferable because there'll be less resin dust created. Not really. Using a handsaw creates the same amount of particles and it's more time consuming. Solution: Construct a cutting box 12Lx12Hx24W with a hinged lid on top out of 1/16" plexiglass. Cut two holes on the front panel large enough to stick your hands through. This will allow you to manipulate the tool and part inside the box. Whatever dust created by cutting/grinding will remain in the box. After you're done, clean out the box using a vacuum cleaner. You can get a 1/16" 36"x48" plexiglass sheet at a plastic distributor for 30-40 bucks.

Yeah, I have a nonamo brand variable speed w/flexshaft attachment and 100 accessories I picked up about ten years ago from Internet Hobbies for 39 bucks. It does the job; but, between the limited flex of the flexshaft and the power cord getting in the way, cordless is soooooooooooo much more convenient.

It's going to be a PITA; but, scribing around the exhaust details, combined with judicious use of a grinding wheel, works. That's what I did.

If you're looking for a cordless tool, the Dremel 8050 Micro is a nice choice. It's lightweight and variable speed (5-28000 rpm). Lowes has it for 79 bucks. I have one and it's great.

One can only hope. There's the possibility that their female counterparts might, in the absence of alpha or even beta males, mutate into a hermaphroditic form (sorta like slugs and barnacles), thereby allowing the continuance of these lifeforms.

It's been infested with these red bearded fauxhemians since 1997. It's not just Millennials. There are the 35 year old kidults attending NYU, Columbia, etc. who are ready to celebrate their seventh anniversary as first semester freshmen as they attempt to get degrees in Etruscan Cat Poetry, Fine Art and English Lit which will leave them eminently qualified to fold jeans at Banana Republic, restock shelves at Barnes & Noble or make artwork by gluing macaroni on bedbug infested mattresses they scavenged before the sanitation trucks picked them up. Then, there are the 50+ year old single, pseudo-hip daddio artist/intellectual/unemployed musician losers who try to pretend to be cool by wearing 40 foot long scarves and lice-incubating ski caps in August, cheesy looking MC jackets with lame, obscure band patches on the lapels, oversized pork pie hats, high water pants and a beat up pair of Chuck Taylors in the hope that they can B.S. some braindead, bowling pin shaped canklesaurus with hairy armpits into giving up some strange. They priced themselves out of the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn because landlords took advantage of the fact that they were willing to pay almost anything just to say they are experiencing the "real" Brooklyn. It was a way they thought they were establishing their "street creds" to impress their stupid friends back home in Culdesacia. What they neglected to tell their gullible friends was that they were paying upwards of $3000/mo. for the privilege of sharing an illegally subdivided, roach-infested 1 BR apartment in a ratty, one step above condemned tenement building, surrounded by crack hookers and gangbangers as neighbors, with six other similarly stupid people. They risked getting robbed or, worse, having their apartments stripped bare every time the stepped outside their pads. These naive stooges think they're back home on the Great Plains and don't believe in locking the front door or windows facing the fire escapes. Bad for them; but, great for anyone looking for super deals on Macbooks, flatscreen TVs or slightly used surfboards. So, next on the travelling roadshow itinerary was my neighborhood, Greenpoint, which is in the northernmost part of Brooklyn. They did the same here, willing to pay ridiculous rent for something slightly larger than a walk-in closet. The linguini-limbed Marco Polos acted as if they discovered Greenpoint, never mind that it's been inhabited since 1643. Developers jumped on this need to live in a cool zip code by constructing monstrous, dystopian-looking hipsterrariums where, in more than a few places, rent for a studio apartment is $5995/mo. OO-FAH! The parochial school I attended was converted to high end apartments. My old second grade classroom goes for $3250/mo. I could only hope that the spirit of Sister Philemona, who looked like Ernest Borgnine in a habit, haunts the place. My neighborhood now has the distinction of the most expensive cup of latte in the city - 10 bucks for a 6oz. cup at the previously mentioned Cafe Rudin. Seriously though, natives and long time residents feel that they are George Bailey. There's almost nothing left of the old neighborhood. Heck, the deadbeats who run the new, $600 for a tee shirt boutiques won't even pony up a few bucks to the local merchants' association to pay for the Christmas decorations which used to decorate the main drag. And then, there's the icing on the cake - SantaCon! Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim!

Riding in shopping carts on truck routes is as bad as SantaCon.Considering that these pogo stick shaped playcationers are a major export from flyover states, rivalling manufactured and agricultural goods in terms of sheer numbers to large East Coast cities, you are in a win/win situation. They leave where you're at and come here. Heck, humane, expertly set and baited traps have been set up near areas of heavy infestation in order to control them. You better hope that the market doesn't crash, thus wiping out the retirement accounts of the flyover state parents on whose dime they're sponging off. They figured doing so was a small price to pay in order to get their offspring to vacate the basement so dad can finally convert it into a proper game/entertainment room. If that occurs, expect a reverse migration back from whence they spawned. The effects will be 100 times worse than a plague of locusts, prairie dogs or gophers ruining your lawn or even being bombarded by robocalls from cable companies offering special price packages.

It's odd that you should say that, Rich. Washington State is one of the places that these costumed, urban exploring transplants originally came from. Usually, they emigrate from small tract housing communities located near shopping malls which were the center of their almost non-existent social lives and the locals wouldn't put up with this kind of happy horses**t. So, they make their way to NYC, usually settling in that mythical, magical place known as BushPointBurg. It is here where they are free, mainly because their parents are paying their bills, to continue acting out their teenaged years by doing quirky things like having boat races on the flooded streets during Superstorm Sandy, marketing "genuine" Brooklyn dirt for 25 bucks per test tubeful or deciding that it's, like yah, soooooo kewl to to live in abandoned houseboats on the shores of Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal, both designated as Superfund sites due to the toxicity of the water. Why, wedding ceremonies on skiffs has become the latest trend among the interloping set. Here are Zacc and Formaldehilda getting hitched by Rev. Zigward Hummusworth, pastor of the Church of the Sub-Genius and part-time latte foam sculptor at Cafe Rudin, under the picturesque Union Street Bridge. The main draw for the Gowanus Canal as an event location is that it is one of the few bodies of water where you can contract STDs by merely coming into casual contact with it. Note the reception hall in the background.

Ain't that way here anymore. There was a dusting of snow here Saturday. The only accumulation was on top of parked cars because the ground was too warm. I was`surprised that there wasn't wall-to-wall coverage on TV about the Great Blizzard of 2017 or the mayor holding a presser to announce he's ordering the subways shut down and banning all auto use like he did last year when we had about five inches of the white stuff.

Thanks, Pete. Just a bad day at Black Rock. Although, I have never been guilty of early withdrawal. My 15 year old is proof of that.

Thanks Bruce.

Unless you've experienced this in person, you really have no idea as to how bad it is. A lot of establishments will lock their doors and not let them in when the see them coming. These clowns cause a lot of chaos in the bars and bother the living hell out of the customers. There have been bars which were completely trashed by SantaCon participants, which is why they aren't welcome in a lot of places. Also, the large number of obnoxious costumed drunks loitering around the various neighborhoods particularly pisses off local residents. I can safely say that two of my favorite dive bars won't be tolerating any disruptions to the regular routine.

You mean Pacific Street. The old Ward Bakery Company building was located at 800 Pacific St. That's in the Prospect Heights section. This might be the bakery in your photos. The building was demolished and the location is now a parking lot for Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards.

Thanks, David. NYC works in strange ways. At first, the community board said that streets are only co-named after individuals who have performed notable acts or are are notable in their own right. I was told that the city doesn't do this for murder victims. I had to direct them to numerous streets which were co-named to honor victims of violent crimes. I also provided the city's own standards/requirements which include people like Susan. The people of my particular CB are pretty much clueless schmucks who spend their time looking for new and creative ways of getting their palms greased by real estate developers. I keep calling them at least once a week to check on the petition's status. I'm also working with folks in the neighborhood to get the athletic field in McCarren Park, the largest park in the area, named after Constance Darnowski-Stoll. She was the AAU champion in the 80 metre hurdles in 1952 while attending St. John's University and was a two-time Olympian (Helsinki, 1952 and Melbourne, 1956). Pretty good for a local girl, I'd say. I was duly informed that the city doesn't consider naming anything after someone unless he/she has been dead for five years. Since Mrs. Darnowski-Stoll is alive and well, I told the tyro at the other end of the phone that I didn't believe she will be amenable to comply with that particular requirement anytime soon. I asked this snerd if this was the case, how did former mayor Ed Koch get the 59th Street Bridge renamed after him while he was still alive and kicking? The silence was deafening.

Thanks, Jim. I enjoy doing historical research, especially about North Brooklyn, which was once known as the Eastern District. A lot of interesting people lived here and there is no shortage of historical events which took place. Writer Henry Miller spent a good portion of his childhood living on Driggs Ave., in what was formerly known as the 14th Ward. The Union ironclad, the U.S.S. Monitor, was designed and constructed by John Ericsson at the Continental Iron Works on Quay (pronounced "Key") Street in Greenpoint, down the block from one of the parks we played in as kids.

Stanhope Street, that's in Bushwick. Contrary to what's heard on the "Honeymooners" about Bensonhurst, Jackie Gleason was a Bushwick native. Chauncey Street and Himrod St., where Norton usually goes to do emergency sewer repairs, are both in Bushwick. Bushwick got really rough in the '60s. A lot of blockbusting and "white flight" to the suburbs occurred; and, the looting and arson which took place during the Blackout of July 13-14, 1977 turned Bushwick into a wasteland. The area around Stanhope was predominantly Italian up to the mid-'60s. The only holdout in the neighborhood today is Circo's Pastry Shop, which has been on Knickerbocker and Hart since 1945. If your family lived on 59th between 3rd and 7th Aves, that is in Sunset Park.

Thanks for your comment, Frank. What part of Brooklyn were they from?

The dreaded SantaCon is in full swing. The only thing more annoying than a mob of drunk Quaids, Montagues, Cankleens and Stephonicas ruining your recreational drinking activities at your local gin mill is a mob of drunk Quaids, Montagues, Cankleens and Stephonicas ruining your recreational drinking activities at your local gin mill dressed as Santa and his elves. Season's beatings are definitely in order. Now, where did I put that baseball bat? Booze-fueled SantaCon has come to (Mid)town as revelers defend the dreaded annual event