Ace-Garageguy

Iron men iron the wrinkles out of their skin.

The smokin' deals just keep on coming. This time it's a random lot of 10 vintage HO scale car kits, built ups, and RTR cars, and a NOS solenoid (over-centering latch) switch machine. The kits include an old (1950s?) Walthers 60 foot wood and metal ATSF RPO, an equally ancient LaBelle Illinois Traction box trailer, a similarly aged Silver Streak 4-wheel "bobber" caboose (wood with a die-cast frame), and a very old (1939) Comet Texas and Pacific outside-braced 40 foot boxcar kit with embossed cardstock sides, which sold new for 39 cents. Naturally the embossed rib and door details on the real old-timer aren't very deep, and overall the car is kinda primitive, but the printing is very crisp, and I fully intend to build it with contemporary high-quality trucks and couplers, wire grabs, separate ladders and roof walk, brake hoses, underbody details, etc. just because I think it'll be cool to have such an old piece (86 years in 2025) in actual use. But the pick of the litter is the built-up (Ulrich kit) all-metal drop-bottom gondola, with sprung trucks and scale dummy couplers, lettered for Great Northern. These are quite rare and normally go for more than I paid for the whole mess. I'm happy.

Ironing your birthday suit can have unpleasant side effects.

Battle beavers can be formidable foes, chewing up their opponents into kindling.

Related a tragic story of injustice and heartbreak he did, had the audience in tears, then jumped up and shouted "April fools!!!"

And BB-guns and go-karts made from old lawnmowers and flying model airplanes with glowplug engines with finger-removing props and string-line race-cars with CO2 cartridges and sleds on long narrow hills with trees and rocks on both sides and flying Estes rockets and vinegar/baking soda rockets and electric trains and cherry bombs and chemistry sets and walking to elementary school alone... Apparently by contemporary "safety" standards, it's a wonder I'm still here and still have any appendages left at all...but there's a whole generation of us.

Misnomer and monomer sound like they might be sister and brother, but they're not even distant cousins.

There don't seem to be any lemming pie recipes on the interwebs.

"Fenders" and "bumpers" are often confused by non-car-people, and their vehicles often show it. (True story)

Like, man...I'm a moron, having gone off on a rant and not even realizing this was the "sentence" game thread.

Is there a postal saint? Might be time to say a few hail-whoevers. EDIT: Yup. St Gabriel. Whoda thunk...

Oh my. My mother always fretted about the intellectual and psychological and physiological effects of gloo and paint. Apparently she was on to something...and it may explain why the girls run screaming whenever I smile at them these days.

Yup...I've encountered that too, and sent one argumentative yoo-toob-certified know-it-all on down the road.

Yup, I've been there and seen that. The two main problems with that as I see it is that YT may show them how to do the one job (I won't deny that I've found valuable tricks on YT), but it almost never imparts baseline knowledge or theory as to WHY and HOW the one-time fix works...and the info is often just flat wrong anyway, so you get guys buggering things just like the YT hacker said to, and now you have an even worse mess to clean up. Another real sad note is that almost nobody coming in to apply for entry-level "technician" jobs even has sufficient reading-comprehension skill to go to a printed manual (we have an extensive print library at the old-car shop) to look up a repair procedure or specification...and they have to be HS grads to apply.

Or "hysteria", in the same time zone as "panic" and "irrational fear".

It depends on what state you live in...

Speaking of junk mail...I wish the funeral home people would quit sending me reminders that it's time to go soon. Don't rush me, fellas. I'll go when I'm da---d well ready, and I sure as h--- won't be patronizing anyone who sent me junk mail. Then again...maybe they know something I don't...

I prefer to look at it as free heating fuel. There's no shortage of ways to chop and compress junk mail and other waste products into fire-logs. Just sayin...

OMG !!! OMG !!! OMG !!! I'm going out the door right now, going to set my hair on fire and run in circles screaming from fear !!!

There could certainly be more rationality in the world, along with logic, common-sense, common-knowledge, and a grasp of how cause-and-effect works.

Subdivision HOA Karens probably wouldn't hold me in very high regard.

Ummmmmm...that's kinda sad. The 1500cc 5-speed Fiat "Bertone" X1/9s with AC had a rather poor Magneti Marelli alternator that was inadequate to operate the AC, the engine fan, the HVAC fan, the lights, and the wipers simultaneously. To make matters worse, in wet weather (when you'd need all those things running), its belt would slip badly because the poorly designed alternator bracket that was part of the dealer-installed AC system didn't provide enough "wrap" around the alternator pulley. The ALT light would be on constantly, and the lights would slowly dim as the battery ran out of juice. My shop was in downtown Atlanta and I lived about 50 miles away on Lake Lanier. I got tired of not knowing if I'd make it with the alternator light on all the way whenever the belt was the least bit damp. I fixed my own car by modifying the bracket to accept a big Mopar alternator that was more than up to the task and cost a fraction of what the Marelli unit went for. I also reworked the belt tensioner to get enough wrap on the alternator pulley so that slippage was a thing of the past. Modifying the wiring to integrate the Mopar alternator was simple, and the problem was solved forever.

Worm casserole might appeal to fish and early birds, but I prefer spaghetti.

"Hard one" is what she said when asked to figure out the square root of zero in her head.

"Device envy" is when you find yourself uncontrollably staring at somebody's $5000 WhizmoThinkamy smartphone, and desperately trying to figure out how you can afford to get one on a $10/hr salary.