CAR TROUBLES

We have two cars: a minivan and a sedan.
Recently, our minivan started making an odd noise. Sounded like a transmission problem, so we brought into the shop. They said that it was, indeed, a transmission problem and they'd have to practically replace it. It was going to cost $4000. So we have this 6-year-old minivan with 120,000 miles on it. Is it worth replacing or fixing it? We hemmed and hawed for almost a full day and decided to go ahead and fix it. Now, keep in mind, this minivan has been in 5 major accidents in six years. It's hit ambulances, telephone poles, other cars, you name it. It's been rebuilt so many times it's ridiculous.
Several days later, the van's done. We're down $4000, but the van's fixed.

About a week later, my wife woke up sick. I decided to take the day off work and take the kids to school. While the kids were at school, I decided to go into work for an hour or so, just to catch up on some stuff. I took the minivan because I needed to take some equipment home and I needed the room. At about a third of the way to work I felt a bump. I figured I ran over something so I looked in the rearview mirror. There I saw a tan sedan fishtailing all over the highway, swerving from lane to lane. I tried my best to get away from the car, but it slammed into my rear side panel and pushed me into a tailspin across all three lanes of highway traffic. I bounced off the concrete divider and came to rest facing the wrong way on the highway. Luckily, I was now on the shoulder and nobody else hit me. My car had a damaged rear bumper, a huge dent on the side, and the side sliding door couldn't open because of the deformation. One tire was flat and the other one sat on a broken axle. The other car was front-first into the divider, totally smushed. The driver was unharmed as was I. According to a witness and police report, the driver had been driving erratically for several miles. She kept dozing off and she eventually drifted into my lane and tapped me. This woke her up and she freaked out and swerved the car and lost control. So my sick wife had to come get me. Of course, we were now tying up traffic so it took her forever to get there. But she did and we followed the tow truck to the repair shop and then went and picked up a rental car. This all happened on a Friday, so we had to wait over the weekend to find out if the appriaser from the insurance company was going to total the van or not. We spent the weekend shopping for cars, just in case.
Eventually we got the word that the van was not going to be totalled and it would cost $5000 to fix, $500 out of our pocket. My wife had become convinced that the car was cursed. It had now been one major accident every year of its life and it would not die.

We kept calling to check on the van and when it would be done. Things were going slowly at the repair shop because the suppliers kept sending the wrong parts. Then they sent a pair of tires and during the wheel alignment they realized one of the pair was not the correct kind of tire, so they had to remove it and order another one. It was finally done almost a week after they said it would be done. The repair guy told my wife something to the effect of, "I had to say this, but your car is weird. I've never had so many problems with one car before. It's like it's cursed or something." Great.

The day after we got the van back, I was off to work in my car, the sedan. I decided to take the Ocean Parkway. For those who don't know, the Ocean Parkway runs along the bottom of Long Island for something like 20 miles straight with no major exits. It's right by the shore and there's rarely much traffic. As soon as I got on the Parkway, I heard an odd noise and another driver waved to me to pull over. I had a flat tire. No big deal. I can change a flat. I jacked it up, pulled off nut #1, nut #2, nut #3...
And the fourth one was stuck. I kept at and it finally loosened. I was able to turn it easily. But it juts kept turning, never getting closer to coming out. Finally I had to call AAA to come get me. The guy got there, tried the same things I did, and went, "huh, that's weird." Yeah, thanks. Apparently the stud came loose from its moorings and was just spinning, not letting the tire come off. So the repair guy went to his truck, pulled out a 3-foot sledge hammer and commences to whacking on the stud. It finally broke in half and the flat was able to come off. But the other half of the stud was now rattling around inside the brake system. After about another 15 minutes of fiddling with fingers and screwdrivers, he finally got it out and was able to put on the spare tire...which began to hiss. Except then it stopped hissing, and when the repair guy filled it up again, it didn't hiss anymore. Nothing's worse than intermittent problems. But he put the spare on and sent me on my way. I was able to drive to work and drop the car off at the tire place. The tire place called about 4 hours later: "Man, we put this car up and the lift and we're opening up a can of worms on this thing." So the wheel needed to be replaced, the brakes fixed, the stud replaced and I also had a bubble in my brake fluid hose, like an anurysm. So luckily we caught that one before I lost my brakes, huh? What I had originally imagined being an $80 tire replacement turned into an $800 major project and left me car-less for another 48 hours. Luckily I was able to borrow cars from the parents and in-laws. Thanks, guys.

It's now been almost a week and no experts have had to look at either of our cars. I keep calling the insurance company to find out when the other driver's insurance is going to pay for the $500 deductable. They haven't claimed responsibility yet and my insurance company can't get in touch with the other driver. So it looks like they're playing hard to get.

My Dad's one-month-old, new car just broke down a coupla days ago. It's starting to get a little too "The Day the Earth Stood Still" for me, to be honest.

UP
I just saw the latest Pixar masterpiece UP. I was totally ready for it to be mediocre. That is, Pixar Mediocre, which is ten times better than everything else. No, this was a good one and there's nothing like Pixar Good. I can't say it was absolutely perfect, but it was as close as anyone can expect. The 3D was superfluous, but it added a little intensity to the whole height thing.

Without giving anything away, I'll say it was worthy of its PG rating. It was pretty adult, both in action/violence and emotional intensity. I'm not ashamed to say I cried three times.

So go see Up. Take your parents. Take your kids if you think they can handle it. But do yourself a favor and see it. Afer I saw Coraline, I was convinced that it would win best animated feature next Oscar season. Now, I don't believe it will. Coraline was a hugely impressive feat because of its stop-motion technique. It was also a great film. But if you ask me right now, I'll say Up was better.

SPAGHETTIDOGS

My brother sent me a link to some weird Russian site that featured the unholy merging of frankfurters and spaghetti. That link is HERE.

I decided to delve into the world of "spaghettidogs" (my phrase, but feel free to use it). See the results HERE.

NATURE vs MAN X 2

Tonight I discovered, by accident, two amazing new series:

STREET MONKEYS
and
LIFE WITHOUT PEOPLE

Street Monkeys is a reality show on Smithsonian Channel, following two tribes of monkeys, whose habitat is being destroyed and who must learn to live amongst the world of humans. It's so simple and so amazing. Did you know monkeys are really similar to people? Me too, but it's still fascinating.



Life Without People is a TV series version, on the History Channel, of the almost-great book, The World Without Us. Basically it explores what what would happen to all aspects of the world if humans were to simply vanish.


Both great shows so check em out.

WORDS and PICTURES


There are a few simple do's and don'ts when it come's to apostrophe's. If you can't keep them straight, just DON'T USE THEM!!!!! I'd much rather see a missing apostrophe than too many. Just like spiders, we need them around, but we don't need to see them everywhere we look!

We just saw Shrek 2 the other day and at one point there's a sign on the newly married ogres' property that says "CAUTION: OGRE'S." Now, it's hand-painted so maybe the director's thought was that they're just ogres and made the sign themselves and they'd probably misspell it. I can dig it. Well, not really. It bugs the hell out of me.



Also, why do AOL and YAHOO and every other website feel the need to have a "do's and don'ts" headline every other month? You know, like "Spring fashion do's and don'ts." THERE SHOULD NOT BE AN APOSTROPHE IN "DO'S"!!!!! AND YET, EVERY SINGLE PERSON DOES IT! This makes me absolutely mental! I mean, there you are, using an apostrophe to indicate plurality in ONE HALF of the phrase....AND NOT THE OTHER! Why would you not say "Do's and Don't's?" I mean, at least be consistent!

"Well, Rob, you see, the apostrophe is there to indicate that the word is pronounced "dooz" and not "doss", like the old computer operating system. Well to that I say, "screw you." Some words don't look like they sound. Get used to it. Use context and figure it out. The correct spelling is "Dos and Don'ts." And why the hell are you using this god-awful phrase anyway? It's like "Spring has Sprung" or "Me three!" I don't think most people understand those are jokes anymore. Man!
Please see this wonderful blog. It's painful and wonderful all at the same time.


OK, enough hatin'. Here's something I love. It's the new ad for an HBO vampire series called True Blood. I like the show a lot but even if I didn't, I'd groove heavily on this ad:


When I saw it in a magazine this week I saw a blood spatter on a black background. I looked and looked, knowing there was a hidden image in there somewhere, but I couldn't make it out. Finally I saw it and now I can't NOT see it. Very well done in my opinion.

GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT, THROUGH AND THROUGH

It's no secret that I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to the English language. I get really annoyed when people use "good" instead of "well." The word "good" is an adjective, while "well" is an adverb. One does something well. "Well" describes the doing, a verb. A dinner can be good. "Good" describes the dinner, a noun. Although a dinner can be prepared well, the dinner itself is good, unless it is "well-done." A steak may be cooked through or "well-done" and prepared well, but the steak and the dinner themselves may be described as "good." Simple enough, right?

When people misuse words or punctuation in common speaking or casual letter-writing, my ire is minimal. It's when professionals mangle the language (or "manglage") that I get mad enough to tell you people.

Last year we ordered my son a cute bedsheet/pillowcase set from COMPANY KIDS which is owned by THE COMPANY STORE. The sheet's design is a pattern of generic superheroes and comic book sound effects. The package arrived. We unpacked it, washed it and put it in his bed. Only then did we see the problem:
(click to see bigger images)


In two instances they misused the word "threw" instead of the word "through."
I pondered it for a while. We couldn't return it since it was already washed, but even if we did return it, my son had already seen it and enjoyed it. I decided to give it a shot, and tell the company about their defective product. Maybe they'd reimburse me. At the very least I wanted them to pull the item.

So I went on their website and used their online form to send them a question. I told them about the error and asked what could be done about it. I didn't give my name, my order number...nothing. I got a response the next day saying that because my 90 days were up, I couldn't return it.

HUH? It WASN'T 90 days and how would they even know if it was? I didn't give my name or order information. Now I was determined to get some results, now that they'd dismissed me out of hand. I wrote back, giving all my information this time. The next response I got from the company was this:

"Thank you for your inquiry. They are spelled that way because it is a cartoon character and that is the way they are.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? First they blew me off and now they're giving me attitude, like I'M the one in the wrong? We Googled the company to find their head office contact information. We wrote up a letter to their CEO. An excerpt of that letter is below:

This is a product for children. You are a company that caters to children. To say that an obvious misuse of a word is fine because it’s a cartoon character is unacceptable. This is not a playful misspelling or a pun; this is a mistake. The wrong word is used. This isn’t “Sooperman” or “Kid’z Korner.” This is a blatant error.

My son likes the design of this item, and we have explained about the misspellings. However, I feel that this product is defective and I would like a refund, or a credit towards a future purchase. We have always been happy with your products in the past. If I cannot get my money back for this item, I understand. My greater concern is other children getting this set and growing up using the wrong word because they sleep next to a grammatical error that nobody cares enough to fix. I am an educator and I know first-hand that our children are exposed to enough misspellings and bad punctuation by people who don’t know any better, without having The Company Store telling children that it cares so little about them that it would knowingly sell written materials with multiple errors. This item needs to be pulled until you have fixed the problem.

Additionally, in researching your company in an effort to find out to whom to write, I examined your website at http://www.hanoverdirect.com/. Please be aware that on the front page you have a title listing “Our Brand’s”. This, too, is incorrect. Your “brands” are plural, and do not need an apostrophe. You are, however, clearly in need of an editor.



A few weeks after that letter went out we received a phone call from Company Kids thanking us for pointing out the error and apologizing for it. A few weeks after that we received a credit for the sheets. So in the end we got to keep the sheets AND got our money back. If you go to the Company Kids' website the design is still there, however. Apparently you can view the pattern in detail. If you know what to look for, you can see the misspellings are still on the sheets they are selling. So we won the battle but not the war. Not yet, anyway.