Random thought thread!

Harpoon Man skit from SNL a while back

To all alleged chefs:

Zoodles are not now, nor will they ever be, a thing. Spiralizing a zucchini into a soggy pile of green snot, is not a pasta. It does not replace pasta. It isnā€™t even on the same planet as pasta. Please stop it.

+1 like.

The White Whale approaches Ahabā€™s boat.

                AHAB

Roll, thou sexy whale
To the last, I playfully grapple with thee
From lustā€™s loins, I stab at thee
For loveā€™s sake, I blow my last kiss at thee

AHAB is drug under the waves, atop The Whale.

His last shout, ā€œFree Willy!ā€

This isnā€™t the tale I was looking for.

The person that invents a drug that stops spicy food from burning on the way out will become wealthy.

I have never had that problem.

There was that one time I was eating an habenero and my stomach was all, ā€œWTF are you doing? This is poison. Itā€™s coming back up.ā€ That was fun.

Havenā€™t had that, but did have a decent experience with aā€¦ textured burp. Involving my sinuses.

That was miserable for about 10 minutes.

Ghirardelli Sea Salt Caramel Dark Chocolate Squares. Not Jacques Torres by any means. But otherwise damn good chocolates.

Heard ā€œSmells Like Teen Spiritā€ on my local oldies channel last night. That wasnā€™t good for my general mental well-being.

Found a combination of words I had never considered before, and not a good combination to come across. Thereā€™s a crime called ā€œchild bigamy.ā€

A self-styled prophet accused of secretly marrying young girls because of his beliefs in polygamy and doomsday pleaded guilty in Utah Wednesday to child rape and abuse charges filed after police raided the groupā€™s remote desert compoundā€¦

Shaffer, 34, also faces child bigamy, child kidnapping and other charges in Sanpete County, where prosecutors say the men conducted secret marriages they thought were ordained by God before decamping to the compound. His attorney Troy Sundquist did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/self-styled-prophet-pleads-guilty-to-child-rape-in-utah/article_b99fa3ba-8447-543b-ae42-175d5f2da033.html

If you average out what I spend on keeping my Mini on the road, I could probably afford a car payment on a new one. In todayā€™s car repairs to come, Iā€™ll probably have to replace the hatch seal very soon, and the crankshaft pulley may be starting to go, based on the smell I get sometimes.

Ugh, yeah, my 9-year-old Dodge Journey is reaching that special time in a carā€™s life when I get to do math of ā€œupkeep vs new car payment.ā€ For the second time in four years, the front rotors are warped, which I guess caused uneven wear on the tires, which means one of my relatively new tires was down to bare metal on the inside track while looking fine on the outside. . . Scuttlebutt on the internet says this model-year is just vulnerable to that happening, but weā€™re gonna try some newfangled fancy brakepads that supposedly produce way less friction so maybe the rotors donā€™t overheat and warp anymore. ā€¦

Damn I wish I knew what the fuck half of what I just wrote meant, cuz itā€™s gonna cost me close to a grand this month -.-

I feel you. The Miniā€™s getting close to clutch replacement, too, most likely, and I canā€™t even DIY that one. The instructions start, ā€œRemove the exhaust system, then disconnect the CV joints, then remove the transmission, then you can actually start on the job you came to do.ā€ Without a lift, which is a little out of my price range, Iā€™m not really equipped to do that. Meanwhile, my wifeā€™s Honda Fit has needed zero work besides oil changes for the past forty thousand miles.

On the plus side, now that weā€™ve paid for all the repairs we needed to do on the house we just bought, our contigency fund is now free to be eaten up by expensive German car parts again.

Canā€™t you just have a strong child hold your Mini up while you do the repairs?

I donā€™t have any yet, and I donā€™t know the neighborhood kids well enough to ask, but otherwise thatā€™s a good plan.

". . . I see these boys with their old cars jerked up
on a pulley out under a tree somewhere.
I see the cars looking like monster-beasts
that have their boysā€™ heads bit off
and half of their bodies already eaten up.
I see them lying flat on their backs
with their heads up under cars,
nothing but their feet a-sticking out,
their hands mucking around in grease and gears.
And I think, buddy, thatā€™s how Americaā€™s got you,
thatā€™s just the view you have of this country.
Youā€™ve had your head eat off,
or else youā€™re flat on your back
looking up into the guts and gears of America,
up to your elbows in her moving parts,
flat on your back, always looking up.

And I think to myself
Iā€™d like to open your heads
just like you raise the hood or go into a gearbox.
Iā€™d like to re-wire your heads
and gap your spark plugs and re-set your timing.

Because you can get off your back
you can have a new view
you can get behind the wheel of America.
You can sit in the smooth upholstered seats of power
and listen to the music playing. "

ā€“From Jim Wayne Millerā€™s ā€œThe Brier Sermonā€
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/266723/pdf

A grand?? Sheesh. Thatā€™s a lot for what you described. ELI5 stuff below, so please donā€™t take it wrong, Iā€™m just trying to cover all my bases.

ā€œThe front rotors are warped.ā€
Your brake system consists of simple ideas. A rotor (large metal disk) is attached to your wheel such that when the wheel turns the rotor turns with it. It is fixed there, it doesnā€™t spin independently of the wheel at all. A caliper (a thing that squeezes) is affixed to the vehicle (i.e. it doesnā€™t rotate with the wheel) which has brake pads (sections of metal/other stuff) and it clamps down on that spinning rotor, slowing the tires rotation via friction. The brake pads are there so the caliper doesnā€™t wear down, the brake pads will. Also this way you can pick materials which work really well for slowing and heat dissipation etc and not worry about the materials of the more complicated caliper. Hydraulics (pressurized liquid in tubes) provide the clamping force.

i.e. Not magic.

So the two things rubbing on each other are the rotor and the pads, and these two things can wear down. But car manufacturers are smart enough that the pad material is much softer than the rotor material, so typically only the pad will wear, the rotor can last and last and last. Pads are cheap, $25-40 for a set for two wheels isnā€™t uncommon, here are ones for your car if the amazon search worked correctly:
https://smile.amazon.com/ACDelco-14D1273CH-Advantage-Ceramic-Hardware/dp/B004J6MDCE/

Hereā€™s a rotor for your car, itā€™s also not that expensive ($40):
https://smile.amazon.com/Bosch-16011439-QuietCast-Premium-Brake/dp/B00AHIYEP2/

Rotors can wear unevenly for various reasons. When they do, this causes your braking to feel like itā€™s pulsing or in extreme cases ā€œchatteringā€. This is because the rotor starts to look wavy and the pads move up and down on the rotor instead of just sliding along it.

ā€œone of my relatively new tires was down to bare metal on the inside track while looking fine on the outsideā€

Steel belts exist inside the tire so when the rubber wears down thatā€™s what youā€™re left with. Uneven wear is usually caused by a bad alignment. I see some people online complaining about that. That really sucks. Alignment is taking your tires and make sure they point straight forward and are level with the ground. So the whole bottom surface of the tire rolls on the ground and points straight when youā€™re going straight. If your alignment is off then maybe the inside/outside of the tire is doing most of the work against the ground pushing your car along. When this happens tires wear unevenly.

ā€œthe front rotors are warped, which I guess caused uneven wear on the tires,ā€

This comment is why I wrote this post. I can think of zero ways this could be true. It really sounds like the dealer/mechanic wanted to sell you a brake job to go along with your new tire/tires.

Even so!

Brake job including rotors: $400. New Tire: $100. New tire installation: $25. Total: $525.

My thought is youā€™re getting screwed (unless maybe they talked you into 4 new tires and thatā€™s in the cost there).

I am going to read all of that in a sec, because itā€™s valuable to know, but yes, thereā€™s multiple tires in need of replacing. I had two used tires in back that have also worn down. They were still a couple-few hundred miles off from ā€œdire need of replacingā€ but I figured Iā€™d bite the bullet and get it all done at once to save myself another trip to the car place in another month or two. Plus had my annual inspection and an oil change for good measure. Even then itā€™s still ā€œonlyā€ like $900 after taxes but rounding is easy :)