Pusher Robot No Longer Moves Air

Part 2 of the Shover Robot Saga

After many calls to my father-in-law, I am now a certified Master Electrician. I’m also a certified Master Air Conditioner Repair technician. Siege is now also certified in these departments. So when I left you at the end of the last column, my air conditioner was not turning on and my microwave was out. It works fine, it just has that extra feature now that my red-haired wife found to be pretty shocking. Our new status here is this: my microwave is still out, my water heater is out, but my air conditioner is blowing cold mountain air, fresh from the Rockies.

I won’t go into details about how we got to that status, but – wait. Who am I kidding? Of course I will. That’s what I do here. I called an air conditioner company here in SpaceTown, and the dude told me I had either blown a fuse or a transformer on the air handler. I know how much a fuse is. But how much does a transformer cost? And I don’t mean one of the gay autobot types, but rather a Decepticon, like Megatron, Shockwave or Thundercracker. “Well we charge about 200 bucks for it.” Whew! You guys are proud of them puppies! I wasn’t happy about that, but I was determined to find out what was wrong myself. And not pay someone else to come out here and fix this shit for me. I like to be handy, you know. Just ask my red-haired wife how handy I get under the covers. :perv: Oh wait. That’s handsy

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Shover Robot No Longer Cooks Bacon

It’s funny how you never realize how much you count on your electric appliances until one finally comes alive, says, “PAK CHOOIE” and pushes your grandma down the stairs to protect her from the Terrible Secret of Space. Allow me to explain.

Saturday, 26 June 2010

Step, my red-haired wife, had decided that she needed to clean out the microwave oven, which is I guess what red-haired wives all over the world do. I don’t ever really pay much attention to it, so long as it reheats my bacon and my bacon-bacon burgers. Though lately it has begun to take on some of the physical properties of a cave, what with the brown rock stalactites that cling to its ceiling, and the rocky crevasses and stalagmites all over the walls and floor. The plates still fit in there, though they sort of sat at an awkward angle on the rocky surface… But I digress.

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Truth in Advertising

I’d like to talk with you about radio commercials. Well, I don’t really want to, but rather, I think we need to talk about it. Specifically, I think a message needs to be sent out to these radio advertisers. And the message doesn’t need to be long or complex, or deep. I just want to say a couple of words. Namely, “I don’t give a flying AIDS-infested skunk’s ass what your damn name is!”

Wow, it feels really good to get that off my chest.

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A New Forum for Old Taste

I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to the links over there on the right side of your screen. The little orange ones in the box titled ‘Navigate’. If you haven’t noticed, there are two new links there. Stories takes you to the short stories page, which is something I will be concentrating on pretty heavily over the next few weeks. And Forums is a brand new project. I opened up the SpaceBrew forums so people have a — well, a forum in which they can rant, rave or just read. When the comments section of a column isn’t enough, go open a new thread in the forums.

There are two categories right now on the board; one is the Discussion area, and the other is tentatively titled Media. I may or may not keep that one in place. But for now, it’s there. Inside the Discussion, there are three forums. Your Dose of Humanity is the main one. This is a place where you can post a new topic about anything you want, and get your own responses and interaction going. It’s pretty much an open forum to post whatever topics you want. The SpaceBrew Review is a home for site discussion. If you have something to say about a column someone wrote, or about the technical and design aspects of the main website, this is where you post. The third is Your Chance To Shine, which is a place for those who would like to try their hand at writing.

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Team-Building Events That Work

The other night, while sitting outside with Siege, our discussion rounded upon the topic of women at work. We work with some cute women. Don’t know how many of them are “chicks” by Haycomet’s definition, but there are probably eleven women to every one man in our building. I’d say that’s pretty good odds if you’re single. Which he is. Ahem, ladies. So anyway, I came up with what I think is an excellent idea to break the ice a little and get things moving if you’re wanting to meet some people and find out more about them.

This also applies to building that “team feeling” you get at one of them really good jobs. A lot of companies out there are really suffering in the trust and teamwork departments. Now don’t go looking for the “teamwork department”. It’s just a phrase, dude. But if you work in one of these unfortunate places where the sexual tension is just through the roof and the executives oppress your right to free love in the bathroom stalls and network closets, you should definitely read on.

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A Newfound Fear of the Wind

Once upon a time, I stumbled upon an opportunity that put me within reach of complete and utter insanity. The promise of excitement and adventure also lurked quietly nearby, but when you start adding and multiplying fear with terror and a little bit of horror, the insanity looms much larger. And that's ultimately what I only just avoided, while merrily breezing through the adventure. For I had found a cave. And I'm not talking about the Carlsbad Caverns. That shit is artificial and bi-curious at best. I mean, really? Hand rails? Yeah so what for tourists; I think they should have to crawl and climb through there like Harvey Carlsbad when he discovered the damn thing. There are lights drilled into the ceiling for Elephant's sake. No, I'm talking about the cave in West Texas where we found the skulls. Oh, I haven't told you about that? Well allow me…

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The Beer CANundrum

My friends and I have this hobby we like to refer to as “Sitting Out On The Patio Drinking Beer”, which involves sitting out on the patio, drinking beer. We do this quite frequently. And we, being men who drink beer frequently, can drink a lot. So that you’ll know what a lot is, let me tell you what a lot is. When Siege shows up with a 30-pack, he sets it next to the 30-pack Two-Step brought home when she went by the Target’s earlier. So we have sixty beers in the SpaceFridge, which is a pretty good amount. Between the four of us – that’s Two-Step, Stout, Siege and me – that’s about fifteen beers apiece. I’m not saying we drink all sixty in one night. But I’m also not saying we don’t.

See, sometimes, Haycomet and Byron, Fletcher and Julie, Rines and TL, Bill and Amanda – sometimes they come by too. And sometimes they all come over. Sometimes Captain McRight will even come by. What I’m getting at here is that when that many people come over, sixty beers split twelve ways suddenly isn’t that much beer. We’re talking somewhere around five apiece. You know what that means? It means someone’s making a beer run. We’ve been known to drink as many as two 30-packs and a case in one night between our group. On a typical weekend, we go through an average of around 130 beers or so. That’s a lot of damn beer.

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No More Nuts On My Elbows

Well I hope you all enjoyed the last two days, with our two newest writers. What a delightful treat, yeah? Now if we can get them to keep writing, that will be the trick. But you know what encourages them? What motivates them? Responses. Keep posting your comments and letting us know how we’re doing here. I know, I know, Siege ranted about a traffic incident. It’s long been an unspoken law around here that we don’t talk about traffic. But I quite like his perspective on it, not actually coming out and calling the guy a douchebag, but rather implying he is one by saying his helicopter is in the shop. I see those every morning. And they’re usually driving H2s or H3s. Yeah, I said it. You drive a Hummer, you’re a douche. Simple math.

Stout and I were talking last night about the haircut, and how it costs so much damn money. You know, the price of the haircut is going up every year. And I should know, because I only get mine cut twice a year. I despise going to the barber shop. Again, I don’t mind a male barber, or necessarily prefer a female barber… It all comes down to the one question you face when you’re about to have to choose though: “Do I want nuts on the elbow, or boobs on the shoulder?” And of course, at that point, I always have to swing toward the she-barber’s chair. But the nuts on the elbow isn’t why I hate getting my hair cut. I think it’s the act of sitting there for fifteen minutes, paying fifteen dollars for a shitty haircut that I could have done myself, better. Seriously. No, really. I really do cut my own hair most of the time. I don’t do a great job on the fade in the back, but the top part with the scissors? Man I got that shit down.

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Techmophobia

Have you ever had to provide technical support to anyone? Namely someone in their 40s or 50s? Well, if you have, you have probably noticed they had what I like to refer to as ‘Technophobia’. The root word of that is ‘tech’, which comes from the Latin word ‘teach’, which means to show someone how to do something. The ‘phobia’ part comes from the ancient Korean word ‘phear’ which means you’re afraid of something. So basically they’re afraid to teach something. Wait. I messed that up. You know what? Forget it.

What I’m saying is that most 40- and 50-year-olds are “afraid” of “techmology”. And I don’t mean they think the computer is going to wake up at night, start saying “PAK CHOOIE” and push grandma down the stairs. What they’re afraid of is that they will mess something up if they even dare click the Tools menu with the mouse button. And what this results in is technical support calls, wherein I am called upon to perform a rudimentary service on a machine to which I have no physical access. Usually when I’m sitting on a beach with a can of Corona in my hand and several pretty ladies dancing in their bikinis (or out of them) for me. Or when I’m on the back patio with a can of Bart’s Backyard Brew in my hand with my wife and all her hot friends dancing for me in their bikinis.

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Malt Liquor for my Truckers

I never told you about the time I was coming back from Abilene and a truck driver road my ass, did I? It was late at night, I was heading to Dallas and it was dark. Mainly because it was late at night. But it was also raining. And I was driving a shitty little four-cylinder Chevy Cavalier. And I had a truck driver riding my ass. So I will tell you all about it now.

He was riding my ass, kind of like someone would ‘ride your ass’ if you were giving them a piggy-back ride. Basically, this big ass semi was drafting off me. I don’t remember what had set him off, if anything, but something made him decide he was too cool for school, and he owned the road. And for some reason, he got on my ass. I think he was just screwing with the small car on the highway, because there was no other traffic that late at night. Maybe he was looking for something to do to keep him awake between jerking off in his sleeper at truck stops.

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