Same sarcasm, different target.
I like to read the questions and answers on Yahoo! and elsewhere on the internet. It is all I can do to restrain myself from giving sarcastic answers like I would do if I were Dear Abby. The only thing stopping me is you have to sign up to comment. Screw that.
I don't know what answers the experts gave to the following questions. Doesn't matter. Only my personal sarcasm really matters.
How many Rocket Scientists does it take to paint a house? A thousand. One to hold the paint brush and 999 to turn the house. Bwahahahahahah!
Just kidding. Now where was I?
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(Note: the following were actual questions by people who, presumably, had driver's licenses.)
1. "What does it mean when the battery indicator light illuminates?"
Professor Max: It is just a reminder to stop and pick up bread on your way home. Be sure and turn your car off while you are in the store.
2. "Can my engine overheat by switching to synthetic oil?"
Professor Max: Why the hell do you want your engine to overheat?
3. "Where can I find a scribe tool?"
Professor Max: You mean a scribe who is a tool? Say, keep up with the dumb questions and you will be pulling one out of your nose.
4. "Is the A/C covered under my powertrain warranty?"
Professor Max: Is your air conditioner part of your powertrain? Yes, both your A/C and your cigarette lighter are covered under your powertrain warranty. Tell them Max said so.
5. "How much air pressure is right for a minivan?"
Professor Max: It depends. Are you going to use the van for deep-sea diving? Do you want your ears to bleed? If you mean tires, then the pressure should be around 300 PSI. Be sure to put your face really close to the tire as you put the air in.
6. "I took my 2002 Mercedes to a back alley mechanic and he put the same water pump on and didn't change the transmission fluid. Do you think I can get my money back? (I didn't get a receipt.)"
Professor Max: Soitenly. Send me $100 and I will take care of the problem for you.
7. "My serpentine belt was screeching and sliding around..." "I gave him a Playstation 2 and an X-Box and he knocked $100 off the water pump he didn't replace." "I need some advice..." "Bottom line, am I screwed?"
Professor Max: You're the same dumbass with the Mercedes, right? No, everything will be just fine. Send me another $100 and I will handle this for you as well.
8. "Gasoline is slowly dripping from the tank. Will it last the weekend?"
Professor max: Is this that Mercedes guy again? It will last until about 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday. But you must drive continuously between now and then. You can stop the leak by pouring ten pounds of sugar into the gas tank, in case you didn't know that.
9. "How do you take out the distributor on a 1990 Ford F-150? Do you just pull it straight up or what?"
Professor Max: Not to be patronizing, but if you have to ask how to take out a distributor, you shouldn't be taking out a distributor. Sigh. Yes, just pull it straight up. Be sure to remove the retaining bolt first, though, or lifting it straight up could be more difficult than you think. Good luck on getting your truck started again after you put it back in.
10. "When should I replace my Nissan Sentra timing chain?"
Professor Max: You mean what time of day? Actually, since this Nissan uses a timing belt... ah, never mind. Generally you begin by removing the headlight on the driver's side. Then you drain the gas tank. Do you have a cell phone? Good. Call the Nissan dealership and have them come pick up your car and fix it for you.
Dear Professor max,
ReplyDeleteyou know so much about German engineering, can I bring my car to you to be fixed? (It's a Lexus)
I see you found the automotive section. Wikipedia has one of these Question sections, too.
ReplyDelete(For the record, a single rocket scientist can paint a house, but it's much easier if her husband is helping. And she has a power roller. So says the voice of experience.)
I used to answer things over at Yahoo but you will not be surprised to learn that it got tiresome after awhile.
ReplyDeleteGood ones...
ReplyDeleteDear Mistress Debbie:
ReplyDeleteOf course I can fix you Lexus. I will be right over. You can trust me. I will have it back to you tomorrow. Heck, I'll even pretend it's a German car.
Hmmmmmm. I thought all you were allowed to drive were kayaks and golf carts. Here's hoping you don't see any oil on your beaches. :(
Dear Lady Rocket Scientist:
Wikipedia has a stupid questions section? Off I go! They had better be satirizable. I don't want any of them metric ones.
Sooooo.... how many liters of paint does it take to cover, say 100 square meters of clapboard these days?
Don't tell me you are that Mercedes owner that traded a Playstation to buy back her own waterpump. I knew it!
Lidian. Lidian? I used to know a Lidian. Hurrican Lidian. Used to live in Brooklyn but ran off to Canada all starry-eyed. You would have liked her. :)
She wouldn't have put up with Yahoo! questioners though.
Dear Sarge:
Please try to keep your comments brief in the future, if you can. :)
You like this stuff? The internet is full of these questions. I only use the more intelligent ones. Heh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk
ReplyDeleteClapboard? I'm not in the movies, you know. Besides, I painted the inside and, unfortunately, all the paint available came in gallons. It's because I hate converting that I'm so very fond of metric. Since YOU like English/standard/US units, feel free to do the conversion yourself (if you can figure out which of the eight or so gallon measurements we're talking about).
ReplyDelete"For the record, a single rocket scientist can paint a house, but it's much easier if her husband is helping. And she has a power roller. So says the voice of experience."
ReplyDeleteBut if she was a SINGLE rocket scientist she would not have a husband, would she? And there was a power-roller rolling our new car-park last week, it seemed quite good at crunching the surface down flat, but unless you can change the rollers for less shiny ones, I cant imagine it being much good at painting. Oh. and it weighs three tons.
What does it mean when the battery indicator light illuminates, it means there's still enough power in the battery to light that bulb. for a while.
ReplyDeleteSynthetic Oil? must be an old question. Oil is freely available these days, the real stuff, not fake, you can just scoop it out of the sea. Use the real stuff.
Owning a vehicle does not mean one necessarily is permitted to drive it. Just imagine, Driving Ms. Debbie.
ReplyDeleteI guess the kayak is German engineered as well, after all, that I can steer on my own. So far, our beaches are safe....
Ever since the "incident" with Beer Cart Girl, I am only permitted to ride in the golf carts....
Not in the movie business? Well, Stephanie B., it's a good thing I am not so sarcastic as this post makes me out to be or I would probably say something like you are not in the dictionary or vocabulary business, either. But I am not REALLY sarcastic, so I won't say that. I WILL hint that it is pronounced clabberd and not clap board, and that you would do well to stay away from Google and look to Webster if the thing in question is a word. Anyway, clapboard siding is as old as construction is old, and needs to be painted. Thank you for pointing me to Wikipedia's questions, but the people there are too intelligent for me. I need to stick to automotive and home appliance repair questions from people who are unemployed and desperately seek advice on the internet
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience, though probably not scientifically verifiable, I have seen only one kind of gallon (not 8 kinds of gallons) used in the U.S. where I live - the one that elitist metric proponents sneer at.
Soon it will be time to harvest apples and berries and I am dusting off my bushels and pecks for the task. Just to remind you, a dry pint is 1/64 bushel and a dry quart is 1/32 of a bushel (obviously) or 1/8 peck, as it were. The fact that a bushel is equal to .035240 cubic meters should be enough evidence for anyone in their right mind to prove that the metric system is worthless. Did you know that the original metric measurement unit for bushel was the stere? Bet you didn't.
This is even more fun than politics. We are so unevenly matched. :)
@Soubriquet - Power roller? A new word for me. I already knew car park. (I was going to ask you if you have a special park for new cars, but you are much to fast on the hypen draw for me.)
ReplyDeleteOk, I get that those comments were for Stephanie.
Debbie. The Beer Cart Girl Incident? Don't tell me. At any rate they are wise not to let you drive a car or cart. You may ride in both and drive the ball. Wine and kayaks don't mix either. Just saying.
ReplyDelete@Stephanie Barr - Ok, I'm going to give you credit for humor about the movie comment and take back my non sarcastic response. Taking back the unevenly matched crack too.
ReplyDeleteGood. I got "clapboard" from Webster. Around here, we only use hardiboard because of the extreme humidity.
ReplyDeleteYour logic is skewed on the metric vs. nonmetric. That's like scoffing at nonmetric because a cubic meter is 28.377 bushels (US, dry).
But, a liter is .001 cubic meter whereas, as you said, a pint is .015625 bushels (which kind of makes MY point for me).
Converting between metric/nonmetric is a pain. Converting within metric is a dream. Converting within nonmetric, yet, back to pain.
You were right about the uneven match, though.
And I'd never heard of the stere.
Oh, and you mentioned there was more than one version of gallon yourself, or didn't you think there'd be a dry gallon to go with the dry pint.
ReplyDeleteKnow what the difference is between a dry and liquid gallon (without looking?).
I happen to know the difference between a wet and dry liter, also without looking.
Well, hello again Stephanie.
ReplyDelete1. I'm glad you have a Webster's. I'm pretty sure the movie thing wasn't at the top of the definition list. However, it IS on the first page of Google though, so I assumed... :) But you can pretend you have a dictionary that lists the movie scene board first. Be my guest.
2. Yes, the James Hardie company makes fine synthetic clapboard which stands up well even in the Jungle climate of east Texas. But even THEY brag about how easy it is to paint if you are so inclined. I like their tile underlayment.
3. My logic pf measurements is no more skewed than yours (though I admit I gave the stupid example on purpose) because the metric system is not the world's legal system which only morons wouldn't use. It is for inflexible ultra-conservatives who smugly think life consists of being able to multiply and divide in one's head easily. I prefer individuality rather than being a cookie cutter surrounded by a large support group. I SORT of know what a meter and a liter is, and can even roughly visualize them because that's what grocery stores and track meets now force me to consider. But not much further than that, thank you. Please feel free to use the metric system twice as much as usual in order to make up for me not using it at all. How odd it was to hear ( I recently heard or read it somewhere) the scientific world of space exploration still talking about payloads in terms of tons, eh? An embarrassing pity, and I sympathize, although I'm pretty sure you will try to say it is metric tons they are speaking of. Converting within the non-metric U.S. system, by the way, is only a "pain" if you are not familiar with the measurements or if one has been hampered by using the foreign metric system all one's life.
3a. I had never heard of the stere either until I was trying to find out how to convert a bushel into cubic meters. :)
4. Yes, I think I know the difference between liquid measure and dry measure, even without looking, although I didn't see your comment fast enough to prove I didn't look. Liquid is for..well... liguid, and dry is for agricultural products mostly, right? And because of the settling, they have come up with a weight equivalent of a bushel (which I have no clue what it is) and is probably why my box of cornflakes is only half full when I open it. Now, you DO understand (surely) that there is a difference between a (dry) new bushel by volume when first filled, and one that is either heaped or struck. Again, these are reasons why a weight equivalent was invented and standardized (though not measured in kg in the U.S.)
I'm not so sure about the dry gallon you mention since 4 dry quarts is intruding on the peck arena, but I will take your word for it. That's a far cry from the eight varieties of gallon you unscientifically referenced in your verbal boilover.
It's interesting to me that both you & Cardiogirl are a) reading the help section of a website (different ones, though) and 2) have considered answering in a totally unhelpful way.
ReplyDeleteYou two need to get a puppy. Or something that will make you less bored. :-)