Friday, May 07, 2010

Random Thoughts:

  • How do you throw away a trash can?
  • Do you get bonus points if you die without ever reading a Twilight book? How about never seeing a Spiderman movie?
  • Compared to Southerners, Hoosiers do love their car washes, which only stands to reason since they spend half the year spreading schmutz all over their cratered roads on purpose. Brushless car wash technology seems to be slow to spread north of the Ohio, however. This makes convertible owners sad.
  • The Fresh Market has taken to selling all-beef franks the size of a small flashlight. I was a little giddy at the prospect until I realized that there were no correspondingly gigantic buns for sale in the store. This strikes me as something of an oversight.

35 comments:

og said...

I would lose my guy club credentials if I didn't giggle at the "No correspondingly gigantic buns" reference.

Those, by the way, are at KFC, or so has my experience been.

Newbius said...

When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to baseball games at Dodger Stadium or Angel Stadium, depending on ticket availability.

Dodger Dog: A foot-long dog in normal bun.

Angel Dog: A foot-long bun with a normal dog.

I think they split the franchise on foot-longs when the Angels left Los Angeles, and it hasn't been the same since.

wv:"gamin" What I am doing after work

William the Coroner said...

Bake 'em like a man, Tam.

Fred said...

Hey... we've had touchless carwashes up here for years...

Anonymous said...

What the hell is this, wiener day?

Your answer to this one, though: think loaf not bun.

AT

Drang said...

I usually let the wind blow old trash cans away. Sometimes it cheats and only takes the lid, making the can unusable (per local regs--I am also prohibited from tying the lid to the can), and I wind up leaving the can in the front yard, telling it "Fly! Be free!"
As for Twilight books, I hope so. I saw one or two of the Spiderman movies, Mrs. Drang got them through Netflix. I still haven't seen Titanic. Or Saving Private Ryan. (I've described my issues with that elsewhere.)
10 dogs to a pack, 8 buns? Is it a conspiracy?

Unknown said...

1) Recip saw.
2) No.
3) Hand wash, hand wax, or trade it in on a minivan.
4) Hoagie roll.

Anonymous said...

I love car washes almost as much as I love *stands* Peyton Manning. I get choked up when I think about all the filth being washed away from the Shootinmobile that I . . . I'm very emotional right now.

Tam, apparently we need to go to King David's downtown on Pennsylvania:

http://www.kingdaviddogs.com/

I'll call after I get back from the jail.

Shootin' Buddy

Caleb said...

We only spread crap on our roads because God thinks it's funny to cover our roads in ice.

And I just discovered that Newbius and I shared a common childhood love: Dodger games with our dads.

JeanC said...

Yes, yes you do get bonus points for dying without having read any of the Twilight books. In fact, you get triple :D

Silly books, vampires don't sparkle and even if they are a bit angsty, they still like to bite and rip throats out at will. Give me Sookie Stackhouse vampires anytime :D

Joanna said...

I'll call after I get back from the jail.

Is it bad that it took me a second to notice the "the"?

Rob K said...

Brushless washes don't get the salt off as well, I imagine, but we have plenty of them. Most self-serve automatic washes are brushless. You're just in the wrong neighborhood.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Tam, I tried to throw away a trash-can-like laundry basket one time and had the same problem. Had to crush it and stuff it in another trash can before they took it.

Recip saw sounds like another winner.

Tam said...

It's probably just that Mike's has such a deadlock here in the area that they're the only ones I notice. Well, there's another wash joint on Keystone, but it's the same.

I liked the one I used in Knoxville, where they'd run my car through and I could put my feet up and read while Jasper and Jesus got busy with the buffer and vacuum... Well worth the expenditure.

Miguel said...

1- trash can
Bust the bottom leave bottoms up on the curbside. If not picked up, drop in bed of nearest neighbor's pick up truck

2- Twilight book? Spiderman movie?

Yes on the first. Yes on the second but only if you cannot hum the theme from Spiderman. (You are humming it now, ain't you?)

3- car washes.
It rains six months a year in South Florida. We don't wash our vehicles. It pegs you as carpetbagger.

4- all-beef franks the size of a small flashlight.
Hoagie rolls.

LabRat said...

Agree on hoagie rolls or submarine rolls, whatever they're called in your neck of the woods. Bonus if you split 'em, brush both interior sides with butter, and give 'em a quick grill before introducing your frank.

(And this would be why a friend recently observed "You guys eat like depressed cardiologists.")

Brad K. said...

Tam,

Forget the hot dogs.

Did you know you can make four (4) bologna sandwiches with a single loaf of French Bread from Wal-Mart or Food Pyramid? A big squeeze thingy of mustard, a bit of margarine or butter, and !voiler! - four great meals.

Sue me. I like the Wal-Mart brand of peach flavor ice tea mix, too. Without ice. The peach stuff tastes better with tap-temp cool water.

Jay G said...

How do you get rid of a trash can? Tam, I'm surprised you asked.

Why, you bring it to your local FA range and let them blast away! Whatever's left you can usually fit in a baggie...

dave said...

Bust the bottom leave bottoms up on the curbside. If not picked up, drop in bed of nearest neighbor's pick up truck

Don't do this. I hate when people use my truck as their trash receptacle, and I'm armed.

Cybrludite said...

The size of a small flashlight? So about the size of a typical pinkie-finger, then? Or like the keychain squeeze-lights no bigger than the tip of my thumb?

Crotalus (Don't Tread on Me) said...

Throw away a trash can? Put it in a bigger trash can. O.K., I'm kidding. I can see the irony there.

Too late for me. Twilight wit the wife was a command performance, but hell, I like Spiderman.

Not thrilled with touchless car washes. they leave a film of grime that can only be scrubbed off.

Obviously, you don't know how small they can make flashlights now, especially with the new LED technology.

Sorry. Just had to rib you a little. ;o)

caleb said...

Tam, go to Sparkling Image in Castleton (there might be one near the 'Rip). They do the "run your car through while you wait" bit. My wife loves it.

Brad K. said...

Tam,

on the trash can - put a sign on it, "For Sale $3 OBO - ask inside". Then see if someone doesn't walk off with it in a couple of days.

Note, if someone offers more that $0.10 - take the money, or you offend the asker. Be courteous to those that need the most courtesy in their lives.

Kristophr said...

Trashcans:

The last one I threw away I had to stomp flat, fold it once, and shove it into my new trashcan.

Getting a collector to take an intact can, unless you wait there out on the curb for him, is literally impossible.

If you put a note on the can indicating that this is trash, they will grab the note, and throw that away.

Anonymous said...

...And here I was going to do the trashcan bit for ages and never got around to it. Oh well.

Also, I confess to regarding your fourth point a little differently in light of your previous post.

Finally, it isn't the size of the flashlight at all, it is whether or not the batteries won't die halfway through the job.

Hey, you started it. ;)

Jim

Anonymous said...

My foster mother, living in Indianapolis, used to periodically bake up a big batch of cookies--chocolate chip or oatmal raisin--wrap them very nicely with a HUGE label that said "this is not trash" and put it on the trash cans. She NEVER had a problem with the trash haulers hauling away whatever she had dragged to the curb...

Just glad she never really, really got mad at me...

cap'n chumbucket

Anonymous said...

1 Bust the bottom leave bottoms up on the curbside.

2 If not picked up, drop in bed of nearest neighbor's pick up truck"

3 Climb ladder to remove trash can from roof.

Anonymous said...

How do you throw away a trash can?

How much Boomerite can you fit in it?

Sarah said...

Trash cans? Give 'em to the nearest hippie. He'll take anything that's free and find a bizarre, pointless use for it. Five bucks says that he pokes arm holes in your can and wears it as an inflexible, ugly shirt.

Phil said...

Well, if you were in the trash hauling industry you'd know that you need to haul the company or muni that does the collecting and tell them to tell the driver to toss the can into the truck the next time they stop by.

A not so closely guarded industry secret is that most of the drivers get a small amount of pleasure from the crunching noise anyway and are happy to do it.

Oh, and I use hoagie rolls for my quarter pounder Hebrew Nationals.

charles said...

SB,

You are my hero today for that link.

Frank's charges too much for a Chicago dog, but King David looks to be about right.

Will said...

I worked on the back of a trash truck, back when all cans were metal. I was told to never throw away a can, no matter how much daylight was visible through the bottom. The two exceptions were if it no longer was shaped like a can, or was inside another can.

The other rules were: don't bang them around (noise and damage), and don't throw them back to the curb, but to walk them back. Well, actually to run them. Wore out the soles of my new boots in two months. Driver only knew two modes for his right foot: heavy throttle or heavy braking. We bailed off during braking, and sprinted to catch up while he was launching. Truck had a 400ci(?) with a dual feed, double pumper Holley carb, along with a six speed Allison(?) auto trans. Could have used another gear in reverse, though. Trans would have been great for a street rod, as we normally just used the top three gears, even loaded.

That was the best shape I was ever in, after a few months. Got to the point where I would carry three cans to the truck, and dump two at once, one on each shoulder, for the speed. This, while I weighed 115 lbs.
BTW, the reason for speed was that we got paid for a full 8 hours/day, even if it didn't take that long. Some of the houses were only occupied during the summer season, so it might only take three hours or so. This was So NJ, in the winter, right next to the Delaware Bay. As I warmed up, I would toss layers of clothing into the cab, until down to a t-shirt.

Drat! should have stopped after the first paragraph...

Brad K. said...

Tam,

You know, the trash can might make a bit of performance art. Take said relic into the front yard.

If the offending container be plastic in construction, assemble a few edged and related tools - axe, hatchet, machete. And demonstrate "whacking" to the amazement of the neighborhood. When the pieces fit into a replacement receptacle, consider the performance concluded.

Now, a metal can, that can be fun. A few swings with a sledge hammer or crow bar (these can be fun to borrow, if you don't have your own), can seriously begin to reshape most trash cans. Focus on deforming the large, flat surfaces, as they will move more readily than the seams. If necessary, you could even try some of the tried and true trash can deforming exercises - jump on the dang thing. Or get a fairly long board, maybe six to ten feet, and preferably at least as stout as a 2x6 or maybe a landscape timper, and lay the board as if making a dirt bike ramp. Only drive your motorized vehicle onto the board, such that the can becomes less prominent in profile. The board is to get the wheels laying heavy upon the can, without getting the expensive body work of the vehicle in jeopardy of scratches, dings, and dents.

. . or, I suppose you could tie the trash can to the bike, and drag it about 20 feet behind you to discourage tailgaters.

DRB said...

Large meat filling and small bread? A tad Spinal Tap really.

TOTWTYTR said...

I had to hang around the house on trash day, run out when I heard the truck pull up to the house and tell them to take it. Even then the guy asked me if I was sure.