Category: Fourre-tout

I started driving a car when I was 18 (that’s a long, long time ago) and I have more miles under my belt than I care to remember, but operating a modern vehicle today is a quantum leap forward for many middle-aged drivers.

Modern hybrid vehicles are totally computerized and handling one of them is almost like flying a UFO. You cannot simply lodge yourself in the driver seat and turn on the ignition key.
First of all, modern cars don’t have ignition keys. It is too “passé”. They have a power button and when you push it the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree.
And your heart goes pitapat, pitapat.

It is like an electronic version of Jeeves awaiting your commands.

Modern cars are loaded with Star Wars’ features and it could take you more than a month to become thoroughly familiar with all of them.
It is also a dangerous period, because (like a teenager) you might be tempted to experiment with any of those features while driving and lose control of the chariot.

Fortunately most of these cars are equipped with Forward collision warning with auto-braking (a life-saving feature) and with a little luck, it will stop by itself before hitting anything.

Most of the modern cars sport the following features:

• Navigation system
• Forward collision warning with auto-braking
• Lane departure warning
• Blind spot warning
• Adaptive headlights
• Automatic high beams
• Adaptive cruise control
• Voice controls
• Back-up sensors
• Back-up cameras
• Tire pressure monitoring system
• Electronic stability control

You are sadly deluding yourself if you think that you can go to a dealer to just “kick the tires” of a new vehicle.
The minute you put your derrière in the driver seat, and especially when the dealer says nonchalantly “take it out for a spin, I have some paperwork to do” you are hooked! Regardless of what you promised your wife, your priest or your parole officer.
Holy mackerel! This chick magnet is too much! All these buttons…
Where is the missile launcher button?

P.G. Wodehouse wrote (I penned the first sentence):

After driving a new car and going back to your clunker, “You experience the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.”

Before you know it, forswearing anything you ever said, you are signing a bunch of papers, shaking hands with your new BFF and transferring all your belongings from your old car to your new Star Wars ship.

No matter how hard you tried, you were a goner you the minute you stepped into the showroom.
Don’t feel bad. The seductiveness of a modern car is more powerful than the sex appeal of Alexandra Daddario and Marilyn Monroe combined, and I promise you that you will remain on Cloud 9 for at least 3 months.

Ignition, get set, Shazam!

Alain

S for the Wisdom of Solomon
H for the Strength of Hercules
A for the Stamina of Atlas
Z for the Power of Zeus
A for the Courage of Achilles
M for the Speed of Mercury

Don’t get me wrong, I like kids, but standard issue, ordinary, normal kids.

I don’t like smart aleck kids!
They grow up to be smart aleck adults (like the Bieber and Cyrus freaks) with an inflated ego and a phenomenal annoyance factor.

Smart aleck kids are worse than smart alecks adult because they are supposed to be cute. But cute they are not. Annoying yes, but not cute.

And yet, you see the little buggers all over television land and every kid aspires to be like them. And they are getting younger and younger.
A few years ago a smart aleck kid was a pre-teenager. Today we have smart aleck babies.
This is becoming ridiculous. It’s got to stop!

It’s got to stop because it is not funny and it is perpetuating a myth.
Smart aleck kids don’t exist! They are just a Hollywood fabrication, and deprived of a script, they are nothing more than midgets with half the brain and the thinking power of an adult.
All this non-sense is harmful, because after a while, the kids start to believe their scripts and think that they can outsmart people with a fully developed brain.

Only in totalitarian countries and in the animal world are smart-aleck kids treated with common sense.
In totalitarian countries, when they misbehave they are sent to “re-education” camps to cure them from their delusions. If this does not work, they are shot with anti-aircraft guns.

And don’t believe for a minute that an adult lion would take a lip from a smart aleck cub. A good roar and a smack across the face will quickly show the kid who is boss.

So once and for all, let’s shun all the SAKs wherever they are. Nefarious myths have got to be fought and destroyed. For those who still doubt, juvenile detention centers are full of smart-aleck kids who refused to believe that they not any smarter than adult people.

Smart aleck kids grow up with a sense of entitlement.
But the world is full of failed children actors who could not make it in an adult world.

So, if you are burdened by a smart-aleck kid, there are plenty of detox centers that (for a small rather large fee) will be glad to straighten out your brat.
It is well worth the investment.

I am pretty sure that the present Republican standard bearer was a smart-aleck kid. Now as a smart-aleck adult he is an embarrassment to the United States.

Is that what you want for your own whippersnapper?

Alain

What is worse than a smart-aleck kid? A dumb kid with a smart phone.

My beloved TV set had a stroke. The sudden attack left it half paralyzed: the sound is still there but the image is gone.
I immediately called emergency and a TV clinician showed up equipped with a black bag, a defibrillator and a thick foreign accent.

After charging me $135.00 for a house call, he told me that my telly needed an organ transplant. A transplant?
Is this operation necessary doctor?
Yes it is.
Will the patient recover all its faculties?
Maybe…
Hum… How long will it take?
Just a few days.
All right, let’s do it.

The good doctor then grab my set and absconded.

Two weeks later, my boob tube is still waiting for its transplant.
I am starting to experience BTWS (Boob Tube Withdrawal Symptoms.)
As you probably have heard, any kind of addiction is difficult to shake.
Right now, I am experiencing difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss, anxiety, irritability, disturbed sleep, muscle pain, stiffness and Irregular heart rate.
Not a pleasant state of affairs.

In desperation I started looking for a replacement set. Not an easy task. I counted at least a dozen of different brands (practically none American) and an equal number of different sizes on the market.

All merchants claim that their contraptions are the greatest.
But you know this is not so.
Again what differences the men from the boys is the price of their toys.
If you want a decent machine you will need to shell out the big bucks.

It is also increasingly difficult to find medium size (40-43”) sets. All the merchants are advertising jumbo sets. It is easy to understand why. A large set (starting at 60”) costs about three times the price of a smaller set.
But a big set requires a large area and my bedroom (although grandiose) is not Albert Hall.

I finally located what I thought was a decent 43” set. I summoned Amazon and two days later the contraption arrived.
I set it up and pushed the power switch.
Big disappointment. Instead of he vivid tones that I expected, I was presented with sickly, washed out colors. Obviously, I did not dish out enough coins for my toy.

I sent it immediately back to Amazon (at a personal cost of $65.00).

Called the TV witch doctor again. He is still waiting for a part. Jeez… aren’t there enough donors out there?

I cannot live 2 weeks without watching the news. It is election time for chrissake!
I need to know on a daily hourly basis what the Republican Mundunugu is concocting and what can be done to save the Republic.

I reordered another set. Bigger, more expensive.
It arrived a few days later. Setting it up was a cinch. The resolution and the colors are splendid.

I don’t have any reasons to beat my wife anymore. Life is good.

Alain

“I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar.”