When life gives you lemons…

…smash them lemons, I say! And make iced tea!

My iced tea skills have improved over the years. I abandoned sun tea for fear of bacterial contamination, and traded orange pekoe for black. But fresh lemons instead of bottled lemon juice really seemed to put me in the big leagues.

The question today is: Which lemon abusing tool gets the most from your lemons? The extractor or the reamer? 

Yellow to make you think
lemony thoughts

You’d think the extractor would be better just because of the more technical sounding name:.exTRACTorrrr. But is it? Let’s put them to the test!

I shall juice two lemons with each—1 small, 1 large, as seen at the top of the page—into the measuring cup. That should even out any tiny deviations among the test subjects. Then we shall see which tool yields the most lemon juice.

First, the extractor, which uses a lever action to squash the lemon pulp flat. It is fast-acting and seems to leave nothing behind.   

The pulp remains in the peel and any seeds are generally left in there as well. 

After the large and the small lemons, we have just 

Slightly under a third of a cup. 

Now the reamer. 

This definitely takes more effort, requiring a twist action to get the most out of the fruit. The colander-like basket catches seeds and any large pieces of pulp. But the lemon half does not seem to be as crushed by the reamer as by the extractor. 

To my surprise, however, the reamer is the victor with slightly more than a third of cup of lemon juice produced! 

This may seem unlikely, but the difference can be explained by one small problem with the extractor that I did not take into account -- it has a bad habit of shooting juice out the side when you initially press the lemon. The only way to catch the loose juice is to hold the extractor's head in a bucket, and I'm not making tea or lemonade on an industrial scale. 

On the other hand, the extractor is faster, so if you were to want a lot of juice, that would be the better way to go. Maybe you want to become the next Nedick's or Orange Julius. Just make sure to get a food-grade bucket -- those Home Depot buckets just won't do the trick. 

Heart wrenching.

When my dad died, my mom sent me a heavy box with a selection of his tools. He'd had quite the workbench. At the time I was living in an apartment and I neither needed a lot of tools nor had the place to store them, so I begged her to sell the bunch and not send them all to me. Well, within a few years I became a homeowner and regretted the timing that robbed me of most of my father's collection. 

My dad had some great stuff. 

All his hand tools had been used a lot, and it showed. He could do any kind of work within reason (he did not go too deeply into electrical work because he did not want to die before his time). The tools Mom sent me are more solid and better made (in the God Blessed United States of America!) than many of the tools I've bought since.  

While I was dealing with the sink trauma a couple of weeks ago—still unresolved, because I got busy, and sick—I had a closer look at this wrench. Exhibit A from my dad's collection, if you will. 

This is a pipe wrench, not a monkey wrench, the monkey wrench having a flat top and no teeth, meant to turn lug nuts. Nor is this a Crescent wrench, which has the C shape, its jaws in a direct line from the arm. 

The origin of the term monkey wrench is obscure, although it may have come from a supposed resemblance to a monkey's face. As you can see, this pipe wrench does not look all that monkeyish and is intended for use on small pipes. 

It has a number 8 on the head, signifying that it is an eight-inch wrench (at full head extension) for 1/8- to 3/4-inch pipes. The handle has a loop, indicating that it probably hung on a wall with a line of other pipe wrenches in numerical and size order. I don't recall Dad having the whole set, though, and I certainly have no order to my own tool bench. It's a disaster. 

I have no indication of how old it is, but a closer look shows me where it originated: 

Crescent Tool! So despite not being a Crescent wrench, this is a Crescent company wrench, you see.

The Crescent Tool Company was established in Jamestown in 1907. Jamestown is in Western New York, near the Pennsylvania border, about as far from Rochester as it is from Cleveland or Pittsburgh. Jamestown was the home of a large number of furniture factories, in part because of access to great amounts of furniture-quality wood, and indeed called itself the furniture capital of the world until 1945. It was not well-situated for heavy manufacturing in that era, though. But a thriving tool company? Why not? 

Hey, wouldn't it be cool if the wrench factory was still going after 117 years?

Ha! Ha! Silly human. New York hates things that cause prosperity like icky manufacturing. Western New York is as rust-belty as any Rust Belt state.

Crescent now part of Apex Tool Group, along with SATA, Campbell, Weller, and other tool outfits, and Apex is owned by Bain Capital. You may recall that Bain was the Worst Company in the Universe™ in 2012 when co-founder Mitt "the vulture capitalist” Romney was auditioning for another a job. 

Bain bought Apex in 2013, but the Jamestown Crescent factory shut down before that, in 1984. How do I know the date? Because if you worked there, you might be entitled to compensation! If you put in four weeks on a summer job 40+ years ago and have cancer now, you may be able to help a law firm get money!

Asbestos is not a joking matter -- and yet maybe it's a shame those old Jamestown furniture factories hadn't been built with it. The Jamestown Royal Factory burned in 2021, and the Crawford Furniture Factory burned in 2022. 

So where do they make Crescent products now? Apex uses lots of factories in several countries for its tool lines. I read online that Crescent wrenches have been made in China since 2011, but that report is unconfirmed. Could be Mexico, or Canada, even somewhere else in America—or so Bain hints. Are they just throwing us a sop? 

Oh, who knows. No one ever tells us anything unless they think we'll like it, so hardly any company tells us anything anymore. 

But my dad’s little pipe wrench was made in Jamestown, New York, in the good old USA. I miss my dad, and I miss a lot of things about that America, a place that made things that worked, that made things that lasted.

First time lucky: home repair edition.

It has been my experience as a homeowner that the first time something goes wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it, I do a little research, get the tools and parts, and blam! Fixed. But every subsequent time the exact same situation comes up, something goes horribly wrong. 

I guess the worst case to date was when a valve needed replacing on the water heater. The first time I did the job was on a rainy Sunday afternoon, scared to death that I would blow the house up. Easy Peasy. The second time I did it, the new valve didn't fix the problem, which got worse, and I had to call a plumber. Who did exactly what I did and it worked and has continued to work. 

It doesn't make any sense, but then, beginner's luck never did (except as a means to gull some sucker into losing his paycheck gambling; "You're so lucky! Come on, you got a streak going!"). 

It happened again this past weekend, with a leaking kitchen sink. There's no washer, just this pricey Delta insert, which I procured. Last time, the job was a breeze. This time? Got multiple parts removed only to find that the last piece, the bonnet nut, was completely stuck. Liquid Wrench could loosen it -- maybe. But it was now six o'clock on Sunday evening and dinner had to be cooked, and it was better not to maybe break everything. So, back all the pieces went for now. 

All exploded diagrams look like this to me. 

Not that I'm always first-time lucky. This past winter I noticed that the storm door's latch was not latching adequately when shut. This is a problem because we live on a very windy hill. If the door does not shut properly, it can be blown open and BANG into the light fixture aside it. 

It took me THREE TRIES to get new hardware for the door. I would have replaced the door entirely, but they don't make that model anymore. I was very lucky even to find, on the ground, the sticker with the door's serial number so that I could get the right handle. The sticker had fallen off at some point and it was miracle I found it. So, with all hope gone, I assembled the new hardware, and it fit. But guess what? The latch still doesn't snap shut well. If it's really breezy I have to use the deadbolt. 

My wife says our next place should be in a condo where all repairs are covered by the homeowners' association fees. I think I'd rather live in a zoo at this point. Come see the captive middle-aged man! In a simulated natural environment. And they handle all the food and repairs. Genius! 

A little something for Mom.

Yes, my friends, it is Birthing Persons Day once again, also known to our betters in society as Persons with a Cervix Who Have Employed It in Perpetuating the Species Day. Because the whole world is run by stupid people who are also crazy. 

Nevertheless, you may be at a loss as to what to get that special Birthing Person in your life, be it a female-identifying parent or guardian or a female-identifying spouse. Well, worry no more, because our friends at Lalafanc know just what she wants. 

Actually it's Lalafancy; the dropout white Y is invisible.

The Cleaning Brush Kit for bathrooms is the miracle of Communist Chinese manufacture you might hope -- a scrub brush on a pole. What says "I love you" more than a gift that also says, "Birthing person, I do not want you to have to scrub the tile on your hands and knees ever again! Here, use this!" 

And look at the helpful instructions:

That's literally the extent of it, but it's OK. There's a three-piece pole to put together, and if you can't do that you probably shouldn't be loose around cleaning supplies anyway. 

I HAVE THE POWERRRRR

All right, the truth is, my wife got this for me. One of her favorite influencers online recommended the thing, so here it is. As longtime readers know, the one condition my wife had in our marriage was that I would never ask her to clean the bathroom. She just can't bear the job. I think she had the priest slip something into the vows about it. 

My review of the tool? It's a lot easier on your back than scrubbing the tub by hand. It is not as effective as my favorite method, which is Formula 409 coupled with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but it does the job well enough. Certainly good for a quick weekly clean. If you have houseguests coming, though, you'll probably want to use some old-fashioned elbow grease, the kind you just can't get when the scrubbing surface is at the end of a lightweight three-foot pole. 

I hope the Lalalfancy people don't get upset that I didn't go bananas over this thing. After all, as they like to say:

Eternal pursuit! Aw, don't be so hard on yourselves, Lalafancy. You're sure to catch up to my satisfaction eventually.

And yet, for that special cervical someone on your list, the Cleaning Brush Kit probably would not in reality be a great gift idea. So let me recommend instead: Slice! 

Another item bought by my wife, Slice is really a clever little tool. It's got a tiny ceramic blade on the pointy end that is perfect for cutting open those frustrating plastic packages or shearing impenetrable packing tape, but is incapable of cutting human flesh. It's also magnetic, so you can stick it on the fridge until you need it. 

I love this thing. Totally works as advertised. Lousy steak knife, sure, but not meant to be. It's Slice! 

That's all for today -- go be nice to the mothers out there! And no, Samuel L. Jackson does not count. 

Kooky copper clad cooking.

Remember when I used to post wacky recipes from promotional pamphlets I'd inherited, like the Coca-Cola or Creamette pasta cookbooks? No? Well, you can find links to all of them at the last one I profiled here, when I thought I'd reached the end of the cookbook line. 

Well, I found another one.

This one was filed with product manuals rather than on the cookbook shelf, and what a surprise! It has recipes!

Yes, the Revere Ware Copper Clad Collection pan book came into the family many years ago along with the pan itself. The booklet has care information for your genuine copper bottomed pan, but also contains 20 recipes. The booklet is not dated, but going by the condition of the pages, the typefaces used, and the presence of a zip code, I'd guess this came out in the late 70's.

As you might guess, the recipes are almost all egg-related. Here's one that caught my eye, but is unlikely to ever get hold of my stomach:

Yeah, nah, I don't think so. Not a big chicken liver guy. 

I'm glad to say we still have the pan:

Ta da!

Definitely a good quality pan. Perfect depth for many uses, mainly omelets of course, and has put up with abuse from me and others through the years. You could do a nice job whacking someone in the face with it in a pinch, too; lightweight but strong.  

We don't use it for eggs that much, because when we make a batch of scrambled eggs we will do half a dozen at a time, and that's too much for this pan. What it is also totally awesome for, though, is toasting spices quickly to bring forth their flavor. Works beautifully and makes the kitchen smell awesome.  

Alas, the history of Revere Ware is not nearly as shiny as the pan itself. It was a branch of the Revere Copper Company, founded by American legend Paul Revere in 1801. Wiki says, "Initially Revere Ware was the culmination of various innovative techniques developed during the 1930s, the most popular being construction of stainless steel with rivetlessly attached bakelite handles, copper-clad bases and rounded interiors for ease of cleaning." But the company fell to hard times, like everyone, in the seventies, and started getting aluminum from foreign sources; by 1982 the company was bankrupt, and then bought by Corning, which sailed it along like the Titanic, and by 2018 Revere Ware was gone.

In case you were wondering, yes, here is the copper bottom:

The trademark, once stamped on all these pans, is almost entirely scratched off from use and can barely be seen. 

Since Revere Ware is no more, I'm thinking of adopting "Copper Bottom" as my nickname. Like FDR's pal Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, Fred "Copper Bottom" Key could be a man to be reckoned with. It goes with the Key name, and might help me peddle Fredcoin! And hey, Revere Ware's not around anymore to sue. 

The pipes are piping.

Good day, YouTube world, and welcome to Uncle Fred's Home Repair show. Today we take you deep into the bathroom of Uncle Fred's house to show you yesterday's project -- a project you can complete in your very own home with your very own hands. Or, if necessary, someone else's hands. Watch these clips.

So here I am examining the sink in my wife's bathroom. (You viewers may remember my #1 tip for domestic harmony when possible: separate bathrooms.) Seems that her sink has been running slow. Now, the cap on this kind of drain plug can be unscrewed. Many people don't know that, because it unscrews to the right -- righty loosey, in this case. Maybe it's Australian? Anyway, here it is off, and look at that hair! Somehow, some hair from her head has gone into the drain. We'll have to pull that out. I'm using a needle-nose pliers and a long, thin screwdriver to get the tangle. And it's just a little clump. Why is human hair so nice on the head and so awful everywhere else? Just a rhetorical question from Ol' Uncle Fred.

Now here I am in the hallway after that job, deep in thought. You can tell because my lips are moving. The drain in my shower has been awfully sluggish. Can it be a hair issue? Ah, you say, Uncle Fred has precious few hairs on his head. That's true. Maybe an armadillo died in there. Let's open 'er up and have a look.

For this job I'm using a long piece of metal in lieu of a screwdriver. Why? Because the piece of metal was in the junk drawer in the kitchen, so it saved me a trip to the cellar. We just put it in the screw on the drain cap and -- There we go! The screw is loose and -- huh? It's not pulling out? Let's pry up the drain cover and --

HOLY CRAP! It looks like someone's been scalped, and the scalp stuffed in the drain! 

Here we see Uncle Fred retching as he pulls his own gooey, sticky hair clumps out of the drain. The upside is that there's no clog in the pipe. The downside is, it's disgusting. This is why Uncle Fred admires professional plumbers so much. This is gross enough when it's just my own hair. If it was some stranger's hair it would be worse. 

With the old hair pried out, we just return the drain cover with a few twists of the metal stand-in for the screwdriver and the job is done. Easy, right? The only question that remains is: Why is there more Fred hair in the drain than on Fred's head? Maybe some mysteries are not meant to be solved. 

That's all for today. Join us next time when Uncle Fred deconstructs a leaky toilet and calls 9-1-1!

The anti-microwave mob.

The anti-microwave mob struck again on Wednesday, in this story in the New York Post: 

Science proves that microwaves suck at almost everything

Microwaves are one of those modern conveniences that everyone uses but that nobody is particularly fond of. I mean let’s be real here, you know that heating stuff up on your stove is the better way to do it, but the microwave is just so much faster, so you sacrifice quality in the name of speed. Now, science has proven that microwaves do indeed suck, even if you’re just heating up a cup of water.

To which I reply: Sez you! Yes, it's true that a steak cooked in a microwave can be carved into a pair of Crocs, and those so-called microwave cakes are usually indistinguishable from hockey pucks, and nothing ever really gets crisp with microwave cooking. But is that all there is to life?

My dad was nervous about microwave ovens, so I didn't grow up with one. Because of that I think I am more liable to see their advantages, which chefs and other gourmets miss out on because they were using microwave ovens for their Hot Pockets from a tender age.

For example: I mentioned rice yesterday in my tale of the blackout. This was the only time I have had trouble with cooking rice in the microwave, and it required a major tropical storm and loss of power. It normally comes out perfect.

Steaming vegetables is easy in a microwave oven as well. You can overcook them, but you can do that in a vegetable steamer or a steamer basket too if you're not careful.

Popcorn is famously easy in a microwave. Don't let people get you down about supposed health concerns. Like most fears about "chemicals" (those mysterious things that seek to harm us), they probably are harmless unless you eat eleven bags of the stuff a day, lick the bags, and lick the inside of the microwave as well.

And leftovers are much better when you have a microwave oven. Mashed potatoes reheat poorly any other way. My mother used to make them into potato pancakes, and to this day I dislike potato pancakes. I'll admit that your leftover pizza becomes soggy in the microwave -- so use the oven if you're not in a hurry. Most of us don't want to make a production number out of last night's Domino's.

It melts butter. It melts chocolate. It's pretty good at poaching eggs. It's a modern wonder.

You know what else cooks up well in the ol' nukeatron? Pasta.

The Fasta Pasta is another gimmick my wife bought into, and it works like a charm. Almost any kind of pasta can be cooked easily in the microwave using the rectangular bowl. The lid is used for straining. Unlike pasta on the stove top, you don't have to keep an eye on it while it's cooking.

It doesn't work well with angel hair and other very thin pasta, which gets clumpy too easily; also, it only holds about eight ounces of pasta, not a whole pound. You don't need the Fasta Pasta to nuke pasta; any bowl of water would work, but this gives you a measurement chart and of course is the perfect shape for long spaghetti-like pasta.

So take that, Post! Your anti-microwave boffins have painted with a brush that is too broad and too open to error. Twenty lashes with a properly microwave noodle for you.

It slices! It dices!

My wife invested in a gadget that was meant to be helpful for the watermelon lovers in this home. That would be primarily Junior Varsity Dog Nipper, me, Senior Varsity Dog Tralfaz, and her. She's likes watermelon of a summer day, but is mainly in it for the gizmos.

And here is that gizmo.

Watermelon Slicer!

First of all, if you or I found that thing in a shop without the words Watermelon Slicer floating above them, we would be hard pressed to know what it is supposed to be for. The handle has a channel in it and there's a whirligig at the end...? Second, "Your best solution for eating watermelon" makes it sound like some sort of fork or spoon.

What they mean, of course, is that it is your best solution for cutting up a watermelon. This remains to be seen.

The Chinglish on the other side of the box is not the worst I have seen by far.

It actually makes sense. You push the tool into the flesh of the fruit and the thing cuts it into chunks. It starts to seem plausible. The little windmill is meant to break the slices into cubes.

It isn't that hard to cut a watermelon to pieces with a knife, but takes skill to get it into uniform size chunks. Can this Watermelon Slicer make the job easy and fun, O Chef of the Future? Let's see!

Here's me pushing the slicer into the watermelon. Note that the device does as advertised; it cuts into the fruit easily and the wheel lops off pieces as it turns.

For the record, these are rectangular prisms, not cubes, but we will not be picky.

Here my lovely and talented wife demonstrates better technique as she turns a watermelon quarter into rectangular prisms with ease:

Here are our findings from the field test:

1) She loved it. It turned a small watermelon into two large bowls of watermelon pieces of roughly uniform size without undue difficulty or time.

2) But I say a knife is twice as fast, if you're not concerned about your watermelon looking sloppy or your dogs choking on a large piece of fruit.

3) While the pieces are neat, the job is still sloppy, as the juice gets everywhere. Still not as messy as using my previous tool to break up a watermelon, the cellar stairs.

4) It's kind of a fun thing, but it would lose a lot of its appeal if it were not machine washable. That little windmill deal would be annoying to clean, and the edges of the channel are a bit sharp.

My wife has bought a few other oddball kitchen tools over the years, which I may showcase on this page if you're interested. Some have performed as advertised; some have exceeded expectations; some have been kind of sad. None, I think, were invented by Ron Popeil.

🍉🍉🍉

P.S.: I tried to find out where this slicer came from by searching the patents, but my quick turn through the system turned up nothing. Since the United States is a signatory to the International Patent System, it isn't generally necessary for devices patented overseas to receive a U.S. patent. China is also a signatory to the system, but I think they believe it means they get to steal everyone else's patents. If the Watermelon Slicer is a Chinese invention, then they finally invented something on their own that's useful.

P.P.S.: To put at ease any who are unsure: Yes, watermelon is okay for dogs, but get rid of the seeds and don't let them at the rind. The Slicer makes it easier to do both, actually, even for the few seeds in a seedless watermelon. Watermelon helps our hairy guys stay hydrated in hot weather. We don't let them have too much, maybe a cup or so a couple of times a week.

Sporkin' the cole slaw.

This week's takeout dinner was courtesy of Colonel Sanders. I picked up dinner from KFC -- because the whole world is still takeout, or at least New York still is, thanks to Chinese Death Virus -- and found that they had included utensils. Specifically, half a dozen sporks.

These are pretty good sporks. They're small, so kids can use them too, but they're sturdy, even with the cheapskate hollow handles that probably save enough plastic per thousand to make four extra sporks.

Spork is a hilarious word. It's funny to say. Spork spork spork. Spellcheck on Blogger says it isn't a word at all, although it's in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate: "a multipurpose eating utensil that combines the bowl of a spoon with the tines of a fork".

The dictionary says that the word was first spotted in 1970. But what genius invented this utile utensil? Where did the spork come from?

Of course Wikipedia has a page devoted to the spork. This is why better-researched sources of information like the Encyclopaedia Britannica will never drive Wiki out of business, because they're too snooty to have an entry for the lowly spork. Here's what Professor Wiki has to say:

Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 19th century; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874....
The word "spork" originated in the early 20th century to describe such devices. In 1951, Hyde W. Ballard of Westtown, Pennsylvania filed an application with the United States Patent Office (USPO; now the United States Patent and Trademark Office) to register "Spork" as a trademark for a combination spoon and fork made of stainless steel. The Van Brode Milling Company subsequently registered SPORK for a combination plastic spoon, fork and knife at the USPO on October 27, 1970, but the registration expired 20 years later.

For some reason when I was a kid, we always thought it was great if a takeout place gave us sporks. Apparently I still do. I guess anything unusual catches a kid's eye. Not like Mom had a drawer full of Oneida Flatware sporks.

One last thought about the word spork: If you have a similar sense of humor to mine, and the word spork amuses you, have a listen to "The Björk Song" by Lore Sjöberg, formerly of the Brunching Shuttlecocks. Surely no song has ever had more words that would rhyme with spork.

That sink feeling.

No spring training. No Mass in the Archdiocese of New York, at least this weekend. No St. Patrick's celebrations. Too early to worry about the lawn. Too crippled with spinal issues to walk the dogs. Too scared to go out to eat or go shopping.

Might as well fix the sink!

I've been threatening to fix the kitchen sink for some time. Even before my hospital visit last month, I had finally ordered the part I needed. These modern Delta faucets are very nice, but you can't stop the drip by changing a five-cent washer. Oh, no, like every other freaking thing these days, it's much more complicated. And expensive.

$30

And this fixture is only about three years old.

The problem was somewhere inside this sealed valve cartridge case. You must replace it in its entirety. Probably if I took it apart and tried to fix the thing, I would void the warranty on the faucet and my house would burn down. Anyway, the instruction road map that came with the faucet said that if your faucet is dripping, you need a new RP50587, and nothing less will do. Naturally, neither Lowe's nor Home Depot had it in stock, so I had to order it. Then, with one problem after another, including the hospital thing, I wound up having to wait a few weeks. Meanwhile, I slapped that damn dripping faucet a few times to show it I wasn't fooling around. You can't lose the respect of your plumbing, or you're sunk.

Maybe I slapped it around too much over the last three years.

So, yesterday I got to the job, and I have to say it went well. No floods, no puddles, no problems at all. Well, it was tricky to get the hot water turned off to the sink. I was noodling around with a wrench for a while until I got it totally sealed. The cold water was much more cooperative. Then I was able to pop off the faucet handle after I found the tiny hex screw, wrench off the big ol' ball nut (har!), and remove the offending party.

Here's your problem.

I soaked all the old bits in CLR and got them cleaned up, then installed the new valve, and no leaking! Better yet, no more dripping! Got it right the first time.

My dad could do any household job, but his son did not inherit that talent. So every successful repair is a victory. However, I've often thought that if I'd been wise enough to enter one of the trades, it would have been plumbing. Less chance of having to work on a roof or girder, and I hate heights. Less chance of electrocuting myself or others. And I think plumbing is exceptionally valuable. Ask anyone if he'd rather have electricity or running water in the home. Some may say electricity at first, but ask again a week into the experiment. Human beings survived about 200,000 years without electricity, but not one single year without water.

I know plumbing is not a pretty job, but that's why it pays well. And sure, I know the first rule of plumbing -- crap runs downhill. But I've found that to be true in all the other jobs I've worked, too.

Technical difficulties....

...please stand by...

Nah, not really, but Microsoft did one of those OS upgrades last week and I expected the worst. Took forever. Still, when I consider how many people use MS software, how much crap we all download on our PCs of varied and sundry levels of compatibility and soundness, it's a miracle these upgrades take at all.

My dad could not have fixed a computer, I'm sure. He died before they really became a thing, back when the Internet was barely more than a military concoction and home computers were for people who wanted a thousand-dollar paperweight. I wonder what he would have made of all this.

He was a tool guy, a man who worked with his hands, and he could fix anything. And if he couldn't, because it required more technical expertise outside his field, he could bring in one of his pals. He always knew someone on The Job who could handle what he couldn't, and vice versa. They weren't really social guys, but they'd go to one another's houses when a project needed doing.

Toward the end of his life he told me that he couldn't fix cars anymore, that the computers in them would get messed up if he tried. I was stunned. He had been fixing cars since he was a kid, knew all the parts and what they were for, and he could handle anything that didn't require the engine block to be hauled out. But this is where we are now. Everything is Smart, which is rendering us dumb. I'm lucky if I know what hole to pour the wiper fluid in.

I know a few guys who tinker on their vehicles, guys like my dad who could probably build one from scratch if they had the right tools and the time (what American boy hasn't dreamed of building his own Centaur -- although it would be illegal now in most states to take it one the road, I'm sure). But all of them work on pre-1980 vehicles. There will always be car guys tinkering on cars, but I expect eventually all those cars will be Theseus's ships, philosophical conundrums with no original parts.

Among many things I would do differently were I to live this life again, though, would be to pay attention to my dad when he was doing home projects. He was a terrible teacher but I was the absolute worst student. Now I'm paying for it. Oh, sure, I can get a PC to work ("Here's the start button!"), but fix a lamp? Dude, better get one of those Radio Shack nerds in.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads. My heart was busted when my dad died. My car, my computer, and my heart are still the only things around here he couldn't fix.

Knife crisis!

The tool you see in the lower pictures is the Jelly Knife, a strange creation of Compac. Compac is not the people who make the disks, or the capsules with tiny time pills. Compac makes products for the home, for pets and children and healthcare, and they came up with this amazing tool that is perfectly designed to dig out what's left in your jelly or PB jar.

Jars are funny shapes these days, aren't they? I'm sure they have their reasons. But the various knobs and lumps on the spatula-like Jelly Knife are perfect for getting those hard-to-reach places. I got mine a few years ago, either at Walmart or Shoprite (don't remember which), and it has proved to be helpful for all sorts of weird food-related tasks. It says "patent pend" on the handle, but a search of the US Patent Office system didn't turn up a patent issued for it. Come on, Patent People! Get off the stick and on the jelly knife!

I see on the Compac site that they are a company dedicated to "Our faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ," but although I applaud their open declaration of faith, that's not why I wanted to write about the Jelly Knife today. I just think it's a clever thing. We know that the vast majority of patents are issued to giant corporations, and are for complex things beyond the layman's understanding, so we love it when some little guy or runt of a company comes up with something so simple, so smart, that you're amazed that A) no one thought of it before and B) we got by without it for so long.

I salute you, Compac! Good luck with the patent. You've saved us from a lot of under-served PBJ. That makes you A-OK in my book.

It pays to have the right equipment.

"Last night? We went to Peking Joe's All-U-Can-Eat
House of Garlic for dinner... Why?"

Things I done seen.

Now that the weather is getting cooler, my big hairy dogs are more up for going for walks. In fact, Friday morning we had blustering winds and near-freezing temperatures and they were thrilled. The humans in the house less so, but what do we know.

Anyway, here's a few things I saw on some recent outings.

Went out the door Thursday morning to the first frost of the season. All the shingles on all the roofs had gone from black or gray to white. It was like the whole block got old. But the first frost is pretty, and wakes you up. That morning was 31 degrees and not too bad. The following morning was 37 but with a wind that wanted to peel the flesh from your hinder. So Friday felt a lot worse.

"It's not a meter. Why would you think it's a meter? It's a... a chipmunk house. Yeah, that's right.”

You get a feeling that this wheelbarrow is a little, shall we say, overmatched?

It's crying out for a meme. Of course the line from Jaws popped into my head first, but then I settled on:

Now, from the Salacious Art of the Innocents collection, we have Harvey Weinstein starring in My Life as a Dog.

I'm not sure if this was inspired by the famous Coppertone ad, but there's something a little wrong about this thing.

Little girl showing her drawers...

...followed by pup with a kind of peculiar look on his face. He's up to something.

I'm sorry, but I don't see a good way to interpret this.

Finally, here's one that I at first thought was some kind of Halloween decoration, but turned out to just be broken:

So. We have two childlike lovers on a bench, and she leans in for a kiss... and she'll never get it because his head is broken off. There's about half a lip left of him. Hardly seems like she'll get the kiss she's hoping for.

I hate to get all Judgey McJudgeyface on these homeowners, but you gotta 1) get your meter on the side of the house like a normal person; 2) cut the wood before you load it into the comically small wheelbarrow; 3) get rid of the girl with the bloomers and the lascivious puppy; and 4) absolutely get rid of the kissing girl and her headless beau.

That only leaves the frost. The frost is okay.

Operate on your pet.

You may have heard, as it was in all the papers, that we own the Sheddingest Dogs in the World™. The product below was recommended to us for good grooming -- really, for at-home grooming between professional grooming appointments. It looks like an implement of torture, but it's actually a Dele grooming brush. 

Dele, whose slogan is "Care Your Pets," makes a lot of scary products in friendly colors, which I'm sure are all safe for animals. However, the instructions make me more, not less, nervous.

"remove from up to down several times"

"Follow the rule. remove the hair smoothly."

"Control your strength when operate on your pet."

Eek!

"Well affect on the hairy pets."

Well... good.

Clearly, the translation leaves a good deal to be desired, but their English is much better than my Chinese ever will be. I can get the gist. The problem is those hooks at the end -- just looks like something made to flay someone, the kind of thing the CIA uses on people in Hollywood propaganda movies when Republicans are in the White House.

So, now I'm wondering if I want to even use this, or any of the other awful looking tools made to groom your dogs. I'd try it on myself first to see what it feels like -- no animal testing in this house! -- but it says "Do not use for other purpose except for pets." You're on your own, kids.

But really, what do my dogs have to look that good for? It's not like they'll be discovered by dog modeling agents out here in the 'burbs. They've had their operations, so they're not going to go poochie smooching. And they don't really need to look good for their friends.

Those guys are slobs.