CRAZY FITTER: Damn Car

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Damn Car

What a day. My dear wife came home from work yesterday complaining about a problem with the brakes on her car. Todays challenge was to find out whats wrong and fix it. Total failure. Plan B was take it to her brother, on the other side of Manchester, and who knows a thing or two about cars, but he failed as well. I'm a coward and got her brother to tell her the news so peace reigns in the house. She wouldn't have just believed me!

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Last Years Books

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
What a great thriller this is and the first of a trillogy. The second book comes out this month and I can't wait. I suppose its a marketing strategy but its already available elsewhere.

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
This is a description of how evolution works and I found it hard going at times and was glad to finish it but also glad that I've come to understand so much.

Blood River by Tim Butcher
Tim Butcher is a foriegn correspondent with the Daily Telegraph and undertook a journey down the Congo River in 2002 in the footsteps of another Telegraph correspondent HM Stanley (Doctor Livingstone I presume). Its a great read and gives an insight into the current problems of the region.

A Short History of Nearly Everything By Bill Bryson
I've read this book twice its so good. It does what it says on the cover and should be compulsory reading in every school. Its also very funny.

I Claudius by Robert Graves
I gave this book its third reading last year and I still enjoyed it.

The Historian by Elizebeth Kostova
This is a modern day thriller about Dracula with a lot of historical fact about the real man who waged an unrelenting war against the European invasion by Turkey.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
I've just started reading this. It seems to be a story about 2 19th century magicians. and has been shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award.

The Unquiet by John Connelly
An American thriller I enjoyed. I also like Connolley's other books.

I've also read a few more American thrillers that are just not worth mentioning. I wonder what this year will bring?

JOKE BOX

"Don't slide that hammer across the floor ", the fitter said. "I've had it 20 years, it's had 3 new heads and 5 new shafts".

Two friends talking and one says 'Sometimes I forget you're black'. The other replies, 'I'll never forget you're white. I've seen you dance'!
It reminds me of me and I read it in John Connolly's exellent book The Unquiet.

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Rich Cook.

Rocket Scientist
Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity.
The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high-speed trains.
Arrangements were made.
But when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, crashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin.
The horrified Britons sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions.
NASA's response was just one sentence, "Thaw the chicken."

Darwin Award Update
You all know about the Darwin Awards - the annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.
Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
This guy has to be this year's raging favourite:
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene.
The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened.
It seems that a guy had somehow got hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off - actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short airfields.
He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!
The facts, as best as could be determined, are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately three miles from the crash site.
This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within five seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds.
The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event.
However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tyres and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The car then become airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and hit the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater three feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron nearly reached Mach I, attaining a ground-speed of approximately 420 mph.
Thanks to http://www.webwombat.com.au/ for this.

CRAZY FITTER

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Tuesday 21 October 2008

Damn Car

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