Happy 2022 · 4:09am Jan 2nd, 2022
Today is January 1th, which means that 2020 part 3 has just begun. Y’all looking forward to it?
Had to work yesterday, and the news about Betty White was proof to me that 2021 wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Luckily, somebody on the internet put it in perspective for me:
Original Source Unknown
Which may mean we’ve turned a corner.
Work-wise, we set a record. Records. At the shop, our final tally was 689k in sales, and 1894 cars, both of which exceed any previous year. Total sales is about 150k over our previous high, and about 250k over our highest pre-pandemic numbers. There are reasons for that, which I won’t get into here. The car count was about one car/week higher than our previous high, set many years ago. I think I mentioned in a previous blog post how many hours we were working to make that happen; to hammer home the point (not that I need to), I’m usually getting overtime on four-day weeks. Which I’ll admit has cut into my writing time and replying-to-comments time.
I realized today that I haven’t written a mechanic blog post in a while, and I certainly haven’t given y’all the one about the network catastrophe on the Town and Country/Caravan I might have promised a while back. Fear not, I will; I decided to change some things around about how/when I write those, and so far it’s gone well. I hammered out a 2500 word blog post about a sad Ford Ranger at other work this morning, and it’s got some editing needed and of course I’ve got to find those pony pics y’all love, but that should be along soonish.
And speaking of other work, they’re feeling the crunch. While at the shop we can turn away people or tell them we’ll get to their car when we get to it, there isn’t that option working at group homes. We’re short-staffed and the union negotiated holiday shift bonuses for the part-time staff which we normally don’t get. For the first time ever, I got extra pay on my Christmas shift, my New Year’s Eve shift, and my New Year’s Day shift.
Isn’t why I do it, of course, but it’s nice to be appreciated by management, too. And nice to know the union’s got our back.
Recently, I was procrastinating and watching ‘just one more’ random YouTube video, and came across this:
Source Unknown
I don’t know the original source, but y’all remember in Show and Tell Nurse Redheart said that the hospital had a whole collection of things they’d taken out of ponies? In case the image doesn’t load right or you can’t be bothered to embiggen it enough to read the note on the bottom, that’s a partial collection of things that hospital has taken out of kids’ upper GI tracts. Coins are apparently quite popular. . .
Also semi-related, I took one of our residents to Tractor Supply Company (a farming supermarket in some parts of the US) and I couldn’t help but poke my head down the ‘medications for farm animals’ aisle; there were no less than three warnings taped to the shelf of horse paste, and all the boxes were ‘for display only;’ you had to ask a store worker to get you the actual stuff.
Before you comment on that, consider that I’ve still got the angry batpony on speed dial.
Since we’re having throwbacks, I got one more for y’all.
Couple years ago, I posted a story and this was a comment on it:
And Fimfiction starts the New Year off with a story meme.
*standing ovation*
—whizzball1
Well, with the benefit of hindsight, it turns out that 2015 was a pretty good year, so we’re trying again! Not claiming this is the greatest bit of writing, but it’s a fic that hasn’t been updated in years and suddenly a new chapter appears to appease the FimFic gods.*
Maybe peaches come back next.
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*In case you were wondering, it’s the penultimate chapter that is the new one; the final chapter stays as it always was.
Speaking of which, I gotta tell you this. It’s not really related to the new year, but it’s an image that’s in my head and which could one day, perhaps, be the basis of a pony story. Yesterday at work was a chill day and I had stuff I was gonna do but couldn’t really focus (something I promised I’d pre-read, something of my own that needed an editing pass, and some new material for a late Christmas fic that’s somewhat complete) so I fell down the rabbit hole of reading NTSB accident reports. There were two similar reports for ships hitting swing bridges (they’re like drawbridges but they turn to the side instead of going up) and in both cases of a ship vs. bridge, the ship won.
While the NTSB is typically more concerned with how the accident happened and the immediate aftermath, MAB-21-22 included the detail that ultimately “After the accident, a ferry was used to transport vehicles across the waterway until the Barataria Bridge was lifted back into the closed position and opened to vehicular traffic on November 28, 2020 ... Damage to the swing span and supports was reported to be extensive, requiring the swing span to be cut into two pieces and removed. Replacement and repair costs were estimated at $23 million. A temporary, fixed span was later constructed over the waterway.”*
From the NTSB report
All I could picture in my head after reading this was a sad bridge operator pony leaning out of the window in her shack and seeing the lean in the bridge, knowing she’s now out of a job because the bridge is totaled and they won’t be building a new swing bridge to replace it, they’ll be building a taller bridge that doesn’t need an operator.
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*To save some of you from reading the report, the bridge malfunctioned and opened too far, putting one end into the navigable channel (which the barge hit), and the damage which required the bridge to be replaced were caused when it got hit again when a barge and fishing vessel were driven into it by a hurricane, so it wasn’t the accident that the NTSB investigated that took out the bridge.
So anyway, come to Trotcon!
There’s another new chapter of FimFic authors coming soon. Yay!
Also I think [citation needed] that there are more FimFic authors chapters than Not-A-Contest entries . . . y’all want to fix that?
I’m looking at you.
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Source
Will do!
I regret nothing.
Happy New Year, Biscuit! (last picture was the perfect one to send us into 2022)
RIP Betty White. The Golden Girls is one of my favorite shows and reminds me of my childhood.
The greatest happy new years greeting I can give people is this: May you have a calm, boring, and uninteresting new year.
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Doesn't matter what we do, Porona-chan is going to huggle us all.
I just found out that Betty White died from this post. An Era has ended.
Celestia still sleeping in on the pony planet? She needs to wake up sometime so another chapter can occur.
NO. I just want covid to die.
Some states are laying down plans to ban gas vehicles by a certain date. I remember when I first laid eyes on the prototype Tesla Roadster being shown off at the state fair. It was impressive, but I was crushed when I learned that electric vehicles won't ever have a proper standard transmission. I'm not ready to give up my clutch pedal, much less ever trust an autopilot or "driver assist" system. And the talk of mandating infrared cameras to detect drunk drivers in all vehicles is pure nanny state.
Subaru had better keep up the spare parts supply, because I'm not giving up my 2020 Impreza until the rust starts eating me along with it.
We salute Betty White
2022: Same procedure as last year. 😐
... just a gut feeling.
I agree with the 2021 Betty White logic, but I don't think I want to be around for whatever the Queen ends up dealing with.
Yay for somewhat unexpected bonuses.
I think the incidence of coin eating would go down because the world is moving to less cash being used; I wonder what children will eat to make up the difference.
5623477
Sometimes it doesn't make sense to have a clutch pedal in an electric vehicle -- because many of them don't have more than a single gear speed to begin with! They are not manual transmission, but they are not automatic transmission either. They are fixed-gear.
See Kia's helpdesk article on the subject.
(tl;dr, electric motors have a power band that is so wide that that they can directly accommodate the entire range of driving speeds without the assistance of any kind of variable transmission, either manual, automatic or automatic-CVT)
So this has always felt like a strange complaint to me.
There are also a few cases of electric vehicles that don't have a transmission at all and are direct-drive (motor directly in line with the wheel axle).
EDIT: I googled and based on the sheer number of search results, apparently even car dealerships and electric car owners seem to be very confused on the matter. They don't seem to understand the concept of a car with no gears to shift, and often market them as automatic transmissions while at the same time saying it doesn't need transmission fluid.
Considering it was already the 1st where I live when Betty died I took it as a sign that 2022 was going all out from the get‐go.
>thinking that things are gonna improve
>in 2015+7
>mfw
It’s all downhill from here, baby!
Oh hey, I buy my shampoo there...
Hearing about Betty White brought to mind that Grim Reaper claw machine meme that I've seen for several years now, and how he's always trying for her but ends getting someone else as the prize instead.
I like to think that he was as shocked as any of us when he got her this time.
Why is it it always only the good shows that get cancelled?
2020 season 1 was already weird. Over the top characters that still managed to feel like cardboard cut-outs, plotholes everywhere...
Season 2 was plain ridiculous and totally unbelievable. Like, crisis after crisis and nobody appears to give a shit or even works to make them worse. And the disaster movie trope of 'no one in power listens to scientists' is getting soooooooooooo old.
Should probably just boycott season 3, but it's like a slow moving train-wreck you just can't look away from. So will probably sit and suffer through it anyway. Maybe they manage to outdo themselves and get even worse.
Betty White predated talking motion pictures, machine sliced bread, and Hugo Gernsbeck creating the term "scientifiction" (later "science fiction") and publishing the first magazine dedicated solely to science fiction.
(To digress a moment, most of the things he first published were plagiarized and if today's copyright laws were in effect law suits would have probably put him out of business. )
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5623435 Me? *sweats*
5623438
As well you shouldn’t.
5623439
Happy new year!
The pony artists, or Fuf! pony in the comment? Or the actual picture of the broken bridge?
5623449
I never watched the show myself, but did do a parody of one scene. Imagine me in a wig and dress. . . .
5623455
That is a good New Year’s greeting
5623457
If things had gone well, that wouldn’t be true, but things have not gone well (at least not here in the US). The good news is that vaccines are available, and the Omicron variety seems to be both more contagious and less bad than the other varieties (especially Delta), which means that the really nasty varieties might get pushed out by the less-nasty one.
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I’m sorry you had to find out here, but at least it was tempered with cute pony pictures.
It has indeed. She was a legend.
5623462
She is and she will.
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You’re not the only one. . .
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I haven’t heard any actual facts on that, just hype. IIRC, California tried it a couple decades ago but it failed ‘cause the tech wasn’t ready.
The Honda Insight (hybrid) was available with a manual. There’s not much use for a manual in an EV, though; it’s right up there with using an ICE to heat steam and have a steam-powered car . . . you could, but why?
Does it detect them as they’re coming at you, or keep you from driving when you’re drunk?
We can still get ‘em aftermarket for 20 year old
rustbucketsOutbacks, so you got a while yet.5623483
As well we should. She was a national treasure.
5623496
I’ve got that same feeling, that’s why it’s part III.
Hoping that’s not the case, though.
5623501
Ooh, I hadn’t even considered that. We’re
ed, aren’t we?
That’s something I hadn’t considered; here in the US we’re still even keeping our useless pennies . . . hmm, kids can’t eat bitcoin, maybe they’ll have to eat credit cards?
5623503
Usually you’d have one gear set, or at least trains do. I suppose direct drive would work for cars, though, and it does save on parts.
Obviously, one of the huge disadvantages of electric cars is the weight of the batteries vs. the energy they carry, so any weight you can shed helps you (since engines, transmissions, and driveshafts are heavy). Given that the torque band of an electric motor is basically flat, you don’t need a transmission, just (at most) a gear set for a fixed ratio.
Amusingly, continuously-variable transmissions have, on paper, infinite gear ratios. In the service info, they’re usually called 0-speed transmissions.
5623505
That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered time zones.
Yeah . . .
5623512
Mane & Tail, I assume?
5623519
I’ve seen that one.
I know I was. Still, as someone put it on the internet, you know you lived right when you die at 99 and people say you died too soon.
5623530
That’s what I’m hoping doesn’t happen. Let’s have a reboot instead where everything goes like it should, that’s what I want.
5623534
I know, right? It’s crazy to think about.
5623616
Yeah . . .
I should watch that movie one of these days.
5623617
Bring it on!
5623665
I heard talk years ago of some cars adding a camera in the cabin pointed at the drivers face that identifies if they look drunk or sleepy. Haven't kept up with developments though.
5623631
Yeah, it was Fuf pony, I should have specified.
Bimbettes calendar when
5623644
What makes "onto the pony planet" so very difficult to write? I mean you do write a lot of stories, but seem to have ever increasing difficulty adding to that story.
5623678
Yep. Stuff works pretty well, even with my hair. Works surprisingly well for my beard, too.
Also it doesn't make my hair smell like fruit, or flowers, or any of a million other similar things that a lot of shampoos seem to be scented like.
5623669
Ancient bloodline, immortal ruler, gaze that would give a basilisk pause, penchant for going fast; I'm going to miss her but something evil somewhere is in for an awe-inspiring amount of deserved pain and suffering.
Just read an article about long lived stars still active in showbiz. Most of them are young enough to be Betty White's children or even grandchildren. Even Tony Bennett & Clint Eastwood are younger than she was.
You know who's still alive? Beverly Cleary. Authored the Henry & Beezus (+Ramona & Ribsy) books + the books about Ralph S Mouse. She is 103.
That's about the time WW1 ended.
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He said it's because that has become a story about interpersonal relationships & keeping that straight in his mind takes him longer & is harder than just a one shot.
IMO, it's a shame because it's nearly finished.
Happy Belated New Year!
"Recently, I was procrastinating and watching ‘just one more’ random YouTube video, and came across this:"
The "this" is displaying for me as a blue box with a question mark in it, I'm afraid; I assume that that's not what it was supposed to be.
"In case the image doesn’t load right"
Oh, well, thanks. :D
"Before you comment on that, consider that I’ve still got the angry batpony on speed dial."
...I mean. Is that supposed to discourage comments on it? Because being angry doesn't necessarily make a batpony less cute. :D
(I kid, I kid, and I'd rather not make the batpony angry again if they've calmed down. But still, just saying. :))
"There were two similar reports for ships hitting swing bridges"
Ooo, that does not bring up good associations for me.
(First thing I thought of was this, though I'd forgotten the name and exact date.)
(Er, and just to clarify, they weren't personal not-good associations; I wasn't there, or had someone close to me there, or anything like that. I realized that the earlier text might have been a bit ambiguous about that, but I more meant that the first accident I knew of to come to mind from that quote was not a minor one.)
"All I could picture in my head after reading this was a sad bridge operator pony leaning out of the window in her shack and seeing the lean in the bridge, knowing she’s now out of a job because the bridge is totaled and they won’t be building a new swing bridge to replace it, they’ll be building a taller bridge that doesn’t need an operator."
Aww... Okay, not as bad as the IRL disaster that came to my mind, but still sad, aye.
And I didn't think the shop stats were that boring. I do find it interesting that they're so, by your report, relatively high.
(Though I'm not saying I might not start finding them boring if, I don't know, you linked the entire year's full ledger for us to read, or something, not that I expect you would do that. But just what you presented in the blog post was fine, I thought.)