You might be surprised at what you can figure out about your snowblower if you try. My level of mechanical expertise is a moderately complex Lego set, and yet I was able to diagnose & fix a problem with our snow blower earlier this winter.

The trick is to ignore the fact that you don’t know diddly-squat about what you’re doing and apply standard computer troubleshooting techniques…
1. Smack the device. Smack it HARD.
2. When Step 1 fails, swear loudly while pretending you’ve muted your phone.
3. Apologize for swearing.
4. Sacrifice a goat (or a chicken, but a goat is preferred).
5. If the sacrifice does not appease the angry snowblower gods, then try the other standard computer troubleshooting technique. Send it up to level2 support. :p

In response to I’m Not That Guy by Shawn Powers

Snowblower Tech Support © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Howdy.  Yes, we’re here.  Yes, we’re voting.  Yes, we voted with hope in our hearts and change on our minds.  We’re now looking forward to President Obama taking his office.  Thanks for calling.

In response to Calling Middle America, Are You There?

Howdy © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Speaking as one who has lived in both the North and the South, I can honestly say sweat tea is an unholy abomination. Unfortunately, the further one goes South the more likely it is you’ll get sweetened tea if you do not specifically order unsweetened tea. In some heathen lands of the South, there are actually places that don’t even sell unsweetened tea.

Iced tea is ideally made by placing 5 bags of black tea inside a 1 gallon glass (not plastic!) jar and set out in the sunshine until the jar is dark. It should then be taken inside, tea bags removed and refrigerated. It should be served with no more than 3 one inch cubes of ices per 8oz glass. As Jeri mentions, a slice of lemon in a glass of iced tea is acceptable; however no, I repeat NO sweeteners are acceptable.

Hot tea can have a single spoon of honey added to it, if one is sick with a sore throat. Or the faint of heart can add a small amount of milk, but only if they put the milk in the cup before the tea (reversing the order curdles the milk).

In response to Sweet Tea is an Abomination by Shawn Powers.

Sweet Tea is an Abomination © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

From the look on the Temp Cat â„¢‘s face, I’d say he should be named for a villain of some sort. My first choice would have been Ming The Merciless, but I want to win a free book and that’s already been suggested (darn you JD Blackwell!). So my suggestions are:

1. Adelei Niska
2. Professor James Moriarty
3. Count Orlok
4. Arnold Zeck
5. Macavity

In response to Temp Cat™ Requires a Name by John Scalzi.

Temp Cat™ Requires a Name © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

First movie had little to no shaky cam. Second movie had enough to annoy me and trigger my wife’s motion sickness. I guess I’ll be renting the third movie some day when the wife’s not around then. Thanks for the warning Les!

In response to SEB 30 Second Movie Reviews: “The Borne Ultimatum.” by Les.

Borne Ultimatum © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Looks more like E.T. reaching out his finger to “phone home” than what you linked to.

In response to A Somewhat Omnious Cloud Shape Today of All Days by John Scalzi.

E.T. in the Sky © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

2) Yum!
7) Hmmm, a slice of key-lime with a long, tall glass of iced tea sounds good.
8) Get a herd of sheep and have them nibble the grass to the appropriate height. That way you never pay for gas on the tractor again and the sheep also fertilize the lawn as they mow it.
10-a) For Rosie (the Jetson’s robot) to be real and mine. No more dishes or laundry for me, yeah baby!
10-b) For Mr. Scalzi to finish his sequel to The Android’s Dream.
10-c) Cures for [insert any/all diseases that killed people you loved here].
10-d) A mental time machine allowing me to download all of the knowledge I have today (or at any point in the future) into my younger self. Knowing what I know now, I would have paid considerable more attention in high school and probably would have enjoyed school a lot more.
10-e) A decent resort hotel on one of Saturn’s moons which anybody could afford to visit (even middle-class schmoes). Seriously, what could be cooler than waking up with a view of Saturn’s rings coming up over the horizon?

In response to Things That Would Be Cool: A List.

Note to self: Hey self! You need to seriously work on proof reading your comments before putting them out there for other people to read. Seriously when you make grammatical mistakes like some of the ones in this comment over at the Whatever; you make us look stoopid.

Add-ons to Things That Would Be Cool © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

My wife and I bought one of these on our way out of Target the other day. Sure it was expensive, but it was cold and we were thirsty. Having said that, I’d rather drink motor oil than ever have this stuff again. The drink is horribly sweet and nasty. I figure this stuff mostly helps you lose weight by destroying your appetite (as well as your desire to live).

In response to the Enviga post on the ProductWiki.

© Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

My wedding ring and a large, silver ring I made back in high school.

In response to the Male Jewelry post on John Scali’s blog.

© Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Technically, Firefly didn’t get even a full season. Only 14 episodes were shot and of those only 12 ever aired. Fortunately, the poo-heads decided include the “extra” episodes on the DVDs.

Also, why no mention of NBC’s hit series Heroes!?!? Or This Old House?!?!? Or A New Yankee Workshop?!?!? What kind of craptacular list is this?

And if you’ve not seen enough of the new Doctor Who to judge how good it is; well they’ve got it over at Netflix. I hear that those nasty internet pirates also put it online and people all over the world have been downloading/watching it.

Aeon Flux was some really twisted shit animation which never seemed to explain anything but was still entertaining to me when it originally aired on MTV.

ALF was a show I liked as a kid and now I wonder what kind of damage it did to my brain.

American Idol is a show that I depise but my wife loves. So I either get to listen to horrible singing or flee the room.

Boston Legal, at least the bits with James Spader and William Shatner, is fuckin’ hilarious.

Charmed started off interesting and then turned into a Gilmore Girls with magic. *belch*

Commander in Chief was fun to watch, but then they did their mid-season break and I lost interest. I wonder if it’s even still on the air?

Cowboy Bebop is a fabulous anime. We might even have a copy around (I’d have to check) to lend you; if you like. It’s got a similar western-in-space feeling to it like Firefly but also with a healthy dash of blues/jazz.

CSI: NY had the disadvantage of coming out after the networks had started beating the concept to death, but has more (in #s and quality) interesting characters than the original CSI.

Gundam Wing is crap. If you want a good anime series set in the Gundam universe, you want to watch Gundum 0083: Stardust Memories.

Lost is another show that I caught some of and liked but after their mid-season break, I found no desire to go back and watch more of it.

MacGyver is another favorite from my younger years.

Monk: Since we don’t get the USA network, I’ve seen this show like 4–5 times. However everytime I’ve seen it; it’s been really good.

NCIS is my favorite of the current crop of crime scene investigation shows. That wacky cast is what keeps me coming back week after week. :)

Quantum Leap is a show I remember watching and enjoying when I was younger. But that’s about all I remember about it now, still I think I’d like to revisit the show and watch it again.

Star Trek: Meh.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was a regular feature in our house when I was growing up.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Watched some of it, kind of liked it but never got attached.

Stargate Atlantis comes in again as a show I like to watch because I like the wacky characters.

Stargate SG-1 is the older sibling to Stargate Atlantis and seems to be tired & boring in comparison.

The Avengers, particularly the episodes with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, was fabulous! Well worth the $$$ to get the box set!

The Mythbusters is a show that actually makes me think I should up my cable subscription to get more channels so I can watch it. Too bad I’m too cheap to do it for 1 show.

Twin Peaks was lovely in a severely twisted sort of way. A total cult classic.

TV Shows © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.