I searched around and found the Feasto 3-Shelf Pizza Oven Table on Amazon. It seemed decent for the money, a little over $100, and it had three shelves, hooks for tools, and wheels to make it easy to move around. I ended up buying it, assembled it, and have been using it for about a year and a half.

This winter took a bit of a toll on it. The bottom, black shelves were both showing a bit of rust, and even the stainless steel top shelf was starting to look a bit weathered. I decided that instead of replacing it or just letting it continue to deteriorate, I would paint it, figuring it would get me a couple more years out of it.

Last week, I disassembled it and painted the two bottom shelves and legs with black Rust-Oleum that I picked up at Lowe’s for $17. It went well; it shows some brush strokes, looks much better than it did, and, more importantly, should hold up against the harsh outdoor weather. I’m still not sure what to do about the top shelf, though. I don’t want to sand it and ruin the finish, so maybe I’ll just put a layer of clearcoat on it and leave it at that.

Today I went to reassemble it. Helpful hint: Take a photograph before you take something apart, since a reference image is really helpful when putting it back together. I struggled a bit, but eventually got everything back together. While I was sitting on the ground, inserting and tightening screws, I looked down and noticed that I was covered in ants. I looked around to see where they were coming from and traced them to one of the cart’s plastic wheels. The wheels are cheaply made hollow plastic things, painted to look like wheels, and both have some sort of tiny weep hole, which is probably there to equalize the pressure. Anyway, the ants were pouring out of one of the holes on one of the wheels. They apparently had nested in there, and my actions were disturbing them. I brushed the ants off and continued working until I had assembled everything, and when I finished, I took a shower to rid myself of the ants.

Dealing with the ants reminded me of my childhood. When I was a little kid, I loved ants. It drove my mother nuts because she’d often find me playing in the driveway covered with ants. I thought they were cool, and since we didn’t have a dog, they were the closest thing I had to a pet. I’d sit in the driveway next to an anthill and let them crawl over me. I liked watching how they moved, interacted with each other, and dealt with other bugs. I also had visions of being the ant king with the ants worshiping me and doing my bidding. (Little boys can be very weird.)

As I grew older and learned more about ants, I found them to be pretty fascinating creatures, and that the colony is a well-organized unit, with each ant serving a function toward the ultimate goal of protecting and nurturing the queen. Pretty cool.

When you’re a kid, discovering the world around you is fascinating, and even something as mundane as an ant hill can provide hours of entertainment. I miss those days.

Round 1

Cookies vs Biscuits

In the USA, we call them ‘cookies’ while in England, they’re called ‘biscuits.’

The word ‘Cookie’ came from a Dutch word ‘koekje’, which means ‘little cakes’, and was first used in New York at the time it was a Dutch colony called New Netherland. Around 1703 the word became Americanized and morphed into the word ‘cookie’ which quickly caught hold and became a catch-all for any type of small baked goods.

The British word, ‘Biscuit’ was derived from the French word ‘bescuit’, which meant ‘twice cooked.’

While ‘biscuit’ today might apply to some forms of small pastries, it doesn’t apply to all, since few are ‘twice cooked’ whereas cookie or ‘little cakes’ is much more descriptive. First point goes to the USA.

Elevator vs Lift

Next on the list is the American word ‘elevator’, which is up against the British equivalent ‘lift.’

‘Elevator’ derives from the Latin word ‘elvare’, which means ‘to lift up’ while the British word ‘lift’ comes from the Old Norse word ‘lypta’, meaning ‘to lift.’ Since these are pretty much the same, I’ll call this one a tie. One point for the USA and one point for England.

Gasoline vs Petrol

‘Gasoline’ is a blend of the word ‘gas’ and the suffix ‘oleane’, which denotes a volatile oil. Interestingly enough, the word ‘gasolene’ first appeared in British English around 1863, but British refiners later changed it to ‘motor spirit’ and eventually changed it to ‘petrol’, which is, of course, derived from ‘petroleum.

Since ‘gasoline’ is sold in its liquid state and not its gaseous state, I would say that it doesn’t accurately describe the product, whereas ‘petrol’ tells you exactly what you’re dealing with. The British take the win for a tied score!

French Fries vs Chips

The word ‘French fries’ came to America from American soldiers who, while serving in Belgium during World War I, would eat a local dish of fried potatoes. Sadly, they called them ‘French Fries’ instead of ‘Belgium Fries’ because many of them thought they were in France since everyone was speaking French. So much for American education.

‘Chips’ originated in mid-19th-century Britain as a shortening of ‘chipped potatoes’ and became popular in the mid-1850s, with the rise of fish and chip shops.

This one is kind of a tossup. ‘French fries’ does indicate that the product is fried, while chips describe the origin of the raw product but doesn’t really tell you anything about how it’s cooked. I would suggest both words be replaced with the term, ‘Potato Fries.’ Zero points for both sides.

There’s the bell, and it’s the end of round one with the score tied at 2 to 2. To be continued…

As a setup for this, they have their friends Charley Halper (Sid Melton) and his wife Bunny (Pat Carroll) babysitting the kids, so the stories mostly involve the two of them and the kids. A lot of the stories are decent, and Melton and Carroll do a good job filling in, but a lot of the stories are pretty bad. From what I can see, most of the original writers have moved on, which often happens when a show is close to ending because the writers want to beat the rush and land new jobs before they’re unemployed. This leaves a show in the hands of inexperienced writers or writers that are not top tier, which results in some pretty bad scripts. It also doesn’t help that after 10 seasons, most everything has been done already, and there’s not a lot of areas left to explore.

The show that I watched today was called ‘Tonoose Needs Glasses’. In it, Danny’s uncle Tonoose, played by Hans Conried, finds out he needs glasses but doesn’t want to get them because he feels it’s an indication of him getting old and feeble. Charley, Bunny and the kids decide that they must convince him to get glasses, and they do so by staging fake events that make it look like Tonoose is not seeing well. Where the script really fails is with the events. Rusty wears a tie that pops up, Charley wears a bow tie that flashes, Bunny wears a Groucho Marx nose, and Linda has a flower on her dress that switches back and forth between the left and right sides. Somehow, this convinces Tonoose that his eyesight is bad, and he goes into a state of depression and starts acting like an old, worn-out man. The reason this doesn’t work is because in real life, nobody would believe it, yet the lazy writers don’t care and go with it anyway. This type of episode is an insult to the intelligence of the viewers and yet is fairly common on TV. It’s too bad, when a show has run its course, it’s time to get off the stage.

I’ve still enjoyed most of ‘The Danny Thomas Show’ and it’s worth watching but just be aware that towards the end, the quality does suffer.

The second addiction is YouTube videos. These are a lot harder to avoid than video games, since they’re just a click or two away when browsing the Internet. It also doesn’t help that a lot of them are really good. It’s amazing what amateurs can produce. The video and production quality are often of the highest standard and, just a few years ago, would have required a large team and expensive equipment to produce. Not any longer. Anyone with a decent camera phone or inexpensive video camera and some talent can produce first rate videos. It also helps that they care about what they’re producing. When a video is done professionally, the main intent is usually to make money. While I don’t have a problem with that, it often results in a watered-down product or something that’s produced to appeal to the masses and maximize profit. When an individual produces a video, it’s usually about a subject that they care about and are knowledgeable about, which allows the viewer to see and learn about things they otherwise would never get to know about.

I remember when cable TV first came out. One of the promises was that with all the channels available, all sorts of special-interest subjects would be explored. This worked for a while, with lots of specialty channels about things like golf, cooking, fishing, religion, music, etc, but soon the big corporations started buying up all the little channels and watering them down to maximize their profits.I remember when MTV played music videos 24 hours a day, but then the corporations started adding reality shows because they made more money and ultimately, MTV no longer exists as a channel since it was decided that bandwidth could be more profitable, pushing something else.

Where cable TV failed, YouTube delivered.YouTube allowed anyone to post videos about almost anything. They didn’t care as long as they could inject commercials into it and make money off of it. This allowed independents worldwide access to share videos about the things they cared about.

As with anything like this, a lot of it is garbage, but there’s also a lot of great content available. I’m probably being unfair by calling a lot of it garbage since what I consider garbage, you may consider gold, and that’s what so wonderful about it.

Anyway, a type of video that I happened upon that I consider gold (but you may consider garbage) is snake capture videos. For whatever reason, the algorithm decided that I would be a good candidate for watching professional snake catchers. Now I would never have believed it but the algorithm did and apparently it’s smarter than I am since I’m hooked.There are two channels to which I’m now subscribed whose content I watch whenever it’s available. One channel is produced by Kevin Ulett, while the other is produced by Jason Arnold.

Both of these guys live in South Africa, and both travel to various locations to capture venomous snakes that have wandered onto someone’s property. Kevin is a young guy who travels by himself, and Jason is a bit older and frequently has his young daughter, Emily, accompanying him on their snake saving missions.

I’ve learned a lot from these videos. I now know a lot about snakes in South Africa. Most of them are venomous with bites that will result in horrible, painful deaths if you’re unfortunate enough to get bitten. I’ve also learned that some snakes lay eggs while others give live birth. I’ve seen multiple videos where both guys are rounding up lots of baby snakes that were recently born.

I’ve also learned a lot about South Africa. I’ve seen the incredible beaches, beautiful homes, mostly in guarded communities, with razor wire and fences surrounding them, and I’ve seen areas filled with the poorest of the poor (who, incredibly, all have modern smart phones). It’s an interesting country.

What’s also interesting is that everyone loves the snake men. No matter where they go, the people, both rich and poor, black, white, or asian are treated with respect. Not surprising since these guys are risking their lives to keep others from losing theirs.

I’m also amazed at the risks these guys will take to do their jobs. Beyond the risk of getting bitten by a snake, they also face the dangerous environments where the snakes are located. In one of Jason’s videos, he’s on the second story of a structure balancing on the edge of a brick wall, overhanging a cliff, in the process of rounding up a venomous snake. That takes commitment!

Both guys seem to love what they do and really care about the snakes that they capture. It appears to be more than just a job to them, and I’ve seen both become upset when a snake has been injured or when people talk about killing them instead of relocating them.

One thing I’ve never seen answered is how these guys get paid. There’s no evidence that the people who call on them are paying them, so how does the system work? I suspect they’re employed by the government, but that’s just a guess. For now, it will remain one of life’s little mysteries.

If you get a chance, you might want to check out some of their videos. Here are the links:

Kevin Ulett

Jason Arnold – Snakeman

The image at the top of the post is of a highly venomous boomslang. Beautiful but not something you want to mess with.

Depending where you live the Big Arch will cost you anywhere from $7.46 to $12.99. The even bigger price is the number of calories it contains, which comes in at a whopping 1020.

I’ve posted an article in the past about how much I hate McDonald’s. Their food is lackluster compared to the competition, their fries, which once set the standard by which all fries should be judged, were destroyed once they capitulated to the woke crowd (why would you listen to people who have no intention of ever eating your products?). I also believe that their management team doesn’t deserve the salary they get, since they’re just caretakers, not innovators. Year to year, they serve up the same old products with no improvements and just rely on good locations and inertia to keep them going.

Anyway back to the main topic. Since the reviews are everywhere and pretty much 100% positive, I have to believe that this is part of a marketing campaign, and so called ‘influencers’ are either getting free food, McDonalds swag or cash to create a ‘viral’ campaign. I have no direct evidence for this, just a hunch and my hunches are usually pretty good, since I’ve been around a long time and seen just about everything.

This sort of thing is not uncommon, camera manufacturers will fly ‘influencers’ to exotic locations, pay for their logging and food and give them access to the latest and greatest cameras so they can shoot the location. Most of the reviews end up being positive and I’m sure the reviews, even if they’re trying to be honest, have it in the back of their mind, that if they give a negative review, they won’t be included in the next excursion.

From what I’ve seen the only person online that doesn’t like the Big Arch is the McDonald’s CEO who released a video of himself trying out the new burger but barely biting into it and looking like he was being held hostage and forced to eat it. He also couldn’t get himself to refer to it as a burger, instead calling it ‘the product’ throughout the video. To be fair, the guy has the look of someone that’s probably a vegetarian, so eating meat might have been way out of his comfort zone. It’s pretty amazing the marketing department released it since it’s so uncomfortable to watch.

While I might try a Big Arch, it certainly won’t become a staple in my diet since the 1020 calorie count is way too high for my tastes. I also have to wonder why they didn’t release a Little Arch (single patty, one slice of cheese) alongside the Big Arch since I suspect they’d have a lot more takers. But that would require some forward thinking, something that the McDonald’s management appears to be incapable of.

Sometimes that gets me into trouble.

The other day our toilet seat broke. One of the hinges on the back snapped off. (Perhaps we should consider diets.) Anyway, it was time to replace it so I looked at the seats that were available at The Home Depot. Thirty dollars for a toilet seat! Ridiculous. It’s a toilet seat for crying out loud. You sit on it, do you business and move on. Surely, I could get something for less than thirty dollars.

So I checked out the Walmart site.

They had a wooden seat available for eighteen dollars. Now we’re talking. Under twenty bucks, made of wood, none of that cheap plastic and on top of that, it got lots of good reviews.

I drove to Walmart to check it out. Yup. Looked good. Solid construction, enamel coated and built like a tank. The thing should last me for years.

Made the purchase, drove home and installed it. The installation seemed a little weird. Instead of bolting the seat directly to the toilet, you install the plastic bolts in the holes on the toilet, slide the seat on to the bolts, tighten the bolts down and snap shut the covers.

I did the first two steps but skipped the third. I didn’t want to overtighten the bolts and risk breaking anything so I went lightly and left the snap on covers up thinking in a week or so I could tighten them up a bit more if they loosened up.

That was a mistake.

After using the toilet for the first time when I went to get up, the seat shot off the bolts landing my backside in the water and the seat on the ground. Luckily no injuries were sustained. Should have tightened the damn things. My fault.

So I redid my work; this time tightening the bolts snuggly and and making sure that the covers were on tight. That seemed to do the trick. The seat was on solidly now. There would be no chance of an embarrassing accident and an awkward conversation with the paramedics.

I thought my problems were solved until we started using the thing. The seat and cover were really heavy and if you let them loose while closing them, they would crash down on to the porcelain toilet with a big bang. One time I just attempted to put the seat down and the cover came crashing down catching my thumb between the cover and the seat. It hurt like hell and the thumbnail is still aching.

I finally came to my senses. The risk of injury or cracking of the porcelain toilet from a falling lid were just too much. I figured it was just a matter of time before something bad happened, so I went to The Home Depot and bought the thirty dollar seat.

So now I’m out fifty bucks. Twenty for the unusable seat and thirty for the good one. If that’s not enough, I think I’m going to lose my thumbnail.

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be cheap… I mean frugal.

I was never a big fan of Ken Jennings. He always seemed a bit arrogant and to top it off, had that Howdy Doody look going against him. When they announced him as the potential successor for Alex Trebek I cringed.

Jennings? How could you even consider him?

Turns out I was wrong. Jennings has turned out to be perfect in the role. He knows the game, has the proper credentials and seems really comfortable hosting the show. The producers shouldn’t look any further, they s should stop looking and make Jennings the full time host.

“Amazing how alert your granddaughter is. Jenna looked a bit chunkier as a baby but she’s beautiful now.”

Luckily, I checked the message before sending it because the auto-correct had the corrected the sentence to this:

“Amazing how alert your granddaughter is. Jenna looked a bit chunkier as a baby but she’s beautiful nude.”

Oops. He would have found it funny, but I’m glad I caught it so I didn’t look like an old perv.