My lack of mechanic skills

I know so little about cars that I am an embarrassment to the male race. If I saw a damsel in distress on the side of the road, I could only open the hood and try to make it look good, but it would be to no avail. I am as useless as the information I share, when it comes to any type of engine, gas or electric. I know how to pump gas and add windshield washer fluid to my car, that is about it.


Yesterday, I had to review my car’s manual just to open the hood of my BMW just to charge my battery. When I tried to charge the battery, I knew for a fact that the charger has a positive and negative side that needs to be attached to the battery. Whether red or black is positive or negative I still have no idea about. Pathetic is my middle name I guess.

Why do cars have a carburetor? As a matter of fact, what is a carburetor? I did look it up on the internet and I still do not get what it does. I know the device blends air and fuel to make the car run, but that is about all I know about the “carb”, as we here in the United States like to call it. Well, do not add me into that we.

When I was in High School my car caught on fire because of the carburetor. I know this because after the car had pretty much burned itself out a friendly fireman told me it was the carburetor cable was a bit faulty. All I cared about was I got a new car from my parents out of the deal.

I once hit a curve and put a huge gash in my tire when I was a teenager. I literally drove the car four miles home on a flat tire because it was late and I did not want to call home and ask what to do. The next morning, my dad asked me if I knew I had a flat tire and why the heck I did not change the tire if I knew it was flat. As coolly as I could, I told my dad I didn’t know the tire was flat, but I would call AAA and have them come change the tire. Mind you, one of the reasons I do not know anything about cars is the fact that my dad has no car knowledge either. I literally took out the car manual and read the directions on how to change a tire. Both my parents watched in horror as it took me over two hours to figure it out. It took me another two hours to figure out why I had a smaller tire than the other three now on the car. I thought donuts were only available at Dunkin Donuts.

Another time, I was taking my friends to the beach and my car started to leak oil all over the place. Growing up I was always the one with a car. We were close to the beach so we just left the car on the side of the road. In the mid-eighties car phones were not the norm so I had to use the pay phone when I got to the beach. When my dad answered, I explained what happened and he told me he was going to call my grandfather and ask him for his advice.

My grandfather could turn a lawnmower into a Cadillac, however he never taught my dad how to fix a car and being the third generation male of the group, grandfather’s knowledge never filtered down.

Anyway, when I called dad back he told me that grandfather said that it was probably a rod that went through the oil pan. I was so perplexed for a moment because I could not know how my grandfather knew that we were going fishing at the beach. I told my dad that there was no way that one of our fishing rods became stuck in the engine. My dad did get a kick out of that one.

Now a day’s, when you buy a new car you automatically get either Onstar or BMW Assist like I have in my car. If something goes wrong you just hit the button, generally near the steering wheel, and a sexy woman’s voice comes on the line and asks you what is wrong, which makes no sense to me. If I knew what was wrong, I would not be pushing the damn button in the first place now would I?

This past Christmas during a snow storm I got stuck on the middle of the highway in my brand new 750 BMW because of all the snow on the highway. I pushed the little BMW Assist button and I connected with the operator and explained my situation. After a few minutes, the operator told me that the positraction automatically shuts off when there is heavy snow on the ground and since I have rear wheel drive this is for my safety. All that money for a car that shuts down in the snow, great!

A car to me is just pre-paid auto expense as my accounting professor once said in class. I have no interest in learning about engines any time soon. I will make my sons take a class to learn about cars and how they work so a fourth generation doesn’t end up like my dad or I.


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The Fabulous Disgusting Twinkie

Today, I did something I am not proud of and in the grand scheme of things, I really do not care all that much. What did I do, you ask? I devoured a semi fresh but always delicious vanilla crème filled Twinkie. Man, what pure joy this columnist experienced with each and every bite.

Yes my friends, the Twinkie was the highlight of my lunch today. When I say I enjoyed each and every bite, I really meant I enjoyed all two and a half bites. Twinkies are not exactly the largest pastry ever assembled. Heck, they are only 9.9 centimeters long.

A Twinkie is a huge part of every lunch it is a part of. Eating that dry sandwich to get to the Twinkie almost makes the sandwich bearable. Tell me you do not like a Twinkie better than a sandwich?

While I enjoyed my Twinkie, I started to think about what a Twinkie actually is. Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, Illinois in about 1930 by James A. Dewar, a baker for Continental Bakeries (now Hostess). Someone actually had to think of the Twinkie because it certainly was not the Twinkie Kid. Dewar realized that several machines used to make cream-filled strawberry shortcake sat idle when strawberries were out of season, Dewar conceived a snack cake filled with banana cream, which he dubbed the Twinkie. A banana filled crème filled Twinkie sounds outstanding to me, but I digress. During World War II, bananas were rationed and Hostess was forced to switch to vanilla cream. This change proved so popular that Hostess never switched back to banana and still uses vanilla cream in Twinkies today. Even though I am still stuck on the banana crème filing, I guess the vanilla crème filing will just have to do for now.

Hostess makes approximately five hundred million Twinkies per year. If you are keeping score at home folks, that is thirty thousand five hundred and seventy eight miles of Twinkies made per year. That is a whole lot of vanilla crème to fill those delicious little cakes. Remember, one single Twinkie is only nine point nine centimeters long.

There are thirty nine ingredients that go into a Twinkie. Fourteen of those ingredients increase the shelf life of a Twinkie. Hostess will not say how long a Twinkie will last on the shelf before going bad, however I have learned it is a really really long time. Twinkies actually have a shelf life of twenty five days in all actuality. This is incredibly long for a baked good. The real reason that a Twinkie can last that long is the fact that there is absolutely no dairy products in the Twinkie itself. Makes you wonder what exactly those chemicals are, doesn’t it?

Another fun, well maybe only to me, fact is that America’s favorite processed food will actually explode in a microwave if cooked for over forty five seconds. I am sure that my cleaning lady will not be overly excited for me to try and prove Hostess wrong, however I did think about doing it today until I realized I did not want to waste one of those delicious nine point nine centimeter cakes from heaven.

Twinkies contain a whopping 160 calories per cake, along with 5 grams of fat, (including 2 grams of saturated fat), 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 2000 milligrams of salt, 25 grams of carbohydrates—but zero grams of fiber. Since most of the time you actually eat two or more Twinkies per sitting, Jenny Craig will be in business for a long long time. In other words, there's a reason many consider Twinkies to be the quintessential junk food and I believe Jenny Craig has plenty of stock options in Hostess.

Believe it or not, the fact that some folks go the extra step of deep-frying their Twinkies in funnel-cake batter, (not that I know what funnel cake batter is) an increasingly common confection at fairs and carnivals in the United States—is so unhealthy it staggers the imagination. I have tried one of these Twinkies at a fair and I was immediately hooked after the first bite.

Of course this column is called Well Thought Out Thoughts and a Bunch of Useless Information, so I had to get into what a Twinkie really is and why I like it so much. Hey, I never said that I do not think when I eat.



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My love of "Chick Flicks"

I love movies. I probably have seen more movies than Roger Ebert has. Today, when I was thinking of ideas of what to write this evening, before I started to get into my novel, and someone asked me what my favorite movie was. Without hesitation, I said Mama Mia, with Meryl Streep. Now that I think about it I have seen the movie at least thirty times and have seen the Broadway show about ten times.

My mother used to play ABBA records over and over again constantly when I was a young child. When I first went to see the Broadway show right after 9/11, with my parents and really close friends, I felt an instant connection to the play. It was not just the music that suckered me in, but the shear uplifting experience the show brought to us. When we needed an uplifting experience to get all of us out of the rut we were in, it was Mama Mia that did the trick.
Movies are supposed to take you away from reality for a few hours and let your imagination run wild. I recently went to see the A-Team all by myself about two weeks ago. The critics absolutely blasted the movie as being infantile and juvenile. I spent two hours with a smile on my face. Having Jessica Biel in the movie certainly did not hurt in the smile department. The movie brought me back to my childhood when Mister T and George Peppard ruled my television set.
There really have been some terrible movies that I watched recently. I ask myself all of the time when I see a bad movie, ‘Why did I spend two hours watching that crappola?” the answer hits me almost instantaneously, I watch them because I just strive for that release of the pressures of life. Even the most terribly made movies have some type of healing powers.

Ok, so why the love of chick flicks? I have spent many a night thinking about why I enjoy these movies and it hit me today before I started this column. I am for certain it is because they always end with the main characters smiling at the end of the movie. When the main characters have that happy moment I guess so do I.

Besides these so called “Chick Flicks” I enjoy other types of movies as well. If you know me I love Steven Segal Movies till this day. Even when he turned to a tub of lard I stilled watch every single one of his movies. Jason Stratham is to me the new Segal without all of the fried chicken around his waist, thank you very much.
Adam Sandler brings me my fill of comic relief. I have never seen a bad Adam Sandler movie, ever. Always with the same cast, especially Rob Schneider, Sandler scores with each and every movie.

Jackie Chan is another one of my personnel favorites as well. I used to watch Kung Fu Theater as a child every Saturday morning. Chan’s stunts are legendary in the movie business. Even when he played a nanny, I watched and enjoyed his work.

The dumber the movie the more I enjoy the movie. Weekend at Bernie’s was a childhood favorite of mine. I told you I like dumb down movies. Any movie that has a dead man that walks rates four stars on my movie list.

Movies are a great release for sure and it as always been for me. Whether it if at a showcase or when the Netflix package shows up in my mailbox there is always this sense of excitement that goes through me. Sometimes the previews are the best part of the experience; however I really do not care. Give me two hours with some popcorn and I become a happy person.

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weekly Thought Bonanza July 20th

On Sunday/Monday, I produce a column called “The Weekly Thought Bonanza”. The column is based on all of the random thoughts that run through my head all week, and trust me there are a plethora of them. I will try to share as many of these thoughts as I can, so each one of my readers can think just a little bit extra over the coming week.
Just received my New England Patriot season tickets today and I could not be happier. A new season and a fresh start for every team in the league. Now if we can just get the league to cut the ticket prices so more people can afford them would be a real miracle. One hundred and sixty nine dollars a ticket seems a bit much.

Why do all the really good authors decide that adding a bit of the extraterrestrial in their novels seems like a good idea? Stick with what you do well and stay away from the lunacy that has our favorite characters going into the unknown. If I wanted that, I would read Dean Koontz or Steven King.

Maybe it is time to start paying our student athletes who make millions of dollars for their respective universities.

Is it just me or are people really not taking this BP oil spill too seriously? If President George Bush was still in office the public would be outraged. With King Obama now president, he always gets a pass in the media. Leave vacation or the golf course Mr. Obama and start living up to all the hype.

The new TNT show Rizzoli and Isles is excellent. TNT’s Leverage is pretty good as well. Timothy Hutton is great in anything he does.

I am starting to believe that there is not a person on this earth besides me that is actually interested in reading newspapers any more. There is nothing better to me than waking up in the morning and going to the end of the driveway to pick up your daily paper. With my coffee in hand and a smile on my face, I look at that front page every day with anxious anticipation.

Did I mention my season tickets arrived today?
Lady Gaga might be a little eccentric, ok a lot eccentric, however the girl certainly has talent. How many artists do you know of besides country stars are actually well grounded?

I have no idea why people are complaining about the Miami Heat signing Chris Bosch, Duane Wade, and Lebron James. We still leave in a free market system and I say more power to them. I just hope the Celtics wipe the floor with them.

Mel Gibson, you are a moron. You left your wife of twenty something years for that? Then you pull a nutty and the whole world sees your true inner self. Moron, moron, moron!

Casinos are about to be introduced to the state of Massachusetts. It is about time that Massachusetts steps up to the plate and keep people who want to gamble in Massachusetts instead of letting its residents go to Connecticut and spend their money. People are going to gamble any way so you might as well collect the tax dollars. Regardless of the pundits crying about the loss of lottery sales, Casinos make sense.

When was the last time you took your time and actually enjoyed a good old fashion hoodsie cup? They are still fabulous.

Same goes for Chef Boyardee’s Mini Ravioli’s.

My thought of the week is again more of a question than a thought; Why do actors and sports stars lose millions and millions of dollars? Go get a Fidelity adviser instead of your childhood friend to handle your money.

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