Troy's Rants and Ravings

Being up at 2 am definitely has it’s advantages… Couple of gallons of store brand French Roast coffee consumed, 47 trips to the head completed, on-line games rendered asunder, plans laid out for a mid-day nap, check air pressure in bike’s tires for the dreaded and yet fun filled 5:30 am jaunt over to the neighbor who owns an “uncorked” Harley to face his house and give a couple of blasts against the Rev-Limiter  while “adjusting my carb”…

But, wait, what’s this? I have not genuinely pissed in anyone’s Wheaties for a while? I have not blasted away at things that are putting my panties in a knot?

Well let’s take care of that, shall we?

First off, I love the LA Times . In my opinion (And really,  who else’s opinion really matters?) it is still what a newspaper should be. Facts, figures, sports, punching political assholes in the nose and getting people pissed off in general. Yeah, there are some liberal pansies on staff who scream “racist” at the top of their lungs every time a “person of color” is caught with their hand in the cookie jar, who get enraged if you mention that you are going out to the desert to run down all the endangered fauna and wildlife (gawd, I’ve always dreamed of a wild life with a girl named Fauna… ) and actually SWOON (trust me, I did not believe it either until I saw it) if you mention the fact that the Founding Fathers made great hay about the fact that the Government has no place doling out charity or running businesses, but overall The LA Times is a good read.

So, just because they can, The LA Times have lit off a powder keg in the form of calling the Los Angles School System to task. They actually culled through public records (you know the ones We The People are supposed to have access to but the damned bureaucrats don’t want us to see) and found out, hey, most of the teachers in that so-called school district are a bunch of morons. Unionized teachers, of course, are pretty pissed off that the public (you know the dumb drunk bastards who pay them) found out about the scam they are running. Now,  not all the teachers are “Pieces ‘O Crap” but there are one hell of a lot that should be drug out and shot for their incompetence…right along side the parents who let it go on.

Folks, if you can not do your job – the one you are PAID to do – don’t be surprised when you get called on it. Sure you can blame anything and anyone for being a piece of shit, but own it. You did it to yourself. Teachers are not supposed to be babysitters. Either teach or babysit. Make a choice. Deal.

My sister is a teacher. She is a damned good teacher. I am extremely proud of my sister for doing a goddamned thankless job that stresses her out to the moon. She is underpaid, overworked and pissed on by everyone…except the kids who realize that she IS trying her damnedest to get their heads open to the fact that her classes are there for the kids’ benefit, not because she is sadistic.

She is sadistic but that is another story…

Parents who are too busy, lazy, stupid, complacent and just all around assholes, regularly bitch at anyone who will listen that my sister is “too hard and too demanding” about making sure those little brats get the education the parents are PAYING FOR!!! To those parents I only have this to say:

SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! If you indeed cared about your kids and had a single brain cell in your head, you would not be surprised, come parent conference day, that your little Johnny, your little Suzie, your little Hector or your little LaTwanda is a fucking, jack-off moron with no ambition or drive to succeed!!! If you bothered to come home from “work” (if you actually do anything worthwhile that contributes to society) and ask to see some completed homework or (EGADS !!) ask to see their weekly homework assignments or contact the teachers and ask what can you do to reinforce the week’s lessons and then be just a bit more proactive in their education, then the teachers could actually be free to teach!!!!

That not being the case, is it any wonder why our society continues to scream “EVERY STUDENT NEEDS TO GO TO COLLEGE!!!”

What they really mean to say is “THE ONLY WAY TO GET A HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION IS TO GO TO COLLEGE!!!!”

Which means that the muldoon with the “PhD” after HIS name (because, really, all women should be either housewives, Playboy Playmates or maybe librarians) is, yup you guessed it, in reality, only a Jr. College-level graduate…

For God’s sake, how many Political Science majors do we really need? How many more lawyers?? How many more English Lit majors, because, sure as hell, no one can read anymore… And Jesus Christ AllRighty Then!!! Art is NOT COLLEGE LEVEL EDUCATION!!!!! Go to “artsy fartsy school” if your desire is to make paster molds of animal crap and label it as “art”…

And speaking of animal crap: Who gives a shit about dinosaurs anymore? THEY’RE DEAD!!! End it already.

Look, Anthropologists are nice to have around, but we need nuclear physicists, engineers, doctors, chemists, metallurgists, people that can look forward and help the human condition. Then we need smart blue collar types, like me, to build and maintain the “stuff” the nuclear physicists, engineers, doctors, chemists, etc need built.

Now before anyone thinks about putting a  “hit” out on me, allow me to commit suicide MY way…

It’s 4:44am. Troy Donson wishes to commit suicide. Here is how it is done:

“HEY!!!! CECILY!!!!! GET YOUR PRETTY LITTLE ASS UP OUTA BED AND MAKE ME SOME BREAKFAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

And Cecily slept happily ever after, secure in the knowledge that, yes, it WAS a good idea to increase the dumb drunk bastard’s life insurance policy. And while mentally counting her loot as she drifted off to sleep, she remembered to thank God she got the number for Doyle’s Dead Dumb Drunk Bastard Removal Service, Taxidermy and 24 hour Deli from her best friend Ellen who is on her 49th or 50th husband….

Troy Ok, So I'm an Idiot...

Well, it looks as if The World Domination MotorCar Corporation has once again saddled us with a new Stallion to be broken to our collective will.

Folks, introducing Our New and Yeti To Be Seen If He Is Going To Be An Any Good Dastardly & Supreme Pugilistically Magnificent District Parts and Service Manager: Mr. Tater Handy.

Tater (as all his close personal friends [like me] call him) swung by the other day to check in with me, the World Famous Alignment God and we chatted about many things including the fact that the Ducati Desmodromic System is, indeed, far superior to anything the Japanese Motorcycle Industrial Complex (Especially Yamaha) has, to date, introduced. He surprised me by also genuflecting properly, without prompting, on his way to kissing the High Holy 30X32mm Box Wrench which was used to subjugate the evil engineers (Ball Chinnians all !!) who designed the Sequoia Rear Suspension and which now serves to symbolizes my status as The One True Alignment God.

After all the extraneous frivolities were finished, we got down to basics and renewed the Non-Aggression Pact between Alignment God and DSPM, (which I, of course will have broken before the ink could dry…). Then, the bows to diplomacy being completed we adjourned to the toolbox for all our serious discussions. We exchanged greetings from past DSPMs, FTSs, GMs, ICBMs,  etc…

Our discussions were mutually productive and we agreed to continue discussions in an upcoming discussion pending further discussion based on an earlier discussion pending future discussions on an ongoing basis.

So far he seems like the right stuff.

But…

My intelligence services never sleep and agents are combing the world and even Denver (!!) for information on our new Victim DSPM.

So far all I have is a picture (below) of the vertically challenged young man. He is a bit of a fire-plug, stocky and somewhat cylindrical in form:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then here he is in a more relaxed setting :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I guess clothes DO make the man….

 

All I can say is

 

WELCOME ABOARD, TATER !!

 

 

 

 

 

PSSSSSSTTT !!!!

 

BTW, my money is on Scott Hugglebutt to be the first to make him blow his main gasket…

Troy Ok, So I'm an Idiot...

Seeing all the attention the last blog got due to the preponderance of explosions, tales of death and dismemberment, nasty threats of retribution and (former) GMs losing control of their bladders and peeing down their own legs in fright, I have gone back a few years into my memory banks to retrieve another 

True Life Adventure

story.

The following is TRUE.

The Mangler and Employee names have been changed…not to protect anyone, but because it generally just pisses everyone (especially the innocent) off.

As in the last episode, Jason Gone-Postal plays a major role. B-Ball makes an appearance as well as 1 (each) “Sleepy Lube Old Guy” who will just refer to as “SLOG”.

The problem is, I personally do not have much use for most of the lazy bastards that Trick Dipstick keeps hiring. And even though I have volunteered to cull the herd of these losers and miscreants, I am, so far, just  “memo-ed” into submission and then DEE-NIED!!!   This is not a new problem but whereas before we were allowed to mete out “Technician Justice”, now we are resoundingly warned that such actions “are grounds for immediate TERMINATION”. (So let me get this straight, if we rough up a lube tech you put a “hit” on us? What up with that?)  Instead of management managing the idiots, it seems more and more the idiots are pushing management around.

While I, personally, am usually too busy fixing cars and trucks to engage in covert activities as described below, I do use the episodes described as a threat to maintain at least the semblance of “orderly behavior”. On occasion the random example must be made and usually is enough to keep the idiots’ heads down. I always follow up with the sacred announcement that “THE ALIGNMENT GOD HAS SPOKEN!!! ANYONE WHO WISHES TO BE THE VICTIM OF AN ALIGNMENT GOD SMITING, CAN MEET ME OUT BACK  WHERE I WILL SMITE THEE LIKE ONLY AN ALL MIGHTY SMITER CAN!!“

The Salad Shooter Incident

It was a relatively normal Saturday – busy to the point of insanity in the morning and tapering off to just the normal lunacy in the afternoon. Lunch that day was from the Below Ground Trains. As usual there was plenty of extra mayo, mustard, oil and vinegar. Remnants of tattered sandwich carcasses were scattered on tool boxes and tool carts. Line Techs were exhausted from the crush of work but carried on and somehow got all their work done on time. And then…

Slog was found to be taking an afternoon nap. Seems lunch and slouching through his job of being the slowest (and oldest and laziest) lube tech in the shop had taken it’s toll. He was parked in his chair, feet up, next to a stack of extra sandwiches that he has appropriated as (in his words) “First come, first serve”…even as others went without.

This guy was a real piece of work. He also was extremely quick to deflect criticism away from himself and blame everyone else, the weather, the seasons ( too hot, too cold, too dry, too damp, too nice a day to be working, etc ) and even inanimate objects – like the rack going up too slow and coming down too fast.

However, even in a shop with Trick Dipstick in charge, sooner or later justice is served. It was something that was at once, bound to happen and very richly deserved.

As we have learned previously, Mr. Jason Gone-Postal is our own demolitions expert. People in the know seem to keep one eye on him as they pass his work area, always ready to dive behind a car, trash can, car, lot attendant or better yet Used Kar Kenny ( who is bigger than many bomb shelters ) to avoid the devastation always possible when encountering Mr. Gone-Postal. Seeing as how Jason was being forced to take up the slack from that slacker, Slog, he decided an “object lesson” was in order. He went around and collected all the debris left over from lunch: lettuce, mustard, mayo, pickles, tomato slices, onions, oil and vinegar, soggy bread crust… He gathered his payload and stuffed it into his “gadget” AKA an empty coolant bottle. A relief line was scored on the bottom of the jug to give it a weak point to aid in aiming the “gadget’s” dispersal pattern. Duct tape was used to reinforce the sides to prevent a mis-fire and the attendant “friendly” casualties that could accrue. A survey was made to determine the most advantageous placement for the “gadget”. Finding the correct placement, angles were analyzed, trajectory calculated, innocent bystanders evacuated, etc.

Soon the “all clear” was given and then, once again, windows shook, eardrums took a severe beating and car alarms within a 5 mile radius went crazy from another coolant bottle detonation which was only quite a bit bigger than the example below…

As long as you shall live, you have never seen a sight like the one that greeted the eyes of all who witnessed the resulting cataclysm. ( OH!! The Humanity!!!!! ) Slog was not only blown out of his nap and consequently his chair by the detonation, but he was also covered head to toe in goo that had once been capable of feeding at least 4 hungry vegetarian mechanics. I must say that Carmen Miranda was spinning in her grave given the fallout of the Condiment Holocaust that greeted us. Slog was trying to pick himself up off the ground and failing as he flailed around in what looked like the Exxon Valdez of Refrigerator Spills. The “gadget” had worked better than hoped. The food juggernaut had literally BLEW CHUNKS all over him. Picture a very large veggie dip walking around dazed and confused.

DING DING DING !!!  ORDER UP !!!  JUSTICE IS SERVED – GET IT WHILE IT’S HOT !!!

*   *   *   *

Personally, I can take a hint. (Cecily, please realize this does not include you, I love you, but I enjoy ignoring your elephantine sized and weighted “hints”…) If all my co-workers take a refrigerator and basically dump it on me, I just might think  “Huh?? Maybe I should reexamine my work ethic…”

Slog did not get the hint.

Further justice had to meted  out.

Gawd help us!!! Even the infamously passive aggressive, eyebrow floating, Master Technician Diagnosising, Former Service Mangling B-Ball became fed up!!!!

Turns out that good ‘ol Slog did not take his “Vegetationing” in the manner in which it was intended. No, good ‘ol Slog actually got even lazier.  He then started berating the guys that were actually doing their jobs! This could not be tolerated. But before I could bring my own impressive resources to bear upon the target, the normally flacid B-Ball became engorged with blood lust and screamed in a low angry voice, “I got it!! I got it!! I got it!!”

“It” turned out to his version of the Adrenalin Cardiac Injection. Yes, B-Ball, usually the quiet unassuming Master Technician Diagnoser (ever think that all the really good assassins have 3 names – Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Gacy, Attila The Hun,  Master Technician Diagnoser. I’m just sayin’ …) had gone to the dark side.

The setup was pretty much the same as before, Slog was tired from working all day trying to avoid work. I swear to Gawd that he burned 3 times the calories avoiding work as he did when he actually did something. On this occasion he consumed a couple of pizzas and curled up in his chair without fear because Mr. Gone-Postal was not working that day.

Having come back from an extended test drive, B-Ball was looking for his portion of lunch. The only visible lot attendant, you know, the one that had just stuffed 4 full pizzas in the trunk of his car when no one was looking, threw Slog under the bus for having consumed the last cheesy crust pepperoni and olive pie. “He just folded it up and ate it in one shove!!”

This shocked the normally Bucolic B-Ball into a dread Jekyll and Hyde-like transformation wherein he changed into Ballistic Bouncing B-Ball !!!

Upon seeing the transformation, techs ran willy nilly amid  shouts of  ”Take Cover!!”, “Incoming!!!”, “Outgoing!!! and, in one case. “MOMMY!!!!!”

Barely containing the animal within, B-Ball looked around for a fitting end to the Pizza Purloining Pompous Piss Ant Slog. Slowly and with great determination, he pushed the chair Slog was sleeping soundly in out into the middle of the shop. Then he grabbed a gallon of Blasto Brand Brake Cleaner and slowly poured it into a circle about 4 feet out from slogs chair, making sure to leave no gaps in coverage. And then, just like in the cartoons, he poured a “fuse” of the flammable liquid back to his tool box.

Using his trusty Bernzomatic – TS4000T  Torch (Instant On-Off trigger increases fuel savings and convenience. Lock button keeps torch lit for finger-free use. Replaceable brass tip. Burn tip produces swirl flame for maximum heat output. Pressure regulated to burn in all directions. Cast aluminum body, stainless steel burntube, and brass burntip for durability. Trigger start for ease of lighting.  Piston regulated to burn in all directions. Efficient swirl flame provides high heat output. Cast aluminum construction provides added durability.) he touched off the conflagration.

There is something very grand and delightful about watching payback…

There is something very grand and delightful about watching a good for nothing piece of crap undergo Technician Justice.

I just wish Bill Curtis could have done a lead in. (“Was it just pure mayhem the day they set the Lazy Ass Lube Guy in a ring of fire, or could it have been something more sinister? We’ll answer that question when we come back to TECHNICIAN JUSTICE. “) Or maybe the guy from the Geico Commercials could have narrated the action that day, (“Can you really save at least 15% on your car insurance by going with Geico? Is it wise to eat all the god damned pizza while B-Ball is on a test drive?”)

Folks, I gotta tell you there is nothing like the sight of some fat old fart waking up in a chair surrounded by fire screaming like a woman.

Except watching some fat old fart waking up in a chair surrounded by fire realizing maybe it’s time to move on…once the flames die down, while screaming like a woman.

Slog was not hurt, damn the bad luck. But to no one’s surprise he did leave within the week.

As I write this, be aware that there may never come a day when Technician Justice is dispensed again. Seems like all the college educated idiots have decided that they know how to discipline the troops much better…stop feeding them completely. “Since we can not seem to feed you all equally and we will not punish anyone who abuses the system, we are not going to feed you anymore at all ever again in this life time as long as you all shall live. Amen. That is all. Suffer, bitches!!”

Ah, yes. The good old days.  And the bad new days…

Troy Ok, So I'm an Idiot...