Eat S*** and DIY

As I sit here sweating, my fingertips still stained a grayish-black, even after a vigorous scrubbing, I'm pondering exactly what the penalty would be for hunting down and killing whoever it was that designed the headlights on the 2003 Hyundai Elantra.

It seemed the easiest of do-it-yourself tasks, even for a car-retarded know-nothing like me: changing the bulb in my headlight. So first I consult the manual. (Actually, not true. First I bought a new bulb at Wal-Mart, unwittingly committing myself to completing this job, despite my recurring desire throughout the project to simply smash the headlight with a baseball bat and then bring it to someone else to fix.) Anyway, the manual says: "The next paragraph will instruct you on how to change the bulb." The next paragraph proceeds to tell me that I should now change the bulb. These are the instructions? Were they just poorly translated out of the orginial Korean? Or does someone actually think that constitues "directions"? Allow me now to briefly interject into my own rant so that I may give you my award winning recipe for roast duck:

Step 1: Get all the ingredients and make it. Bon apetit!

Okay, we're back. How was the duck? Succulent, I hope. Anyway, being a resident of the 21st century, I consult the Web for answers. A complex picture-laden tutorial (not from Hyundai, incidentally) tells me how I can get this thing changed. Near the end, it says, you should now have eight bolts/screws taken out. This was the mantra I kept repeating to myself out by the car as I froze and wondered if this could really be good for the cold I was unsuccessfully trying to fight off. Eight. Eight. Eight. In my mind, I sounded like an alternate take of the Beatles' "Revolution 9" which would have been cool and kinda trippy, but I was preoccupied by only having seven bolts/screws.

Finally, I spy the final bolt, way way down below. This first requires removing a piece of hard plastic tubing that looked like an extension to the vacuum cleaner hose. As I haphazardly yanked it out, I considered what kind of job it might do on those hard-to-reach places behind the furniture. I tossed it on the ground. At this point, mind you, I had several car pieces on the ground around me, and I was having a bad fantasy about this turning into a stupid sitcom/cartoon moment where I finish the job only to say, "Oh yeah, and these parts were left over ... but I'm sure it's fine."

And here's the next problem, Bolt No. 8 is so far down, it seems impossible to get at. I'm working with some old adjustable wrenches (lacking one of those cool clickety ones that doesn't need a lot of space to work...ratchet? is that what it's called? I know, I know, I'm a goddamned moron). Anyway, reaching down there to try to turn this bolt -- which is on tighter than Tim Hardaway's butthole in a prison riot -- and it's about as easy as trying to get a stuffed animal out of one of those claw machines. At least I'm not wasting quarters trying to change this bulb.

After a combination of various tools and both of my hands (alternating as they became tired) I finally get the last bolt off and liberate the entire headlamp from my car. Sweet, sweet victory is finally mine as I pull out the old bulb and carefully insert the new one, making sure not to touch the acutal bulb, which the aformentioned Web site told me could ruin the bulb (gasp!) or shorten it's lifespan (double gasp!). Really it's the latter that has me worried, because if I have to do this again anytime soon, well, let's just say I won't be happy.

Thanks, English town!

Thanks to a printing error on calendars in a small English town, I will have two birthdays this year. Somehow, they managed to add a second May 28th to the Crawley Council's official 2007 calendar.

Thanks, Crawley! Of course, they say next year they're going to get it right. Fine, be that way.

There's still a chance they'll keep it with an extra May 28th. At least there will be once I write them a pleading e-mail to continue letting me have two birthdays. I will keep you updated if they respond.

I Am The Shortest Man Alive!

So last night I go to cover the Carolina-Duke women's basketball game, since what could be more fun than back-to-back nights of Carolina-Duke action? But since I'm a fairly late addition to the list and there are 70-plus members of the media in attendance for this No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown, I have to sit in auxiliary seating. My options are: a) up in the crow's nest at Carmichael Auditorium, where temperatures are known to range from "man, it's freakin' hot" to "wow, i think i literally just sweated my balls off" or b) in a regular seat in the stands on the baseline.

Being that I felt no desire to sweat through my clothing, I chose option B. Anyway, after sitting there for a few minutes, a woman I can only describe as gargantuan asks me to get up because she's a couple of seats down from me, and I'm on the aisle. Turns out it's USA Basketball coach Anne Donovan, who is 6-foot-8.

Incidentally, I only found out who she was right around the same time I became the shortest man alive. That would be when ESPN sideline reporter (and former member of my hometown WNBA squad, the New York Liberty) Rebecca Lobo comes up and asks if I can get up so she can sit between me and Coach Donovan. Now, Lobo is a mere 6-4, so she looks short a couple of minutes later standing on the floor interviewing Donovan. But up there in the seats next to me (standing a scant 5-11), both are huge. I could not be shorter if I tried.

Of course, it wouldn't have been much better at the other end of the floor where 7-foot former Tar Heel Sam Perkins was in attendance. Oh well, if I want to feel tall, I guess I'll have to hold out til Carolina starts a horse-racing team.

Doe? A Deer.

Apparently, a hunter in Florida shot a hermaphrodite deer the other day. And it was the second time in two days that someone bagged a he-she deer.

Even stranger (at least to me, and I'm the one writing here, so play along) is the fact that everyone apparently now must have a name somehow related to their newsworthiness. The other day, I wrote about Rep. Weed from New Hampshire who wanted to legalize pot, and then today, as I read this story, I can't help but notice that Florida's "deer managment coordinator" is named Robert Vanderhoof.

Hoof? Seriously? I thought the only people whose names were humorously related to their occupation were porn stars. But who knows, maybe it was intentional. Maybe this guy's name used to be Robert Vanderfoot, and he was like, "You know, now that I've got this deer-management gig, I should probably change it."

Hey, it could happen.

Sincerely yours,
Bloggy McBlogstein