Funny stuff.

Would you?

You are looking for a place to rent and you see an ad for one in a great neighborhood, going for below anything else in the area.

You contact the landlord and they tell you they have the keys, just go drive by and if you like it wire them your first month’s rent and the deposit and they will mail you the keys.

Which of these are possible outcomes of this scenario?

1. You are so damn lucky, you just got a fantastic deal and will love living there.
2. The place is completely trashed inside and you’ll spend every penny you saved fixing it up to be livable.
3. It used to be a meth lab and after six months of living there you will find out that it made you sick and you have 6 months to live.
4. The house isn’t even for rent, the person you contacted not only isn’t the owner but doesn’t even live in the US and you’ll never see your money again.
5. 1 & 2
6. 3 & 4
7. 2 & 4
8. Anything but #1.

Seems that some people are believing it will be #1 because, according to an article on KSL.com, these ads are out there and they wouldn’t be if nobody was falling for them.

To be fair, before calling these people total idiots for falling for this, the article did point out that a lot of the victims have been young adults, probably renting their first place.

Now, youth does not excuse stupidity by itself, but also consider that these people grew up buying things over the internet, without ever seeing the item or the seller face-to-face.

Still, that doesn’t excuse the lack of common sense, but it does remove the “total” from “total idiot”.

Where’s Waldo?

Sittin’ here looking around on the internet and I notice flashing red lights outside the front window.

Two ambulances and a fire truck out in front of the apartment complex next door.

Six or so EMTs and firemen are walking around the front of the apartment building with flashlights out, looking in the bushes, and carrying a stretcher. 

They walked around the side of the building, right into my side yard.  They were back there for about 5 minutes, came out with an empty stretcher and left.

I desperately wanted to go back there and ask what was going on.  Not because I was concerned about them walking around on my property, but because I’m curious.

If it had been a bunch of cops I probably would have felt differently.  Probably would have gone in the house, locked the doors, hid under the bed and waited for the gun fire to start when they cornered the dangerous fugitive they were looking for. (Gotta stop watching Flashpoint).

Either way, I didn’t think it was a good idea to confront them in a dark side yard while they are doing their job.  So I sat on the neighbor’s front lawn talking to him as we watched it all unfold.

I’d like to know what it was all about…

Auto repair, lesson 2

The back window of the “new” car was a little bit loose.  I had to push it forward when closing the door so that it would fit right.

So I pulled off the door panel, and these two bolts drop out.  Could be the problem, no?

Yes.  One was from the top, the other from the bottom of this:

The bar that holds the window in, that plastic is bolted to the glass.  So I put the bolts back on and tightened them down and, voila, the window doesn’t wobble any more.

Cool.  Hook up the power window switch, put it all back together and I’ll have 3 out of the 4 windows working correctly.

Oops.  Some (expletive deleted) cut the wires to the switch, rather than just unplugging it.

Junkyard time.  Gotta go get me a good switch plug.  Fortunately, any Ford, with power windows, built somewhere between 1970 and 1978 should have the right part.

Bonus points for the guy at Smith’s

Can you tell me what is wrong with this picture?

If you don’t want to play, and unless you’re a Ford fanatic like me you probably won’t see it, just go ahead and click on “Read more” to see the rest of the post.