I bought an ‘85 Escort, my first new car purchase. My engine also blew at 68K! In later years I looked it up, and apparently there was a design flaw with that engine that caused condensation in the valve cover to drip into the oil. It ended up looking like a chocolate shake. The one good thing about that car was that…

Now that I’ve read this, I’m reminded that just a few weeks ago I bought a gift for my daughter and SIL that was listed here as a deal on The Inventory, and it came in a Sams Club box!

Well, you have to allow for me being in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. I’m lucky to have anything other than Taco Bell.

The day in 2006 that I drove on that track the temperature was 110 degrees F. It was so hot that they waived the long pants rule and let us wear shorts. I had my most, uh, puckering, track experience that day, with my brakes really fading coming up to turn 8 after that long straight. I just barely managed to slow down…

My go-to test order at a new Mexican place is cheese enchiladas.

The company I work for has a small aluminum casting division, and we’re 3D printing something to make a mold right this minute. It’s a great quick, low-cost way to get a model to make a mold, and to experiment with various shapes for some things.

My road course experience is limited to a half dozen or so tracks, but out of the ones I’ve driven on, Heartland Motorsports Park in Topeka was the most fun. It had some long straights, some challenging (to a beginner) corners, and even slight elevation changes (which is always a surprise in the Great Plains :) ).…

Hmm. I might try something like this for the weekend. I was planning to grill some chicken anyway and make some kind of Spanish-inspired roasted potatoes to use up some spare potatoes. I don’t particularly want to make lemon curd, but maybe lemon Greek yogurt instead? It probably wouldn’t have the same sweetness, but…

When I was a kid we had this fiberglass thing we used as a kiddie pool. I don’t even know what it was supposed to really be. It was just this...tub-like...thing made from fiberglass and gel coated, about 6 feet square and 18 inches deep. Something like this, but bigger.

It looks more like half a shipping container than half a dumpster. And lined with fiberglass?

I dunno, this site is arguably made up of car people. I was kind of pleasantly surprised when the question the other day about what vehicle are you buying next had a lot of us answering that it would be something electric. Yes, I have some I4 turbo cars, but I’d be driving something electric to work if I could afford…

We haven’t had end-to-end analog in decades. For a very long time POTS calls have been digitized into 64K channels (or even less sometimes). HD Voice has more than twice the frequency range of POTS, and sounds much, much better than POTS ever did.

Yep, in the olden times the “freezer” was just a compartment in the top of the refrigerator, and there was only one setting for the entire thing. We had one of those type when I was a kid in the 70's, even.

I had them once hesitate to give me a photo of my family, in our living room, taken by a friend. Said it looked like a studio photo. I said, “Thanks, I spent a lot of time in Photoshop making it look this good.” They did finally give it to me, but I think maybe made me sign something saying I had rights to it? Dumb.

HD Voice or VoLTE, which most newer cell phones support, has much higher sound quality than with old cell phones. When the devices on both ends use HD, there’s no more of that compressed robot sound these days for most cell phone calls.

I had Turkish coffee from Starbucks at the airport in Istanbul. I feel like it just barely qualifies me to say I’ve had Turkish coffee in Turkey. :) It was actually done well and not some Starbucks-ized version. Turkish delight on the side, even.

You didn’t mention the Turkish delight! When I’ve had Turkish-style coffee in Bosnia, Turkey, and even in Atlanta, it’s always been served with two pieces of Turkish delight on the side.

A mortar and pestle works well for turning table salt into popcorn salt, too.

We have a 2016 Fusion that looks almost exactly like that, 2.0L EcoBoost and fairly loaded. We like it a lot. It rides nice, handles nice, has a very well-designed dash layout. I even kind of like the older SYNC system (except for the absolutely stupid way you have to enter a destination). I hope this car lasts us a…

That’s the situation outside of all the big cities, probably. I’m in the middle of rural Southern Illinois, and while we do have a farmer’s market during the summer, the only grocery options are Walmart, a regional chain supermarket, ALDI, and Dollar General (no meat or produce, and a very limited selection of other…