Sweet, but hard to implement, I mean, the efficiency of a steam engine sucks, so you’re wasting loads of the electricity you’re putting into the system, possibly to the point that the engine can’t move under its own power. Then you most definitely get water all over the place, from condensation if nothing else, which isn’t doing your electric power transmission system any favours. Also, how much water can you carry in an HO gauge loco?
What I’ve seen, and it’s beyond cool, is a LPG-burning model steamer, on about O gauge track. That’s big enough to work and avoids the above problems. I guess a LPG burner can whack out enough watts to boil water much more easily than a 12v electric boiler, though it’d be interesting to do the math. I could Google for the specific heat capacity of water and its latent heat of vapourisation if that’d be helpful. Any takers?
Some people say I have a tendency to over-analyze, but I disagree.
That Dilbert strip reminded me of another one. Dilbert made a robot double of himself to attend all the boring board meetings, and one of the office girls asked to borrow him for a date. “I’m full of uninteresting stories and I need to somebody to listen to all of them.”
The last panel is her and the robot Dilbert at a restaurant, and she’s saying “And now, I’ll describe what everyone was wearing at the Cat Show” as he plunges a fork into his forehead.
I clipped it out and taped it on my wall because my ex was the exact same way. “And now I’ll describe every exit my roommate took on her vacation.”
Let’s look at that statement in a little more detail. What makes you say that?
One thing this thread has done for me: it reminds me how much I loved the cow-on-the-track accessory on my Dad’s old American Flyer train set. Here comes the locomotive! And the cow swings away. Here comes the locomotive again! And the cow swings away. Etc…
Holstein, I believe it was, if Holsteins are about an inch long and made of injection-molded plastic.
(keep in mind that You got me all braggin’ up in here :D).
Speaking of cows. Remember Bambi? And the scene where the “daddy” Stag walks with Bambi to the top of the cliff and they stand there majestically, (stag chests all thrust out), surveying all they ruled?
At that crucial, meant to be impressive moment, in the dead silent theatre of several rapt children she utters but one slightly unimpressed phrase. “Look mommy, a cow”.
Upon having visited a museum full of taxidermied (not a real word) Alaskan animals, she was asked by my mother and me “Well, what did you think of the Alaskan Animal Museum”, and she answered in a completely bored tone “it was just a bunch of dead animals”. My mom and I cracked up, although it was more at the haughty “I’m above all that normal three year old bullshit” tone of voice than the actual wording. She listened to us laugh for a few beats and then in a totally disgusted with our immaturity tone of voice stated “well they weren’t like flat on their backs or anything”. (complete with an exasperated throwing up in the air of her teeny little hands).
Those are but a few of her gems. And it just got better from there. And yes, in case it’s not obvious I am proud of her.
You should be! Having a smartassed kid is a big accomplishment.
You should write a book.
“Look mommy, a cow.” Hee.
For those times when you’re stuck in a boring conversation and there are no convenient cows, here’s a cow you can always keep around so you can change the topic to something more interesting.
Is it a Holstein? No, maybe it’s a Jersey. No, it’s a Holstein.
Four of us were sitting at a local pub, and one of the guys was a huge sports nut. The rest of us weren’t. It was coming up on superbowl time, and the sports nut was giving us basically a recap of the entire football season, and how it had come down to these final two teams. We had tried to derail the conversation. Nothing was working. Then one of my friends came up with this:
Sports Nut: So blah blah superbowl is the greatest!
Genius: And it’s probably the most watched sports show all year.
Sports Nut: It sure is!
Genius: I hear that something like, 25% of all the people on earth watch it every year.
Sports Nut: Probably!
Genius: So that means that in a given group, 3 out of 4 people probably don’t give a sweet Christing fuck about the Superbowl, right?
Sports Nut: …
Genius: So what’s good to eat here?
I have never laughed so hard. None of us saw it coming. It was … beautiful.
When I went to see The Fellowship of the Ring, a couple with their 2-3 year-old daughter sat down near me. I was expecting her to annoy me the whole movie, but she was quiet and incredibly well-behaved through the whole thing. Only once did I hear her say anything. As the fellowship is going down into Moria, and the large tentacled creature comes out of the lake to grab them, she exclaimed with sudden delight: “Dinosaur!”
<snort> That’s brilliant! It probably wouldn’t work on a lot of those conversation-hogs, though, because they’re too clueless, and most of them don’t even really listen to what anyone else is saying.
The Superbowl would be much more interesting with some cows on the field, dontcha think? Or dinosaurs.
Jonathan Woodall,motor oil?! I never knew there was that much to know about motor oil. And what does that have to do with cows? You don’t need to oil cows. Usually.
It all started when my co-worker was scared the 5W20 the factory reccomended for his Ford Focus might be too thin.
Then I learned that there’s a special German version of Castrol Syntec 0W30 that was a perfect match for my car.
And it’s only found in the US at AutoZone. And it’s hard to find there. It’s like finding leprechauns, except at $6/qt.
And I learned that for only $10-35 you too can send your used oil off for spectographic and other analysis, that will tell you what ails you!
Now I probably spend two hours a day following motor oil as a topic.
In retrospect, obsessing on motor oils MAY have saved my sanity, but I wish I’d spent that energy over the last 2-3 years on my chosen profession. I could probably have learned mediocre SQL or C++ with 2000 hours of training.
