My son went on vacation to Puerto Rico and came home with this “street dog” as they refer to strays there. He was staying at a place called Río Grande. He flew home with her. That’s how she came to be part of our family. Her name is Río and she dances on the sand
@milstarr is that your paper filing system on the floor? I can’t blame you but will do so anyway because it’s your month. Mine is spread over multiple rooms and in some cases multiple states.
@pmarin Oh golly, I was hoping no one would notice the mountain of umm precious items I have there. To say I have a problem is an understatement. But I’m working on it. Been digging my couch out this week. It’s fun the things you find but have forgotten about. Well maybe not fun as much as surprising and wondering how and why this stuff is here! Again, I can only blame myself.
@PhysAssist I thank you for the blame and accept it as I have been working diligently through the years to get you to acquire your precious things from meh. It’s about time I got the credit! Er, blame. I totally meant blame.
She’s awfully cute!
I keep meaning to lay some blame on you but I haven’t worked up the energy yet. Which is good because by the time I do there’ll be less for me to gripe about.
Nah… You have more than lived up to the expectations of your meh duties.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plus there’s still time to fail in a more spectacular manner if you try!
@chienfou Nope. My son decided 3 hours before his flight that he couldn’t leave her behind. Found a vet. Vet checked her out. Gave her papers, shots, and medicine for roundworms. They had a carrier there someone had left behind. They sold that to him too. Then when he went straight to the airport they charged him a hundred for an under the seat in front of you dog ticket. Easy peasy but frantic because of time limit. That’s my boy. Doesn’t let a silly thing like “time” thwart his efforts.
@CharlieDoggo Note that “Doggo” is part of the name; I’m sure there’s something there. We also have @lonocat and sometimes get cat pictures. Co-incidence? I will gladly post cat pictures and also wild turkeys (not the bourbon) and an occasional bear.
@CharlieDoggo
Hey buddy, hope you and your mistress fared okay from the recent storms. I saw that your neck of the woods got hit pretty hard. Hopefully none of your four-legged friends suffered from the event.
BTW… not sure if it will work, but you can try to convince TM that peanut butter treats don’t keep after a storm … maybe she’ll load you up! Wouf (tu parle surment français, n’est pas?)
@milstarr, you’re being your own kind of goat and I, for one, appreciate that! If it will make you feel any better…
BLAME: I was almost late for an appointment with my mom because I was trying to figure out how to put her walker into my Mini Cooper convertible that I got only three weeks ago, and I missed something about using the Easy Load feature and the wind deflector together.
@ItalianScallion not familiar with the convertible easy load feature and generally not much room especially in convertible model. Your mother was probably both entertained and annoyed. Mothers have the ability to project both at the same time.
@pmarin The easy load feature is pretty nice. The trunk opening is quite small and the trunk lid opens down like a tailgate rather than up like most trunk lids. Once the trunk lid is open there are two levers just inside on each side of the trunk. You hinge them up and it releases the body panel above the trunk opening so it can hinge up to make a much wider trunk opening. You hinge the levers back down to keep the body panel up, then reverse everything to close it all back up.
I don’t think my mom was especially entertained and her annoyance was probably sympathizing with how frustrated I was.
@pmarin@chienfou Of course! It was lovely day on Friday here in the Boston area: mid 70s and sunny! The convertible top was the indirect source of the problem. I had forgotten I had put the wind deflector in, which covers the back seats, prevents you from folding them down (I figured that out pretty quickly), and makes the tunnel area between the trunk and back seat area too small to fit the wheel end of walker through. Duh. I took out the deflector and all was well.
The Mini’s convertible top starts as a sun roof. The first foot or so retracts like a sun roof, so that you can open and close it while you’re moving. If you press the button again, then it opens like a usual convertible top.
@ItalianScallion The second blame taking involves not making you aware of how your rear deck works. Not giving you enough time to peruse the manual. It’s evil but I had to make you figure it out. Your mom was probably amused watching your brain gears work.
@milstarr, it’s funny because I didn’t really care if I got a convertible or not. What I wanted was a 2024 Mini with well under 10,000 miles, the six-speed manual transmission, and the three-cylinder engine (better fuel economy than the four-cylinder one). The only ones I could find anywhere that met those requirements, were in Maine, Florida, and Las Vegas, and were convertibles. After getting the convertible, I’m glad I did. (I had a Fiat 500c before the Mini with a cabrio top and loved having that type of top.)
@ItalianScallion My whole driving life I’ve had convertible top cars. Started with an MGB. And it ends with the Honda S-2000 I have now. Love a convertible! It’s like a motorcycle but way safer.
@ItalianScallion@milstarr@unksol
1980s era Geo Metro (also sold as a Chevy). My mother’s car but not convertible. 3 cyl Suzuki engine I think. Back then (nobody believes me) there were several cars that got 40-50+ MPG.
VW Rabbit Diesel
3 cyl Geo/chevy Metro
Honda Civic with the old small engine they stopped making
Audi 5000 Diesel that got about 35 MPG.
Oh and a Mercedes Diesel also about 35MPG
Use to use the Mercedes for “work commutes” to California about 700 Mi. Realized it could probably make it on one tank but to be safe usually stopped at least once for “natural breaks,” maybe food, and a fill-up.
I can’t find Valve seats and all three are burnt. So I need to get a shop to regrind the valve seats. Might as well do the guides. Check the head/block and rehone
My whole driving life I’ve had convertible top cars.
Uhh oh is there something wrong with me? All my life I have had pickups with truck caps or minivans. I have slept in both instead of renting motel rooms when on the road traveling. Right now my nearly 16 year old minivan is the extension of the garage I don’t have.
@ItalianScallion@milstarr@pmarin yup pmarin is on the original… It’s still up on jacks in the garage. I need to order valves and guides this month and find a shop
@ItalianScallion@milstarr@unksol
Of the ones I mentioned, One of my favorites was a VW Rabbit Diesel I bought for $400 after getting cash from an ATM to meet a guy in a high school parking lot. It had a sunroof, manual crank. Back then I did all the maintenance including brakes. I used it for commutes over Hwy17 (some will know what that implies). Around 40 MPG on Diesel. I had a Porsche in my garage but loved the thrasher commute car. VW Diesel engines did not have a long life though, unlike commercial Diesels, so it eventually went down that path…
@ItalianScallion@milstarr@pmarin my first car was a 1990 $500 Plymouth acclaim that Dad picked up because of a blown head gasket. Because I did all the work he sold it to me for $500 when i turned 18. he covered the parts.
I managed to get wrecked a year later. 99 Saturn. For 2 decades. 97 expedition since 2019. need to resurect the metro.
I’m not a new car kinda guy. Id go electric or Miata but they run so…
.
Yes, my 2024 Mini Cooper convertible has the BMW B38 1.5L 134hp three-cylinder turbocharged engine. It has an unexpected (to me) amount of power and pickup and is getting around 35 to 39 mpg except in the city. This was the last model year that the three-cylinder engine and manual transmission are available on US-market Minis.
My whole driving life I’ve had convertible top cars. Started with an MGB.
My ex- had an MGA back in the late 80s/early 90s. That was a fun car! She eventually sold it, but had registered it with some sort of international MGA owners’ club. A few years later she got a letter from a guy in England. He owned the car… in England! Apparently at the time there were many more MGAs in the US than in England, so buying a US one and (re)importing it to England wasn’t all that unusual. I don’t remember if he converted it from left to right drive.
Another good story… my ex- owned a VW Passat diesel. Really nice car. She had it when the VW eco-diesel scandal broke and VW agreed to buy back all the cars with the eco-diesel engine that they lied about. She was about to sell it to do full-time RVing, but Fate intervened in a good way and she just had to drive it to the nearest VW dealer and get a check for the value it would have had at the time if VW hadn’t been lying about the engine. Not bad for her!
@milstarr@pmarin@unksol One more story… My first car was a 1965 Chevy Biscayne. I bought it in 1976, I think, from a secretary in the electrical engineering department at the college I was going to. I offered her $50, she insisted on $75, so that’s what I paid her. That car was absolutely the most basic car I’d ever seen. It had a two-speed automatic transmission (shifter on the tree, of course) and an AM-only radio that didn’t even have pushbuttons. The engine was a straight-6 and there was so much room under the hood, I could almost stand in the opening between one side of the engine and the inside of the car’s body. Being a poor college student, I did all the work on it myself: brakes, starter, water pump, tune ups, maybe even an alternator.
@ItalianScallion@milstarr@unksol Nah, we’re here for you, we don’t judge. The opposite car story (not high mpg) was a huge Cadillac Coupe de Ville from my mother; probably safe for anyone inside, maybe not safe for anyone else on the road.
Driving to Idaho with a friend from college (his parents lived there and there was skiing), trying to drive through all night in a snowstorm, the muffler dropped out. So slept by the side of Hwy 84 in Idaho. I was in my down jacket up front and he was in sleeping bag in the back seat. I think I found the spot when I drive by there. Next morning I had to go for help (there were no cell phones). He was still waking up in the back seat saying “what’s all that commotion”
Oh yeah maybe 10MPG. 472 V8. Gas maybe about 0.70.
@ItalianScallion@milstarr@unksol oh yeah this was the cassette unit I installed under the dash in the huge ashtray compartment
/image Pioneer KP 500 FM
All right, I was reminded of one after @pmarin posted the photo of that fabulous Pioneer FM radio / cassette deck…
My mom, one or more of my siblings, and I went to see a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar. (It’s still the only opera I’ve ever been to and I’ve been to Italy a whole bunch of times, but I digress…) After the show, when we got to the car, there was an eight-track player on the ground, obviously stolen from another car and dropped there for some reason. I wasn’t as honest then as I like to think I am now and I kept it. I installed it in my mom’s car and we enjoyed it. I even got an eight-track tape recorder for home and recorded some of my vinyl LPs onto tape. Well, one day we went to the beach at a nearby lake. Of course being summer and being the 60s (or maybe the early 70s), we never locked the car. We got back to the car and the eight-track tape player was gone. What goes around, comes around; easy come, easy go; etc. etc…
@mycya4me Unblame because in Northwest some rain came back. Gets rare around this time of year, for a few months. Helps the lawn and trees, and hopefully puts off wildfire season a little bit. But I did have to kick in a heater for a bit. So I can blame for high energy prices amid record profits for the bastards controlling it.
@mycya4me@pmarin Counter-blame - with all the recent PNW rain, I have not been able to mow my lawn for the last week. It is so out of control now that I dare not venture out without a sidearm, lest I be attacked by wildlife lurking in the teeming jungle.
@macromeh@mycya4me@pmarin Wow, where to start? Hey I know!
I can’t control the weather. It just does what it wants. It can’t be reasoned with at all. Sorry.
I’ll take the blame and unblame but it wasn’t me this time.
@mycya4me Well you must have been quite the jolly old goat! If you reread I did take the blame and unblame. I’m my own goat. Just may be I’m having some fun with it?
@milstarr@Wollyhop I was under consideration for February goat. I dodged the bullet only to have Fate choose me for the next month with… 31 days. It was 31 days of fun, though!
My son went on vacation to Puerto Rico and came home with this “street dog” as they refer to strays there. He was staying at a place called Río Grande. He flew home with her. That’s how she came to be part of our family.
Her name is Río and she dances on the sand 
@milstarr is that your paper filing system on the floor? I can’t blame you but will do so anyway because it’s your month. Mine is spread over multiple rooms and in some cases multiple states.
@pmarin Oh golly, I was hoping no one would notice the mountain of umm precious items I have there. To say I have a problem is an understatement. But I’m working on it. Been digging my couch out this week. It’s fun the things you find but have forgotten about. Well maybe not fun as much as surprising and wondering how and why this stuff is here!
Again, I can only blame myself. 
@milstarr @pmarin
Actually in my case, the ‘stuff’, which SWMBO refers to as ‘junk’ is mostly electronics and knives I compulsively bought from Meh.
So I blame Meh, and myself, of course…
But also as a matter of principle- I blame @milstarr
@PhysAssist I thank you for the blame and accept it as I have been working diligently through the years to get you to acquire your precious things from meh. It’s about time I got the credit! Er, blame. I totally meant blame.
@milstarr
Also, Rio is totes adorbs!
She’s awfully cute!
I keep meaning to lay some blame on you but I haven’t worked up the energy yet. Which is good because by the time I do there’ll be less for me to gripe about.
@Kyeh I sapped all your energy that’s why you can’t blame me. I’m insidious!
@milstarr Oooo, verrrry clever.
Nah… You have more than lived up to the expectations of your meh duties.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plus there’s still time to fail in a more spectacular manner if you try!
Edit: cute hound… Great story!
@chienfou
BTW …
Edit: cute hound… Great story! Did he have any issues with having to quarantine or anything?
@chienfou Nope. My son decided 3 hours before his flight that he couldn’t leave her behind. Found a vet. Vet checked her out. Gave her papers, shots, and medicine for roundworms. They had a carrier there someone had left behind. They sold that to him too. Then when he went straight to the airport they charged him a hundred for an under the seat in front of you dog ticket. Easy peasy but frantic because of time limit. That’s my boy. Doesn’t let a silly thing like “time” thwart his efforts.
Woof!!! Hi Rio!!! Let’s be friens.
There are lots of nice furry and feathered friens here you should ask for pics of them all. They will share!!
@CharlieDoggo Note that “Doggo” is part of the name; I’m sure there’s something there. We also have @lonocat and sometimes get cat pictures. Co-incidence? I will gladly post cat pictures and also wild turkeys (not the bourbon) and an occasional bear.
@CharlieDoggo
Hey buddy, hope you and your mistress fared okay from the recent storms. I saw that your neck of the woods got hit pretty hard. Hopefully none of your four-legged friends suffered from the event.
BTW… not sure if it will work, but you can try to convince TM that peanut butter treats don’t keep after a storm … maybe she’ll load you up!
Wouf (tu parle surment français, n’est pas?)
@CharlieDoggo Always bring on the animal pics! (Just not those weirdo pics of trophy hunters.) Ugh.
@CharlieDoggo @lonocat @pmarin photos of animals are always welcome in my life!
@milstarr, you’re being your own kind of goat and I, for one, appreciate that! If it will make you feel any better…
BLAME: I was almost late for an appointment with my mom because I was trying to figure out how to put her walker into my Mini Cooper convertible that I got only three weeks ago, and I missed something about using the Easy Load feature and the wind deflector together.
@ItalianScallion not familiar with the convertible easy load feature and generally not much room especially in convertible model. Your mother was probably both entertained and annoyed. Mothers have the ability to project both at the same time.
@pmarin The easy load feature is pretty nice. The trunk opening is quite small and the trunk lid opens down like a tailgate rather than up like most trunk lids. Once the trunk lid is open there are two levers just inside on each side of the trunk. You hinge them up and it releases the body panel above the trunk opening so it can hinge up to make a much wider trunk opening. You hinge the levers back down to keep the body panel up, then reverse everything to close it all back up.
I don’t think my mom was especially entertained and her annoyance was probably sympathizing with how frustrated I was.
@ItalianScallion @pmarin
Please tell me that you absolutely had to top down! I know my mom loved it when I drove her around in our drop top.
@pmarin @chienfou Of course! It was lovely day on Friday here in the Boston area: mid 70s and sunny! The convertible top was the indirect source of the problem. I had forgotten I had put the wind deflector in, which covers the back seats, prevents you from folding them down (I figured that out pretty quickly), and makes the tunnel area between the trunk and back seat area too small to fit the wheel end of walker through. Duh. I took out the deflector and all was well.
The Mini’s convertible top starts as a sun roof. The first foot or so retracts like a sun roof, so that you can open and close it while you’re moving. If you press the button again, then it opens like a usual convertible top.
@ItalianScallion I will take the blame of making you get a mini conv all day long and twice today, as it’s Sunday.
@ItalianScallion The second blame taking involves not making you aware of how your rear deck works. Not giving you enough time to peruse the manual. It’s evil but I had to make you figure it out. Your mom was probably amused watching your brain gears work.
@milstarr, it’s funny because I didn’t really care if I got a convertible or not. What I wanted was a 2024 Mini with well under 10,000 miles, the six-speed manual transmission, and the three-cylinder engine (better fuel economy than the four-cylinder one). The only ones I could find anywhere that met those requirements, were in Maine, Florida, and Las Vegas, and were convertibles. After getting the convertible, I’m glad I did. (I had a Fiat 500c before the Mini with a cabrio top and loved having that type of top.)
@ItalianScallion My whole driving life I’ve had convertible top cars. Started with an MGB. And it ends with the Honda S-2000 I have now. Love a convertible! It’s like a motorcycle but way safer.
@ItalianScallion @milstarr did someone just say 3 cylinder manual?
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @unksol
1980s era Geo Metro (also sold as a Chevy). My mother’s car but not convertible. 3 cyl Suzuki engine I think. Back then (nobody believes me) there were several cars that got 40-50+ MPG.
Use to use the Mercedes for “work commutes” to California about 700 Mi. Realized it could probably make it on one tank but to be safe usually stopped at least once for “natural breaks,” maybe food, and a fill-up.
All stick-shift except for the Mercedes
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @pmarin it’s taking longer than it should.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/unksols-metro-build-thread-maybe
I can’t find Valve seats and all three are burnt. So I need to get a shop to regrind the valve seats. Might as well do the guides. Check the head/block and rehone
@ItalianScallion @milstarr
Uhh oh is there something wrong with me? All my life I have had pickups with truck caps or minivans. I have slept in both instead of renting motel rooms when on the road traveling. Right now my nearly 16 year old minivan is the extension of the garage I don’t have.
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @pmarin yup pmarin is on the original… It’s still up on jacks in the garage. I need to order valves and guides this month and find a shop
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @unksol
Of the ones I mentioned, One of my favorites was a VW Rabbit Diesel I bought for $400 after getting cash from an ATM to meet a guy in a high school parking lot. It had a sunroof, manual crank. Back then I did all the maintenance including brakes. I used it for commutes over Hwy17 (some will know what that implies). Around 40 MPG on Diesel. I had a Porsche in my garage but loved the thrasher commute car. VW Diesel engines did not have a long life though, unlike commercial Diesels, so it eventually went down that path…
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @pmarin my first car was a 1990 $500 Plymouth acclaim that Dad picked up because of a blown head gasket. Because I did all the work he sold it to me for $500 when i turned 18. he covered the parts.
I managed to get wrecked a year later. 99 Saturn. For 2 decades. 97 expedition since 2019. need to resurect the metro.
I’m not a new car kinda guy. Id go electric or Miata but they run so…
.
@milstarr @unksol
Yes, my 2024 Mini Cooper convertible has the BMW B38 1.5L 134hp three-cylinder turbocharged engine. It has an unexpected (to me) amount of power and pickup and is getting around 35 to 39 mpg except in the city. This was the last model year that the three-cylinder engine and manual transmission are available on US-market Minis.
@milstarr
My ex- had an MGA back in the late 80s/early 90s. That was a fun car! She eventually sold it, but had registered it with some sort of international MGA owners’ club. A few years later she got a letter from a guy in England. He owned the car… in England! Apparently at the time there were many more MGAs in the US than in England, so buying a US one and (re)importing it to England wasn’t all that unusual. I don’t remember if he converted it from left to right drive.
@milstarr @pmarin @unksol
Another good story… my ex- owned a VW Passat diesel. Really nice car. She had it when the VW eco-diesel scandal broke and VW agreed to buy back all the cars with the eco-diesel engine that they lied about. She was about to sell it to do full-time RVing, but Fate intervened in a good way and she just had to drive it to the nearest VW dealer and get a check for the value it would have had at the time if VW hadn’t been lying about the engine. Not bad for her!
@milstarr @pmarin @unksol One more story… My first car was a 1965 Chevy Biscayne. I bought it in 1976, I think, from a secretary in the electrical engineering department at the college I was going to. I offered her $50, she insisted on $75, so that’s what I paid her. That car was absolutely the most basic car I’d ever seen. It had a two-speed automatic transmission (shifter on the tree, of course) and an AM-only radio that didn’t even have pushbuttons. The engine was a straight-6 and there was so much room under the hood, I could almost stand in the opening between one side of the engine and the inside of the car’s body. Being a poor college student, I did all the work on it myself: brakes, starter, water pump, tune ups, maybe even an alternator.
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @pmarin lol I’m always up for one more story. Homebody. I don’t really go out to meet people. Need to work on that
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @unksol Nah, we’re here for you, we don’t judge. The opposite car story (not high mpg) was a huge Cadillac Coupe de Ville from my mother; probably safe for anyone inside, maybe not safe for anyone else on the road.
Driving to Idaho with a friend from college (his parents lived there and there was skiing), trying to drive through all night in a snowstorm, the muffler dropped out. So slept by the side of Hwy 84 in Idaho. I was in my down jacket up front and he was in sleeping bag in the back seat. I think I found the spot when I drive by there. Next morning I had to go for help (there were no cell phones). He was still waking up in the back seat saying “what’s all that commotion”
Oh yeah maybe 10MPG. 472 V8. Gas maybe about 0.70.
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @unksol oh yeah this was the cassette unit I installed under the dash in the huge ashtray compartment
/image Pioneer KP 500 FM
@milstarr @unksol @pmarin That is soooo cool!! The round tuning dial is awesome!*
*Take it away, Mediocrebot!
@milstarr @unksol
All right, I was reminded of one after @pmarin posted the photo of that fabulous Pioneer FM radio / cassette deck…
My mom, one or more of my siblings, and I went to see a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar. (It’s still the only opera I’ve ever been to and I’ve been to Italy a whole bunch of times, but I digress…) After the show, when we got to the car, there was an eight-track player on the ground, obviously stolen from another car and dropped there for some reason. I wasn’t as honest then as I like to think I am now and I kept it. I installed it in my mom’s car and we enjoyed it. I even got an eight-track tape recorder for home and recorded some of my vinyl LPs onto tape. Well, one day we went to the beach at a nearby lake. Of course being summer and being the 60s (or maybe the early 70s), we never locked the car. We got back to the car and the eight-track tape player was gone. What goes around, comes around; easy come, easy go; etc. etc…
@milstarr @pmarin @unksol I created a new thread for car stories, so we can get back on the topic of blaming the goat here.
@ItalianScallion @milstarr @pmarin oh was that what we were supposed to be doing? Lol
I agree, you have Been a very Baaaaaaaad goat!
You get the Blame for the Wild Southern weather, in the last few weeks!
@mycya4me Unblame because in Northwest some rain came back. Gets rare around this time of year, for a few months. Helps the lawn and trees, and hopefully puts off wildfire season a little bit. But I did have to kick in a heater for a bit. So I can blame for high energy prices amid record profits for the bastards controlling it.
@mycya4me @pmarin Counter-blame - with all the recent PNW rain, I have not been able to mow my lawn for the last week. It is so out of control now that I dare not venture out without a sidearm, lest I be attacked by wildlife lurking in the teeming jungle.
@macromeh @mycya4me @pmarin Wow, where to start? Hey I know!
I can’t control the weather. It just does what it wants. It can’t be reasoned with at all. Sorry.
I’ll take the blame and unblame but it wasn’t me this time.
@macromeh @milstarr @mycya4me Yeah but in 8 Billion years when the Sun turns into a giant fireball and swallows the Earth, we will still remember.
@macromeh @milstarr @pmarin No matter who’s fault You get the Blame. That is what I was the GOAT!
@macromeh All you need is a CAT, Of course you should not have fed him for at least 24 hours. The cat would take care of all the critter in the Lawn!
@macromeh @pmarin
/showme several cats hunting in High grass
@mycya4me Well you must have been quite the jolly old goat! If you reread I did take the blame and unblame. I’m my own goat. Just may be I’m having some fun with it?
@mediocrebot It looks like it could be the cover of a series of books my son read about cats. The Warriors. He loved those books.
@milstarr Yep, that is what some though. Also was my own goat. Yes I had fun some fun with it?
Don’t feel bad. I was the Goat for all of 28 days.
@Wollyhop Lucky You!
@mycya4me EEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…
@Wollyhop Hey I can take the blame for your short reign if you want. I’m the goat!
@milstarr It be fine : )
@milstarr @Wollyhop I was under consideration for February goat. I dodged the bullet only to have Fate choose me for the next month with… 31 days. It was 31 days of fun, though!
@milstarr @Wollyhop
@ItalianScallion - You even got some extra time because the icon remained upright for another few days, didn’t it?
@Kyeh @milstarr @Wollyhop I had forgotten about that. I had only myself to blame, I suppose.
@ItalianScallion
Yep!