Top Four Reasons Not to Buy a New Car Right Now!
As if you did not need the top four reasons as to why you should be wiser and hold off on that new car purchase, I aim to demonstrate exactly why! The economy is daft, at the present. Many people are losing their jobs every day. In fact, November of 2008 posted the most job losses in nearly thirty years, a nice round figure of over half a million of those who were gainfully employed, but opened their locker, or arrived at their cubicle to find a pink slip next to their holiday greeting card. And for those who thought that their holiday bonus may tide them through the yuletide, many are finding that the businesses and companies that they used to be employed with are so strapped that they are not even issuing bonuses in many cases. So yes, indeed, making a whopping commitment to purchase a new car is not the most educated decision that one could make right now, all things considered. And if that did not convince you, these top four reasons aught to.
Some Car Companies May Be Out-of-Business Come January
The ‘Big Three’ automakers are on the verge of collapse, and if this is allowed to happen, hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs in the United States, and recent estimates are coming in that bode even more will lose their jobs in Canada. So buying a new car may not be your best option right now, especially if it is an American made car. Because what if the company that made your car sinks under the financial threshold and you left holding the note on a car that is now worth less than half of what you paid for it, and has no valid warranty?
The Best Deals will Arrive During the New Year
If you are able to be patient and to hold off, and weather the storm so to speak, you may find that the best deals take the light of the day during the early part of 2009. As car makers and dealerships alike scramble to liquidate their excess inventories—which are at all time historical highs—deals that have never even thought possible before will emerge. Some car makers will even be happy to take a nice loss on their sales, just to move units and make room for next year’s newer models on the car lots.
Think Cars are Stocked up Now? Wait a Few Months!
Like the above reason, this one goes hand in hand. Think the dealers are offering great deals now? Wait until they get the new deliveries in for next year and have to get rid of their excess inventories! Then you will find deals like never before, ones that offer the best prices to ever be had on new car.
The Economy is Unpredictable at the Present
Finally, the economy is so unpredictable at the moment that if you do trade in your older, already paid off car for a shiny new one that comes with a hefty monthly bill attached, what happens if you too get pink slipped from your job? It’s best to be patient and ride out the recession, and then make a confident, educated decision at a later time.
Repairing Breyer Horses: Fixing Broken Legs
Breyer horses are considerably more lucky than real horses in the case of broken legs. (Although this is a debatable point. For one thing, a real horse's leg is unlikely to break OFF. For another thing, real horses aren't as prone to broken legs from falling off shelves or being dropped.) While we all know what cowboys do to horses with broken legs, a Breyer horse's broken leg can simply be glued back on.
The first task, of course, is to find the other piece of the leg. This can be tricky, since the broken bits can be vacuumed up unnoticed, or skitter under the couch. With something so tiny, the rule is that if it can be lost, it will be.
If you purchase a Breyer horse with a leg that's already broken, it's theoretically possible to purchase another of the same model, break off its leg at the right spot, and sand down both pieces to fit. However, it's very difficult to get everything to fit correctly, and the measurements have to be absolutely precise. You can fudge it with a bit of epoxy, but the repair will always be visible.
If you have the broken piece in hand, then the repair is fairly simple.
The first thing you need to do is clean both the broken piece and the leg itself. Use a damp cloth and cool water to wipe both edges clean. Don't use any soap unless it's absolutely necessary, since it might leave behind a residue. Set the pieces aside for a while to dry completely before proceeding.
Breyer horses are made of a resin (cellulose acetate) which can't be reliably glued together using most common household glues like Elmer's or Crazy Glue. You will need to use acetone, which you can buy at a hardware store. According to Breyer horse repair expert Gary E. Sattler, you can also use a fresh bottle of nail polish remover. (Be sure to use plain nail polish remover, not one of the fancy kinds with aloe or vitamin E.) NOTE I did not have any luck using nail polish myself.
The acetate is a solvent that will melt your horse, so be careful once you open the bottle! What you are going to do is melt the plastic of both pieces just a little, then press them together and let them solidify. Apply a tiny dab of acetone to both sides of the break, and wait for them to become sticky. When in doubt, err on the side of using too little solvent, rather than too much. Too much solvent can soften the entire leg, and ruin your horse.
Press the pieces together, and let them settle. Hold them together gently for at least a minute.
This bond won't be terribly strong, so be gentle with your horse after you have finished. The bond will need several hours to fully set, so put your horse aside for a while. Depending on the break and the stance of the model, you may want to CAREFULLY stand your horse up, so that the break is held in place by the weight of the horse.
Complications of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa
Eating disorders are very serious and need to be treated as soon as possible. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa can cause life taking complications if not treated in addition to irreparable physical damage that can result in a lifetime of treatment.
Damage caused to the body from a strict diet results from the body not getting enough protein, calories and the extreme weight loss. Frequent elimination after eating to control weight such as vomiting and using laxatives and diuretics will cause complications on their own. Some that have worked through Anorexia and Bulimia will find that there is an excessive weight increase with complications of obesity as a result. The body looses its routine in processing food and calories. Calories consumed are turned into fat and stored as the body's way of protecting it from starvation again.
Death being a very real result of any eating disorder, the mortality rate for Anorexics alone is between 4 and 18 percent. At this rate of death, it can be closely compared to deaths resulting from drug abuse. Death from Anorexia Nervosa is usually caused by cardiac, pulmonary and renal damage. These are linked to deadly malnutrition and self-aggressive behaviour common in nearly 20 percent of Anorexic patients.
Classic complications of malnutrition:
- Amenorrhoea (no longer having a menstrual cycle)
- Anemia
- Osteoporosis
- Loss of Bone Density
- Damage to Immune System
- Increased Risk of Getting Gall Stones
- Constipation
- Kidney Damage
- Cardiovascular Disorders
Anorexic women who are wanting to have a baby will find it extremely difficult and it is not advised. If you are pregnant and suffering from Anorexia Nervosa there is a very large risk of miscarriage and premature birth. Keep in mind that the fetus needs proper nutrition to grow and thrive as well as a healthy mother.
Induced vomiting on a regular basis can cause gastritis and permanent damage to teeth and enamel. Salivary glands can become painfully swollen causing the cheeks of the face to look like "chipmunk cheeks." Frequent induced vomiting can also cause permanent damage to the vocal cords due to sub-acute laryngitis.
Abuse of diuretics can cause:
- Renal Damage
- Stagnation of Body Fluid
- Arterial Pressure Decrease
- Increased Risk of Heart-Circulatory Failure
Long term complications of laxative abuse is chronic intestinal inflammation. In time it causes the loss of intestinal motor capacities and permanent constipation. In rare cases stomach ulcers can develop as well as heart rhythm problems.
Again, eating disorders are to be taken very seriously. A person with an eating disorder is not only suffering from the malnutrition complications but also mental conflicts. If you know someone who is suffering from Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa try to help them make an appointment right away with either a medical doctor or a mental health professional. When making an appointment it is always okay to ask if you can accompany your friend. It usually helps to have the extra support there from someone that they trust and have confided in for the first visit and health care professionals will normally not have a problem with it.
Does Anybody Ever Get Approved for Zero Interest Car Loan?
I am sure that you have seen them frequently on the television set, especially late at night, when the TV channels seem adorned with advertisements and infomercials galore—you know those zero money down car commercials brought to you by your local dealership, touting a zero interest loan for everybody. Here is a good rule of thumb when it comes to car dealership advertisements on the television: the big print gives and fine print takes away. What I find dreary and downright manipulative about these array of misleading ads, is that they are indeed misleading! Who do you know in your lifetime that has ever gotten approved for a zero interest auto loan? And, even if you happen to know one person, then what about the other hundred that didn’t get approved?
Is this a Form of False Advertising?
I believe that this is a form of false advertising, although I am certain the media agencies will wholeheartedly disagree with me. But when you are advertising as a pitch that you can approve zero interest car loans, and when the statistics show that, at best, one out of every couple thousand of patrons who applies for a car loan will ever even be offered a zero interest rate, then how the heck can you really truly and honestly claim that you are offering zero interest auto loans? Of course, the fact that there is that one in a million lawyer or doctor who can easily afford to pay cash for the car, that may be the one toothpick in the barrel who actually gets approved for a zero interest car loans; its just plain misleading folks.
What Kind of Credit is Required for a Zero Interest Loan?
Basically you need to have flawless, and I mean Hope Diamond flawless credit to even be considered for such a lofty, zero rate. You need to present absolutely no risk to the lender, so they can justify using their balance sheet in your favor. And guess how many people actually meet these very stringent requirements? If you thought less than one percent of society in our country, then you figured a lofty number that is even misconstrued. Maybe, and I mean maybe, half a percent of working Americans meet the strict credit criteria for a zero interest auto loan. And that is really at best folks!
What’s in for the Lender?
So what would ever be in it for the lender by issuing a car loan which offers a zero percentage interest rate? Not very much at all! They will only make money on loan origination fees, and they will not make a cent after that. They tie up their available credit, which could be used to lend money to those who will pay a higher interest rate, even if they have slightly more risk attached to the car loan. But, in some rare cases, auto loan lenders will approve these loans to make use of unused surpluses of cash they have to lend out that quarter. Now how many banks do you know of right now that have these unused surpluses of cash to lend for no profit? Exactly!
A roster is as complicated as the Antikythera Mechanism
... and in case you were wondering. :- )
In this study by Bill James, he discovered that a team that exceeds Pythag in (say) the year 2012, is likely to do a lot better than you expect it to, in year 2013.
What James did, was he took a lot of teams that performed worse than their runs/runs allowed predicted, and a lot of teams that performed better, and asked "which teams did better the next year?"
In other words, suppose you took these two teams:
2005 White Sox … +741 runs, -645 runs allowed … 91 predicted wins, 99 actual wins 1997 Dodgers … +742 runs, -645 runs allowed … 91 predicted wins, 88 actual winsSo an educated GM would project those teams (other things being equal) to win the same number of games the next year, right? Because the "luck" would even out — and random fluctuation is the dominant predictive compass we use? I'll wait while you go look up how many games the 1998 Dodgers and 2006 White Sox won. === Cognitive Dissonance, Dept. === The Dodgers won 83 the next year; the White Sox won 90. This happens again, and again, and again, James found. Overachieving per Pythag — winning more games on the field than your run differential allows — is a very strong sign that you're going to do well in the following season.* In fact, in James' study, he found that 100 "overachieving" teams beat 100 "underachieving" teams, the next year, by 348 games. That means that for every overachiever who got no overperformance, there was another team that got 7 games' worth of overperformance the next year. Don't read further until you've figured out why… ;- ) this isn't a phenomenon to shrug and ignore. . === And Now For Something Completely Different === There are a lot of moving parts on a 25-man team. 25 moving parts. Even one is hard to predict. But 25? You figure Morrow for X runs, and that's off by four inches. You figure Shelton for Y runs, and that's off by six inches. You figure Branyan for Z runs, and that's off by three inches. How many inches are you off at the bottom of the table? When you build a house, do you cut boards off of the same board template, or do you keep switching boards every time you cut one against another? You'll be off by four inches at the end of the day… ……………………….. 25 moving parts. That's why every year, there is a team that wins or loses 15-20 more games than expected — in 2007, it was the White Sox, who went from 90 wins to 72 despite few major changes. In 2005, the Twins won 83 games (exactly where skeptics say the M's were in 2007); in 2006, they won 96. …. why? Not because they went out and changed their roster. They just had a lot of guys have better years. This happens every year. A team has a bunch of guys have good years together, and wins out of nowhere. ………………………….. An amigo responds, the intelligent thing to do is to assume that for every Richie Sexson who sees his BABIP bounce back, there will be a Raul Ibanez who has an off year. In Strat-O-Matic … perhaps that's what you might assume, yeah (but even then you wouldn't use that as an excuse to resign). But what happens in baseball is that a factor X, a human factor, the element of chemistry sweeps a clubhouse. And then 25 moving parts are all being affected by an invisible wind — it's no longer a strictly luck-and-chance assumption that we can use. Last year, in 2007, I surmised that this meant a possible UP indicator for the 2008 M's. To my lasting regret. :- ) Ah, well, life and baseball are complicated. Lesson learned? Don't predict teams ... …………………………….. Every year there is a team that just won 83 games, and now will win 96. Or that won 90, and will now lose 90. Why? 25 moving parts. And chemistry. For some reason, Pat Gillick's teams seem to have rosters full of players who have good seasons together. Will Zduriencik's "Safeco-Friendly" roster create early momentum towards the same goal? Hm. Cheers, jemanji ................ image: http://asymptotia.com/wp-images/2006/11/29comput650.jpg
Kitten Safety Tips
Keeping your kittens safe is much like doing the same for a puppy. Both are very curious and will get into anything. Kittens however have a tendency to get themselves into more trouble since they have the ability to climb and jump from virtually anywhere they so please.
Playful kittens love to play with anything that dangles like cords, jewelry and house plants. If you have a kitten at home or are thinking about bringing a kitten home, you need to pretty much baby proof your house only with a cat in mind. Electrical cords and such can be very dangerous for a kitten to play with not to mention that whatever the cord goes to chances are you aren't going to want to spend the money to replace it.
Tacky as it may look, duck tape will take care of most cords. Tape them together if there is more than one going to the same place then tape them to the wall or floor. This prevents the cords from being a source of batting around fun. You can use furniture or wall hangings to try to hide the tackiness of it all if you feel necessary. For the cords on the floor, find a small area carpet to throw over it and you're done.
Jewelry should be put away as it can be a choking hazard or cause internal damage if swallowed. If a part or piece of the jewelry does get stuck in the stomach or intestine, the cat will have to undergo surgery to have it removed and this is a very costly procedure. So if you value your precious belongings and your kitten make sure you put your shiny jewelry away.
House plants should be put up or out doors if that is an option until you feel comfortable in your kittens behavior. Research the plants you do have in your home as some of them can be very poisonous and deadly to cats if ingested. Seasonal plants like Easter Lillies fall into this category and should not be in the house for the kitten to play with at all.
Cabinets in the kitchen, bathroom and throughout the house make for great fun. These cupboards can be deadly for your kitten if they are getting into cupboards that have cleaning products in them, poisons or foods that they shouldn't be eating. In the baby section of any store you can find many different packages of devices that will lock your cupboards that are easy to use but still keep kittens out. Don't put it past your kitten to get those cupboards that are up high. A jump on the counter followed by a long stretch to reach and they are in.
As mentioned cats are great jumpers and not always very graceful about it either. Keep this in mind when looking around your house for possible dangers for your new kitten as well as things that you value. Breakable family heirlooms that you have neatly placed on the fireplace hearth or on top of the entertainment center may end up shattered on the floor. This can cause your kitten some injuries if they get into the broken pieces and you to be very upset.
Naturally very curious as these creatures are, there are some experiences that are best left to be unlearned such as a horrible injury or sickness. You won't have to keep your things put up or out of sight forever but while your kitten is learning the ropes of the house and it's boundaries it is better to play it safe than sorry.
Mark Teixeira
It looks like seattlesportsinsider.com will become Dr. D's Mariners site -- along with detectovision.com -- while proball.us becomes the general sports blog. Thanks for bearing with us. Please return to your regularly-scheduled programming.
Loved Kevin's catch on the Tex rumor.
It Tex a Village
Cheers,
Dr D
It TEX a village...
... full of cash, to land a player like this one. Kevin Ess at Mariner Central pointed out the SI.com rumor that the Mariners are in it, early on, for Teixeira.
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Sports Illustrated recently printed (in some kind of paper-magazine form of SI) the article "Tex, Inc.", which contained a number of points I hadn't paid much attention to.
First of all, Teixeira is a good actor - for example, he amused the Angels with the fact that they could never catch him blowing a bubble or looking into the stands with his head down during the National Anthem -- nope, standing perfectly stock-still, head down, yada yada.
He comes into the clubhouse, carefully turns off his cell phone so as not to distract others.
He follows an Ichiro-like pregame routine, eating the same sandwich at the same time, a PowerBar in a particular inning, etc. etc.
As you know, Tex is a polished defensive player -- remember our Bill James rule that the good guys, the unselfish guys, are the ones who work on their defense.
He's handsome, professional, intelligent, a leader, yada yada -- and therefore an ideal "face for the franchise." (Remember that the M's were going to unload huge $$ on ARod and Junior precisely because they saw them as the Team Brand.)
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According to SI, this leadership extends to in-game situations. Supposedly the Angels sat on the bench, with their hitting coach, and discussed Tex's exemplary AB's as he was taking them. They went from #29 in walks, first half, to #21, second half.
I don't say it's the gospel truth. But you know that this club has has its share of negative examples...
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The Mariners' offense didn't lurch to a halt when Junior left. The offense was barely affected when ARod left. But the Mariners' run-scoring machine did a bug-on-the-windshield dance when: Edgar Martinez Stopped Hitting.
In my view, the key piston in the M's engine was Edgar's OBP plus SLG. Night in, night out, Edgar would put nightmarishly difficult AB's on pitchers, wear them down, take his bases, and his teammates would march in behind him with renewed faith...
With Teixeira, you're talking the OBP renaissance.
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So you've got an Edgar type here, except he's lefthanded for Safeco.
You've got an Edgar type, who hits 36 homers per 162 AB's for his career.
You've got an Edgar type, who has multiple gold gloves on defense. Defense is all the rage in Seattle, supposedly trades 1-for-1 against the bats on the European sabr market, so you'd think people would get to adding up Tex's offense plus defense.
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Tex was 28 last season and is coming off two consecutive 150 (one hundred fifty) OPS+ seasons. Ken Griffey Jr's lifetime OPS+ is 138. Absent the Kingdome, Junior was probably a 140 guy. Teixeria is, roughly, as good a hitter as Ken Griffey Jr.
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Would Tex play here, and would Boras recommend that he do? I don't know -- would ARod play for a loser, if they offered the biggest contract? Oh.
In the SI article, Boras gloated that he had laid out the 10x$20M parameters and, to his amazement, 10 teams were interested.
I'm sure that if the M's were the highest bidder, you'd see Tex in an M's unie with the ARod shtick, "hey, two or three players and we're right there." (Never mind that Teixeira himself IS two or three players.)
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In roto, you've got a $260 budget and you don't go out and buy those $6 Sheltons and Branyans so that you can finish .500 for $204, and leave $56 on the table -- giving $56 advantages to your enemies. You find the $6 Sheltons so that you can go out and get the $35 Teixeiras.
Getting a bargain for your dollar is a great thing. But saving money isn't the object of the 162-game season. Did the Red Sox insist on a bargain for their dollar with Dice-K? Are the Angels going to insist on a bargain if Tex becomes the face of their franchise?
You don't have to get a bargain on EVERYthing. Sometimes you just pay what you have to pay to get the irreplaceable commodity (such as your wife...), and then you save money elsewhere (such as with your Mariners' seat).
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The M's might not win in 2009, but the paradigm isn't to make sure that we lose this year. Teixeira would still be here in 2010 and 2011, and we wouldn't be sacrificing a thing by locking him up now. He's not going to be available next year.
In Stars and Scrubs -- as well as in every rich city other than Seattle -- the question isn't WHETHER you want franchise players. The question is WHICH franchise players are you going to bet on.
Teixeira in Safeco? Sounds like your beloved peanut-butter-and-jelly to me, Mark.
Cheers,
jemanji
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image: http://www.prosportsmemorabilia.com/Images/Product/33-57/33-57593-F.jpg
Ask the Bird Folks
A metafilter user published humor-articles">a post about a series of articles by Mike O'Connor, who he describes as "a "Car Talk" of bird writing." O'Connor writes a column called "Ask the Bird Folks" for his local newspaper in Cape Cod, MA. Five of O'Connor's articles were chosen to be published in an edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing.
I've been reading through O'Connor's articles all morning, and it's great stuff. O'Connor writes with humor and - as the owner of Bird Watcher's General Store - many years of experience. The full archive of his articles is here, and it should keep you away from doing productive paperwork for quite a while!
I live in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, and I see a staggering variety of birds here in the course of any given day. At night, I hear owls - I've identified six kinds so far. I love the birds, big and little, but I have to admit that the winter wren is beginning to vex me.
This little wren is a year-round resident, and its "chip chip" call provides cheerful company when I'm out doing yardwork or bringing in firewood. And it's ever so cute, with its stubby little tail stuck straight up in the air. (There may be more than one wren, but since I've only ever seen one at a time, I'm assuming there's just one.)
Unfortunately for some reason this year, the wren has decided that it really really wants to perch in the eaves of my house, right where the roof overhang meets the siding. The problem is that the siding is smooth there, and there's absolutely no place to perch. This minor fact hasn't dissuaded the winter wren from its quest. I hear it several times a day, flapping around frantically under the eaves, searching for a place to perch.
My first instinct was to climb up on a ladder and glue some sort of perch under the eave. "The poor little bird," I thought, "it needs a place to rest!" Then I realized that I live in the woods. I live on five acres of wooded property, and my property is surrounded by literally thousands of acres of woods. There is no shortage of habitat out here. It practically abounds with perches. I'm swimming in perches.
"This bird is an idiot," I thought. Whenever I saw it fluttering around up there, I would shake my head and tell it to give it up, man. You're never going to find a perch there!
That's what I had thought, until I read O'Connor's article on the winter wren.
I was surprised to see him refer to the wren as "reclusive." I see the wren at least once a day. I even see it from the comfort my desk, when the firewood is stacked high enough against the outside wall. Right now the firewood is stacked to just below the window behind my desk, and the wren often stops by to peck bugs out of the firewood. It's a year-round resident here on the property, and I rarely make a trip outside without hearing it chirping and thrashing around in the brush.
At the end of his article, O'Connor talks about the resourceful feeding of the winter wren. He writes, "There is no dark hole, no shadowy abyss, no creepy cranny, or cobweb-covered tunnel that this bird won't enter." So I think I may have had it wrong all along - the little guy isn't looking for a perch. He's cleaning out bugs from the eaves. The next time I see it, I'll have to apologize!
drip irrigation
I want to buy used or damaged drip irrigation tubing