Instead of Halloween candy I'm passing out canned goods I bought for all the Raptures that never happened.

I got rear ended today at a stoplight by one of those 90-year old Sun City ladies wearing the scary plastic sun glasses. Fortunately her low rate of speed and the receiver hitch on the back of my Sorento meant no damage. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long.

The chances that your lab orders will include a urine sample are directly proportional to how recently you last emptied your bladder. If they can include "12 hour fast" on there why can't they write "urine sample required?"

Further testing would be required - and it's not going to happen - but I think a 12-hour fast increases the body's sensitivity to the caffeine in both coffee and Diet Coke.

Have you noticed that the two ads on the upper right corner of your Facebook page are tailored to you? FB allows the buyers of those to specify the parameters for who gets it, and they mine the info in your profile to do so. I understand why I get an ad selling insurance to owners of VW's. I don't understand why they think I want to buy Pete Seger tickets. I'm not old enough for that!

I'll tackle replacing the inner tie rod ends tomorrow morning. I'll probably lay off the caffeine for that task. Uncompromised focus is required.
The temporary hiatus on any work requiring buying parts - except the axle shaft replacement Steve will help me with next Saturday - had me bummed. But then I thought about all the things I can do to prepare for getting the body back. All the parts I took off need to be cleaned and/or reconditioned before they can go back on. For example, I need to take the speedometer apart for cleaning, lubricating and resetting to zero.
At the bottom of the dial are three lights - a green light to indicate a turn signal is flashing, a red light for low oil pressure and a yellow light for low voltage. Behind each of those is a separate bulb that shines through an appropriately colored piece of very thin plastic film, a cel. It's typical for that film to deteriorate over the decades, as mine has. Since those cels are no longer available the trick is to find manilla folders with the correctly colored tabs and cut new cels from those. Clever, huh?

Speaking of clever, there's a new camera coming in about a year, the Lytro. It uses a completely new technology that I don't understand at all. It involves light fields and allows you to manipulate the picture after you take it. They're saying this will make pixel-based digital cameras obsolete. Here's Lytro's website. If you go to the Picture Gallery you can manipulate photographs in a way similar to what you'll be able to do with the new cameras when they hit the market.
Ain't science amazing?!

How I Learned to Mind My Own Business
I was walking by the mental hospital the other day and all the patients were shouting, "13...13...13...13..!" The fence was too high for me to see over but I found a gap so I looked through it to see what was going on.
Some idiot poked me in the eye with a stick.
Then I heard all the patients shouting, "14...14...14...!