greatbear: (no stupiding)
It seems these days that I have to "fix" various products and tools I buy to rid them of large, sometimes multiple warning labels written in several languages. Case in point:



Here I'm holding an extension, or "whip" hose for my recently acquired airless paint sprayer. Said sprayer comes with a 50 foot hose that is reasonably flexible, but still awkward in many situations requiring lots of spray gun gymnastics. The purpose of this short (4 ft) is to make the gun easier to move and point by virtue of its thinner overall diameter and more flexible nature. The tag, as you can see, is quite large. Huge, in fact, when compared to the spray gun itself. Among all the warnings printed on both sides in English, French and Spanish is a warning not to remove the tag. If I were a good, clean, law-abiding true-blue 'Murkin and keep the tag in place, I would, among other things, look forward to it dragging across the freshly-painted surfaces, blocking my view, and being a general distraction and safety hazard. Instead, I will be a terrorist abetting heathen and remove the tag since the common-sense warnings it displays I fully understand. In a similar vein I removed a total of five large, stiff plastic tags from a rather cheap extension cord the other day. I left the tiny tag near one end that maintains the ratings of the cord. It's about the size of a postage stamp wrapped around the wire.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Phil, what if someone were to enter the Garage/Basement/Lab Of/Doghouse/Etc. Of Mayhem, hurts themselves with one of the objects that has had its warning label removed and as a result tries to sue?" For one, if they are so stupid and so bold to attempt such a maneuver, it will not be beyond me to beat them senseless with whatever it was that caused the issue in order to either knock some sense into them or make the suit not so baseless. Since that is not very likely to happen, I will leave the aforementioned threat as a warning. ;)

Seriously, this is part of what's wrong with this country. So much CYA bullshit appended to our daily lives because certain people succeed at bringing legal action as a result of their own carelessness and stupidity. In an earlier day and age not so long ago, such stupidity would have been so much Darwinian selection working at it's finest. The way I see it, there needs to be a lot more people using toasters while in the bathtub. Make it a requirement as part of daily hygiene before heading off to the teabagging rally or something.
greatbear: (mini me)
Got my car back today, all fixed up. I have to hand it to Towson MINI, their service department is top notch (this coming from someone who prefers to do all car work himself, that's saying a lot). While nothing I took the car in for was serious, the dealer did everything right. To correct little cosmetic issues they replaced the steering wheel (leather was peeling), the left doorsill trim (was being 'stained' by water under a plastic overlay), and the driving lights (rusting inside the housings). Repaired a rattling of the dash by disassembling most of it to install updated mountings. Two minor emissions control issues were fixed. A TSB was issued for early cars having a potential problem of freezing door handles in wet, freezing weather, to be repaired by replacing the handles if the customer complains about it (I complained, even though I only 'almost' had the issue only once). And the repair and update for the glitch that was affecting the Navigation system brought about my only (expected) disappointment: I lost the Ann Richards-like British female voice so in character with the car, replaced by an American male voice. And the truly annoying "Americanization" is now being greeted with a disclaimer screen every time I start the car. This only makes me hate the litigious nature of our country even more, and wish that I could line up all the lawyers in the middle of a railroad track and plow through them all with a speeding locomotive. I'll even wear my seat belt and properly sound the whistle at all the railroad crossings and bridges. There is a hack to lose the nag screen and regain the female British voice.

I dropped the too-cool convertible this afternoon and picked up my car, all washed up and looking good after it's therapy. Nice touch.

Total cost to me to fix the car? Nada. Cost to BMW/MINI? Probably a cool grand and a half. Or better.

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Phil

December 2016

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