A large, symmetrical oil stain

 Posted by at 11:01  Coot Comedy
Feb 232015
 
Panther, a cat using toilet, photographed in S...

Image via Wikipedia

 

Most of the time, when you think of an oil stain, you think ugly, dirty, slimy…something to be cleaned up as soon as possible.

Change perspective and that opinion can change as well. I have a brand new oil stain in my house, and I like it!

It’s rather large too. And I did it on purpose.

Now, y’all already had been wondering how I was allowed to walk around free in society rather than being locked away in an institution like the crazy uncle nobody in your family talks about, and this will probably confirm it.

“Did you hear about Bob? He dumped a bunch of oil on the floor in his yurt…and brags about it! He claims the stain is almost exactly half of a 30 foot diameter circle!

“He’s not planning to clean it up, either…not even scattering some Oil Dry.”

BTW…a note about oil dry. If y’all have a cat (God only knows why folks want cats, but some do. I’ll bet Ralph is weird that way…among others.) you can save some money on cat maintenance by bypassing that expensive kitty litter at the store. Just go buy a 50 lb. bag of oil dry at the local auto parts store. Most (90%) kitty litters are exactly the same thing, just with perfume added.

Seriously. Almost all of the kaolin (clay) in the country is mined and packaged within 200 miles of me, and I’ve been in the plants. They run bags down the line bagging the dried, flaked clay and labeling it oil dry. When they are done, they change bags and turn on a perfume injector. They then run more clay, with a penny or two’s worth of perfume sprayed on it, use a kitty litter label instead of oil dry, and charge you 5-6 times as much.

And you pay it.

And you think I’M nuts…

But anyway…back to the oil stain discussion…

Remember? This is a story about oil stains

(Shades of “Alice’s Restaurant”, all 18 minutes and 36 seconds of it. Want to hear it…and other weird songs like “The Streak”, and “I Am My Own Grandpa”? Go over to JuicyMaters and play the music player in the sidebar. This week’s genre is “oddities”. Better hurry…next week will probably be ether gospel or bluegrass).

Anyway, yes, I have a large new oil stain covering half my house, and I’m glad of it. It all depends on perspective.

If it helps you understand any better how I can actually LIKE an oil stain, it might help you to know the brand of oil It consists of.

Minwax.

 

Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

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Coots News Service-Tax Week Edition

 Posted by at 06:57  Headline News
Apr 102011
 
Protestors with signs

Image by JasonTromm via Flickr

No

No postponement for Tax Day

Well, the last week before dreaded Tax Day is going to be normal. This Coot was hoping that the Washington hacks would get all flummoxed by the complexities of the government budget that they would shut down the whole damn place.  No such luck!  By an unfortunatle lapse, I end up owing the goverenment this year. It would have been nice to have the government off my back while I scrape together the payment. Now it looks like I’m stuck. Those fools took off the boxing gloves long enough to cut a deal. All I know is if the politicians agree on something, it can’t be good news for me.

Obama, Ryan praise budget deal, look to next budget battles

Now that our President has shown himself to be a war monger just like any other President and started his own war, it is dismaying to find that the wrath of the American government just doesn’t seem to have the clout it used to have. The latest target of American firepower seems un-phased by all this attention.

‘Papa Is Used to the Heat’

People say that the only reason the US goes to war is over oil. This Coot has never figured out why we don’t just drill for it in Alaska or off the California coast. But is seems we’d rather bomb Arabs than disturb polar bears and sea gulls. Maybe, however,  there is another alternative- we can use microbes to make oil. Why not?  They’re not endangered.

Microbes may produce marketable methane gas from old coal

And finally, I know that CNS readers are always eager to know what our favorite Canadian pop star is up too. As his devoted fans know, Justin is way more than just a pretty face with sheep dog hair. Our multi-talented star is also an athlete. This week finds him training in Barcelona.

Bieber trains with Barcelona

Now, I’m off to search under my living room couch for loose change and dig out the rainy day money hidden under my mattress. Now that the government is going to be paying those IRS agents, I can’t afford to make them unhappy.

 

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Contributing to the delinquency of a Street Sweeper: Oil Stains

 Posted by at 11:15  Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles, rants
Mar 182011
 

Oil.  It is here, it is there, it is all around us.  Our bodies produce oils that stain pillows and hats much like Ralph’s Brylcream.  There is however some oil that gives issues to the powers that be.  The Powers that be being the city.  Out in front of my house, on the street are 2 very good size oil stains.

They have been there for 4 years.  They were caused by a cracked block on my old truck.  Despite all of the times that our street has been swept by the city, the oil stains remain.  There is also a fairly substantial stain on my driveway from the time my power steering pump blew a hose.  And the time that I was changing the oil and the wind started blowing the oil harder than gravity or surface tension could keep it in a column.

The point of all this is that for better or worse we live in a world that is run largely by oil.  We cook with it, we run our cars with it, we put it on the hinges of a squeaky door or a wooden countertop (new ones use a lot of oil for a while, another coat goes on this afternoon here).  Oil also is a highly staining substance that soap cannot always foil, and can defy steel brushes, rain, snow, salt and time.

I can sit here and look across the way at my neighbors driveway where he recently parted out one of his trucks and the oil stain he has is larger than the truck itself.  and will he ever be getting rid of it?  Probably not, it is in the gravel part so until it is paved there is a stain.  You can look almost anywhere and see oil stains.  Parking lots, driveways, roads, the shirt I’m wearing today.

Oil is here to stay at least for my lifetime.  That means that stains are here as well.  Might as well get used to them and while we don’t have to quit complaining about them, I can’t wait for the street sweeper to come around again and see him back up and try to do something about the oil stain.

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Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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