Category Archives: Paul

After about the third time today I heard some one or some team was “going like gangbusters!” my poor beleaguered brain finally thought to ask:

“What the hell is a ‘gangbuster’ and what is it they’re doing that makes it so special when they’re ‘going’?”

(We’re coming down to the wire on about three different things at once at work and there are some really long hours and some really high stress rates going on at the moment, so my brain might be short circuiting. Just a warning, FYI.)

I know what it means. In general usage it means you’re performing some activity with great vigor and energy, in the process getting a great deal accomplished. But that doesn’t tell me who the gangbusters are.

I know all about GhostBusters, both the originals and the (quite possibly even better) reboot. (“Safety lights are for dudes!”) I’m guessing they’re not necessarily related.

For the answer, I went to The Google on The Cyber.

Apparently there used to be a radio drama called “Gangbusters,” which aired from 1936 to 1957. (Wait, they were still running radio dramas in 1957? I thought that television would have killed them off by that point – but I digress.) “Gangbusters” was an audio police procedural wherein the good guys, the Feds, the agents for truth, justice, and the American Way (minus the blue tights, flowing cape, and red underwear worn in the outside) swept through the city and were extremely vigorous, persistent, and successful in their efforts to wipe out the crime rings and criminal gangs of the era.

Fair enough. I would have suspected that Prohibition played a part in why there were gangs and why the Feds were so pissed off and looking for trouble to begin with. But Prohibition ended in 1933.

I guess you had to be there.

On the way home tonight I was stopped at a light next to a big “exotic” car dealership.

Ferrari. Rolls Royce. Lamborghini. Lotus. McLaren. I doubt they would even lower themselves to consider carrying a Jaguar, Mercedes, or BMW unless it was a classic model in cherry condition.

As I sat there in my $22,000 Honda Fit looking at the $500,000 cars, I happened to glance down at my speedometer. It goes up to 140 mph.

I wouldn’t even guess how high the speedometer goes in any of those exotic sports cars. I would be surprised if it’s anything less than 200 mph.

And while a Lamborghini can actually go up to at least 190 mph (while the speedometer apparently goes to 210 mph), I have doubts about my Fit doing 140 mph.

Even if you do allow that maybe the Fit could do 140 mph (for example, if you pushed it out the back of a C-130 at 40,000 feet), would I really want to be in it when that happened? While I do love my small and zippy little Hissy, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that the only way I would even try to get it to 140 would be if the entire zombie apocalypse was chasing me at 135.

I know how much it starts to shake when it gets up to about 95… Wait, did I say that out loud? 65! That’s what I meant, 65! That’s the legal speed limit – 65!

As the bumper sticker says, “I’m not driving to fast, I’m flying too low!”

This popped up from WordPress last night immediately after I posted.

I think I got something similar after 100 posts, 500 posts, and 1,000 posts.

Why after 1,337 posts?

Is there some significance here that I’m missing?

Is 1,336 posts the average number of posts for all of the sites on WordPress and I’m now above average?

Is 1,337 some magical or significant number that I don’t recognize?

It’s not a prime (7 x 191 = 1337).

It’s not the square or cube of an integer.

About the only thing that stands out is that it’s an odd number – apparently in more ways than one! Or at least someone odd at WordPress thinks so.

I keep saying, it’s the little things.

We bought my new little Honda Fit back in January. I’m quite comfortable in it and like driving it a lot.

It has lots of features. This means that there are buttons to push, and when I push them, things happen. The nine-month old Paul buried deep down inside loves this.

It has a moonroof, which is great for being convertible-adjacent when the weather’s nice.

I park it in the sun almost every day at work, and with a black interior it can get quite hot. To minimize this problem, I often leave the moonroof cracked open a bit, so the hot air can vent and not build up quite as vicious of a greenhouse effect.

A problem with this is that there’s a hole in the roof that can leave a strip of red hot pleather across the seat from the sun shining down directly onto it.

I remember seeing or hearing somewhere that the moonroof had a “pop-up” mode where the front stays closed, but the back end lifts up a bit to allow ventilation. The switch I see is either open the moonroof or close the moonroof, although you can stop it at any intermediate point. But no “pop-up” or “ventilation” mode.

When it’s done closing there’s a bit of an extra whirr, and the back end might be lifted up a little bit – I just figured that was it and I was expecting too much.

Until today.

Somehow as I was closing it after lunch, as I pushed the button forward to close the moonroof, I also was pressing on it upward. The moonroof closed, then whirred a lot more than it ever had. When I looked, the back end had popped up a good two inches, allowing me to leave the inside liner closed (solving the white-hot strip of death across the seat problem) while still giving me plenty of ventilation (solving the greenhouse problem).

Multi-dimensional switches!! Who knew?

Tomorrow I’m going to see what happens if I press it to the left or to the right. I’m pretty sure the answer is “nothing,” but I’m not taking anything for granted any more.

It’s the little things. You have to take your child-like (as opposed to “childish”) joys where you can find them!