That's terrible about the puppy.

Sara, is he adding horsepower to his normal driving car? I've been on the receiving end of a number of those "conversations" since my partner in crime bought a new car, that evidently needs hella tweaking.

Dude. Beer goggles not only exist, but you can even calculate their effect.

Dammit, and now that damn Duchovny commercial with the shelter dogs comes on and makes me cry.

That shelter commercial kills me every time. I am such a dog person.

Nora, I'm so sorry about the puppy! Your poor friend.

sarameg, it's good that your friend is feeling optimistic. It's so hard to go through a miscarriage.

I love "Brandy"! It's on a tape in my car right now, as a matter of fact. Poor Looking Glass. A one-hit wonder.

Nora, that's so sad!

Sara, is he adding horsepower to his normal driving car?

Yeah. Well, if you call it normal. Basically tweaking various settings. Keep in mind, in his car? A laptop sits in the passenger footwell that plays with various stuff that I don't get. It's (I think) a nissan Z of some vintage with multiple mods. He does the work on it himself. He was especially pleased that after a little race on the freeway at 170 mph with a brand new porche of some gumption, his 4 turbo exhaust thingies (um, my term) were glowing red. Apparently that's a good thing.

Maybe your partner in crime needs to talk to my brother. He laughs that I probably understand 40% of what he says, but it's the enthusiasm that entertains me. Basically, it all translates to FUCKING AWESOME FAST! to me....

I wonder if it is something the breed is prone to or just coincidence.

Actually, it's not coincidence. Goldens are prone to cancer; my sister's last two dogs, both goldens, died of cancer. When she took the second one to the canine oncologist, she was told that Thursdays, which were chemo day, were known at the clinic as "Golden Day".

Dalmatians are born deaf; St. Bernards have eye problems; Alsatians get displasia; and goldens get cancer. It's a hazard of purebred dog lines. Me, I'm happy my last dog was a mix; his only real medical issue was an allergy to fleas and occasional anal gland infections.

That said, any story about losing a puppy is incredibly sad. Poor puppy!

He laughs that I probably understand 40% of what he says, but it's the enthusiasm that entertains me. Basically, it all translates to FUCKING AWESOME FAST! to me....

Oh, yes, this. Very familiar. Every now and again I ask "But do you really need to go any faster?" just to underline my complete lack of getting it. PiC doesn't do the work himself, though he did have a chip hooked up to his last car that modified some stuff, and he's considering it for this one too. There's some thing that the engine sits on (it's like a puck) that he wants to replace with something...harder? Something so that the engine doesn't rock in the well before sending torque to the wheels and so...fuck...so it all goes faster.

Apparently you can make a car go faster by fiddling with the A/C. I don't fucking know. I'm still proud of myself for remembering DOHC means dual overhead cams. Each word of which I understand quite completely. But everytime I had the point of them in a car engine explained, I could only retain the knowledge for about 15 minutes at a time.

It's like a sieve. I totally get how the internal combustion engine works, with the pistons and the spark plugs and the belts and the doodads. We just never really put it in a car when we were studying it in high school physics.

And I drive a VW. The engine's all encased in plastic and changing the headlights needs a professional and 15 minutes.

We actually have a customer named "Schlomo".

Hebrew for Solomon.

(Lots of Hebrew names really don't pass over well into English. The worst probably being Doodie as a fairly common Israeli nickname for David.)

Apparently you can make a car go faster by fiddling with the A/C.

Yes. By not turning it on.

But actually, there's another way. For some cars you can buy a replacement pulley that's larger than the stock one on the A/C compressor. The result is the same as a change in gear ratio that causes the compressor to turn slower, reducing the amount of power it sucks up.

But I'm not sure how necessary that is. Most (maybe all) cars these days are designed so the A/C will cut out when you floor it.