PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

How in the hell did they manage that? They don't generally allow filming of executions...? The last public guillotining in France was in 1939...

 

And no one stole the turd?

 

Exactly, lol!

 

Remember the kid l mentioned that delivered pizza in his Mom's Cadillac Cavalier, he was an "Extra" in some movie with monkeys. I remember him telling me that they needed a monkey to raise its hand in a class room scene and it wouldn't do it so the special effects guy tied fishing line over its wrist and lifted it that way.

 

Monkey see, monkey not do...

 

I dont know, maybe that was recorded prior to the ban, bizarre movie to say the least.

 

LOL!

 

If l am not mistaken, this was the movie.

 

Is that the movie?

 

Yeah l am almost positive. It said by George Romero, that dude was a PGH movie guy so it would make sense.

 

I've only encountered a real-life monkey outside of a zoo once in my life; We lived in Northern California from 1996 to 1998, and my aunt and uncle lived a little over an hour away in Monterey. Whenever we visited them in Monterey, we often went to Fisherman's Wharf. Almost every time, there was an organ grinder with a pet money; I don't know what specific breed of monkey it was, but I'd like to say Capuchin...? It was a small monkey, and the guy had it trained to hold out a tin cup for tips. He would also let you feed the monkey (but only biscuits that he gave you). The monkey was very friendly, and he'd climb up on your shoulder for pictures. One time in 1997, I had a toy stuffed dog with me, and being the nice guy I was I tried to "share" with the monkey. The organ grinder told me that stuffed animals scare him...

We moved from California to Virginia Beach in 1998, and lived there until 2000; We moved to Washington (state) in 2000 and my mom and I flew into San Jose Airport in August of that year. My aunt picked us up in my uncle's year-old (1999) Dodge Ram 1500 and we spent like a week in Monterey; I seem to remember that the organ grinder and his monkey were still there in 2000. Our next visit to Monterey was in December 2001 for Christmas; I do not remember if the monkey was there in 2001. I saw my family members from California numerous times between 2001 and 2008, but I did not make it out to Monterey again until March 2009; I do not remember seeing the monkey in 2009, or on another trip out there in December 2010. I have not been to California since 2017, and have not seen the monkey since at least 2001

 

In the Christmas of 2001, my Uncle Kenny bought me a giant R/C Chrysler PT Cruiser just like the one below, except it was a teal green color...

 

My uncle lived in South Florida at the time, and he knew we would be spending most of my Christmas break in Monterey, so he shipped my present there. I believe my present actually arrived after Christmas, and I was in the driveway with my uncle (the one who lives in California) when the UPS guy showed up with the biggest package I'd ever seen. Imagine my utter excitement when I found out the entire package was for me. I believe I tore it open right there in the yard, and the PT Cruiser was just one of a few gifts my uncle had gotten for me, but the only one I remember...

 

The PT Cruiser was so damn big that my aunt and uncle's modest 1-story home (built in the late 1940s) could not accommodate it; The driveway wasn't much better...

My aunt was a music teacher at the elementary school literally right around the corner, and had the key to the auditorium. There was no rule saying she couldn't bring a family member there to test drive a new Christmas present, so probably the day after the PT Cruiser arrived we went in two separate cars to the school. Excitement turned to horror when my saw that the plate glass in the door to the auditorium had been busted out and the door showed obvious signs of having been opened. We all went inside, and my aunt found that thousands of dollars in musical instruments and other equipment had been stolen. Needless to say, the police were called, and my first real test drive of my new toy was delayed. I don't think the stolen items were ever recovered, and I would guess that a combination of donations and the school district's insurance company paid to replace them. It was on this trip that my uncle had introduced me to eBay, and I remember telling my aunt that she should check eBay for the stolen stuff...

My uncle, being the kind soul that he is, cut up a piece of plywood that he had lying around at home and nailed it in place over the busted glass section later that day; It was at this point that I finally got to drive my new PT Cruiser around the auditorium!

 

Like I said, I don't think the stolen items were ever recovered, and if I had to guess I'd have to say it was an inside job to some extent; The thieves knew exactly where to look and did not ransack the place, so I'm guessing someone (a friend or relative of a staff member?) had scoped out the place prior to Christmas break and then came back when nobody was around.

The school building was no newer than the 1960s, and back in 2001 was nearing the end of its service life as a K-5 public school (My next visit to Monterey would be more than seven years later and by then the school had been repurposed and heavily redone). This school was in a relatively wealthy neighborhood with little to no crime, and the building was at least forty years old, so what little security the place had was rudimentary at best. There obviously wasn't an alarm system of any kind in the auditorium...



I'm sure some areas had security cameras, but the auditorium didn't have one of those either, otherwise they would have been able to get the thieves on video; Schools in California are unique because the "hallways" are outdoors. Classrooms, bathrooms, offices, and the school nurse were accessible from the outside, and the "cafeteria" was generally a bunch of picnic tables clustered together. My school, Edith Landels Elementary in Mountain View, did not have a traditional indoor cafeteria or a traditional kitchen; The food and the staff that made it came to the school. I always brought my lunch to school when we lived in California, so I never dealt with this.

 

Monterey's population had increased significantly since my aunt's school had been constructed, and instead of adding on to the building, they brought in portable buildings; My aunt's music class was in one of these buildings, which I'd say was about 800 square feet. The building was obviously accessible from the outside, and my aunt obviously had a key, so she brought me over there all time on weekends when I came to visit; One time in September 1996, my parents brought me on a Friday and I got to visit my aunt while class was in session. She was teaching either a first grade or second grade class, and since I had just started second grade this was a perfect fit. My aunt introduced me to her class and I got to hang out for the last thirty minutes or so; Because of that fateful visit to my aunt's music class, and my aunt's superior teaching style, I developed a general disdain for the music classes at my own schools all the way through sixth grade!

 

My aunt taught kids how to sing and play instruments, and genuinely made learning about music fun; Every music class I had from fourth grade through sixth grade was taught by a bitchy middle aged woman; My aunt, by comparison, was and still is a kindhearted middle aged woman who genuinely loved to teach (Well, she's almost 70 now and retired from teaching, but you get the idea; She was 44 to 46 years of age when we were living in California)...

Fourth and fifth grade music glass was bullshit; We didn't learn to play instruments, and the class consisted of reciting songs out of textbooks. In fifth grade, we had to write a report about a musician every quarter (I've mentioned this before in this thread). In sixth grade, the music teacher was this woman who was also a gym teacher, and she was a **** regardless of what she was teaching; I never got along with her, and by May of 2001 when I was nearing the end of sixth grade, my parents made arrangements with the school so I could spend music class (last class of the day) with a math teacher I was particularly close to and get a head start on my homework.

I've always loved music; I love listening to music, and learning about it! For crying out loud, I spent an obscene amount of money putting a ground-pounding stereo system in my base model manual window Tacoma, because I love music! Having a best friend who's an accomplished guitarist, hanging around with numerous other musicians, and working at bar that specialized in live shows taught me more about music than any of those stupid public school music classes (which I was forced to take until my parents stepped in) ever did!

THE VERDICT: Music is great! Music class, unless it's taught by my aunt, sucks!

 

By the way, I almost destroyed the PT Cruiser within a year; I drove it places it was never intended to be driven (like in the snow), and shorted out electrical components. By the end of 2002, it no longer moved under its own power; By 2006, it had survived two moves...

In either 2005 or 2006, I successfully converted it into an amphibious vehicle using duct tape and expansion foam among other things; When we moved again in 2007, it was thrown out and likely no longer exists...

 

During that December 2001 visit, I spent a lot of time with my cousin who had just turned 18 in October and was six months away from finishing high school; She got her license in 1999 at the age of 16, and a good portion of the 2001 trip was spent cruising around with her in my uncle's (her dad's) 1999 Dodge Ram 1500. My aunt and uncle had four cars in 2001; The aforementioned Dodge Ram, a 1994 Dodge Grand Caravan, a 1987 Isuzu Trooper II, and a 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit convertible. My cousin learned how to drive in the minivan, and I believe even took her driver's test in it, but it was a minivan. The Isuzu and the Volkswagen were both manual, and my cousin wasn't particularly good at driving a stick shift; On top of that, the Rabbit was something of a shitbox...

So, my cousin almost exclusively drove the Dodge Ram; That truck was a well-equipped SLT Laramie model with A/C and power everything, but it only had a tape deck. The first time I rode in it in 2000, it still had the factory tape deck, and my cousin was playing CDs with one of those car kit adapters whenever she borrowed it; That truck had a decent factory sound system, but my cousin wanted a CD player and sometime between August 2000 and December 2001, she got her wish. The truck had an aftermarket CD player at the time of our visit in December 2001, and it still had that stereo when my uncle got rid of the truck maybe a decade ago...

 

My cousin and I have always had similar tastes in music; She'll listen to anything from country to Frank Sinatra, and back then it was country...

I'm a straight guy and I will admit that I listen to the Dixie Chicks sometimes; You could even say I enjoy some of their music! Go ahead, laugh...

Anyway, my cousin had a Dixie Chicks CD and played it in my uncle's Dodge Ram when we were out for a drive during that December 2001 visit. That is how I heard that "Goodbye Earl" song for the first time! Anybody who's heard that song knows that there are a lot of adult situations in it, specifically a trailer trash scumbag who physically abuses his wife. When they got to the part where Wanda ended up in intensive care, I started asking a questions about the song that my cousin didn't feel comfortable answering and she skipped the song...