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October 19, 2015: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

52 Comments

That movie has been near the top of my Netflix disc queue since probably about 2006. It finally arrived today, and with near-three hour running time, I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get around to it for another nine years.

52 thoughts on “October 19, 2015: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”

  3. I got my hand stepped on during my match on Saturday. My hand is still a little puffy, as though I am mildly allergic to a bee sting. Everything moves as it should, and clenching a fist is only slightly uncomfortable, but I can't really push on it with my other hand yet.

      1. You think? I was worried about that, but I have full range of motion and no real pain. But yes, the continued puffiness is a little concerning, though it has steadily decreased every day.

        3. I'm not a doctor.

          You are saying no pain, but you can't push on it with your other hand because... pain? I understand that doctors = $, but you also know that something is amiss.

          1. Yeah, that's a bit circular of me. The pain is more of a bruise feeling, where it is fine until it's touched. If I couldn't hold a pen for the pain, I'd be much more concerned.

    1. I'm gonna carve my pumpkin with my rugby team's crest, but this made me rethink that for a half-second.

  5. So we're sitting in the family room last night watching a bit of television, when I notice the smell of burning electronics. At first, I feared it was the space heater* we sometimes use in Niblet's room (for some reason, his room only has a supply vent on the ceiling). It was not that. After some hunting around, we determined it was in the kitchen and narrowed it down to the fridge. However, we couldn't see smoke, the lights worked and we could hear the motor running. Couple hours later, I decided I needed a bit of ice cream (leftovers from the Niblet's Birthday party last weekend). The ice cream was exceptionally soft. I looked more closely and, despite every thing still being frozen, noticed most of the containers in the freezer had a layer of frost. Not good. Moved everything to the chest freezer and emptied ice bin. Fridge still felt cool and could feel cool air.

    This morning, freezer was completely thawed - fridge part still felt cool. Called repairman (will be out tomorrow - $90 for the visit!). Also started pricing new refrigerators (the one in our kitchen is 14 years old) in case it comes to that. We currently have a side-by-side and it seems like I'm always shuffling things around. We've also had a freezer on top which caused me to spend a lot of time crouched down. My buddy has a freezer on bottom which he seems to like, and I really like the French door models (freezer on bottom, split doors on fridge) but they appear to be the most expensive. I don't know if I've ever bought a fridge before ... they've always come with the residence.

    Question(s):
    What are people's experiences/feelings regarding the different styles of fridge? Any brand recommendations?

    1. My parents and my sister both have the French Door/bottom freezer style. I like them waaaay more than side-by-sides. Can't get a sufficiently large pizza in a side-by-side. And cold air sinks, so why shouldn't the freezer be on bottom? And fridge on top means the beer is at eye level. Wins all around.

      1. "...cold air sinks." But then a freezer on top means the fridge has less work to do? I'm thinking I have less to do with items from the freezer than from the fridge on any given day, so easier access to items in that part of the appliance (eye-level beer!) seems like a no-brainer. I wonder what the benefit of two refrigerator doors vs one is...

        1. The door doesn't open out into the room as far seems to be the big advantage for my parents, cuz the old one actually hit the island and couldn't open past 75deg or so.

    2. We have a Samsung side by side, and I'm really impressed with it. The wife and I both hated side by sides before we got this one, but it's big enough that many of the downsides of having a side by side are reduced or eliminated (it's fits 4 frozen pizzas next to the ice maker!)

      I've also been really happy with the repairability. The ice maker went out a couple of years after we moved in, and we were able to find replacement parts for like $30. Plus, it was just a few screws and a wiring harness to actually do the repair, and the new one had improvements so it wouldn't fail in the same way that the old one did.

    3. Did you check the seal in the freezer already? We had a similar issue a few weeks ago, and solved it by just cleaning out the crumbs and such that were in there so it would seal properly again.

      As for buying a new one, we have a French door, freezer on the bottom type, Whirlpool brand I believe. I'm very happy with it. Lots of room for wide things in both fridge and freezer. We went with one with water and ice in the door, and that's also been well worth the $ for us at least. Definitely nice for kids getting their own drinks.

      Only real issue we've had is putting the water filters in is a real pita. If you don't get it screwed in the exact right amount water leaks everywhere. It was enough of a problem getting the last one in (as in tinkering multiple times a day for weeks and still never getting it right) that we've just given up on having a filter anymore.

      1. Good point - NBB had a problem with the seal on his fridge too ... I didn't see anything like that, but I'll check again to be sure. That burnt plastic/ozone smell was pretty overwhelming evidence of something mechanical/electrical.

        The current unit has a door water/ice dispenser. Ice portion doesn't dispense but I haven't bothered to deal with it. Even with the filter, you can taste that the water is conditioned (well water) so we also keep a Brita pitcher in the fridge. It'd be nice to not have to do that, but if we had a roomier unit, then maybe I'd care less. Don't know.

        1. We are similar. Water tastes terrible and is very heavy with dissolved minerals. Our side-by-side has ice/water dispenser in the door, which we never use. We make ice in trays using water from our under-sink R.O.

          I am not looking forwars to replacing this thing (it is about 17-18 years old) because money, but will probably go with a french door, freezer on bottom configuration.

          1. We also use the Brita pitcher arrangement, mostly because I didn't want to pay a plumber to run a supply line to the fridge for cold water & ice. Also, those things are just one more thing to break on the fridge.

            1. We use a Pur filter that attaches directly to the faucet. I wasn't sure how I was going to like it, but it works pretty well, and isn't as much of a bother as I expected it might be.

              1. I had one of those in our first apartment in St. Paul. I did not like it, I kept "wasting" water out of it... forgetting to turn it off for dishwater or things like that. (And was running hot water through it bad for it was that just my superstition?)
                At least the old sink fixture was high clearance. I'd've be really annoyed with a lower-height faucet.

                1. Oh, this is one that just affixes onto the end of the faucet. The filter itself is not active unless you flip a little lever down. No "waste".

            2. We thought that the water and ice dispenser was a ridiculous thing (like DVD players in minivans), but once we started using it, we love it.
              Much easier for the kids to get themselves water. No more spilling unfrozen ice trays all over the freezer. Ice on demand! (We've never been close to running out of ice.)
              I'm hit or miss on the filter. BP Chlorines the heck out of its water, and I can't say how much of that is removed. I have no problem replacing a dying filter with the bypass plug until we find ourselves in a store with more filters.

        2. Re: seal - we'll probably replace with EnergyStar model soon. I found that the seal was too weird to replace, better to jettison the whole unit and get a new one.

    4. Spring for the new fridge. They've gotten much more efficient in the last decade+

      We went with a side-by-side. The most needed frozen or unfrozen items are at the top at eye level, and least needed (and meats, because health) towards the bottom. Make sure the door has sufficiently deep shelf to hold jug of milk & OJ

      1. This arrangement is how we currently do it, but the freezer portion is a bit constricted. Good call on the door shelves.

    5. We have a side-by-side with freezer on bottom and a drawer in between the side by side and bottomthe with a height sufficient to store pop. We put cheese and luncheon meats, etc in there, so you don't have to open the entire fridge to get at stuff. Awesome. Just remember though that young kids can get into the freezer easily when it is on the bottom. (That is, they have easy access to frozen treats.)

      I do prefer the freezer on the bottom overall because I use the fridge more and it is higher up so no bending down to see what's in it. Also, you can pull the freezer door out, which also helps seeing what's in there.

      1. All these people posting about fridges being at eye level when the freezer is on the bottom. I say the same thing about the freezer on the top...

    6. We got a Samsung French door fridge with freezer on the bottom plus a second fridge drawer in between the two. It is awesome, although even with all the extra space we still managed to completely fill it with condiments.

      We were lucky though, since we found it as an open box item at best buy. It was found to not for in two separate installations, so it was about 50% of the original price. I was prepared to remove a cabinet to make it fit, but we squeezed it in. It won't easily come out, but you take what you can get.

      1. Funny, we just got a 'new' fridge from our landlord. His friend was throwing out (!!!) a one year old kitchen aid side by side, and he asked if we wanted a new icebox. Sure, it's twice the size, and it's way more efficient, but the twice the size thing really took away all of the limited space we had left in our kitchen. The good news is that with the side by side we can both fit in the kitchen, the bad news is that even though it's large in size it actually can't hold any more than the standard white box we had before. I'll take the pluses, but when it comes time to buy one for ourselves we'll likely opt for the freezer on the bottom french door upper.

    7. We bought the Samsung with freezer on bottom and french doors. We like it. We went cheap and didn't get the version where you can just pull out the fridge drawer without opening the whole thing. If we were to do it over, we would probably upgrade.

      RhuRu is right on the efficiency but they also don't last like they used to. Average life is now only 10 years on these high efficiency versions.

    8. Apparently we are the only ones that bought a fridge with the freezer on top. We wanted something larger but had limited room on top, plus money, so had to get something shorter. I think that limited the choices to freezer on top, freezer on bottom but just one door, or a side-by-side. We like it fine and it wasn't like things were going to be eye-level for me anyway.

      1. You're not alone!

        I mean, we have a larger freezer in the garage, and I don't trust the fridge freezer to do much more than make ice cubes and keep frozen pizzas cold because of how inconsistent it seems to be (I think it partially thaws at times), but yeah, I also have a top freezer in my fridge.

        1. we have a small chest freezer in the garage, which we have not used in about 13 years. Unfortunately, the morons who wired our house put all of the bathrooms on the same circuit as the kitchen outlets AND the garage outlets. The wife tripped the GFCI circuit drying her hair one day and didn't realize it (it tripped when she turned the dryer off), and we ended up with a freezer full of rotting food.

          1. We must have had the same wiring geniuses. Bathroom outlets (but not lights or vent fans), Garage outlets (but not opener or light), outlet next to (rarely used) wetbar in dining room, can't remember what else.
            Bonus is that I now use the nightlight in the kids' bathroom to let me know if the freezer is working. When that bulb burns out, I fear for my venison.

            1. My parents' house was built (the first part, anyway) in 1860-something. There are at least three additions to it. The wiring in that place is a disaster and probably more than a bit dangerous. If I win the lottery, I'm re-wiring that entire place for them.

              1. As opposed to a new house?

                Actually, I think my folks would prefer to stay in their location given similar options. I withdraw my question.

                1. I suppose I'd offer to do whatever they wanted. But they love that house, so I'm assuming they'd want to stay there. And if that's the case, I'm not having 80 year old knob-and-tube improperly junctioned with Romex burning the place down.

              2. I wanted to re-wire parts of my old house (mostly for a three-way switch to the basement stairwell lights), which was built in the 1950s. But the wire was tacked to the studs too well. I would have had to open and replace sheetrock, which is much lower on my list of preferred projects, (Dad was a Master Electrician, so I learned more than just enough to be dangerous, though I have suffered some good shocks). I said the hell with it, and bought a fill-plate for the extra-ganged box I built into the wall. I never put that fill-plate in until we prepared to sell, because I had the three-way switch in place and didn't care that it wasn't attached to anything.

                In another part of the house, I used a 2+ground wire as a groundless 3-wire to turn two regular switches on the same outlet (eww!) to a three-way. In violation of code.
                I couldn't do that for the stairwell because the ground wire was cut too far back (and attached to the metal box, as was the fashion at the time). Plus, I had kindof forgotten how to do it.

    9. When we bought a (used, refurbished) refrigerator, we were about a half-inch short with cabinets. I got out the belt sander and much sawdust later, it was fixed.

    10. Just adding my endorsement of the French door-style fridge (ours is a Whirlpool). The accessibility provided by that door arrangement is awesome. I've been able to cure 20 lbs of pork belly and keep rolled-out puff pastry in ours. Couldn't have managed either in a side-by-side. I was amazed that it fit in the space that was built for a fridge in 1963, but it did. It's also about a jillion times more efficient than the cheap fridge that the previous owner's estate furnished the house with prior to sale. (I really hope she wasn't using it.)

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