The Samurai was invited on the Morning Liftoff radio show this morning. I wish Morning Liftoff had a website I could link you to for more information about the show ’cause I’d do it in a Samurai second! It’s a first-rate, locally-produced morning show that airs from 6 to 9 every weekday morning on WNTK, the voice of the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. The G-Team, shown here to the left, is the three-person crew of this outstanding show. They are George Russell (front and center, flamboyant leader after whom the team is named), Pete Merrigan (left), and Hilary Cogen (right).

In case you missed the show, some of the appliance topics we yakked about were:

• Do-it-yourself is a growth business. Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man gets over 2,400 visitors a day and traffic has increased every month for the past two years!
• Who is the Samurai and how’d he get into fixing stuff?
• How long should appliances last?
• Washer flood prevention: steel-braided washer fill hoses are the cheapest flood insurance money can buy.
• White vinyl dryer vents are a big bozo no-no!
• In the New London, NH, area, call 526-7129 anytime for fast, expert in-home service.

I also recorded five new appliance tips to run as time/weather spots. Listen for them on WNTK!

I dunno, she looked pretty good when I was slamming down the suds at the brewpub last night. 

I got back home late last night from the hike from hell. I grabbed a Sapporo and checked email to read about the latest broken things in the world only to find my inbox jammed with emails from irate Icelanders who had mysteriously discovered my dossier on my web server. The weird thing about this is that I don’t have any links at my website to this document that so inflamed the Icelanders. I’ve read that Google can spider pages that are not linked–if you have unlinked pages lurking on your server, Googblebots will sniff ’em out.

So what of this irksome dossier? Well, it’s just a sophomoric piece I wrote several years ago that clumsily recounted major events from my adolescence through my years in the Navy, college, and my engineering career. If you’re morbidly curious, you can read the offending document at this URL: http://fixitnow.com/dossier.htm — I’m not writing it as a hot link because I don’t want to help Googlebots index it. It’s not very interesting or well-written but the Icelanders took umbrage at my description of the time I spent in Iceland while on active duty in the Navy. I’d like to thank all my new Icelandic friends for taking the time to correct me on a few key points I raised in the dossier.

For example, I wrote that Icelandic fathers commonly bed their daughters. But many Icelanders have written to inform me that this old custom has been largely replaced by the new custom of strangling puppies. Thank goodness! I mean, what kind of life could a puppy have huddled on a frozen rock in the North Atlantic sea? Those poor puppies would be condemned to a life of shivering boredom, with nothing to do for fun but lay around licking their own backsides. It’s great to hear that a degenerate and self-indulgent custom is being displaced by selfless acts of mercy and compassion for such vulnerable creatures.

Another point the Icelanders objected to was my call to use Iceland as a nuclear testing ground. This, of course, is such a ridiculous notion that it doesn’t even warrant a serious response. The radioactive fallout from such a campaign would very likely contaminate unintended targets, such as Canada. And I really like Canadian beer, especially Kokanee beer. When we were backpacking in the Canadian Rockies, we would buy Kokanee beer by the case–damn good stuff!

Uhhh….what were we talking about? Ah, hell, it doesn’t matter. How ’bout another brewski? Here’s to Iceland!

The rare and exquisite Cacapee bird once flourished throughout all New England. The name, Cacapee, is an Iroquois word meaning, “beautiful feathers.” Its long, brightly colored tail plume was highly prized for fashionable head wear. The wing feathers of the Cacapee were commonly used as “tonsil ticklers” in the vomitoriums which were hubs of social activity in New England during the Colonial period. Because of these popular uses of its feathers, the Cacapee bird was hunted to near-extinction. In fact, this exquisite bird was thought to be extinct…until now.

During one of his recent bird-watching missions, the Samurai spotted one of the last remaining Cacapee birds on the entire planet. The bird was spotted in a forest abutting Lake Sunapee, near the Samurai’s home town of New London, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, the camera was damaged in a shower mishap, so no image is available. However, the audio recording survived. Here, now, is the only recording in existence of the Cacapee bird’s mating call (patent-pending, all rights reserved, void where prohibited). Let’s listen:

audio post powered by audblog

This is one of those things that pegs the bizarre-o-meter so hard it slams right into cool. Quiznos is using singing vermin to sell sandwiches. I’m LMAO and can’t stop watching it. Check it out.

As cool as the Samurai? Well, you just hitch ’em up, Hoss, and take this 5-second Cool Person Test. Then we’ll see who’s cool and who’s the fool.

A website that picks up where Appliantology ends (so to speak): Toiletology 101. “Let’s plunge in; flush out the facts and plumb the depths of toilet repairs. Almost everything you ever wanted to know about your toilets! And some things you probably never knew you needed to know.”

After hearing millions of grasshoppers chirping the praises of Fixitnow.com, the Supreme Samurai Council decided to send their top Field Compliance Officer, Kudzuki, to investigate. Kudzuki-san witnessed Samurai Appliance Repair Man in action, battling an appliance, and filed this report with the Supreme Samurai Council.

Our dear, dear friend, Moostafa, the Ayatollah of Appliance Repair, runs the world-renowned Moostafa’s Mecca of Appliance Repair. Several months ago, Moostafa’s tent was mistaken for a Taliban headquarters and was bombed by Ameedican, er, I mean, American troops. Since then, no one heard from Moostafa and we all feared the worst.

However, today I am delighted to announce that I have just received an email from Moostafa telling me that he and all 17 of his voluptuous wives escaped unharmed although, sadly, three of their milking yaks were killed. Despite this regrettable loss of livestock, we sing thanks and praise to Allah for preserving Moostafa and his harem. Moostafa is looking forward to getting back to work in his forum, helping you wage holy war on your insolent appliances. Come with me now and visit with the Ayatollah.

“But wait,” you say, “who is Moostafa and what makes him such an appliance guru?” Ok, fair question. I’ll tell you a little about him.

Moostafa comes to us from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he powers his iMac off a camel dung and lime juice battery that he designed himself. It’s exactly that kind of Afghani know-how that makes Moostafa such a valuable appliance guru. So, come, kick off your sandals and gather ’round the carpet with the Ayatollah of Appliance Repair and learn to cast out the demons that plague your appliances.

One of the Samurai’s winter hiking budrows emailed a while back expressing his appreciation for some of my audio posts. Let ’em tickle your ears, too.

Update: Dave is making the trek up here to God’s Country next week to bust some snow in the White Mountains with the Samurai. Film at Eleven.