If you watch only one Luciano Pavarotti YouTube post today, make it this one, via Lance.

I used to think that conservatives felt about Bill Clinton the way I felt about Ronald Reagan. Close, but no cigar. Now I think conservatives felt about Bill Clinton the way I feel about the current crop of GOP presidential contenders, but my contempt eclipses theirs by the white-hot fury of 10,000 suns. Or maybe eight suns, or however many of these clowns are running at the moment. They make Reagan look like Winston Churchill.

And I didn’t even watch the debate last night. Roy did, thank God: Tell me: are all of these things animated Ralph Steadman cartoons? I was more vexed by the appearance of Fred Thompson, announcing his candidacy for leader of the free world on the goddamn Tonight Show. If you didn’t already have the idea this man is an unserious, profoundly lazy lightweight, well, I don’t know how it could be any clearer. The viral-video crap, the I’m With Stupid fundraising, the wahl-I-guess-I-best-mosey-on-down-and-file-for-president public bullshitting — the fact this man is an instant top-three frontrunner says everything about the intellectually bankrupt GOP these days.

Doghouse Riley, Indianapolis resident, recounts an interview of Ol’ Bassetface by ex-Fort Wayner Karen Hensel, whom I know as a nice person, two-time Peabody winner, faithful Republican, and probably not NPR material, at least not with questions like this: Your producer from Law and Order said when you walk in the room people want to “stand and salute”. Is there anything similar between you and the tough guy we know from Law and Order? Yeesh.

Life is still in its post-summer transition of boredom, so not a lot to report today. The dryer’s fixed. Parts: $80. Husband who can disassemble an unfamiliar machine, repair, vacuum out 16 years of accumulated lint and reassemble it: Priceless.

If you’re in an environment where George Carlin’s language won’t offend anyone, here’s something I found while digging for that Thompson clip. Some of my best friends smoke cigars, but still: Amusing.

Finally, Bob Sievers died this week. That’s a name that won’t mean much to many of you, but to people from Indiana, it’s like hearing that the Pope finally checked out. Sievers was the host of a long-running morning show on WOWO, Fort Wayne’s booming clear-channel (note lower case, not the corporation) radio station. He and co-host Jay Gould ran “The Little Red Barn” about the way you’d expect — with an unbelievably cornball opening theme song, carried through as the framework of the show, Bob and Jay doing a radio show from the barn, feedin’ the chickens and settin’ on a hay bale to interview a county extension agent about long-term weather expectations vis-a-vis spring planting. However, it’s a measure of the sincerity and good humor both brought to the task that the show was simply irresistible. Years after teenagers and parents had separated into armed camps, each with their own morning radio shows, whole families were still tuned to WOWO during the Little Red Barn, peacefully enjoying two of the great radio voices of our age.

The station, now a fairly noxious all-talk format, has a tribute page up. Go there if only to experience the theme song, and stay for the Sievers interview, where you can get a sense of the Voice, diminished by age but still the Voice. (Bonus: A great Elvis story in there, too.)

I knew Bob a little, and can tell you he was everything he appeared to be on the air: An absolute charmer. He got fourscore and ten, and made every one count.

I think I mentioned our dryer died. From the distant clanks coming from the basement, I suspect Alan’s trying to fix it right now. I did my part yesterday — driving to Roseville to pick up a switch that turned out not to be the problem. (Of course. It was simple and inexpensive. We’ll have a new dryer by week’s end, I predict.)

On the way, I started woolgathering about machines.

Alan’s a good partner to have in a household because he understands machines at a level I never did. He grew up in a working-class family, where a core value is you never pay someone to do what you can do yourself. As a teenager, he campaigned a motocross racer, needless to say at a level where you don’t have a pit crew. So when something breaks, he approaches the problem the way he would any other, by breaking down the components, the chain of connections that make the thing work, and tries to find the failure. What is a dryer? A drum that turns while hot air is blown through it. What are its essential parts? The motor, the fan, the heater. What’s the nature of the malfunction? It runs and blows, but the air isn’t warm. And so the problem is isolated — it’s something to do with the heater.

On the way out to Roseville, I thought about how few of us really understand how the machines we use work. I thought back to junior high and tried to remember the elements of the internal combustion engine, which we learned in physical science. I was one of only a few girls who got an A on that unit, and I still remember the feeling of wonder at the unlocking of the secret — the valve opens, the mixture sprays in the cylinder, the piston rises, the spark plug ignites, the piston is pushed down, another valve opens and the exhaust exits. My brother was a car guy, and I finally understood all that language he used. Manifold, camshaft, drive shaft, flywheel. I understood carburetion! And I was 14 years old. It was thrilling.

(My proudest moment: I wiggled under my friend Mark’s ’69 Camaro with a wrench and unjammed the shift linkage, based on having seen it done once before. It wasn’t a complicated repair — a good whack to unjam it — but I was the only one who could do it, and everyone cheered when I wiggled back out, because it meant we wouldn’t have to drive home from Sault Ste. Marie in second gear.)

Well, Henry Ford got old and died, and fuel injection replaced carburetion, and it’s safe to say most of my knowledge is obsolete now. I once interviewed a man who had been, at one time, the most sought-after Volvo/Mercedes mechanic in the region. He’d moved up in the world, and now owned a dealership. He said he’d be utterly lost under the hood these days, that it was more electronic than mechanical anymore, and while it made cars unquestionably better in a million ways, he could no longer fix them.

So this is what was on my mind when I got home, and found John and Sam had arrived in my absence. Their new Prius was in the driveway.

They’ve become Prius cult members, more effective salesmen than anyone paid by Toyota. We talked about the marvels of the car — the hybrid synergy drive, the seamless transition between the battery, the electric motor and the gas engine, the keyless entry and starting (you push a button). And then they insisted I drive when we went out to dinner. I tried to navigate the nasty Detroit freeways while maximizing my mileage, aided by the display of animated colored arrows. (Hybrid enthusiasts speak of the fender-benders they tend to have when their cars are brand-new, and they can’t tear their eyes away from the display.)

I stepped on the brake. “You’re think you’re braking, but you’re not,” John said, explaining that the car is smarter than I am, and knows braking is unnecessary, so it’s transferring energy from the brake to the battery, or something like that.

“Look, you have one and a half green cars,” said Sam, switching to the how’m-I-doing mileage display. Apparently it’s good to have green cars, and you try to get more. Driving this car is like being stuck in a video game. And I haven’t even told you about the cable John bought, so he can hook his car up to his laptop, and watch numbers fly by; it’s for the diagnostics when it breaks down, whenever that might be. “Yes, I know, we might have a kernel panic on the freeway. We may have to reboot,” John said with real glee. All his life he’s been waiting for Apple to make everything in his life, and it seems Toyota has come close enough, at least with the car.

This morning they got up before dawn and slipped away in their silent car, and I didn’t even hear them go. I guess I shouldn’t, but I sort of miss carburetion. At least I understood that.

No bloggage today; my fatigue is at the walking-into-walls level, and I have to go buy groceries and dryer parts. How about an entertaining comment caught in the spam net?

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I can help you with this problem . I know a lot of spammers and I will ask them not to post on your site. It will reduce the volume of spam by 30-50% .In return Id like to ask you to put a link to my site on the index page of your site. The link will be small and your visitors will hardly notice it , its just done for higher rankings in search engines. Contact me icq 454528835 or write me tedirectory(at)yahoo.com , i will give you my site url and you will give me yours if you are interested. thank you

This might be the best one ever.

Enjoy the day. It’s hot here, so if it’s hot there, keep your radiator cool.

The headline for today’s post has been running through my head all weekend, since I heard it in the mix on Old-School Saturday, my favorite radio show in the whole wide etcetera. Remember the rest of the line? …and then she goes back. Bye bye bye bye there. Sly & the Family Stone, taking you all the way back to the summer of 1969. I was 11. Let us speak no more of time’s terrible swift sword. Labor Day has that effect on me.

But it was a wonderful summer, all things considered. I spent the last two weekends reconnecting with old friends, last weekend in Wisconsin and this weekend in Ohio. My old demi-roomie Jeff Borden was invited to a big nuptial throwdown in the state capital, so I brunched with him and his wife Joanna and dinnered with ol’ pals Cindy and Mark. All concerned knew me back in the day, so the whole weekend had the taste of fine old wine, along with plenty of the newer variety.

Jeff reminded me of a Christmas party we had once. It lasted past 3 a.m., and on a weeknight. At one point, Jeff said, “I came out of the bathroom, and of the nine people in my living room, every single one was talking.” Ah, the ’80s. It was a talkative time. It was also a time when you could stay up until 3 or so, rise at 8 and head on in to work without requiring hospitalization afterward or IV fluids beforehand. Time’s terrible swift sword, chapter 2.

But now buckle-down season arrives, and frankly, I’m ready. At some point this week, Kate will go back to school. Tomorrow, I believe, but they don’t want the little darlings to stress too much, so it’s a half day. Schools are required by state law to begin no earlier than the day after Labor Day, but the GP throws in a travel day. I love my little girl so much it makes my teeth ache, but to say I am ready for school to begin again is an understatement so vast it cannot be overstated. (Wha’?)

So how was your weekend? Also, has anyone ever made a cardboard boat in one of those team-building exercises? What’s the secret of a winning cardboard boat? Some readers of this blog want to know, but don’t want to be revealed, because it would reveal that they know the cardboard-boat team-building exercise is coming, and that would be cheating. Which may be Lesson 1 in successful cardboard boating: Whenever possible, cheat.

LA Mary mentioned in the comments yesterday that she watched a “Mad Men” marathon to stay out of the SoCal heat wave this weekend. Back then, they built teams the old-fashioned way — with alcohol. No more. Time’s terrible swift sword, etc.

I forgot to mention the weekend’s capper: John and Sam are planning a last-minute fly-by visit tonight, so I can’t tarry. They’re old friends, too, old enough that when I said, “Sure, come visit, but the dryer’s broken, so I can’t give you clean sheets. That OK with you?” John said, “No problem.” Now those are old friends worth having, I’d say.

So, bloggage:

“The Wire” wrapped production on its fifth and final season. As one of the 1.6 million Americans who watch and love this show, I can only strangle a sob and lift a virtual glass with the other 1.599999. If you’re not watching, go to your library and find a previous season on DVD. Just so we have something to talk about after the last season starts to air. (There’s also a video, if you’re interested, but it reveals nothing about the upcoming season and nothing a dedicated Wire fan doesn’t already know, so be advised.)

I’ll say one thing for the current Bush administration, it sure is giving the world better books than the last one. And it’s so fun to see Karl Rove shanking his fellow travelers, isn’t it?

And just to round out our trio with yet another WashPost link, how about some postcoital Diana remorse? Gush, gush, gush! Funny.