07-09-2025, 01:05 PM
At this point, all I want is anything other than 3-9. Zero, one, two, four, five ...16 wins. 17? Whatever it takes.*
*Still one of my all time favorite quotes from an underappreciated '80s movie, Mr. Mom, with the great Teri Garr, Michael Keaton, and Martin Mull.
Garr's boss, Mull, shows up at the Keaton-Garr household to pick her up for a meeting and greets Keaton, recently laid off from a Big-Three Detroit motor company.
Best movie scene ever
Mull: 'Yeah, you gonna make it all 220 [volt]?'
Keaton: 'Yeah, 220... 221...whatever it takes.'
Our gas range's oven died on my wife's birthday. 'Why is this taking so freaking long to pre-heat?' says I with an angel food mold full of raw cake batter. 'Didn't I just replace the oven ignitor?' Wife reminds. 'You've replaced that ignitor three times and the oven is twenty years old!' Wow. Time flies. Anyway, since we won't be able to buy gas appliances anymore, we invested in a probably last longer than I will gas range. Of course the gas connection and outlet are in the wrong location for the new stove. Fine, easy enough to move. (Man I'm not 35 anymore; jumping the cabinet to get into that recess.) But wait, what's this? That's a 220V receptacle! We don't have a dedicated breaker for that, but who knows the mysteries of this house? The joys of a 100 year-old abode with a mix of knob & tube, Romex, and Bx. Our bedroom lights and the fridge are on the same circuit, and so on. So out comes the multimeter. Maybe we can get induction! Crap. 115.1 VAC. My wife sees me in the cavity. 'What is it?' Reflexively I reply '115...116....whatever it takes' and she busts out laughing. We saw the movie together.
But what the hell? Voltage in our house is routinely 123 or 124 VAC. I monitor it for my tube amps. PG&E runs hot so I have my own little step down transformer to feed the audio gear. If they've dropped voltage, a whole new world just opened up. Nope, my multi-meter reads 9 volts less than a straight voltmeter from the same commercial brand I picked up with the joint compound and gap foam to finish the oven job. How the hell does a multi-meter not work right?
*Still one of my all time favorite quotes from an underappreciated '80s movie, Mr. Mom, with the great Teri Garr, Michael Keaton, and Martin Mull.
Garr's boss, Mull, shows up at the Keaton-Garr household to pick her up for a meeting and greets Keaton, recently laid off from a Big-Three Detroit motor company.
Best movie scene ever
Mull: 'Yeah, you gonna make it all 220 [volt]?'
Keaton: 'Yeah, 220... 221...whatever it takes.'
Our gas range's oven died on my wife's birthday. 'Why is this taking so freaking long to pre-heat?' says I with an angel food mold full of raw cake batter. 'Didn't I just replace the oven ignitor?' Wife reminds. 'You've replaced that ignitor three times and the oven is twenty years old!' Wow. Time flies. Anyway, since we won't be able to buy gas appliances anymore, we invested in a probably last longer than I will gas range. Of course the gas connection and outlet are in the wrong location for the new stove. Fine, easy enough to move. (Man I'm not 35 anymore; jumping the cabinet to get into that recess.) But wait, what's this? That's a 220V receptacle! We don't have a dedicated breaker for that, but who knows the mysteries of this house? The joys of a 100 year-old abode with a mix of knob & tube, Romex, and Bx. Our bedroom lights and the fridge are on the same circuit, and so on. So out comes the multimeter. Maybe we can get induction! Crap. 115.1 VAC. My wife sees me in the cavity. 'What is it?' Reflexively I reply '115...116....whatever it takes' and she busts out laughing. We saw the movie together.
But what the hell? Voltage in our house is routinely 123 or 124 VAC. I monitor it for my tube amps. PG&E runs hot so I have my own little step down transformer to feed the audio gear. If they've dropped voltage, a whole new world just opened up. Nope, my multi-meter reads 9 volts less than a straight voltmeter from the same commercial brand I picked up with the joint compound and gap foam to finish the oven job. How the hell does a multi-meter not work right?