Not A Blog™

[This classic Not A Blog™ article was originally published on July 17, 2005, after an extended period of not posting.]

I apologize for not updating more often, but the truth is, I had run out of things to talk about. Hard to believe, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. I was lamenting the situation to my brother the other day when I realized that it doesn’t really matter what I talk about. I have such a great knowledge about all things that exist, that I simply have to pick a topic at random and write about seven hundred words regarding it. Instant Not A Blog™ entry.

The topic I’ve chosen for today is engines. Naturally there are many different types of engines, so I’ll focus on the kind with which I am most familiar: car engines.

Engines in cars consist of a few main parts, and a collection of smaller parts. Obviously they’re all important or they wouldn’t be in the engine, but some are more important than others. The most important components are the engine block, the camshaft, cylinders, and magic. The lesser engine components include valves, seals, and tiny pieces of metal that get lost when you try to disassemble it.

Cars operate on the principal of internal combustion. Through a scientific chemical chain reaction consisting of lighting explosive stuff on fire, pressure is created in the cylinders. The energy released when the petrol explodes is magically transfered to the wheels, driving the car. It’s that simple.

The power output of engines is, of course, measured in hertz. The higher the pitch of the engine, the less power that is outputted to the wheels. Similarly, the lower the pitch, the more power that is generated. Smaller cars tend to have higher pitched engines. The highest are often found in ricer cars. Ricers have the mistaken impression that by putting really big coffee cans on the ends of their mufflers, they can increase the amount of power the engine outputs. In fact, all this serves to do is amplify the sound of their already high-pitched engines, making them sound like they drive a giant whoopee cushion. Despite what some people may think, the volume of the engine does not dictate power output, unless it’s a motorcycle.

Trucks, on the other hand, have extremely low pitched engines to begin with, so they generate a lot of power. Some have attempted to increase the power output of their ricer engine by installing a massive sound system, the reasoning being that the lower notes in the music will augment the lowness of the engine. However, studies have shown that the weight of the sound system usually cancels out any benefit that might be gained, even at extremely loud volumes.

Naturally mechanics will tell you this isn’t the case. They have an interest in keeping the inner workings of cars a secret, in order to more fully exploit the public. Terms like horsepower and torque only serve to confuse the issue. Think about it: if you had a hundred horses hooked up to a buggy, do you think you could go from zero to sixty in ten seconds? I doubt it; the logistics of getting that many beasts to move simultaneously skirts the impossible. So how can they measure your car and say it has the equivalent power of a certain number of horses? The answer is obvious: they can’t. But try and explain this to a mechanic and see if they don’t look at you like you’re some sort of mutant. At least that’s what mine did to me.

But I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that there’s really only one part that goes wrong on any engine. Often the magic wears off, or otherwise gets interfered with, and the engine simply won’t run. Notice that the mechanic will never work on the car while you’re there. (If he does, the problem disappears, so it would do little good to insist on watching, anyway.) You just drop it off and leave, and wait for his call.

“The rheostatic difribulator went out on the fourth cylinder,” he’ll say, the sounds of power tools going off in the background like jittery machine guns.

“Um, okay. How much is that?”

“Oh, you’re looking at about”—there is a slight pause here for emphasis—”seven hundred, plus labor.”

So the next day you write you your check for $1,024.55 and the engine works again. But here’s the thing, the only labor the mechanic actually did was to subcontract the work out to Madame Zerga so she could exorcize the anti-engine-running demons from the camshaft. The only purpose mechanics serve are as a liaison between the ignorant public and the supernatural forces of engine maintenance.

Now that you know the truth, you can skip the middle man. Next time your car breaks down, forget Big Ed’s. Just go straight to Zerga’s Little House of Astrology and see if it doesn’t save you a bundle. You’ll be glad you did, and on top of that, you’ll be glad you read my Not A Blog™.

-Ted