On Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:03:21 -0500, Red Green
wrote:

David Nebenzahl wrote in
rs.com:

Well, I don't personally hate him. Don't even know the guy.

But that's the title of the latest piece by one of my favorite
columnists in the /Berkeley Daily Planet/, Matt Cantor, local owner of
a home-inspection business who writes a weekly column on home repair
and maintenance.

Here's a sample:

I do genuinely hate these specific shows: "Hometime," "This Old
House" and "The New Yankee Workshop." I hate them for one simple
reason: they make most people feel like idiots. Even if a show only
demonstrates how to build a basic chest of drawers, it does a lousy
job of preparing the average Joe or Joan for the task. In the end,
the show provides nothing more than boutique shopping and showing
off. I suppose that would be a lot of fun if you only want to learn
that you—as a homeowner or stock broker or bank clerk—know nothing
about houses or furniture or nails and that you’ll never stand a
chance of doing more than hanging a picture on the wall.

On shows like these, the jobs are made to look so darned easy. All
the materials are waiting for assembly and nothing is spoiled, the
wrong type or missing. The air gun never misfires and the
compressor never needs to be drained (yes, you have to drain
compressors daily because they fill up with water and will rust out
if you don’t do so). That’s another thing I hate: in actuality,
there are many small details that fill a contractor’s day (or your
day when you play contractor) but they’re neatly edited out, just
as they are in a cooking show. Just pop the raw one in the oven and
Voila, the new freshly baked one comes right out of the other oven.

(See article at
http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue.../article/33531)



So many of my thought he printed.

They do need a reality show along those lines! The one where the victim,
aka DIY'r, turns the wrench to losen the whatever and every pipe
connected to it twists like a transmission tower that Godzilla blew his
big bad Habanero breath on.

I hope the DIY's come out on the Internet. I have already seen some
pretty useful ones.

What I really want to see is something you have to bring home and
assemble that comes with a link where you can watch the assembly of
the exact product on the Internet.