It being my wife's birthday tomorrow, I figured I'd start it off a little early by making her a nice pizza (she loves pizza). The usual, something with some sauce and cheese and 'shrooms--the slimy kind, not the make-you-all-whacky ones. I turn the oven to 400 and wait for it to heat up. Crack open a cold beer. Life is good. Some ten minutes later I notice the 'heating' light on the oven's still on. Hrm. I twist the dial to see how far it's gotten, and the light stays on all the way down to 'warm'. I open the oven, and sure enough there's no heat in there. Damn it. I notice the heating coil has what looks like a tiny volcanic eruption in a corner. That can't be good. I touch it gingerly, and it seems to be a hole in the actual coil. Weird. As I remove my finger there's a light, a sharp *POP* and everything goes dark. And I do mean everything. Luckily I keep flash lights handy all over the house--hey, you never know!--and grab the closest one. I first take a quick look inside the oven to ensure nothing is on fire; it appears that the coil, where it connects to the back of the oven, had come loose a bit and allowed the connector to touch the side of the oven, shorting it out. I push it back in and tighten the screw down to keep it in place. Off I go to the garage, wondering what the hell the entire house was dark for if I only blew a circuit. Well, all circuits check out fine. I vaguely recall the concept of a main breaker, and figuring maybe it's behind the panel cover somehow I pop the cover and there's nothing worthwhile there... so I go outside. Electric box, seals, and stuff that looks like you're not supposed to open. Hrm. Back in the house, go scouting for a main breaker somewhere... nothing. Even check the attic space. Nope. Call the electric company to see if they think something outside might have blown. They suggest checking the main breaker. I tell them I can't find the thing anywhere. They decide to send somebody out to check it out. While I'm waiting I go back outside to poke around some more. I notice that the electric box has an access hatch outlined, but it's been painted over a few times. I figure it can't hurt to pop it open for a looksee, so wrestle it open after getting rid of some paint. Oh joy! There's the damn main breaker. I flip it and everything's back on. Call the electric company and ask them to cancel the dispatch. Oven is dead... the cooktop works fine, but the oven coil is toast. I could replace it, but it's sixteen years old and tried to kill me so the bastard is going out the door this weekend. Any suggestions for a good smoothtop that can handle cast iron cookware and stuff? I ended up making the pizza at my neighbor's house. He was cooking up a big batch of 'magnum' juice that he sells down in Norcross on the weekends on a street corner. I didn't ask for details. Pizza was late, but god damn delicious.
caller her a dingbat is being generous... anyways i do quite a bit of cooking and off the cuff i can tell you that electric and cast irons really don't like eachother on principal. but if you can't go with gas then it's really (goddammit kris it's very hard to type a quick reply with this twit wigglin' her ass righ above the form box), about what you want to spend. the obvious choices would be something in the kenmore, viking, kitchenaide, catagories. jennair, fridgidaire are also decent from what i've heard. if you want something serious, expect something in the 1k range. hope this helps.
oh yeah brian smacking lois's ass... that's much better btw has anyone seen the stewie movie? it's a pisser! btw moose, what kind of pizza were you making? regular, cicillian, chicago?
wow, good story. My house tried to kill me too as outlined below. I just bought my house and a week before Christmas my master bath toilet kept running all night. Easy fix, or so I thought. I disconnected everything drained as much water as I could and picked up the top tank of the toilet. I took it over to the tub to dump the rest of the water out, not a good idea. The water shifts the weight and starts to slipped out of my hands, I go to save it and loose my balance form the weight. The Tank crashes and shatters, I fall and land on a broken piece of tank, which is SHARP ceramic BTW. It cuts my neck open and blood gushes out with every heart beat. At the ER I found out I was 1CM from my artery and would have died in route, also I almost pierced my esophagus. I had to tell that story to everyone at the hospital and even told it on the radio.
I really don't know what would be worse... dying on the crapper Elvis style, or being killed BY a crapper. Toilet repairs are no bueno anyway. I had to replace a wax ring seal on one; boy was that ever fun. Took a loooooooooong shower after that one.
i'd check out the sears scratch and dent store on Mnt. ind. blvd. it's just north of the 78 exit. good stuff. wait till no one is around and see if you can swop out any parts. i got a fridge there. it was the cheapest of the model i wanted, but had no shelves in it. so, i add tons of shelves. they're so slack there no one noticed.