Archive for the ‘Questions & Answers’ Category

I asked you last week about removing glue after we took down the bathroom tiles. We have now changed our minds.  New question– Our bathroom does not have a fan.  Could we put up waynes scotting instead.  Not sure about the spelling.We were told it could get mold on it.  Is that true. When we paint we are going to use Marine paint. Thanks again

–Deanna, Winnipeg

It looks like this is a fairly normal “change of mind” as they go, with even HGTV having a guide on how to put up wainscoting in a bathroom (Materials & Parts). They don’t mention a mold concern though – so a bit more digging is needed. The general consensus I found is that moisture resistant (sometimes simply called “waterproof resistant”) wainscoting is the way to go. You should be able to find some at a local hardware or home design center, and if properly done, you should be able to use any paint you’d like (although the marine paint could still be used I’d imagine).

Thanks for Asking Jon!

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Deanna from Winnipeg asks:

How do you remove bathroom tile glue from a plaster wall?

Well Deanna, I’m glad you asked (and glad that someone visits this site!).

Your question did take a bit of digging, however I found a pretty interesting board post which seems to indicate that you could try using something to dissolve the errant glue, such as mineral spirits (however it’s unknown how that may affect the plaster, so try a small test area first if you go this route) OR chisel the stuff away slowly and carefully by hand. If it were my bathroom, I’d probably go the chisel route. Even though it’s slower, it is more precise and if done carefully, should be less prone to damaging your plaster.

If you want to go faster, you can always scrape it away and then refinish the wall. One poster on Yahoo! Answers (a site far less personal than Better Ask Jon) suggests a product called Smooth Set, which can fill in any holes in the wall that the scraping leaves, and once set, can be primed and painted. Probably a a bit of overkill if you’re just fixing a few small spots, but then again, it will probably look nicer in the end.

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Dear Jon,

How much yarn is too much?

Alyson, NY

OK, so how much yarn is too much? If you’re a knitter or crochetter you’re probably quite in love with Yarn, so I’ll spell it out for you. If you have enough yarn to make your cat look at you as if to say this:

You may have too much. And if your bedroom wall looks like this:

You do have too much. Seek help.

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Doctor Jon,
What’s the difference between a unicyclist and a pancake?

Seymore, Atlas Park

Nothing, if your driving a steamroller.

Methinks Seymore just started college and thus decided to see if I knew of College Humor. Stay original Seymore.

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Dear Jon,

Why is it that the waiter or waitress always comes up to you to ask a question just after you’ve taken a bite of food?

Alyson, New York

Dear Alyson,

Ah yes, those sneaky wait staff and their ploys to make you look stupid. “How is everything?” “hrmmmphft!” you reply, and they smile and think about how much they’d rather be doing anything else than smiling at you. It must be an organized conspiracy right?

Well, probably not. Now I’m not saying their isn’t an international Wait Staff Forum that doesn’t advocate sneaky things like this, but it’s far more likely that you’re falling victim to something called the Availability Heuristic. This fancy rule-of-thumb simply states that things that are more memorable are judged to occur more often. Each time the waitress comes up to you and asks a question while you’re mid-mastication, you probably think “Damn, this is a horrible time to ask me this stupid question”, and you make a memory about how they asked at this specific time. However when you’re just sitting there chatting about the pros and cons of buffalo wings, and they come up and ask a question, you rarely have the same thought (Unless you are really intensely debating the wings). Later when it happens again, you can easily recall the “while eating” times, but not the “While talking” or the “while thinking” or “while doing nothing” times. Thus you’re more likely to think the wait staff is plotting against you because it seems they come while you’re eating more than they come at any other time. Just one way your mind likes to make you paranoid about other’s watching you eat.

Cheers,

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Note: This week’s question come from an eBay user that I was later e-mailed about from eBay. Seems he/she/it was running a scam, which you’d never guess from the text of the e-mail. So here is the question, and my answer.

Hi i Have A Lg Xenon And Apple Iphone 32gb 3gs Im Trying To Trade One Of These Items for my Wife who is in the hospital in a coma right now from a Car accident,and i was trying to see if i could trade one of these items for her or even both cause She wanted this phone so bad before she got hurt if you can help me pls do so my name is jermey pls contact me back!

Dear jermey,

Wow, you certainly have two interesting phones to trade their for my 2 year old phone that is worth only around $200. And on top of this trading business, you’ve got a sick wife to attend to. Of course she’s in a coma, so I guess that frees you up quite a bit to conduct your online trades of new technology for old. So anyway, your wife got banged up pretty good in a car accident, is now unconscious, and you’d like to buy her a phone! Wow, you are an eternal optimist aren’t you jermey – after all, coma’s don’t always end well for those in them. And I doubt she’ll mind if she wakes up and you don’t produce for her this phone on command (Unless she threatened to “go back into a coma” if you didn’t have one of these when she awoke). Anyway I hate to tell you, but I don’t think I can trade with you. First of all, I only trade with verified Native Americans (figure that’s only fair), and you failed to provide any of the documentation I normally require. Second, I have a real issue with your name, jermey, as it makes me think you may be infected with a number of coma-causing diseases (after all, I see through your cheap trick of changing the G to a J). And Third, I have a sinking suspicion eBay is going to e-mail about you in a day or so (just a hunch).

However I do have a deal for you. Seems the FBI has been after me for some money they owe me, tell them you’re me and see if you can’t collect…

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Dear Jon,

I recently broke up with my good for nothing boyfriend, but realized he still has a key to my place. How do I get my locks changed without having to tell management that I gave out a key?

Thanks,
Kathleen, from Ohio

Ah yes, love lost and keys kaptured (Feeling very fast and loose with K’s today, Kan’t help it!). Anyway, how do you tell your management company to change the locks yet not divulge that little bit about the boyfriend? Easy! Play the victim… of a robbery! So maybe you don’t have to be that dramatic, but you can simply say that you lost a spare key you had. It was in a wallet that also had your address on it and, gee, if someone finds it you might as well just put out a welcome mat and kiss your valuables goodbye! Management changes the locks, you’re stuff is secure, and your little secret is just between you and me!

Happy Trails,

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hey jon i figured you would no what to do with this the computer at mny work got a virus on it it was called personel anti virus is there any way to get rid of this before my boss get here in the am please let me know facebook hope everything is well in ny thank you very much
eric, Ohio

Before I tell you the answer, let me tell you a bit about how people end up in these situations. You can probably imagine a life without Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail – but why would you want to? After all, your damn strawberries are about to wilt on your imaginary farm, and Miley Cyrus just asked about a good name for her new cat to the Twitterverse. Priorities people – you can’t be bothered with something of lesser importance like, say, work, when these earth shattering events are occurring.

However sometimes, your ole’ pal Mr. Computer get’s sick of your web shenanigans. Actually let me rephrase that:Your Ole’ Pal Mr. Computer GETS SICK (as in has a virus) from your web shenanigans. In this case, the antivirus that’s really a virus, seems to be easily corrected thanks to this page of information on it. Now go there, clean it up, and then get back to planting your onions and finding your cows!

Good Farming,

Update:

hey jon program worked thanks for your help everyrhing is gloomy and rainy here you are better then an asain kid i knew you could help thanx a milliom

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Hey Jon! Gotta question for ya………I have a continuous variable that I would like to split into two groups . Its a stress scale and I want to compare those who are not stressed vs. those who are. How do I do that on SPSS?

Rebecca, Georgia

Well, here’s a tough one – see Statistics, while being something Jon knows about, aren’t very humorous. You hardly see them as the material of professional comedians, and certainly no one ever starts a joke “These two distributions walk into a bar…”. So my problem here is how do I A) answer the question and B) make it funny. Nobody is perfect (I do believe I am close though…), but perhaps this can be achieved.

One sure fire way to make things funny, as demonstrated by some of your lesser comedians, is simply to put funny words or phrases in with your material. I guess I’ll try that here. And for your convenience, I’ll even put them in italics.

Hey Rebecca,

Makes perfect sense like a priest and a rabbi at a bar with the Easter bunny. You could do it in a few different ways in SPSS some of which are illegal in this hemisphere. Probably the simplest butt is to use “Recode into different variable”. On that screen you can barf select your existing variable and slap it around before assigning it a new name (e.g. stressgroup or poop). Then click “Old and New values” and count to 10 while standing on your head. Then assign what you want the old value to correspond to in the new variable, George Bush said so. So perhaps a range of 0 – 6 would become “1″ for the low stress group, 7 – 12 would become “2″ for the high stress group, etc.. Hope that makes sense or made you laugh, which probably didn’t, it was stats after all

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