Toyota Is Recalling More Than 800,000 Cars Because of Spiders
Shutterstock/Chris Godfrey PhotographyToyota has announced that it is recalling 870,000 of its vehicles, among them Camrys, Venzas, Avalons, and hybrids with owners spread across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and 16 other countries. Airbags, it seems, have been spontaneously deploying on some of those vehicles across makes and model years—a state of affairs that can range from the merely annoying to the legitimately life-threatening. Power steering, even more ominously, may also be affected. As may cars' warning lights.
The difficulty stems, Toyota believes, from a problem with a part included in the cars' elaborate air-conditioning systems. Water from the cars' condensers has been leaking onto the airbags' control modules, which seems in turn to cause the bags to deploy independently of the typical triggers.
The condenser, however, isn't the only cause of the airbags' spontaneous inflation. The other one? Spiders. Yes, spiders. Which is not an auto-industry euphemism. Arachnids have been weaving their webs inside the cars' condensers—and the webs, in turn, have done what nature has designed them to do: trip things up. Bugs in cars, it seems, make for buggy cars.
The eight-legged problem is not widespread; the recall is, as recalls often are, a matter of better-safe-than-sorry. "So far, Toyota is aware of three airbag deployments as a result of this and 35 cases of warning lights coming on," Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight told CNN. And yet the factor that seems to be common among those incidents is the spiders. In the cases Toyota has investigated so far, CNN notes, "the only consistent cause of the blockages" has been the webs.
In other words: Toyota owners, this Halloween season, are finding themselves the unwitting and unwilling stars of an incredibly nerdy horror movie. And they're not the first to be playing that role. In 2011, Mazda recalled more than 50,000 of its Mazda6 sedans after the company realized that the vent lines for the model's gas tank could be compromised by, yep, spider webs. Which is all to say, this October, that if you're scared of spiders ... you're probably totally justified.
If anyone remembers my abandoned haunted ride run....this is in the same vein. I love this Facebook page that features abandoned places in Japan.
This one really creeped me out.
It is a temple, that turned out to be a scam. They were taking money from people to protect the souls of the dead, rooms filled with "spirit tablets" They promised to pray over them and protect them....then he disappeared.
Here is what is left of the shrine and the pictures are nothing short of beautiful. I know it is not technically a graveyard. But it is close enough for me.
Taping an inexpensive skeleton or pumpkin cutout to your door is the perfect way to let neighbors know you don’t have your life together.
It’s actually really easy to make cobwebs by dying your hair white and ripping it out.
Have you considered a large air-blown inflatable lawn decoration of a jack-o’-lantern or black cat? Ugh, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Glue some googly eyes to a Styrofoam coffee cup to make your own creepy coffee creature!
Hire a maid from a cleaning service and then lock her in a closet. Her kicks and screams will provide a festively “spooktacular” soundtrack to your Halloween party.
A great prank on trick-or-treaters is to dress as an inert decorative scarecrow in a rocking chair on your porch, then when children come to the door, spring from the chair swinging kitchen knives and scream “I’m going to drag you to fucking Hell” at the top of your lungs.
Place one witch hat in the middle of your porch.
A dead pet swinging from the blade of a ceiling fan makes a bone-chilling decoration. Put tiny vampire teeth in its mouth for extra laughs.
As always, put up memorial gravestones to honor your aunt Ima Goner and uncle U.R. Next, both of whom died in the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.
If you’re not going to spend $600 on a motion-activated Headless Horseman, you might as well just call the whole thing off.
Make your house into its very own jack-o’-lantern by using a saw to hack two eyes and a jagged smile into it, and then burning the whole thing down.
You will need a fence....not just any fence. A fence with cool columns.
These are some of the photos of our columns and fencing class this year. Was a fun class......it is really easier than it looks! Everyone did a great job!
The abbey was planned to be a three year project, so here we are on year three and I am finally removing the awful time that we put on most of the doors and windows. We had spent so much time building the structure that the trim really was an after thought.
I am much happier that it is gone now....new trim pieces in the works.
So earlier this year one of our favorite students referred someone to us that needed a Stonehenge facade. It is a local card company called Stonehenge Designs here in Portland. They needed it for a show and thought we could help.
Yeah, we can do that.
The design is actually based on the real stones - cause we are that good.
We used our magnet technique so that they would connect together and also so they could be magnetized to the booth. We are a clever group.
Since it was foam, it needed a crate to ship it to the shows....husband created these great plywood crates.
Of course it has our logo....and I was nice enough to cut there logo out for a stencil also.
Lot of fun and something a little different. Now, if someone would pay us to do a life-size Stonehenge!
The Davis Graveyard build season is coming to an end....we set up in 2 weeks!!! So as usual we have a lot of scrap foam to get rid of. If you are in the area email me at chris@davisgraveyard.com and arrange to pick it up.
For the last two years I have had people show up in a car swearing they can fit all the foam in the car....I watched as they broke up big pieces of foam that could have been used for a big project, so they would fit in their car...only to find that almost half of the foam did not fit.
And despite their promises to come get the rest of it that night or the next day, neither have. So sorry, they have ruined it for the rest of you.
You must have a truck or van or two (that arrive at the same time) SUVs in order to pick this up.
If you arrive in a car claiming ninja-like foam packing skills......not buying it.
I go into blogger to check on you wonderful blog friends.....and blogger says that I am "not currently following any blogs" - right, I just hit the wrong button and this is a big mistake!
No....still "not following any blogs"?
WT&^%#***&%$!!!!
Sorry everyone. I will see what I can do. If not, I might need someone to give me a list of all the cool Halloween blogs that I might need to "re-follow"
If I have not said it today - then I will say it again. I have the best crew in the whole Halloween world.
One of my crew did most of the work on this new prop for the yard (but primarily for the party, because at night the screen for the children ghosts will cover it.)
For years I have hated that you can see the fence to the patio garden from the street during the day.....and the fact that you can see part of the shop, and husband thinks I am crazy for wanting to paint the shop back (roof and all) or covering it with a really large piece of fabric, you know Christo and Jeane-Claude style.)
So this year we decided to build a crypt wall. It is four 4x8 panels covered with foam, textured, painted with trim and name plaques added.
My clever crew thought it would be fun to put the crews last names on the crypts.
Here you can see that it is four 4x8 panels attached.
Thelin (the creator)
Reid
Rinker
Sharp
Davis (see only room for two, no kids...I like that :D)
Westerman-Black...this one is an inside joke (chuckle)
As you can see we attached the trim, doors and plaques on most of them. But the two that are on a seam had to have the those bits attached by magnets so they can be removed for storage.
And for the record. This is the FIRST prop to have color. As you can see there is red on the bricks.....that is only because this one is not in the yard and more of a piece for our party decor.
We even have a super special feature (happy accident) that was created when we set this up. I might tell you about it if you are nice :)
I will post more pictures of the back and how the trim is installed.
A couple of our friends commented on where their name was....don't worry, as you can see we have more fence to cover. There is plenty of room at the graveyard.....and by the way, you should not be in such a hurry to join us :D
I mean, it got out of the veins, just not out of my body, if so I think I made a large sacrifice to the Halloween gods."
This is the point that husband mutes the TV and says "What did you just ask me? And why?"
Well, I was thinking about posting how the abbey tried to kill me during set up this weekend. I have this huge bruise on my arm from one of the panels.
Then I thought about it.
I actually ran into the panel (with my usual grace and style so I am so glad we do not film at the Graveyard - or I would be very entertaining on YouTube), so technically....
I really should say I tried to kill the abbey and it was just defending itself.
I bent down to pick up something stood up and leaned forward at the same time...right into a corner of one of the panels. I think he took it as a hostel attack, obviously unaware of my famous clumsiness, because he did not budge an inch. In fact...I think it lunged forward into my arm. Sure looks like it.
I learned again that us humans are soft and squishy and a wood 1x3 frame is hard and pointy. Ouch!
I just want the abbey to know that I am sorry, I did not mean to attach you and I promise to be nicer to you in the future.
I think husband felt more sorry for the abbey panel than for me. Let's hope that it starts to get cooler, because my short sleeved days are over for a few weeks - otherwise husband is going to get some nasty looks from strangers. Not from our friends, because everyone knows what a klutz I am :D
Anyway...the abbey frame is up and we are working on replace the archway trim and updating the front of the abbey again. Some projects never end!
I am pouring more skulls for the Etsy store. These new ones are coming out a lot lighter. I really like them. But with all concrete I cannot guarantee they will stay that way - they might, they might not. Depends on conditions - outside or inside, in the sun, in the shade. So they are "grayish" when you get them :D
Here are the latest skulls. I will get these listed in Etsy on Friday. BTW - one of them might be "signed" by Hal....tried to stop him before he put his paw in the mold.....
We are making some new props so we are going to sell some of our older props.
First is Comment Box Guy - he is from about 2006 - so this one is going to be hard to let go of. But we are selling him for $300.
The next one is what we call "Mud o' Vision". He is a mud man with a TV screen in his head - based on the ghost of Christmas past from Scrooged. He has a 17" monitor for a head and all of the electronics are hidden inside his chest. He is selling for $400
We kept the two wall reliefs from the original church facade we sold a few years ago and put them together added some trim pieces and made a free standing prop out of it. It is selling for $375
So if you have some extra cash lying around.....bring your check book by and take them home with you.
I have been obsessing for months on getting back to blogging and how I would do it. But nothing seems to be the right path.
So let us do what I used to do and just start with what happened today that I thought would be interesting to share.
We have a cursed prop this year. The Celtic Cross. We have built an abbey....how the hell can a monument prop be such a bother!
Now we are a talented group, so we thought.....this is a no brainier.
We thought wrong. Let us just say, if something could go wrong or get fucked up on this prop, it happened. Most of it is my fault....I am fine with that.
So we started on the "well,.....that will do slope" - and quickly headed right through without stopping to "I am not putting that in my yard."
Today I was looking at where it was, and realized, because of many reasons, I really "checked out" on this prop. And I knew with the current climate in our house that if I told husband that I wanted to make another change to it.....he was likely going to throw up his hands and say....fine, finish the yard by yourself. I am off to play Xbox.
But I looked at it and just could not let it end up in the yard in it's current state. In fact the changes I made are not a lot of help....but they are heading back in the right direction of not putting a piece of shit (by DG standards) in the yard. It is still a piece of.......but a bit less shitty :D
Here is where we were.
I could go on an on about this prop, what you see in front of you is NOTHING like we envisioned. So, I started to make compromises, for various reasons.....way too many compromises. I now understand that I cannot do that.....that path is a one way slide for me.
So, it basically looked like a piece of white foam with some carving and an hint of being a Celtic Cross. But because on problem after problem.....I decided to age the crap out of it to hide some of our problems.
Well, aging it ended up looking like I took a "wire brush to some white foam" and beat the crap out of it. Which is what we did, but it was supposed to look aged, natural aged, not "white foam meet wire brush" aged.
So I went back to one of my original pictures of a very old Celtic Cross.....and it aged by wearing away. Not crumbling away....yes, I know different stone ages differently...fine, fine.....but that in consideration....we were still in the "white foam meet steel brush direction"....you can tell yourself what you want. But that is what it looked like.
BTW - have I mentioned that husband has about had it with this prop and just wants it finished. :D
So I knew today when I took the sander to it to smooth out the aging, he was going to be pissed that I was still messing with it. I knew it. I did it anyway. I am the evil artistic director - have to keep my reputation :D
It is not perfect, but it looks more like pitted stone than "white foam meet steel brush" - I will know more when I paint it gray tomorrow.
So boys and girls - the frog queen is still around. And hopefully back for good.
Steve ( the Davis Graveyard Filmfest Director - he as an official directors chair to prove it) made this as part of the intermission video on our last Friday film fest.
I am sitting here trying to think how I can type something that will come remotely close to the sound of the screaming that was going on in my head at that moment.
Nope.....got nothing.
Trust me, in my head it was so loud I am deaf now.
Welcome my blog friends to another Frog Queen spider story....you are welcome.
This journey is going to be long....so grab a bottle of rum and join the frog queen in her throne room while she tells you a new horror story........
When I was smaller - both in age and definitely in size. We bought an old house. Cool old farm house, run down as shit....but as a kid you are more inclined to see the possibilities rather than the real picture.
And trust me, my "possibility" version did not have spiders in it.
I was thinking this might be where I learned to hate spiders.....but, no, there is an older story....I will tell it to you someday....if you are nice, and I can get some therapy.
No, today we are talking the old house on Esplanade....in a shit-hole town called San Jacinto......for those of you who have been there, or know of it....thank you for your condolences....they are much appreciated.
I affectionately called it "hell". Because I am almost certain it was/is.
While in Hell, we were cleaning an old barn"ish" building.....I would remember more about this story if it was not for this one memory of leaning up against a post in the garage and then seeing something in my hair moving.
I was too young to immediately understand how much actual danger I was in.
(I mean, I was living in hell....how much worse could it be?)
Well, the moving....which was quite fast and happening on both sides of my head, was, in fact, a bunch of baby spiders.....
Yeah, give me a moment here.........
....I am not sure how many baby spiders there are in a new nest....but I would guess, around a billion.
....maybe two....billion.
Too fucking many that is the real answer.
So imagine too fucking many spiders crawling on my head.
Actually don't, it happened to me and I have never recovered....so take it from me.
It is a very, very, very, very, very, very bad experience.
It changed my life......
I think I burned the clothes I was wearing......and shaved my head......no, I did not shave my head. But in retrospect....should have shaved my head.
.....and then I should have burned that barn"ish" building to the ground.
So today, when two tiny...actually I was not wearing my glasses and I could see them, so they were in fact not so tiny, spiders were hanging from my arm.
I freaked the fuck out.....of course.
There might have only been the two.......but I am not taking any chances.
and...I went straight into the shower, clothes on and turned the hot water on full blast to make spider/shampoo soup.
......now that I am sitting here typing I realize that I did not spend much time outside today.....so those spiders likely came from inside the house.
OMFG!
(Oh fuck....does anyone remember that Night Gallery episode with the spider that she washed down the sink and it came back bigger each time?! - What have I done!!!!????)
If I am dead in the morning.....you will all know why.
