Sturgeon’s Law Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, “Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud.” Oddly, when Sturgeon’s Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to ‘crap’.
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Used the cockpit cover under actual conditions for the first time this morning. Took about as long as putting the boot on. I had help from my wife so I didn’t have to run from one side to the other. Taking it off at work took about as long. May actually use it. Just wish it was a little bigger, still seems small.
My friend Jim Mullan at work finally got the use of a cnc mill to do the trimming on the Blaupunkt’s trim ring. He took .281″ off all around on the outside, so now the gaps around the HU will be filled in and the face doesn’t have to stick out so far. Probably get it installed this weekend.
Got my 2 CDs in the mail from Josh in TX. One was his March mix and the other was, I guess because I was an early sendee, February’s mix from Tam.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 71
I can’t help myself. The 12 for a penny or the price of one or whatever is too good a lure for me. I usually join, fulfill my obligation and get out. 6 months later I get back in. I am about to get back out again.
Got a flyer in the mail today, who are these people think they are kidding? A “Hot Pick” is highlighted on page 5 — Chris Issak’s Heart Shaped World! The album is from 1989. how can that be hot unless they still have several thousand copies in the warehouse and some boss is HOT to get rid of them. How about this? They have a two page spread entitled “Then & Now” with 2 albums from the same artist from the past and then one from the present, one such pairing is the Back Street Boys’ then, Milenium (1999) and now, Black & Blue (2000). Wow, their sound really has evolved over all those year.
Seeing as I have a high speed connection a friend at work asked if I would download Slackware 8.0 for him. Did it and I just finished burning the ISO’s. All I wanted in return was for him to give me 3 blank CDRs. He doesn’t have a burner so he doesn’t have any CDRs, he will give me $2 for my troubles. For whatever reason, taking money seems, dirty, but I’ll take it and buy a big bag of chips or something. Would have rather had the CDRs.…
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 73
Did they decide to re-release ET just for the commercial aspects? Toyota Sienna mini-vans, Special Olympics, Kodak Photo Quilt, Universal Theme Parks, Reese’s, Dairy Queen, Kraft.…
And will I be in trouble, if when I see Drew Barrymore the kid, and think of Drew Barrymore the grown-up, flashing her boobs at David Letterman.
Way back when, I lambasted the frozen TV dinner folks for changing what they call chicken tenderloins from breast meat to thigh meat, well they’ve got me again.
Ever since then, I have buying only the dinners that say “Chicken Breast”. Today’s entree was Chicken in Wine Sauce with Whipped Potatoes and Vegetables. It was supposed to cook on medium for 8 minutes. All the microwave that have a temp control were in use, so I stuck the dinner in one on high for 4 minutes figuring mathematically I was OK. The dinner was hot like is should have been, but the chicken was kinda rubbery. It did not have the right consistency for real breast meat, so I checked the label. Ingredient # 2 after potatoes, was chicken breast meat made from chicken breast meat, water and seasonings (the seasonings were made out of about a dozen things including xanthan gum, mmmm.)
Not even chicken breasts are real breasts, they are molded from multiple chicken breasts bits.…
Our bank’s downtown location just got some new ATM software installed. Pretty colors and clunky graphics. You now have to hit the enter key after putting in you PIN number, before, as soon as the 4th digit was pressed you were taken to the next screen. A minor inconvenience compared to what’s next. When ever you do a transaction, fast cash, balance inquiry, anything it pops your card back out. If you want do more than one transaction you now have to remove the card and reinsert it and enter your PIN and hit enter, geez.
Today was the make-up day for the last leg of Aiken’s Triple Crown, the Harness Races. All our company is gone that we were going with last week, so we invited some friends and their 2 kids. Things went pretty well for the first couple of races as the kids seemed interested, but being kids that was enough. Then they discovered friends their own age to hang with and things were OK again, for a while. After getting thoroughly muddy then cleaned up again they headed off to see some rabbits in one of the barns. It was the youngest one’s birthday so he wanted a rabbit. Dad prevailed and refused to get him one. This sent the birthday boy into a crying fit…we had seen 6 of the 8 races and were getting tired of the sun anyway, so we left.
As we pulled the cockpit cover off the car to leave a man standing there holding his dog said, “Nice car.” I thanked him and wouldn’t you know it, upon starting the car up the lifters made a horrible clatter as I backed out. I wonder if he changed his mind?
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 75
Kinda chillier than we thought this morning for a top down ride, but once we got going we just rolled up the windows and turned on the heat.
Came home and put the better aluminum bit in for the hazard and barndoor toggles. I also readjusted the radio mounting to center it in the opening so I could put the trimmed bezel on. Better, but I have to move the radio out a little further so the bezel will click into the HU, it is held in place with double stick tape for now. I’ll work on that when I get the AWD A/C panel in and have the dash apart again. While I was at it I swapped the MGW shift knob for the Voodoo again. The spun look had faded again, so I toke it to work to chuck up in the lathe when I noticed to blast-all in the corner of the tool room, hmmmm. I bead blasted that sucker. When I got home I sprayed it with a couple of coats of semi-gloss clear lacquer — I like it. Maybe I’ll do it to the vent rings.…
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 75
Rode to work with the top down. Put it up on arrival because it was going to rain (it did a little in the early afternoon.) Top back down for the trip home, but it went up minutes later when Donna drove the car to water aerobics. Around 8:00 PM, in spite of the gloomy radar picture, we dropped the top and drove to Augusta. Felt for sure we would have to pull over any second and raise it, but didn’t start raining until 5 minutes after we got home.
Hope that luck keeps holding, because the last minute 40 mile run to Augusta was for a couple of tickets in the Big Game lottery. Jackpot is up to $155 Million. If we win — Miatas for everybody!
Started down, went up, back down, back up, and down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 79
Rainy morning-top up, cloudy afternoon-top down. Went shopping tonight and the rain was still hit or missing our fair city, so while inside the store we put it up. Good thing it wasn’t raining when we came out as the leaf blower box wouldn’t fit in the trunk, so it went on the back behind the seats.
As you can tell from the tone of this that we didn’t hit the Big Game last night. When Donna checked the numbers this morning she commented, “Doesn’t even look like we were playing the same game.” But that is OK as nobody else won it either. I sense another road trip tomorrow as the jackpot is estimated at $200 million. If we win that — Miata SEs for everybody!
Started down, went up, back down, back up, and down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 83
Gone again. After all the shenanigans we have been through, I thought everything was getting back to normal. I even got an email that they were opening up the support forums again. 7:51 PM EDT poof and not back yet.…
26 hours and counting. The fellow running the Aiken Bicycle Club site got an email from the folks at THC informing him if he wanted to buy back the domain from His Royal Highness, Jack Thomas he would have to pay $75 for the privilege. This is in addition to the $99 he paid in September for “Lifetime” hosting… Not sure if I should try and buy back the Miata Club domain or just move on and pick a new one.
In spite of the scattered sprinkles and ugly clouds, today we relied solely on the cockpit cover to protect us. It worked. The cockpit cover got a workout though, on at work, off to drive to the doctor’s office, on while at the office, off to drive back to work, on while at work, off to drive to get haircuts, on while getting hair cuts, off for the drive to Augusta to get our Big Game lottery tickets, wheew.
Rspeed called, they got the AWD AC panel in and will ship it out. If I am lucky they got it on the truck today and I’ll have it tomorrow.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 83
54 hours and counting. I know this is an easy one, but hey, the only other thing I got is Rspeed didn’t get me my AC Panel in time for a weekend install and that is really not bad considering they just got them in on Thursday.
I was not lucky on the AC Panel, didn’t get it today. That is OK, as I want to save up some luck for tonight’s lottery drawing, the jackpot is at $220 million. We splurged and bought 4 tickets instead of the usual one, thereby increasing our odds from 1 in 76 billion to 1 in 19 billion. So if you come back tomorrow and this hasn’t been updated it means one of 3 things, 1) I won, 2) I’m dead or 3) both. 
Started down, went up, went down, went back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 86
No joy on the $220 million.….on the bright side no one else won either.…approximate worth for Tuesday’s drawing, $300 million. Put the top down to go to lunch, but put it back up while we were inside at Ruby Tuesdays. Good thing too as it rained a bit during the time we were in there. Put it back down this evening for our 3rd trip to Lowes in less than 24 hours. We bought still more plants for Donna to decorate the yard with. Plus we bought a small plastic square hose reel to keep the hose hidden when not in use. Also it will allow us to relocate the thing over towards the garage door so I won’t drag it over the planting bed squashing the flowers.
Started up, went down, went back up, went back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 89
102 hours and counting.…I think they ran out of money and didn’t pay their T1 bill.
What is it that made me waste most of my Sunday watching it on TV? I watched all the way until Tiger had it in the bag, then I tuned out, not because I didn’t want him to win, heck I hope he wins it again next year, but I just couldn’t care once it stopped being a golf match and started to be just watching some one play meticulous golf. I don’t golf, I don’t watch golf and I can barely name a golfer besides Tiger. I suppose that I watch because I have been on the course. When we first moved to Aiken we went over and bought practice round tickets back when they sold as many tickets as people who showed up. It was especially fun to go over with relatives who visited. Both my brother and brother-in-law are golfers so they were a real kick because they knew the players and they knew the history.
But about 6 years ago they went to a lottery drawing for the privilege to buy practice round tickets. The first 2 years we got selected, but for the past 4 years, no dice. Everyone says that locals don’t get picked anymore because they make more money from out of towners. Bah, the course doesn’t care, doesn’t matter where you are from you still pay the same $2 for a palmetto cheese sandwich. The members don’t care because they don’t own hotels or restaurants in the area, heck most of them aren’t local anyway. I think the real reason I don’t get practice round tickets anymore is that the Masters’ Secret Police found out I don’t even like golf.
126 hours on this outage and counting. They were offereing to let some folks buy their domain names back for $75. I’m not so sure I would trust sending them any more money at this point.
AWD AC panel came today. Of course that is the first thing I did when I got home, ripped apart the center console. I’m getting good at it. Looks sharp, but I’ve got to lose the green AC in the middle of the AC button. I wonder if the bulb is green or the button.…
Started down, went up, went back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 93
Made a trip to Augusta after work tonight for 3 reasons: 1) visit MGW. 2) go out to eat & 3) buy some Big Game tickets.
1) Stopped over at MGW to talk about Miata gizmos they are making. George let me try their new design pistol grip shift knob. The new style doesn’t have the flat on top it is fully radiused. Cool knob, but I’m not sure if it is my cup of tea.
2) Went to Damon’s and had some great ribs.
3) Didn’t buy any tickets. The line was too damn long. Like I was going to win anyway?
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 93
1 week and ticking.
I have been ranting here since 1/12/2002 without missing a day. I am going away for a long weekend and this time I am not bringing a laptop to post here while I’m gone. I’ll be back on Sunday, April 21st. (Wait right here.)
At least 3 folks have to split the 300 Million. Poor souls, once it is chopped into 3, then reduced for the cash option and Uncle Sam takes his cut, they’ll probably only end up with about 50 million each. How is a person supposed to live on that?
Still have the MGW knob on the car, trying to open my mind.…
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 93
We got wet from the fringes of a pop-up thunderstorm this afternoon. Cockpit cover did its job. It couldn’t have been much rain as the parking lot was dry an hour later. When we left the building and started to take the cover off, it started to sprinkle so we took the boot off as well. After about 5 minutes into the drive it quit. But when we got to our neighborhood it was another story, the roads were still quite wet, there were tree pieces on the ground and clumps of oak pollen clusters piled along the curbs from the rivers of runoff, must have had a serious cell around here.
My mind slammed shut this evening at 9:00 PM EDT. I took the MGW knob off and put the Voodoo back on. Sorry George. I’ll pass it around this weekend at the gap and see if I can entice someone with it.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 93
I’m back and it appears that if you search for “that hosting company” on google this blog shows up as the 3rd item on the second page. Because of that 4 people have written to me to ask if I have any knowledge on THC. Two of them this weekend alone. I guess everyone out there are getting anxious as it has been 12 Freaking Days since any of our sites have been online.
So here is what I know. Nobody is at home at THC. Their site is down. I tried the phone number (503–223-5323) that used to be listed for them when you did a Who Is request and the friendly recorded voice informs me that, “The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”
Go to www.register.com and enter your domain name in the box and click “Check it” When the next page shows up, click on the “Taken” link. Ignore the shameless make an offer crap and go to where it says “To access the WHOIS information for this domain name, click here.” and click.
If on the next page you see your name listed as Registrant, you are one lucky SOB. Kiss your $$$ to THC goodbye and find another web host. I have had positive experiences so far with http://webaxxs.net/index.html YMMV. Under that is the listing for Registrar, contact them and move your site to your new home.
If you are like me it says that the Jack Thomas is the Registrant  and GoDaddy is the Registar. The only thing I know to do is complain to GoDaddy, others have and if enough of us do too maybe we can regain control of our domain names. I submitted a sad tale to them on their support page here. Will post here what response I get.
Another source of info is a web hosting forum from a THC escapee.
Gap weekend with the RoadsterChat folks. A lot of up and downs for the top on Friday as it really looked like rain (although it only sprinkled once.) Saturday was beautiful so it stayed down all day and night with the cockpit cover. For the trip home I put it up for Donna’s stint of I-26 driving, but when we got off in Newberry it came back down. It might have gone for another cycle today, but I just didn’t feel like washing it today. Tomorrow.
Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, up, down, up again, down once more, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 101
Top went up to wash the car and back down after it dried. I know the insect population in NC has probably not diminished any percentage-wise, but judging by the amount of bug carcasses caked onto the front of the Miata there are quite a few grieving insect families up there.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 103
John Newman answered my call for a copy of the THC Terms Of Service. He snagged them using the Wayback Machine. Good thinking!
Another THC screwee, Jon Mcguire passed along a link to the BBB of Oregon & Western WA’s online page about THC. They have a different address and phone number listed:
4130 SW 117th Ave #451
Beaverton, OR 97005
503–223-1837
My rapidly failing gray matter made me forget to do the Oregon Attorney General’s online complaint form I mentioned yesterday, I’ll do it after I post this and let you know what I get back.
Here is the gist of the form I submitted a few minutes ago to the Oregon Attorney General:
To: consumer.hotline@state.or.us
From: nobody@216.78.141.121
Cc:
Subject: CONSUMER COMPLAINT FORM
X-mail-agent: mailmerge v1.1
CONSUMER COMPLAINT FORM
Date —- 4/23/2002
_______________________________
DATE OF TRANSACTION(S) —- 13-Sep-01
_______________________
INFORMATION ABOUT THE BUSINESS OR PERSON
ABOUT WHICH YOU ARE COMPLAINING.
Jack Thomas DBA That Hosting Company
320 SW Stark St Suite 205
Portland, OR 97204
BUSINESS PHONE NUMBER
(503) 223‑5323
____________________________________
DATE OF TRANSACTION —- 13-Sep-01
HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU THINK YOU LOST? —- $99
WHOM HAVE YOU CONTACTED CONCERNING YOUR COMPLAINT?
ATTORNEY —-
BUSINESS—-
OTHER—-
NAME OF CONTACT —-
NO ACTION —-
___________________________________
DETAILS OF THE COMPLAINT
DETAILS —- I signed up for lifetime web hosting with That Hosting Company in September and they never provided a reliable service. Their site advertised 100% up time for 2001 and in the 3 month’s I was using their service there were several outages lasting from 12 hours up to 3 days. 2002 was even worse. The last of which started on 9-Apr-02 and continues up until now. Every time there was an outage they was no explanation. Recently after an outage they sent an email that they were merging with another host to provide us with better service and to expect several outages for the 5 days it would take. 8 days later they were up again but not providing the same type of service. Didn’t matter as connectivity was slooooow and brief, after a week they were down again.
__________________________________________
Nothing yet from the OR Attorney General.…
Someone invited me to join the web_hosting_troubles group at Yahoo, lots of other THC Screwees there. I signed up, and even posted a reply there. Boy howdy is that a pain in the butt to use. Not literally use, but finding your way around through all the ads, sheeesh.
Add that to Mike McBride’s Forum on this subject and I now have officially too many places to post and not enough time to do any of them justice.
Now that I’ve said it again, I don’t particularly care for THC Screwee as a label, but at least it rhymes.  Anybody else got an idea? We need a logo , maybe a slogan…shirts, mugs, mousepads 
Spent a few hours last night getting excited about the new Star Wars film. All started when I noticed a display in the supermarket for Lays chips with photos of 3CPO on the bags. (Already with the marketing, sheesh.) Went to the Official Site and watched the four medium sized trailers for the film. You can’t watch the large size ones unless you upgrade to Quicktime Pro. I wonder if that helped Apple, or hurt them. The Ifilm site has a countdown clock to the Episode II release date on a page full of fan fiction films. I watched 3 or four of them too. “American Jedi” is worth a click, American Pie meets teenaged Obi Wan Kenobi.…
I took the Voodoo knob off and put the OEM knob from a 99 Miata back on. I have plans. I like the rubber ring from around the MGW gripper knob and I love the feel of the shape of the Voodoo, so why not the best of both worlds. I pried the rubber ring off the MGW and took some measurements. Applied those to a drawing I made of the Voodoo knob and turned it over to a buddy who is a wiz with a lathe. I’ll let you know what happens. Some folks hate it, but I actually like the way the stock knob feels. I like the Voodoo better, so if this doesn’t work out, I’ll get a new one, this time in pearl so I won’t have to keep renewing the spun finish.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 103
What happens when you put a Magnum Spun Voodoo knob on Calvin’s Transmogrifier with a MGW Gripper knob — you get a MG Woodoo! Looks OK, feels OK, not sure what to think, will drive the weekend with it and see. Pictures tomorrow in the light.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 103
4 days and still nothing yet from the OR Attorney General, I imagine it will take a while and all it will be is a canned response.
The web_hosting_troubles group at Yahoo has been slow. Today someone joined just to chime with his offer of low cost hosting. Geez, kick a group when they are down why don’t you. I unsubscribed. I think it is time to get over it and move on. This is not the first time I have lost money on something and I’m sure it will not be the last. There goes a perfectly good domain name too.
What’s next?
mastersmiataclub.com
mastersmiataclub.net
mastersmiataclub.info
masters-miata-club.org
masters-miata-club.net
masters-miata-club.com
masters-miata-club.info
mastersmiata.com
mastersmiata.net
mastersmiata.info
masters-miata.org
masters-miata.net
masters-miata.com
masters-miata.info
Tomorrow, I promise on the pics of the MG Woodoo shift knob. The jury is still out, not sure I like the aluminum top and rubber middle (can’t see the aluminum bottom normally) and the transition between the feel of the two materials is, I can’t put my finger (no pum intended) on it, slightly off putting.
Decided to exercise the top today. Took the boot off because of the iffy weather and then ended up put the top up twice while running errands when I could have put the cover on.
Started down, up, down, up again, down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 107
Liar, liar pants on fire! I still ain’t got no picture of the knob. Subconsciously I must think it is ugly. Starting to get used to feel, but the look.…
Today was Polo with the Miata Club. Only two other cars showed up. Was it because it was Sunday? Was it because it was Polo? Was there an Autox somewhere? Was it me? Oh, well the 6 of us had fun. The only down side was that we were way early because we didn’t have anyone raise their hood at the welcome center and of course it isn’t too hard to keep a 3 car train in check. Sooo, we just went for a longer drive.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 107
It took a week to get a response from the OR Attorney General and as expected it was a canned response. The best part of it was it was the WRONG canned response! It is at least of 5th generation copy, the letters are barely readable and it is crooked on the page.
The introductory line reads: Re: Nigerian Scam Huh?
The salutations reads: Dear Oregon Consumer: Did they glance at the address they were mailing it to? OK, I’ll give this one ’cause I did purchase my “goods” in Oregon.
The body is obviously all wrong because they thought I was complaining about being ripped off by Nigerians.
Then there is the 3 page enclosure about how to recognize these sorts of money laundering scams. Didn’t they think that I already knew how to recognize the scam? I mean, if I figured it out enough to report it to them.….
But a rave really, got an email today entitled “Love your blog.” At first I thought it was another one of those WORM_KLEZ.H generated emails until I noticed there were no hazardous attachments. Woohoo, it was from an actual admirer of these ramblings. Thanks Sean, checked out your blog and I can see why you like mine, I like yours. We can start our own mutual appreciation society here. Thanks for the linkage — right back at ya.
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