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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Today I decided to tackle turning the OEM fog lights into DRLs following the instructions in the Miata.net garage article.
I found the relay under the dash (at least I thought I did) and pulled it free from the mount. I couldn’t figure out how to separate the relay from the connector though. I was going to pop out the red/yellow wire as instructed with its metal end still attached, so I could reverse the mod easy and not have to cut the wire. After struggling for a few minutes I though, what the heck, I’ll cut the wire. First I checked to see if I had some barrel splices to use, I didn’t. I figured I’d wait until I had everything else ready to go before I made a trip to the store.
Next task was to locate a +12v source that is only on when the ignition switch is in the run position. The article mentions he used the radio power wire, but totally fails to mention where it is. Hmmm. There are like 4 other relays in the same area, I don’t know what any of them are for, but one is bound to have a wire that I could use. Turned the key to run and checked for 12 volts. Got one, pink wire. Switched the ignition off, no power, bingo. I even started the car and the 12V goes away while the car is starting. Beautiful. I got a six inch piece of wire and a vampire tap and hooked into my new friend the pink wire.
Seeing as I don’t have any splices I don’t want to cut the red/yellow wire just yet, I’ll try testing it by just pushing my tapped wire into the red/yellow wire connector. I turn the key to run and sure enough there are lights shining on the wall. Yippee. I go around front to admire my handy work and, %@#$, the fogs aren’t on. But the low beams are!?! Now I check to see which page I printed out, as there are instructions in the garage on how to do just this, low beams as DRLs. Nope, I’ve got the right ones. Curious.
Well I wanted DRLS, I got ‘em, let’s see if everything else works as advertised. Turn the stalk switch to parking lights and they come on and the lows stay on. Turn the switch to headlights and the lows stay on. With the lights on I hit the fog light switch, they turn on and the lows are still on. Hit the high beams and the fogs go out and the lows are still on.
Cycle thru the routine a couple times. A couple passes through is when I notice that when my new DRLs are on and I turn the headlights on with the switch the light on the wall seems marginally brighter. Can’t really tell how much because it is midday, but definitely brighter. This is something that the folks who have done the lows to DRL conversion complained about. In other cars the DRLs are the lows on reduced voltage so they are not as bright, but the Miata conversion ran the low beams at full power.
Here is where I start to wonder how much current is running through my little 22 gauge jumper. Do I have the right relay? Seeing as the red/yellow wire wasn’t cut, just where was I sending +12v? The instructions said it worked on a 2001 LS, did something change on the 03? So I unhooked the jumper from the red/yellow connector and taped it back. Going to call the dealer tomorrow and see if he will let me copy the fog light circuit diagram…
I know I brought this on my self, I’ll never learn, etc. but we made a shopping trip to Wal-Mart tonight. We need a bathroom scale and one of those triangular pillows for sitting up in bed. First stop Target, they had scales, but no pillow. I suggested Wal-Mart because they are just the type of store to have those pillows. Plus it was Tuesday at 9 PM, it shouldn’t be to crowded. So we put the scale back and headed up the street to Wally World.
The store was not crowded. Wal-Mart HQ must know that this is an off night for shoppers, so they restock. We nearly got run over twice by associates hauling goods out to the shelves on carts. We couldn’t find the pillow here either. A woman swore they had some just yesterday, but they weren’t where there were, so they were gone. Picked out a scale and headed for the checkouts. They were manned as if there was nobody in the store. This is one of those big ol’ Supercenters with like 35 checkout lanes, two were open. Each line was 6 deep with people with full carts. No express lanes were open. After 5 minutes of standing and steaming, I told Donna, “Just put it down, we’ll go back to Target.”
Sorry, Wally World you just lost $34.95 +tax, Target got it.
Dave Scott of CarArtz.com has got my new caricature almost finished. He sent me some sketches this morning to show me he was hot on my job. Last time he just sent me a completed proof before we ironed out the details. Really interesting stuff to kind of see the process. Here is the first step, a pencil and paper sketch.
From there he scans it in to the PC and gets the major lines on, then throws some color at it.
Next comes adding the details and then the highlighting. (I asked him to make the car face the other way so when I hang it on the wall the new car caricature and the old car caricature will be facing each other.)
I ask for some color changes in the car and seat color. Plus I want the carartz logo smaller and near the bottom. Here is the 99.9999% completed image. (I asked for a little more brown in the car color.)
I’m stoked. Think I’ll go wait by my mailbox for the tube.…
It’s sweeps month. TV is fresher: 4 weeks of first run Friends. TV is livelier: famous guest stars like Danny Devito pop up on Friends. TV is sexier: Danny Devito plays a stripper at Phoebe?s bachelorette party on Friends. I don’t watch Friends, but I get to see promos for the show on one I do. Sweeps means I get to see fresh episodes of West Wing.
The title of this post was intended as sarcasm, but who am I to judge? And really, what is more believable, Phoebe becoming aroused with a naked Danny Devito or Tony Zeigler, presidential aide single handedly brokering the salvation of Social Security?
Today’s Photo Friday challenge is Glamour and I had a very hard time coming up with a picture for it.
Tonight we made a little outing to the local mall and I brought along my camera figuring I’d snap a glamorous mannequin in one of the stores or in their window. Nope. Couldn’t find a single one, at least not a complete one anyway. A few waist up things with no heads and a couple of full bodied ones, again with no head. How glamorous is a neck stump? Not very.
My back up plan was to head into the book store and snap a pic of the magazine Glamour, but they don’t carry it or it was either sold out.
I ended up with a nebulous challenge filler, using definition #3 and an old Miata photo.
I remember when we first moved to Aiken 15 years ago, everyone was so excited as they were just breaking ground on our very own mall. No more driving all the way over to Augusta, GA. After a year and a half of watching the building get constructed, it opened with much fanfare and a 65% occupancy rate. All the stores we names of stores you would see in any mall (although in some cases, 2/3 scale of a regular mall stores because we are a smaller market.) They all had big bold neon signs and marble store fronts with shiny glass and brass. Marble tile floors and bright lighting. It was a glamorous place to shop.
Over the years the place filled up to near capacity with stores, but somewhere along the way shoppers tastes changed. Malls became passe, the strip mall, anchored by Targets and Old Navy stores experienced a renaissance. The malls occupancy rates fell. The unthinkable happened and an anchor store left. Then another. In an effort to survive they cut rents and now former cart merchants moved in the abandoned store fronts. Gone were the nice signs, replaced with hastily created canvas banners. Store with names you never heard of moved in. The occupancy rate is approaching 65% again.
It is not so glamorous to shop in the mall anymore. The once hallowed halls of upscale commercialism is now becoming a giant Wal-Mart where the departments are separated with walls instead of aisles.
Got a package from Mazda in the mail today. The Postal Carrier had to put it in the door because the 8″ diameter by 2″ thick plastic steering wheel replica wouldn’t go inside our mail box. When I opened up the package inside was some paperwork, a accessories brochure, a tire sales pitch, a cute little 3“x5” eight page quick reference guide to the controls and a letter welcoming me to the “Emotion of Motion” (or a thinly disguised sales pitch to have my Miata serviced at the Mazda dealer.) After removing all of these bits of paper, what should I find in the bottom of the thing, but another bottle of touch-up paint.
If one is a very fine flirting act, two makes it an overt come-on and I’m not flattered, I’m frightened.
For tonight’s internet pleasure I present one movie review and two links (one profoundly disturbing and and one profoundly narcasisitic.)
We watched Naqoyqatsi this afternoon and I was disappointed. Read the review of the fellow on the IMDB site, as he said it better than I could. I really loved Koyaanisqatsi when I saw it on a PBS station in the middle 80’s. I had a VHS copy of the movie, but it disappeared somewhere during a move. When it was finally released on DVD in 2002 I immediately bought a copy. It came packaged with the second movie of the trilogy, Powaqqatsi, which I had never seen. The first movie is still the best. The time-lapse photography is really thought provoking, making you look at everyday life in a new manner. Rent Koyaanisqatsi, if you like it watch the second one too, but leave #3, Naqoyqatsi alone. It is a shame because even though I don’t like the movie I feel compelled to buy it to complete the set…
I found this in a May of 2002 archive of one of my regular blog reads, The Neurotic Fishbowl: Spiderman. =8O
This one is from a current post of another regular read, Missives Anonymous: Fontifier
The Miata was kind of filthy after the rains of late last week and needed washing. (probably wouldn’t have been as noticeable on the Laguna Blue.) It was dry and sunny both weekend day afternoons, but the temps were close to 50, and not really warm enough for car washing. I couldn’t stand it anymore so, this afternoon I “washed” the car in the garage with Meguiar’s Quik Detailer and an old towel. Looks a whole lot better now.
After just 2–1/2 months the tan mats in the car are turning dark brown in spots and dingy looking. I think it is time for some new ones. The last set of mats I had in the Laguna were a set of Coco Mats in black with gray dots in them. I bought the generic fit ones from a place on the web called AJ Prindle at a real bargain price. The fit was so-so, but the mats themselves looked great, stayed put and hid dirt real well. This time I decided to bite the bullet and get the custom fit jobbies at a substantially higher price. They have a tan herringbone that would probably look super, but to spice things up a bit, I opted for the black with tan dots (hoping they will hide the dirt better factored in as well.)
We’ll see if they look as good as my mock-up. I downloaded the image sample from their site and used PaintShop Pro to turn it into a seamless tile. I then created a 16 x 28 image and filled it with the pattern. Printed it out on my HP650C plotter at work and laid it in the passenger footwell. I was worried that Donna wouldn’t like it, but when she said she did, I went right back in, got on the web and ordered some. Site says there is a three week wait on custom orders, so hopefully I’ll get them in time for the Master’s Miata Club Tech Day so I can have a project to work on. 
Today marked the end of an Era. Actually, the end was a few months ago, this is more like the beginning, but it is the end for me.
When I bought my first Miata back in 1989, I did so without the knowledge that this car is more than just a transportation module, but it is a way of life. About a month after buying it a magazine showed up in my mail, a magazine devoted entirely to my new little roadster. It contained columns, how-to articles, travel articles, pictures, letters to the editor and ads for parts. Because I waited so long to take delivery (108 days) this was actually issue #2. I immediately subscribed (by joining the Miata Club of America) and ordered back issue #1. It started out as a quarterly and grew to a bi-monthly about 5 years back. I have every issue stacked neatly in the base of my nightstand. It is great to look back occasionally, like looking at your kids photos from when they were in each grade of school.
Several years back the Miata Club of America folded because of accounting improprieties by the founder and president. The magazine soldiered on with out the support and database of the MCA. Then later, Mazda the corporation stepped in and formed a company backed club, the Miata Owners Club. The magazine found some support. Then less than a year later Mazda closed the Club. Again the magazine lost money and another database. Like the last time, word of mouth (or more appropriately word of electrons, email) saved the day by contacting subscribers so that they could still receive the magazine, now once again fully independent. A couple of times through this, I considered not renewing, I was tiring of it all, the net had replaced most of functions provided by the mag, but in a show of support for the poor publisher (mainly one woman and her family) I continued.
With dwindling subscribers and without the backing of a nationwide Club the magazine was facing hard times last year. A decision was made to embrace the corporate zoom-zoom strategy and now cater to not just Miatas, but all of Mazda?s “sports” cars including the new RX-8 and the new 3 and 6 models…
Today I got my first issue (of how many more I don’t know) and I can now break clean. I was barely hanging on when it was just Miatas, but I don’t care one wit for the other cars. I wish them luck with their new direction, but I’m doubling back on the old road. I may do like I do for the X-Files, every other month on the 15th, I’ll break out an old issue and read it, working my way back up to the end.
The non-powered antenna mount arrived from Trussville today, so right after work I spent the next hour or so tearing apart the trunk to swap out the powered one for the fixed mount. I had to undo the CD Changer from it’s base and various other trunk trim bits, so I could remove the plastic pocket for access to the antenna mount mounting.
I coughed up $45 for the OEM Mazda unit because of where it is mounted in the fender. If I bought a generic one and just clamped it to the fender, then someone pulled or bent at the antenna it would do the same to the thin metal fender below. The OEM mount is basically the powered one without the motor that clamps onto the fender and is bolted to a metal piece making a very rigid system.
While I had the unit apart I painted the shiny bit that is the nut on the top semi-flat black to match all black plastic mounting base and the antenna, which I still don’t have. With a deck full of MP3s, who needs the radio? I may want to get one before Saturday though, that is the next possible time I would be using the radio, Car Talk comes on at 10:00AM.
Every morning for nearly all our married life, my wife packs up my lunch for me. It usually consists of a fresh made sandwich, a soda, some cookies in a plastic sandwich bag, a few ounces of carrots in a sandwich bag, half an apple cut up in slices in a sandwich bag, some raisins or maybe grapes in a plastic sandwich bag and a snack pudding. I kind of graze all day, grabbing a plastic sandwich bag of something every couple of hours. I’m a lucky guy.
Donna recently changed purses, replacing an old one with something a little smaller. She used to keep all her make-up stuff in a see-thru case on one side of the old purse for easy access. Donna would take it out and “fix her face” as I drove us to work each day. The see-thru thing was a little too big for the new purse and not wanting to lose the ability to see what she had, Donna put the make-up stuff in a plastic sandwich bag. Now, each morning on the commute when she pulls out that sandwich bag, I, having been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog from years of snacking from those same types of bags, don’t think lipstick, but cookies, etc. I don’t have to see it, just hearing that faint rustling sound and I wonder if she will share some of that food with me.
We got 8 minutes into Identity and turned it off. The secret to making a good serial killer movie is to either make the audience care for a) the killer or b) the victims, and in this short time we could tell we didn’t care for, nor would we ever care for, either.
Next up was Le Cercle Rouge and it was definitely anti-Hollywood. The pacing is deliberate and the dialog sparse, but maybe a just bit too much, at around the 2 hour mark I missed an important plot twist (possibly during one of the several 2 seconds naps I took) and when the bang, bang shoot-‘em up ending happened I’m not sure exactly what took place. All in all a good movie, but don’t run right out to Blockbuster and get it.
I have such high hopes when I read the critical reviews about these films and then when I get them home and start watching them I wonder WTF was I thinking. After rereading the sleeve blurb on the last movie I have at home, Better Luck Tomorrow I’m not so sure I want to watch it anymore either.
This last week’s challenge for PhotoFriday was Abstract. After much brainstorming I went out and took a closeup shot of one of the windshield washer nozzles of the Miata.
At the end I asked people to guess what they thought it was. Sure enough, the first person got it right. So I told him so.
The next commenter used humor, “No, he’s the little robot guy that makes your blinkers work. ” So I replied in kind, “You are absolutely right. There are two on every car sold and when one falls off or fails prematurely, the remaining one mistakenly thinks he has to work twice as hard, which is why you sometimes see cars with their blinkers flashing twice as fast as normal. Poor thing, he really doesn’t have to double his effort, as everyone knows, your blinkers are wired in parallel, not series. He soon dies of overwork and fails completely, which is why you see a lot of cars not using blinkers at all. It is not inconsideration, merely both their little robot guys are broken.“Hee, hee, hee.
This evening after work Donna and I had our yearly eye exams. Part of the comprehensive exam is to have some drops put in your eyes to dilate your pupils. After they get them cranked wide open the doctor comes in and shines a 10,000,000 candle power light in both eyes several times from several different angles. Not the funest thing in the world and while not physically painful it is mentally.
New this time is a camera that takes a snapshot of the inside of your eye. It is a Cannon 10D on the back of some machine that of course flashes another very bright light into your wide open eyeball. You can then check out what the doctor sees when he looks in there. Cool. They will take a picture every year and then the computer can compare the images and spot stuff so small that the doctor might miss.
It has been 3 hours since I got the drops and my pupils still look like saucers. And boy does that make the PC monitor bright.
I don’t really want to blog this out loud for fear of jinxing it, but I think spring is on the horizon. Got into the low 60s today so we got to ride home with the top down. Daylight is lasting a little longer too, even had time to wash the car after supper.
Didn’t hear the antenna whistling on the top down drive, so I guess that it good. Of course it is now on my side of the car, so it is behind my seat. Last generation Miatas had it on the other side so it could be heard out of the driver’s right ear. Now it would be heard out of the passengers left ear, but she didn’t complain…
Speaking of the passenger, she was a driver today. Donna had a dental appointment at noon and her mom needed the Civic, so she had no choice. After 2,600 miles and 85 days, Donna drove the Miata today. She didn’t want to because I hadn’t put a scratch or dent on it yet and she was terrified she would be the one do it. Not that I would get upset with her, because it is bound to happen sooner or later, but she would be upset with herself. If those numbers repeat the next time Donna will drive the Miata will be the middle of June.
Today it was positively spring-like, so after work we decided to take an hour or so walk in Hitchcock Woods right after work. As we started the cross country team from the local high school had run the 2 miles over from the school to do a couple laps of the first little loop by the entrance that we use. After we got a little deeper in, as usual, we had the quiet of the woods mainly to ourselves. We did see one fellow walking with a couple of his dogs , but our loops didn’t really intersect. About a 200 yards from exiting the woods we saw a woman walking her dog and talking on her cell phone. Jeez. No place is sacred. Just what is it that some folks? If you are going to be having a phone conversation why don’t you just left your dog run around in your backyard? Then you can watch Dr. Phil and talk.
Besides, depending on how you interpret the rules, maybe you shouldn?t even have a cell phone in there:
7) Leave radios and all audio equipment at home so the solitude of the forest may be enjoyed by all.
The Miata Caricature is somewhere in the postal system, the Scottish or American I don’t know, but who knows it might be held up in some postal inspector’s back room. It comes in a mailing tube 2 inches in diameter and 18 inches long that might be misconstrued as a weapon of mass destruction and what with Glasgow being a hot bed of El Quida terrorists and all.…
I know it is in the mails, as yesterday I got a key chain and a mouse mat with the image on it from CarArtz. Dave said he mailed both packages, envelope and tube, at the same time. The envelope made it here first.
[shameless plug]
Everyone reading this blog, go buy a bit of art from Dave from CarArtz.com, he is the best.
[/shameless plug]
This afternoon was a MMM…Time with the Master’s Miata Club. MMM stands for Miatas, mingle and munch. We meet at a local restaurant and maybe eat there or decide to go somewhere else or whatever someone in the group comes up. Tonight we opted for a drive around the lake and back into town. From there most of the group went to Tony Roma’s for ribs for dinner.
We had a new to the Club couple show up and join us for the drive portion, they declined the dinner invite. Hope they decide to come out again, they were quite a bit younger than the average age of our most active members, hope all the gray hair didn’t frighten them off.
One of the linkees off of the Miata Diaries site (the neurotic fishbowl) is having another CD Swap, called Burn-It. I’ve done the last 3, but this time I don’t think I’ll play.
In the earlier ones you were placed in a group of 4 people, so you sent out a CD to the other three and theoretically you would get 3 CDs back. Invariably, one person would lame out and not do it. So I would send out 3 and get 2 back. Disappointing. Last time Kymberlie decreed that in order to see who was or was not sending out discs that every person who participated should send her a CD as verification. This worked, as in my group I received back three CDs, one from every other member. Trouble is I had to mail one to Kymberlie, so I still sort of got short changed, I mailed out 4 CDs and got back 3…
I needed breakfast cereal for this week, so Donna sent me off to pick out a box while she shopped in the fresh veggie area. This is a favored strategy of hers because she knows it can take 10 minutes for me to select a cereal. I mainly eat 2 different kinds, Peanut Butter Captain Crunch or Frosted Mini Wheats, but I like to look at all of them and see if there is something new out or perhaps there is a good free giveaway associated with a kind of cereal.Today I found on boxes of Oatmeal Crisp w/Raisins an offer of a free DVD. I was hooked. The box mentioned 4 TV shows that would be on the DVD, King of Queens, Barney Miller, Mad About You and the Donna Reed Show. I didn’t read the fine print, each DVD was a particular show, Collect All 4! I got one that had a single Mad About You episode. That’s OK, I liked that show. Donna and I watched it with lunch. They chose to include the episode entitled, “Coming Home” about the day Paul and Jamie bring home their new baby girl, Mabel and both of us were disappointed. That is about the time we stopped watching the show, both of us thought is was best when about just a couple and their lives, we felt that the baby thing was just a stunt to prop up the show for another year. Oh well.
I’ve said it here before (more than once), I hate Sundays because it is followed by Monday. I even hate fall for sort of the same reason, it is followed by something I don’t like, winter. Well I’m not alone…
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, is the opening of Mel Gibson’s passion play. From the early reviews I don’t think I’ll be watching this movie. It is unflinchingly violent (admittedly those were violent times), the dialog is spoken in Latin and Aramaic (admittedly that is what they spoke back then) and it may be the most “truthful” telling of the crucifixion, but I smell overwrought film brought to the screen by the overwhelming star power of one Hollywood actor. Can I say “Battlefield Earth” without suffering the wrath of Christians?
For me, maybe, tomorrow night I will watch my favorite movie from that time, Jesus Christ Superstar.
Went to Staples this evening to buy a box of envelopes. Friday I mail out the Miata Club newsletter and I needed envelopes. Found what I wanted, $4.19, for 500 of them suckers. Take it to the checkout and the girl scans it and I hand her a ten dollar bill. She gives me $1.12 back. I look at the change and assume she thought I gave her a $5 (even though if you think about it that wouldn’t be right either.) She goes , “Oh.” And starts towards the cash draw to maybe give me a $5 dollar bill. I check the receipt and see what has actually happened is that the envelopes scanned twice somehow, so I point it out to the cashier.
Here is where things go from bad to worse. She says, “Oh.” And heads off to the customer service area and waves me along to follow her. She gets the supervisor off a ladder and explains to her what has happened. The supervisor says, “We’ll just refund the overage to you.” She proceeds to punch a bunch of buttons on the display and a form spits out which she hands to me and says, “Fill out your name, telephone number and sign it.” I think to myself, all I did was come in to buy envelopes and how did I get into this mess?
I fill out as requested, skipping the street address, city and zip code lines. When I slide it across the counter to her so I can get my $4.44 back, she looks at it and says, “You have to fill it out in case I get audited.” I wait, thinking I have filled it out, I don’t care if you get audited, just give me my money. When she makes no move to pick up the receipt and repeats the you have to fill it out bit again, it dawns on me she wants every line filled out even though she verbally instructed me to do just 3 of the lines. I think to myself again, all I did was come in to buy envelopes and how did I get into this mess?
Now I get a little mad at the whole thing, so I tell her, “Keep the envelopes and give me all my money back.” She apologizes and says that will take a manger to void out my refund to give it all back, “Fine,” I say, “whatever.” Rolling my eyes and digging in my heels. She pages the manager over the intercom. While we wait she apologizes again about the whole thing, mumbles something about getting audited and cash back and I think if I have to listen to her whine much longer I’m going to go postal and climb over the counter and start stabbing her with her pen. So I cave, fill out the other 3 lines of the form and say, “OK, give me the money back.” She is still mumbling apologies as I storm out of the store.
All I did, was go in to buy some envelopes, and look at the mess I got in.
Even though I begged for another week to complete my SAD CD mix, I finalized the track listing today. I’ve got an idea for the artwork, but I’m out of CD labels, so I can’t print it out yet anyway (not only that, I have to buy them somewhere besides the usual place after last night.) After reading today’s post, I see that Ms. Music Whore is about at the same progress point as I.
At first I thought it would be tough to find music to fit the theme, it wasn’t really easy, but it wasn’t really that hard. I resisted filling up half the CD with one song, the live version of Whipping Post by the Allman Brothers Band. I knew the first song I wanted to use, Sad Old Red by Simply Red, and from there it just progressed. Being some one who doesn’t really listen to the lyrics all the time, just the overall feel, some of these songs may not actually be sad, but they sound that way to me (complete list is in the extended entry.)
I wonder if picking out 17 sad songs is the root cause of my depressive outlook the last couple of days, or has it just been the low 40 degree rainy days?
Continue reading It’s A SAD, SAD, SAD CD
Well Miata Caricature #2 arrived today, fully 7 days after the mouse pad & key chain even though they were mailed on the same day. I wonder what stories this mailing tube could tell if it could talk?
Off to the framing place tomorrow. I’m going to frame it using the same mat and frame in the same colors as the first, so I can hang them on the wall next to or right below each other.
This morning I got another couple of comment spams, one for here at the Rant and one for the Diaries. I immediately deleted them and rebuilt both weblogs. I haven’t been getting too many spam comments, but these were the ones that broke the camel’s back. Tonight I installed MT-Blacklist, a Movable Type plugin billed to eradicate comment and trackback spam. There are two paths for installation, The Ridiculously Easy Path and The Less Easy Path, I of course had to take the less easy path because my webhost didn’t have a particular pearl module installed. The less easy became The Kinda Hard Path as I couldn’t seem to get the path I had to change in the Blacklist.pl file right. On what was to be my last stab at the path, it worked. wOOt.
So bring it on, Mr. Purveyor of Porn, Ms. Dealer of Discount Drugs, Mr. Make My Male Member Massive, I’m ready.
I added the CarArtz.com caricature, including it’s cost, to the list of Mods, AKA the btr equipment package even though it doesn’t go on the car, I wouldn’t have got it if I didn’t have the car. I’ll add the cost of framing too, once it has been done.
#5 under ugly in my list of what is Good, Bad and Ugly about the new Miata was the plastic “Brushed Aluminum” trim surrounding the shifter, radio and vents. That will get fixed on tech day next Saturday. I found a Club member with a base 2001 with the all black interior who is going to swap pieces with me. While I have the dash apart I thought I might as well get the nifty little JDM pocket that goes in place of the passenger air bag switch. Ordered it from R-speed yesterday and it arrived today. I was going to link you directly to the product on their site, but they must have pulled it off the page as I got the last one they had. Here is picture of what it looks like in some one else’s car. I’ll add the cost to the list when I install it in the car next Saturday. That’s when I’m putting on the muffler too, so the total will probably hit the 4 digit mark then.
Ran the Master’s Miata Club newsletter through the postage meter at Rader today. While we were there I got Scott to go get me some of that water spot remover he used to clear up the outside rearview mirrors. I needed some more because I wanted to clean the whole windshield with it. When he did the job back then I was teasing him about cleaning some dead bugs or something off the glass while he had the rag in his hand. Being the obliging fellow he his, he rubbed a couple of spots clean on the driver’s side of the windshield. Well whatever that stuff is, it cleaned the window so well and/or left behind a coating, that the water beads up differently on those two spots. Not necessarily better or worse, but just mismatched enough that it is noticeable when driving in the rain. It seemed to be taking him a while to return, so I had Donna wait for him and I went upstairs to where they have the postage meter. When he finally came up there, he started towards me, Donna said, “You have to promise,” I saw what he was carrying and cracked up, “not to laugh.” He couldn’t find a bottle or anything so it was in a dixie cup and the cup was inside a latex glove. Because we had a 25 miles drive home Scott had to seal it somehow, so the glove was secured at the top with a small tie-wrap. The way he was holding it, the little fingers were dangling so that it looked sort of like a cow’s udder. How could you not laugh. But it worked, the FM made the trip back with out spilling a drop. Scott, you can put my name down as a reference on your application for the next Survivor series, because I can regale them with your feats of MacGyverisms.
I was a beautiful day and after our walk in the woods in the morning, I figured a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon would be to wash and wax the car. Before I started, I cleaned the windshield with the FM water spot remover stuff that I brought back from Rader yesterday. Good thing I used it today, when I opened up the glove and pulled out the dixie cup, the waxed paper was getting very soft. There were stains up the sides and the bottom of the cup looked a little weak. If I had waited until Monday I think there wouldn’t have been anything left of the cup. Now I just have to wait until it rains to see if the windshield looks even when wet.
I saved what of this precious fluid I didn’t use. Filled up a very small Tupperware bowl with lid and of course labeled it, FM. There was about an ounce or so left in the paper cup and not wanting to waste it, I drank it right down. Tasted kind of lemony.…just kidding Scott, I tossed it in the trash.
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