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’s sky was as uneventful as yesterday’s, but I decided to take a photo anyway. I went out on the deck in mid-afternoon and recreated, as best as possible, lat night’s Last of 2007 Enchanted Ceiling picture. Now I have to take precious minutes of the new year and post them to the site.
Rambo? How old is Stallone?
How do they expect to sell me on the merits of High Definition DVDs or Blueray Discs by broadcasting clips of movies into my living room on my analog TV?
You would have thunk it was a religious holiday with the amount of places that weren’t open today. Because it was a relatively nice day, sunny, mid 50s, we decided to walk the mile up to a shopping center and get a pizza. Roma Pizza was closed. No problem, there is a Moe’s on the other side of the parking lot. Problem, they were closed too, so we kept walking. About a half a mile further was a shopping center with a Japanese restaurant and an Indian one too. One of those were bound to be open. Nope. We had one last hope before settling on a sub sandwich from the deli of the grocery store that was on the way home. It didn’t look open, but the OPEN sign was lit. We tried the door and entered the Jade of China. Fortunately the Year of the Rat starts on February 7th and not January 1st.
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: Zero
Second day of the year and I’ve already run out of things to blog about. Maybe tomorrow, I start a week of Jury Duty for the Aiken County Circuit Court. Can’t promise anything, because if I get selected for a jury I won’t be able to talk about it.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 1
…didn’t get picked.
I was glad I didn’t get selected, but would not have been disappointed had I been. This wasn’t for a regular trial session jury, but for Grand Jury duty. You would have to report one Thursday per month (more if needed) to decide if the prosecution’s case had merit for trial and if it did, hand down indictments. There are 18 Grand Jurors, 12 picked today for the year of 2008 and 6 returning members from 2007. So, although today’s lucky selectees were chosen to serve for one year, half of them would get held over and serve a second year.
First, all of us assembled in an unused court room and then at the appointed time we were guided into the actual court room. The judge came in and then the Clerk called the role. We were numbered alphabetically, so because my last name starts with a B I was a low number. As the clerk called our number, starting at #1 and going all the way up to #99, we had to stand and say aloud our name. They skipped quite a few numbers/names, leading me to believe some folks had called in with excuses already.
After everyone had sounded off, the clerk informed the judge he had 64 perspective jurors with one no-show. He asked the missing persons name and then told his bailiff to inform the Sheriff’s Office that he wanted a bench warrant issued for that person to be before him next Monday at 9:30. The judge then read a series of questions that if you could answer yes to you might be excused from duty. One person was excused because they had moved to Augusta (last weekend) and two more were excused for medical reasons. There were about a half dozen who had hardships that made it inconvenient to serve once a month and they got swapped into the regular jury pool for a two week session later in the year.
This left about 55 people eligible for the 15 spots (twelve plus three alternates) giving me a 27% chance of getting chosen. Our juror number and names were written on small slips of paper and loaded into a “high tech’ metal box the size of a cigar box and professional shaken up by the Assistant Clerk of Court. The slips of paper were then drawn out one at a time.
The first number called was for a woman seated right behind me. She muttered an expletive under her breath as she made her way up front. The woman sitting next to me went “Oh my,” in mock surprise. I whispered to her, “Yeah, she didn’t seem to happy about that.” About halfway through calling the 12 Grand Jurors, the clerk called out, “Juror number six — ty seven.” My heart skipped a beat there. I figured for sure that I was going to get picked as one of three alternates, but didn’t.
All of us unwanted jurors were directed back to the original room where we were given a written excuse for work and a check for $20.
Thanks Aiken County for buying my wife and I BBQ at Bobby’s for tonight’s dinner.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: One
Used up all my words yesterday.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: Uno
 A friend (Hi Rae!) got a new notebook for Christmas, a nice Ruby Red Inspiron and when I saw it I was very jealous, it made my 2-year old laptop look down right dowdy. I considered painting the silver lid with some of the Garnet Red in a can I have left over, so it would match the Emperor. That seemed like an awful lot of trouble. I decided to take the easy way out — a Pixel Decal laptop skin.
I didn’t think I would watch all 29 episodes in Season 1, but I thought would make it past 15 minutes of the un-aired pilot. I have little memory of watching Lost in Space when it originally aired. I do remember having a crush on Penny though, as she and I were roughly the same age. And I do remember Dr. Smith always calling the robot names like, “You bumbling bubble-headed buffoon.” Neither of those two characters were in the un-aired pilot. We almost turned it off at about 10 minutes in as the meteors that that sent the Jupiter II (called the Gemini XII here) off course turned out to be easily recognizable as wadded up aluminum foil. What finally made me hit the eject button was the 1–2 combination of terrible acting by Mark Goddard as Professor Don West and Guy Williams as Captain James Robinson when they tried to give the impression they were battling high winds on a mountain top followed by the “giant” one-eyed monster that showed up in forced perspective dressed in an outfit made of squares of burlap bags. Couldn’t take the cheese anymore.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: Ein
The Miata sat unused all day in the garage. After sleeping in we walked downtown to the New Moon Cafe for muffins. When we got back home there was brief talk of going for a drive, but I pooh-pooh the idea to stay home and read.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 01
It is 10:00PM and it is time to prepare for beddy-bye, but I haven’t written anything here yet, so the day isn’t complete. I’ve done some legitimate things this evening, not just Blogging Avoidance stuff, rollerbladed 3 miles, “helped” cook dinner, worked on getting the MMC’s 2008 calendar online, read some of “The Passage” by my favorite Navy author, David Poyer, watched a couple of Law & Orders (OK, maybe that was BA), but still I have nothing to say (and so far this rambling post proves that beyond a shadow of doubt.)
The only remotely exciting part of my day was riding home from work with the top down, there you have it, the top transitions doubled for the year so far.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 2
I’m sitting here watching a Win XP Setup progress bar on the desktop. Not mine, but a co-workers. She has a 1–1/2 year old Dell she is thinking of donating to her grandson, why I’m sure, he’s the one who has the PC in the first place, but hey, she’s the grandma. I don’t know how this is going to go though, she didn’t have a restore disc or a copy of XP anywhere (grandkid probably snagged it and sold it on ebay) so I have booted it to my XP CD and when it asks for a product key I’ll enter the one from the side of her tower.
We had a nice warm day with no call for rain, but at the noon walk it looked cloudy so at my doctor’s appointment this afternoon I raised the top. Good thing too as there was a smattering of fresh rain drops on the car when I returned. Today’s top transitions doubled yesterday’s total which had doubled the day before’s. That exponential increase will probably end tomorrow as I can bet that the top won’t transition 8 times…
Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 6
When I went to watch The Incredibles the other day there was a section of the disk that held some set up routines for optimum THX viewing. What the heck, I’ll give it a try. The video portion was a piece of cake, but the audio section was a disappointment. My decade old Onkyo receiver has 5:1 Dolby processing, that I have had working in the past, but for some reason now there is no sound at all from the rear surround speakers. No big deal, they aren’t in their ideal placements for that total immersion feeling anyway.
We have a JVC DVD player and we have a JVC TV that are about 5–1/2 years old. JVC used to have a system called Compu-Link that hooked up their electronic components, so that when one did something that effected another setting automatically changed. Whenever we used pop a DVD in, the TV would turn on and change to the video input the DVD was hooked into. Notice I said used? Stopped working the other day. It is no big deal to push a couple buttons, but when you are used to having it easy…
When I hit the Powerball tonight I’ll probably go out and buy one of those all in one box systems. Of course if I actually did win the $71 million I could hire somebody to come in set up a killer media system.
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: Six
 He said he was going to put Season 1 Disc 1 in his Netflix queue to see what I was so hooked on that I would spend two whole days anchored to the couch watching.
Disc 1 arrived Tuesday night, Mark and his wife are now totally Lost. Wednesday morning at work he cussed me out for getting him hooked on the show. The first 4 episodes were just enough to get them addicted and now he couldn’t concentrate on work, all he could think about was watching more. A junkie jonesin’ for a fix. I was slightly jealous as I remember that feeling.
Wednesday he stopped at a video rental place on the way home and gets the 5 discs left of Season 1 causing him to stay up way past his bedtime watching episodes 5 through 16. Right now Mark and his wife are probably finishing up Season 1. On his way home from work today he was going to stop and get Season 2 for Saturday. Right after saying that he said, “Nope, probably won’t wait that long, Friday night.” I’m betting they may start Season 2 tonight…
Mark didn’t think the video place has Season 2 for rent, but he did see them in the used DVD bin for sale. He figures even if he buys them for $5 bucks each ($30 total) he can recoup his losses by selling the set on eBay after watching them.
This led to a quick check of eBay to see how much a season of Lost was going for — $25–30. Hey, here’s an auction Season 1 that ends in forty minutes with a high bid of $16.49. I said I’d pay that much for it. Mark goaded me on, so I bid $17. Wouldn’t you know it, I won, so now I have Season 1 of Lost on the way for rewatching.
Maybe I’ll pay Mark $20 for Season 2 if he ends up buying it…
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 8
The “Gang of Six” meet tonight at Miyabi Japanese restaurant in Augusta for dinner. We had a 5:30 reservation and it is a good thing, as Donna and I arrived first, a couple minutes after five, and there was already a wait for walk-ins of 45 minutes.
Every one is seated at tables of 8, so we six are joined by a woman and her 5-year old son. They sat on the same end of the table as Donna and I and the little boy was very well behaved. Turns out they have eaten here before and it his favorite restaurant, even more so than McDonalds. He even ate with chop sticks (although they did have training wheels.)
If you have eaten at one of these places, you know the drill, a chef comes out and cooks in front of you. There are slashing knives and flipping spatulas. There is copious amounts of food cooked in a lot of butter and soy sauce. He sautees up some vegetables and then brings out this giant bowl of white rice and inverts it on the grill. It is the size of a basketball, I bet there are 72,000 grains of rice there. After it is separated into 8 parts, each serving is 3 x 6 x 2″ thick. Finally the meat is cooked and added to your plate, the pile of food in front of you is now enough to feed a small African nation. All 3 couples left with enough stuff in a to go box for lunch for two for another day.
For dessert we had homemade raspberry yogurt at one couple’s home and discussed everything from Presidential campaigns to Japanese after market parts for Miatas to whether Gene Simmons either aced the previous evening’s Celebrity Apprentice challenge or maybe marked himself for firing next week.
On the way back to Aiken the Emperor clicked over the 72,000 mile mark.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 1o
 Went for a nice couple hour hike in the woods this morning. We’ve been threatening to go for a hike for a couple weeks, but just haven’t made it. It was sunny and mild, but you can tell it is winter because you can see further with all the leaves off the trees.
After lunch we ‘wasted” the rest of the day away watching The Good Shepherd and then Season 1 Disc 1 of Bones
To say that Matt Damon’s performance as Edward Wilson in the Good Shepherd was understated is an understatement. In the Bones pilot, everything was moving too fast and seemed over the top just to catch your interest. It had the exact opposite effect on us, after the first episode we almost stopped watching. After the second episode we figured we’d finish the disc and not get anymore. At the end of 4 episodes and the disc we thought, what the heck, let’s add some more Discs.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 12
 I’ve been Simpsonized!
My Lost discs that I bid victoriously for on eBay will be mailed on Monday. They are coming from West By God Virginia so they should be here by Thursday.
This morning we finally raked up the last of the dead leaves out of the backyard. We had ignored the backyard all fall, always keeping the front neat, until earlier this week when we got half of it cleaned up and piled in front of the house for the city to pick on Thursday. Now the rest will get picked up this coming Tuesday. Thats right, more big news from around here, our trash pickup day has been moved from Thursday to Tuesday.
When we went to Subway for lunch the temperature was 49°, but because it was a short ride we kept the top down. When we stepped outside after eating and sitting a bit it felt cold so we put the top up for the ride home. At home I checked the temperature and it read 51°, go figure.
A little link action. Last night while blog surfing I stumbled on another blogger with a Miata, er MX-5 and added a link to his site. Welcome Mike who is apparently notoriously nice and from what I’ve read so far he has been nice. I also, with great sadness, removed long time read, Will Burnham Down The House. After 5 years he is closing down his blog. Too bad, will had an interesting life and an interesting take on it. Today a fellow Club member wrote asking if I had any clip art depicting a woman or girl in a Miata. She was thinking of making her own stationary. And while I could have sworn I’d seen something almost exactly like that in the past, an internet search didn’t turn it up. It did turn up a couple more bloggers with Miatas that have been added to the blog roll in the sidebar. Welcome Jon (jcm’s blog) and Ralph (Van City Blue Miata.)
It also turned up a couple oddities — a female impersonator named Miata, a whole website dedicated to sexily dressed women getting their cars stuck in the mud (video 029 has a Miata) and a Miata Art Car.
I’m thinking of buying this T-shirt, but wished it came in something other than crap brown
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 13
A young man goes into the Job Center in Charleston, SC and sees a card advertising for a Gynecologist’s Assistant. Interested he goes to learn more
“Can you give me some more details about this?” he asks the guy behind the desk.
The Job Center man sorts through his files & replies — “Oh yes here it is: The job entails you getting the lady patients ready for the gynecologist. You have to help them out of their underwear, lie them down and carefully wash their genital regions. You then apply shaving foam and gently shave off all their pubic hair then rub in soothing oils so that they’re ready for the gynecologist’s examination. There’s an annual salary of $45,000, but you’re going to have to go to Savannah, GA. That’s about 120 miles from here.”
“Oh, why? Is that where the job’s at?”
“No sir — that’s where the end of the line is…!!”
I’ve got to start carrying one of those little notebook that detectives or reporters carry so that I can write down blog ideas that occur to me during the day. Because as I sit here tonight staring at a blank textarea, I might have benefited from something like that. That is if anything happened oday worth writing about.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 13
Today is Tuesday and this is the first time our garbage and recycling will be picked up on Tuesday instead of Thursday like it has been for the last 19 years.
I knew it was trash day and I consciously didn’t put it out by the curb.
Because it is just the two of us, the rolling trash bin and the recycling bin never get more than half full over the course of a week, so there wasn’t any need for me take any thing out after just 5 days. Trust me, we’ll still have room left next Tuesday after 12 days…
Good thing I am not triskaidekaphobic because the top count has been stuck on 13 for a few days and because we are going through a January “cold” spell, it will remain at that number for the foreseeable future.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 13
The Lost Season 1 DVDs came in the mail today.
 We were supposed to be getting rain overnight. This afternoon when I checked the radar I could see the green of precipitation approaching. Mid afternoon we were covered in green. Donna and I canceled our afternoon walk because rain and 40º is not pleasant. When I finally did go look outside around 3 o’clock, it wasn’t raining and the ground was dry. What? I knew there was a word for that phenomenon, but couldn’t come up with it. Google reveals — virga.
Because the temps we supposed to be in the upper thirties overnight there was large speculation we might get snow or sleet or ice. I bet the stores were packed with people buying bread, milk, bottled water and batteries.
While we sat in front of the TV watching Disc 1 of Season 1 we wondered where the rain was, because we can usually hear it come down on the the chimney cap and it had been strangely silent. When we were done with the first four episodes, Donna questioned, “Are we ever going to get any rain?” She opened the front door and discovered the reason we didn’t hear the precipitation. It was too light to be heard, there was an 1/8″ snow on the grass and it was still coming down.
It has already turned to rain and disappeared.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 13
It was cold and wet this morning. Work was the usual fun. It was cold this afternoon. Watched Disc 2 of Season 1 tonight.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 13
We are now half way through Disc 5 of Season 1. Finished up with one of my favorite episodes, Numbers, in which we get some of Hurley’s back story. We find out he won a lot of money playing the lotto with numbers he learned from a fellow “inmate” at a insane asylum (a back story I hope we go back and visit.)
Hurley: They’re cursed. You know that, right? The numbers, they’re cursed.
Rousseau: Numbers are what brought me here. As it appears they brought you. Since that time I’ve lost everything, everyone I cared about. So yes, I suppose you’re right. They are cursed.
 We got off our duffs this afternoon and took a walk in the woods, had to be today, because tomorrow they are calling for a wintery mix. The temperature made it into the middle 50’s and made for a pleasant walk. I took two whole pictures on the walk of a section of the trail that was full Spanish Moss. When I got home and downloaded the images they had a distinct blue tinge. Drat. I had set the white balance to indoors the other day and forgot to set it back. No amount of post processing of the color balance would fix it, so I tossed it through a daguerreotype filter.
We are supposed to go for a drive to Saluda for a breakfast run with the Miata Club early tomorrow morning. There are winter weather advisories for tomorrow from 7AM to 10PM, so the event may not go off. Donna and I are going to get up in the morning check the weather channel, and depending on the radar picture, will either stay home or go for a drive.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 14
We went out for a bagel for breakfast. Right here in Aiken. The MMC did drive to Saluda for breakfast, all 2 cars of them. I guess we weren’t the only ones who decided not to for go a 60 mile drive in the cold rain to eat when there were places closer to home. We then picked up a few items we missed on yesterday’s grocery shopping trip and spent the rest of the day inside watching the rest of Season 1 of TDTVS.
I was outbid with 7 hours to go on my first attempt on eBay to buy the second season. Eighteen hours left on try number two. I don’t want to pay more than twenty bucks (with shipping) unless I have to.
I’ve been considered buying one of the McFarlane’s action figures Series 1 or Series 2 just for the cool little toss ins. With Hurley you get a replica of the winning lottery ticket. Sun includes a life size recreation of an Oceanic boarding pass and with Kate you get that little model plane from her childhood sweetheart.
Yeah, I got it bad. At least I haven’t bought a T-shirt — yet.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 15
I figure if I do, sooner or later I’m going to win an eBay auction for season two of TDTVS.
The Numbers have not, so far, been picked in either the Powerball or Mega Millions games. If they did, would they prove to be cursed?
The Emperor got the day off. But we didn’t stay inside all day. About 2:30 we put on our sunglasses and coats and walked about a mile and a half to a Marble Slab Creamery for some ice cream. When I pulled out my ratty wallet to pay for it my wife suggested that maybe we should walk across the street to the Walmart. I said OK, but we would have to look in the toy section for Mia and Tia. The Movie Moments, of which they are part of, must be on the way out because they weren’t in the toy section, but scattered in a couple of fringe aisle ends throughout the store. No cute Miatas to be found.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 15
At first I didn’t want to spend more than $20 for Season 2 of TDTVS, including the shipping. But after about 4 or 5 failures I upped the ante to $24. Still no luck after two days. Here are the selling prices of the 13 auctions I bid in:
$34.00
$30.50
$27.50
$23.01
$26.05
$23.00
$25.51
$25.01
$24.50
$35.00
$31.00
$29.03
$24.49
The last straw was tonight when I made one more attempt. The seller was here in Aiken (might even see about saving the shipping cost), but after putting in a bid that took my total to $24.99, I was informed I was already outbid. Some one already had a maximum bid in that was greater than my offering.
I don’t know what these people are thinking? Why buy used? The damn thing is on sale new at Amazon for $29.99 with free Super Saver shipping!
Not wanting to wait around for a week waiting on the Super Saver shipping I nibbled at their hook for Amazon Prime. By trying it free for a month I get 2-day shipping for free. As soon as I get the DVDs I’ll go ahead and cancel it. No way I do enough business with these guys to warrant $79 a year…
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 15
I love the net. It is a vast repository for everything from diamonds to dreck. I mainly like it for the reason that I don’t have to remember stuff anymore. Brain storage space, now at a premium because of age and heavy abuse of mind altering drugs as a teen, does not have to tied up remember that Jon Provost played Timmy Martin on 178 episodes of the TV show Lassie from 1957 to 1964. And things like, “Although it has been the subject of many spoofs and misquotes, the one situation that Timmy never needed saving from in the entire history of the show was falling down a well.” That’s what IMDB is for. If I ever need to know how to change the fuel filter on my car or how many red Miatas were made in 1993, Miata.net will remember it for me. I don’t even have to remember what happens to me anymore, that is what this blog is for.
I hate the net. The main reason for that is spam. It is light at the home address because I rarely use it on the net. It is just the opposite for my work email. Somewhere along the line that address got sold on a CD and I get about a hundred pieces of crud every day. Fortunately it is stopped before it gets to my inbox by a service the company subscribes to called Postini. I check the MMC’s email and because we have a yahoo.com address 99.9% of what comes in there is the usual replica watches, male enhancement and free gift card junk. My gamil account gets a bunch too, 27 so far today, but 26 were caught by Gooogle’s spam filter.
Today I received 2 emails at my gmail account purportedly from eBay about “Item Number: (300192365929) Zulu — scarce Stanley Baker signed autograph.” Could this be because of my furious bidding for Lost: Season2 DVDs on eBay? Doubt it, my registered eBay email is still the now defunct brian@mr-miata.com… Both emails contained the right letters to my gmail address, but did not include the dots in between the letters. Do you have a “.” in your gmail address? If so, try sending your self a note by leaving out the dot. Worked for me.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 15
 I’ve given it up. I think I’m going to start taking photos of people handing me mail sacks while I sit in my plane instead.
Not really, it has been because the days are too short and too cold, plus all the Post Offices we have left are too far away for day trips. Give us another month or so and we will be back at it. Only 115 to go.
While you wait, don’t forget to look at the already captured photos on my Flickr page. And if you would like to see more old timey photos, check out the Library of Congress’ Flickr page.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 16
 Mark got his Sawyer’s Fish Biscuit T-shirt yesterday and wore in it to work today. I would have been very jealous, but my Season 2 DVDs arrived via UPS today. So tonight Donna and I watched the first disc. I know I’m probably way late for this party, but I just realized that THE NUMBERS (4 8 15 16 23 42) add up to 108, which is the number of minutes between hitting execute on the computer in Dharma’s Swan station.
I think I’m going to get a T-shirt of my own, but with the Oceanic Airlines logo on it as soon as I find just the right one.
If you happen to live in one of these cities: Los Angeles, CA — Tustin, CA — Ames, IA — Miami, FL — New York, NY — Portland, OR — Knoxville, TN — Seoul, South Korea — Sydney, Australia; keep your eyes peeled for the billboards — Oceanic Airlines.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 17
Fluctuations Noun; plural
When I got back from Canada last week, I had a bunch of Canadian dollars I needed to exchange so I went to the currency exchange window at the local bank. It was a short line with just one guy in front of me. He was an Asian guy who was trying to exchange yen for dollars, and he was a little irritated!
He asked the teller, “Why it change? Yestoday, I get two huna dolla fo yen. Today I get huna eighty? Why It change?”
The teller shrugged her shoulders and said, “Fluctuations.”
The Asian guy said, “Fluc you white people too!”
 Way back in the past, 2005, I closed up shop on the Barndoor Fan Club. I thought I had found a suitable replacement web master, I even sold him the domain name, but he never did anything with it. At one time I resurrected it in a subdomain of the mr-miata.com site, but that went away when my grasp of that domain did. Someone asked me about it the other day, so I thought, what the heck, I’ll tack up the files to this place as a museum to my earlier derangement.
Barndoor Fan Club
Just don’t click on any of the email addresses, they don’t go anywhere, the Store is no longer open and it doesn’t look like it is part of the Miata Ring anymore.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 17
Watched Lost Season 2 pretty much all day, discs 3, 4 & 5 or about 8–1/2 hours worth. Saving number six for tomorrow though. We have decided that seeing as we watched all of Season 3 just a month ago, we probably won’t buy that set, right now. Plan is to wait until they are getting ready to release Season 4 on DVD and buy #3 then. So end of this year, early next year we will start over again and watch Seasons 1, 2, then 3 followed right up by 4. After that I think we’ll have to go out and buy a new couch, because we will have worn the covers off this one.
The polls have closed here in SC and everyone is saying that Obama is the big winner, but Donna and I already knew that around 6 o’clock this evening. That is when the phone stopped ringing with those automated campaign messages, today’s tally at the Bogardus household, Barack Obama 6, Hillary Clinton 3. There were 3 “undecideds”, i.e. no message left. We had planned to get out and vote, but were afraid The Others might kidnap us, so we stayed inside.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 17
“Smells like carrots.”
Finished up Season Two of TDTVS this morning. After watching Season 3 just a month ago, it is amazing how much we have forgotten. Is Mr. Eko dead? I don’t remember him in Season 3. I know Locke is alive because I remember him. How did Desmond come back? I guess I should have paid attention. Or maybe I’ll just go here and read about them…or maybe go here and watch them.
In spite of the afternoon being sunny and in the upper 60’s we opted for the comfort of the couch once again. We watched Season 1 Disc 2 of Boston Legal which came from Netflix on Saturday. If it weren’t for the US Figure Skating Nationals on NBC, which Donna is watching, we might have watched the original 1959 3:10 To Yuma which also came in a red envelope on Saturday.
We did get the top down for the trip to Hardee’s and the weekly grocery trip between TV DVDs. At the store I was looking for something different for my morning snack. Last week was fat free fig newtons, the week before was ginger snaps. When I spotted something called Dipping Delights I was intrigued. Cheesecake flavored, hmmmm. They are shown on the package being dipped in a glass of milk, probably why they got there name. I was sure they would taste OK dry, so I picked up the the bag and checked the nutritional info. 90 calories, 6% of your daily value of total fat, 8% of saturated, 0% trans & cholesteral (naturally) per serving. Not bad, until you look at what the serving size is, 1 cookie! I’m sure the other customers in the store thought we had lost our minds we laughed so loud.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 18
I have an interesting post for today, but you’ll have to wait until the photos come back from the lab.
“We’re stuck in a bloody snow globe!” is another answer to the question, “What did one snowman say to the other snowman?”
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 20
We really wanted Roma Pizza to work out for us. It is a mile away from the house, so it makes a perfect distance for walking to, having a meal and strolling back from. We have been there three times since they opened a few months ago, the first was about a month after they opened. The last was last Friday.
On our first visit the service was spotty, which we chalked up to teething pains. The pizza was great, right up there with our old favorite Ferrando’s.
On our second visit the pizza was great, as was the service.
Last Friday when we walked in, the hostess grabbed two menus and looked over towards the bar area and asked a woman sitting there, was Missy in yet. To which the woman, possibly a manager or owner said, “She’ll be here momentarily.” We were seated at a booth and off the hostess went without further word. We really didn’t need the menu as we knew what we were getting, a five topping pie, two garden salads, water and a sweet tea. We sat for a few minutes and wondered among ourselves what momentarily meant. After a while a waitress appeared and stopped at the booth behind us and asked the occupants did they want anything else, as they were finishing up. The waitress didn’t even look our way, obviously she wasn’t Missy. We had now been seated for a good five minutes and we had gotten not so much as a somebody will be right with you from any of the 4 restaurant employees in sight. Not even water yet. We then decided that we didn’t feel like waiting for Missy any longer, so got up to leave. As we headed for the door, Donna said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by nearly everyone in attendance, “I guess we’ll have to go somewhere else to get waited on!” The hostess replied, “OK.” I kept on going out the door, but Donna turned around and gave the hostess a piece of her mind before joining me in the parking lot. We went to Krogers, bought a Digiorno Frozen Pizza, went home and ate it.
We were boycotting Ferrando’s because they closed the location we liked in downtown and opened a store on the south side. And while the new spot is actually closer to us, it is less convenient and always crowded making getting a table hard. But tonight when we wanted “real” pizza we went to Ferrando’s. But we went early, almost right after work at five o’clock and it was a smooth experience.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 21
…trying to watch Lost on regular TV.
ABC is showing the third season ender right now, I guess in an effort to get everyone excited for tomorrow’s Episode 1 of Season 4. The commercial blocks are annoying as all get out and to make matters worse they are crawling extra information at the bottom of the screen to explain what is going on to newbies.
To further indoctrinate newcomers, ABC will breakdown the whole first 3 seasons in a clip show that will be shown at 8 PM, just in front of the 9 PM premiere of season four.
Like before, I got tired of failure on eBay bidding for Season 3, so last night I broke down and bought it new. Found it on Buy.com for $28.98 ($38.98 minus $10 for first time Google Checkout buyers.)
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 21
Because I’ve pretty much stopped watching network television all together I was blissfully ignorant of the phenomenon. When the first season came out on DVD and after hearing people at work talk a bit about it, we opted to give it try. Dumped disc one in the Netflix queue. Oh. Man.
I resisted trying to join Season two in mid stride. Donna attempted to watch S2E12, but couldn’t pull it off because of the commercials. We bided our time. Seven months later Season 2 DVDs arrived and we spent a weekend gorging ourselves, watching it all.
When Season 3 hit the airwaves we just ignored it, vowing to only watch the show on DVD. When they did arrive in stores, we went to the local video store, rented and then watched the whole season in one fell swoop, two days, a Friday and Saturday.
I think that is when the banana peel slipped out from under us. We bought Season 1 on DVD to rewatch. When we finished that, we bought Season 2 and watched it again. Season 3 is in the mail to us right now. I’ve created a separate post category for it. There is now even a link category in the sidebar.
But tonight I did something I vowed not to do, I watched it as it was broadcast on ABC. I wonder if there is a support group at Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute for people like me?
The only thing I have going for me right now is I still haven’t bought a shirt.
But my resolve is weakening…
That Damn TeleVision Show
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 21
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Today’s sky was as uneventful as yesterday’s, but I decided to take a photo anyway. I went out on the deck in mid-afternoon and recreated, as best as possible, lat night’s Last of 2007 Enchanted Ceiling picture. Now I have to take precious minutes of the new year and post them to the site.
