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BMW Drive For Team USA

Today we took the after­noon off from work to help sup­port our Olympic Team. We donated $10 a piece and got to drive in the new BMW 3 Series. And a cou­ple of its com­peti­tors, a Lexus IS250 and a Mercedes-Benz C250*. Now, all these cars were optioned out so that their list price was about 190% of the cost of our much larger Pur­ple Whale, so the fit, fin­ish and inte­rior quiet­ness of them were also nearly twice as fine. Even though they were small cars they were still more the size we would have liked when we were shop­ping last year, but their cost kept them off the list.

*The Audi A4 was miss­ing because they didn’t get enough pre-registered dri­vers to bring out every car.

The dri­ving course was an abbre­vi­ated Susan Komen loop and at only 6 miles long we didn’t get a chance to really wring the cars out and get real famil­iar with them, so all I have are lit­tle snip­pets of pos­i­tives and/or neg­a­tives about each.

We first drove the IS250 and as it turned out it was the car we liked the most. We both loved the seats, very com­fort­able. The nav­i­ga­tion screen was large and where it should be, right in the upper por­tion of the cen­ter stack. Nit picks were win­dow, mir­ror and lock switches were placed awk­wardly for­ward on down on the driver’s door. Back seat legroom was the small­est of the group.

Next we drove the MB C250. This was our least favorite of the group. The seats were hard and flat and Donna never did feel com­fort­able. Very Teu­tonic styling inside and out, so not really to our tastes. The only real plus was the turbo motor kicked butt when pushed, but the lag made it show up long after you wanted the giddy-up.

Lastly we drove the 3 Series and this was the Momma Bear of the group. Dri­ver ergonom­ics were top notch and this is the one I would pick for dri­ving (the IS250 would be the cruis­ing choice.) The exte­rior is tra­di­tional BMW, pleas­ing, but the inte­rior is not to our lik­ing really (plus the faux wood inte­rior accents were cheap and had an unnat­ural wavi­ness.) Plus, I have com­plained about this in pre­vi­ous BMW dri­ves, but today it seems worse than I remem­ber, the lin­ear­ity of the elec­tronic throt­tle was awful, it almost felt like the Mercedes’s turbo lag.

All in all it was a pleas­ant way to kill a cou­ple hours and we each got a nice lit­tle BMW ball cap well really I got two caps because Donna doesn’t wear hats.)

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1137

144,000 Nyjer Seeds

On Thurs­day after­noon, not long after we left the Valve Store’s™ park­ing lot, the Pur­ple Whale crossed the 18,000 mile barrier.

On Sat­ur­day morn­ing, not too far from home, the Emperor passed through the 126,000 mile mark on the way to Augusta.

After los­ing the first game of the series against the Cleve­land Indi­ans, the Red Sox have won the last three games. Is this the start of a turn around like in 2011 or is this just slight blip designed to get my hopes up, so they can drop the next 4 games in a row and crush those hopes?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1136

Close Encounter Of The Google Kind

It’s Fri­day, so, as usual, Donna and I rode the tan­dem to work. As we parked the bike in the rack Donna noticed some­thing hang­ing from the back tire. On closer inspec­tion it turned out to be a sec­tion of the tire about the size of 2 quar­ters side by side that had sep­a­rated from the kevlar belts. It was still hold­ing air so we opted to ride it home, but agreed not to bomb down the hills and take it easy on the cor­ners in case of sud­den air con­tain­ment failure.

A lit­tle more than half way home we came to a halt at a stop sign we usu­ally don’t have to stop at. Not because our tire blew out, but because there was a car com­ing from the left. It looked a lit­tle weird, there were some odd stripes and it had green doors, so I knew it was vinyl wrapped to adver­tise some busi­ness. I was so intent on try­ing to fig­ure out what they were adver­tis­ing for for that it took a while to reg­is­ter that there was some­thing very weird about the car.

It had a 3′ stalk stick­ing out of the roof with a red disco ball on top — it was a Google Street View Car! I waved meekly as it passed. Because it was going the way we were going, we turned right and fol­lowed. The Google car got stopped at the light at the next block and I pulled up right behind it to wait. The light turned green and the car pulled off. I gave another wave as Donna and I turned left to con­tinue on the way home.

I don’t know when they will update the Street View for that inter­sec­tion and stretch of road, the cur­rent images are from Decem­ber 2007, but when they do, we’ll be famous.

The Emperor got a bath this after­noon because tomor­row is the MMC Tech Day and heaven for­bid I show up with a dirty car.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1135

Crooked Hat As A Metaphor For A Baseball Season

When I was up in Char­lotte for some train­ing at the end of March, while my com­pa­tri­ots were shop­ping in the Bass Pro Shop, I stepped out into the Con­cord Mills Mall proper to buy some­thing different.

The 2012 base­ball sea­son had yet to begin and in spite of their some­what lack­lus­ter spring train­ing record, I was opti­mistic for a nice run to the play­offs for the FRS.

It was time to replace my old Red Sox hat, it had sev­eral jagged white lines of dried sweat rings in the cap area* and the brim was get­ting kind of floppy.

* Sweat rings in a ball cap are only accept­able for super­sti­tious pro base­ball play­ers and old school farm­ers.

My last hat had the big B on the front, but the Sox had a new man­ager this year and hope­fully a new atti­tude, so this time I wanted a new look. Duck­ing into a Lids store nearby the Bass Pro Shop, I picked out my hat, tried it on to make sure it fit and paid the man. I opted for the dan­gling socks logo — Style 20000459.

I wore my new cap proudly in April even though they got off to a rocky start, show­ing that my fan­dom for the Red Sox was sin­cere and I was not just some band­wagon hop­per. But the deeper in the month we went, the less likely this was that it was only a slow start, but more an indi­ca­tion that I was in for a long los­ing summer.

I had the hat on this week­end and when I looked in the Pur­ple Whale’s rear view mir­ror, noticed that dan­gling socks were not exactly cen­tered** over the brim. Hmmm. Prob­a­bly off by only a half a degree and notice­able by only me, but it kind of soured my want­ing to con­tinue to wear the hat.

**Should have checked myself in a mir­ror when I tried on the hat.

Mon­day morn­ing when I read The Sox­a­holix web comic, it cap­tured my feel­ings exactly: The Glass Is Com­pletely Vacated

I guess I will wear the hat one more time, it will be on a cloudy day when Donna and I go out to eat some­where in Augusta, so I can “acci­den­tally” leave it in the booth and not really “notice” it until it is too late to go back for it.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1134

My Cookies Have Names

I get some cook­ies for a morn­ing snack. The quan­tity varies depend­ing on how many total are in the pack­age and divid­ing that num­ber by five and I try and mix it up by get­ting some­thing dif­fer­ent each week. Nut­ter But­ter, Oreos* (reg­u­lar and reverse), Fig New­tons and sev­eral Kee­bler vari­eties (Deluxe Gra­hams, Fudge Sticks or Fudge Stripes.) This week, a Kee­bler cookie I hadn’t tried, E.L Fudge® Orig­i­nals, were on sale for $2, so I picked up a pack.

Two vanilla cook­ies with a layer of fudge in the mid­dle, but they’re not as tasty to me as the other Kee­bler offer­ings or the reverse Oreos. They are shaped like the lit­tle elves that live in that hol­low tree and even have names, Ernie, Elwood, Buck­ets & Fast Eddie. They are a lit­tle dis­con­cert­ing to eat, esp­sce­cially because I usu­ally start by bit­ting off their heads.**

*Did you know that along with the Titanic and Fen­way Park***, Oreos are also cel­e­brat­ing their 100th Anniversry?

**Does it make me a zom­bie because I eat the brains first? Or am just being zom­bie safe by killing the brain?

***There is def­i­nitely a joke in that pair­ing somewhere.

Critisism

I love some Mad Men. At first I was just sucked into its pitch per­fect take on the early 60’s, but the more you watch, the more you real­ize that this is one of the most nuanced things on TV. The trou­ble with that nuance thing is that while I still enjoy watch­ing the show, fol­low­ing the char­ac­ters and their story arcs, the big pic­ture if you will, I now need help with rec­og­niz­ing all the small brush strokes that cre­ate the total piece of art.

For that I have to turn to var­i­ous reviews and recaps, plus their ever enter­tain­ing and some­times infor­ma­tive com­ments. Usual reads are Hit­Fix, Vul­ture, Press­Play and my favorite, the AV Club.

Tonight’s home­work assign­ment kid­dies is to watch this past Sunday’s episode, Lady Lazarus, then go read the AV Club review and see what you missed. If you can’t be both­ered with watch­ing the show, just go read the AV Club piece.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1133

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor

Donna, I and 20 of our clos­est strangers saw The Hunger Games this morn­ing. Went for a bike ride to DD for break­fast and when we got home there was enough time to shower, change and drive to Augusta to catch the 10:30 show­ing in some sta­dium seating.

Nei­ther one of us has read any of the books, we both had a sketchy idea of the plot from media immer­sion, but the real rea­son we went to see it was that it was filmed mostly in our favorite part of the coun­try, west­ern North Car­olina. Not a bad lit­tle movie. I enjoyed it more than Donna, but nei­ther of us will be wait­ing with breath­less antic­i­pa­tion for the sec­ond installment.

After doing all the prep work the last cou­ple weeks, re-watching Iron Man 2, watch­ing Thor, watch­ing Cap­tain Amer­ica, and see­ing the trailer in the the­ater today, I can now say, “I think I’ll be wait­ing for the DVD of The Avengers.” I almost hate to admit it, but I buy a dystopian future where teenagers bat­tle to the death on tele­vi­sion before I swal­low the premise of an Asgar­dian vil­lain attack­ing Earth and to the res­cue come this group of “superheroes.”

The next movie I see in a movie the­ater will be some­time after June 8th:

If base­ball suc­cess and fan sat­is­fac­tion were mea­sured in innings played, this weekend’s three game set with Bal­ti­more Ori­oles, total­ing 39 innings (more than 4 com­plete games worth) would mean great things. Unfor­tu­nately they don’t, win­ning does.

The odds cer­tainly are not in the favor of the Red Sox.

A lit­tle less than a month into the 2012 sea­son the FRS are 11 and 16 leav­ing them in last place, 7–1/2 games out of the divi­sion lead. After today’s loss they are on pace for a 66 win, 96 loss sea­son. Maybe if they try a lit­tle less harder they can get an even 100 losses to honor this 100th year anniver­sary of Fen­way Park.