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Nochnoi Dozor

AKA: Night Watch. I watched this movie today on the lap top because I knew Donna would want to have nothing to do with it. Now that I’m done, I’m not so sure I should have had anything to do with it either. At least I didn’t have to walk out to my mailbox to get it.

Blockbuster has got their own mail-it-to-your-house DVD rental program. They are now touting that you can return the mailed disc to the store and get a new movie without that long wait of a couple days. Well, Netflix has upped the ante, I now don’t even have to go the store. I can just click and watch. I’ve known it was coming, just not when, a couple months ago Netflix announced that you would be able to watch any of their movies on demand from the internet. How many movies you can watch this way depends on which plan you are signed up for.

What it amounts to, is for every dollar in membership fee you get 1 hour of movie time. I’m a One at a Time Unlimited for $9.99, so I can watch 10 hours worth of video per month. Your minutes don’t rollover, so it is use it or lose it. Night Watch cost me 1:49:19 leaving a little more than 8 hours and 10 minutes to use before my month ends on the 14th.

I have toyed with the thought of wirelessly piping Radio Paradise to the living room stereo from the desktop, but never really followed through because the TV is in the living room and almost all the time that there is a person in there they are watching TV not listening to music. Plus it is not real cheap to do. But now that such a system might be used for piping TV to the TV room, we’ll see.

I wonder what my cable company thinks about me using their internet service to, in essence, avoid using their pay-per-view or premium movie channels?

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 147

Blogger’s Night Off

Took this picture on my way in the door to work today:

Huh?

The security guard didn’t try and stop me.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down once more, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 144

Champagne Edition

Practically every year since 1992 the folks at Mazda have released a special edition Miata. Usually unique in color and loaded with extras. Some of these are particularly sought after, especially the 1993 Limited Edition black with red interior and the 1999 10th Anniversary models. For 2007 there has been an SE in Japan and England, but not the US. It is similar in color to my car, but more like the 2000SE with a dark purple exterior and light beige interior.

The Japanese market is lucky enough to get a lot of other stuff that we don’t get over here. The best is something called Web Tune where you can order your car online after customizing it with all kinds of goodies that you can’t get here.

I found an image of a Mazdaspeed MzTuned Roadster on the web somewhere and it has been my PC’s wallpaper for a while. The car is in silver and it is kind of boring, so during a dull moment today I played around coloring it. They have made Miatas in a bunch of colors including a plethora of blues, several reds, a bunch of greens, most primary colors, including three shades of white, but they have never offered any kind of beige. I think this color I call Champagne would look pretty good on a Miata. Maybe it will be next year’s special edition color?

Tonight was the May meeting of the MMC, but at the last meeting they though it would be a good idea to meet at 7:00PM. This is later than Donna and I like to eat so we stopped on the way home from work and picked up our usual 14″ pie at Ferrando’s.

Meal Cost: $15.83
Tip: None
Spent Today: $15.83
Year to Date: $943.50

I think they have adjusted the crust to something thinner than they used to do, it was still good pizza, but slightly different. We ate 2 pieces each finishing half the pie. The second half is earmarked for Saturday lunch.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 140

Dull Day in the Life

The most exciting thing that happened today was I finally, nearly 3 weeks after the fact, completed all the captions of the 48 photos in the Northeast Trip 2007 gallery.

The second most exciting thing is I’ve completed my second shelf of CD burning with Deep Purple’s Made in Japan disc. If Lynyrd Skynyrd ‘s Free Bird is considered the Redneck’s National Anthem, Smoke on the Water is definitely the Stoner’s.

We ended up at the grand hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the rolling truck stones thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know well never forget
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

Fifteen hundred fifty-five files in 207 directories taking up 5.66 gigabytes.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 138

Imagine

What Would Yoko Say?“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.”

Right now I’m working at my ripping CDs project and listening to the FRS come from behind to whoop up on the Baltimore Orioles. I’ve almost got one shelf of the ten total done and I’m up to Bogguss, Suzy.

I’m still leaking copious amounts of Brain Lubricant, but I made it all the way through the work day without the overwhelming desire to take a nap. I made it all the past dinner before having to catch 20 winks.

When I woke up Fox News was in the middle of wall to wall coverage of a low speed chase in LA, some knucklehead in a stolen car was leading cops and news helicopters around town. At one point, riding on nothing but the rims, the “suspect” did several doughnuts in the middle of an intersection leaving nicely marked up asphalt in his wake. When they finally stopped him, he immediately hit the ground flat and about 20 LEOs pounced on him. I’m sure it would have caused a big uproar in the media, but I was actually hoping they would beat the crap out of him for being so stupid.

Uploaded the other 24 photos from the northeast trip, but I’ve still only got captions on about eight. I’d better get busy because 4 weeks from tomorrow we are off to the other side of the country for 10 days.

The screened porch is still covered in a layer of pine pollen and my hope is to get out there after work tomorrow and wash it off.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126

Toilet Seat Condom

I ran into something I had never seen before at that Italian restaurant in Jersey from last night’s post. My wife tells me she has seen a bunch of them, but maybe because most of the time I’m using a different appliance and there is no need for something like that for what I use.

Didn’t use it here either, but the door was open so I noticed the device and was intrigued. I just had to try it out. Wave your hand over a sensor and a fresh tube of plastic wrap is automatically pulled out of one side and dragged around to the other side, covering the toilet seat. Just a whirring noise and it looks like a snake molting its skin or something.

Ladies, I guess you have already seen this thing, but guys maybe pictures are better than my stumbling words: Sani-Seat.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126

Feeling Nearly Human

Took the day off from work and laid out to help get over the yuck I got somewhere. Snagged a couple of major naps and now I starting to feel better. The body aches are now mostly gone and the fever appears to be history, but I now have a icky little cough. I took some Vicks 44 this morning and it helped, but this afternoon I took a tablespoon of some of Donna’s leftover prescription stuff that is laced with codeine. Big mistake, that stuff made me stupid.I set out to finish up tweaking and posting our vacation photos from the other week. I had 48 selected and only managed to 34 done. I uploaded them and managed to get captions on 8 or 9 before I couldn’t maintain the intense concentration required post pictures on the internet…

Couple of random thoughts after watching the FRS on TV three straight days;
a) the new style hats the big leaguers are wearing this year look like a truckers hat, you know the kind with a foam front and a mesh back.
b) The green shirts they wore on Saturday looked very elfish with the red long sleeve undershirts.
   1) but I do like the green hats and may get one…
c) when you put a batting helmet on Willie Moe Pena it looks like he has to squeeze his head to get it in there.

While we are talking baseball and blogs: Curt Schilling‘s got one.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 125