Month: August 2003

Equal Time?

TBS the Superstation is showing “Terminator” this afternoon. Does this mean that they have to grant equal access time to the other 150 odd (and I do mean odd) candidates? Or did they black out California? Nick at Night will have to stop showing “Different Strokes” re-runs, Comedy Central will have to snip out the Father Guido Sarducci bits in the SNL shows and we probably won’t see the Woody Harrelson flick “The People vs. Larry Flint” for a couple of months either.

Deep Throat is scheduled tonight on X-Files at the Bogarduses.

1/24 Scale

Today the car got a much needed wash and vacuum, plus a shoeshine (some Meguiar’s Endurance Tire Goo.) It needs a waxing, but I didn’t have the time.

This afternoon was a Master’s Miata Club get-together. We hung at a Baskin-Robbins for a while before heading over to the Evans Dinner for chow. After that a few of us headed over to one couple’s house to chat some more. While we were there they said did I want to buy one of the die-cast Miatas that they found over at KB Toys. There were only three left @ $6.99 instead of $9.99 so they bought all 3 of them. John has a red so he kept that one, but he had 2 blue ones left over. Seeing as mine is blue I bought one from him. It is not the exact same blue, but it is still cool. The doors, hood & trunk opens and the steering wheel turns the front wheels. Now all I have to do is make up some 1/24 scale Alley Gator teeth.

After the Miata event we went over to the Augusta Mall as it was close by. The only store that was a possible was Sears, so that was the only place we checked and got the same negative results.

From there we returned to Aiken and hit our Target and Sears and received 2 more noes. In each of these places we shopped I looked at everything they had on display and then asked a sales person if they had the camera in the back, nothing. Including my negative answer from the local camera store when I called them on Friday, I have come up empty handed in 10 places locally.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, to the net we go. Because TheNerds.net is not a dedicated camera store, but a computer store that also sells electronic goodies I hope to avoid a repeat of Will’s digicam online shopping experience.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1082.91
Started down went up, went down, up, down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 199

I Hope I’m Not Too Late!

Dang. I’m really jonesin on the Olympus D-40 Zoom camera. Dell had it early this week for $369, now today when I get the go ahead to buy the camera Dell doesn’t even show in inventory any more.

Now the only place left on the net with a semi-recognizable name is TheNerds.net (well maybe not recognizable to you, but I’ve bought stuff from them in the past and have been satisfied) and their price is $398 plus $18 for shipping. They have ten left. I hope they don’t sell them all until after I get home from shopping the local chain stores tomorrow.

Crooked Sticker Dealer

The local Honda dealer bills himself as “Your Straight Talk Dealer.” Apparently the straight refers to just the talk. Tonight coming home from the Master’s Miata Club meeting we were behind a new Accord recently purchased there and the 3 x 5 inch sticker telling me where he bought the car with the words Straight Talk in bold was plastered on under the left tail light at about 5% off from level.

JOHHNY HATES JAZZ

Well, not really hate, more like aversion.

For some reason, the local SC NPR station has changed into “Your NPR News Station” from “Your Classical NPR News Station.” Doesn’t sound like that big of a change, but to me it was. I now have lost a big part of my workday background music. I used to record Echoes every night from 10 to midnight in MP3 format and take into work on my little thumbdrive. But no more, they have replaced Echoes with Carolina Jazz. First in September I lost Thistle & Shamrock on Saturday evenings, now this. Those folks can just forget about my pledge this year.

Flash, Flash, Steady

A while back I sold one of those ABIAs from the Barndoor Fan Club Store to a fellow in Maryland. After he got it installed it didn’t work, so I told him about the secret trick of swapping the in and out wires, sometimes it helps. For him it didn’t. So I sent him another one and $5 to have him mail me the defective one as the guy making them likes to test the failures. We he got the second one and installed it, it only flashes twice (not the advertised 5) before going steady. He has swapped the wires and he has more than 11 volts so I can’t figure out what the problem is. The odds of two of these things being bad is nearly astronomical as they are tested before shipping.

I spent about an hour in the garage this evening trying out several different units on my car. I’ve got one that worked good that I think I’ll just mail it to him. If this one doesn’t work I’ll just refund his money, he hasn’t asked for it, but I’ll feel better about it.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1068.16
Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 190

I’m In The Market

I’m seriously considering a new digital camera. My current Fuji is a 2 MegaPixel and I’d like to double my pixel count. The more the merrier for me, as my in camera composition skills are seriously lacking. Thank heaven for Paint Shop Pro.

I’ve got it narrowed down to two cameras, the Olympus D-40 and the Minolta S414. The Olympus is discontinued already according to their web site, but it’s pluses are it is small, uses just 2 AA batteries, uses the same smart media card that I already have and has a remote control for the shutter. The Minolta has a 4x zoom and is slightly cheaper.

Now that I’ll listed the pluses for each it seems a no-brainer, Olympus. I’m still about $100-150 short of the money I need to buy the thing though. I was all excited to find the Olympus for <$300 at several places on the web, but came crashing down to reality when I noticed that this was from marginal dealers and refurbished to boot. The Minolta is more readily available and about $50 cheaper. Come back in a month, I'll let you know.