Year: 2023

Thursday Is The New Friday

According to Amazon, Season 5 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was supposed to start on Friday, April 14th, but I just finished watching Episode 1. I’ve run into this before on Amazon Prime, with Season 4 of this show, as well as Season 1 of Reacher last year too. My theory is that it is a time zone thing, it is already tomorrow in Europe (and it is also almost tomorrow on the East Coast right now too), but who knows.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago IMDB had nine episodes listed for this season, but no real dates on the episodes except for April 14, 2023 for the first. I wondered how they would show each episode, and if IMDB is correct, we get all of the first three episodes this week and the following six will come out one at a time every “Friday” until the show finale on May 26th.

I’ve watched episode one and I wonder if I can stretch out the other two episodes during this week gap, say every other day, so as to bridge the gap until episode four next “Friday.” Oh, who am I kidding, I’ll probably watch them tomorrow morning…

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Green Jacket Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 10, 2023 at 4:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1988 Honda CRX Si 2014 Toyota FJ Cruiser 2001 BMW 325Ci
I was considering buying one of these, but then the Miata happened. I rode in one of these once and didn’t really like it, but it is growing on me. I drove one of these back in 200 on a Susan Komen Ultimate Drive. Very nice.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1993 Viper Defender Sold for $141,777 on 4/4/23
Off-Road: 1975 Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer Sold for $22,000 on 4/9/23
Touring: 1988 CMC Tiffany Classic Sold for $14,500 on 4/5/23

What’s The Buzz

Tell me what’s happening.

It’s Easter weekend which means it was time for my sporadic annual rewatching of my favorite rock opera – Jesus Christ Superstar.

Some folks have called this rock opera/stage play/movie blasphemes, but how about this for blasphemes, Marjorie Taylor Greene comparing Donald Trump’s recent arrest to Jesus’s arrest a couple of centuries ago.

Though having heard this comment earlier in the week while watching the movie it got me thinking, maybe she’s on to something, Substitute Jewish priests for the NYC DA’s office, the Donald for Jesus, Stormy Daniels for Mary Magdalene and Michael Cohen for Judas.

After the overture the first song is ‘Heaven on Their Minds’ and the first stanza works well unchanged:
[JUDAS]
My mind is clearer now
At last, all too well
I can see where we all soon will be
If you strip away
The myth from the man
You will see where we all soon will be

Now, in no way do I think that Mr. Trump is in any way worthy of adoration, but wow, as I was listening to the rest of the songs in the movie there were several that could also be slightly reworked to fit my analogy…

Anyway, try and have a Happy Easter.

Clean Mini

Todays high was 49° and partly sunny, so I hand washed the Mini in the driveway. This was the first time it received this treatment. We bought the car in late October and I probably wiped down the lower sides of the car around Thanksgiving in preparation for the side stripes. Winter set in and I think by the middle of December the Mini was filthy, so after coming home it got a Meguiar’s Quik Detailer towel wash. The next wash was almost exactly 2 months ago on February 4th, but that was a trip through an automatic car wash.

I’m hoping that we have seen the last of the snow for this winter and if you can believe the long range forecast of the AccuWeather meteorologists we have. There will be few scattered days of rain in the next couple of weeks, so the snow tire removal is imminent. This Sunday looks good, sunny and a high of sixty.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

No Reserve Weirdness Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 3, 2023 at 4:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1993 Viper Defender 1975 Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer 1988 CMC Tiffany Classic
A neutered Dodge Viper, no V-10, used in a TV show in the early Nineties that has no title and probably never registerable. A military vehicle made in Austria that was used by the Swiss Armed Forces that may or may not be registered in your state. This one can be registered for street use, but there is a warrant out for its destruction issued by the Automotive Taste Police.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2017 Ferrari California Sold for $143,500 on 3/30/23
Off-Road: 2019 Lamborghini Urus Sold for $186,000 on 3/28/23
Touring: 2014 Maserati GranTurismo Sold for $48,000 on 4/1/23

An Even Dozen

This afternoon, in spite of the snow flurries, I backed the CTBNL out of the garage and drove a short loop that included a stop for milk and to pick up our called in pizza. Even though it has been snowing for the past few days and is forecast to do the same for a couple more, the roads are perfectly clear. The bad news for any of the snow sticking is that the daytime temps and some of the nighttime have been above freezing. When the snow hits any sidewalk or street it melts on contact and what lands on the grass hangs around for a bunch of minutes before melting into the ground.

Today’s Miata drive was a mere 4.1 miles and was drive number 12 since mounting the all-season tires. Trip number eleven was 6 days ago for a whopping 6.3 miles while making a cannabis run and took the above photo. I forgot to annotate or even write a post from that day so that is why the count below jumped 2 places.

The intent was that the car would be driven at least once a week to keep the battery charged,, but I have fallen way off target. If I tally up the days from last October 28th to today you come up with 22-1/2 weeks and the number of Miata drives since then is an even dozen.

Times Miata Driven since 10/28/22: 12

 

Wow, What Are The Odds?

Last September I wrote about a new “magazine” for Miata enthusiasts from Moss Motors. It was called Miata Motoring and it was full of articles plus an equal quantity of pages of Miata parts you could buy from Moss. It had an Issue 1, 2022 tag right there on the cover, but there wasn’t any statement as to how many issues there were going to publish each year though.

It has been about a half a year and I haven’t gotten another one, so I assumed they just gave up. I figured with the four or five catalogs a year from them, they probably didn’t have the time for a magazine too. Wrong. The other day while working on the previous post, a twenty-five year old article from Miata Club of America’s magazine, what should get pushed through the mail slot but Issue 1, 2023 of Miata Motoring.

In that twenty-five year old article from Miata Club of America’s magazine there was a four page spread about the lead designer of the original Miata, Tom Matano. I opted not to reprint that particular article, so what did I find in this latest edition of Miata Motoring? Right! Another similar article about Mr. Matano.

This article just two pages long and was a sort of abridged version of Miata Club’s one. It even had a couple of the same photos used in that other one. There was one big difference between the two stories though, the older one had a photo of Tom as a child in a metal pedal car and in this one there is one of him at roughly the same age on a tricycle.

If you are in any way curious about the Miata Motoring magazine mentioned here, you can get the previous issue in PDF form by clicking here.