Sport, Off-Road, Touring

There Is No Substitute Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 7, 2023 at 2:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2008 Porsche Boxster S 1987 Porsche 924S 1987 Porsche 928 S4
“There is no substitute” used to be Porsche’s tag line of their advertising in all print and TV advertising. Or it still is for all I know, I never see it anymore, but that may be because I no longer subscribe to any car magazines or watch commercial TV.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 356 Speedster Replica Sold for $47,000 on 5/3/23
Off-Road: 1996 Suzuki X-90 4×4 Sold for $9,200 on 5/4/23
Touring: 1953 Buick Skylark Sold for $77,000 on 5/3/23

Bye-Bye Miss Apple Pie

Just a week ago I marveled at my free trial of Apple TV+ and how Ted Lasso was my new favorite show. Well, not only is the honeymoon over, but the divorce was just finalized. I cancelled the last six weeks of available streaming today.

The overweight Bedouin seated on the camel’s back was that I ran out of shows or movies I was interested in. I tried out over a dozen series or movies on the service and watched only two things in their totality, Shrinking and Slow Horses.

If they do a second season of Shrinking I won’t miss seeing it, but Slow Horses was a different story because I’m a sucker for British TV. There were two series of the show and I liked the first better than the second, but that was pretty excellent too. They have renewed it for 2 more seasons and when those are produced I might just create a new Apple ID to get another free trial.

But the straw that actually broke the camel’s back was last Wednesday’s episode of Ted Lasso, it was an utter turd. The folks at IMDB who rate the show gave it a 6.5 out of 10. Of the 29 episodes up until last Wednesday, 3 were in the nines, 20 of them were in the 8 range, with a smattering of them in the sevens. There was one episode that was rated 6.8 in season two and it was pretty bad too, but the one before it was a 9.0 and the next two were in the middle eights. If I remember, I’ll look at the next episode’s rating on IMDB.

James Vs His Future Self

As I’ve mentioned here several times before, “I’m a sucker for any time travel related media, books, TV and movies.” So, when I saw this title on Amazon Prime and watched the trailer, I just knew I had to watch it.

First let’s talk about the title, why is versus in the title on Prime Video abbreviated Vs instead of vs. or just vs like in the movie poster? It’s weird.

Great casting with Daniel Stern the the future self, his manic schtick is just right, but… It is lousy casting in that he looks too dissimilar to the present James. He is several inches taller than his current self, but the kicker for me was the pronounced hook on Mr. Stern’s nose was nothing like Jonas Chernick’s smaller and straighter probiscis.

The actors don’t have to look exactly alike, but they could have tried a little harder. I just rewatched Moneyball starring Brad Pitt. There are flashbacks to the younger Billy Beane and the actor who plays the younger version, Reed Thompson, has a very similar facial structure. So if they really wanted Daniel Stern why not find an actor with a bit more of a likeness? The young James is played by Jonas Chernick who co-wrote the movie, so why not get someone with more of a resemblance to him?

Somewhere around the 20 minute mark they even tried to explain the different sizes of the two Jameses. Present James tells future James he doesn’t believe who he is because he is bigger. Future James tells him time travel physically stretches him. Height and just the bridge of the nose? At this point I stepped off the time travel bus.

Washer Heal Thyself Redux

Back in January our 3-year old washer started acting up by leaving the the clothes super wet after the final spin. After trying a couple of fixes unsuccessfully I made an appointment to have it looked at by a repair person, but a couple days before the appointment the thing mysteriously stopped doing it. So I cancelled.

Fast forward to the middle of April and the washer shook itself half way across the laundry room floor on the final spin. The laundry room is on the lower floor, but you can hear the washer walking and bouncing from upstairs just fine. When I opened the lid all the clothes were solidly packed into one half of the tub. Rearranged the wet clothes evenly and ran the Drain & Spin cycle. The next day it worked fine. But, two days later the same thing happened. Then it did it for the next three days in a row.

An Internet search revealed several things that would cause this and the only one that didn’t involve tearing the machine apart was make sure the washer is level not only sideways but front to back as well. Across the front it was fine, but front was slightly lower than the rear. I found a couple of pieces of 1/8″ thick wood in the garage and slipped some under the front legs.

On the next load on Sunday, boom shake thud bump, the washer danced a foot and a half forward with the 1/8″ spacer wood still in place. With the last incidence of a couple months ago and this one, we decided to break down and get a new washer. I went to the Home Depot website and they could have another of the same unit to us by Friday.

On Monday morning we went down to the only real Appliance store and town to see if we get something quicker. The only ones they had in stock that were comparable were more expensive and even then, they couldn’t be delivered until the following week. When we got home I went to HomeDepot.com and bought the washer. That evening during the washing of a load of clothes, it worked just fine. Not fooled, I left the order open.

Well, the next two days the washer acted all normal, so Wednesday night, with the washer still listed as in process, I called the Home Depot customer service and cancelled the order. It has been working just fine ever since.

Ed Note: Check back in a few days for the rest of the story.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Bat Convertible Season Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 1, 2023 at 4:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
356 Speedster Replica 1996 Suzuki X-90 4×4 1953 Buick Skylark
It is convertible season on Bring a Trailer because at this posting 202 of the 727 auctions or nearly 28% are for drop tops, targas t-tops and retractable or removable roofs. The percentage is probably over 30% as this not take into account the several motorcycles, go-carts, dealership signs and various car parts listings.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2005 Mazda RX-8 Sold for $19,250 on 4/25/23
Off-Road: 1988 Suzuki Samurai Sold for $15,000 on 4/25/23
Touring: 1963 Chevrolet Nova Sold for $40,750 on 4/25/23

Ted Lasso Erases A Week Of My Life

In a couple of day’s ago post I mentioned watching the Red Sox playing on MLBTV. Well, one of the commercials in between innings was an offer for a 2 month free trial of Apple TV+. I had the commercial on mute, so I didn’t hear what they were on about, but I thought, “Hmmm, I’ve wanted to check Apple TV+, but never pulled the trigger for one reason or another. This looks a pretty good deal.”

So, I went to apple.co/mlbgift and signed up (offer is good until July 7th if you are interested.) Turns out the reason is that Apple TV+ has the rights to one Friday night baseball game, chosen by MLB maybe, for the season and they also have a 30 minute nightly MLB recap. I have not bothered with the recap show, but I did watch an inning or two of last Friday’s Dodgers Cardinals game. I may keep and eye out for Red Sox game on Fridays between now and June 24th when my free trial ends.

So, anyway, the first show I wanted to check out was this Ted Lasso show all the cool people were talking about. Tuesday night the 18th I watched Season 1 Episode 1. I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about, it seemed like just another fish out of water story and Jason Sudeikis’s character seemed too broadly drawn and the accent was kind of over the top. I wasn’t going to watch anymore, but as I was talking to Donna about it, I suggested watching Episode 2 on Wednesday at lunch and if she seemed interested we would watch the show together.

She was not interested, so I figured that was that. Later that afternoon, with nothing else going on I thought, let me watch episode three and if I don’t get into it, I’ll move on. After that third show I watched the fourth. I got interested in the arcs of the cast of characters that surround out titular hero and I am a lover of listening to the accents when the Queen’s English is spoken. And I’d become used to the Ted Lasso character.

On Thursday I watched the next four episodes, this left only two episodes of the first season for Friday which lead to rolling right into season two. The only time I came up for air over the the weekend was Sunday night to watch Thursday’s new episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel my previous favorite show.

Sometime on Tuesday I ran out of episodes when I finished episode 6 of season three. So now I had to wait until the next day for Apple TV+ to release the next show and after that I’d stuck waiting a whole week between new episodes. I briefly considered waiting for 6 weeks so I could binge those last set of season three’s shows, but couldn’t do it, I watched episode seven the next day when it became available.