Didn’t See That Coming

Trans-Siberian Orchestra LiveProud Mary? But then again if I knew to read that Wikipedia entry before going. This afternoon’s Trans-Siberian Orchestra started a little late for one of two reasons, the band arrived late or the basketball floor wasn’t taken up in a timely manner, both of which we heard while waiting to get into the arena, but there wasn’t any official word.

Photo by JerseyJJ

They made up for it by playing for about 2-1/2 hours. The first half was an enhanced version of Christmas Eve & Other Stories. Then they introduced the band and used Proud Mary to segue into non Christmas TSO music for the second half.

A few things have changed in the 3 decades since I went to a live music concert. First, the only smoke in the stadium was generated by the band’s special effects crew and didn’t have that familiar sweet smell. Secondly, to show appreciation people used to hold up their lit butane lighters, now you have the glow of thousands of cell phone cameras. The trouble is, the glow only shows to the crowd, but the band is obliviously aware they were missing out, because towards the end they asked everyone in the crowd to hold up their cell phones towards them for a whole song.

Good show. Loud, kind of made listening to one of their CDs seem too quiet no matter how far to the right you twisted the volume knob.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 502

Miss Me Last Night?

Not Penny's BoatSorry, I got Lost, literally.

That’s right, Season 3 of TDTVS came out on DVD last Tuesday and we mainlined all 23 episodes and most of the extras on the 7th disc yesterday and today, with only brief breaks for eating and sleeping. Yesterday I was the only one to leave the house and that was just to the end of the driveway to check the mail. The Emperor sat in the garage from Thursday after work until today at 1:30PM when the both of us went out to lunch, but within an hour we were back home on the couch watching the final 2 discs.

Not only do we still have Forbidden Planet and the 3 Bourne movies to watch, but yesterday’s mail brought my 4 disc 25th Anniversary Bladerunner set and a wildcard, a mashup of The Wizard of OZ and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon – Dark Side Of The Rainbow.

Sorry, can’t stay long, I have to go finish watching Dangerous Days.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 501

Only 5 Shopping Days Left

The AlleyDowntown Aiken was alight with 2,000 luminaries this evening. Donna and I went down to wander around and bask in their glow. This photo was taken in “The Alley” which cuts from Laurens St. to Newberry St. and is littered with some of our nicer and more popular restaurants.

Tonight also starts the beginning of five days off for us. Tomorrow we use the last of our vacation, then the weekend and finally Monday & Tuesday are holidays. We are hoping for rain because we have several DVDs that need watching, but not too much rain because we also would like to go for a walk or two in Hitchcock Woods. Maybe even get in a tandem ride.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 501

Is The Miata A Good First Car

I recently had a friend who has a 15 year-old ask me that. Below is my response. I know there was a thread over in the Miata.net forums about the very subject, but I couldn’t find it. Somehow I overloaded the search capacity of the forum by putting the word Miata in my search string. Go figure. If you can think of any I missed, good or bad, add them in the comments.

I think a Miata is a terrific first car, but I might be a little biased. 🙂

First a couple of good reasons.

  1. No back seat. This decreases peer pressure to get the driver to do something stupid by 2/3rds. It also decreases in car distractions by the same amount.
  2. A Miata is not a very powerful automobile, if he ever decides to “see what she’ll do” he will be hard pressed to get it to 90MPH coming down the High Rise.
  3. The Miata is a very safe automobile and can take a lot of abuse while protecting it’s contents.
  4. It is also highly maneuverable and won’t roll over like a SUV with it’s high center of gravity.

Now a couple reasons why it wouldn’t make a good first car.

  1. While safer than an SUV it is small and can be overlooked by inattentive SUV drivers.
  2. In some circles a Miata is stereotyped as a girlie or a gay car. This is mostly fueled by uniformed muscle car or pickup truck drivers. (It’s a running gag over on the Miata.net forums.)
  3. It is rear wheel drive, which lends itself to being used for drifting.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 498

A Collection Of One

Doh!This Sunday afternoon Donna, her cousin Laurie, and I are going to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra in Columbia. To get ready we have been listening to their Christmas Eve & Other Stories CD in the car.

Tonight we traveled to Augusta to go to Best Buy where we were to pick up a gift card for her boss (and the Jason Bourne Collection for me.) I was at a loss as to what to get for my boss. He has two small boys, so I thought while at Best Buy I would pick up a DVD with some My 3 Sons episodes and just mark through the 3 and replace it with a two. Then I’d tell him I edited out all the scenes with Chip in them. Turns out My Three Sons isn’t on DVD. Dang. My wife, the sensible one (as if that isn’t self evident already) suggested we get him a Tran Siberian Orchestra CD.

We found the Trans Siberian CDs easy and right next to Christmas Eve & Other Stories was The Christmas Attic. When Donna asked did we have that, I said no. She said, “Buy it.” So we did. Less than 3 months after selling my entire 486 CD collection, we now have a collection of one.

Finding the Jason Bourne Collection was a lot harder. I looked up front in the new release area, but the only DVDs there were single disc Bourne Ultimatums. I checked the Drama aisle and then the Action/Adventure sections to no avail. I then gave up and figured when I did my in store pickup of Forbidden Planet I’d ask the clerk where to find it. The line for in store pickup was 4 deep, so we divided to conquer. I stood in line and Donna enlisted the help of Pamela Landy to find Jason. Actually she found a tall guy in a blue shirt and asked. His first response was, “We have that?” but led Donna to the close proximity of where it should be before he himself had to ask another associate. Turns out the nondescript silver package was up front on a big display stand. It was on the bottom row of about 15 rows of giant yellow headed Homers on the cover of the Simpsons Movie.

DOH! My boss is a Simpsons fan. I should have bought him the movie. I’m always one step behind….

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 497

Miata Polaroid

Miata Polaroid

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 497

It Is Starting To Smell A Lot Like Christmas

Seems like every third commercial is for a fragrance. Both men’s and women’s. The actresses all look familiar, like famous people, they probably are, but I can’t be sure, my subscription to People expired in 1981.

I saw a commercial for a vintage Tide T-shirt. If you bought one the proceeds would go to help Hurricane Katrina and victims of the California wildfires. Cool, I’ll help. The shirts are $15, but I never found out how much they wanted for shipping. I would have given them my credit card data to buy the shirt, but first I would have to register to use their site and to do that you need to give them the usual phalanx of info. Forget it, not like I’d ever use their site again.

The Bourne Ultimatum was very good, left me wanting more. It really never slows down for you to dwell long enough on the improbabilities and impossibilities to let them spoil the movie. I wonder if the series is available in a three disc set or are they waiting for the 4th movie? I don’t know if they are going to make another movie, but they sure left it open for one. Matter of fact they probably already have a script, just retool the second movie a little…

To wash the bad taste of At World’s End out of our mouths from the other night, we popped in TDPM this afternoon.

Governor Swann: Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself can be the right course?

Aaaah, that’s better.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 497