House Cleaning

I killed the the three old blogs, The Miata Diaries, Brian’s Daily Rant and PLOG. I had left the archives hanging out there in case anyone had them linked, but decided to just go ahead and delete them. The internet is full of broken links, what is a couple thousand more among friends. If any one had the blog’s home page linked they will get redirected to here.

Went on another bicycle ride this morning, a whopping 8-1/2 miles. This ride was just an easy jaunt which included a stop at the New Moon Cafe for some of their fantastic muffins. We brought them home and ate in front of the tube while watching cyclists only slightly more in shape than us ride the Tour de France.

PAH-Leese!

There is an SUV commercial that I see quite often during the viewing of the Tour de France. It shows someone driving a SAAB 9-7x around town, filmed from the drivers point of view, and all they see is people doing SUV things, like shopping, buying gas, washing it, buying gas, putting a dog in the back, buying gas, etc. The gimmick is, all the SUVs are invisible. Finally as we cut to the outside view, the announcer intones (might not be the exact wording,) “Far from the ordinary,” just as we are getting a glimpse of the most ordinary looking vehicle on the planet. This thing makes the Ford Explorer look like it was designed by Pininfarina.

The only car commercial possibly more oxymoronic than that, sorry DJ, is the one from several year’s back for the Toyota Camry where they play Right Said Fred’s song “I’m Too Sexy” in the background…

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Holy Cow

In downtown Aiken we have an ice cream parlor called the Sweet Cow Creamery. They have something called The Holy Cow, eight scoops of ice cream in a waffle bowl, if you eat the whole thing by yourself you get a free T-shirt. Every time we have company in town we invariably end up there for ice cream and Donna tries to get someone to try and eat one. Her bigger brothers, her younger brother, my brother-in-law, my sister, her sister, me, but no one wants to do it, whether for fear of failure or tossing their cookies or maybe permanent brain freeze, but no one has volunteered to take the challenge. Yesterday she finally got a taker, a friend from the old Navy days was in town and her 15-year old son said he’d do it if she would too. The contest was on.

As a warm-up, Donna and Mike walked the 3 miles into town together while his mom Chris and I chatted on the screened porch for about 30 minutes to give them a head start. Nervous energy must have caused them to walk a little fast because they actually beat us to the The Sweet Cow. Chris And I had to make a run to the ATM while the Holy Cows were being prepared, as they cost $11 each. Somehow we forgot the think that they might actually charge for the thing.

Donna actually finished a few minutes ahead of Mike, but he too managed to devour heaps of ice cream and waffle bowl. They each are now the proud owners of T-shirts that say Holy Cow on the front with a cute little cow cartoon and on the back in big letters it says, “I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing!”

I forgot the digital camera, but Chris had her SLR and promises to send us some copies. If it won’t cause irreparable harm to my marriage I’ll post a picture or two. While there is possible embarrassment in the photos, I think Donna is more worried about when they post her name on the big list that is in their front window…

Update: The Sweet Cow Creamery printed up the new window banners – photos here.

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Morbid Fascination

As if living through the eighties once wasn’t bad enough. I found a channel on the digital cable channel line up that I swear wasn’t there before, VH1 Classics. And like our natural reaction to a car wreck on the highway, I slowed my channel surfing to watch. What was with the little aerobic instructor headbands on guys. Rod Stewart was very feminine back then. Yikes, who dresses Stevie Wonder, a pink v-necked cashmere sweater!?! The last video I watched on the channel before I sped away was by a group called Scandal with Patty Smyth singing, appropriately entitled “Goodbye To You.”

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You Say Miller, I Say Mueller

But don’t say Millar. I’ve stopped bitching about the audio quality of the WEEI broadcasts on MLB.com. I’ve just been listening and putting up with it. So tonight, when I found out the Red Sox would be on ESPN, I was excited. It was a 2 to 1 game in the 5th inning with Baltimore ahead, but the Red Sox had the basses loaded when all of a sudden the picture froze and we were back at the studio with some guy named Wingo apologizing. Damn. I ran into the computer and fired up the radio only to find out that Trot Nixon got picked off at second base to end the inning.

When they came back we were watching the NESN broadcast because ESPN couldn’t solve their problem. The audio volume was all over the place, up, down, up. Man, I could get this crap on the radio. After the next break we went back to the ESPN broadcast but both the audio and video was erratic. I gave up and came back to the computer. The Orioles scored another in the bottom of the 6th making 3 to 1. When the radio came back from the inning break, they were rolling out the tarp. It had been raining lightly, but steadily, since the first inning, so water was starting to build up. More than like the game will be called and the Orioles will be the winners.

The FRS started this 4 game series with the Orioles 4 games ahead of them in the standings, if they lose all 4 games they will be tied in the standings. The Damn Yankees are only 4-1/2 back and after the All-Star break we play 4 at Fenway against the Bronx Bombers. The AL East race is tightening up.

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Amen Brother

My favorite Mazda dealer and sponsor of our local Miata Club is no more. It was part of Rader Mazda/Mercedes Benz, but the owners sold the dealership and the new owner wanted just the MB portion, so he sold off the Mazda franchise to the person who owned the other local Mazda dealership. Here is the first article from a couple weeks ago: Dealership owner will purchase lot. (If you are asked to register, username: augustabob, password: godawgs)

Today’s paper had a follow up: Dreams become reality for store’s new owner. My favorite quote from the piece, “Other plans include strengthening the dealership’s service department, which he says ‘was the weakest part’ of the operation.”

If you are a regular reader here you know of my experience with the service department and all I can say is, “Amen brother.” If you are not a regular, try this or this or this for a couple examples.

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Tongue-Tied Tuesday

I thought I had a left over blog post rattling around in my head from the weekend that I could use here, but can’t seem to find it tonight. I guess I’ll just head into the living room and see if TDPM is on one of the movies channels.

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