What Is This Stuff

I was a beautiful day and after our walk in the woods in the morning, I figured a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon would be to wash and wax the car. Before I started, I cleaned the windshield with the FM water spot remover stuff that I brought back from Rader yesterday. Good thing I used it today, when I opened up the glove and pulled out the dixie cup, the waxed paper was getting very soft. There were stains up the sides and the bottom of the cup looked a little weak. If I had waited until Monday I think there wouldn’t have been anything left of the cup. Now I just have to wait until it rains to see if the windshield looks even when wet.

I saved what of this precious fluid I didn’t use. Filled up a very small Tupperware bowl with lid and of course labeled it, FM. There was about an ounce or so left in the paper cup and not wanting to waste it, I drank it right down. Tasted kind of lemony….just kidding Scott, I tossed it in the trash.

Mod Mania Strikes Again

I added the CarArtz.com caricature, including it’s cost, to the list of Mods, AKA the btr equipment package even though it doesn’t go on the car, I wouldn’t have got it if I didn’t have the car. I’ll add the cost of framing too, once it has been done.

#5 under ugly in my list of what is Good, Bad and Ugly about the new Miata was the plastic “Brushed Aluminum” trim surrounding the shifter, radio and vents. That will get fixed on tech day next Saturday. I found a Club member with a base 2001 with the all black interior who is going to swap pieces with me. While I have the dash apart I thought I might as well get the nifty little JDM pocket that goes in place of the passenger air bag switch. Ordered it from R-speed yesterday and it arrived today. I was going to link you directly to the product on their site, but they must have pulled it off the page as I got the last one they had. Here is picture of what it looks like in some one else’s car. I’ll add the cost to the list when I install it in the car next Saturday. That’s when I’m putting on the muffler too, so the total will probably hit the 4 digit mark then.

Ran the Master’s Miata Club newsletter through the postage meter at Rader today. While we were there I got Scott to go get me some of that water spot remover he used to clear up the outside rearview mirrors. I needed some more because I wanted to clean the whole windshield with it. When he did the job back then I was teasing him about cleaning some dead bugs or something off the glass while he had the rag in his hand. Being the obliging fellow he his, he rubbed a couple of spots clean on the driver’s side of the windshield. Well whatever that stuff is, it cleaned the window so well and/or left behind a coating, that the water beads up differently on those two spots. Not necessarily better or worse, but just mismatched enough that it is noticeable when driving in the rain. It seemed to be taking him a while to return, so I had Donna wait for him and I went upstairs to where they have the postage meter. When he finally came up there, he started towards me, Donna said, “You have to promise,” I saw what he was carrying and cracked up, “not to laugh.” He couldn’t find a bottle or anything so it was in a dixie cup and the cup was inside a latex glove. Because we had a 25 miles drive home Scott had to seal it somehow, so the glove was secured at the top with a small tie-wrap. The way he was holding it, the little fingers were dangling so that it looked sort of like a cow’s udder. How could you not laugh. But it worked, the FM made the trip back with out spilling a drop. Scott, you can put my name down as a reference on your application for the next Survivor series, because I can regale them with your feats of MacGyverisms.

Bring It On

This morning I got another couple of comment spams, one for here at the Rant and one for the Diaries. I immediately deleted them and rebuilt both weblogs. I haven’t been getting too many spam comments, but these were the ones that broke the camel’s back. Tonight I installed MT-Blacklist, a Movable Type plugin billed to eradicate comment and trackback spam. There are two paths for installation, The Ridiculously Easy Path and The Less Easy Path, I of course had to take the less easy path because my webhost didn’t have a particular pearl module installed. The less easy became The Kinda Hard Path as I couldn’t seem to get the path I had to change in the Blacklist.pl file right. On what was to be my last stab at the path, it worked. wOOt.

So bring it on, Mr. Purveyor of Porn, Ms. Dealer of Discount Drugs, Mr. Make My Male Member Massive, I’m ready.

One Week Later

Well Miata Caricature #2 arrived today, fully 7 days after the mouse pad & key chain even though they were mailed on the same day. I wonder what stories this mailing tube could tell if it could talk?

Off to the framing place tomorrow. I’m going to frame it using the same mat and frame in the same colors as the first, so I can hang them on the wall next to or right below each other.

It’s A SAD, SAD, SAD CD

Even though I begged for another week to complete my SAD CD mix, I finalized the track listing today. I’ve got an idea for the artwork, but I’m out of CD labels, so I can’t print it out yet anyway (not only that, I have to buy them somewhere besides the usual place after last night.) After reading today’s post, I see that Ms. Music Whore is about at the same progress point as I.

At first I thought it would be tough to find music to fit the theme, it wasn’t really easy, but it wasn’t really that hard. I resisted filling up half the CD with one song, the live version of Whipping Post by the Allman Brothers Band. I knew the first song I wanted to use, Sad Old Red by Simply Red, and from there it just progressed. Being some one who doesn’t really listen to the lyrics all the time, just the overall feel, some of these songs may not actually be sad, but they sound that way to me (complete list is in the extended entry.)

I wonder if picking out 17 sad songs is the root cause of my depressive outlook the last couple of days, or has it just been the low 40 degree rainy days?

Fill This Out

Went to Staples this evening to buy a box of envelopes. Friday I mail out the Miata Club newsletter and I needed envelopes. Found what I wanted, $4.19, for 500 of them suckers. Take it to the checkout and the girl scans it and I hand her a ten dollar bill. She gives me $1.12 back. I look at the change and assume she thought I gave her a $5 (even though if you think about it that wouldn’t be right either.) She goes , “Oh.” And starts towards the cash draw to maybe give me a $5 dollar bill. I check the receipt and see what has actually happened is that the envelopes scanned twice somehow, so I point it out to the cashier.

Here is where things go from bad to worse. She says, “Oh.” And heads off to the customer service area and waves me along to follow her. She gets the supervisor off a ladder and explains to her what has happened. The supervisor says, “We’ll just refund the overage to you.” She proceeds to punch a bunch of buttons on the display and a form spits out which she hands to me and says, “Fill out your name, telephone number and sign it.” I think to myself, all I did was come in to buy envelopes and how did I get into this mess?

I fill out as requested, skipping the street address, city and zip code lines. When I slide it across the counter to her so I can get my $4.44 back, she looks at it and says, “You have to fill it out in case I get audited.” I wait, thinking I have filled it out, I don’t care if you get audited, just give me my money. When she makes no move to pick up the receipt and repeats the you have to fill it out bit again, it dawns on me she wants every line filled out even though she verbally instructed me to do just 3 of the lines. I think to myself again, all I did was come in to buy envelopes and how did I get into this mess?

Now I get a little mad at the whole thing, so I tell her, “Keep the envelopes and give me all my money back.” She apologizes and says that will take a manger to void out my refund to give it all back, “Fine,” I say, “whatever.” Rolling my eyes and digging in my heels. She pages the manager over the intercom. While we wait she apologizes again about the whole thing, mumbles something about getting audited and cash back and I think if I have to listen to her whine much longer I’m going to go postal and climb over the counter and start stabbing her with her pen. So I cave, fill out the other 3 lines of the form and say, “OK, give me the money back.” She is still mumbling apologies as I storm out of the store.

All I did, was go in to buy some envelopes, and look at the mess I got in.

The Passion of the Christ

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, is the opening of Mel Gibson’s passion play. From the early reviews I don’t think I’ll be watching this movie. It is unflinchingly violent (admittedly those were violent times), the dialog is spoken in Latin and Aramaic (admittedly that is what they spoke back then) and it may be the most “truthful” telling of the crucifixion, but I smell overwrought film brought to the screen by the overwhelming star power of one Hollywood actor. Can I say “Battlefield Earth” without suffering the wrath of Christians?

For me, maybe, tomorrow night I will watch my favorite movie from that time, Jesus Christ Superstar.