The Miata was kind of filthy after the rains of late last week and needed washing. (probably wouldn’t have been as noticeable on the Laguna Blue.) It was dry and sunny both weekend day afternoons, but the temps were close to 50, and not really warm enough for car washing. I couldn’t stand it anymore so, this afternoon I “washed” the car in the garage with Meguiar’s Quik Detailer and an old towel. Looks a whole lot better now.
For tonight’s internet pleasure I present one movie review and two links (one profoundly disturbing and and one profoundly narcasisitic.)
We watched Naqoyqatsi this afternoon and I was disappointed. Read the review of the fellow on the IMDB site, as he said it better than I could. I really loved Koyaanisqatsi when I saw it on a PBS station in the middle 80’s. I had a VHS copy of the movie, but it disappeared somewhere during a move. When it was finally released on DVD in 2002 I immediately bought a copy. It came packaged with the second movie of the trilogy, Powaqqatsi, which I had never seen. The first movie is still the best. The time-lapse photography is really thought provoking, making you look at everyday life in a new manner. Rent Koyaanisqatsi, if you like it watch the second one too, but leave #3, Naqoyqatsi alone. It is a shame because even though I don’t like the movie I feel compelled to buy it to complete the set…
I found this in a May of 2002 archive of one of my regular blog reads, The Neurotic Fishbowl: Spiderman. =8O
This one is from a current post of another regular read, Missives Anonymous: Fontifier
Got a package from Mazda in the mail today. The Postal Carrier had to put it in the door because the 8″ diameter by 2″ thick plastic steering wheel replica wouldn’t go inside our mail box. When I opened up the package inside was some paperwork, a accessories brochure, a tire sales pitch, a cute little 3″x5″ eight page quick reference guide to the controls and a letter welcoming me to the “Emotion of Motion” (or a thinly disguised sales pitch to have my Miata serviced at the Mazda dealer.) After removing all of these bits of paper, what should I find in the bottom of the thing, but another bottle of touch-up paint.
If one is a very fine flirting act, two makes it an overt come-on and I’m not flattered, I’m frightened.
Today’s Photo Friday challenge is Glamour and I had a very hard time coming up with a picture for it.
Tonight we made a little outing to the local mall and I brought along my camera figuring I’d snap a glamorous mannequin in one of the stores or in their window. Nope. Couldn’t find a single one, at least not a complete one anyway. A few waist up things with no heads and a couple of full bodied ones, again with no head. How glamorous is a neck stump? Not very.
My back up plan was to head into the book store and snap a pic of the magazine Glamour, but they don’t carry it or it was either sold out.
I ended up with a nebulous challenge filler, using definition #3 and an old Miata photo.
I remember when we first moved to Aiken 15 years ago, everyone was so excited as they were just breaking ground on our very own mall. No more driving all the way over to Augusta, GA. After a year and a half of watching the building get constructed, it opened with much fanfare and a 65% occupancy rate. All the stores we names of stores you would see in any mall (although in some cases, 2/3 scale of a regular mall stores because we are a smaller market.) They all had big bold neon signs and marble store fronts with shiny glass and brass. Marble tile floors and bright lighting. It was a glamorous place to shop.
Over the years the place filled up to near capacity with stores, but somewhere along the way shoppers tastes changed. Malls became passe, the strip mall, anchored by Targets and Old Navy stores experienced a renaissance. The malls occupancy rates fell. The unthinkable happened and an anchor store left. Then another. In an effort to survive they cut rents and now former cart merchants moved in the abandoned store fronts. Gone were the nice signs, replaced with hastily created canvas banners. Store with names you never heard of moved in. The occupancy rate is approaching 65% again.
It is not so glamorous to shop in the mall anymore. The once hallowed halls of upscale commercialism is now becoming a giant Wal-Mart where the departments are separated with walls instead of aisles.
It’s sweeps month. TV is fresher: 4 weeks of first run Friends. TV is livelier: famous guest stars like Danny Devito pop up on Friends. TV is sexier: Danny Devito plays a stripper at Phoebe?s bachelorette party on Friends. I don’t watch Friends, but I get to see promos for the show on one I do. Sweeps means I get to see fresh episodes of West Wing.
The title of this post was intended as sarcasm, but who am I to judge? And really, what is more believable, Phoebe becoming aroused with a naked Danny Devito or Tony Zeigler, presidential aide single handedly brokering the salvation of Social Security?
Dave Scott of CarArtz.com has got my new caricature almost finished. He sent me some sketches this morning to show me he was hot on my job. Last time he just sent me a completed proof before we ironed out the details. Really interesting stuff to kind of see the process. Here is the first step, a pencil and paper sketch.
From there he scans it in to the PC and gets the major lines on, then throws some color at it.
Next comes adding the details and then the highlighting. (I asked him to make the car face the other way so when I hang it on the wall the new car caricature and the old car caricature will be facing each other.)
I ask for some color changes in the car and seat color. Plus I want the carartz logo smaller and near the bottom. Here is the 99.9999% completed image. (I asked for a little more brown in the car color.)
I’m stoked. Think I’ll go wait by my mailbox for the tube….
I know I brought this on my self, I’ll never learn, etc. but we made a shopping trip to Wal-Mart tonight. We need a bathroom scale and one of those triangular pillows for sitting up in bed. First stop Target, they had scales, but no pillow. I suggested Wal-Mart because they are just the type of store to have those pillows. Plus it was Tuesday at 9 PM, it shouldn’t be to crowded. So we put the scale back and headed up the street to Wally World.
The store was not crowded. Wal-Mart HQ must know that this is an off night for shoppers, so they restock. We nearly got run over twice by associates hauling goods out to the shelves on carts. We couldn’t find the pillow here either. A woman swore they had some just yesterday, but they weren’t where there were, so they were gone. Picked out a scale and headed for the checkouts. They were manned as if there was nobody in the store. This is one of those big ol’ Supercenters with like 35 checkout lanes, two were open. Each line was 6 deep with people with full carts. No express lanes were open. After 5 minutes of standing and steaming, I told Donna, “Just put it down, we’ll go back to Target.”
Sorry, Wally World you just lost $34.95 +tax, Target got it.