Shoot, I Did It Again

Yesterday we were in the mall as my wife and her mother were hunting Christmas bargains. I was killing time waiting for them to finish by digging around on the bargain tables in the bookstore, nothing better than buying a hardcover book for less than the price of a paperback. I had some lawyer book, not a Grisham, already picked out when I spotted a Robert B. Paker book. Flipped open the cover and noted it was a Sunny Randall novel, so I took it instead. Wasn’t until I got home and started reading the book that I realized I had already read it. I hate when I do that and I do it a lot. Fortunately my short-term memory is shot from all the dope I smoked as a teenager and while I know I’ve read it, I can’t for the life of me remember how it all shakes out.

Snick-Snick

Put the Short Shifter Kit in today and it went surprisingly well. The upper boot was not torn so that was a relief, but I’m still running on the old turret oil….maybe at the Club’s Tech Day in February. Lowered the height by about a 1/2″ looks good and if it affected shifting effort I don’t notice and for that matter the shifter throw doesn’t seem any shorter either. Worth the $120? Not really.

While I was in the mood I decided to fix the flashing 3rd tail light. It is a wire that keeps breaking right at the trunk hinge joint. I added a 4 inch piece of wire to the repair which I hope will alleviate the bending at one spot that has doomed this connection from the get go. I also took this opportunity to move the relay back to the end of the trunk next to the light itself. I added the flasher unit when the wire first broke, instead of splicing it back together I just stuck the flasher in between the break. This in retrospect was a bad move, because that made the flasher hang right near a short tunnel to the interior and consequently the click-clicking could be heard when the brake was being applied. Now it is silent once again in the cockpit at stoplights.

Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 352

Updates

5 Minute Infomercial – Stumbled on the 30 minute version of the very annoying infomercial for the Ionic Breeze this morning while laying in bed channel surfing until I absolutely had to get up to go to the bathroom.

What Color Is Your Pee? – Everyday is like St. Patrick’s Day now. It is a loverly shade of green, like I’ve had way too many green beers…

No Task Is Too Large… – I have at least straightened out all the IDv3 tags on the Christmas MP3s, still need to weed out the marginal ones. I did meld my 2 different version of My Favorites folders (home & work) and delete a few duplicates and dead links, but it has ballooned to 533 links in 42 folders!

5 Minute Infomercials

My wife was watching some of a marathon of yet another sneaky redecorating show on the Discover Channel, Surprise by Design. At about at the 50 minute mark of the show they went to a commercial (nothing unusual there.) The commercial was for The Sharper Image’s Ionic Breeze Quadra Silent Air Purifier (nothing unusual there.) The difference was it looked like an infomercial with the snappy pitchman, the perky woman hype-cheerleader and the testimonials from users. Plus it just kept on going. At first I figured it was one minute commercial (which in themselves seem long in today’s 15 second spots) but no it went on some more. I’m guessing 5 minutes but it could have been three. We no longer have the time for whole 1/2 hour infomercials, 5 minutes is enough. I only wish that what I saw was 1/6 as annoying as 30 minute jobs.

Like A Cat With The Mange

Went to Sam Goody this evening to return the M*A*S*H mistake. Since I have no receipt, I have to accept a gift card. Whilst the manager is helping others (he has to OK the form) I wander the store looking for stuff I might want. I find nothing, for three reasons; a) I’m particular (some might say peculiar) in my tastes, 2) I live in a small town so we have what amounts to a 3/4 scale store and III) it is 2 days after Christmas so everything is pretty well picked over (the shelves were full of empty patches like a cat with the mange.) Good news is that the gift card is good at SunCoast movie stores too, of which they have one in the Augusta Mall, so it seems like my Saturday has developed a plan. Almost as an afterthought the manager tells me that I can use the gift card online….wait a minute, I don’t have to drive to Augusta at all, I can shop for movies in my underwear! I burned up all but $2.04 of the card’s value by buying M*A*S*H and Ronin just a few minutes ago. 🙂

Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 352

What Color Is Your Pee?

Because my old friend the prostate has been bothering me, I went to the Doctor today. He prescribed an antibiotic and analgesic/antispasmodic. The antibiotic probably won’t do much, I’ve taken stronger in the past. Usually after a while my symptoms go away, but always they return weeks or months later. Taking antibiotics either works on the placebo effect on me or whatever happens to cause the flare-ups goes away on its own accord for these instances. The antispasmodic is a new thing, supposedly this will ease the pain/burning. One of the side effects is it may turn your urine blue-green. Cool, can hardly wait for that to happen…

Old Turret Oil

Picked up the Short Shifter kit today. Opened the box, looked at the parts and then closed the box back up. I may wait a while to put it in, as I think I need to change the upper shift boot again. When I replaced the original in September I didn’t push the boot far enough down the shifter shaft leaving it already stretched, with not enough left for the shifting movement, so I think it is torn. Plus, because I didn’t do it back then, I still need to change the turret oil.

Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 351