Miatatude

The Emperor’s New Mascot

And now, young Skywalker... you will die.For Christmas, when I picked out my new Star Wars toys, I picked some from the original 1977 movie. For something different, instead of the usual action figures, I picked some from Hasbro’s Galactic Heroes series, which are more like caricatures.

When I leafed through the little brochure that was included with my figures, one other figure caught my eye, Emperor Palpatine. Cool, I’m always calling the car Emperor, this is just the right piece of mojo to add to the Miata.

If anyone wants the cute little Shock Trooper let me know.

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New Year, Same Old Quality Blogging

Things are looking good for cashing in on the $100 Mill from Wednesday’s Powerball drawing. A couple of weeks ago I paid five dollars and entered the BCS Bowl Pool at work and so far, with three games left I am definitely out of the money. Even if I correctly pick the last three winners I can finish no better than 4th and out of the money.

I have made an alternate version of the Miata photo screensaver from the other day with titles added to the photos, if you think this might be an improvement, download away:

The Emperor’s New Screensaver #2 (3.3 Meg)

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The Emperor’s New Screensaver

I’ve taken the 54 images of The Emperor that are in the online galleries here and made a nice little screensaver out of them. Its what all the cool cats will have on their PCs for 2007. Don’t be left out, download your copy today.

The Emperor’s New Screensaver (3 Meg)

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Increasing My Odds By 50%

Or Good Money After Bad?

Took $20 of my Christmas money and bought another ticket in the Miata raffle at that museum in Washington state. My first two tickets purchased 2 weeks ago were numbered 2155 & 2156. The third ticket arrived in the mail yesterday and is numbered 2369. That means they only had 131 tickets left as of last Wednesday, probably down to just a few left with only 4 days left until they pick a winner. If you want a chance at winning, better hurry and call them at 360-533-5862.

My odds of winning this new Miata, er, MX-5, are 1 in 833 or about the same as hitting a 12-Way Box (whatever that is) on the local Pick 4 Lottery, to put in plain language, pretty slim. But a man’s gotta hope.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 519

Shortening My Lead Time

Two Tickets To ParadiseI have been averaging a new Miata every seven years and if that pattern keeps, my next new one will be a 2010 model sometime near Thanksgiving of that year. I have a neat little countdown thingie over in the sidebar that, at present, shows I’m 1447 days away from that purchase. But what I have here is 2 chances out of about 2500 to get that new one on New Years Eve this year, a mere 18 days away.

On December 3rd, one of the items in my daily Google alert for the word Miata was about a museum in Washington state raffling off a new Miata for a fund raiser. I emailed them expressing an interest in purchasing a ticket using the form on their web site: The Polson Museum. They replied that because they are down to their last few tickets and time was running short, the best thing to do was to call them at 360-533-5862 and use a credit card. I called last Thursday and the nice lady who answered the phone took my info and said they’d get the tickets (I bought 2, double my chances) right out in the mail. I got them yesterday.

Wish me luck. Or go ahead and take a chance or two for your selves, they may still have tickets left.

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Not A New Miata…

Japanese Ricense Prate…but a new place to put my old Japanese license plate.

A co-worker has sort of inherited a Miata from a relative. It is a ’91 or ’92 and it had a bra on the front of it when he got it. Trouble was the bra was right over the top of the front license plate bracket. It was that way either to try and cover up the fact that the nose had dimples in it from the bracket being pushed into it or it was to cover that ugly bracket and it thereby caused the dimples. He removed the bra, but had to leave the brackets on to camouflage the dents. I told him if he was interested I had an idea to help cover those dents, he could have my replica Japanese license plate and mount it on the brackets. The holes I had put in the plate were non standard, so he would have to drill two new ones for mounting. When he did he could put them in spots that raise the plate and the dents would no longer visible.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend he put the plate on. For whatever reason he didn’t put the holes in the right spots because the top of the brackets and the dents are still visible. Sigh. I still think it looks good on the front of his car, but it would have looked a lot better if it was a touch higher. I guess if it really doesn’t matter to him, who am I to whine.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 486

2007 Miata Calendar

Old NewspaperFor the past couple of years I’ve made up a nifty wall calendar using images of the Emperor I have taken over the previous year. You can see the images I have used by clicking on the appropriate link under Photos in the sidebar.

This year I haven’t been taking that many photos of the car, so I don’t think I’ll have 12 that will be calendar worthy. I do have about half enough, but even then, that is stretching the suitability envelope. While monkeying around with some of the possibles I hit upon a strategy that might work for 2007 – photoshopped images. This way I can go back and maybe use some outtakes from earlier photoshoots. I can possibly turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Well, I’ll be the judge of that…

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