Miatatude

…it is worth overdoing.

I was going to buy my Kanji vinyl decals from a place called VinzDecals.com because they have such a huge collection of kanji words, but the are kind of pricey, $7 each for 3″ high decal (meaning $28 +shipping to do what I want.) Well, CafePress to the rescue. I can squeeze all 4 of the characters I need on one bumper sticker from them for around $3. I’ll have to trim each letter out with a sharp knife, but for a $25 savings, it is worth it.

So, of course while I was at it, I made up on of those oval decals too. What the heck, I made up a ringer T-shirt with the characters on it as well. So even if your car isn’t called The Emperor, you can wear the shirt around the house acting like the king of the castle (married guys, don’t forget to ask the wife’s permission first.) Get ’em here:

Life Of Brian Stuff
Save $10 when you spend $25 or more!
Enter the coupon code DES9 when checking out.
Coupon expires 08/08/2005… so hurry!

It is sort of a Miata nut’s ritual to name your car. The purists will tell you to drive it for a while and the car will tell you its name. Others will pick out a cute one and other will name it based on the color. Some will pick one to match what is available from the local DMV on a personalized plate. The first two Miatas we owned didn’t get names, they were just “The Miata” or Donna would call it “Your Car” when they were bad.

This car did get a name, sort of. Back last March I nicknamed it The Emperor because since the beginning with it we had treated it differently because of the color combo and it’s quieter, smoother ride, treated it a little like royalty. We don’t use it every time we refer to the car like if you had a child or a pet, mostly it gets tossed in here on the blog once and a while.

Ever since my Japanese front license plate idea failed so miserably I have been looking for something else that might be just a little unusual, but tasteful. I have found something I’d like to try, but don’t think it will make it through committee. On the previous Miata I cut out a Miata script sticker from vinyl and placed one on each side of the car on the lower portion of the panel just in front of the doors. On this one I’d like to put the Japanese kanji characters for Emperor in that spot. Maybe in black…

The Newer Miatas, 1999 and up, have this kind of bump in the middle of the trunk and it would be one feature I’d like to change back to the nice flat shape of the original. You could cover the bump up with a rear lip spoiler, but the OEM unit looked too tacked on for me to consider it. I was resigned to learn to live with this slight blemish, think Cindy Crawford’s beauty mark, until today.

Someone on the Miata.net Forums is selling his car and posted a question about how much it might be worth. I wasn’t interested in the car, but I was interested in his rear lip spoiler. When I asked him where he got it, he said off of ebay from SpoilerDepot. He said as a matter of fact there is an auction for one now and gave me the link.

When I went to the auction the spoiler shown does not look like the one he has. His lays more horizontal and there is no cutout for the 3rd brake light.

Auction link: http://tinyurl.com/8qwyv
Forum post with his pictures link: http://tinyurl.com/7a953
I really like the one he has more than the one shown on ebay. Did he buy his from you? Was there a redesign?

Above is pretty much verbatim what I emailed to customer service at SpoilerDepot. Here is the answer I got:

WE HAVE TWO SPOILERS AVAILABLE FOR THE MIATA PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT SPOILERDEPOT.COM TO SEE BOTH OF THE PICTURES

Just with that reply I am tempted to forget the whole thing. Did they really read my email? I said lip spoiler. I referenced their auction for a lip spoiler. Their other design is a wing spoiler. AN ANSWER IN ALL CAPS? I may call their 800 number tomorrow and see if I can talk to a person.

I got a PM from someone on the Miata.net Forums asking about some Barndoor Fan Club stickers. I sold the last of them just before closing shop on the BDFC so he was out of luck.

Then as I thought about it, I still have all the images I used on the CafePress store, I can upload the logo and put it on one of their 3×5 stickers. Then all he had to do would be cut the 2 circles out and for a little less than the cost of the originals, he would be in business. While I was at it I made up a couple of different T-shirts. So if you missed out the first time get your very own Barndoor Fan Club memorabilia before it is gone for good (really.)

Life of Brian Store Annex

If it were not for the egging on of a co-worker we would have had a repeat of Tuesday, June 21st. They nearly had to beg me to go put up my top. It wasn’t until I checked the radar that I ran out into the parking lot and raised the roof. Good thing, as it was already raining nicely as I walked out and back, but no more than 5 minutes after I got back to my desk it came down in buckets, big buckets.

I guess the air is still saturated from Dennis, because we have had at least 4 more heavy thunder showers since that first one.

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.