Rants

Still No Shirt :-(

The Hostess truck from TDZM was easier than making a mini-me. The truck was held together by tabs glued to panels, but this had tabs going into slots and while the head was kind of easy the body was tricky and the “legs” were a real pain. And even though I used a metal ruler for a straight edge, cutting parallel and perpendicular was equally important as straight. As you can see I had to resort to clear tape to keep me together.

It took UPS two days to move my Pacific Playland T-shirt from Groveport, Ohio 530 miles to Atlanta, GA. It has taken the USPS two days to get it from Atlanta, GA 150 miles to Augusta GA. I wonder how long it will take them to go the last 25 miles? Two days?

Little Rock: Have you heard about Pacific Playland? There are no zombies there.
Columbus: The amusement park?
Little Rock: Yep!
Tallahassee: That place totally blows!
[Little Rock and Wichita shoot Tallahassee angry looks]
Tallahassee: … my mind. Just fun for the whole family.

My current car insurance is with State Farm and after watching Two and a Half Men this evening I think I can get 21st Century insurance to pay me to be insured with them. First, switching to Geico will save me 15%, then switching to Allstate from Geico will save me an additional $396. Changing to Progressive from Allstate will save me $474. Then converting to 21st Century from Progressive saves me another $550.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 929

Two And Nine Tenths Men

Having recently discovered the joy of dessert TV in the form of Two And A Men reruns I was unpleasantly surprised by how much I didn’t enjoy a first run episode. After House last night I was surfing for a background show while blogging and ended up watching a new this season episode. It stuck to its basic formula, but everyone seemed to be trying to hard. All TV shows have an expiration date and last night both House and 2-1/2 Men last night confirmed that they are past theirs.

If I still owned a first gen Miata I might still be running the Barndoor Fan Club and I would definitely be sporting one of these NA-Culture Tees.

Now, how about some papercraft? Stumbled on this link to How To Geek somewhere and thought, cool. How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy. Based on my old Mad Men Yourself self-portrait I’m going to make one of those of me. Photo tomorrow.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 927

What’s Your Sign?

I’m glad you asked that question. I used to be a Libra, but now I’m a Virgo thanks to 2,000 years and wobble in the earth axis. link

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925

Sorry Sonata

Well, it looks like the Emperor is going to Florida, we struck out at 4 different rental agencies at the Augusta Airport. It was actually three counters, Enterprise, National & Avis/Budget. The Enterprise guy answered no right off, the two ladies at National went the extra mile and looked up to see when the 3 of their Sonatas were due back off rental and the woman at Avis sent someone over to their service center to see if there were any hiding there. None available…

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 915

Zoom Zoom Magazine

Somewhere along the line I left my name and address in the hands of Mazda operatives and as a consequence of that action I now get a glossy magazine (AKA advertisement) three or four times a year. The latest edition of Zoom Zoom magazine arrived in my mailbox the other day.

Included in this issue were stories about the new Mazda2, a history of 90 years of Mazda vehicles (with a nifty poster) and a story about all 3 generations of Miatas in Hawaii. The reason for Hawaii was that is where the press was first introduced to the latest version of the car in 2006. They rounded up 3 local Miata owners and their cars to drive the same route as they did back during the introductory press drive.

When they wrote the blurb on the 1999 2nd generation car, I guess they took the owner’s description as gospel, because they wrote that the color was British Racing Green, but that color was not available in 1999. British Racing Green was only available on the Miata as a special edition in 1991 & 2001. His car was really painted a similar color called Emerald Green Mica. Doesn’t anyone with Mazda fact check this magazine?

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 911

Whatever Post #1000

When I installed WordPress all those years ago I cleverly renamed the the default category from Default (duh!) to Whatever. Because for the longest time I had two separate blogs running concurrently where in one the main category was Miatatude and the other was Rants I didn’t ever think that the newfangled category of Whatever would ever catch up. But it did, possibly hinting at my lazy categorization habits, and now Whatever is the king of the categories and this post marks its graduation into the 4 digit range.

Stumped as to what to get your favorite SciFi geek for Christmas, io9 has a guide for you. The item that is on the top of my Star Trek wish list is the Enterprise Bridge Full Size Wall Mural. 15′ x 9′ of marvelous-ness, but way out of my price range. More my speed, Expendable Red Shirt T-shirt…

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 911

Gaddum Plugin

I deactivated the Page Link Manager plugin last night and when I reactivated it, it didn’t function properly. I have a ton of pages on the blog (as you can see by the long ol’ list that is in the inner sidebar right now) and the plugin allowed me to seperate the pages into groups in multiple widgets. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but nothing would let me have more than one widget. I even tried a couple of other similar plugins and they wouldn’t allow me multiple widgets either. I suspect it is a database issue because when I reinstalled the original plugin and then one of a similar nature they both allowed one instance of the widget and both were prepopulated with the pages of the previously working multiple widgets.

So, the way I see it, I have two options; find a workaround or back up all the post information, delete the existing database and install WordPress from scratch. If I choose the second option things might be a little wonky around here over the weekend.

*UPDATE: I did the workaround. The OEM pages plugin allows multiple instances, I just had to type in every page number (out of 73) I wanted excluded in each widget.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 895