TDTVS

Weekend Odds And Ends

SimpsonizedI’ve been Simpsonized!

My Lost discs that I bid victoriously for on eBay will be mailed on Monday. They are coming from West By God Virginia so they should be here by Thursday.

This morning we finally raked up the last of the dead leaves out of the backyard. We had ignored the backyard all fall, always keeping the front neat, until earlier this week when we got half of it cleaned up and piled in front of the house for the city to pick on Thursday. Now the rest will get picked up this coming Tuesday. Thats right, more big news from around here, our trash pickup day has been moved from Thursday to Tuesday.

When we went to Subway for lunch the temperature was 49°, but because it was a short ride we kept the top down. When we stepped outside after eating and sitting a bit it felt cold so we put the top up for the ride home. At home I checked the temperature and it read 51°, go figure.

A little link action. Last night while blog surfing I stumbled on another blogger with a Miata, er MX-5 and added a link to his site. Welcome Mike who is apparently notoriously nice and from what I’ve read so far he has been nice. I also, with great sadness, removed long time read, Will Burnham Down The House. After 5 years he is closing down his blog. Too bad, will had an interesting life and an interesting take on it. Today a fellow Club member wrote asking if I had any clip art depicting a woman or girl in a Miata. She was thinking of making her own stationary. And while I could have sworn I’d seen something almost exactly like that in the past, an internet search didn’t turn it up. It did turn up a couple more bloggers with Miatas that have been added to the blog roll in the sidebar. Welcome Jon (jcm’s blog) and Ralph (Van City Blue Miata.)

It also turned up a couple oddities — a female impersonator named Miata, a whole website dedicated to sexily dressed women getting their cars stuck in the mud (video 029 has a Miata) and a Miata Art Car.

I’m thinking of buying this T-shirt, but wished it came in something other than crap brown

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 13

Totally Lost

LostHe said he was going to put Season 1 Disc 1 in his Netflix queue to see what I was so hooked on that I would spend two whole days anchored to the couch watching.

Disc 1 arrived Tuesday night, Mark and his wife are now totally Lost. Wednesday morning at work he cussed me out for getting him hooked on the show. The first 4 episodes were just enough to get them addicted and now he couldn’t concentrate on work, all he could think about was watching more. A junkie jonesin’ for a fix. I was slightly jealous as I remember that feeling.

Wednesday he stopped at a video rental place on the way home and gets the 5 discs left of Season 1 causing him to stay up way past his bedtime watching episodes 5 through 16. Right now Mark and his wife are probably finishing up Season 1. On his way home from work today he was going to stop and get Season 2 for Saturday. Right after saying that he said, “Nope, probably won’t wait that long, Friday night.” I’m betting they may start Season 2 tonight…

Mark didn’t think the video place has Season 2 for rent, but he did see them in the used DVD bin for sale. He figures even if he buys them for $5 bucks each ($30 total) he can recoup his losses by selling the set on eBay after watching them.

This led to a quick check of eBay to see how much a season of Lost was going for — $25-30. Hey, here’s an auction Season 1 that ends in forty minutes with a high bid of $16.49. I said I’d pay that much for it. Mark goaded me on, so I bid $17. Wouldn’t you know it, I won, so now I have Season 1 of Lost on the way for rewatching.

Maybe I’ll pay Mark $20 for Season 2 if he ends up buying it…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 8

Lost Laptop In Space

Dharma LaptopA friend (Hi Rae!) got a new notebook for Christmas, a nice Ruby Red Inspiron and when I saw it I was very jealous, it made my 2-year old laptop look down right dowdy. I considered painting the silver lid with some of the Garnet Red in a can I have left over, so it would match the Emperor. That seemed like an awful lot of trouble. I decided to take the easy way out — a Pixel Decal laptop skin.

I didn’t think I would watch all 29 episodes in Season 1, but I thought would make it past 15 minutes of the un-aired pilot. I have little memory of watching Lost in Space when it originally aired. I do remember having a crush on Penny though, as she and I were roughly the same age. And I do remember Dr. Smith always calling the robot names like, “You bumbling bubble-headed buffoon.” Neither of those two characters were in the un-aired pilot. We almost turned it off at about 10 minutes in as the meteors that that sent the Jupiter II (called the Gemini XII here) off course turned out to be easily recognizable as wadded up aluminum foil. What finally made me hit the eject button was the 1-2 combination of terrible acting by Mark Goddard as Professor Don West and Guy Williams as Captain James Robinson when they tried to give the impression they were battling high winds on a mountain top followed by the “giant” one-eyed monster that showed up in forced perspective dressed in an outfit made of squares of burlap bags. Couldn’t take the cheese anymore.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: Ein

Deny Crane. Denny Crane. Denny Crane.

So as to make episodes of House not seem so repetitious we have decided to inter space those DVDs with episodes some different TV shows. First up was Disc 1 – Season1 of Boston Legal. We watched 15 minutes of the first episode, Head Cases, and turned it off. Too quirky.

We were sitting in the living room eating dinner off the coffee table. Popped the DVD out and surfed for entertainment. Couldn’t find anything else on the tube to watch, so Donna suggested trying to watch some more of Boston Legal. I said OK, and put the disc back in and started at episode 2, Still Crazy After All These Years. I don’t know if this episode was less quirky or we recognized guest star Elizabeth Mitchell from Season 3 of TDTVS and liked her, but whatever reason, we hung with it. We then watched episodes three and four to finish off the disc.

I’ve added the rest of Season 1 to the TV queue. Thanks for the suggestion D.J.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 503

Miss Me Last Night?

Not Penny's BoatSorry, I got Lost, literally.

That’s right, Season 3 of TDTVS came out on DVD last Tuesday and we mainlined all 23 episodes and most of the extras on the 7th disc yesterday and today, with only brief breaks for eating and sleeping. Yesterday I was the only one to leave the house and that was just to the end of the driveway to check the mail. The Emperor sat in the garage from Thursday after work until today at 1:30PM when the both of us went out to lunch, but within an hour we were back home on the couch watching the final 2 discs.

Not only do we still have Forbidden Planet and the 3 Bourne movies to watch, but yesterday’s mail brought my 4 disc 25th Anniversary Bladerunner set and a wildcard, a mashup of The Wizard of OZ and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon – Dark Side Of The Rainbow.

Sorry, can’t stay long, I have to go finish watching Dangerous Days.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 501

18-24

HostGator is it. Signed up this afternoon and mr-miata.net is live. Of course it leads right back here for now. Just have to upload WordPress, export the database here, upload it there and I’ll up up there. This site will redirect to the new home as long as it takes for the chowderheads over at ssWebHost to figure out they aren’t getting paid anymore.

From 5 PM until about 9:30 PM we were glued to the TV watching the last 6 episodes of Season 2 of TDTVS. After seeing it through to the end I have come to the conclusion that it is either the most clever bit of TV ever conceived or I’m as stupid as I look. I have vowed not to watch season 3 on it’s regular night or even when the next set of DVDs come out. I’m through being lost…right after I watch all the season two extras on disc #7. đŸ˜‰

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 380

Weekend Update

First the good news: We are finished with Phase Three of Donna’s breast cancer treatment, Friday was #33 and her final radiation treatment. Lumpectomy, chemo and radiation are done. Now we are on to the preventative process. Because her cancer was ER+ she will be taking a drug called tamoxifen for 5 years to help prevent any recurrence.

Now to the mediocre news: We only made it through 18 of 24 episodes of TDTVS, AKA Lost: Season 2. Some of the situations and happenings are just too weird. But mostly what keeps us coming back is the humor, especially Sawyer’s irreverent and on target nicknames for the rest of the survivors. It seems as if some of the back-story we are getting is mostly rehashing of last years back-story with a touch of new stuff added to make the character’s stories meld together with strange coincidences, how their lives interacted in the past without them knowing about it.

Then the bad news: Two help desk tickets, two separate emails and even two phone calls have gotten me anywhere with my current web host, ssWebHost, so I’ll be moving to the .net address soon. The first ticket actually prompted a dialog. They said that I should let them know and they’d send me a link to where I could set up my new credit card. I responded that they should send it to me. 4 days later I still hadn’t heard back so I tacked on another message to the ticket asking again. After a week of no replies, I opened a separate ticket asking for way to change my billing info. I figured the new one would pop up on their radar. Nope.

I emailed the billing department of the web host. Silence. OK, let’s try emailing their support address. All I heard back was the white noise of packets zipping by my node.

Hidden in a dark corner of ssWebHost’s web page was a contact phone number, Friday I gave them a call. After an unusually long time the phone started to ring with a very strange sound. I knew I wasn’t calling Kansas. After about 7 rings an automated voice mail system kicked in. It was not English, could have been Russian or some other middle European language. Having dealt with enough of these type things I figured if I hit the #2 on the phone I might get another language and if I was lucky it might be English. Nope. Maybe I misdialed. The second time I had the same pause as before, but this time instead of the funny ring I was disconnected.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 378