TDTVS

Love/Hate Relationship With The Internets

I love the net. It is a vast repository for everything from diamonds to dreck. I mainly like it for the reason that I don’t have to remember stuff anymore. Brain storage space, now at a premium because of age and heavy abuse of mind altering drugs as a teen, does not have to tied up remember that Jon Provost played Timmy Martin on 178 episodes of the TV show Lassie from 1957 to 1964. And things like, “Although it has been the subject of many spoofs and misquotes, the one situation that Timmy never needed saving from in the entire history of the show was falling down a well.” That’s what IMDB is for. If I ever need to know how to change the fuel filter on my car or how many red Miatas were made in 1993, Miata.net will remember it for me. I don’t even have to remember what happens to me anymore, that is what this blog is for.

I hate the net. The main reason for that is spam. It is light at the home address because I rarely use it on the net. It is just the opposite for my work email. Somewhere along the line that address got sold on a CD and I get about a hundred pieces of crud every day. Fortunately it is stopped before it gets to my inbox by a service the company subscribes to called Postini. I check the MMC‘s email and because we have a yahoo.com address 99.9% of what comes in there is the usual replica watches, male enhancement and free gift card junk. My gamil account gets a bunch too, 27 so far today, but 26 were caught by Gooogle’s spam filter.

Today I received 2 emails at my gmail account purportedly from eBay about “Item Number: (300192365929) Zulu – scarce Stanley Baker signed autograph.” Could this be because of my furious bidding for Lost: Season2 DVDs on eBay? Doubt it, my registered eBay email is still the now defunct brian@mr-miata.com… Both emails contained the right letters to my gmail address, but did not include the dots in between the letters. Do you have a “.” in your gmail address? If so, try sending your self a note by leaving out the dot. Worked for me.

Started up, still up.
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Thirteen Times A Charm

At first I didn’t want to spend more than $20 for Season 2 of TDTVS, including the shipping. But after about 4 or 5 failures I upped the ante to $24. Still no luck after two days. Here are the selling prices of the 13 auctions I bid in:

$34.00
$30.50
$27.50
$23.01
$26.05
$23.00
$25.51
$25.01
$24.50
$35.00
$31.00
$29.03
$24.49

The last straw was tonight when I made one more attempt. The seller was here in Aiken (might even see about saving the shipping cost), but after putting in a bid that took my total to $24.99, I was informed I was already outbid. Some one already had a maximum bid in that was greater than my offering.

I don’t know what these people are thinking? Why buy used? The damn thing is on sale new at Amazon for $29.99 with free Super Saver shipping!

Not wanting to wait around for a week waiting on the Super Saver shipping I nibbled at their hook for Amazon Prime. By trying it free for a month I get 2-day shipping for free. As soon as I get the DVDs I’ll go ahead and cancel it. No way I do enough business with these guys to warrant $79 a year…

Started up, still up.
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I Push This Button Every 108 Minutes

I figure if I do, sooner or later I’m going to win an eBay auction for season two of TDTVS.

The Numbers have not, so far, been picked in either the Powerball or Mega Millions games. If they did, would they prove to be cursed?

The Emperor got the day off. But we didn’t stay inside all day. About 2:30 we put on our sunglasses and coats and walked about a mile and a half to a Marble Slab Creamery for some ice cream. When I pulled out my ratty wallet to pay for it my wife suggested that maybe we should walk across the street to the Walmart. I said OK, but we would have to look in the toy section for Mia and Tia. The Movie Moments, of which they are part of, must be on the way out because they weren’t in the toy section, but scattered in a couple of fringe aisle ends throughout the store. No cute Miatas to be found.

Started up, still up.
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Everything Happens For A Reason

We went out for a bagel for breakfast. Right here in Aiken. The MMC did drive to Saluda for breakfast, all 2 cars of them. I guess we weren’t the only ones who decided not to for go a 60 mile drive in the cold rain to eat when there were places closer to home. We then picked up a few items we missed on yesterday’s grocery shopping trip and spent the rest of the day inside watching the rest of Season 1 of TDTVS.

I was outbid with 7 hours to go on my first attempt on eBay to buy the second season. Eighteen hours left on try number two. I don’t want to pay more than twenty bucks (with shipping) unless I have to.

I’ve been considered buying one of the McFarlane’s action figures Series 1 or Series 2 just for the cool little toss ins. With Hurley you get a replica of the winning lottery ticket. Sun includes a life size recreation of an Oceanic boarding pass and with Kate you get that little model plane from her childhood sweetheart.

Yeah, I got it bad. At least I haven’t bought a T-shirt — yet.

Started down, went up, still up.
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4 8 15 16 23 42 Part II

We are now half way through Disc 5 of Season 1. Finished up with one of my favorite episodes, Numbers, in which we get some of Hurley’s back story. We find out he won a lot of money playing the lotto with numbers he learned from a fellow “inmate” at a insane asylum (a back story I hope we go back and visit.)

Hurley: They’re cursed. You know that, right? The numbers, they’re cursed.
Rousseau: Numbers are what brought me here. As it appears they brought you. Since that time I’ve lost everything, everyone I cared about. So yes, I suppose you’re right. They are cursed.

Hitchcock Woods in DaguerreotypeWe got off our duffs this afternoon and took a walk in the woods, had to be today, because tomorrow they are calling for a wintery mix. The temperature made it into the middle 50’s and made for a pleasant walk. I took two whole pictures on the walk of a section of the trail that was full Spanish Moss. When I got home and downloaded the images they had a distinct blue tinge. Drat. I had set the white balance to indoors the other day and forgot to set it back. No amount of post processing of the color balance would fix it, so I tossed it through a daguerreotype filter.

We are supposed to go for a drive to Saluda for a breakfast run with the Miata Club early tomorrow morning. There are winter weather advisories for tomorrow from 7AM to 10PM, so the event may not go off. Donna and I are going to get up in the morning check the weather channel, and depending on the radar picture, will either stay home or go for a drive.

Started up, went down, still down.
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Here We Go Again

Bad Robot

The Lost Season 1 DVDs came in the mail today.

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.
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