Whatever

Santa Claus Came To Town

He rode into town, with his wife at his side, in the bucket of one of the city’s fire trucks. I snapped one photo that I intended to place at the top of this post, but unfortunately the image had both his and her waving hands covering their faces.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1184

Prometheus

Finally watched Prometheus on Sunday. I’ve wanted to see this thing since the trailers starting showing up at the end of last year.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1byZkbNB3Jw

I would have gone to see it in theaters, but Donna is not a fan at all of scary things that go bump in space. After watching the movie, I liked it, not nearly as much as I anticipated, but it sure was marvelous to look at. Will I watch it again? Maybe. Just to see if I missed anything that might make the movie make more sense. Will I buy a copy of the DVD to put on my shelf next to Alien? Probably not.

Yesterday via, io9.com I found a link to the original script, before Damon Lindelof “polished it up.” Not too surprisingly, I think I would have liked that movie better. Because it is a script, not a book, it helps to have seen the movie to aid in the visualization of the characters and the world they inhabit, but not a requirement. You can read it online or download a PDF to read at your leisure later. Alien Engineers written by Jon Spaiths.

How Much?

Mick Jagger’s love letters to the mother of his first child, Marsha Hunt, and the inspiration for the song Brown Sugar are set to go on Sotheby’s auction block early next month and are expected to fetch about £100k (approx $160,000.)

50 years from now, just how much do you think the tweets of Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez will be worth?

A Proud Part of the 1%

I may have started saying it partially tongue in cheek, but I actually did put a check mark next to Gary Johnson’s name. I was not the only one (well maybe the only one in my precinct) as the Libertarian candidate garnered over a 1.1 million votes and a solid 1% of the total votes cast.

One reason I felt I needed to vote for Gary Johnson was his stance on decriminalizing marijuana. That didn’t happen on a national level, but now Donna and I have another reason to move to Washington state besides her brother, his wife, a nephew and two nieces, Initiative Measure No. 502.

Leaf Blower

The 10 year old leaf blower is getting awfully hard to start, half dozen pulls minimum and my gas line repair is now spouting fuel around the tank hole when I press the little bulb thing. Its noise level is an assault on the ears, so much so that I wear ear plugs and Donna has to be in the opposite yard from me when I use it. Time to replace it.

Earlier this year we bought a battery operated Black & Decker string trimmer & hedge trimmer. They work pretty well, so I thought maybe we could get the B&D leaf blower that uses the same 18v batteries. It would be quiet and light with no dripping flammable fluids. I read the reviews online and the biggest negatives about the unit were it was kind of weak and used up batteries.

Weak might be OK because all I would be using it for would be blowing off leaves and grass clippings from the back deck, the front sidewalk and the driveway. Batteries shouldn’t be an issue as I already have 3, one came with the string trimmer and one plus a bonus came with the hedge trimmer. Home Depot had some in stock and at $75 worth a trip right after work.

Boy was the box small. It fit in the Miata trunk along with both our lunch boxes and Donna’s purse. When I got home I snapped on the the two tubes and plugged up one of my already charged batteries. I started with the back deck and it seemed like I was cruising along blowing leaves everywhere, but it was having trouble moving the acorns around. The battery was drained by the time I was done with the deck. Hooked up battery number two and headed to the driveway. The small scattering of leaves danced out of the way, the acorns not so much. On the smoother deck it did get them rolling, but on the rougher concrete surface it was like they were super glued down.

Came inside, disassembled the thing and packed it back in its box. After dinner we went back to Home Depot and spent $150 bucks on a new gas powered leaf blower.