Whatever

Satellite Radio

Here at home, music is served up in the Emperor via MP3s recorded on 10 CDs stored in a changer in the trunk. I have not listened to over the air radio for, well, as far back as I can remember (which due to repeated drug use in my youth, is not far), so what was I to do for two weeks in a rental car. It will be a base model, so would it have an iPod interface? Doesn’t matter, don’t have one anyway. Probably have a CD player, but all my audio CDs are long gone. Satellite radio? Doubtful. Hey wait a minute, a friend in the Miata Club has an extra Sirius unit that I could borrow, brilliant.

For testing purposes I temporarily hooked up the Visor in the Miata. Not bad, there were a couple channels I could enjoy and even a few I could listen to for a while, nice.

The expected Chrysler Sebring turned into a Ford Mustang and it had a CD player that read MP3s. I had brought along a couple of my Radio Paradise MP3 CDs for listening to on the laptop in case of spotty internet or whatever, so I popped one in and off we went.

The Mustang even had an extra ciggy lighter socket along side the external input jack in the console which would make powering up the Sat Radio real easy. My intention was to at the first early evening stop to install the Visor. Well one day led to the next when we weren’t done driving and seeing the sites until 7:00-7:30 at night, so I didn’t even get a chance to try the install until the sixth night of vacation.

I ran the antenna cable from the trunk through the rear seat backs gap, plugged in the power cord, hooked both into the unit and hit ON. Nothing. OK, maybe the key needs to be in run before the aux power jack is hot. Nope. Dang, did I break the radio in transit? I plugged it into the primary cigarette lighter in the upper center of the dash and sure enough the satellite radio came right on.

So what gave? Was that port broke (blown fuse?) or was it there but not hooked up because the car didn’t have a certain option package? Anyway, I didn’t want to drive around with the wire draping down the middle of the front of the dash and I didn’t want to have to worry about unplugging it every time we stopped where any nefarious individuals would think there was something worth stealing, so in the end I wrapped the Visor unit all back up and stored it the luggage.

I think we ended up playing those 2 CDs four times through (alternately) for the 2 weeks. Each disc holds about 170 songs, so it really didn’t come off as too repetitious.

Thanks anyway Rudy.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 176

Motion Sensing Light Fixture

Our laundry room is in the garage and every time you go in or out during the night time you have to reach up and away to pull down on a chain to get the light on. After almost 20 years, my patience has worn thin and felt it was time to get a light that would turn on by itself.

We went to Lowe’s over the weekend and searched and searched and they had all manner of “on at dusk, off at dawn” devices and plenty of outdoor spotlight motion sensing lights, but no indoor types. I was just looking for something I know I’ve seen somewhere, one side screws into a socket and the bulb screws into the other side, but no dice.

When I was complaining about my inability to find this motion sensing light socket thingie to my cubical neighbor Jim on Monday he said he was in Home Depot on Sunday and had seen just what I was describing. On Tuesday Donna and I made the short trip to HD and looked all up and down their lighting section…twice…and couldn’t find anything.

Beginning to doubt the existence of such a fixture, when we got home I searched the interweb and found several places that sold them for around twenty bucks. I saved a link to place and contemplated whether or not I wanted to pay $7 to ship it.

This morning my cube neighbor said he was in Home Depot again yesterday buying some rabbit fencing to keep the hungry from his garden, saw the motion sensor fixture again and thought of me. I told him I had searched high and low and couldn’t find it. He offered to buy one for me, but I said if it was in the store, I’d find it myself. He told me it was not where I first looked, but over by the junction boxes and light switches.

Tonight Donna and I made a return trip to get one of these elusive objects. We looked up and down the aisle Jim described and didn’t see anything. We expanded our search parameters buy going slowly up and down the aisles on either side…twice…and still so no such thing.

I broke down and asked. The customer service rep behind the counter said they were at the end of aisle 4 on the right. Shazam! There they were.

First thing I did when we got home was unscrew the bulb, screw it into the motion sensor base and screw the whole thing into the wall socket. Pulled the chain to turn on the electricity, waved my hand wildly in front of the sensor and was rewarded by nothing. Crap. Unscrewed the bulb from the base, the base from the wall and put the bulb back in and it lit up pretty as could be.

All that effort and the thing doesn’t work. Now, it means a return trip to the store. Should I chance it on another cheap unit or just get my money back and just keep yanking the chain? I tried it a second time with little hope of any change and for whatever reason, it worked.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 147

Asian Buffet

Taken just outside the restaurant the MMC was meeting at a couple of Thursdays ago. The frugal owners of the this dining establishment have taken to illuminating alternate words on their sign each night, tomorrow BUFFET will be lit and ASIAN will be dark.

OK, you got me, I just made that up. All the neon has probably leaked out of the bottom word or a transformer is bad or whatever.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 144

Red Shirt

Although originating in Star Trek, the term “redshirt” has been used in commentary on other action adventure stories, particularly serialized television. As a plot device, redshirts are most commonly used on shows which focus on characters who are prominent members of a larger group. In terms of plot function, redshirts serve to highlight the danger of a situation without forcing writers to sacrifice lead characters.

February is National Heart Month and this coming Friday is Wear Red Day 2009 to support the fight against heart disease in women.

For whatever convoluted reason our company nurse decided to pass around a memo last week to try and get everyone to wear red today, Monday, February 2nd and in spite of what happened to Frogurt while wearing a red shirt in last week’s episode of TDTVS…

…I took my life into my hands and wore a red sweater to work today. Obviously because I am home sitting on the couch in a yellow shirt, nothing bad happened to me on today’s “away mission.”

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 106

Commercials

What started as a championship game between two distinct football leagues has somehow been transformed into a showcase for advertisements. Everyone watches the game, but everyone pays attention to the ads.

Don Draper: Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.

Tonight there was an hour show just showing famous Super Bowl commercials. They even had some sneak peeks of this year’s ads. If you missed the show, and can’t wait until tomorrow, you can see quite a few of them here: Adweek.com

Roy: So, what do you do, Don?
Don Draper: I blow up bridges.
Midge: Don’s in advertising.
Roy: No way! Madison Avenue? What a gas!
Midge: We all have to serve somebody.
Roy: Perpetuating the lie. How do you sleep at night?
Don: On a bed made of money.

The cost of a 30-second spot for Super Bowl I in 1967 was $42,500 on CBS. Twenty years and 20 games later, the cost had spiraled to $600,000. For this year’s game, CBS is asking $3 million and they have sold out (pun intended.)

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 104

Two More

Ji Yeon

Meet Kevin Johnson

Watched two more episodes tonight, numbers 76 & 77 of 82. In the first Ji Yeon the producers got tricky on us. We see Sun giving birth to her baby off island (the show’s title is the new born daughter’s name) and we see Jin, her husband rushing around off island frantically buying a giant stuffed panda and trying to get to the hospital. We are so used to flashforwards in Season 4 that we assume these are taking place together, but in the end we find out that Sun is a member of the Oceanic 6 and is a flashforward to post rescue while Jin is really in flashback and he didn’t get rescued, Hurley, Sun and Ji Yeon visit his grave.

In the second show we find out that Kevin Johnson is in reality Michael who left the island with his son Walt at the end of Season 2. He was my least favorite character and I would have really liked to see him shoot himself, but even though he tries, it won’t happen, he can’t die yet. The “island” won’t let him, whatever that means.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 89

Mad Men Madness

My latest obsession is Mad Men and I got the full Monty going, I may need to add an acronym (maybe TDTVS2). My computer wallpaper is a cleaned up version of the show’s logo and my current screensaver (mypics, that comes with XP) cycles through pictures in a folder that is chock full of these.

Don Draper: Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car? It?s freedom from fear. It?s a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you?re doing is okay. You are okay.

I want my (old style, back when they played music videos) MTV! Well now I can have it online, but I have to pick the tunes out by myself. Where the heck is Martha Quinn when you need her?

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 18