It Is Starting To Smell A Lot Like Christmas

Seems like every third commercial is for a fragrance. Both men’s and women’s. The actresses all look familiar, like famous people, they probably are, but I can’t be sure, my subscription to People expired in 1981.

I saw a commercial for a vintage Tide T-shirt. If you bought one the proceeds would go to help Hurricane Katrina and victims of the California wildfires. Cool, I’ll help. The shirts are $15, but I never found out how much they wanted for shipping. I would have given them my credit card data to buy the shirt, but first I would have to register to use their site and to do that you need to give them the usual phalanx of info. Forget it, not like I’d ever use their site again.

The Bourne Ultimatum was very good, left me wanting more. It really never slows down for you to dwell long enough on the improbabilities and impossibilities to let them spoil the movie. I wonder if the series is available in a three disc set or are they waiting for the 4th movie? I don’t know if they are going to make another movie, but they sure left it open for one. Matter of fact they probably already have a script, just retool the second movie a little…

To wash the bad taste of At World’s End out of our mouths from the other night, we popped in TDPM this afternoon.

Governor Swann: Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself can be the right course?

Aaaah, that’s better.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 497

Emperor’s Christmas Present

Agusta Commons Christmas DecorationsI headed over to the closest LTS this morning to get the tire plugged. I walked up to the unmanned desk and spun the tire to get the nail facing up. When I did this I noticed a tear in the sidewall of the tire right to the inside of where the nail was. Yikes. The nail was a long framing nail and after puncturing the tread area (the initial clicking that went away) it must have gotten bent and worked its way over and punctured the sidewall (the squirming and rapid deflation.)

When the desk guy came out and asked if he could help, I told him, “Maybe not any more.” I showed him the sidewall and told him I realized that eliminated the easy fix. I asked if he might have a used tire in my size to tide me over ’til after the holidays. He searched and couldn’t come up with anything, so I asked what he had in stock in 195/15 x 15. He had a Michelin Raptor for $75. I thanked him and said I’d let him know.

When I got home I checked the Michelin website and could find no mention of a tire called Raptor. Searching the web led me to a Riken Raptor made by Michelin, but it doesn’t come in 15″ sizes, so what was that guy thinking? Next up I started calling the other 5 tire stores in town and discovered that 195/50 x 15 is not a popular size in these parts. I guess if it doesn’t fit a pickup truck or an SUV… Two of the local tire stores had something in that size, first place had some Kuhmo AST tires for $65 a piece and the second had some BF Goodrich g-Force Sports for $82. A little research let me toss out the Kuhmos as the AST is an all-season tire. The BF Goodrich’s were listed as an Ultra High Performance Summer, much better.

Headed off to Miata.net for more in depth research. A few tires got the best reviews, my current, but holy, Toyo T1R, The General Exclaim UHP and the Bridgestone Potenza RE750. I widened my search area and started calling Augusta tire stores. Nobody had any of those top three or anything else in my size. I checked in at TireRack.com for some reviews of the g-Force and was pleasantly surprised, it ranked 7th of all the Ultra High Performance Summer tires they sell

Merry Christmas your Highness – four new BFGoodrich g-Force Sports.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 497

Took The Air Right Out Of The Sails

Augusta's Christmas Tree on the CommonsOn our way home from dinner out with friends tonight we detoured through the “valley” to see some Christmas lights. At one point going through a neighborhood Donna said, “It sounds like you picked something up in a tire.” I slowed a bit, but after a few seconds the sound went away, so I shrugged it off. About 10 minutes later as we were accelerating away from a traffic light, the back end of the car squirmed. When I shifted into second, it did it again and we could tell we had a flat. I limped ahead another 100′ or so into a small lighted parking lot.

It took a couple minutes to clean out and disassemble the trunk to get down to the spare. Jacked up the car and swapped out the flat tire for the bitty compact spare. Fortunately the regular tire and wheel fit back into the trunk, but only because there wasn’t any air in the tire and then still it was a tight squeeze. Because of the time, our only chance to get it fixed was if the tire center at Wally World was still open. It was on the way home, but although Walmart is open 24 hours, the tire center part must close their doors at 8:00 PM because it is dark when we get there.

The only good thing about this puncture is at least it is in the center of the tread area, so I can get the LTS to put a plug in the tire tomorrow. The tires are getting worn, but there is enough tread still left to possibly get me through until early spring. Just for the record I checked to see how many miles I have on these tires and it turns out I’ve got 30K on them. I wonder if the T1R is supposed to wear better than it’s predecessor the T1S? Because I was usually only able to get 25K or so on the older model Toyos…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 496

Back In The Saddle Again

Sunrise Over Ford Conger FieldThis morning when we passed the steeplechase field and I pointed out the sky, Donna said, “Stop and take a picture if you want.” So unlike two weeks ago when she made this same offer, this time I did stop.

For the first time in 3 months I have used “bicycling” as the category for a post. I think we may have taken a 2 mile ride a couple months ago to test the new rear wheel after bending it on some railroad tracks. But tonight was a full fledged 7-1/2 mile ride. We headed over to the Gatewood subdivision to check out the Christmas lights because, as with Halloween, the residents there seem to go all out. I don’t mean this in any way to be rubbing it in to my more northern readers, but I was wearing cycling shorts and a short sleeve jersey for this adventure — it was 73° at 8:00PM.

This is highly unusual for us. We aren’t normally getting snow or anything, but this time of year the average high is around sixty and the low should be in the middle thirties. The Emperor’s top has been down and I’ve had the boot cover on it since Sunday. We’ve had a nice run of low 80° days this week, but a return to normalcy is on tap for the weekend, by Sunday it will be a high of 56 and a low of 28.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 496

19 Minutes

When I took POTC:At World’s End out of the sleeve I noticed the running time, 2 hours & 49 minutes. Yikes, that’s nearly three hours, may have to split watching it into two nights. Well I needn’t have worried about the running time, at 19 minutes in, I hit the eject button.

What started with a surprisingly good romp of a movie, then in the second turned into something trying too hard, by the third had turned into a pompous Mad Magazine satire of itself. It took George Lucas 22 years to screw up the Star Wars franchise, it took Gore Verbinski three short years to sink the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Forget the endless line of dirty people heading to the gallows, when 4 would have done to let us know that Lord Cutler Beckett was bad and needed his comeuppance. I could almost overlook the fact that they make Ms. Swann undress to make sure see wasn’t hiding any weapons (of which she had as many as there are clowns in a circus car) when Barbossa walks in with a long bulky coat and fluffy hat that could hide 9-pounder cannons. Why does Barbossa tell Captain Sao Feng he needs a ship, how did he get to Singapore? There are nine pieces of eight? But most incredibly, Jack’s a Pirate Lord? He’s lost his ship what seems like a half dozen times and got eaten by a giant squid!

I think tomorrow I’ll watch POTC:The Curse of the Black Pearl to cleanse my palette.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 496

Somehow I Don’t Think This Is What They Had In Mind

Wanting a drink for the afternoon that had a little flavor, I opted for something out of the vending machine instead of from the faucet today.

Lipton Diet Green Tea with Citrus
CONTAINS: Water, Citric Acid, Green Tea, Natural Flavors, Sodium Hexametaphosphate (To Protect Flavor), Phosphoric Acid, Potassium Sorbate and Potassium Benzoate (To Preserve Freshness), Ascorbic Acid (To Protect Flavor), Aspartame, Acesulfame Potassium, Calcium Disodium EDTA (To Protect Flavor), Caramel Color, Yellow 5, Blue 1.

Somehow I don’t think this is what they had in mind when health professionals recommended consuming Green Tea. I’m betting it was more like “tea + water = drink.” I could only stomach 2/3 of the 20oz bottle before giving it to someone who claims to like the stuff.

It has happened sooner than I thought. Five episodes. It is funny in moments and interesting occasionally, but pretty repetitious. Person gets sick. Doctor treats person, person gets sicker. Doctors find obscure and rare disease, treat person. Ack, person gets sicker. Doctors run lots of big dollar tests. Treat for a different ailment. Person gets sicker still, requiring surgery. Doctors stumble on simple solution. Person gets better. We will probably finish the other three episodes of House on the DVD before sending it back.

Now we need another TV show to watch.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 496

Crashing Back To Reality

Watched Deja Vu on Sunday. I was right with them, even the whole time travel thing, up until Denzel gets shipped back 4-1/2 days. Fifteen, twenty minutes earlier they made a big deal of sending a piece of paper back. They said they had to keep the mass low and still the power requirements were so high that they blacked out the whole city of New Orleans doing it just as the paper was materializing. Everyone held their breath to see if the 3 x 5 scrap of paper successfully made the trip. How they manage to send back a 200lb man after struggling with the paper I just couldn’t believe.

I am usually happy to suspend my belief in reality for a good movie, but it seems lately that there is always a point in the movie that brings me crashing back. I’m betting there is a term for it in Roger Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary, but the best I can come up now is “jumping the shark.”

When we watched National Treasure I was happily enjoying the trip when they bust into the vault under Independence Hall or wherever it was that has been sealed for 200 years and they flick a cigarette lighter to the torches lining the walls and they light right up and burn brightly for the rest of adventure. Come on. Our founding fathers must have purchased them from the same place as the Pharaohs of Egypt because every time an explorer find a mummy’s tomb, the torches in there light right up after millenniums.

It happened in The Astronaut Farmer too. I don’t remember exactly what did it, but it was sometime late in the movie. I mean I even bought the fact that launching a rocket through the roof of a barn wouldn’t incinerate the barn. But I was jarred into reality somewhere and ended up shaking my head in disbelief.

I don’t think it will happen in the 3rd Jason Bourne movie, but it is possible. I hope it doesn’t happen in the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but it is probable.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 496