Not Spiced Ham

Recently Yahoo updated / changed their email and it has resulted in a couple hundred percent increase of spam delivered to the MMC mailbox. So much so that I wondered if I had unintentionally shut off their “Spam Guard”, I hadn’t. What is most annoying is that the Club gets so few mails of importance to begin with…

Also, I think I will go ahead and kill the brian@mr-miata.net address as it has been attracting lots of spam lately too. I rarely used it anyway. I was going to get cute and try to obfuscate that email address, but what does it matter if it will no longer exist after tonight. So if you have that email in your address book go ahead and delete it. Try Brian_the_Red with the domain, OK?

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 436

California Here We Come

I wasn’t going to blog tonight. I didn’t need to write anything just so I could append it with the top count, because the car hasn’t moved all day. I didn’t really have anything profound to say. I don’t have any more cute gnome pictures to post.

So what prompted me to write this post, three things:

1) Reading this on TechDirt: If You Play Your Radio Loud Enough For Your Neighbor To Hear, Is It Copyright Infringement?

2) Seeing the phrase that is the title of this post on the Boston Dirt Dogs web site pertaining to the FRS and their trip to LA for game 3 of the ALDS after Manny’s walk-off homer last night.

C) And having the phrase that is the title of this post become applicable to me because it looks like our 2008 trip to the northwest will start and end in San Francisco with a trip up the coast to Victoria, BC in between.

Oh, yeah, for what its worth.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 436

Meet the Beatles

Meet the BeatlesLast night Gnorm went home with his parents, so here is one last photo from when he went it to work with me the other day. Gnorm was totally captivated as the Fab Four played “I Want to be Your Gnome”, “The Gnome on the Hill” & “Hey Gnome” for him.

Three more Spenser paperbacks came in the mail today and I already finished one, The Godwulf Manuscript. It is the first in the Spenser series and while not as polished as the later books, you can definitely see the character in his rough form. Sort of like a wood carving Spenser is working on a couple times in this story.

The MFY lost their second game to the Indians today, digging a big hole for themselves where they will have to win the next three games to advance. As I type this the FRS are trailing 3-2 in the 5th inning to the Angels, and if I had to guess by the way the breaks are going they will end up on the losing side of this game, but I hope I’m wrong.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 436

Miata Club Meeting

Gnorm Enjoys A MargaritaThis being the first Thursday of the month it was time for the MMC to hold a meeting. Not usually much of a meeting, brief recap of the last couple of events, brief recap of the next few events and we pick a place to “meet” next month. At least tonight it was at Mi Rancho (guess what kind of restaurant it is) here in Aiken, so Donna and I didn’t have far to drive.

Tuesday night I went over to the cable company office and swapped out my modem. Came home, hooked up the new one and we have been online 5 by 5 ever since.

Finished Spenser book #17, Stardust, with nary a peep about crime stopper rules. My present home town, Aiken, South Carolina, got a brief mention as the home of a mother of someone who was not the someone he was looking for.

A few weeks back Netflix added the ability to drag and drop movies in your queue to organize it. This is probably a great thing for most people, but it really screwed me up, because it killed the way I organized my queue, random shuffling. Today I discovered on my account page that I could disable this drag and drop function. Who knows, maybe you could always do this and I’m just late to the party. A check in a little box and woohoo, shuffling works again.

The MFY are losing (big time.)

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 433

Take Your Gnome To Work Day

It all started on October 6th, 1969, the third day of the session, when the Chief Justice Warren Burger had a garden gnome delivered to the Supreme Court building. His wife Elvera had ordered it from a mail order catalog, but wasn’t going to be home, so she had it sent to her husband’s work. Justice Berger’s head clerk, not knowing about the package arraingment, opened it up. Since then it has become sort of a running joke among the members to bring in a small gnome statue to court on the first Wednesday of October.

Knowing this, I took Gnorm into work with me today. The thought was to take his picture in various spots around the plant, so I could post some on the web. I got busy and never did take the time to do that. Gnorm spent almost the whole day on the little counter at my cubical greeting visitors and giving me a chance to explain the whole “Take Your Gnome To Work Day” thing. Maybe next year more of my co-workers will join me in celebrating.

Gnorm Visits The Barber Gnorm also made the trip this afternoon to our every four weeks haircut appointment. Our stylist was so enamored with Gnorm that she offered him a free beard trim. He probably could have used a booster seat, but managed with just a small pillow. Note the curtain in the background, Sheri’s Hair Affair has a cow motif going on and after getting his sprucing up decided to cut up with a couple of the resident cows: Suprise!

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 432

The Speed Of Light Is Much Faster Than The Speed Of Sound

LightI know the post season starts tomorrow, but tonight it just seems so over, there is no baseball game on the radio. Practically every night for the last six months I’ve sat in front of my PC and wasted several hours mucking about and listening to the FRS on WEEI and I miss it already.

Now the playoffs begin, with all the games on TV and I’ll feel compelled to watch, even though I will more than likely cringe at listening to the monkeys in the booth fill every second of air with truly inane stats and statements. I would much rather listen to the radio announcers call the game and watch the TV pictures, but that is impossible to take because of the time difference. There is a 5 or so second delay between the TV pictures and the radio sound (I have no clue as to what the reason for this delay is) and it made me crazy the one time I tried it.

Oooooh, I wonder if you had TIVO and hit pause until the radio sound caught up to the TV, then restarted the video?

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 430

Round 1

They finally set the scheduled times for the first round playoff games. This is the only one that counts, but I’ll probably have one eye on the Cleveland – New York series. As much as I’s hate to have the FRS knocked out of a chance at a World Series win by the Yankees, it would be so much sweeter to trounce the MFY on the way to it.

Game 1 LAA @ BOS Wed Oct. 3 6:30 pm TBS
Game 2 LAA @ BOS Fri Oct. 5 8:30 pm TBS
Game 3 BOS @ LAA Sun Oct. 7 3:00 pm TBS
Game 4* BOS @ LAA Mon Oct. 8 9:30 pm TBS
Game 5* LAA @ BOS Wed Oct. 10 8:30 pm TBS
* If Necessary

My prize for the David Ortiz Walk Off Contest on The Joy of Sox showed up in the mail today – Big Papi – My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits. There are a few pictures in the book and one is of David when he played for the New Britain Rock Cats in the summer of ’97. I can’t remember if we visited my old home town that summer and if we did, did we take in a game and if we did, did we see “Little” Papi.

Also one of the Spenser books I ordered came too, so I’ve got plenty to read for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday between games.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 428