Goodbye License Plate

What amounts to the shortest Mod reversal in my Miata career occurred tonight, after only 9 days I took off my Faux Japanese Plate.

I thought I might have had a taker for it in the Miata.net community, but I haven’t heard back, so I guess not. May try and sell it on eBay. I’ll box it up on Monday and see what it weighs, then I’ll list it. Unless somebody reading this wants it, $25 plus shipping that is the plate and the custom mount for a Miata.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 23

New Banner

A while back I had a friend of a friend make up a side banner for this site. I liked it but he had put an RX-8 in it. I asked if he’d do a different one with just Miatas, well today it came via the email. I have it integrated into the site, but I had to darken up the theme a little to make it work (as it was I had to lighten up the banner.)

It was his first attempt at something vertical, he kinda of specializes in signatures, those 60×300 images at the bottom of a forum post. He is only 16 and just started doing computer graphics in August of last year. Like any kid, cost is an issue so he is hosted on Geocities and has a “free” domain name, so you have to drill down through the popups and ads, but the images are worth it. Blood Lite Arts

I still liked my old page so I have implemented a style switcher, so you can pick which look you like. There a few bugs in the system still, but I’ll see if I can work them out. The most annoying is for some reason it loads the default first and then switches. That happens pretty quickly on individual pages, but with the bigger archive files it is really noticeable. Plus for some reason in Firefox the new banner doesn’t show at all…

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 23

Well Endowed

I don’t really like the Japanese license plate on the front of the car, but I don’t want to take it off. I posted a thread over on the Miata.net Forums asking if I should keep it or lose it yesterday. So far the yeses and noes are running about even.

Chinese and Japanese share the same lettering scheme, but the “letters” have different meanings in the different languages. The kanji characters along the top is supposed to represent the location of the plate owner (like our states) and possibly reads Ueno, a prefecture of Tokyo. A couple of Chinese speaking members of the forum noticed the kanji characters are reversed giving them an unintended meaning. In the Cantonese dialect they represent a slang for ‘long dong’!

If I parked in the front row of a glass walled Chinese restaurant I might get very good service from the waitresses, but the plate will have to come off for sure now as it is a blatant misrepresentation of the truth. 🙂

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 23

Unprotected

I had a dentist appointment for cleaning this afternoon and I put the top down and left it that way. I didn’t bring the cockpit cover, it was at home on the workbench in the garage, so it felt really strange to leave the car sitting outside unprotected. There wasn’t any chance of rain, but I’ve gotten so into the habit of putting the cover on, even for short spans, that I was uncomfortable the whole time I was in the dentist’s office. Turns out I had good reason, I’ve developed a couple of small cavities requiring a revisit for filling. The car on the other hand was fine.

When I got back to work I left it down again. I did think about putting the top up, but in the end I left it down. The weather was clouding by quitting time, but it was still warm enough to ride home topless without my usual light jacket. Seeing as we had no commitments this afternoon we turned the 6 mile ride home into 26.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 22

Spring?

Today it made it to at least the middle 60’s. The sun seems to be getting a little higher in the sky, so even at 4:30 for the trip home it was fairly warm. I kept the jacket on though as in the shade it was still kind of cool. My cubical neighbor guarantees that there will be no more cold weather as yesterday he finally finished the install on his wood stove he has been monkeying with for the past couple of months.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 20

Priceless

Jack wakes up at home with a huge hangover after the night of his office Christmas party. He forces himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table.

And, next to them, a single red rose!

Jack sits down and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. Jack looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror, and notices a note on the table: “Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to go shopping– Love you!”

He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating. Jack asks, “Son…what happened last night?”

“Well, you came home after 3 A.M., drunk and out of your mind. You broke some furniture, puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door.”

“So, why is everything in such perfect order, so clean, I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?”

His son replies, “Oh THAT!…Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, “Leave me alone, lady, I’m married!”

Broken furniture – $85.26
Hot Breakfast – $4.20
Red Rose bud -$3.00
Two Aspirins -$.38
Saying the right thing, at the right time…”Priceless”.