Rants

I Guess I Should Have Opted For The Road Hazard Warranty

The car has been handling a little quirky recently and I figured it was time for an alignment. The car tracks straight when you let go of the wheel, but seems to need constant attention to keep it in the center of the lane. Almost felt like I needed new shocks, but that shouldn’t be an issue because I just had new one put on back in August.

It couldn’t be a low tire as I keep a pretty close watch on the pressure, checking it every Saturday along with the oil level. Wait a minute, the last couple of Saturdays I haven’t done it for one reason or another. Maybe I should go check. I just did. Right rear 27-1/2 psi. Right front 27-1/2 psi. Left front 27 psi. Left rear 15psi. Ruh-roh, Reorge! Dis-mounted the tire and found what looks like a small nail about 2 inches in from the sidewall. Should be able to get this one plugged, depending on how long it is. The last time I found a nail in the tread area it was so long that it tore into the sidewall. Judging by the diameter of this nail it won’t be that long.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 72

Monitor Stand

New DesktopA couple of weeks ago my work PC crapped the bed. I ended up with one that was earmarked for someone else in QC. Unfortunately the monitor that came with the unit was a 17″ flat panel and that had less real estate than my present 20″ tube behemoth, so I didn’t take it. My cubical neighbors (they work for a different manger) just had their same vintage tubes replaced with 22″wide screen flat panels, so I figured now was the time to press the issue with my boss man.

He agreed and passed the request through channels so I could get a new screen too. I was lobbying for a 24″ Ultra Sharp Dell Widescreen, but the manager in charge of purchasing the new PC equipment thinks that the money for this sort of thing comes out of his pocket, so I got the same bargain monitor as the others. It is a GE and while it has a small tilt adjustment there is no vertical height adjustment. Sitting on the desktop was too low, a 1″ thick Reid Tool catalog was close, but the 2″ thick ream of copier paper is perfect.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 64

A Kick In The Pants

Router Since Saturday our internet connection has been problematic. Sometimes it was dial-up slow, others it would take 2 attempts to get to a web site and sometimes it seemed to be browser specific. I wanted to blame the cable company, you know take the easy way out, but before I made a fool of my self I decided to try a couple things.

I cleaned out my internet temp files. I cleaned out the hard drives temp files. Both were substantial. I defragged. Tonight I figured I better eliminate the router from the equation, and that turned out to be the problem. When I hooked a Cat 5 cable from modem to PC, things flew with nary a hiccup. I downloaded a firmware upgrade, reset the unit to it’s default settings, set it back up from scratch and once again we can watch streaming video with aplomb.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 51

Now That’s Interesting

On tonight’s episode of Lost we find out that the island has some strange power over the surrounding environment and every person on it. Oh, that’s right, we already knew that…

So of the “Oceanic 6” that get off the island, we now know 2/3rds of them. In the “flash forwards” so far we have found out that Jack is so afraid of something that he goes back to being a drunk, Hurley is so afraid of something that he hides out in a funny farm, Kate is so afraid of something that she is hiding and now we discover that Sayid is so afraid of Ben he kills people.

Interesting thing about watching the show on “live” TV is watching the commercials. For the longest time I figured I was the whole wrong demographic for the show. The ads skewed way young. Old Navy clothing, birth control pills, the hip new Ford car that you can talk to get it change the music playing instead of the archaic button pushing, etc. But finally in the next to the last commercial break I felt better, there was an ad for Viagra.

Speaking of Old Navy ads, was the new Urban Safari look advertised inspired by the whole running through the jungle on Lost or is that the new look and they picked Lost to sell it because of the whole running through jungle thing?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 38

Optional Equipment Shown

I’ve been watching a lot more television than I used to lately and the down side of this is commercials. Theodore Sturgeon was probably a little optimistic about the percentages as they pertain to TV ads, it is more like 99% are crud.

The ads always show stuff in a positive light, except for prescription medicine which have to go on and on about the possible side effects. Car commercials have some rules too, but do their best to find their way around them. If you advertise the starting price of the car, you have to show the price of what it would cost to buy the car featured in the commercial. They show this much higher price in the fine print at the bottom of the screen and it only appears for milliseconds. This price is always considerably more than the base price of the car by thousands of dollars. The current big price jump champion is the new Nissan Murano with a base price of $26,330 with a price as shown of $38,930, nearly 50% more expensive.

A way to avoid showing this greatly inflated cost is to not mention the base price of the car at all. But to be fair if you are not featuring the base model of the car in the ad, you have to place this helpful little phrase in the fine print for a few milliseconds — Optional equipment shown.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 30

Lost Out On Lost

Tonight was the February meeting of the MMC. This month it was in Augusta and the big item on the agenda was trying to figure out what to do for our 15th Anniversary dinner later this month.

The one person committee had it narrowed down to 5 different restaurants in the three different cites on 3 different nights. The haggling lasted until nearly 9:00 PM with nearly twenty differing opinions on when, where, and how much. It was as difficult to reach an agreement as it was for the SALT talks. Believe me, in the middle of it, it felt as if it was taking as long too.

By the time we got home there were less than fifteen minutes to go in tonight’s episode. I sat in front of the PC, but Donna couldn’t resist the call of the siren and headed in to watch the last bits. I’m going to wait until tomorrow and watch it online at ABC.com.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 29

Netflix & The New Throttling

For the 4th time in 3 months a disc we have rented from Netflix has not been available at our local distribution center. The British detective show, I can understand not being real popular in SC, and having to come from Chicago, but House, season one disc three? Discs 1 & 2 came from Columbia, how come #3 wasn’t there? I bet #4, 5 & 6 will be there.

Even though Netflix has lost a 2004 class action lawsuit for throttling (with legal feet dragging it is still not settled), I have no real recourse because they changed their user agreement to allow high volume renters to be “smoothed.”

What is really galling is the fact that when a disc is “not available” at my local distribution center they have to wait a full day before it can be shipped from the next closest center. Isn’t this all done via computer? Netflix knows what I want next, how long should it take them to get the word out? I kinda figure email would be pretty much instantaneous…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 26