Rants

Left Off The Guest Again

I had “Madman Across the Water” on vinyl, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on 8-track and “Reg Strikes Back” on CD, but I guess that wasn’t enough to warrant an invite to either one of the bachelor parties.

Gray Is The New White

Regular Navy TI’ve changed the design of one of my black T-shirts that I’m selling through CafePress. Instead of saying Real Navy, it now says Regular Navy. When I uploaded the image and previewed the new shirt, what I had as white in the image appeared gray online. I thought I had messed something up, so I checked the colors and uploaded again, same gray results.

I next went over to the CafePress Forums to see if there was any mention of this issue. Sure enough, there is a sticky at the top of the general announcements board that they have muted the colors on the black T-shirts to better represent the actual finished product. Seems they were overly optimistic on their ability to get good solid printing on black.

Actually it works out kind of OK for me, the printing comes out looking like it is done in ‘Battleship Gray’, which is pretty much the official color of Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club anyway.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 378

We Get Letters

This was sitting in my in my gmail inbox when I got back from HHI today:

Brian,

Stumbled across your Real Navy t-shirt design tonight via a Google search and I wanted to let you know I have the Real Navy brand trademarked as I have been using it since 2002. I saw your article about the New Navy or Regular Navy and that same thought is what prompted me to start Real Navy.

I would like to ask that you not use the Real Navy slogan. I understand how I feel when a good idea hits but I’m afraid that this idea that you had is already being done. I would appreciate your response.

Regards,
Mike Ward
Real Navy
http://www.realnavy.com

My first reaction was WTF, this guy’s got the phrase “Real Navy” copyrighted? Doesn’t Uncle Sam already have dibs on that? Have your lawyer call my lawyer.

Real Navy T
But then I thought, he’s right, my bright ideas are always way past due. Why just a couple years ago I thought up one where you didn’t need your phone plugged in a jack in the wall and wires on poles to call people. I was all set to line up venture capital when someone pointed out that that had been possible since 1947. So if you were even remotely thinking about buying one of my shirts you had better do it within 24 hours, because I’m going to pull it from the CafePress shop. I’ll probably change the wording to something else, I wonder if he has any claim on, knowing the way real sailors think, Real Fucking Navy? 🙂

If you think my shirt stinks and it’s replacement is even worse, go check out Mike’s designs at RealNavy.com, something my strike your fancy there.

I Hate Christmas

It is easy to buy something for someone close to you, with personal interaction you get an idea of what they want by how they react to the world or even through blatant hints from them.

I speak to my mom on the phone once a month or so. I get to say a few words to my brother if he happens to answer the phone when I call mom (he lives with her.) A stray email passes between my sister and I. Approximately once a year Donna and I pop in for a visit ranging from a few hours to a few days. So buying gifts for my family back in Connecticut is difficult, they are practically strangers. In a the 30-odd years since I left the Nutmeg State behind when I joined the Navy, the gift giving process has morphed from traditional to meaningless in a pace slightly faster than geological.

At first we exchanged gifts based on our mutual knowledge, but as the years apart grew, our tastes changed and the gifts given and received no longer were relevant.

Next we graduated to swapping lists. For a short while the generic ones would suffice; v-neck sweater in large or jazz records, but we soon decided that there were still more misses than hits.

The next level was the detailed list. J.C Penny Fall/Winter Catalog, Page 436, Item A, Men’s Mock Turtleneck in Heather, Size Large, etc. We got just what we asked for, but colors, textures and sizes were not always what we expected.

In the never ending quest for the perfect gift, we next ushered in the Gift Card era; Best Buy, Old Navy or B.Dalton Books thank you very much. I really don’t like the idea of trading gift cards in the mail. Suppose my brother said send me a gift card to Lowes and I tell him that I would like a gift card to Lowes too. Shouldn’t we just skip mailing them to each other? Save the time and energy of mailing them to each other. For that matter why even buy the gift card at all. Sometime in December go to the store and buy something you like and thank him for it in his Christmas card, “Love than cordless drill you got me bro’, it was just what I needed!”

The end of the gift card era is coming and I’m not sure that the next step is any better. Last year I gave my sister a gift card for Amazon.com. I bought it online, they mailed me the plastic card, I mailed the card to her and she redeemed it online. Which leads to the 21st century digital gift giving era…online gift certificates. You just cut out that whole messy US Postal Service middleman. Deadline, schmedline, you can get up Christmas morning with mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, log on to the net and email everyone an electronic gift card redeemable for merchandise available at an online store.

Well, I’m not going there, Donna and I are going down to Hilton Head Island this weekend and my mother, brother, sister and her husband are getting gifts with an HHI theme whether they want or like them.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 376

Empty TV Night

I want my West Wing!

It was a nice enough day that we could ride around with the top down, but the cloudy skies and weather forecast got us to put the top up if we were away from the car for more than 2 minutes.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, down once more, up yet again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 366

Or Bearer

Like frightened ducklings we have taken to shredding all the junk mail we receive so that identity thieves can’t get their greasy lunch hooks on our name and address. The quantity has become large enough that we now need to sort through and only shred the pages that actually has our names on them and just trash the harmless prepaid return envelopes and fake credit card looking bits of plastic for fear of overloading the industrial strength shredder at work.

Today, during a quiet moment, I was sorting through a heap of snail spam, and came upon one of those sneaky checks that they hope you will cash and unknowingly sign up for something. This one was from our friendly credit card issuer and was for the princely sum of $20. By cashing this check you would agree to be enrolled in the Payment Protector Plan at a cost of 89¢ per $100 of the ending monthly balance. I’m not sure what the heck the Payment Protector Plan is because I had already discarded the rest of the mailing, but I’m betting I don’t really need it.

What caught my eye about this particular check were the words printed right above my wife’s name, “Pay to Donna Bogardus or Bearer.” So, if I had thrown this bit in the trash and it found it’s way into the hands of a nefarious individual, he would not only have a name and address to do his worse with, but he would be paid twenty dollars for his troubles. And on top of that, we would be paying an extra couple bucks to our credit card company.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 358

Shades of Milli Vanilli

Due to circumstances beyond my control I attended the Aiken Kidney Benefit production of Oliver tonight. Cockney accent, nearly incomprehensible. Southern accent, sometimes difficult to understand. Residents of Aiken, South Carolina playing Londoners, unintelligible.

I can only hope there was a good reason for it, Fagin was lip-syncing his songs. At intermission I told Donna that I thought he was doing just that, but I wasn’t positive. In the second act Fagin has several solo numbers and it was confirmed in Ashlee Simpson-like fashion when the actor stumbled on a couple of words and the song never skipped a beat…

Started down, still down.
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