Rants

This afternoon we went over to Rader Mazda to have the car’s 7500 mile service done. When I called and made the appointment the other day I asked how much it was going to be. It is a glorified oil change, but they inspect a bunch of stuff and rotate the tires. I was told it would be $74 and change. About what I figured. I saved a coupon the dealer had sent me earlier, so I’d get 10% off that to boot. When the car was finished and it was time to settle the bill they told me it was $72.13. About right I thought, 74 + tax – 10% = $72 and change.

When we got home I looked at the invoice. Huh? Mazda “B” service, Labor $108 (1-1/2 hours), parts $21.09 (oil, filter, gasket and something called SOLVENT,WIND) and tax $1.48 for a grand total of $130.57. How come I paid only $72.13 and how did they arrive at that figure?

or I’m a Jinx Part II

Back in October 2003 in Episode I I single handedly knocked the Red Sox out of a sure World Series berth. This year I started earlier in the season. I had the bright idea that I could relive the joys of my youth by listening to the radio broadcasts of the Red Sox games (but on the internet this time.) When I signed up the Bosox were 4 games ahead of the Yankees in the standings, now after just 2-1/2 weeks they are about to be just a 1/2 game ahead. Real disappointing as they usually wait until late June to fall from first to behind their arch-rivals, but now it looks a lot like it will happen in early May…

On the newspaper?!? One day last week when I opened my newspaper there was a 3″ x 3″ low tack glossy sticky note announcing the newspaper’s new program about paying your bill online. I thought nothing of it until today when there was another on the front of the paper. This one was for a Tobacco Use Prevention Program touting giving up smoking for Mother’s day as a gift. OK that is a public service announcement, but I bet commercials are definitely next.

On a quasi-related note, I saw something tonight that Major League Baseball has agreed to place a diamond shaped ad for the movie “Spiderman II” on all the bases, plus in the on deck circles, on a certain weekend in June. Not that ads and sporting events have never gotten together before, but this just seems a bit much to me.

Never caught the “Reality TV” bug. But I do get my own version of it via the internet – blogs. You get a glimpse into the personal lives of people all over the world. Back in the Blogger days I would always check a few of the recently updated ones from the front page, then they had this thing called Next Blog that would send you a random site. The latest thing I stumbled on uses Google technology and the fact that everybody has a digital camera and posts their pictures on the net. Random Personal Picture Finder

Don’t do it. The girl at the paint counter at Home Depot tried to warn us, but we were undaunted. We had picked out a nifty maroon paint color called Vin Rouge to redo our bedroom in and went out last evening to get the paint. The girl, before she even mixed the paint up, explained that red based paints use an ink base for the color as opposed to clay based for the rest of the spectrum. She pointed to a board that was divided into 4 squares, one white , one a light pink, one a dark pink and another a light red. She explained that represented a white wall with one, then two and finally 3 coats of red paint. We want that color we told her and we will see her tomorrow if we needed another can. She also warned us not to panic when we opened the can because the paint would look kind of pink, but would dry dark.

After this morning’s one coat, it looks like we will need at least three coats. The first coat even when dry looks magenta except where there was some overlapping which looks more like the finished maroon. Good news is that it only took a half a gallon to do that first coat. We will be able to get by even if we need four coats on the can we bought yesterday (and the one we bought today.)

Now I know why you see red walls in rich peoples houses, they can afford to hire someone to do all this painting and all the paint they will need to do it. So take my advise if you decide to paint a room red, don’t do it, use wallpaper, one coat will do.