Korean Cars First Impressions Part Two

I haven't made mention here, but suck-ass Infinity Insurance of Arkansas is still dragging their asses on getting me any sort of settlement, so until last Thursday I was still driving around in that suckey Kia. Its really not such a bad car, gets great mileage and has a nice ride and supersonic good stereo. Its just ugly and gutless. Anyway, the rental company called me on Wedenesday and said they wanted it back to close out the account and do maintenance on it, which I figured would happen. I just so happened to have a doctor's appointment the next day for my back pain, which has been fairly constant since the accident. Afterwards, I went to the rental place to exchange for another car. Apparently they did not have any comparable cars, so they comp'ed me up to a Hyundai Sonota. I knew that Hyundais have really come up in quality since their first days of turning out junky little cars that didn't last, must have to offer 10 year warranties. I'll say this, I'm impressed!!! Probably helps that this is a nicely optioned car, with the V-6 and lots of power goodies. It has a sunroof, which is great for me, because I usually have the windows cranked down instead of running the A/C. This thing, for its prodigious size, has some BALLS!!! I was punching it on the way home, going "YEAH!!!" The Kia, I'd have to drop it down into 1st gear to climb up the hill to my home (approximately 1/4 of a mile on a 10% grade, I'd say) to keep it from upshifting and not having enough torque to sustain speed, having to floor it to get it to downshift, having it shift back up after its to speed, etc, etc... I went to climb it in the Hyundai, and it squeaked the front tires a bit, then climbed that sucker like a mountain goat!!! I had it up to 40, and it was pulling for more like it has a bottomless well of torque and loves nothing more than to show off!!! It's not quite up to the level of the Camaro or Falcon, but it pulls!!! Now I've been looking on eBay for Hyundais. They seem to all be in Texas, for some reason. The thing has a plush interior, too, nice seats, plastic burled wood... I feel just like a Korean pimp!!!

I never cease to be amused

My work has sent me to CNC training this week. The manufacturer of the extra machine we have at work offers free training on their equipment as long as you own it, for as many operators as you have (or would like to have) running it. Its been working out quite well for me, its only from 8 AM until 2 PM, but its Monday till Friday, so I won't get my Friday off this week. Everything that they've been teaching me is fairly simple and basic, but near impossible if you don't know what your doing, so this is great for me. My classmates include three Guardsmen from Missouri and a young black kid of only 17, among others. The kid (funny how you get to thinking of teenagers as kids at some point there) is quite vocal and has a lot of questions and comments, and he is so green!!! He can't picture life outside of Cali I don't think, and his interactions with the guys from Missouri have been most amusing. They've been to Iraq and Kuwait, so they have a lot to tell about. They keep trying to convince him that he should join the Guard, and of course he's having none of it. I wish I could remember some of the exchanges between them to relate here, but of course I can't. The Guardsmen wanted to go see the world-famous West Coast Choppers down in Long Beach, so I gave them directions on how to get there the other day. They went down there yesterday, and then on to Boyd Coddington's shop, who let them into the machine shop to check out what he has in the works. Good that they were able to get that in on their visit out here. They've got a Chrysler 300 for their rental car, which reminds me, I saw one of those on the road the other day that had been stretched into a limo. And I thought they looked massively slab-sided before!!!

Triple Strike!!!

This has been a good weekend. Last night I picked up a bootleg of Star Wars episode 3. It was good enough quality, although it was letterboxed in such a way that it cut off some heads. Went to Quizno's for lunch today (because Subways no longer has seafood and crab, they just lost my business!!! Not that I'm a huge fan, but its about the only one my firstborn eats), then swimming at my parents house for a while. I had gotten an E-mail invite from my cell phone company, Virgin Mobile, for a bowling and karoke night they were having, RSVP for the first 300 responders, and that was tonight. Momma decided she didn't want to go at the last minute, so just myself and Joey the elder boy went. I don't think there were over 150 or so people at the most. It was a really trashy little bowling alley only a couple miles from my home that I didn't even know existed. They were giving out T-shirts for strikes and spares, but after I rolled 3 strikes and one spare in my second of two games (117 points total), they were either out or ignoring me. Oh well, I don't really need any more. Two free games of bowling, some video games and dinner with my boy was good enough for me!!! Thanks for a great night, Virgin Mobile!!!

With a vengeance

It feels like summer has finally come, and with a vengeance. Very warm, and it doesn't cool off much overnight so you wake up feeling all sticky. Wery pleasant. The news keeps going on about how there's going to be thunderstorms and rain and such, but, as usual, they're full of shit. I tend to think its because they've shifted their focus from being in L.A. proper and the true southland basin to all these outlying desert areas that have been graded and developed into houses in the past dozen or so years. I think that has a lot to do with the "power crises" we keep having, too. Everyone out there running their air conditioners. You know, back when I was growing up, I don't think I even knew anyone who had an air conditioner!!! Now they go on and on about schools not even being air conditioned, how can the chillun learn anything without air conditioning??? I did OK, and I didn't have air conditioning at my school growing up!!! How did I learn anything under those deplorable conditions???

OK, there's my geezer rant for the day...

I went down to my parents house yesterday and did some paint stripping on my Falcon. I left it down there back when I broke my finger, because my dad was taking body shop class again and was going to be taking it in and doing some paint prep on it. I hadn't been driving it too much because back when I got in a wreck in it it threw off the alignment and has subsequently worn out the front tires. I didn't want to get the alignment done because I wanted to drop the front end a little (which I did, but of course broke my finger in the process) and fabricate a brace between the lower A arms and a monte carlo bar, to beef it up and hopefully help it hold alignments better. Probably improve the handling too. I know there's a trick where you can re-locate the holes for the upper A arms it improve handling (an old Shelby trick), but I don't know if I'd go that far. Anyway, I did make up a template for the cross brace I want to make, too. Time to get that thing to where I feel more comfortable taking it on the road!!! Kind of sucks paying insurance on it and not driving it.

"Laughter is the smile of the world"

I took the family to the library yesterday. As part of the summer reading program they're doing special events every Friday, and yesterday they were doing balloon hats for the kids. I pictured something totally lame, along the lines of someone making 'em up and going "here's your damned hat kid, now scram!!!" It was actually pretty cool, they had the balloon guy there, and he had movies and slide shows and stuff. He's been all over the world (except for Australia and Antartica) and, well, makes balloon hats. To be educational he discussed world, national and local geography. Who would have thought you could finance your world travels doing balloon hats??? Wonder if the government if paying him somehow for that??? Anyway, they had a segment where they asked indigenous people that he had made hats for, what is laughter??? One of them was a young zen Buddhist monk (I think it was) and his answer was "Laughter is the smile of the world". I liked that, and made a note so I could pass it on to yall!!!

I'm making chicken chili today. For the first time I actually didn't make too much stuff to fit in the crock pot!!! Usually I make it in my 4 quart pot, but have too much and end up making close to a full pot in my 2 1/2 quart one. Good thing I didn't make too much, because my wife broke my 4 quart one a few months back. I got up this morning and started prepping the stuff and putting it in. Of course, when I'm dumping it in and adding some beer I had to take a couple sips. It tasted so good I had to open another one to wash it down!!! I usually don't drink this early in the morning, but today I made an exception!!! I tried this beer back last time I was making chicken with a beer can shoved up its ass (thanks for the recipe Sammy, I'd never even heard of such a thing, but it makes for a great visual effect and a tasty chicken!!!) because you want something with a lot of flavor to cook with, and I think I have a new favorite!!! Heineken dark lager, if you haven't had it, you should try it!!!

I updated my wallpaper page this morning. I did some stupid-shit-at-work editorializing on there that I decided would do as well on here, since I already had it all typed out. If you've checked it out already you can ignore the rest of this paragraph except the last line. I made mention on my blog last week of having to work late hours. One of the projects I was working on had been a package for a DVD burner. The customer (well, not the real customer but the damned middleman who was no doubt jacking up the price and generally fucking things up) took the measurements for a cardboard insert and made it up while we were making the tool. He also had the drawing it was based on. Well, the dumb motherfucker did nothing to account for the corner radii, and couldn't be bothered to pick up a sample between the Wednesday I made it and the end of Tuesday, the day before the day he wanted production. Naturally, he gets there and sees it and declares it will not work, and he will not re-make the inserts, so I have to make mostly completely new tooling, naturally at no cost to the customer, wasting a bit more than a full day of my time. I was reminded of a sign that I'd gotten at the place I worked at before it was bought out by these no-business-sense clowns. I have it prominently displayed in my area, but after this I decided I needed more, so I made this up in Paint Shop Pro and set it as wallpaper on my work comp. Not that anyone ever pays attention, lack of planning on other peoples parts always makes for an emergency on my part, justified or not. I'm sure several of you can relate. If you're reading this after I have changed it, you can see the image here or just know it says "The lack of planning ON YOUR PART does not justify an emergency ON MY PART".

Come Forth, Creatures of the Night!!!

Its been a while since I've posted here. At least, for me it has been. This last week I've been working until pretty late. On Tuesday, I had a Dr. appointment for my broken finger (it finally seems to be healing, thanks for asking, guess the EBI bone growth stimulator works), and it ended up being almost 11 by the time I got in. While I was on my way in, my wife called saying she wanted to go to the emergency room when I got home. She had twisted her ankle over the weekend and it was bothering her alot. I told her it was going to be around 9:30 when I got home, are you sure you want to do that??? Why don't you call our doctor and see if they can get you in tomorrow??? Well, she did and they could, right at 11:00, right in the middle of my work day!!! She didn't want to drive because she was worried they'd put a cast on it and she wouldn't be able to drive home. Anyway, took her to that, it was noon before they even got her in the back, and way longer than that before they saw her. They sent her to radiology across the street, didn't even wrap it up or anything!!! I've never heard of a doctor looking at a potential sprain and not at least putting an ace bandage around it!!! Radiology took a long time, too, and it ended up being 3:30 by the time I got in, so consequently it was after 1 A.M. by the time I left. Traffic was nice, for a change!!! Naturally, the next day I wasn't up that early either, ended up getting there at 1 P.M., planned on leaving at 11 P.M., but then there was a mess on one of the tools they were trying to set up. I repaired it, but I was there until almost 2 A.M. For those of you who don't know, I normally have Fridays off, 4 10 hour days, but I ended up coming in on Friday too. Only 12:30 till 5, so not so bad.

My good buddy Sammy called me up while I was there and said he'd like to come up this weekend and grill and hang. He's an EXCELLENT chef. We picked up some salmon steaks and shrimp, hit Wal Mart for some of the weekly essentials, and had some chow at Mustards Chicago style hot dogs in Los Altos. He's from Chicago and is always going on about how great the dogs there are, and I've been telling him forever that he's gotta try Mustards. He gave them the thumbs up, even tho the ones we got were grilled instead of boiled and were a little lean on the relish. Got to my house later, went on a beer run, then decided that we were hungry. We ended up grilling up 2 of the 6 salmon steaks and several shrimp at 2 in the morning!!!

The next day I took Sammy up to In the Skin in Pasadena where I'd gotten my Piercing done some time before. He wanted to get both of his nipples pierced too, and was also considering a tattoo of the Chicago Cubs emblem. The guy who does the piercings was at a memorial service when we got there, and they told us he'd be back in a couple hours. We came back, picked up a couple more things we needed for the rice and fish and prepped a little, then we went back, but we rode the gold line up there this time. That was pretty cool. He got his piercings, but decided to wait on the tattoo. The price went up some on the piercing since I got mine done. I took some pics with his phone. Oh, and he called me today and was telling me that his mom was all pissed off at him for doing it!!! Calling him white trash and stuff (which is pretty funny, he's an Asian boy, but in reality is probably "whiter" than I am). In all, it was a very enjoyable weekend.

Now, off to bed with me so I don't have another week like the last one!!!

Sounds like a plan, dude!!!

Did not make mention here of the scare I had last week. I think it was Monday evening I was watching TV and my son and I both had our computers running. The power went off for just a split second. My son's comp came right back on, but mine wasn't doing anything, completely dead when you hit the power switch. Needless to say, this put me in a foul mood to say the least. Fortunately, I was eventually able to get it going again by yanking it out and clearing the BIOS. Anyway, I was waiting for the Sunday specials in the paper today, and I went out and bought a UPS. Only $29.99 after rebate, not bad, and well worth it if it keeps me from having to go through that again!!!

I've gotten quite a few hits on Wheres George this weekend. My favorite so far this weekend was one from Connecticut where the guy commented "it's a bit beat up... and now im going to go spend it on a blunt to smoke drugs!" Sounds like a plan, dude!!!

Likening Idi Amin to Luther Vandros

There was a news teaser on the TV tonight that made mention of the death of Luther Vandros. My wife draws in a gasp and goes "Luther Vandros died!!!" Knowing that she doesn't really know much of Vandros, I asked her to name a single one of his songs. She says no, but I've heard of him for a long time!!! I reply, "oh, like Idi Amin." She replies "what does she sing???" LMAO, thank you for that!!!

Who's Responsible for this BULLSHIT???

I woke up on time this morning for a change. I've been late getting up and subsequently to work all this week until now. Would have made it right on time today except for some freeway bullshit. It was moving right along until after the ramp to the 5, where there was a sign off to the side that the Hill Street exit is closed for a police funeral. Fine, that should effect me in no way, but still I wondered what the hell they're doing that necessitates them having that ramp closed at freakin' 5:30 in the morning!!! WTF, did he want to be buried on the Hill exit??? At 5:30 AM??? Anyway, I detected the faint aroma of bullshit at that point. A bit further and there's flares closing the left lane (Hill is one of those rare, fucked up left lane exits), taking it down to only 2 lanes. Traffic starts backing up (which usually never happens at that ungodly hour). Just a bit further and there are two CalTrans trucks, one in the left lane and one in the middle lane with a giant amber arrow pointing to the right going along at maybe 5 MPH. INCREDIBLE bullshit!!! Naturally, with only one lane, traffic is close to a standstill. After getting around them, everyone is getting to the left and somewhat accelerating, but it was already slowed to fuck through downtown. When I was almost to work I heard a traffic report saying that a 3-car pile-up had been cleared through that area.... Umm, I didn't see any pile-up there, nor any debris, and I know if there was one between the time I drove and the time I got to work it sure shit wouldn't have been cleaned up by then. TOTAL BULLSHIT!!! You know, sorry you're dead and all, but thanks for messing up the commute for hundreds, nay more likely thousands!!!

Rock and roll A to Z continues on KLOS. Yesterday they were doing the E's. With the exception of Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some", the E's mostly sucked from what I heard. They're on to F's when I resumed listening this morning, much better songs starting with F. Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend", followed by James Gang's "Funk 49". Then on to G, The Beatles "Get Back", The Doors nasty, raw, kick-ass version of "Gloria" (a welcome change after the white-bread wonder years version by Van Morrison that preceded it!!!) Now that's more like it!!!

He Scores!!!

I went to my parents house yesterday for dinner. My oldest boy had been invited to a birthday party at the Aquarium of the Pacific, so the rest of the family ended up going down there for that. My mom had invited us all over for chow, as it's a lot closer to their house than back to ours for all of us, especially during rush hour. As I pulled up I noticed the house across the street (former home of my childhood friend) had a huge pile of stuff out on the curb. I languidly wondered if they were moving or if it was a mountain of trash. I went in and said talked to my mom for a while (my dad is working at a camp for foster kids this week), helped her e-mail some pics, tried to track down my wife who we both expected to have been there by then.... Then she made mention of the people across the street throwing out a bunch of stuff, and there's a nice dresser in good condition over there.didn'tdnt really need one, but since it was all being tossed I decided to go over and check it out. There was a newer looking Hoover vacuum, a recumbent exercise bike, a twin bed.... No dresser, someone had already glommed that. Mostly stuff I had no use for, but there was one gem in there, a 33" TV set. We asked the lady of the house if it worked, and she said yes, only it makes a low hum when the volume is all the way down that no one else even hears, but it bugs her so they'd gotten a new one (probably a nice flat screen). I yanked that right out and took it on home, yea you bet!!! Haven't hooked it up to a source yet, but I plugged it in and messed with, and I hear no hum at all. I think that was an excellent score!!!

Because I haven't done any of the bitching about the stupid stuff at work yet, thought I'd get some of that in today. Here's one for you, the time on the phone system has been off ever since I started here in 2001, and it keeps getting farther and farther. Currently its exactly half an hour slow, so its pretty easy to calculate the time when you've gotten a message, or see what time it is when you use the clock on the phone, but how hard could it be to correct it??? OK, that's only marginally stupid, but there's more, better stuff.

My partner at work told me yesterday that he was checking out my WebPage over the weekend. A friend of his was looking at it and told him he should check it out. Apparently he's got it bookmarked and takes a look occasionally, likes the eclecticness of it, so at long last I have some validation that someone out there actually looks at stuff I post!!! Thanks for that!!! Note to any of you reading this, go ahead and leave some kind of comment or feedback for my further validation, LOL!!! So far my only commenters have been Lilly, One Eyeball, and Anonymous (who wrote "i cant make a comment". Come on Anonymous, you can if you believe you can!!! Thanks for that Anonymous, you are special from the others!!!)

KLOS, one of the stations I listen to, is doing rock and roll A to Z. I enjoy when they do that, you hear a lot of stuff you normally don't. I keep thinking I should put some bands on my profile, but I don't know if its unlimited space on there, I like a lot!!! Today they played Deep Purple’s “Burn”, Blue Oyster Cult’s “Burning for You”, and Bad Company’s “Burning Sky” all in a row, naturally. Also got to hear Springsteen’s “Cadillac Ranch” and The Kink’s “Celluloid Heroes”. Love it!!!

Politically Incorrect Little Xenophobe

Yesterday there was picture in the paper that caught my eye. It was in the sports section, which I usually don’t pay much attention to. One of the guys from the Pistons was in the background, and the cameraman caught him with a most interesting expression on his face. I was so impressed that I saved that section and scanned the picture for use on Yahoo messenger, etc. My younger son saw the picture and first said he was scared of it, then began calling the guy a monkey!!! You try and raise ‘em right and everything, and look what happens!!! He’s only three, so perhaps there’s still hope for him. I have no idea where the little monkey boy gets it from.

There was another thing in the paper today, an official got killed by a shot put. Sorry to hear it, but hey, look out for those shot puts!!!

Happy First Day of Summer!!!

Here it is, the first day of summer!!! I celebrated by running the A/C in that little Kia I'm renting (cuts the power by about 1/4), washing the Maverick, and grilling some sausages for dinner!!! Way to start summer, huh???

I got a lot of interesting E-mails today. I enjoyed one called A Letter of Apology from Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, (Retired). I don't know if was legit, the jury is still out on it at Snopes urban legend reference page, but I liked the sentiment. Another one worth a look is a link to some idiot in this video, for once the anchors really giving a guy a way to go. It reminded me of back in high school I had a really good teacher in my Civics class, Mr. Ciriello, who used to call his underdeveloped leftist students "fuzzy liberals". I honestly didn't understand that phrase until more recently in my life. The guy in this video is a textbook case!!!

I could blog more, get onto some of the stupid shit that goes on at work as I said I may in my very first posting, but never have, but the hour grows late. I promise more to come.

Submitted for your approval

Well, as promised, here's links to both The Crash of the Studebaker and The Crash of the Scirocco!!! I did both these this morning as well as updating the wallpaper page with a tribute to Zeppelin. Those were my major accomplishments this morning, most of the rest of it I spent playing runescape. I just enjoy that game too much!!! I've met a lot of dads who got started the same way I did, their kids playing it and getting them hooked on it.

Talking of things coming in threes...

Yesterday we had yet another earthquake. I was at work when it happened, not everyone felt it but I did. A bit disquieting when they start because your wondering if its going to increase. I went to the USGS site and put my comments on the "did you feel it?" page. That makes 3 this week, the middle one being up north and offshore, so I didn't feel that one, but it did trigger a tsunami warning.

Hey 1Eyeball, (love that name, BTW, and I'm glad there's a few people who are reading this) saw your comment. No, dad's car isn't a total loss, it actually looks to me like it fared some better than the Scirocco in some ways. Namely, it doesn't seem to have any frame bending like the Scirocco does, and there seems to be a larger supply of replacement parts available for it. Also, I think it'll have a value higher than mine. It is pretty bad, but I think there's no question it will be rebuilt. There's even a chance it could have fiberglass fenders and hood, lightening up the front some and making the body mods... Different, I don't know if they'd be easier, but they'd be a different process. I came up with the idea that what I'd like to do when I get settled with the insurance, is I'd like to find a '74 with clean quarter panels and swap the doors and fenders and hatch and anything else needed (i.e. fuel injected motor) into it. The primary motivation is to get something I don't have to get smog checked every two years. Who knows, I may even locate a 16-valve motor in the future, or one of those sixes or who knows what, but that'd be in the distant future.

I took my VCR back again today. Don't know if I've made mention here, but don't buy Sony VCR's either. I bought this one at the end of January, and it lasted maybe a month, got it repaired (2 year service plan, I aint no fool, NOBODY makes decent VCR's anymore, with the possible exception of maybe Toshiba or Magnavox), it broke again a few weeks later, got it repaired again, it broke again a few weeks later.... Got the manager to authorize an exchange that time. A week and a day later, that one breaks!!! Apparently, Sony cannot make VCR's anymore. This time I got them to OK exchanging it for a different brand. The only other brands there were Panasonic (which I have had bad luck with in the past, 2 VCR's in 2 months) and Magnavox. So, I'll let you know how it does. It was $20 less than the piece of shit Sony, so I ended up getting a bit of store credit :)

I went down to the Red Cross today and donated blood today. I get such a good feeling from eating their cookies and drinking their juice :Þ

The Canning is Untimey

One week and one day after my car gets wrecked, my dad gets in an accident. He was driving along and a car pulled out in front of him. In his full custom ’62 Studebaker Golden Hawk, which he just finished re-doing the hood and door on. Bummer. Oh, and the lady who pulled out in front of him was French, so there’s another thing he hates about those stinkin’ French. He was OK, but he's got some back pain now. I found out about it because he left me a message asking if I was going to make a web page of the wreck like I did for the Camaro. Now that I've got mine and his, I just may do that. I'll link it here if I do.
Ironically, when I got my first traffic ticket, my dad got a ticket within 24 hours.

They say these things come in threes, so….
I aint superstitious tho.

SO, did everybody have a good Flag Day??? I always wonder why government and banks aren't shut down for Flag Day, they shut down for just about everything else. Something to ponder!!!

Just a reminder, this is earthquake country

A report from right in the heart of it. No damage. No real sign at all to speak of, actually. I think I was the only one in my household who even felt it. It felt like there was a little shift in the house, maybe just a little creak.... I stood still to see if I was feeling what I though I was feeling, and was trying to see if it looked like anything was moving and listening for any other creaks, but there was too much racket and motion going on with other people moving around in the rest of the house. I forgot about it and went on about my morning. Didn't even think of it until I talked with my mother later in the day, and she made mention of it. Guess they felt it a little more down in Long Beach. I'm not sure if it has to do with the composition of the earth here or what, but usually you cant even feel when the earth moves up on my little hill here. Hope it remains that way forever!!!

Went down to Long Beach today, my parents took us all out to Red Lobster to celebrate my wife's birthday. It was the first time either of us had been there, and we were not disappointed. I've got until Tuesday to get anything for her. She had wanted a new comp chair, but then she changed her mind and said she wants to get a perm instead. Either one would have been fine with me, but I wont have to go out and shop this way, so that's cool. Did end up stopping in at Big 5 sporting goods to buy myself some new shoes (the old ones were getting a hole in the side) and ended up getting a pair of the same kind for her, so she can take that, too.

We visited her grandmother afterwards. First time since she's moved into this assisted living community. She's got the alzheimers, and although she's usually pretty lucid, a lot of times she'll answer questions with "I don't know". She seemed to like her apartment there just fine, and was glad to see us. If you've ever been in a suite in a real nice hotel and have thought to yourself, "I could live here", you've got a pretty good idea what her place is like, only slightly larger quarters. Wonder if they have a minimum age requirement to get a place there???

Ugly-ass gutless worthless econoboxes

Making some progress... I think. I went to the doctor's on Thursday to get my back pain checked out. Had to leave work early to do that. Got the Scirocco checked out at a body shop for my insurance (which I really don't understand, they're not paying a thing on it, but whatever). When I was getting ready to take it to the body shop, came out and found it had a flat tire. Just one more thing. I suspect the drywall screw sticking about an inch out of the tire. Finally got to talk to the adjustor from the person at faults insurance, on Thursday too. Got to tell them that my car is unsafe to drive due to the fuel leak and ask them if they have a rental company that they work with. They referred me to Hertz. Got over there yesterday and got a rental going. Naturally, they want to put me in a comparable car, which they think is any old compact econobox. Almost got stuck in an ugly-ass Pontiac Vibe, but they changed it to a Kia instead. What a gutless wonder!!! The last half of the throttle travel seems to be worthless, it doesn't go any faster when you get into that area. I wonder if it would do better with a manual transmission, but I kind of doubt it. It has power steering and power brakes. I'm thinking maybe they should have put that power in the motor instead. I think its just too much fat for that little sewing machine motor to haul around. On the plus side, I haven't seen the gas gauge move. My wife's quote: "I never thought we'd have to drive a Kia". At least the seats are comfortable and the stereo sounds good. I wonder if the Vibe would have had more power.

I wonder how long until the adjustor looks at it and they make me a ridiculously low offer for the value. Then we'll be going around and around about the value.

I'll probably update my wallpaper page and do yardwork today. Can't think of anything else to write and rave about now, so check back later.

Taking a minus and turning it into a plus

What a way to start the week!!! I was driving in this morning, stopped at a light in a long row of cars at a light, when all of a sudden I hear brakes screeching.... BAM!!! I ended up the 3rd car in a 4-car sandwich!!! Fortunately, unlike in the case of the Camaro, everyone involved had insurance. The car behind me got the worst (but the front of the SUV that did the hitting didn't look that good, either!!!) but I didn't fare much better. I think the insurance company is likely going to total my poor car, and try to screw me on the value. It bent the back bumper and taillight panel, wrinkled the passenger side quarter panel, shoved my front bumper under the car in front of me, and the bumper guards got the front edge of my hood, kinking it up just a little in the middle. It still drives OK, but I had an intermittent gas leak afterwards. I jacked it up to see if I could see where it was coming from, and it was around the rubber junction between the fill pipe and the tank. I loosened up and re-tightened them, and it wasn't leaking anymore after that. Later in the day, tho, I came back out and it was dripping again. I took it to the place on the corner (Ping's Automotive, that just makes you want to take your car there, huh??? Believe me now, NO!!!) because I really didn't have the time to deal with it and I didn't want it to burn up or anything. Well, they had it for three hours and all they did was call dealers to see if they had the part!!! Um, listen IDIOT, its a piece of HOSE!!! Really doesn't need to be OEM, just something that fits!!! Unless, of course, it turns out to be the tank itself, but it seems to me that a piece of 27 year old rubber is going to be the first thing to break.

Anyway, I'm kinda bummed about that. Of course, I was driving the gas miser Scirocco, the best looking of my three cars, paint and body wise. I would have felt worse if I'd been driving my Falcon, and I would have been some upset if it had happened to my Maverick, but I don't think it would have done near the damage, either. The front car was a big olds, with good old chrome bumpers, and it sustained no damage to speak of.

So, now I am gonna have some cash coming in *trying to look on the positive* I'm still undecided on what to do. I have been thinking for quite a while of trying to find a VW diesel, probably one of those caddy pickups, and starting to brew my own biodiesel, as well as fitting an electric motor to the rear axle and a bank of deep cycle batteries to move it around at low speeds (crazy ideas I come up with while I'm stuck working that clutch in downtown traffic!!!) I'm always hearing stories of the VW diesels getting 40 and 50 mpg, and with the price of gas being so unstable.... I heard Drudge saying that oil prices jumped up to over $55 a barrel just because it was the first day of hurricane season!!! Who knows what I'll end up doing. Lord knows I don't really need another project.

When I finally made it home and checked my mail, I've gotten 3 hits on some of my bills on Wheres George, that's the most I've gotten in a long time in one day. One of the bills has been hit 5 times now, I think that's the best I have so far. The guy who hit that one wrote this for his comment: "i got this bill as a tip from souplantation restraunt. northridge, ca. i will be using this bill to buy food at el polloco to buy a taco. im going to actually miss this dollar. its special from the others". I have to agree. Thanks for that, pal, you made my day!!! That and the blog's spellcheck trying to change 'kinking' to 'kinkiness'. LOL!!!

I took a minus and now the hard times are behind us.
Turned into a plus, now they stuck livin blinded.
Hennessey got me feelin bad. Time to stop drinkin.
Rollin in my drop top Jag. What's that cops thinkin?
Sittin in my car watch the stars and smoke.
I came a long way but still I got so far to go.

I reject your reality and substitute my own!!!

And yet another weekend comes. Time to do some updating of my many pages!!! I finally completed a page I started a few months back, describing how I came up with the name Aye and the subsequent emergence of Kabila, as well as updating my wallpaper page.

Went to my good friend Sammy's house last night for a barbecue. He just bought a new gas grille, which he named Gwen. Gwen is an acronym for "Good When Eatin's Necessary", he decided later on after the naming. We were there last weekend, but we used a coal grille that time. My wife got very drunk and obnoxious, as usual, but we still had a good time.

Today I woke up around 7:30, pretty early for me. I did that last weekend too, but even earlier. I rather enjoy when I do that, I get to update my shit and listen to Handel on the Law, a very amusing and educational legal show that comes on Saturday mornings. You can tune in and listen on the site, I think.

The day is slipping away, as will happen. On my list today is to hit the 99 cent store, and do a lot of yardwork. Maybe some car washing will come into play, too, they could use it, but I don't know if there will be enough hours to do that. There was a fire over on the other side of the hill yesterday, and that made me think of the overgrowth all about the house and grounds. I don't know how big it was, but I could smell the smoke, and hear the chopper buzzing around.

A little note to my favorite commenter, Lilly: Thanks for reading my ravings and leaving your feedback!!! Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want. In Bed. How am I supposed to take that??? Always do enjoy what I have when I'm doing the enjoying. Am I supposed to hope for more length, or more in some kind of kinky variety??? I feel that I've got all the length I need that's what your talking about. Feel my length!!! LOL!!! I'm intrigued by what you mean by that, girl, although I like the sentiment!!! You need to type out some more on your blog, girl, I keep checking to see if there's any new. Hope your getting what your hoping for or something!!!

Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want.

Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want. That little nugget of fortune cookie wisdom was brought my way by... *drumroll* a fortune cookie. I went to the Dodgers-vs-Cubs game tonight with my oldest son and a bunch of friends and co-workers. For his dinner there my son wanted that traditional ballpark fare, Chinese food!!! I had a Dodger Dog, and of course, peanuts (alas, I had no cracker jacks). Got two fortune cookies, and that was my fortune. My son got 'The Next Full Moon Will Bring You Luck'. I noticed it did not specify whether it would be good or bad luck, so I think I prefer 'Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want.' Always a good philosophy, and I think I follow it without any conscious effort.

The game was enjoyable, although suffice it to say it was a shame. There were several Cubs fans in attendance (that's actually the reason we were all at the game, my good friend Sammy is from Chicago and LOVES his Cubs. I'm glad he got to see 'em whup up on the Dodgers). Thing I wonder is, if Chicago is so great, what are all these Chicogans doing in Los Angeles??? Must be easier to love it from afar??? Dunno. I'd love to visit there sometime, I hear its a culinary plethora. I've only been through O'Hare, running from one end to the other to make a transfer. Sammy and I have discussed taking a little vacation out there to see the sights and taste the tastes. I've had Mustard's Chicago style hot dogs (vienna beef) and a deep dish pizza from a place called Chicago Pizza Works, and they've both been very tasty, but also both in SoCal, so I'd like to try 'em on native soil. Now there's something to hope for!!!