I'm Batman

this will be my final entry of the year. I hope it meets the standard that i have set in the past 12 months.

In case you missed it.

I try not to dwell on world events, but It could be argued that the shit pretty much jumped off this year. I, for one, have a hard time remembering last week, so for my sake and yours, we'll recap the highlights. For you the viewer, i will scientifically rank the importance of these events, in this, the last of the year's "of 10" ranking game.

-Tsunami becomes a household word. A quarter of a million brown people get "a very bad feeling about this" before they and everything they know are taken away by a wall of liquid death. Stupid American news insists on first reporting number of American dead. U.S. response: could that happen to us?/10

-Indian Earth quake kills nearly 100,000. No one has any more info on this. Didn't "those brown people" just have a tsunami? me: what the hells going on?/10 U.S. BOR-ING!/10

-A hurricane proves how close society is to calapsing at any given moment. This event is memorialized by the rape, murder and random gun fire that follow. Neighboring towns close their borders to refugees with a makeshift wall of shotguns and redneck cops. Gas goes to 3$/gal and i wait with baited breath for gun fire to erupt in my neighborhood. The revolution never comes. In the end, though saddened by he misery, I can't help thinking, this is why I don't love below sea level. Also, the used car market is flooded with flooded cars. (carfax.com your used car purchases for the next 3 years). Finally, news reports inevitably interview locals who draw obvious connections to the "t-sue-naa-mi" that recently wrecked residents of the Indian ocean, even though the number dead from Katrina was about 0.01% the number dead from wall of liquid death.
Army Corp of Engineers: "I told you"/10

-The big Cheese bites the big enchilada. (the pope is dead.) Worry not, little little camper, for in no time a replacement old man who is completely out of touch with reality is ushered in to replace the hat diva of yore. me: 0/10.

-Civil unrest in France. i'm still not sure this even happened. Me: [null]/10

-Michael Jackson wears pajamas to court. Why is it that i can go from sweat pants and wife beater to full suit in less than 3 minutes when the Raging Cajun is in town, but MJ's team of freak herders can't wrastle that man-boy into a pair of slacks? If the world had ended that day, i would not have cared. me -6/10.

-1000's of U.S. soldiers die in Middle East. 10,000's of other people die of the same disease. Thankfully, the fighting ended months ago. As a result, Iraq has an election. I don't know how i feel about this anymore. Numb, i suppose.

-"Tear'rists" bomb British public transportation. Can we even FEEL shock anymore? me: I still wish we had public transportation/10

-A guy is shot for running off a plane suspiciously. Some claim the man made bomb threats, while most maintain the word "bomb" was never uttered. Events are made more disturbing by the fact that almost every citizen agrees the man had it coming, thus proving The idea of living in fear has firmly been rooted into our society,
me: 9/10

-I get a well-paying job that requires little actual work and even fewer original thoughts. I slip into a coma of boredom and fill my days writing absurd blog postings. To dull the pain, i buy a 1979 Fiat Spider and fulfill one life-long dream, that of having a fun, second car. In order to combat the inevitable death of my brain, i enroll in grad school, thus fulfilling a second life-long goal, actively participating in the official study of alternative energy technology; A science for a future. My cynicism is briefly sidelined.
me: 6/10

There was some other stuf... a slew of airplane incidents, some political deaths (both national and local, figurative and literal), and some of us finally become a member of Steve Job's I-Pod nation. ( i feel so urban and silhouette-ie) So in conclusion, just in case you forgot, this year sucked bad for a lot of people. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But then again, if you're going to study Alternative energy technologies you gotta have some hope for the future.

to the victor go the spoils

today the Fiat and I locked heads in the first of what will surely be on ongoing series of epic battles. Today's war was waged when i decided it was time she released hold on those dreaded security lock lugs. Have you ever tried to remove the lugs of a wheel with nothing more than a series of large wrenches and own guts? I'm here to tell you child, it ain't a pretty sight. The first two, whom i have affectionately named Skip and Skipper, were worked off with some industrial grade penetrating oil and the biting teeth of my adjustable wrench ("dogs" as they honestly and appropriately call this tool in the electrical trade.)

Skip's older sister Veronica is a bitch. Fortunately, I was able to take my Dremel tool to her face and make me a fine surface for my wrench, ol' bitey, to grab onto. She was third to die. That left Sedgwick. Sedqwick, i determined, is the older, molesting uncle of the first three lugs and wasn't leaving his home with out fight. I'll spare you all the details of the final extraction, the same way a doctor leaves out the part were he was standing on the table, cracking your gran-pappy's rib-cage. But i will say, before the job was done, my knuckles were mangled, my borrowed pipe wrench was warm and RoboCop 2 had been quoted at least once.



"You're coming with me, Cain."

today's day

White guys rapping is funny. I offer this movie from SNL as proof.

interesting:

About 15 minutes a day, of my total daily internet usage, is spent looking at new material. Inevitably, i always seem to find things like this. Who makes this stuff? And how much of it am i missing?

Fiat update:

Finally spent some quality time with the Fiat in my newly heated garage. Here's what i found:

The good: I found the clutch inspection plate that my tranny was missing, in my pile o' parts. Now i just need to find the four bolts that hold it on.

The bad: The wheels have locking lugs on them and neither I nor the guy i bought it from has the key to get them off. Any ideas how to go about this? (and i don;t have dynamite, so don't even ask)

The ugly: this car has an alarm system on it. No shit, just like the Caddy did. It's disabled because the battery is out... but i found these two remotes in the parts pile that looked like garage door openers... no joke, they're huge. Well then i find a black box in the glove box that's the heart of the alarm, tied into a motion detector. this thing is straight out of the 80's... very retro. I shall be sure to cut it out as soon as i get the wheels off.

Locking lugs AND an alarm on a 79 Fiat? somebody was a little paranoid.

more fo the same

For some reason, today, my memory neurons were firing images of an old train i used to have growing up. It was this big ass train that we used to set up around the base of our holiday tree. It was an old school engine about the size of my steal current steel-toe boots. There were 4 cars that it towed, including a caboose that had it's own lights inside and took it's own batteries. The train itself took about a million batteries and ran and made noises and even made real smoke from it's smoke stack. (you had to put house-hold oil in this little compartment and the damn thing burned it or something... smelt like a real train.) There's no way they're making trains now that smoke!

Anyway, this thing had so many lights and bells and whistles it looked liked like a freakin space ship at night coming around that tree. I still remember the joy i would get from taking one of the lesser ornaments and setting it on the track as the train came round and taking mental bets to see if the ornament would derail the train or if the cow-brush equipped engine would crush the ornament... or some combination there off.


Howard Stern is playing best of episodes all this week before Xmas and i caught part of one today on my way to work; it was one with Sam Kenison as the guest.

Sam Kenison was one of the funniest muthas of the modern era (rivaled only by aristotle's timeless classic "fake spear through the head" routine). [sigh] such a genius... rumor is he gained his tremendous delivery skills as a preacher but then fell from the church. Sam has been dead for over 10 years and i still can't freakin believe it. The worst part is, his material has moved into near total obscurity. His stand up is too "real" for regular TV and too old for premium channels. And the few songs/tv spots/movies that he appeared in have all gone by the way side. In fact, i can't even find much in the illegal MP3 web. Why sam? WHY!!?


Finally, i will leave you with a quote from my current favorite blogger, Latigo Flint:

Where do the female whitewater rafting guides go, with their tight cutoff jeans and sunscreened noses, when the first days of winter roll so dreary and cruel?

Back to heaven I reckon, where they do pass the time with granola and sit-ups until sunshine and joy does call them once more to the shore.

continuing with our theme...

not even drunk

back from canada

okay, look. Some things should never, EVER, EVER be combined. Calculus and hot Chicks who think they're comedians is a good exmaple of this rule.

I wish i had invented this.

update:

1) sickness (of body) has finaly been defeated. Returning to training is hard... snow is cold and hurts. Must not be made soft by tastey holiday treats.

b) am now oficially enrolled in WSU Alternate Engergy Technology program. (WSUAETP or "wi-sue-ept" as i am now coining).

iii) today at work i saw a trash container full of brand new high output alternators in one of the shops. appearantly, they're cleaning house and these were no longer of use. Of course, the MAN says i can't take them home because he's affraid i'll sell them as new. Do you know what you can do with a 150 Amp alternator? put a prop on it and make it into a wind-generator (see bullet "b"). Or hook an electric motor up to it and use it as a welder... the possibilities are endless... and there must have been 100 of these things, some still in the boxes. This is why auto companies fail.

(add to list of things to do with those alternators: sell them as new)

F.I.A.T.

Fix It Again, Tony!

no pics yet

I will now recite the story of the Fiat. It all began when my housemate Jon let me drive his Miata, a light, two-seat convertible that was like a E-drop on wheels. It was then that i resigned to look for a fun, cheap car that i could love and wrench through the few warm months of the year.

The search was an easy one; sit back and see what comes my way. There were some misses, for sure, but then i found the red, 1979 fiat spider roadster. It was on E-bay and i watched it not make the reserve and fall into obscurity. Knowing my time had come, I made a move to contact the seller and arrange a viewing. Since it was located in Butt-nowhere michigan in the middle of winter, i could low-ball him. Because he had several vehicles on his property and the Law was coming down on him, he was desperate to sell. The car also included several boxes of spare parts, plus things like extra doors, windshield, tranny, which though i had little interest in, might be useful in recovering some money when it comes time for me to peddle them.

I talked it over with my person Fiat consultant and religious guide, Notorious. Turns out he has the exact same car of the the exact same year. We discussed the nuances of owning such a vehicle and the total package worth of the particular car in question. The consensus was, it was a good deal and would be a fun ride.

I made the seller an offer which turned out to be nearly 20% lower than his desperate E-bay reserve, and then i waited. After some time, he took the bait. (Of course, should the car say, explode, this story shall forever be re-told as "I took the bait") The car was mine... but now what?

Since the recently re-worked transmission had no gear oil in it, it could only be driven for short distances. Also, the brakes were needy. So it would have to be trailer-towed for the 100+ mile trip home. The seller was sounding remorseful on his
decision to go low and was threatening that more prospects were coming by and he would have to take any higher offers. (having conceded mentally this was a good use of money (HA!), and getting used to the idea of the car being mine, i was getting a little nervous about losing it) I told him i'd be there Friday with a trailer and cash, i just didn't realize how hard those are to come-by.

There's a big chunk of the story that involves me spending hours on the phone finding the cheapest way to transport the vehicle, arranging schedules and trying desperately to release the funds from my account and put them into cold-cash form. I wouldn't bother you with details... But i will say, there's a line in the movie Serenity that goes a little something to the effect of " You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens." On the long trip back, housemate Jon and I discussed the adventure on our hand-radios and decided the seller, based on wardrobe and location, must have been a member of the arian nation (well, probably not... but maybe). So in essence, we rescued the Fiat from a racist strong hold, and delivered it into a loving house and a fine garage.

But in the end, the hardest part about this whole experience is the nay-sayers, the nonbelievers and the anti-italian-car clowns; Those who refuse to let the dream live and instead chose to stomp it down with their short, wide feet that almost certainly smell of cabbage. Why, why, WHY! they would cry... If i have to explain it to you in a rust colored picture of oil leaks and top-down excitement, then you'll never understand. They can't taint a wonderful idea that almost certainly cannot fail... I mean what could go wrong now?

...

(The Original E-Bay posting... not sure how long it will be up)

Suprise, Suprise.

I would like to continue my musing about cars. Specifically, our cars. It costs a lot of damn money to own a car and that sucks. Figure, for a new car and a 5 year loan, you're not going to get away at less than $300 a month. And at that price, we're talking a plastic egg with a 4-banger. Now add insurance: Some of you may pay as little as a hundred a month, but as i am not both over 25 and "squeaky clean" in the records department, i pay a little more. Then, for shits, throw in gas at $20 a week (i'll be generous). You now pay $425 a month for a shitty car. (i'm more in the 600 range for an orange car.) that's 15 to 20 dollars a day just to own and operate your car. We're not talking upkeep here folks... figure a grand a year easily, averaged over the life of the car. This is why, in the future, I will work to ensure i can walk or bike to work.

Or, if you lived in Europe you could ride the tube for about a buck a day. But who really believes in public transportation anyway?

Also, it looks like Grad School finally got around to accepting me, so I if understand the cryptic email asking me to register for classes, i'll be starting the "Alternative Energy Technology" program at Wayne Statue U. in January.

word

the old days

this student group in Texas reminds me of my brief period spent at the Gonzo news organization, Christ Puncher. Though i must admit, the work being done nowis leagues ahead of the back-door operation of days past.

Side note: Serenity came to the dollar show here and i checked it out. That movie is bad ass: Like a western in space. Plenty of one-liners too. I give it several raised body parts.

black magic

this is unholy.

(there really is a green dot... cover half the screen. The disappearing thing, i can't explain.)

for those who understand cars...

...and those who don't

this jeep is bad.

this jeep is good.