June 30, 2007 by David.

A couple cars are hitting the news that I absolutely love.  One is the Masarati Gran Turismo.  Beautiful lines and a wonderful car.  I’m thinking a Trident in the driveway is a good thing. 

The second is the BMW CS concept vehicle, just unveiled at the Shanghai Motor Show.  For once, a design from BMW that isn’t boring.  Now, if they’d just 1) produce it and 2) kill that awful iDrive, they just might get me interested in their brand again.

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June 18, 2007 by David.

I’m signing in to write this here post and I notice that my last blog entry was June 8.  Where the Hell did time go?  I hear the older one gets, the faster time moves.  Actually, nothing is moving faster, say I.  Rather as one gets older, one moves more slowly and thus everything else seems to be moving faster, not just time.  But then, have you noticed how older people, like really old people, say one of the things they wish they’d done when younger was slow down sooner?  Like, slow-down-and-smell-the-roses slow down.

…and smell the fresh air and sunshine.  Did I mention I love living in California?  One of Sharlet and my favorite things to do is eat outside, whether at home or a restaurant.  Just something about it that refreshes the soul.  Much easier to do here in the land of sunshine and hot cars than it was in, say, …aw, I’ll let up on that previous Land-o-Rain that I used to live in.  If you live there you already are more than aware of the “mist that surrounds [continuously, forever and ever, amen].”  For me, it is dang hard to beat working for yourself, seated on an outdoor balcony, short sleeve shirt, gentle warm breeze, laptop in, um, your lap, and a grin that keeps curling up the corners of your mouth for no apparent reason.  I try so hard to be a grumpy old fart and this fucking sunshine makes it real work to keep that whole bitched-out, the-world-hates-me state of mind going. 

Then to top it off, my daughter Jill ups and calls me from “ya-all” land just to tell me what an awesome Dad I am - and how she got into this arguement about who had the best Dad and she won.  Talk about a spirt lifter; that girl can give ‘ya a real boost.  Not that I’d admit it to anyone.  Hell no.  I’m hard at work perfecting the fine art of Grumping.  Meanwhile, let me kick back a few minutes in this here chair.  The temperature is God-given perfect.  Maybe Jill will call again…  DANG.  There I go again.  See, how hard it is to be a hard core grump around this neck of the woods?  Focus, man.  Focus.

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June 8, 2007 by David.

In my life I haven’t had very many flat tires, but when I do, they tend to be eventful, so to speak. The first flat I ever had was on a dune buggy. It really was my fault.  I aired the tires down when going off road down logging trails. I was in my mid-twenties and apparently being cool with low-pressure tires was more important than actual performance - after all, lowering pressure helps in sand or rock, NOT logging roads.  Adding to that was the fact that the Beetle had way oversize tires on the back - ten inch wide rims - and the tires weren’t quite wide enough so the bead had to stretch out to seat against the rim instead, giving a sidwall that tapered in from the edge of the rim. Hey, at least I wasn’t the one that matched up those tires and rims. Anyway, lowering the pressure in that situation was asking for, well, exactly what we got. When one of the tires’ beads popped away from the rim and with no spare, the guy that was with me (no second vehicle, but at least another person was along - did I mention ‘young and stupid’?) and I walked out to the road, fortunately only a couple miles. We hitchhiked about ten miles to a service station where we called his dad to come rescue us. Eventually his dad arrived. This guy owned a body shop and Read the rest of this entry »

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June 6, 2007 by David.

With the upcoming elections, the time of prevarication is upon us big time. Find out who’s putting on a spin, if not outright mis-stating facts at FactCheck.

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June 5, 2007 by David.

I googled “easy button” to get an image to add to the post about the easy button but two clicks into the search I found something much more interesting, a hack to the easy button where you can record and play back any message you want. Pretty fun stuff.  That lead to kipkay.com which has numerious hack videos, from converting a 9v battery to an AAA battery to changing traffic lights, to quick chilling your Coke.  Check it out.  Fun stuff, indeed.

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