So the starter dies in the Kia...

Ok so the starter on the Kia hasn't been well lately. I think it started going bad on Saturday. It was a difficult start in the cold weather, because for some stupid reason, I just had to go out and get some things that day, even though Sunday I'd be right out again anyway getting the local paper. 

I had noticed there was some rough spots in the starter working on Sunday, and even today. In fact, I had problems getting it to do something in the first parking lot I was in, and some problems but not as much in the 2nd parking lot. It wasn't until I wanted to leave the Post Office and go home that the starter finally died. Well, not so much as died as it was still spinning, but nothing was happening with the engine.

So in some sort of panic, I located a phone. It was a good thing that I remembered the pay phone in front of the old GTE phone building, because my damn Motorola Tracfone wasn't getting a network signal.

I called family, then attempted to call a wrong number and left a message for my mechanic - which I kinda knew even though the annoyed guy called my number back at home and told me I got the wrong number. $1 in quarters on 2 calls. (They give your money back when you get the phone company's recording for a non-working number.) Thankfully, the toll free number for Triple-A (aka AAA) didn't require any money.

So I get the guy and he collects my particulars. Asks if I'll be riding along to the mechanic and I thought he also asked if I need dropped off at home. Which I do ask for. I have Gold+ membership after all, but even then I get only 1 call due to mechanical breakdown. But at least the towing up to 100 miles is free. I'm probably less than 2 miles away from my mechanic, and likely home as well.

So we get to the mechanic, and I tell him that he's probably sick of me being here so much. I explain the situation and all, and it might be 2 days or so (no problem actually) before he can get to it. I hope the estimate isn't too high. He explains hearing something spinning in there is possibly a good thing.

I go back to the truck and I tell the guy about dropping me off at home, and he tells me they're really not supposed to do that.... Um, what? That's not the impression I got from talking to the AAA guy earlier.

So I try my phone again - no network. But at least I leave it on and proceed to walk down the driveway, back out onto the road, and towards the next main road. Thankfully at some point, my phone makes a noise and that tells me it's got a network. It's a Tracfone spam. Well, they are useful for something after all. I call my younger sister's number and thankfully my brother in law was home by then and my 2nd niece who answered it - well, they heard me leaving the message - finally got someone to help me get home. Otherwise, I'd have walked all the way back (not that I didn't need the exercise - but I would have likely ended up collapsing due to the pain).

At any rate, I asked him to see if there's a way to check for shorts that would cause battery drains, asked him about the coughing the car would do going uphill at 40 mph with less than half a tank of gas, and an estimate on getting the emergency brake working.

So now I'm waiting on what it'll cost for the starter. I hope I don't have to go back into debt too deeply to fix this. It's not going to be a decent couple of days coming up...
 

Ran into my first bad Verbatim disk

Today while watching the video I put on a Verbatim DVD+R, the playback started messing up at one point late in the disk. At first, maybe the source was messed up, or maybe the DVD player was being marginal at the spot it was reading the disk. So I got the disk out and looked at it.

There was a surface scratch that affected media burning, so in the spot on the media behind the scratch are blank unburned spots. I had to search the rest of the stack (not much of a coincidence that I'm at the bottom of this media stack) and found several others with scratches near the edge, and a couple with a scratch in the middle which renders them unusable.

I found a couple others with no flaws, reburned the disk, and finished watching what I had on the other, now garbaged, disk.

I used to run into bad media at the bottom of some orange-backed HP media stacks. But this is the first time I ran into any with Verbatim. And they had the nerve to raise the price on their media last time I was at the store. I'll still buy Verbatim, but now I'll check the surface for scratches incurred during manufacturing.

What's interesting is I found a few more disks with scratches similar to the one I found today, in that if I didn't have content that ran into that area, the rest of the disk would be just fine. I might use them for small projects.
 

I finally identified that design

After all these years, I finally identified the dishes I remember my mom having when I was but a child. The dishes she had that through use got broken, destroyed, and eventually thrown out. I forget the last time I saw any of them. Then, after a chance visit to a store that's gone now, I found 2 pieces of the design, and the same dishes I remember Mom having.

The store was called Village Discount, but it's gone now. Finding these for 75 cents each was like the best coincidence or a small miracle. 

So that's all find and dandy, but what is it? As it turns out, it's made by the Indiana Glass Company and it came out during the 1950s to the 1960s. It's Milk Glass, and the design is called Colony Harvest. All this time I thought it was china and it wasn't. I thought mom had gotten it as a set of wedding china, because she had it ever since I could remember. This was mainly available through the S&H Green Stamp catalog. I don't remember how much she had of it, but I do remember some of these Snack Plates as pictured, and some tea cups (or whatever they were) that went with them. If there was more, I don't remember. Thankfully, there are places on the web that have this design and I could practically collect a set for a service for 4 if I wanted to. It's sad that these were lost through the years due to people not taking the greatest care of them.

A couple of things

I expect to finally be done with my business plan very soon. I courageously made a phone call for info, and when it turned up something more that I looked up (which seemed to be a hassle when I looked at it), I should be able to finally do what I need to finish it.

Also I finally GOT MY OWN DREMEL. Well, it's not that brand, but it does the same thing. On Sunday I was going through the ads in the Sunday paper and Harbor Freight Tools, home of the $3 digital voltmeter and the free LED flashlight, had an advertisement insert with a coupon for a $7 "Rotary Tool" set. Well, shoot, I know what that is, and $7 is a hell of a deal!! Even though the Superbowl was going to begin, I took some Ibuprofen so I could function, and then zipped up to grab one of those rotary tool sets.

Now, one thing about HFT is that the item you want usually isn't where you expect to find it. I had to ask an associate and found them up by the registers, hanging on a peg thing. There were 3 of these things left. They had 2 different brand names, but still it was the same tool.

The guy ahead of me for some reason was making a purchase but his credit card wasn't clearing. ARGH. I have only so many minutes of functionality. Let's move on.

I had one of those laughs when I got my purchase in the car. Oddly enough, the first useful thing I did with it was to use an actual Dremel attachment for cutting and opened up the AC Adaptor for our cordless drill's battery charger which stopped working one day last week. So I'll have to figure out if the transformer burned out or the rectifying bridge on it had a silicon diode burn out. WHICH IS ONE MORE REASON WHY I HATE CORDLESS DRILLS. If it was an electric drill, which is what I should have bought in the first place, I'd have no lousy rechargeable batteries to go bad. I have the worst time with rechargeable batteries.

I also noticed that a store in the same plaza with Harbor Freight Tools, something that called itself Village Discount which was a resale shop of almost anything, had gone out of business since the last time I was there almost 2 years ago. That was where I found 2 pieces of china that is exactly like dishes my mom had. I'll have to take a photo and see if Tineye can find something like it so I'll know what the name of the design is.

Geez, I didn't know Time Warner was THAT much higher...

So Time Warner finally included a list of services and prices with the latest bill. Let's see...

I pay about $10 LESS than their "Standard Service" because of DirecTV. If you consider their Digital Tier and then DVR, then I pay $30 less. I can't miss features I don't have. I can only wonder how much I'd be saving with Dish Network.

Digital Phone from them is $50 a month for unlimited nationwide. I pay HALF that with my land-line phone. I also don't pay for long distance I don't use because I'd probably use the Tracphone for that, but I rarely call long distance out of state. So far, my savings is about $50 according to the rates on this card. I can do without certain features in order to save $50 a month, $600 a year.

However, it might be worth paying an extra $13 for a faster Road Runner. That is until the Evil Cable Company decides to arbitrarily raise rates again because a yacht payment is coming up..

I had no idea Time Warner was that much more than DirecTV  + traditional landline phone. Geez. It doesn't make sense to get it to me. I also think that's why people get things like Vonage instread of Time Warner digital phone service. I'd want my services on separate bills, but I don't like having all my serviced dependent on a single wire. TV, Phone, and Road Runner right now are on separate wires, and that redundancy is preferable.

EXPLAIN THIS.

Sometimes I see a commercial I don't understand. It's a recent McDonald's commercial. Guys sitting around some bench, likely on their lunch break, playing poker and eating. One guy says he's got to pick someone for shipping supervisor (or something). One guy surveys his lunch (from McDonald's), sees his hand has 4 Queens and some other card, thinks a few things, and then folds, saying "I got nothing." What just happened? I don't understand this commercial at all. What am I supposed to get from this commercial?

Is he folding because he wants to eat his lunch? Does he not want the supervisor position? I really don't know. Have I seen the short version of this? Maybe they have a longer version that explains it.

I also should gather together more stupid commercials that really bother me. Such as: MaxTall shoe inserts that are supposed to make you look taller for some reason. That Gyrobowl commercial where you see some kid flip his hand around wildly. Why does he do that? And then you see some other kid trying to skateboard while holding that bowl in one hand. Isn't that dangerous? And then that thing claiming a familiar style of cheap amber lensed sunglasses is "HD". No, SunGlasses Are Not HD You Stupid People. Why do you keep trying to sell them? And why does Breathe Right need to say that their product that sticks to most people's noses is "drug free"? I don't get it. They don't advertise "Band-Aids" as drug free and they could be stuck on your nose. They do have a variety that has something on the pad, but they don't draw attention to the ones that don't have anything on them.

I say it sticks to most people's noses because I'm sure it won't stick to mine. Draw whatever conclusions you want from that.

Some commercials annoy because of the music they use. Usually it annoys me when it plays too many times during the day.

Grammar ignorance that annoys me

There's a number of grammar ignorance errors that I see on the web that really annoys me. Let me offer some examples:

1. "should of" - OK, what you are saying actually is the contraction of "should have" and that's "should've". You are NOT saying "should of", you are saying "should've".

2. Take and Bring - These verbs are used wrong A LOT. You take medicine, you take things with you, but you bring it when you when someone asks you to bring it. You don't bring back it to the store, you're taking it back to the store. When you're away going somewhere else, other people ask you to bring something with you. While you're doing that, you're taking it with you.

3. Than and Then - 3 Is More Than 1. Then you'd write it 3>1.

4. How to Use Only.

5. Apostrophe S - It's sad when people get this one wrong. Plurals don't need an apostrophe. People even get the possessive "its" confused for the contraction "it's" which means "it is." I really hate seeing plurals that use an apostrophe.
 
6. Using "revital" (which isn't a word) when they mean Rejuvenate or Renew.

7. "Even know" when you mean "Even Though."

8. Your and You're - It's just 2 more characters. Type Them. One means "You are". The other is 2nd person possessive.


The other thing that annoys me, aside from grammar ignorance, is people who don't know where to pull up at a traffic light. There's a white painted bar on the road that shows you where to stop at the red light. You do not stop behind the vehicle detector loop, but instead on top of it at least. But get that front bumper (or even your front tires) on that white bar. And a green light during a left turn (this is known as an unguarded left turn) means progress into the intersection and wait until it's clear. If this means waiting until the light turns red again for traffic to clear, so be it.

It never fails

Ok, so Cooking Channel is running Anthony Bourdain's first travelling chef TV show, A Cook's Tour again, and now once again they promise they're going to air his first episode, A Taste of Tokyo. I waited for Dining with Geishas last time I noticed they were running his first foray into food TV (he later went on to No Reservations, a much better show) and Cooking Channel didn't even run it. I think I got on their case, asking when my TV provider and they would be getting on the same page. Last night it finally happened. I've been waiting to get Bourdain's 2 Japan episodes of A Cook's Tour on tape when I found out about that show.

However, I've had mom's VCR sitting atop the TV on a couple stacks of DVDs since I had it recording The Playboy Club (all 3 aired episodes of it) and was trying to remember to get the new Winx Club episodes Nickelodeon was running.


I hadn't used the VCR in a while, so it really increased my anxiety level when I dump a tape in it and it's making an odd noise. I get the cover off and there's something about the spinning video head on the underside hitting something when it's spinning. I make an analysis and determine the way I had it sitting on the DVD stacks somehow pushed on the wrong spot and flexed it just enough to make the VCR now sound like a film projector when the video head is in action.

It doesn't seem to be affecting recording or playback much if at all, but it's annoying to know this noise is going to be heard when it's playing or recording a tape. I've tried removing the bottom metal plate but I can't find the last screw to get it off. The best I can hope for is to wedge things between that plate and the plastic casing and hope it unflexes back the way it's supposed to be.

It's a decent Panasonic model VCR. If I had to replace it, I'd want the same exact model.

Oh - I did tape that episode in spite of the annoying noise. I did some tinkering and got it to abate somewhat, so this condition appears to be temporary.

Sometimes you don't want to really get info, just a good answer.

Does anyone else get this?

OK, what I'm about to describe will have some people think I'm crazy.

Every now and then, I'll get to listening to some audio and if it has a certain quality in it, I find that my right ear or eardrum twitches while listening to it. And I can get it to stop with only 2 methods: stop listening or plug my left ear. I don't know if it's got something in the audio spectrum that makes my right ear twitch, but I find this annoying. Plugging my left ear stops it for some reason.

Tell me I'm not crazy.