Beside the tire rack, your local Discount Tire may also have cheap alternatives which are acceptable (YMMV -- rimshot).  Folks out here in the flyover states are pretty happy with their product line and especially pricing.

The nearest one to me is in Ohio. Their web store doesn't beat Tire Rack.

What kind of Miata do you have?  If it's a sporty one, there's undoubtedly a big online community.  You'll probably be able to find someone in your area who's upgraded their spoiler to an aftermarket one and has the old one for sale.  You'll probably also be able to find someone that removed the skirt piece under the intercooler to make room for their own aftermarket intercooler.

That's a really good point. I haven't been on the Miata.net forums in a long time. Maybe it's time to go back. I have a 2004 Mazdaspeed MX-5. Only 6,000 of those were manufactured in '04, and only 2,400 of those were in Velocity Red.

Today my Miata went into the dealership for its 3,000 mile oil change. It's the first service in nearly a year, so I asked them about a short list of miscellaneous things. The car is four years old, just paid off this month, and has 20,000 miles.

The oil change
New batteries for my remote entry flinkers
Repair or remove a plastic part hanging down under the intercooler
State inspection sticker
Replace broken rear spoiler

The car has very low ground clearance, so the plastic strut that's hanging down is just a couple of inches off the road. If I don't remove it, it will eventually remove itself. It's just a strip of plastic that's ordinarily bolted to the undercarriage at three points. The center bolt sheared off, causing the strip to sag in the middle. This "skirt piece" turns out to be worth $212.

Two of my tires have sidewall damage from curb encounters. One gouge is deep enough to fail the inspection; the other is minor. Although these Toyos have only about 15,000 miles on them and their tread is fine, one really should be replaced. And since they're directional tires, that means two need to be replaced, and the two (good) left tires have to be reconfigured as rear tires. The cost to buy two new Toyos, swap the (directional) tires around so that they're properly paired, balance and align, is $529. 

Last fall I came out of a local bar to discover that some drunk had ripped the rear spoiler off my trunk -- who knows why? He succeeded in breaking off about six inches of the left side. It's just a cosmetic thing, but it bugs me. I figured that I would replace it once the car was finally paid off. So today I discovered that to have the dealer replace a "lip spoler" with a genuine Mazda part will run me a cool $1234.

Altogether, they would have liked to charge me $1,975 more than the $43 that I paid for an oil change and flinker batteries. 

So here's how I think I'm going to deal with it. The plastic skirt piece looks entirely expendable to me. I'm going to crawl under the car this afternoon and see if I can repair it myself. If I can't, I'm just going to remove it. The service guy said it's my "first line of defense" against road hazards. For $212, I'm willing to fall back on the second line of defense. Actual cost to me: $0.

To get through inspection, I'm going to re-mount two of my winter wheels. As soon as I get my sticker I'll put the summer wheels back on. Long term, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. The Toyos are high-performance directional tires, and my Speed has a fine-tuned suspension. If I mix tire brands, the new ones must be very much like the original tires or the ride will suffer noticeably. Tire Rack's price on OEM tires is $179 each, vs. $152 from the dealer. I could get cheap new skins all around, but four cheap tires would end up costing about the same as two expensive ones when you figure in mounting, balance, and alignment. I might see what the neighborhood Firestone store can do. I doubt that I'm going to be able to replace those damaged tires for very much less than the dealer's quote. Actual cost to me: $0 up front, unknown over the longer term. I might end up letting the dealer go ahead with OEM tires. I probably won't do anything about it right away. OTOH, I'm supposed to be getting my government stimulus check on Friday. Much as I'd hate to spend $529 of my $600 on tires, that might just be my best option.

I'm going to price replacement spoilers at a couple of body shops. There must be aftermarket parts that are a lot cheaper than the genuine Mazda retail price. It's just a big piece of moulded plastic, after all. My car's an unusual color (mica red), so painting to match might be a little tricky. I had budgeted $500 for a new spoiler. If I can't find one for close to that, I'll file an insurance claim and get one for the $500 deductible. It's not insurance fraud -- the car really was vandalized -- but I'd have to be vague about the date, if not lie openly. Would the insurance company want a police report? The bar where it happened might have security cameras that don't back me up. I would much rather skip the insurance angle if I can find one reasonably close to my $500 budget. Actual cost to me: $0 right now, unknown over the longer term. Maybe I just keep living with a broken spoiler.

Oh man, tomorrow's Boston Globe is going to be four inches thick with Kennedy news, gossip, rumors, speculation, photopacks, and medical stories. This is huge news here. 76-year-old man has cancer! 

Today we received the letter telling us that our check will arrive on Friday. Soon I must decide how I'm going to deploy my half.

I think it's supposed to have a lot of Monty Python references.

Wow. My yard barely meets minimum community standards. My resources go into my vegetable garden.

I have a small garden that my neighbor is always after me to expand.  I would but my energy has been sucked up into landscaping.  I ripped up sod yesterday to put in a Golden Curls Corkscrew Willow and now my shoulders are trashed.  I got swimmer's shoulder years ago and they just haven't been the same since.  As a result, I have to spread this kind of work out.  To expand my garden, I'd have to rip up sod so I will probably put it off until next year. 

There is only so much time and money. Landscaping will pay off in satisfaction over the long term while helping your property value. Vegetable gardening is cyclical, with a short-term payoff.

This thread motivated me to go out today and hoe all but the back 6' of the garden. That back strip is full of chives that are going to take considerable digging to get rid of. Then I mowed the lawn for the first time this year and spread the grass clippings over my newly weeded garden plot. I'm not going to bother roto-tilling this year, so it's basically ready for planting now.

Today's newspaper informed me that my town is offering rain barrels made from recycled plastic chemical drums. I can pay $65 for a barrel that's ready to use, or get a barrel plus conversion instructions for free. I'm thinking about getting one finished and one raw. We have obscenely high water rates for an area where clean water is abundant (thanks, Michael Dukakis, for screwing up federal funds for the cleanup of Boston Harbor). I'm sure that a $65 barrel will pay for itself in one or two seasons.

Last week we had our old, rotted back porch replaced and slightly expanded. Besides getting my vegetables in, I need to do some very rudimentary landscaping with flagstones and grass seed, and possibly add a flower bed if I feel real ambitious. I need to re-mount our weather station monitor, and eventually paint the new porch. 

It's times like this that I'm glad I'm self-employed. This week is likely to be slow, so I can easily make a few hours for gardening and yard work.

Apparently his prognosis is good. Didn't stop the Globe from devoting most of their front section to it today, though. When a Kennedy sneezes, it leads the news here.

Maybe we can un-ban some old users. Bygones being bygones, and all. U2K, welcome back! Derek, dude! CeeKay, how you been?

errr... never been banned, or even temp banned.  Austin loves the massages I give too much to tick me off.

Sorry, I should've put a winky face there.

Ironrod, I'm really stoked about trying some of the heirloom tomato varieties I found at the local greenhouse.  Have you messed with any of these? What variety are you growing?

I planted seeds for Costoluto Genovese, a big Italian slicing tomato; San Marzano, a firm-fleshed Italian plum tomato grown for saucing (we preserve tomatoes in the fall...I'm still cooking with tomatoes from last year's garden); and some Ladybug cherry tomatoes. Only one variety came up, and my markers got wet and became unreadable...so I'm not sure what variety I'm growing! I think (hope) that it's the Costoluto. I never have very much luck at growing from seed (basil plants being the exception this year). Next week I'll go to the garden center and buy a couple of flats of plain old Better Boys and Jet Stars. Boring, but dependable.

They're trying to put a happy face on it, but our senior senator is 76 years old and in ill health. In Massachusetts, this is like a Pope dying. What's John Kerry going to do when his master's voice is stilled?

Wow. My yard barely meets minimum community standards. My resources go into my vegetable garden.

I moved my seedlings outdoors today to start hardening them off. I started a few tomato plants and way too many basil plants from seed this year. Next weekend I will buy tomato and pepper plants (I might need to replant oregano and thyme this year, too). I'll hoe up the weeds, then give the lawn its first mowing and use the grass for mulch. The following weekend I'll put my plants into the ground. Then I'll plant bean and squash seeds. A little bit of coddling over the next few months will pay off in bushels of fresh veggies.

Spring planting is such an act of optimism....

Maybe we can un-ban some old users. Bygones being bygones, and all. U2K, welcome back! Derek, dude! CeeKay, how you been?

Wireless home network. My personal computer is a desktop machine named Neo2003. My work machine is a laptop named Kraken-dell2006. There's also a wireless printer and my wife's laptop, neither of which appear in My Network Places. But that's irrelevant except by way of saying that I don't want to nuke the whole network and start over.

Neo's My Network Places shows:

"Documents on Ken's Desktop (Neo2003) --  \\NEO2003\Documents --  This Computer  -- Local Network"
"SharedDocs on Kraken Enterprises Inspiron 2006 -- \\KRAKEN-DELL2006\SharedDocs -- Kraken Enterprises Inspiron 2006 -- The Internet"

Kraken's My Network Places shows:

"Documents on Ken's desktop (Neo2003) -- \\NEO2003\Documents -- Ken's Desktop (Neo2003) -- The Internet
"Documents on Kraken Enterprises Inspiron 2006 -- \\KRAKEN-DELL2006\Documents -- This Computer -- Local Network"
"SharedDocs on Kraken Enterprises Inspiron 2006 -- \\KRAKEN-DELL2006\SharedDocs -- This Computer -- Local Network"

I had always backed up files from Kraken to Neo, until one night Kraken could no longer write to Neo. When I try to open Neo's documents folder from Kraken, I get an error message: "\\NEO2003\Documents is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server (that's me!) to find out if you have access permissions. Not enough server storage is available to process this command." The documents folder on Neo is set up for sharing, the Windows firewall is fine with that, etc. Neo can open either of Kraken's documents folders (which look identical) without problems.

This started after I did a lot of disk cleanup using Revo Uninstaller and throwing away temp files. I'm guessing that I somehow pooched or deleted my SharedDocs folder on Kraken. I can see "Shared Documents" in Neo's My Computer, but when Kraken tries to browse for that folder, it only sees "Documents", not "SharedDocs". 

So. How do I fix this?

At this point, we're still waiting for the keg of Magic Hat to be delivered, which enables our launch party, and is why there has been no further update.

Mortoned.

It usually just means that it's time to pay a trained mechanic to turn off the check engine light.

How is it that women seem to be unable to leave a shelf/table/counter/flat surface uncovered for any length of time?

Lamp, vase, jar, bowl, statue, etc etc etc

It's like an open space offends them

With all elevated surfaces permanently covered in clutter, the floor becomes the largest shelf in our house. It is an ever-shifting minefield of boxes and bags filled with semi-random possessions, pausing briefly in their mysterious migration from one place to another. 

I'm the minimalist in our family. She's the packrat. I'm the plant guy, though.

Looks intriguing, but there isn't a whole lot of info on the developer's site. I gather from the review that it's limited to the 2008 election, with a few alternate scenarios and a handful of historical figures. Can you adjust various social conditions? news events? I'm curious about the extent to which it's a current election simulator, vs. a more open and configurable game.

I haven't played an election game since President Elect (?) many years ago. That one was basically a glorified spreadsheet, but it had lots and lots of historical options. I played a lot of hotseat games with a friend -- it predated the internet -- and it had great replayability. This one seems more stuck in time. 

Carpe diem: Ellen Degeneris is marrying Portia DeRossi. How can anybody be against that?

Well, no Twilight for me till I hear that this is fixed. I like games on very large maps and this would ruin it for me.

+1. I can't buy it until I get my gubmint stimulus check anyway. I hope Stardock will have it patched by then.

The Rifleman did it with one hand.


By Kraken57

Leave Your Child At Work Day

Scary thought is -- will people eventually be reminiscing about how good Bush was one day?

Don't rule it out. During Reagan's presidency, (liberal) popular opinion regarded him as a warmongering simpleton who napped through his presidency. That's not how history ultimately sized him up, though. Bush's legacy will depend on the ultimate outcome in Iraq, which we probably won't know for at least another decade.

Back to Obama...I wonder if Edwards would accept the VP slot? He owns the anti-poverty, blue-collar, populist turf that Hillary is exploiting now, and could be a good counter to Obama's elitism. It would certainly sway my vote.

Would your wives have been ok with it if you didn't want to get married? If marriage was simply a formalized showing of commitment then it stands to reason that she would be ok with not going through with that in order to keep the realationship.

Yes. We had already lived together for four years, and I had always said that I wasn't the marrying type, and (especially since neither of us wanted kids) she was fine with that. She was wary of committing, too. I can't even explain what changed our minds.

Would we have stayed together for 25 years without the formality of a marriage contract? That's hard to say. We've been through some hard times that might have split us up, had it been easy to do without consequences. I do think marriage provided a little extra "glue" during those times.

Two reasons: First, we were sure that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We wanted to say that formally in front of everyone we knew, and throw an epic party.

Second, we wanted the tax and legal benefits. 

We agreed that ours was a trial marriage. On every anniversary, we would decide whether to re-up for another year. We'll be doing that for the 25th time in August. Right now I'm leaning toward keeping her again.

It does make me sad that ATB thinks there's nothing admirable he can find in Hillary Clinton - there's things I don't like about her pandering (flag-burning amendments?  argh!), and her close coupling with lobbyists, but she's a senator who has worked hard to bring resources to New York post 9/11, she cares deeply about the health care crisis that tens of millions of Americans suffer through, and she's the first credible female candidate for president that we've had in this country.  There's nothing admirable in those things?

Well put. Had Obama not entered the race, a good number of the forum liberals would be Hillary enthusiasts right now. Just a few short years ago they (you) thought that Bill Clinton was one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century -- it's astonishing how quickly his stock fell. Most of the Hillary hatred comes from her opposing Obama...which is a shame or her, really. It was supposed to be her turn at bat. I see her as a tragic figure.

Not that I like any of the choices at this early stage of the general election runup.

I doubt watching these will change people's minds about him, for the most part, but it will show how most of his comments aren't really all that crazy. His AIDS thing, while he said "people have said that the US Government could have created AIDS" (and I paraphrase), it is still pretty out there.

Given that the CIA probably introduced crack cocaine to the LA ghettos to finance Reagan's beloved Contras, one can see how such an allegation gains traction. Not that I have ever seen any evidence for the AIDS accusation.

When Gerald Ford told Americans to report for swine flu shots in 1976, I was first in line. I assumed the government was vaccinating citizens against a new US biological warfare agent. Tinfoil hats were not completely unreasonable attire during the Cold War.

The Bride of Ironrod would not give me permission to ask her father's permission. It was un-feminist. She didn't let him "give her away", either. Since we had been living in sin for four years by that time, I don't think this rocked his little world too hard.

I read elsewhere that he is anti-abortion. I would like to know how he reconciles that with libertarianism.

Some Libertarians feel that the "baby's" life/rights trumps the mother's.

Thanks for the link. I don't agree with their premise, but at least now I can understand how big-L Libertarians can take a position so directly contradictory to small-l libertarianism.

Our reasoning is expressly scientific and philosophical rather than either pragmatic or religious, or merely political or emotional. 

Then they lay out a six-point argument that is entirely religious and emotional, with no scientific grounding whatsoever. I will probably not be voting Libertarian unless Bob Barr explicitly supports abortion rights. Too bad; the Libs have been my go-to alternative for the past five or six elections.

Id have to disagree with you on at least their first point, its a biological fact that human life begins at conception.   That can be shown scientifically or in any other way you choose.

Their policy statement ascribes personhood to a fertilized egg cell. That is entirely an article of faith, outside the scope of science. I'm not going to step through the entire abortion debate here, as that can only go round in circles. But when Point 1 of a six-point policy statement is fallacious, the ensuing points are moot.

It's a supernova remnant (which I presume means a neutron star, gas sphere, and shock wave). Seeing one so young is almost like witnessing a supernova in real time.

Certainly the kind of news only an astronomer will love. I don't understand why NASA gave this a week-long buildup. Bad PR, guys.

I read elsewhere that he is anti-abortion. I would like to know how he reconciles that with libertarianism.

Some Libertarians feel that the "baby's" life/rights trumps the mother's.

Thanks for the link. I don't agree with their premise, but at least now I can understand how big-L Libertarians can take a position so directly contradictory to small-l libertarianism.

Our reasoning is expressly scientific and philosophical rather than either pragmatic or religious, or merely political or emotional. 

Then they lay out a six-point argument that is entirely religious and emotional, with no scientific grounding whatsoever. I will probably not be voting Libertarian unless Bob Barr explicitly supports abortion rights. Too bad; the Libs have been my go-to alternative for the past five or six elections.

I read elsewhere that he is anti-abortion. I would like to know how he reconciles that with libertarianism.

You should see a brief wave of discounting right before Fathers Day. After that, there is nothing on the retail calendar that would encourage serious sales on TVs until Thanksgiving. The price cycle bottoms out in January, when stores are taking inventory, annual model changes are under way, and the super bowl is coming up. I'd be pretty surprised to see major price cutting before then.   

The Bride of Ironrod has a perpetual calendar in her brain. She remembers everybody's birthdays and anniversaries. She starts counting hers down at least 11 months before it comes around. It is not possible for me to ever forget. This August will bring our 25th anniversary. She has been talking about it for at least three years now, spinning plans for celebrations that we can't begin to afford. By July she will be mentioning it daily. Within a month after it passes, she'll start planning our 30th.

(and thanks Ironrod for perhaps the most spectacularly cynical viewpoint of children I've ever heard!)

I am not worthy. There's a scene in Gormenghast when the newborn prince Titus's wet nurse is presenting the new baby to his mother the Queen for the first time. She looks him over coldly, then waves her hand and says "Bring him back when he's six." Now that is spectacularly cynical.

Plus - if China wants to score a media coup they'll help with any of those efforts or look to lead efforts to do so.

China's got its own problems now. 12,000 dead and still counting.

The quake was China's deadliest since 1976, when 240,000 people were killed in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing in 1976.

After that one occurred, the Communists tried to deny/downplay casualty reports. So that's progress, I suppose.

At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong answer about having kids.

Aye, that is the crux of the biscuit. I'm not trying to make anyone regret having kids. More power to you. Somebody has to pay my social security. Better your kids than the Chinese.

Won't you be lonely as a 50, 60 or older man?  Do you really think you'll still care about all the distractions and diversions that us young folks love so much at that stage of your life?  When your parents are gone and your siblings are busy with their own lives and families, what then?  In my opinion, deciding not to have children because you enjoy the life you have now as a 20 or 30 something can be very short sighted.  I've spoken to several single older men and older couples who live on modest incomes and can't live exotic lifestyles anymore, and most live sad, lonely lives.

At 51, my wife and I are happy with our choice. Not having dependents gave us freedom to take risks, because it gave us the freedom to fail. We have lived, and continue to live, odd and unconventional lives -- within normal parameters, but irresponsible by parental standards. 

I said earlier that I sometimes wish I had an adult child. That's the stage that most of my breeding friends are entering now. Their children are ascending just as they begin to descend. The 25 years of misery (from my perspective) are behind them, and it's payback time. There's no guarantee that your children will take care of you in your dotage, of course, and that would be a selfish reason to have children. But having no young people beholden to us will catch up with us eventually. The Bride and I depend very much upon one another, and one of us is bound to break down first.

We are having interesting and fulfilling lives in the meantime, and we're OK with the late-life insecurity it will probably cause. I would not trade the life I'm having for the one that I might have defaulted to had I not met the Bride of Ironrod.

Wait... Donnie Darko as a play?

I <3 American Repertory Theater. Seeing Sparkle Motion performed by cute college coeds is just plain disturbing.



Click the link for more pics.

I'm not sure how it would effect the election since Bush isn't running in November.  That being said Micheal Moore did his best to keep Bush out of the White House in 2004 and it didn't work.

I immediately thought of Michael Moore. I seriously doubt that his self-centered, obvious agenda movies have very much impact beyond the choir that goes to hear him preach. Oliver Stone might work on a bigger scale, but I think the same principle applies. He's unlikely to change very many people's opinions of George W Bush, and even that will have only an indirect effect on John McCain's prospects.

If there weren't rubbers, the shot, the pill, etc., whether or not you have children probably wouldn't be a choice for you at all.

Abortion has been around since at least Roman times, and probably since prehistory. Condoms go back much farther than latex does. Infanticide has often been institutionalized in various ways. There is always a safety valve. But you're right; it would be a lot harder to remain child-free...The Pill was a huge social revolution.