Out of the club

Well I tried but I just can't hack it as a redneck. My duct tape solution doesn't work. The glove box door is too heavy and after a few hours it just opens. Oh well - i think i will shove the registration in the visor and clean out the box and just leave it open.... doesn't much matter to me. As long as the radio still works.

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My home "theater" speaker count

1998 - 2
1999 - 8
2003 - 6
2005 - 4
2006 - 0


Its been a sad, steady decline in the number of external speakers in my setup. The final straw happened this past weekend when our tv died and we had to get a new one. With the cruise coming up and my parents being here with the kids, I decided that I would drop the whole receiver unit and speakers. All in the name of KISS'ing it (Keep it simple, stupid). The main issue with the old setup was that when you wanted to go from watching Thomas the Tank Engine on TiVo to watching a Baby Einstein movie on DVD, you had to tell both the TV and the receiver to switch sources.

We bought a universal remote and programmed the macros so that it would be a two button operation, but the trick is that you have to hold the controller just right so that all the components receive the signals or else you will end up in a state where nothing works. So now we have a simple setup where you can actually change everything without a remote at all and the volume on the tv is actually the right place to raise and lower the volume.

However, I am always looking towards the future and I am seeing 8 speakers again with an HDMI audio output on the TV running to the receiver and hearing the DD+ sound coming from the Blu-ray DVD no wait .. HD-DVD...

You might be a Redneck...

You might be a redneck, if you use duct tape to hold your car together..

This isn't one of Jeff Foxworthy's quotes.. but it could be. And today I joined the club. Since I was storing a roll of single's in my glove box, ( to eventually pay back the over generous toll booth lady) I had been opening and shutting the glove box often. Until I broke the latch. It won't stay shut at all, not even close. So now I have about 6 pieces of duct tape keeping the glove box shut. I may look for a more elegant solution or I might not. I'm not sure yet. It might elicit some sympathy from a police officer if i get pulled over and I need to get my registration out of my duct tape -shut glove box.

Transportation Tales

I drove into work today and there were many notable occurrences..
Firstly, with my new eyes, I like to see how far back I can read bumper stickers and whatnot on the cars ahead of me. (I'm still trying to convince myself that I can see better now then I could before the surgery.) So I spot a a purple bumper sticker on a Taurus .. I pull closer and read something the effect of "porn name" .. That sparked my interest of course so I get a little closer .. And read "Porn name : Do What Ye Will " They used some old-times font for the name. Why would someone put that on their car ? I mean it doesn't really make sense because I think everyone knows anyway that your porn name is supposed to be your middle name or your first pet and then the name of the street you grew up on... "Do what ye will" does not even fit within the rules. My porn name would be something along the lines of "Barney Verma" , but I dont think i will be putting that on a bumper sticker anytime soon. Oh to top it all off - the sticker wasn't even on the bumper it was on the trunk right next to the "Taurus" label.

Nextly - I was driving down a highway and came up upon a motorcycle.. I hate riding behind motorcycles... because you have to stay so far away but they can move so erratically and stop so quickly. After about a minute behind the guy I realized it was a state policeman.. just like on CHIPs (Ponch was my favorite). That was the first ever Indiana state policeman on a motorcycle I've ever seen or atleast can recall seeing. We were in the turning lane and I was bummed out because I thought the moto-cop was going to get on the interstate with me and severely lengthen my commute time. All of a sudden a big suburban flies across 3 lanes of traffic and cuts the policeman off. The light was red so the cop pulls up along side the truck and starts chatting with him, from my angle I could see the cop was smiling... they spoke for a few minutes and the light turned green but they did not move.. I was just about to start getting irritated but then the cop's smile turned to a grunt and he flipped his lights on directed the truck to pull over. Score !! I do wonder what the guy said.. but I'm glad he said it as I was able to get on the interstate and not have to worry about mr. motorcycle.

Lastly - This happened on Friday night when I was coming home around 10:30 after a late night rendeverous with the as/400 and I was jamming to my favorite Fall Out Boy Song, not realizing i had it soo very very loud. I pull up to the $2.50 toll with my loud music still on and hand the lady a $20, she immediately dropped 50 cents in my hand and turned back into the both to get the rest of the change. After what seemed to be a really long time, she hands me a huge wad of ones and says something, but I can't hear her over the music. At that point I realized how loud it was and put it on pause. She said .. "you must really like that song." and i responded " oh i love it, thanks" and unpaused the music and sped away. After I got home I looked at the wad of ones and it turns out there were 24 of them. Not 17. She gave me 7 extra dollars and now I feel terrible like my loud music threw her off or something.. I put the 7 dollars in my glove box in case I happen across the same toll booth lady, i remember her because she had her hair those really tight braids that seem to be popular nowadays, the receptionist at work said that her daughter wants to get them and it would cost 200 dollars and take about 6 hrs with 2 people working on her head, so anytime I see someone with them I think about how long it must have took.

While reading the only interesting thing in today's paper, the Best Buy ad -- I noticed that the name of my new blog is the same as the new album from Bo Bice. Pure coincidence. While I do admit that American Idol is a spring time ritual, I typically do not like the music that the artists come up with after Idol. The lone exception is Kelly Clarkson. I didn't even do that on purpose, I just found myself singing "Since U Been Gone" along with the radio one day and was enlightened when they said it was Kelly Clarkson of AI fame.

Speaking of American Idol, I am glad that Ace is gone - it was really difficult for me to watch him sing on the show, I felt like he was trying to flirt with me and that just isn't cool.

so i bought a $16 rake today. I broke my martha stewart rake last week and we still have a ton of leaves to dig up out of the backyard. The other rakes at Lowe's were like $4. I was lured by the sticker on the rake.. its said "less work.. more week" and its pretty fancy.. aluminum handle and a wide, "non clogging" tines. Its made by Fiskars. I didn't know they made rakes. I tried the rake this afternoon and was.. disappointed. I'm not sure if the rake wasn't meant to be used to dig out trampled down leaves from within grass or what - but it didn't do a very good job. I think i will try borrowing the neighbors "normal" rake and see if it does better. At this point i think Fiskars should stick to scissors...