Saturday, 29th of March, 2003
"She was the lead in Swan Lake."
Joe: "Was she the swan, or the lake?"
Thursday, 27th of March, 2003
I discovered my camera is completely dead today, so I'm limited in the pictures I can put up as of now, but I've got the page up for the new 2000 Acura Integra that Joe bought me.
Wednesday, 19th of March, 2003
"Americans should not imagine that they will have a safe spot inside the land of Iraq or outside it." - Saddam Hussein
War. My definition of war: "A temporary hardship endured to alleviate a much greater future suffering." My other definition of war. "A tool used by some to inflict suffering on others."
Tuesday, 18th of March, 2003
I've decided that I'm only going to use Waterway for car washes from now one. It appears I can't find an automated car wash in town that will also do the undercarriage anymore for less than $8. And then it has to come with all that tri-color coating stuff that makes your windshield streak in light rain. Useless. And nothing beats hand drying, because it definitely rained here and the car still looks better than it did after I got out of an automated wash. And Waterway vaccuums too... all for $8.99 plus $3.50 for the undercarriage.
Friday, 14th of March, 2003
From the Wash U Police Beat:
Sunday, March 9
9:41 a.m., FIRE, MILLBROOK #3--A student plugged in an electric teapot, but then put the teapot on an electric burner and turned the burner on. Stove was damaged by melting plastic, room filled with smoke. Clayton FD ventilated the room, no damage to anything but the stove. Facilities was notified.
Friday, 7th of March, 2003
So I walk into the Radio Shack on the Olive Blvd, looking for a hands free speakerphone kit for my Nokia 3360. The saga continues - I've tried 3 different devices already. The first was one that my uncle gave me from Taiwan, and it's completely dead, won't power on. The second one I got for $10 at Wal-mart, an amazing price, but when I power it up it just gives me a loud screeching noise. I still have it, cause I lost the receipt and the price has been lowered to $5, so I might as well keep it. The third unit, also from Walmart, was $20, and it's also dead on power up. That one got returned yesterday. Nokia/Cingular want $100 for one, and it doesn't even have an external microphone - it uses the phone's microphone.
So I'm at Radio Shack now, because yet another model at Walmart was $49, and I didn't want to try that without shopping around a little first. They all looked the same, and were about $30, but the one for Nokia phones was $60, and the Radio Shack salesperson couldn't even figure out which one would work for my phone, or which was was on "clearance" for $30. They tell me to go up to Overland Plaza, which has a better stock, so I go up there, to discover they have what I want and more. It's a speakerphone and charger, with an external microphone. It was labeled for $30 and said "50% off clearance" so I figured that was the price, but upon paying for it it turns out to be $15. Well that's sweet. You can't even buy a charger for the Nokia for $15.
Thursday, 6th of March, 2003
Aha! Now I know how Clayton manages to enforce the 2-hour parking rule out on Wydown Blvd in front of the South 40. I saw a little "Interceptor" parking enforcement kart driving along with this long stick with a white paint roller at the end of it. The parking enforcement official drives 10 mph along the street and nabs the back of each car's left rear tyre with it, making a white slash mark. I guess he comes back in 2 hours and tickets whoever is still there. Pretty good system.
Wednesday, 5th of March, 2003
So I'm trying to install Windows 98 on this new 120GB hard drive in a Compaq Presario 4550. Compaqs have way too many quirks. First, the positive thing is that Windows 98 is able to recognize all 120GB. The bad thing is, Windows 98 won't talk to the ZIP 100 drive properly. It think it's a 88MB partition that is unreadable, and then makes it the C: drive, and the hard drive as D: drive. That makes Window setup very interesting, since it simply won't do it. So I unplug the ZIP drive, and set the CD-ROM, which was set on slave on that same channel, to master. The CD-ROM refuses to read anything as a master of a bus! I had to then plug it in as a slave to the hard drive's IDE channel. I don't know what kind of strange hardware Compaq uses, but this is not the first Compaq I've noticed where the CD-ROM refuses to be master of a channel. And the ZIP drive thing is just plain strange.
Tuesday, 4th of March, 2003
From Road and Track: "Many automotive gauges are now electronically damped. For example, the needle on a temperature gauge rises to the one-third mark or so, then jumps to center - and stays there unless the actual temperature warrants perhaps two-thirds of its maximum reading. Said another way, everything is fine when all the needles stay at mid-scale. A reason for this is to avoid nitty owners comparing gauge readings and making irrelevant service complaints: "My neighbor's car has more oil pressure than mine...."" Makes sense. No wonder the temperature gauge is always at the same place in my Subaru regardless if I've been traveling 3 miles or 300 miles. Though that "dummy" level did increase just a tad at one point last week, and now it's "stabilizing" at a slightly higher level.
Monday, 3rd of March, 2003
Sunday, 2nd of March, 2003
Seen on a fast car: 
Wow! Mazda is letting us thrash around their new 6 on an autocross course for only $39 here in St. Louis! It's the Mazda Rev It Up! Includes some driving instruction too - this is one heck of a deal for anyone who likes cars!
Saturday, 1st of March, 2003
It seems like it's been snowing all week - I think it has. It's pretty awesome, too - last night it just dumped snow and I literally saw 2 inches of snow accumulate on a 30 minute drive.
I also managed to work on a computer today that has been the victim of a power supply failure. Apparantly it made a loud "pop!" and then the fans sped up - sounds like the voltage got really messed up after that. The damage? Dead motherboard, 2 big Maxtor HDDs, a GeForce4 video card, and a 1.6Ghz Athlon that only posts with a 200Mhz FSB, so now a 1.25Ghz. Ouch.
