Entertainment

I previously wrote about how much I like wild rides, and my friend Mike was kind enough to take me out for a fun ride in his newly rebuilt ’72 Nova hot rod this morning. And by rebuilt I mean the engine has been transformed to a monster, as in “It’s aliiiiiiive!!“. The engine’s displacement is 496 cubic inches and horsepower has been estimated at 700 BHP. When started it often sets off car alarms and scares any nearby kids and elderly. When being built I nicknamed it “The Big Dig” (from boring out the cylinders), and it is now known as “Brutus Maximus”. It was a lot of fun to ride in, when he put the pedal down it was like a speedboat taking off as it reared up trying to pop a wheely. I noticed there were some hand prints on the dash from previous riders holding on! The prints weren’t from my hands but Mike says I was holding on to the seat pretty tightly ;).

I wrote about some of the old rides at Disneyland a couple of years ago. What I hadn’t realized that the classic “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” had been closed at Walt Disney World in Florida back in 1998. That was one of my favorite rides as a kid and it was unique in the Disney World version in that it had two different tracks, each track giving a different experience (same as Space Mountain). The ride is still available in California, but it is only on one track.

This is an update on the XM Satellite Radio that I wrote about earlier. I was able to improve the installation in the Matrix by adding a bracket that mounts it to the right of the radio and angles it toward the driver. Also, I wired the power inside the dash so I wouldn’t have to keep using those bulky power plugs. The Sony dash unit was useful in that it has an Aux input that allows the signal to go straight from the XM Radio into the Sony unit. The direct connection is definitely an improvement over going through the FM receiver. Below is a picture of the XM radio in the cradle and hooked up to the Sony:

There’s been an interesting trend lately to turn any adverse publicity into an opportunity to absolve oneself from responsibility by entering into a rehab program. Historically that was limited to drug or alcohol use, but lately rehab has been a “cure-all” for public relations disasters such as rants about ethnicity (Gibson) or sexual-orientation (the guy from “Grey’s Anatomy”). Of course there is still the usual parade of Hollywood stars going to rehab for the classic reasons. The funny thing is that those rehab centers such as WonderLand look better than the nicest spas and let the stars go out running around during the course of their stay (Lohan). The fix is more directed towards the rehabilitation of the image of the star, evangelist, or sports player rather than fixing the actual problem. Maybe after the next Super Bowl they’ll say “I’m going to Wonderland!” instead of Disneyland.

Cheryl gave me an XM Satellite Radio player for my birthday and it’s been one of those gifts that keep on giving. It was pretty easy to install in the car, the only trouble was running the wire from the antenna (placed on the roof near the back hatch) to the dash area. It has quite a few news, sports, and talk stations but I was mainly interested in it for the music and it thankfully that makes up the majority of the stations. The last thing I want to hear is some blowhard like Limbaugh giving his force-fed opinions to a bunch of ditto-heads or Stern salivating over the latest bimbo.

I remember going to Disneyland with the family in the early 60′s. We had a lot of fun – the old mine train ride that went (slowly) around the desert area with geysers and then went through the cave – and the classic jungle boat ride with the corny jokes told by the “captain”. The park was only a few years old at the time and it’s now celebrating it’s 50th year in operation.

We experienced something yesterday that was reminiscent of that old song from the 80′s, “Who Can it Be Now?”. We heard this subtle noise at the door and thought somebody might be knocking. We went to the door and were surprised to find it was Sherlock, the golden retriever from across the street.

He was waiting patiently at the door, wanting to visit and to get a treat. You have to be careful giving him a treat, though, as he gets pretty eager.

I was thinking about Harry Chapin the other day. It was because Diane said something about Dayton, Ohio and it made me think about Harry’s Mr. Tanner song (Mr. Tanner was a clothes cleaner from Dayton who aspired to be a singer). Harry was quite a guy and I had the pleasure of seeing him give a concert a few years before he died. He had a strong spirit for life and worked tirelessly to improve the plight of others. Unfortunately he died in 1981 in a fiery car accident.