Archived News starting from 07-15-2008 and earlier
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With the recent news of
EcoBoost being chosen as the primary short term fuel savings technology for Ford, I'm primed for excitement about potentially owning all-boosted vehicles. The Ranger is already
slated for a 4 cylinder, and now the Mustang SVO
may make a comeback. With my choices made years before their available, it was only natural to snag
EcoBoosted.org and whomp up a forum where I can spew my obsession to an interactive audience. By the time the technology is mainstream, I'll have spewed out enough rants to scare off anyone but the most hardcore, which means it will be
Stavos and I as exclusive members. Engage jealousy now!
Cougarfest 2008, the yearly event I started for 1999-2002 Mercury Cougars ended yesterday. Since it was the 10th such event we named it Cougarfest X to be both eXtreme and Mac OS X compatible. This year it returned to the Indianapolis hotel that tolerated us lighting fireworks off the roof
two years ago. This year was relatively free of illegal activities, focusing instead on
RC car Jumps,
glow golf, and other
things that are funny only when intoxicated. Some
scary shots of EternalOne and
Lisa singing country Karaoke pretty much sum up
the rest of the event.
Today was
open track day at Waterford Hills race track.
Despite the fact that
Leinnintiger was the one who alerted me to the event, he was nowhere to be found the entire day, which made me sad. Fortunately my
neighbor was excited enough to join me instead as his dad works there, and at 10:00am we were off and racing. One of the workers at the event drove me around the track a few times prior to my sessions to point out the best places to enter and apex the turns. It definitely helped me carry my speed along the track all day. I was surprised to find myself passing other cars when I was sure I'd be waving people past all day. I also experienced
brake fade for the first time in my life, and it's definitely a scary experience. Since all 3 of my sessions were just hot laps, there was no timing, so the only measure of how well I was doing was based on who I passed. I was in the mid-level experience group, but I'm sure I just got lucky and started behind the lower experienced racers.
Session 1: Passed Alfa Romeo Milano and a Honda Prelude
Session 2: Passed my neighbor's SVT focus, got passed by a firebird and Sti
Session 2: Passed a Jetta and a Mustang GT (think he was a novice driver).
Also got this
horrible attempt at an on-track video thanks to my lack of any proper camera mounting equipment. Track racing beats AutoCross hands down. Needless to say I'm already signed up for the
next event.
With my illegal Ohio fireworks already expended on previous shenanigans, July 4th was looking grim for entertainment. Fortunately my neighbor was up for a
round of disc golf to pass the time. Afterwards, we discovered the Hamburger Hut on Grand River and Delaware, where we told the waitress our life story while recovering from a drunken stupor. The missing fireworks were replaced with a burning tree, which prompted a trip to the new development for wooden palettes for more fuel to feed the fire. It was then decided wooden palettes make better fires than dead pine trees and
road closed signs.
Excelciers recent acquisition of the new
Ford Sync system, including XM
traffic/
weather, combined with Lisas request for weather/traffic conditions on the way to Chicago made me jealous enough to subscribe. For $59 you get 6 months of data-only service (no music channels) which I was told is the best option for a jew such as myself who enjoys making his wife listen to the same 8GB of MP3s over and over on trips. My
KNA-G510 nav unit overlays the weather/traffic almost as cool as the Sync system, but lacks the gas price comparison screen that shows you the lowest gas price along your route. Lisa was of course ecstatic about the new features, and immediately called her mother to brag. My neighbor was also more excited than usual, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon discussing traffic and weather as you can see on the
GnomeCam. Lisa joined us after she finished telling her mother all about it.
Tonight I looked outside to find my arrogant gay neighbor getting chased by a gang of people from the trailer park. They started yelling at him for driving too fast into the street and almost hitting their kids, which is something he would definitely have done. They then proceeded to chase him around his own yard while he continued to challenge them to a fight. His persistent arrogance in the face of getting thoroughly beaten leads me to believe he's mentally challenged as well. The whole scene was so entertaining I completely forgot to videotape it until the
very last 30 seconds after all the action was over. The GnomeCam only caught my other neighbor and his friend
discussing the aftermath. It looks like Redford finally followed me to my new house. I can only hope it turns out to be at least half as entertaining.
At 10:44am today, you can see
the doppleganger building a pond with
the assistance of Lisas parents, who were completely fooled into thinking it was their daughter. This time
she spent over 8 hours constructing it, exceeding the time Lisa typically spends watching TV. This amount of time
spent on manual labor should squash any skepticism about her abduction. While her parents fell for the fake, I'm still waiting for
it's ultimate purpose to reveal itself, and when it does I hope to at least locate my wife. Once I find out where she is I'm not sure I'll want to rescue her as the doppleganger is growing on me more and more.
The last few storms that travelled through Michigan had a very distinct radar signature. An intense circle of activity, surrounded by a very thin ring of less active rainfall, which was then surrounded by a perfectly clear day. The entire diameter of the storm rarely exceeded 50 miles, which just doesn't add up to natural occurrence three times in a row. My first thought was terrorists, but while cruising the tin foil hat scene, I found
HAARP, then the
HAARP conspiracy site which you'll notice uses a javascript dissolve effect, lending credit to it's authority. I'm now convinced this is what's causing the weaponized hyper-focused storms, and Alaska is simply checking off city targets as they roll through, performing final testing of the system. The take away is, if you lose power from a storm, send a bill to HAARP, they should get you taken care of.
The high class city that is Redford, MI decided keeping grass under 6 inches would significantly affect home values. Never mind the inoperable vehicles spotting yards, 400lb shirt less hillbillies holding beers, or various police standoffs, the key to saving the city is keeping the grass under 6 inches. They recently started ticketing violators and since my house is next to someone who never mows their yard, I was chosen for the ticket since I pay my taxes and have not foreclosed on my house. A side benefit of this rule is a quick $75 from homeowners who don't want to bother fighting it, but after having the building department "lose" my furnace inspection certificate and subsequently attempt to fine me for non compliance, I was not about to give in to another attempt at extortion. Fortunately I wasn't the only one who thought ticketing citizens who pay their taxes on time was worth fighting. Four of us stood in front of the judge and attempted to convey the circus that is passed off as the office of building and safety. Apparently we became annoying as the judge suddenly said "just go" dismissing the charges. The quality of Redford city administration continues to reassure me that home value recovery is just around the corner.
After a call from my "wife" asking where a hand shovel was, I decided to tune into todays
GnomeCam to see what was up. To my surprise, somebody who looked a great deal like her was out in the yard weeding at 1:00pm. Not only is this unusual behavior for my wife, it's unprecedented, which immediately lead me to believe someone had kidnapped my wife and a lookalike was now weeding my front yard. After arriving home, my geiger counter did not register any radiation, which ruled out alien abduction, but her resemblance was so uncanny it seemed unlikely it was only cosmetic modification to a similar person. The chicken my mother was cooking in the stove mysteriously had the pan crack, which then prompted the lookalike to prepare it for rotisserie, no doubt something she saw my wife doing on a
recent photo album, hoping that would disspell my suspicions. The neighbors then arrived for dinner, and all appeared to be fooled, but I know what I saw and Lisa if you're out there, I'm still looking for you!
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