Funk Babblings

Last week I noticed that my car's tape deck was getting very reluctant to take my tapes, so with a drive all the way to Michigan coming up this weekend, my search more a new car stereo took on a renewed urgency. Therefore I had to relax my requirements a bit.

( Read more... now with pictures )

I think I've finally straightened out my schedule, at least for the next couple weeks. After that I'm still a bit uncertain.....

A couple good shows in Columbus this weekend -- tonight is Room Nineteen at Skully's, and tomorrow night is Watershed at Little Brother's. I might even be able to make it to the Watershed show!

But before I head to Columbus should finish getting my car fixed. Last night I took it in for an oil change and general checkup (I could hear and feel that it needed help), and it turned out it needed quite a bit of work: the brakes and tires were shot (got that taken care of last night), and an oil leak caused the main belt to be shot too, not to mention a holey muffler (getting all that taken care of tomorrow). $1700+ in all. Ugh.

I'm also getting a little closer to buying a new CD/MP3 stereo for the car. I found an install kit just for the weird shape of my Saturn's dashboard. I also found a store-brand stereo at Best Buy with a USB port (with a loose flip-down face that gives the buttons a bad spongy feeling), and JVC sells some nicer ones that take SD/MMC cards (such as the KD-AR5500 and the KD-LH910, but I prefer knobs over buttons, and buttons over touch-screens). I'm not sure I've found just the right one yet though, especially among those I know are available now.

Last Monday my latest new toy arrived, a small 5-megapixel digital camera, the result of redeeming an Amazon.com gift certificate.

After a bit of image editing, ( the best of the results so far.... )


Maybe one of these days I'll get a printer to go with it....


Update: A handy book for tips on various aspects of digital photography is Digital Photography Hacks by Derrick Story.

This may be just what I've been looking for to put in my car. (Notice the SD/MMC & USB sockets along the right side.)

I think I'm already spending enough money for this month though.....

Late Update: Or maybe this one, which doesn't have the memory card port. Also see two entries at shouldexist.org.

Got a flat tire today; appparently a screw took a liking to my tire. I wonder how many flats that makes in the 15-ish years I've been driving. One thing the early experiences taught me was that the lug wrench that's packed with the jack and spare tire is always useless (not enough leverage and torque), and a crossbar (aka "four-way") lug wrench is a necessity. Since I had that, it only took me about 15 minutes to change the tire, and another 15 minutes to find a gas station with an air hose (I also had my tire gauge already), fill the spare up from 20psi to 60, top off the other tires, and scrub my hands.

The worst part will be getting the old tire replaced, especially when I see the bill.

Ultimately this was an annoying waste of time and money; not nearly as traumatic as it would've been (and was) a decade ago.

I realized a couple days ago that I'll miss Comfest in Columbus this year because we'll be at Pagan Spirit Gathering. It's not surprising that they conflict; Comfest is always on the last weekend of June (well, unless wedding planners book the park first), and PSG is always the week surrounding the summer solstice. There are enough non-overlapping years that I haven't had to get used to that conflict the way I've had to get used to PSG always conflicting with Father's Day. The trouble is that both events are important to me, but Comfest is more comfortable for me, especially with all the great music going constantly.

It also looks like Karen will finally get to drag me to Pennsic in August -- unless I'm working by then and can't get away. Or sneezing my head off. Should be quite an experience.

With two week-long camping events coming up, I'm starting to think that renting an SUV (gasp!) might be worthwhile. I wonder if there's some pay-for-miles-not-time deal I can make that will take advantage of not actually driving that whole week. What I really need is an expandable car (forget the flying car, I want to keep my foot) so that normally I can happily drive my beautiful and maneuverable little coupe, then when friends come along it becomes a four-door with plenty of legroom in the back, and when I need to haul stuff it expands into a truck.

Anyway, coming up next weekend is Marcon in Columbus. Only a bunch of geeks would spend Memorial Day Weekend cooped up in a hotel for three days, but it still can be fun. Maybe I'll wander over to Goodale Park at some point to try to make up for missing Comfest. And I'll definitely have to head up to Bernie's on Friday night to catch The Secret Sound Of The NSA celebrating their new release.