tintedpane.com

Last weekend some of my friends finally convinced me to join them in my first autocross driving event at Texas Motor Speedway. I’m glad they did. (Actually, I just didn’t want to put my car through the stress cause I hadn’t changed the timing belt yet.) My car didn’t blow up or grind to a screeching halt. Instead I had tons of fun turning and drifting and not hitting cones (or DNFing).

Quick primer: Autocross is a driving event where people drive their cars around a track laid out with parking cones. Drivers go against the clock and try to post the fastest and most consistent laps. You usually get a handful of runs through the event, which lasts basically the whole day. The track is set up so that speeds remain lows (approximately 60-70 on the straightaways in most cars) and one’s driving skill are put to the test (instead of how heavy their left foot is.)

Most cars (lots of RWD miatas, wrxs, handful of Type R’s) were posting times around 75-77 seconds. -I started with a 89.095 and got it down to a 85.072 by the 4th run.-

This is getting boring. Let’s just say I had a lot of fun. If you want to see the results, go here for raw times and here for adjusted times.

Weekend updates: autocross, movie review, bruce lee, mavs trade, etc…

Interesting read (note: long) about file sharing and the music industry. (Beware of a ton of pop-under ads, though.) Go to the Ars discussion to see what others think.

I was sitting in front of my computer today, and heard some scraping action overhead. Banged on the walls a couple of times, thinking it was a squirrel on the roof playing with nuts or something. A few minutes later, I hear the buzzing, like that of a flying insect. PRIMAL FEAR takes over and I bolt for the bathroom. I bang my head on the music stand and nearly trip over my guitar on the way out. Pulse racing, fists raised. Fight or flight time. I flight every time.

I share a bathroom with my sister and her room opens into the main hallway opposite mine. The hallways leads to the stairs and a balcony sort of hallway into the other section of the house. So now you have the layout, somewhat. This winged insect, which I get a glance of as I peek out of my sister’s room is completely black, and seems to have a penchant for homo sapiens, namely me. It’s abdomen hangs down nearly vertical like a wasp’s. As I take a step out into the hallway, the damn thing starts flying towards me. I immediately bend my knees and drop down into a semi crouch and retreat as fast as I can for the bathroom. It decides to fly away. Now after several moments of hesitation I stick my head out of the bedroom door again, looking this way and that — up, down, left, right…I crane my neck to try and hear any signs of buzzing, which would give me a clue to where the darn thing is. Nope, no buzzing. I clamor about, hoping it’s not crawling around the empty cardboard containers which held the shelving units I had assembled earlier in the week. Finally, I hear some buzzing. The flying bug is crawling on the glass window above the front door. I gather my courage and find a fly swatter. I pull up a chair to the door and try to see if I can reach it. Nope, too short. I scamper around (sounds like what a rodent would do, huh?) and think of ideas. After a few moments I run to the garage and grab the handle of an old mop. I decide to squish the bug as it climbs up the glass pane. I return to the front entrance area only to find the bug gone. Haha, just kidding, but that woulda really sucked. It’s still there. I bring the mop handle up to the height of the bug and thrust forward. It catches right above the abdomen — the thorax?? and the thing starts flappin’ its wings but can only put out a contorted effort. Now I have the upper hand. After evaluating the situation I decide it’s weak enough that it won’t fly anywhere and I can get close enough to knock it off the ledge. I climb the banister of the stairs and use the mop handle to knock it down to the ground. When it finally fell, I tried to be humane and squish it’s head, but I miss and get the thorax?? again. (Oh, and the thing had orange feelers.) It writhes and I feel bad for it (only for a moment) and then flush it down the toilet. The I shudder a couple of times.

Sometimes I wonder if all those wasps and cockroaches and beetles I kill and flush down the toilet will come up and attack me while I’m taking a dump.

I hate my active imagination. And my fear of anything the remotely resembles a bee or a wasp. <shudder>

Boy, The Rock looked good in that movie. Whoops, did I just let my mind slip for a sec? I mean, he looked cut, in a non-I-like-men kind of way. And Stifler, he was pretty buff too. The movie was entertaining. Stupidly so, but I enjoyed it. The cameo by Arnold [can’t spell his last name] was great as were all the fight scenes. Too bad the little Portuguese kid dies before adding much to the plot. In the end, The Rock does the right thing. Another point I really enjoyed wath Emril talking about Porchini mushrooms. That was uh….”kickin’ it up a notch…”