failure weblog

oh. my. G-d. i just found out tooth & nail is releasing a 2-cd/1-dvd box set of the crucified’s material, including the kgb demo, a remastered pillars of humanity, live videos, outtakes, etc. out june 30th. and only $20.
beyond that, i found out they are playing a reunion show at cornerstone. i’m not talking some random collaboration of a member or two…i’m talking the whole original lineup! salomon, bellew, chaffin, and minier. they’ll be playing july 3rd. there’s really no way i’m going. *whimper* this makes the third time i’ve missed an opportunity to see the crucified play at c-stone: their “farewell” show in ’93 (i decided to keep my temp job in austin instead of making my parents foot my summer bills), their “reunion” show in ’95 (i’d just started my new career job at lockheed martin and had no vacation time), and now this. not that i never saw them live…i did. numerous times. even once or twice at c-stone. but…they’re the crucified! *drool*
given the history of the crucified, their (specifically salomon’s) derision for being reminded of the band, etc., i’m really curious what the band’s perception is of this reunion. perhaps time has healed the wounds, given them wisdom and an ability to reflect on those times — to acknowledge the bad but be pround and happy about the good. at least i like to imagine that’s the case.
update: haha. i’m watching a video of their recent show (june 14th 2009). salomon came out during the opening music (“hateworld”), walked around smiling and waving at people, walked up to the mic, then said “what happened? you guys got old!” and smiled his ironic smile.

friday evening i ate at empire cafe and then met up with amateria (jamie) and we went to coffee groundz for some coffee and conversation.
saturday i used a coupon at border’s to pick up a book at 40% off:

• the collected stories – alexander pushkin (everyman’s library)

pushkin is kind of considered the father of 19th century russian literature, and as i enjoyed dostoevsky’s crime and punishment and am currently enjoying tolstoy’s anna karenina i figured i’d probably also enjoy pushkin’s work (and seeing some of the work that influenced the authors i’ve read).
saturday evening i went down to the potts house. when i got there i asked about alcohol, but we never got any. i helped jack with his linux server, then we watched snl and got some food. after that, sue went to bed and i watched the second punisher movie while jack fell asleep. the movie was fair — the cinematography was pretty cool, but it was (like the first one) too cartoony to me. maybe it’s just been too long since i read the punisher, but i don’t remember it being as…silly. or maybe i just read the less silly stuff. overall, the silliness and soap opera factors were big reasons i didn’t like most of marvel’s stuff that much back in the day.
today i met the potts (minus the boys, who are visiting their grandparents) for lunch at bj’s in sugarland. they were giving away free glasses to fathers for father’s day (with the purchase of a beverage). jack and sue wanted me to get one so they could get two glasses, but i wasn’t really interested in doing it. at some point sue sue said “but you’re a father…” i’m not sure what she meant but i began acting like i was speaking to the waiter “yes, i’m a father. but my unborn child died in my wife, then she had a miscarriage. then she had an affair and divorced me. and yesterday was my wedding anniversary.” i think sue felt bad after i said that last line. but it was true. and the whole thing really made me more sad than i’d expected it to. i knew i should have drank yesterday. and i didn’t make up for it today either. yet.
taurian’s website said they are open sundays 2-10pm, but when i went by there around 8pm they were closed. i guess i’ll go back later.

“of course the mysterious, enchanting kitty could not love a plain fellow, such as he considered himself to be, a man so ordinary and undistinguished. […] he thought a plain kindly fellow like himself might be loved as a friend, but to be loved with the kind of love he felt for kitty, a man must be handsome, and above all remarkable.
he had heard that women often love plain ordinary men but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women.”
–from anna karenina by leo tolstoy
and another translation…
“the mysterious, enchanting kitty herself could not love such an ugly person as he conceived himself to be, and, above all, such an ordinary, in no way striking person. […] an ugly, good-natured man, as he considered himself, might, he supposed, be liked as a friend; but to be loved with such a love as that with which he loved kitty, one would need to be a handsome and, still more, a distinguished man.
he had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women.”

friday evening was a maintenance window evening. the rest of my weekend seemed to involve being tech support for other people. *grin* saturday i went by republic harley and picked up my 2nd key and security fob, then headed to the potts’ house. i ate supper, watched snl, then reconfigured jack’s linux server so it would work on his home network. sunday i met kelli at antidote and tried to get safari working on her apple ibook. i eventually decided something was messed up with a corrupted update or something, as i couldn’t get software update or safari to work. i tried reinstalling the 10.3.9 update by downloading the package from the apple site, but that didn’t fix things. eventually i installed firefox 2 and told her she could use that as a workaround. the other suggestions i saw for fixing the apparent problem involved arching the account(s) and reinstalling the os. ick. from antidote and kelli, i drove over to the nova lair (jamie/amateria’s place). i helped her re-set up a wireless router, as well as test some stuff and move a desktop. i then ate supper with her and her kids. and thus ended my tech support weekend.
monday after work i stopped by soundwaves and purchased a few albums:

• loud and plowed and…live!! – beat farmers (curb)
• the bird and the bee – the bird and the bee (metro blue / blue note / emi)
• ratatat – ratatat (xl recordings)
• we are pilots – shiny toy guns (universal)

tuesday when i got home my package from an online seller of harley junk was waiting for me. i immediately got to work on replacing the stock console on my 2009 harley fatboy. besides the seat, the stock console and tank bib were the things i liked the least about the bike. to me, the bike is mostly rounded and smooth — then all of a sudden you have this art deco type console piece, all sharp edges and flat surfaces and 45 degree cuts and clock tower -ish. plus it has a pebbled surface on most of the face. it just doesn’t seem like it fits to me. as for the tank bib…well, it went with the stock seat. and the stock seat already left my bike. so here’s a before and after, side by side for comparison:

 

 
today i loaded the iphone 3.0 software. i had some network troubles, then the iphone activation server kept not responding. i tried numerous times over an hour or two. finally i read in a comment on a wired magazine blog entry that if you disconnected your computer’s network after starting the update but before it actually tries to contact the activation server, it would do the update. i tried that and it worked. of course, then i had 30 minutes to an hour of being worried i’d bricked my iphone since itunes kept complaining that it couldn’t communicate with the iphone and the iphone seemed to keep rebooting. eventually things got sorted out and the 3.0 install was a success.
i’ve not played with it a lot yet, but being able to select and send multiple pics at once is nice, the copy/paste/delete seems pretty slick, and the landscape mode in more apps is cool. a couple of things not on the main marketing list that i liked: notes synchronization, adding who did the calling and how to the “recent calls” and voicemail lists (so you know quickly from the list if they called from home, mobile, etc.)

well, here are a couple of pics i took of my new fatboy not long after i got it:


a 2009 gloss black harley-davidson fatboy. factory options on the bike included the chromed versions of the rims and the security piece for the ignition. i replaced the stock seat and passenger pillion with the “brawler” versions. they’re basically narrower and thinner. i replaced the stock pipes with vance and hines staggered bigshots. they sound good, although i don’t think they’re as loud as the hard krome k-2’s that were on my honda vtx1300. and i replaced the stock buckhorn/beach bars and risers with a t-bar (drag bar) with integrated risers. oh, and different handles and brake/clutch levers, as well as braided cables.
within a couple of days of getting it, i let brad and jason know i’d gotten a new bike. pretty soon brad asked me to go riding. i spent several evenings that first week or two riding around with him, going from hang out to hang out, drinking, eating, etc. one night we hung out on his porch until 2:30am, another we picked up a new friend of his and all three of us rode around downtown and midtown. the break-in period is 500 miles, so i was trying to get street driving so the rpms would be well-distributed. i’ve been riding it to work pretty much every day, and most days i ride around at least a bit in the evening. i crossed 500 miles on sunday or monday.
i’m still trying to get used to having foot boards instead of pegs. i’m trying to give them a proper chance. but so far they are still sort of awkward to me. i’ve yet to use the heel shifter, although i haven’t taken it off yet either. so far the only thing it’s been good for is catching my pants leg when i go to put my foot on the ground.
friday night was the geek gathering. it was a pretty impressive turnout. i popped across the street to spec’s before they closed and picked up a couple of cigars (cohiba vanilla and tatiana cherry cream, i think) and smoked them during the gathering. there was an interesting girl who works at the place. she had a banner tattoo across her chest, so i asked her about it and she showed it to me: “per aspera ad astra”. i recognized it as latin, and knew “ad astra” meant “to the stars” (that aerospace background finally paid off!), but i didn’t know the rest. she said it was a quote from seneca the younger (aka seneca, a roman stoic philosopher) and means “through difficulties to the stars”. after she got off work she hung out at the table with kojo, jamie, and myself, until her boyfriend showed up. i ended up staying out until 3am or so.
saturday i ate at einstein bagels, where i was joined by the potts. i then gave sue a ride to her house on my bike, as i was headed to the harley dealer to pick up my real plate (yea to getting rid of the paper temp tag!). the dealership couldn’t find my 2nd key and security fob after i bought the bike, and they still hadn’t by this past weekend. so they were supposed to be ordering new ones for me this week. they also adjusted my throttle cable while i was there, as it had a lot of play in it. (but within a couple of hours it got play again…although not as much as before. i wonder how much more it can be adjusted before it needs to be cut?) i also described a rattling i started hearing in the front end when i hit bumps during the second week i had it. they said they would look into it during my first oil change.
later saturday evening, jamie got me to go to the caronline collective one year anniversary party. in addition to seeing jamie, jay, and groovehouse, i also ran into a couple of people i hadn’t seen in awhile, met a guy i knew of through numerous friends but had never actually met (turns out he has even worse stories about chris seay’s ecclesia than i do!), and re-met a guy who i’d met some months back once at onion creek when i met some people there for lunch. (he was surprised when, while talking to jay, he learned i was phliKtid.) i stayed at the party until maybe 10:30pm or so, then jamie and i left and ate a late supper at brasil.
i bought a couple of cds off ebay, which arrived recently:

• expo2000 – kraftwerk (emi)
• tangent 2000: disco nouveau – various (ghostly international)

and i’ve picked up a couple of books:

• anna karenina – tolstoy (everyman’s library)
• shine on: 100 years of shiner beer – renfro (bright sky press)

a week or two ago i ordered some accessories for my new motorcycle. hopefully they’ll be here within a couple of weeks. i’ll detail that more after they arrive. i’ve still got a few other changes i want to make to the bike, even once those are in.
i still haven’t gotten around to verifying my ’55 bel air engine choice with the mechanic and getting that work started. i really should do that.
and i still am planning on putting together an entry about my shopping and buying experience at the harley stores.

well, i’m playing a bit of catch up, so i’m going to split entries i previously planned to write as one. here’s the story about the guy in the black audi tt (well…an audi sports coupe…it looked like a tt to me, but i don’t know the audi line) that almost ruined both of our mornings…
just around 9am on thursday may 14th, i was headed to work. i was on the 59 northbound access road at shepherd waiting on the light. i was in my pickup. in front of me was some older ford suv or something, and in front of that was a nice, shiny, new black audi tt. if you’re not familiar with this stretch of road, two lanes go through the light, but after only maybe 50 yards or so the right lane gently curves to the right and stays at surface level for neighborhood road access while the left lane dropped down into the sunken part of 59 and turns into a long merging lane. some people will get in the right lane and then merge left in order to cut ahead of the line of people in line to get onto 59. this didn’t happen this time.
the light turned green and we all took off. as soon as the merge lane went to stripes, the suv merged to the left. this is pretty common, as most people know the merge lane ends — although it’s probably at least a quarter or half a mile so it’s not urgent. personally, i tend to accelerate rather quickly and drive 5 to 10+ miles over the speed limit. the audi tt stayed in the merge lane, which becomes the far right lane of 59. as i was catching the audi rather quickly, i got over one lane. the suv had moved over several lanes, and was going slower or something, so i don’t even know where they were. in the next lane or two over from me and ahead of me was slower moving traffic.
now, at this point i should point out that i am very well-versed at playing road games. i know how to cut people off, to tailgate to not let people in, to block a car with other cars, and to force a car behind me by gunning it to be ahead of them when a merge lane ends. a lot of other people play these games as well. sometimes i win, sometimes i don’t. however, in this instance i was not playing any road games. the audi was going slower than me, and at the speeds we were going i would have passed him and he would have been several car lengths behind me (without touching his brakes) when he needed to get over. i did not race him, or cut him off.
that said, a couple of seconds after the merge point i looked in my rearview mirror. there was no black audi. i started turning my head to the left to see if he’d jumped multiple lanes to the left to get around traffic, when out of my peripheral vision i saw something moving to my right. in the (full-width) shoulder. he’d gunned it and was flying past me in the shoulder. recall this is a sunken road, so the edge of the shoulder is a concrete wall maybe 18 to 20 feet high.
i have no idea why he decided to do this. i don’t know if he decided to start racing me after i passed him and he trapped himself, or if he was lost in thought about how awesome he was…i mean, his car was and missed the merge, or if he was pissed that some loud old pickup passed him in his shiny audi sports car so he’d show them, or a combination of all those. but something evidently happened with him after he passed into my blind spot. now back to the story…
he flew past me in the shoulder, and then i guess he planned on making a dramatic swerve in front of me to cut me off and show me he was in charge here. unfortunately, the beat-up chevy van ahead of me in the next lane over had decided to move into my lane. and why shouldn’t they? the lane was open and it was the far-right lane. dutifully turning on their blinker, they were beginning to pull into the lane when the dick in the audi started his rapid whipping motion at twice the speed out of the shoulder and into my lane. both of them noticed the other and jerked their wheels away. the chevy went back into his lane, and the audi stayed somewhat in the shoulder while slowing some. as this was happening, i was putting on my brakes some to avoid hitting either one of them. i was also both dismayed and laughing a bit about his execution of his brilliant plan. once he felt the chevy wasn’t coming over, he quickly swerved back into my lane in front of me. then he hit his brakes.
that is an assh0le move. no if’s, and’s, or but’s. if you get in front of someone and slam on your brakes, you are an assh0le. if they’ve just done something horrible to you…you’re still an assh0le. that’s just the way it works. and if you do it in front of an old vehicle with all drum brakes, then you’re a stupid assh0le. if you’re in a really expensive car and do this, you’re a really stupid assh0le. this is the category our audi driver falls into.
now, at this point i should point out something i noticed. this car had a paper dealer logo tag on it. not metal plates, not dealer metal plates, not temporary tags like you get after someone buys a car — it had a colorful dealer logo. so this was either someone on a test drive or an employee of the company. either way, this pushes them into the really really stupid assh0le category. personally, i’m betting it was a salesman or office management for the company.
fearing that instead of doing the nice trick of slamming on the brakes to slow down a lot and then punching the accelerator, he might keep on his brakes — which would put me about 8 feet into his car — i decided i needed to avoid the guy. i jerked my wheel to the right and went into the shoulder. which was good, because he hit the brakes enough that i was quickly beside him even though we were both moving.
now, at this point in the story it’s also important to point out that in addition to having all drum brakes, i also have old steering components. thus: no power steering, and fair bit of play in the wheel. and i am now in the shoulder, between a 20 foot concrete wall and an expensive, black audi tt. and not much breathing room.
oh yeah, did i mention i also have circa-1965 style suspension? and that ford i-beam for a smooth ride?
seeing as i was careening toward a concrete wall, i tried to steer some away from it. the sloppy steering meant it took some turning before the steering “caught”. at this point, i had some angular momentum on the steering wheel. so that jerked my pickup to the left some, and at the speed i was going that tilted my chassis on the suspension. now i was careening toward a black audi. i turned my steering wheel to the right…after some turning, my steering “caught” and my chassis jerked the other way. now i was headed back toward the wall again. at this point i decided i should take my foot away from the gas and the brake and just sort of let my pickup stabilize on its own — instead of me over-correcting myself into a nice barrel roll…or a concrete wall…or a black audi tt…or all of the above.
in addition to probably crapping himself, the audi driver had also come to almost a complete stop as i shot all over the road beside and then somewhat in front of him. as i coasted into his lane in front of him and then continued driving, i looked back into the rearview mirror to see him looking at me with shock and disgust and throwing both hands up in the air as if to say “huuhhh! what the FSCK, man!?” i could see at this point he was an older white male (50’s probably, greying hair), wearing a nice/expensive-looking blue or blue and white dress shirt with white cuffs (probably french cuffs). i smiled (after remembering to breathe again) and continued driving.
from that point on, he stayed well behind me. even putting a car and a truck inbetween us. i slowed way down as i got over to take 288 south, but he never got up beside me. as i was in the right turn, i could finally see him going straight on 59 in my rearview mirror. i put my hand out the window and waved goodbye real big to him.
thus ends my story.
oh, and remember the dealer tag? i looked up audi dealers in houston, and there is a momentum audi dealer nearby. however, their dealer tags are red and white, and this one was not. i wish i knew for sure who it was, because i’d seriously consider dropping by or calling. i *think* it was a demontrond tag, but i don’t know for sure. it doesn’t appear demontrond is an audi dealer though. iirc, it was a blue tag…royal blue to cornflower blue, with either black text in white boxes or white text with black edges, written at lower 2/3 down and to the right instead of centered.
“dignan, i don’t expect you to be as depressed as i am but i don’t think…watch the road, bob…but i don’t think that your happiness is quite appropriate.” –anthony, bottle rocket

this is just to make the ex-pats cry…
guadalajara enchiladas from sylvia’s enchilda kitchen. along with iced tea, and chips and salsa. these enchiladas are pulled chicken with a spicy salsa roja, then topped with lettuce, tomatoes, and a white cheese.

i actually took this picture on may 9th, the last time i was at the sylvia’s on westheimer.
this past sunday, linc called me and let me know he and heather were in town to watch the astros/rangers game. afterward, they came by and picked me up. since they didn’t know the area they let me drive their vehicle, so i got to have a short reunion with ye olde element as well. we went to sylvia’s for an early supper. …but that was the 24th, and i just said i hadn’t been since the 9th — so how is that possible? (very observant, you are!)
because we didn’t go to the original one — there is a new one! it’s about half the distance from my house compared to the original one, so i was hesitantly excited. unless the main sylvia’s changed their menu, the offerings at the new one are pared down a bit — they didn’t have the guadalajara enchiladas (as pictured above) or sylvia’s tortilla soup (although they had tortilla soup, but the original location has two styles of tortilla soup). unfortunately, those are two menu items i tend to order a lot. the food was about the same as far as i could tell. they serve their salsa warmed, and if you buy some queso and dip your chips in both the salsa and the queso…well, i think it’s divine. i had the el paso: three stacked (as opposed to rolled) enchiladas. i chose ground beef with a chili gravy, plus a fried egg on top. the new place had a little different style than the original…more Texas ranch house than mexican, to me. and the clientele seemed more wealthy and white. but that may be because of its location (6401 woodway).
so it’s nice to have one closer, but the original still has more draw for me.
at the end of the meal, heather suggested they get some coffee before their drive since miles has recently started rising at 5am. i suggested we go to a coffeehouse instead of getting coffee there, so i took linc and heather over to brasil. we sat for awhile and had some coffee, then we came back to my house and they were on their way.

this past saturday sue texted me about going to the art car parade. but when she texted to say they were leaving, i had just ordered some food at einstein bagels. so i texted back and said i wasn’t going to be able to make it. (i’m not sure my leg would have been happy about standing in the heat for several hours either.)
i decided to use my now open day to drop by a victory dealership to see their line of bikes in person. i wasn’t immediately wowed by any one in particular, but as i sat on a few and starting looking them over, i began to think perhaps victory was the brand for me. it’s american-made, has high customer satisfaction ratings, and seems to be developing a real bike culture around the brand (like harley has enjoyed for a long time). it’s like some of the good aspects of harley culture, but more unique because it’s way less common. i finally decided a vegas low would be best. they also had a few 2008 models left, so he could drop the price some more on them. but the dealership only had bright colors (blue, red, white). he said they made a black, but they didn’t have one to show me. then he said another of their shops had one, but he wanted me to buy from him of course, so he said he’d tell me where it was so i could go look at it — but i had to buy it from him. he also said the bike was $1000 off (msrp: $16,500), plus he could probably get another $1k off. he told me to call and let him know after i looked at the bike.
i left and drove over to the other shop. i was helped by a cool saleswoman… but the important part is that they had the bike and it had $14,300 on it. so without any negotiating, it was already $200 below the other salesman’s offer. but i didn’t talk price, except to get an out the door price. a little over $16k. she gave me her card and told me to call and let her know what i wanted to do.
then i started thinking: originally my plan was to not spend over $16k on the new bike — i had $6800 in insurance pay-out on my old bike, so i’d drop a new $10k on the new bike. get something nicer, but still stay economical. but then i thought…as long as i was already at $16k for a victory, perhaps i should go check out harley again. i knew some of them i’d been looking at were $12k or $15k msrp. and while victory bikes had a lot of nice features, they just didn’t “do it” for me (in the heart and gut, i guess) liked i’d hoped a bike that much more than my (totaled) honda vtx1300c would do.
by this time it was later in the day, but i looked online and saw that the republic harley dealership down 59 in stafford is open later, so i drove over and looked around. (the only other two close-ish ones are stubb’s — which i’d been to already — and mancuso, which i’d heard bad things about. not that everyone glowed about republic, but what can you do?)
so i drove down to republic and talked for some time with a sales guy, who was also an a&m grad. i had looked at the street bob ($12k start) and fat bob ($15k start), but once i had punched the $16k barrier with the victory vegas low it opened up the fat boy ($16k start). he convinced me to let him run numbers, so i picked some accessories i’d like. i told them i had a great rate through my credit union and was pre-approved, but he got me to run my stuff through harley finance. they couldn’t meet the rate, but they did something to drop the rate a point, so it got pretty close. unfortunately, the out the door total they gave me was around $24k and i just wasn’t going to do that. they kept trying to sell me on it, and we played with several variations of swapping out the parts i wanted on it, but i backed out every time. they also didn’t have the color i wanted available, but they had the skins/tins/body parts i wanted and could swap them out. i eventually left, and the salesman said he’d call and let me know if they found what i wanted and find out about any break they might be able to give me.
sunday all the bike shops were closed, so it gave me some tme to think. i went to crescent city beignets with the potts, then i went with them to some thrift store (value village?) way over on the east side of town. regrettably, i didn’t find anything i was excited about.
monday after work i decided to drop by stubb’s harley on telephone again. (i’d been there about a week before.) the salesman i’d talked to didn’t appear to be around, so i talked to another one. i was hoping to get some kind of quote from him, but he didn’t really seem interested. he said they, like pretty much all local harley shops, get msrp for their bikes. but that’s also because of the economy, as 1 or 2 years ago they were getting $1k to $2k over msrp. he was nice enough talking to me about parts and options and all sorts of things, but he seemed like his sales technique was auto-pilot — i.e., sit back and do nothing and let the sale sell itself. unfortunately, auto-pilot doesn’t work as well on selling as it does with controlling planes in flight. the previous salesman seemed about the same, so maybe that’s that store’s culture. or maybe they thought i wasn’t serious. or maybe they are only looking for rich people that will walk in and write checks for bikes with thousands (or tens of thousands, even) in add-ons without questioning any prices for anything. (the first salesman had several of those stories to tell me about. maybe he was telling me something.)
the salesman from republic called me monday and tuesday, and at some point i told him i was hoping to keep my financed amount below $300/mo, which would put me at $22,700. i was pretty quickly annoyed i’d given that info but it was too late. so i set up an appointment to meet with them wednesday afternoon.
wednesday i was hoping to leave work early and drop by mancuso, just to see if i could get a quote from them, but it didn’t work out. so that afternoon i went down to republic. originally the salesman had said the bike i wanted was shipping to them, but then it wasn’t but they could swap skins with the black denim bike in the showroom. when i sat down with my salesman and another guy, they gave me new quote: they had the msrp price for the black denim paint job ($16,344, which is $344 more than the vivid black…so i was paying for the swap-out), ~$600 freight, ~$600 build, ~$700 set-up i think, plus $2100 in labor on the $2100 in parts (but..but..it was with 10% off on parts (not labor). wow, ~$200 whole dollars!). it came to around $23,700 i think, which put me at $320/mo. i hate negotiating, but i was being forced into it. i’m sure they became annoyed with me, because i can sit silent for hours when i’m considering something big. and i sat for long stretches without giving any indication. eventually i said i wanted everything on it for $22k. he took it back and came back with…$23k and a $250 gift card. (so $22,750 for what i wanted, plus $250 for them that i would have to spend at the store). after another very extended stretch, i said $22k and a $700 gift card — which with whatever their profit margin is in their parts and labor should net them another few hundred dollars profit. he took that back and came back with $22,500 and a $250 gift card. that got me to $22,250, plus $250 for them i had to spend at the store. i sat for a long time again…a really long time…because i really was close to walking. they claimed that was the final offer, and both said it was a good deal. (how can you trust a salesman selling you something though? answer: you can’t.) i finally said i’d do it for $22,500 and a $350 gift card. (so i pushed for $100 more in store credit instead of just into the bike.) he took it back. as he was gone, my salesman said “i thought you said you didn’t like negotiating.” i told him i didn’t, but i was having to do it. then the other guy came back and said we had a deal.
so yes, i bought a 2009 harley-davidson fat boy in vivid black, chromed rims, security addition, with these custom parts: brawler seat and pillion, vance and hines staggered big shot pipes, and street slammer t-bar with integrated risers (plus chrome levers, chrome and rubber hand grips, and braided cables). it’s kind of funny though, as today when i was thinking about it i realized i actually made the fatboy look a lot more like my vtx1300c than it did originally. (my old bike had a narrower seat like the one i added, plus it had drag bars with integrated risers, and was black.) however, compared to my vtx, the fat boy has: bigger, more classic cruiser fenders; fatter tires, wider front tire; a fatter front fork with more chrome around the headlight; and billeted big disc rims.
in the end, it’s the classic cruiser design that was in my mind that just looked…right, but victory and honda didn’t seem to match. and i also learned while purchasing it that it was made famous by arnold schwarzeneggar because it’s the bike he rode in terminator. who knew? (maybe my dressing as the terminator (pic) for chris and mary’s 2007 halloween party was foreshadowing.)
because of the work they have to do with the skins/tins/body parts and custom parts, i probably won’t be able to get my new bike until saturday, or maybe monday or tuesday.
so i guess soon i’ll see if a harley is worth the price they collect. (considering i could have gotten a japanese knock-off version for around half the price.) i’m thinking the bike better magically win friends, influence people, and get me dates — or make me not care about any of that. (but without turning me into one of those harley elitist jerks. ’cause that’s not magical at all.)
stay tuned for my next entry, where i plan on talking about my perception of the harley store experience. (as a teaser, let me tell you it was not really what was in my mind when i thought about the harley name and image.) and as a special bonus: a story about a prick in a brand new black audi tt that almost ruined both of our days on thursday morning.

11 years ago (1998) today (may 8th), failure.net came into existence. it has spent its entire life thus far with me.
at some points in the last few weeks i watched the animatrix and fido via streaming netflix. some of the the animatrix stuff was pretty cool. in general, stuff based on the matrix is pretty nice — it’s just a good framework for lots of interesting concepts. fido, which is a story set in a 50’s style world about zombies that are controlled and used as servants, wasn’t as good as i’d thought or hoped it’d be. there were some pretty funny things, but overall i didn’t think it was as good as the promise it showed in the trailer.
wednesday before the show i had some extra time so i ate supper at burger king on westheimer and then headed across the street to the half price books. i ended up buying a few cds:

• the drum and bass collection – art of noise (china/discovery)
• fight songs old 97’s – (elektra)
• straightaways – son volt (warner)

the show was the first of three pledge shows for the kpft spring pledge drive. during the beginning of the show the program director walked into the studio with a concert snare on a shoulder strap. which was kind of odd. he couldn’t really play it, which led to me mentioning i’d played drums in the past. so they handed it to me and coaxed me into playing something for them. i was drawing a blank for what drum song to play for them (because there are so many well-known and cherished drum songs, you know), then someone suggested the old drummer standby: “wipeout”. so i demonstrated a bit of my rusty drum skills. the rest of the night they had me doing drum rolls before they announced the pledge totals. at some point jay tried to get me to play some backbeat, so i had to confess that when i play everything turns into a marching song because i cut my teeth in marching band playing a lot of john philip sousa numbers and other similar military style marching junk. i’ve got rhythm, but i’ve got no soul. (or funk.)
some of the bands i like have put out stuff only on vinyl over the years. some of them have put out vinyl versions of albums. every now and then i’ve ended up picking that stuff up, but i haven’t had a record player for years. well, recently i picked up even more vinyl.

• entertainment – adult. (ersatz audio)
• misinterpreted – various (ersatz audio)
• oral-olio – various (ersatz audio)
• auto-motif – le car (monoplaza / ersatz audio)
• entertainment – adult. (ersatz audio)

(yes, i bought two copies of entertainment. the second was a good deal.)
these are 12″ records that were put out in the late 90’s and early 00’s. there are still a few more put out by ersatz audio i’d like to get. i guess at some point i might have to break down and get a record player so i can hear them (and rip them to electronic copies).
i guess the biggest thing lately that i haven’t mentioned yet is that i bought a used apple tv on ebay. i got it for $150, which a fair penny less than the $250 it sells for new. i got it all hooked up in my home environment, and once i verified everything appeared to be working okay i created a patchstick and installed xmbc/boxee on it. it also gives me the ability to ssh into the apple tv. anyway, i just started playing with it some, so we’ll see where that leads, if anywhere.
my leg…it seems like it’s been about the same the last couple of weeks. i get up in the morning and it starts slowly swelling up. throughout the day it feels kind of numb and/or aches. my ankle ends up aching a fair bit. i get in bed for the night and overnight the swelling goes down a fair bit. get up the next day, repeat. a couple of weeks ago i went by and picked up the compression stockings the doctor had written a prescription for. i’ve only worn it a couple of times though, as it didn’t seem like it really kept my leg or ankle or foot from swelling all that much. i’m guessing at this point it’ll probably be months before the swelling stops, if it ever goes completely away.

a while back i ordered a d/a converter, in the hopes i could plug it into the toslink digital out on my sony receiver/amp and then plug the other end into an rca analog in also on my sony receiver — in effect, making a d/a bridge for the sony since it doesn’t have an internal one. i plugged everything in and turned it all on, but it didn’t work. i also attempted to go analog straight out from the d/a converter, which didn’t work either. i don’t think i was getting anything from the digital out toslink jack. i didn’t spend much time messing with it yet. i got the d/a converter on sale for a decent price (this one is one of very few i could find at all online, much less that was reasonably priced), so even if it doesn’t work i’m not out too much. and i can probably find something to do with it.
the background on why i wanted to do this can be found in the context of other posts here, but basically it’s so i could get digital audio input data to be played out over analog outputs…specifically, to get an airport express using toslink in to my receiver to also play on a remote set of speakers hooked up via analog rca connections.
while i was ordering the d/a converter (toslink and digital coax to rca analog), i went ahead and also picked up a set of security bits. so now i’ve got 4 spanner bits, 3 torq bits, 4 tri-wing bits, 12 (6 metric, 6 english) security hex bits and 9 security torx bits (that’s hex and torx bits with holes in the center of them). that should help me get into any number of things manufacturers have decided to put weird/security screws on.
on the 29th i missed the radio show. intentionally. shock! horror! why? so i could go to the cake concert at the verizon wireless theater downtown. i hate paying a bunch of money to see a band in a huge venue (i almost never do it), but i regret never having seen cake — whom i adore — back in the late 90’s or early 00’s, so i paid the $40 and went. and missed the radio show. the hrc is also a big fan of cake, so when i told her about it she wanted to go too. i thought there’d probably be an opening band, and as with most shows it’d start late, so we showed up around 8:25pm. cake was already playing. they finished a few minutes after 10pm. but they took a few breaks, and the audience had to go through clamoring after them audibly to get three encores. it was a good show, but not as good as i’d imagined it would be. we met loopylow (a radio show listener) at the show, and barrett had thought he’d pop over to catch some or most of the cake set after the radio show…but obviously that didn’t work out. as we were leaving they were handing out free promo flyers/prints, which was cool. i’m still not sure the experience was worth $40 though (plus another $7 for parking). but i can say i’ve seen them, so i don’t have to regret that anymore. now i can instead regret not having seen them back in the day.
the next evening the hrc and i had planned to get supper, but it ended up being later than planned so our options quickly narrowed (houston after 10pm does that). we decided to step outside the areas we live in and headed to the heights to onion creek. while we were sitting outside eating, there was a table of a dozen or so people talking loudly and joking and such near us. at some point one of the people got up and said they need to leave. as they were hugging people goodbye, i glanced over and saw their face. i heard a couple of the people say “later john!”. it was john leatherwood. the last time i saw him was probably…2005? oddly, we randomly ran into each other at a stavesacre show at fitzgerald’s, which is just up the street from onion creek — and neither of us lived in the area this time or then. i also traded a couple of emails with him in nov 2008. anyway, as he was leaving, i said “john.” “john.” “hey john!” he looked over right before he went around the corner of the building and halfway smiled as he slowed down because he heard his name, then he sort of developed a look of non-recognition and walked past the corner and out of sight. i kind of laughed and said “huh, i guess he didn’t recognize me.” a few seconds later he walked back around the corner. i guess it took a few seconds for his brain to reconnect the neuron paths to where ever my facial pattern was stored. we talked for a few minutes and he gave me his phone number. he asked about jack and sue. it turns out the gathering was a get together for his 20 year high school reunion. it’s weird we ran into each other like that. (at least there are reasons we’d both be at a stavesacre show.) maybe we’ll actually plan to meet up sometime.
friday during the day i ended up missing going to lunch with co-workers, so i decided to head to a dairy queen for lunch and then stop by stubbs on telephone to check out the harleys and hondas. i still like the look of my vtx1300, and the power seemed to be okay for me, but i’m trying to decide if i want to go back to the known or try something new since i have the forced opportunity. of course, trying something new will pretty much guarantee i will be spending between $3-$10k more than if i just got a new replacement of the same bike. on the way back to work i rolled 70k on my pickup.
friday evening was the technology bytes geek gathering at coffee groundz. i got there early and was there for several hours. it was a pretty good turnout. one of our young callers showed up and was selling old computer equipment. i bought a dvd-rom and a cd-rw.
saturday i ate lunch at goode company bbq on kirby, then went to talk to the mechanic about putting a new engine in my bel air. he was interested and talked to me about logistics and plans, so hopefully i’ll get that rolling here within the next week or two. (i’ve got that 0% interest card burning a hole in my pocket because the clock is ticking on the introductory rate period.)
saturday afternoon i applied online for pre-approval for a motorcycle loan through the credit union i use. i was pre-approved for the amount and term-length i asked for, but they didn’t mention a rate. (the site said between 5%-10%, which is a pretty big range.) i called to try and find out what the rate would be and had to leave a message. as of today they haven’t called me back.
saturday evening sue came by to hang out with me, so we ended up spending a few hours sitting outside at coffee groundz. sue was wanting to just sort of get out and about for awhile sans kids and chill. we settled on coffee groundz since it has outdoor seating and serves beer and wine, as well as food and coffee drinks. afterward, on the way back to my house, we drove by poison girl. i had forgotten about it in my list of possibilities, and sue has never been there. i think she’d like it. so at some point i’ll have to introduce her to that place.
sunday i ate lunch with the potts, then in the afternoon i went to amy’s ice cream with them. originally an hour or two after lunch i was supposed to go up to first baptist to see the kids perform in a children’s choir performance, but i laid down on the bed and ended up accidentally taking a one or two hour nap and missed it.