TRAZALCA'S HOVEL

My truck is dying. (sniff)

(Thu 03/27/2008 11:55am)
Here's a brief history: I purchased my 95 Ford Ranger XLT, used,
in March of 1997. It had 11,000 miles on it, and it ran beautifully.
Save for moments of typical wear and tear maintenance, it was solid. I loved it.
It drove like a champ, and handled great. I never took the overdrive
option off. I have many memories with that truck.

I remember driving my girlfriend to, and my fiance from, the Italian restaurant
in Myrtle Beach, SC where I proposed to her, and she tearfully said yes.
I remember playing the mixed-tape I made of cheesy love songs and movie clips with romantic dialogue
(taken from Highlander, The Princess Bride, Henry V and Forget Paris) to her, delirious
in love. Sure it was sappy, but it was terribly fun.
I remember long drives to the Carolinas, furniture hauls, and mind-numbing
hours of traffic to work and back. But as time wore on, little things fell apart.
Here's the list:

-The paint on the hood is nearly worn off to expose the dull gray metal.
-The windshield had to be replaced, and months later, the rearview mirror popped off.
-The door ajar alarm goes off during the warm days, even when the door is closed and locked.
(And as if to join the fun, the dome light stays on the whole time.) The alarm stays on for
several minutes before it decides to die off. It's very annoying. Once it stayed beeping like
an ancient gong for 21 minutes. Ugh.
-The lumbar support pillow that engages behind the small of your back doesn't stay full
any longer.
-The turn signals work, provided that I hold down the lever till the turn is made.
-I lost the bolt that holds the spare tire underneath the truck bed, so now the spare rides
IN the bed.
-The radio player would no longer shut off, and began eating cassettes like they were ice cream
sandwiches. I happily replaced it with a CD player, but now I have scores of tapes that I
miss listening to. Especially the audio books.
-The emergency brake handle broke off in my hand, so that now there is nothing but an ugly
spring dangling from whence it came. Thank God the truck holds when it's just put in PARK.
-The lights on the dashboard, for almost a year, have faded to black, so that if I wanted to know
how fast I was going at night, I'd shine the light from my cellphone screen to see the
spedometer. The latest mystery? Some of the lights to the right side of the dash
have come back to a dimming life just 2 months ago. I have no idea why.
-The spongy tan material that upholsters the ceiling of my truck has several scratch marks
and gashes across it. It looks like some wild animal tried to claw out.
-The key fobs no longer function, so I have to insert the key to open the door.
I know. VERY anti-techy, but it works. Although, I'm tempted to hold my breath for when
the key breaks in two.
-The worst on the list yet, the transmission is beginning to slip.

I asked a reliable mechanic I go to how long did I have till it locks up.
"Don't know," he shrugged. He recommended an additive to help, and so far, it has.
But with each day of driving to work and back, the slipping is getting a tad worse again.
I feel like I'm driving a time bomb. I'm just waiting for it to fall apart.

But the most frustrating thing of all is now I have to plan to get a new vehicle.
That part is about as much fun as diving into a swimming pool full of rabid hungry badgers.
There's SO many options. I've gotten advice from family, friends, coworkers, and all
of them are different, with only minimal difference to me in the long run financially.

Then there's what to drive. My Dad gave me a list pulled from Consumer Reports for the best
used car list for the last ten years. Between that, and Edmunds.com, I've gone through
a lot of information, and narrowed it down to what I need. The toughest part is that I
need an SUV so I can accomodate my growing family. But few SUV's are economical when it
comes to MPG. I cannot afford monthly payments above $300. So, though I am fully aware
of the hybrids out there, getting a new or used one is out of the question, plus most would
not fit a fam of 6 plus.

What hurts more is that the next vehicle I get will give me less miles per gallon than
my truck does now. It's currently 27-28 highway. I love that. But I am NOT looking forward
to paying above $60 each trip to the gas pump. It just sucks.

I've looked at better SUV's, and all of them are more expensive.
I've looked at trucks with the crew cab (a full backseat!), and they're not faring much better.
I've been scanning Edmunds.com and Carmax.com for weeks now. Comparing and recomparing,
and listing which has what. I made a full spreadsheet with just the stats most important
to me, and I just feel overwhelmed.

I don't even want to look at another truck or SUV on the road when I drive now. It depresses me.

The good news aside from this is that this month, I am FREE OF ALL CREDIT CARD DEBT!
Praise the Lord! Plus, I paid off the family van well enough in advance. We worked hard
to do this. It took over 5 years, so now it's just the house... till the truck dies.
Then it's back to the dealership again. Ugh.

So many people regard getting a new car as an exciting thing. I don't.
I feel burdened by the whole business. All car salesmen look like feral wolves
out to rip out my throat. I don't trust them. Heck. I don't trust anyone in the car business.
I hate it when a car salesman comes up to you as if you're suddenly the best friend
to him in the world, and he's ready to give you the deal of a lifetime, easy with a
smile and a pat on the shoulder, and a tongue like oil.
And all it is is just a ruse, a con, and a silkscreen to mask the fact that he's
there to make a sale. That's it. He doesn't give a rat's crap about your family or
your life story. He just wants the money. It's what he's paid to do.

And out of this whole business, that may be the worst of all.

Sorry this vent is NONE movie related. It is a blog after all.

Traz

I've just been HULU'd.

(Thu 03/20/2008 03:09pm)

The grandmother to my lovely wife, being from Coal Miner's Daughter
country, has shared many stories of her fascinating past over the years,
complete with rural jargon that you'd not find anywhere else.
One of my favorites is, "You're not gonna hoodoo me!"
When I first heard it, I had no idea what it meant.
She explained that it was her way of saying "Don't be pulling
my leg" or "Don't be making a fool out of me."
May I submit to you the idea that the definition of hoodoo be applied to HULU.

I say this because of my first movie watching experience over at  
the new video website HULU, brought to you by NBC, who knows what it takes to ruin
television in new and exciting ways. Leave it to NBC to support
a show that sucks (see Bionic Woman), and cancel others that
were genuinely intrigueing and well written (see Journeyman/The Black Donnellys/Surface).

After registering to the site, I perused through the movie list,
and decided to watch a film I had yet to see. The fact that it was
free to watch should have given me a first clue that it was too
good to be true. I watched SIDEWAYS with the excellent Paul Giamatti,
and Thomas Haden Church. Both should have been up for Oscars for
their roles, and deservedly so, but only THC got the nod. 
I haven't laughed so hard from watching a film in a long time. It was brilliant.

However, I was seriously HULU'd.

At the onset of watching the movie, a black screen appears,
notifying me that "the following is intended only for mature
audiences. Viewer discretion advised. Rating: R". I then braced
myself for moments of colorful language and explicit displays of
whatever...

...after the movie was over, I wanted to go back and tell the
NBC-staffed folk for Hulu that there was NO WAY that movie could
have been rated R. PG to PG-13 at best, but not R.  

Scenes of lewd dialogue were badly overdubbed with replacement words.
Asshole was replaced with, of all things, ASHCROFT. The grand
daddy of all curse words, the F word, was replaced with FOOL,
or SCREW. Almost the entire movie was like this. I then looked
down to the reviews left by other Hulu users who HAD seen the film
in theaters, and all of them were livid that so many scenes were cut out.

Therefore, not only was this movie butchered and severely edited,
it was censored to a ridiculous level, making me want to adopt the
word Ashcroft as my new cuss-word to ingrates who fail to use their
turning signals when changing lanes on the highway. (I hate that.)

Bar none. This movie was hilarious. I busted out laughing about
five or six times, with my sides hurting. I also noted that the
film's dramatic moments were spot on, and I found myself identifying
all too easily with the character of Miles, his bouts of doubt
and frustration with being a nobody, and his lack of encouragement
and nurturing from others towards his gifts of writing.

I even loved the way the movie ended: [mini-spoiler]

with a knock on the door, and a grasp at a chance to hope again,
love again, and maybe, be someone special to another that would
regard him as such.

Now I have to see this movie AGAIN, and I'll need to get the DVD
and see it uncut, unbutchered, and in WIDESCREEN.
I detest pan & scan, which was how Hulu chose to deliver this fine film.

Shame on them.

But you want to know something ironic? Though the cursing was
terribly overdubbed with innocuous banter, I found it really fun
and funny to hear, and it didn't take away from the film.
For myself, it was nostalgic, recalling the days of network TV showing
rated R films way back when. For others, I'm sure, it's irritating.

The Hulu reviews listed beneath the Sideways page was all too clear on that point.

Regardless, I honestly felt that I was lied to. It left a bad
taste in my mouth, like an unforgiveable Merlot so sour and dry
I wouldn't dare pour it out over the gravesite of my homey.
It would be insulting.

In short, Hulu has lost my respect for them as quickly as it was
lost for NBC overall. At least now, if I do watch anything on that
below-par knockoff of the superior Youtube, I can be better prepared
that I'll be watching a sub-par offering of a movie/episode.
I'd rather go knowing what I was getting at the start, than be
made a fool of.

And in my view, that makes Hulu the biggest ASHCROFT on the net today.