Local Trivia: In which Gene puts his eye out.

Last Saturday, after having had Gene in for a PCV valve-area cleaning (because it turns out Gene doesn't have or need a PCV valve) and suturing a new door onto his crushed passenger side (from a previous owner's collision), I drove Gene to work.

On the way, he spit out his left front blinker light onto the highway and promptly ran over it.

We're not talking lightbulb here; we're talking the entire signal light assembly. Three little wires protrude from his gaping socket now, and my turn signal clicker clicks madly whenever I need to turn left, reminding me always of what he's done.

If before I felt like the Cranstonator was a crotchety old war veteran in need of some rehabilitative attention, now I'm beginning to wonder whether he's just plain crotchety. Putting out your own eye, for spite? That seems extreme and alarming. These bids for attention are not generally what Volvos are known for; they're supposed to be safe even in dangerous scenarios, like a shark cage you can drive around in. That implies dependability to me, and things like keeping all your parts in where they should be.

On the other hand, G.C.'s radio, an after-market add with a CD player, seems to get a better signal than Betty's or than my indoor CD player/radio, so if he insists on being a curmudgeon, well, at least I'll have an extremely safe place to stretch out and listen to NPR.

Local Trivia: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww.

Billboard on the side of I-84 East, near Hartford, CT:

[Two white women, one older, standing and smiling, arms on each other's shoulders]
"Not Your Mother's Hysterectomy!"

The billboard advertises "minimally invasive robotic assisted surgery." Too bad no one told them how gross it is to think about, let alone compare your own to, your mom's hysterectomy. It would have saved them a lot of money, and traffic-jammers a lot of cringing.

PSA: Double-u standard?

Well, the Washington Post has fired a reporter/blogger/op-ed contributor guy, David Wiegel, for writing in a private listserve email, among other things, "a joke about how the world would be a better place if Matt Drudge 'set himself on fire'."

This seems a bit like exiling the little boy who pointed out the Emporer was naked. I'm kind of disappointed he didn't put it on the official blog.

Technically, Wiegel resigned, and technically, the Post accepted the resignation after it was also revealed he'd said something about Rush Limbaugh dying and conservatives trying to "violently, angrily divide America." And technically, the Post declared that they weren't against opinions, per se, just against "the perception that people are conflicted or bring a bias to their work."

So...only the completely unconflicted are allowed to offer their opinions to the Post...which explains why they rushed to defend Drudge, actually.

The fact that these amount to a firing based on offering opinions in a non-public forum by a guy they hired partly to express his opinions (on conservative issues, no less) doesn't seem to bother the people at the Post who fired him. And I understand: the Post competes with the Washington Times for conservative readers, and this is a savvy business decision to help the Post seem less like the demonic liberal media Times readers probably feel it is. But let's not pretend it's not a choice of business savvy over free speech, because that's definitely what it is. And let's not ignore that defending Matt Drudge's freedom to say whatever damn stupid thing he wants by firing a guy who only said extreme things in private email rather than ranting them in public, is definitely a sign of conflict in the Post's business plan.

Perhaps people shouldn't be allowed to say, in any context, what seems obviously to be the truth (that the world would probably be better off without firebrand conservatives yelling at people without any solutions to the problems they're pointing out or compassion for the people they would affect), if they're working in journalism.

But it seems obvious instead that Fox News is winning here, and making the Washington Post into Switzerland won't help the paper survive. Kowtowing to conservatives who reserve the right to be jerks in public only for themselves will help the paper fade into the background, bird-cage-liner it seems to want to be, instead.

And heck -- like Wiegel with the conservatives he denigrated in email -- I'm saying this as a fan of the Post.

Imagine what Matt Drudge would say.

PSA: SYD complain-o-rama

So those of you who may be So You Think You Can Dance fans (SYD for short) have already noticed the changes this season: instead of the top 20, we've got the top 10 (well, top 11, it turns out), dancing with "champions" from past seasons -- none of the winners, mind you, but some memorable dancers -- in weird combinations, starting this week.

I respect the need to shake it up a bit after six seasons, but this is too much, SYD. I love the old champion dancers, which makes it tough to love the newbies. Is this more like Dancing with the Stars, which I've never seen? Why these changes?

At least Mia Michaels appears to be a permajudge this season, replacing Mary Murphy. I'd complain that no one will know now whether they're on the "hot tamale train" or not, but with all the changes this season, it's probably best to leave the train behind, too.

PSA: EEEEli Stone

The first three Es in my version of the spelling of the ABC-truncated show Eli Stone (which joined other shows like Daybreak, Samantha Who?, Dirty Sexy Money and a dozen other shows cut short in mid-seasons) stand for "every engagement ends," since with one end-of-the-run exception (which we don't get to see play out), every single engagement in this series (and there are a lot for such a short-running show) gets broken off. There are three broken engagements, I think, between six different characters, and in another case, a divorce.

But other than that, it's a pretty good show. Similar to Wonderfalls and, I imagine (since I've still never seen it), Joan of Arcadia, Eli Stone was a cute show that surprises you with stabs at significance. I always love Victor Garber (who doesn't?), and in Eli Stone he eventually gets to be the dad you always wish he was in Alias. Loretta "the Chief's wife from Grey's Anatomy" Devine has the constant supporting role she deserves (and several very, very respectable singing cameos) as Eli's assistant, and the rest of the cast grows on you. The lead actor from the ill-fated, years-ago show Ed, about a guy who owns a bowling alley (also seen as JD's older brother on Scrubs ), plays Eli's (dead) dad.

The second season cancellation desperation shows, and throws the show for a series of loops that can't really be justified, even with the impending doom of its end. But every show can't be Arrested Development with its brilliant use of desperate measures, nor Daybreak, with its meticulously plotted series finale. And while most of Eli Stone's plot twists feel twisty, it's almost untwisted just by the detritus of broken engagements littering the set stages: when Katie Holmes does a guest appearance (weird weird weird to see post-Cruise Katie on TV), it's clear that they leave room for her reappearance and leave Eli longing for her to return from Kenya -- though she never does -- and when the second-fiddle female lead character Eli's obviously in love with says she's over him, it's never sure whether we can believe her...The effect of so many relationships being mostly but not quite over is that every possibility remains open, always open, and so every possibility remains viable. These characters have choices, not an implacable, descend-on-you fate.

Perhaps that's the real tragedy of this show getting cut short: it's ultimately a show about process, and becoming a better person step by weird step, and it's a pity and an irony that something like that has to end. I'd like to see it unfurl over the years, ignoring character consistency and back-story and staying true instead to people's tendency to change, and change their beliefs about themselves, over time. That's a show I think 20-somethings could use nowadays.

Then again, we all die eventually, so maybe the cancellation and the end to process it represents is also true to life.

I still blame ABC.

PSA: If not the dive, the long-shot works.

Drosselmeyer, a 13-1 longshot in the Belmont Stakes (the third leg of the Triple Crown), pulled out a beautiful first-place finish, making starry-eyed, long-shot-betting OTB'ers happy this week and ensuring they can afford the inevitable benders to follow.

I guess horse racing will survive another year.

Mix: Chill Outz 3

In honor of Bryan Gaynor's dancing, here's a third "Fireflies"-inspired Chill Outz mix. There are repeats from past mixes and, yes, incredibly sappy songs on this list. And yes, there should be more Postal Service and Snow Patrol on a mix like this, but I can't get iTunes to recognize my .wma formats. If you would like all of the Chill Outz mixes, send your address to my email.

"Fireflies" -- Owl City
"Moth's Wings" -- Passion Pit
"No More Running Away" -- Air Traffic
"Kyrie" -- Mr. Mister
"Days Are Numbers (The Traveler)" -- Alan Parsons Project
"Scientist Studies" -- Death Cab For Cutie
"Save Tonight" -- Eagle Eye Cherry
"The Lamentation of David" -- Antony Pitts from Naxos Early Music
"Weighed Down" -- Jars of Clay
"Snowbirds and Townies" -- Further Seems Forever
"The Blower's Daughter" -- Damien Rice
"The Space Between" -- Dave Matthews Band
"Tiny Dancer" -- Elton John
"God Only Knows" -- Beach Boys
"Entertaining Angels" -- Newsboys
"Death And All His Friends" -- Coldplay

Local Trivia: Overheard after intro in which friend Kevin, very drunk, was explaining a dream in which he and Ben tried to move to a haunted house.

Kevin: "Long story short, needless to say, Ben and I did not get the lease."

[Because, Kevin explained later, they had not stayed the entire night as required by the owner. Pure genius horror film reasoning, there.]

PSA: SYD begins with a ROBOT.

I love love love this dancer; Bryan Gaynor (aka "Chibi"/Chibotics) from the season 3 SYD auditions has come back for season 7 auditions, to show us all (and the SYD judges) what he's been doing since we saw him on the season 3 finale performing his unique and humorous version of Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man."

Where his previous SYD performance showed (as I repeatedly pointed out, semi-gushing, to an eternally patient Prince Certainpersonio) the self-aware humor of the (potential) humanness of robots, Bryan's performance in this week's auditions showed exactly what robot-filled sci fi movies based on hardcore golden age science fiction writers like Asimov and Bova (think Bicentennial Man and A.I.) strive to show but often fall short of (though I'm told Iron Giant is awesome, and I suspect in just this way): the necessary, often telling differences between the "robot" and the "human."

Whether the reference is purposeful or not, when Bryan lays down at the end of the routine, I can't help but recall the image of Haley Joel Osment laying down next to his mother at the end of A.I. The difference is that this is real life, Bryan is a real person much like many of the people I know, and his taking on the (dance) persona of a robot is strangely fitting, and poignant as a result. Even in the few actual clips we get of Bryan Gaynor dancing to Owl City's "Fireflies," a song I'm sure he's made a lot of money for by now, we can imagine a completely different world watching the isolation and terrible, innocent hope of his robot on display. His dance is a meditation on what makes us different, not (just) from robots, but from each other, and how we might cope with that.

And unlike the more recent robotic sci-fi, it doesn't leave us all screaming piles of wreckage in the wake of software gone bad. Chibotics follows the three laws.

It's possible that only a 7-season veteran of SYD would obsess this much over a really awesome version of the robot -- or that only a candidate for an upper-level degree in "cultural production" would. But see for yourself. Go watch it. The picture isn't perfect, and they show way too much of the SYD judges reacting to his dance (we know, it's awesome, and touching! Now SHOW US WHAT HE'S DOING SO WE CAN REACT, TOO), but what you see is, I think, enough to understand what I'm talking about.

Don't watch it on a bad or jerky connection, though, as you won't know when he's being an awesome robot vs. when your computer is being stupid.

Also, keep in mind that I feel really attached to this performance, in which I see vulnerability and strength, which are rarely so obviously displayed and which are usually crushed by cynical comments -- so if you hate it or want to say sarcastic things about it, go to some random person's blog and post a comment there. That other blogger will probably be pleased and benignly weirded out, and I will be saved from a small bit of soul-death. This is a just-in-case suggestion.

The hundred suitors and the axe head: Cranstonated.

Gene Cranston has finally been registered. I've discovered in this process that I never received Betty's official CT title in the mail three years ago when I got her, but they didn't need that to finally allow me to drive the Cranstonation for realz.

Huzzah. P.C. and I have driven to his parents' house in semi-celebration, and except for G.C.'s left headlight, which fell out of its socket on the highway and must have looked to other cars like a skeleton's dangling eyeball, it all went fine.

Still -- huzzah for my one-eyed car.

Local Trivia: Tree butchery

I just watched a perfectly good, cute, decorative tree get chainsawed down by a two-man crew with a wood chopper.

I thought they were just pruning it to begin with, though I thought "that's a stupid way to prune a tree," which I know thanks to my grandma's penchant for gardening and farm-work. Then they continued past the point of pruning, and I realized what they were really doing.

It felt a bit like what I imagine watching an amputation would feel like -- though with the addition that the amputation would continue, shockingly, to every limb, and then end with decapitation.

Gene Cranston came to that.

So in the continuing saga of Gene Cranston's road-worthiness, it turned out that the check-engine-light lighting that happened post-transmission-flush was what my Ron had feared it would be: the catalytic converter.

It also turns out that because Gene is a 1994 and not 1996 or later, there needed to be a special-order converter. The O2 sensor that would normally be somewhere on a catalytic converter is actually inside a Volvo 1994's catalytic converter. This meant that changing it cost over 150% what a normal cat would cost. I got it done at P.C.'s Ron's shop because they're exhaust experts and I was tired of my Ron rolling his eyes at Gene. (Though that had stopped when he'd had a chance to spend a little time with Gene, my Ron also simply buys dealer parts for Volvos, which are three times as expensive as they should be.)

So Gene got his converter converted last Thursday. They ran him through emissions right there at P.C.'s Ron's, and he passed in training. Then they ran him again and he failed worse than ever.

When I say "worse than ever," I mean that Gene had failed by about 200 ppm in the Nox category the first time, putting out 1700-something instead of the 1522 he should have. The second test, he got worse, putting out over 2000 ppm, and this second post-training-run run, he scored over 2500. This was after the catalytic converter was put in, and after the trips to Less-local City and Far-Away City.

Friday morning, I brought Gene in for a final retest, to have them test him cold, and he passed, with only 308 ppm. Go figure.

So Gene was roadworthy on Friday, the day I had to drive him to (and for) work.

I actually took my girl to the DMV on Friday afternoon, hoping to get a number for the line (CT DMV works like a deli counter), drop the girl off half an hour away and make it back before my number was called. Friday was the last day Gene Cranston could legally drive with the temporary registration; Friday was the day he had finally passed the emissions test to get a real registration; and Friday was the day the DMV shut early for the holiday weekend.

I don't mean early-early. I mean 20 minutes before I arrived with my girl, the DMV had shut its doors to further customers. It wasn't even closed yet at 12:53 p.m. But it was closed to me and the ten other cars that arrived and turned around in its lot while I was there.

So today, today, I'm going back, and I hope to finally end the saga (and the various payments) -- but at this point I hold out little hope that Gene, abused by previous owners and reluctant to change (gears -- the transmission is still a bit sticky), will ever be the happy-go-lucky little car-that-could that Betty has been. Or at least not legally.

But maybe I'm wrong -- maybe this is less fairy-tale and more epic, and all I have left to do is slay the hundred suitors and shoot my arrow through an axe head or something. After Circe and the cyclops, that should be a cinch.

Confessions XLIV

Last night I ate honey roasted peanuts for dinner. Later I regretted it.

I also spent most of the waking hours of my shift watching Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and Better Off Ted on hulu -- though this is allowed at my job, and so doesn't constitute as big a confession as you might think.

This morning, possibly thanks to my dietary and moral weakness, I woke up with an entire leg asleep. An entire leg. The weakness didn't go away with pins and needles; instead, it seems to have spread to my entire body, giving me even worse posture than usual. Because of a Parks and Rec episode I watched ("why would anyone eat anything other than breakfast food?" "People are stupid, Leslie"), I believe that a Belgian waffle with berries and whipped cream would cure this.