FMC 3.0

I walked out of the office this morning, a free man for the first time in 12 days. It was a good feeling. Air was cool, sun was out. I put the windows down in Nighthawk for the first time in what seems like forever. Threw my collared shirt in the back, and headed off for what was going to be my most enjoyable commute in a while.

I was less than a mile down the road when my XM cut out, and just said "Updating". Apparently my 3 month trial period just expired. Nearly 11 months later. Luckily I had the MP3 player with me, and the ride wasn’t a complete borefest.

But the ride was good, and the air was nice, and not the stale stuff my AC has been spitting out for weeks.

When I got home, foreboding came again. I read through the blogs, and saw my name mentioned. MindlessMuse is getting the webcomic bug again. It could certainly be fun. I was just hoping he’d dig out the Suite205 files to make a bunch of T-shirts. I just got this sense that my future just got more wordy.

Quite a strange coincidence, I had an idea for one pop through my head last week. Maybe Kenzie and Orson will ride again. Or they could be replaced by something completely new. Guess i’ll just have to let the creative process ride.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve been wanting to run an experiment in Nighthawk related to how far it’ll go on the gas light. If you go back further back in the archives, the previous record was about 33.7 miles. I figured it could go much further, but I needed the proper situation to do it in. I wanted to do it on a drive home from the office, on a nice day, when I didn’t have any reason to rush home (in case i did run out of gas.) So when my gas light blinked on during the drive to work last night, it was a good opportunity. When I parked at the office, I’d put 30 miles on the light.

I knew that what I had left would let me get to gas station. But instead of tanking up, I picked up a gas can, put precisely 2 gallons in it, and headed on my way.

To be fair, I did alter my route home. I came down to 72 from the Wawa, and then to 13. I decided that going down Route 1 with the intention of becoming disabled was just going to lead to trouble. Especially since when the engine dies, so does power steering. So this test wasn’t quite the normal 75 MPH jaunt home. Speed actually varied a bit, and got held up at stoplights and the like. But I knew that if Nighthawk died, it would be much safer to refill it on 13 than one. Now, I realize that it may have skewed the mileage I was getting. But that’s ok, as I mostly wanted to see if I could cross a certain bar. Basically, I wanted to see if it would go 47 miles. Well, to be honest, a few more than that. See, 47ish miles is my commute to work. I just wanted to know if I could make a commute on it.

Well, this morning I have my answer. I had predicted that I was gonna make it 62 miles, had I gone my usually 75 MPH gallop.

So down the road I went, just waiting for my engine to putter out, and my steering to fail. I made it to Odessa, with no signs of sputtering. As I kept rolling, I realized that my 62 mile prediction would land me in the middle of Smyrna. At least there are plenty of gas stations there.

But I made it past Smyrna. Though, as I went by the South Smyrna, Nighthawk developed a bit of a sputter. I decided that I’d stop for gas, my point proven. So I hit the Royal Farms in Cheswold. When I parked, this is what my mileage gauge said:

What? Can’t believe I made it that far on the light?

66 miles on my gas light. Now, my tank supposedly holds 15.8 gallons, according to the book. At the pump, I put in 15.542 Gallons. That is by far the most I’ve ever needed to fill up the tank.

Oddly enough, I thought ahead, telling myself I’d top off at the North Dover Wawa if I got that far. I think I just might have, though it’d have been running on fumes.

At least I know that I can make it on one leg of a commute on my gas light.

Not much else in the news. I caught the new Spiderman 3 trailer last night, and while it looks like fun, I can’t quite go to the point of fanboy giddiness that I normally do for comic book movies. I just don’t know that story well enough. Superman, however, I’m going gaga for. I watched all the trailers for Superman on apple, and they just look better and better.

Oh, lastly, I knocked out all of the categories, mostly because I don’t remember to use them enough. Besides, now there’s a clear count of my little rants and ravings. Just what we need, a running count of my insanity.

No, that’s not a line said by Nathan Detroit. It was a quote in and article I read about the new sex dolls that the weirdos in the sex toy biz are coming out with. Another gem of a quotation: "she’s so durable you can jack up your car with her." Gee, just what I wanted in a playmate. Except maybe a working set of organs and a brain. I don’t get this trend. I mean, we guys are renowned for having sex with just about anything, but inanimate objects designed to look and feel like the objects we’d rather be boinking? Personally, I think i’d rather be celibate than resort to sex with a doll.

So it’s like this. You drop 5000 dollars on a doll to have sex with. While you never have to feed it, or talk to it, or any of the normal taking care of a human bit, you do have to give it a good cleaning after you’ve finished with the copulation. I’m guessing that since there’s orifices involved, it requires a bit of disassembly to get all the spunk out of there. It’s got to be weird removing the head of something you just violated just to get at it with some Clorox.

Besides, this entire things kind of selfish - it takes sex and makes it all about your own pleasure. When did sex stop being about two people doing naughty things together to see if they could maximize each other’s pleasure. (Or, for you few Thumpers I haven’t scared away yet: It’s just for making babies. That’s it.) Did I miss a memo somewhere? This doll thing is basically a ridiculously elaborate and expensive way to masturbate.  Anyway, if you want to read the entire story (which may be somewhat NSFW, but then, most of this post hasn’t been)  you can catch it here.

In other news, I made it to work not needing my wipers last night. I was rather amazed. I almost thought I’d get that treat at lunchtime, as there wasn’t any rain falling then, but it started shortly after I hopped in the car. And even while it was raining on my way back home after lunch, I almost needed sunglasses because the sun and blue sky were just about to peek out.

Also, you might recall that I mentioned the battle for Superman last week. Scott Kurtz, the writer of PVP, came up with this interesting conclusion. Personally, it sounds like a winner to me.

So 10 days down, and 2 to go. Then what i’m sure is gonna seem like an uber short weekend. Then again, i’m not sure how long of a weekend there should be to recuperate from a 12 day work week.

Yeah, I’m getting tired of driving the rain. The only singing I’m doing is the streams of curse words melodiously yelled at out of state drivers that don’t know how to drive on my roads. Especially the clueless ones about rain. I realize it would have sent my insurance premium way up, but damn it would have been worth it take care of that Jersean that was being such a douche bag. I wanted to just tap that fucker and send him right into the concrete barrier. Traffic going 50ish on a very rainy road, tough as shit to see, and this douche bag is doing 35, in the left hand lane, in a black car, with no head lights on. Luckily, my fog lights reflected off is bumper or I’d prolly have run right into his ass. What ever the damage would have been, it would been worth it. What an asshat.

Ok, rant mode off.

My marathon work week continues. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. And its four days away. That light includes Superman (which I know I mentioned, but i’m really looking forward to this now.)   That, and a fourth of July party on tap for Saturday night.

Of course, the weekend after that is the Philly Bar Crawl for Matt’s Birthday. Oh, and I made weekend long plans in September Comic-con. (insert maniacal fanboy laugh here.) Gonna be good though, Baltimore is a pretty fun town. Maybe I’ll even sneak into the aquarium, its been ages since I was in there.

But now, on to sleep, and back to the grindstone later.

Oh wait, forgot to mention, Nighthawk hit a sad milestone today - the 30 miles in on my gaslight this morning necessitated that I buy gas in Newark this morning (which stinks, cause it would have been a good day for the experiment, except I woulda been soaked had I been wrong.) This morning was the first time it cost me over $40 to fill my tank. And I only put 13.7 gallons in. Therein lies the need for the experiment - I have a 16 gallon tank. Why on earth is my gas light on so early.

Here’s hoping the moon is out tonight. The last thing I need is more cloud cover.

That’s days of work. Yeah, it’s a long week for me. While it certainly made work more stable over the weekend, and the extra time will come in handy later, its a long, long week. Oh well, it ensures i’ll have PTO for Florida in October.

Not much else in the news. Certainly been a long week of soggy commutes to work. And from work. The trip up last night was the worst, as the rain was coming down so hard the average speed of traffic was 40-45 MPH on my normally 75 MPH road. That, and the lightning strikes 10 feet from the car were a real blast too. At that range, the hair stands up on the back of your neck.

Looking forward to Superman this week (it’ll be Saturday before I see it.) The only downside? I was told I can’t wear my Superman T-Shirt to the theater. Maybe i’ll wear a button up over it and pretend I’m Clark Kent. I mean, I’ve already got the glasses.

Also, I found a few more interesting web comics in my travels recently, so the comics panel over there on the right has gotten longer. No, I don’t expect anyone to read them as often as I do, but I leave them there so I don’t forget any. Who wants to remember that many sites? (As I said from the beginning, this site is like my own personal web portal.)

Oh, in a funny bit of come around, a Victoria’s Secret Catalog showed up in the mail yesterday, addressed to me. Like I have any plans to buy anything from there anytime soon. (Well, I guess one could hope…) At any rate, I’d still shop online. Of course, I got a post card from the recipient of the VS Bikini yesterday as well. Unfortunately, it wasn’t of the recipient wearing the bikini. There I go hoping again…