(Well…commercials.  Plural.)

I’m glad we purchased a Malibu.  You see, gas pumps hate Chevrolets.  Something about gas mileage.  Anyway, if you have a Malibu the gas pump will sneak inside your car and turn up your radio and flip on your blinkers and wipers.  A minor annoyance; not dangerous.

But if you have an Aveo it’ll lock you out of your car, possibly opening you to thug attacks in shady neighborhoods.

And if you have a Cobalt it’ll FLATTEN YOUR TIRE.  You could DIE.

This just in (literally as I was typing this:) if you have a Silverado the pump will steal your lunch and throw it in the trash can.  But at least you’ll spot it before driving away; not too bad.

I think I remember this episode of Futurama.  Someone get Mom’s bra.

Okay, self. You’re a tech geek. You like shiny things. Sell yourself an iPhone.

Well, okay. I guess I would have to start with…DUH. IT’S A FREAKING IPHONE. Not only is it the coolest damn looking mobile out there, but it’s an iPod. And don’t tell me you don’t like iPods and that you’re not an early adopter; you had a first-gen Windows iPod a full month before they hit stores.

Yes, but I have an iPod. A Touch. Just bought it a couple months ago.

Go sell that brick on eBay then. With an iPhone you get every feature your iPod has plus, like, a zillion more. Literally. Steve Jobs’ boys were actually able to locate the number zillion; it’s actually one of the free apps available. Along with AIM chat, Facebook, GPS locator crap, song recognition technology, AOL Radio, a zillion (again, literally) games, live WeatherBug radar and you don’t have to be near an open WiFi network to use it all like with your pitiful iPod Touch.

I’m under contract to Verizon for another eighteen months, and I’m not paying the early termination fee.

So get around it, then. Consumerist lists a way to do that, like, everyday. In fact they just gave instructions JUST YESTERDAY for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of people USING IT TO GET OUT OF THEIR CONTRACT AND GET AN IPHONE. You stop by that site like ten times a day; how did you miss it?

Wow, you like to shout, don’t you? I didn’t miss that post, actually. I just ignored it because it’s not as easy to break free as they make it sound. Plus, I’m not the only one on the account: Emily and my mother are on it as well, and of the 700 minutes we’re allotted each month we usually have just under half of that left since we don’t talk much on the phone and most of who we do call are also Verizon customers, so the call is free.

But you could get a similar deal for them on AT&T…

Not with an iPhone I couldn’t. The data rate is horrid, and even worse since after they reduced the price of the new iPhones they jacked the rate you pay for your subscription. It would cost me in one month to have just one iPhone what I pay for three phones now. And AT&T certainly isn’t any cheaper as a whole; Lifehacker pointed me to this site that runs a comparison of your current plan with every other available one for your ZIP code. It’s conclusion was that it couldn’t save me a single dime by switching to another plan.

So basically you want me to literally double my mobile phone cost per month AND probably pay Verizon an ETF just so I can use Google Maps with GPS in the car and control my iTunes from six-hundred miles away.

I’m just going to repeat what you just said: Google Maps with GPS in the car.

Oh. Drool…

So we’re going to the AT&T store then?

Still no.

The blog has become droll and lifeless. With nothing going on, there’s plenty of time to write…but nothing to write about. Such is the ultimate irony of the online journal: when a lot happens, you’ve no time to write about it. When you’ve time to write, there’s nothing that’s worth the effort. Sad.

So I’ll just list everything that’s currently on our DirecTV HD DVR. Listed from oldest to newest.

The West Wing | BravoHD - The first six episodes of the series as telecast on Bravo a couple months ago. They never run The West Wing anymore. We didn’t even have Bravo in Effingham and I didn’t miss it since their once-common West Wing marathons just don’t happen that much. I caught this one and have been afraid to delete it; those DVD box sets are EXPENSIVE.

Ratatouille | Starz West HD - We haven’t bought the DVD yet, and this version is OAR HD. Looks gorgeous.

Employee of the Month | TMCHD - A guilty pleasure. It’s a really crappy movie, but the former retail worker in me enjoyed it. And for some reason I haven’t deleted it yet.

30 Rock | KSDK-DT - The last five episodes of season two.

The Office | KSDK-DT - The last six episodes of season four.

King of the Hill | KTVI-DT - The last six episodes of season eleven.

American Idol | KTVI-DT - The season seven finale. Again, I’m not sure why I haven’t deleted this.

Backbeat | TMCHD - The early 90’s film about the Beatles in Germany focused around Stuart Sutcliffe. Haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Cars | Starz Comedy HD - Like Ratatouille, we keep a beautiful HD copy of this on the box because it looks so damn good. Unlike Ratatouille, we actually own the DVD of this film. But the HD version looks better.

Transformers | Cinemax HD - We haven’t watched this yet. Maybe one year.

Trading Places | Cinemax West HD - I hadn’t seen this in years when Cinemax ran it. Then I recorded a later run in HD. And it’s still there.

Idiocracy | Cinemax HD - A highly underrated film from Mike Judge. Not as good as Office Space - not even close - but worth a watch if you haven’t seen it. It’s somewhat quotable, and it warms my heart to see more and more references to it popping up in the Fark forums.

Starz Inside: The Pixar Story | Starz Kids & Family HD - A tremendous documentary about Pixar produced by Starz. Worth keeping for a while.

Get Smart | WPXS-TV - Three episodes of the series recorded a couple weeks ago. Emily had never seen the show, so after we saw the movie I gave her a sample of it. I would delete them, but this is Kaos. We don’t delete things here. (No? Okay, let’s try another one.) I would delete them, but when I went to hit the button I missed it by…that much. (Still no?) Would you believe…I’m too lazy to delete them?

Donut Paradise | Travel Channel HD - A random hour-long show on donut places. Yeah. Hasn’t been watched yet; might not ever be. I miss the old specials the History Channel used to run (mostly on weekends) detailing the history of American cuisine, and this is no real substitute.

WWE Monday Night Raw | USAHD - Two recent episodes (the draft and the week after) that haven’t been deleted yet. This is why my DVR only has 13% capacity remaining.

Let’s Go To Prison | Cinemax HD - A supposedly wretched film that features Will Arnett and Dax Shepard and so I DVR’d it for some boring day. Odds it gets watched: meh.

300 | Cinemax HD - Haven’t seen it yet, so I figured I’d record it for later. Especially since it’s in HD and I’m canceling the premium channels before long. Odds it gets watched: good.

Road Trip | Discovery HD Theatre - Two recent episodes of the old Travel Channel series that DHT reruns sporadically. Love the show. Odds they get watched: probably tonight.

Jon & Kate Plus 8 | TLCHD - Four episodes I haven’t seen from their marathon last night. This show is highly addictive, and not just because I’m still trying to learn how to tell the three girls apart.

The Matrix | Cinemax West HD - Recording right now because A.) It’s The Matrix and 2.) It’s in HD. Duh.

For future reference, my season passes for this coming fall will most likely be: Chuck, King of the Hill, My Name is Earl, The Office, Pushing Daisies, SNL, The Simpsons, and 30 Rock.

The last time I spoke here I merely crossposted an entry from my Digital Route 66 blog.  Since then I’ve added a slew of posts over there…and nothing here.  Well then.

So what have we been up to?  Well, as you can probably tell from the fact that all my writing was on the Route 66 blog…Route 66 stuff.  The state Motor Tour, the national festival in Litchfield, et cetera.  Fun.

Maybe one of these days I’ll get back to writing here on a semi-regular basis.

I’ll try.

We’ll see.

Crossposted from my DigitalRoute66.com blog.  We’re on the 2008 Illinois Route 66 Motor Tour right now.  Pictures are available on my Route 66 Flickr feed.

For a few minutes, at least, we thought Trailnet had abandoned us.

Mother Nature hadn’t. She moved her storms through earlier in the morning, emptying the last of her clouds quite politely over the Metro East highways in the last several hours before the scheduled start of the tour, keeping the sun under veil until the parade was about to begin. No problems from that old lady.

But Trailnet…

At 7:45 cars were starting to stack up in the median between the lanes of Riverview Drive, desperate for a place to park. The west side lot at the Chain of Rocks Bridge is more than adequate for the Motor Tour, especially in a light year like this – but only if Trailnet is there to unlock the gate.

Cell phones were whipped out; voice mails left. Plan B’s were quickly hatched; could we reassemble at the flea market and start from there?

“Oh, wow! You guys are early!” Clearly, times had gotten mixed up. The Missouri SUV sported a bike at the rear and a nice gentleman in a lime green shirt that said “Trailnet Staff”, easing the concerns of the gathered.

We’re in!

St. Clair County rep and Tour Grand Marshall Jerry Law got the festivities started at 8:30 sharp, and across the bridge we went.

The first tour stop was the Route 66 Flea Market in Granite City, just west of where Chain of Rocks Road crosses I-270. It was an optional stop, but I doubt few on the trip missed it: the parking lot quickly became full and up and down the rows of booths outside travelers browsed the variety of sale items, many of them throwing down a few dollars for a trinket or two.

It’s an interesting setup: the inside is quite small, with only a few dedicated booths filling the aisles to the south of where the business’s brass handed out coffee and donuts to eager 66’ers. But most of the activity was outside, where rows and rows of storage garages opened at 9:00 AM to reveal a collection of wares inside of each. Swords, love seats, elephant stools and Elvis paintings; what’s not to like?

The cruise between the flea market and the Rabbit Ranch took us through the center of unincorporated Mitchell, and the town folk gave us a hearty welcome. At the firehouse just east of the Luna Cafe the fireman were busy selling souvenirs, and further down at the strip mall and school residents had gathered in lawn chairs and hatchbacks of SUVs to watch and wave at the Mother Road travelers as they drove by. As we meekly waved from our ‘08 Malibu, it made us really wish, for their sake, that more classic cars were involved in the tour.

Rich Henry’s fear that the recent rains would wash out most of the parking at the Rabbit Ranch proved to be unfounded. IDOT had mowed along the east side of the Staunton Bypass, and it didn’t take long for a number of cars to line the sides of Route 66 and slow down gawking locals as they undoubtedly wondered what was happening at the place with all the half-buried VW Rabbits.

What was going on was a lot of business for the awesome little gift shop; one could barely move inside as Rich Henry rapidly rang out patron after patron while more tourists mingled outside, pausing to get their passport stamped and to pose for pictures. Back inside Montana the Rabbit, the seven year old presidential candidate, huddled meekly at the counter, somewhat startled by the sudden influx of human activity. A sign advised that pictures, even with flash, were welcome, but no touching – not today, at least. It was just too much for the next president to handle.

Shunning the directions in the passport book, we took the Staunton Bypass all the way to Staunton Road, planning to make a left into town and catch Route 4 that way. A few classic cars cruised in front of us and went straight across Staunton Road, heading towards Mount Olive on the Litchfield Alignment. The other tourists behind us followed them, perhaps heading over to see the other classic cars along I-55, or, perhaps, lost. We later spotted the crowd of classics in Girard, so no matter what the story ends well.

Gillespie tried to derail 66ers further by closing off much of Route 4 through town to make room for their Black Diamond Days festival. The annual town party celebrates the town’s coal mining heritage, and with the tilt-a-whirl firmly planted along the downtown stretch the Motor Tour was forced to follow small orange detour signs down

North of town, we were promised the Honey Creek Bridge would be open. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that we were advised that the bridge might be open. It wasn’t. We, and plenty others, ignored the orange warning sign and headed down the path, turning around amidst the mud and passing other oncoming tour cars, the road barely large enough to support the width of two modern automobiles

I assembled a selection of about one-hundred and fifty 50’s and 60’s tunes into an iPod playlist entitled “Crusin’” to help us on our way; XM’s 60’s on Six is usually a good friend, but today required stepping things up a notch.

Somewhere north of Carlinville, while watching carefully for the multitude of 90-degree turn alignments that skirt off to the east, we got behind a later model Ford Thunderbird with the Illinois tags “Baby T.” What would happen to pop up on the random shuffle at that point but the Beach Boys’ “Fun Fun Fun.” Sometimes your MP3 player just…knows.

People take their passports very seriously.

Girard rolled out the red carpet for the Motor Tour, with a town cop parked along Route 4 to make sure that traffic found its way to the village square. There at the pavilion was a feast of pork chops (which, according to the buzz, were quite tender and tasty,) brats and hot dogs with chips, drinks and cookie and pastry treats. Locals mixed with the 66ers, with one young lad nervously carrying his selection up to the pay table and asking if this “passport” thing he’d heard about was necessary to purchase food. Moments later he left happily, hot dog in tow.

On the west side of the square was Doc’s Soda Fountain, a classic establishment that does not let down its chosen name. With a modern (but still, somehow, period-looking) bar at the front and a bevy of antique items towards the back the store is a treat for those in search of history or just younger folk yearning to quench their desire for lactose. The seating is most likely enough for most days, but even with the park gazebo still spilling over onto the grass Doc’s was likewise overflowing with out-of-towners downing shakes and sundaes.

It was there that, after I polished off a single yummy scoop of chocolate, I excused myself to use the gentleman’s room and returned to find my party had exited into the square. They’d remembered to grab my digital camera, but not my passport, and the next few minutes were spent scrambling around central Girard trying to find this most valuable collection of papers. Overhearing our phone call to the parents, a helpful lady inside Doc’s let us know that she’d turned in a passport left on a table to the management there – and we were instantly reunited with our guidebook. As adamant as we were to find it, our fellow travelers were just as set that others along the tour weren’t separated from their book of stamps.

It’s not a race, it’s a cruise, and after each stop the traffic separates itself more and more and you encounter less and less of your fellow Mother Roaders. After Girard the gulf was exacerbated further as different groups departed from lunch at different times to head towards Williamsville. While we had a handful of cohorts on the Donaldson Road turkey track trek, our jaunt down the Auburn brick was a lonely one; the only company was a pair of doves that darted out of our way before being crushed into the red brick below. The lonesome journey continued north through Chatham, home to a small classic car show just to the east of old 66, and onto Springfield where any hope to find, and stick by, fellow 66ers would be easily defeated by the snarling modern monster that is Veteran’s Parkway.

Williamsville was awesome. The small community played host to a passport stop at their village museum housed in two old railroad cars, and we were greeted not only with enthusiastic smiles but also with lemonade, cookies, a gift bag and a rather thick paperback book detailing the history of the village – all free. As one of the first to breeze through, we advised them that we were at the head of the pack, and that plenty more would come.

They seemed ready and legitimately delighted.

With time to kill before the regroup at Broadwell and the parade into Lincoln, we briefly explored Elkhart, taking Logan County Highway 10 to the east to the cemetery where Illinois Governor Richard Oglesby was laid to rest. The cemetery sits on Elkhart Hill, and towards the base was an amazing old railroad bridge that compressed the county road by just a bit and rose just over twenty-one feet above the pavement. Quite the side trip.

Back on 66, the Pig Hip was hopping as we lined up to cruise north to The Mill. Locals were selling wooden pieces of the building for $10 each to support the restoration of the building; a new roof has been applied but much work remains to be done. A tour of the interior testifies to this; it was in awful shape.

There’s a reason why the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame has so many restaurants in it: the road is all about food. It was apropos, then, that dinner was tremendous, a huge all-you-can-eat buffet with chicken fried steak and meat loaf. The banquet went well, and as we cruised home KMOX offered just a little bit of static as the 50,000 watt Voice of St. Louis offered a Chubby Checker tune as part of Randy Raley’s Route 66 Radio – the perfect Saturday night treat to wrap up day one of the ’08 Motor Tour.

The air conditioning is on. Much better.

Weather this year has been just crazy. Saint Louis has averages 37 inches of rain each year according to the Source of All Knowledge. So far this year they’ve had thirty. And we’re only fifty miles northeast of there. So you see. Temperatures have actually been cooler than average as of late, but the humidity is just unbearable.

And it never stops raining. Never. Literally.

Friday night Emily and I found our way to Lincoln Park in north Springfield to play Disc Golf for the first time. That adventure would have to wait two days, because the sprinkles started as we entered town from the south, the drizzle started as we drove into the park, the downpour started as we huddled in the shelter waiting for the rain to abate, and the tornado sirens went off about ten minutes later. After five minutes of hiding in the stone-built bathrooms, we split.

Then the hail came.

The Cardinals played the Pirates on Saturday night in a game that saw no break in the rain, drops pouring down for all nine innings as the announcers wondered why they were bothering to continue the contest. Duh, thought I, because it’s never going to stop raining! And I don’t think it has.

About a third into the 2008 season, I figured we could revisit my preseason predictions and see how things are shaking up.

American League East Predicted: NYY, BOS*, TOR, TBR, BAL.
American League East Standings: TBR, BOS, TOR, BAL, NYY.
No one saw Tampa being this good this fast. I thought they’d have their best record yet - but that wouldn’t take much. Are they for real? Probably so, and I wouldn’t put playoff potential past them yet. Boston should still take the division, though, especially with a possible home field advantage even in Florida late in the season. The biggest question is whether a late-in-the-season first or second place Rays club will start to attract fans to the high school gym they play in. New York won’t finish last, but their playoff appearance streak is done.

American League Central Predicted: DET, CLE, CHW, MIN, KCR.
American League Central Standings: CHW, MIN, CLE, KCR, DET.
Well then. No one thought the Tigers would do this. Many picked the Tribe to take the division, but everyone else put Detroit in second. Third at the very worst, and those people were immediately ostracized. Perhaps they were soothsayers. This is easily the wackiest division this year and the one where it’s impossible to figure out how things will finish: with all due respect to the Southsiders, the White Sox would be the weakest division champ outside of Miami, and I don’t know if they can hold up their position. But who will challenge them? Last place Detroit? The slumping Indians? The circus continues.

American League West Predicted: LAA, OAK, SEA, TEX.
American League West Standings: LAA, OAK, TEX, SEA.
BORE-RING. Angels in a walk, done in the Division Series. Just another blah season in the AL West.

National League East Predicted: PHI, ATL, NYM, WAS, FLA.
National League East Standings: FLA, ATL, PHI, NYM, WAS.
Everyone else who picked Florida to lead the division two months in can leave the room. Now that we’re all still here, I TOLD YOU SO about the Mets. The pitching, even with Santana, is weak (Pedro is OLD,) Reyes slowed down in the stretch last year and hasn’t picked it up, and one Carlos is too streaky while the other one is just, well, OLD. The Mets are right where they should be. Whether Florida’s hot pitching will continue or not is the big question, but I figure the real race in September to be between Philly and Atlanta…just like I predicted.

National League Central Predicted: CHC, MIL, STL, CIN, HOU, PIT.
National League Central Standings: CHC, STL, HOU, PIT, MIL, CIN.
When David Pinto of Baseball Musings pegged the Cards for last place I almost plotzed. They’re not that bad. Are they that good? I still say they’ll finish no lower than third and with a winning record. But they might not contend; it’s too early to tell. Houston is surviving solely on the willpower of Lance Berkman and Rapidly Aging Miguel Tejada and won’t last. The Brewers might make a comeback if they fire Ned Yost, so look for them to stay in the second division. Cubs are still the favs, but it might not be easy even with their neighbors ninety miles north out of the picture.

National League West Predicted: ARI, SDP*, COL, LAD, SFG.
National League West Standings: ARI, LAD, SFG, COL, SDP.
LA’s got a youth movement going that may keep them in second the rest of the season. San Fran’s only in third by default since all of Denver is on the DL and San Diego just broke down on us; I originally picked them to take the Wild Card, but Peavy and Young being banged up will thwart any chance of such a comeback. Arizona’s in the NLCS.

One of the trends in TV production these days is to display your shot on a monitor…and then shoot the monitor. Local news stations do it by rolling video on a TV in set and using a crane cam to slide from it to the anchors. American Idol did it all season long by zooming in on the screen and not letting you know you’re watching them on a monitor through a camera…only to pull the crane cam back and show you what’s really going on.

Cute.

Too cute sometimes.

About a month ago Fox Sports Net Midwest crossed the line. During a Cardinals game they did a locator shot (a shot used to show you where you are, usually to bump into or out of commercial break) from outside of Busch Stadium. There was a small TV monitor sitting outside one of the main gates showing a replay of a play from earlier in the inning with the lights of Busch Stadium shining down upon it.

It was an innovative and original shot. The director, of course, immediately rode it to death, showing it constantly in and out of break. And then they took it too far:

Yes, in the middle of the inning…with Yadier Molina at bat…they went to the monitor-within-a-monitor outside. Did they show a pitch or any action this way? Thankfully no, but it’s the only way it could have gotten worse. After a couple games they put the shot back in the vault and I haven’t seen it yet which is probably for the best. This type of cute production can really spice up a broadcast, but you have to know when enough is enough.

One of the only things I dislike about working at the radio station is our location out in the country, or, as the program director often puts it, “In the middle of a @#$% cornfield.” Working a 4 pm to 12 midnight shift is nice except when the backdoor swings shut just a few minutes into the new day and you’re by yourself in the middle of Central Illinois. Freaky. There could be wild dogs out there.

Today there were. I arrived just before 4:00 and almost ran over a scruffy-looking, dirty white thing that resembled a giant mop sans-handle more than a puppy. There were two identical mutts, actually, and they hounded me (intended) as I juggled my laptop bag, soda, bottle of water, plastic dinner bag and backdoor key. My attempts to shoo them away verbally were only successful for one of them, but I managed to sneak in without inflicting a canine invasion upon the studios.

Upon arriving inside, I was greeted with three pieces of news:
A.) The dogs had been there all day. Or at least since around 8:00 AM.
2.) One of them is blind.
D.) The other is deaf.

Wow. Hopefully they won’t be there when I go to leave. Not that I fear them - they’re not vicious. Just annoying.

I’m so glad that the judges on American Idol tonight were so in David Archuleta’s camp, crowning him King of Sucky Season Seven and just daring - DARING - America to vote the other way.

When Cook wins tomorrow night they’re going to be em-bare-assed.

Fun!