Dog Bike Sick.

Took the dogs on a walk at Rock Bridge… and then they fell asleep:

After that, I took the awesome ’94 purple and carbon fiber bike out for an hour or so… and then I put it back in the garage:

Before all of that, I got sick… and I’m still sick. Neither of those things helped me feel better. Yay. Anybody wanna make me some grilled cheeses and tomato soup? That’ll make me feel better. Or maybe some of those frosted flake wreath things. Those are good. But no beer. I don’t think that would help.

Gus Gus

Gus Gus is Jeni’s Elantra. He blew up his 78,416-mile-old front struts, so I replaced ‘em (and their mounts):

It was actually much easier than the $600 quote from the dealer suggested. The only specialty tool needed is a spring compressor (free rental from any auto parts store). After you get that, just jack up the car, take off the wheel, remove the brake line mount, remove the two steering knuckle nuts and bolts, remove the three strut mount nuts, and drop out the strut. Once it’s out in the open, compress the spring (I recommend using a socket wrench or gear wrench… an open-ended wrench takes a while), remove the mount dust cap and nut, and then the mount. Then you get to see the exact level of broken with which you are dealing. In this particular case, it was $80 worth of brokens:

Installation is reverse of removal. I’d tell you the torque specs, but nobody cares. Then you get to do the other side. Then you get an alignment. All that adds up to right around $200 and a White Castle Crave Case (had to settle for an IOU on that one…)

Thing Review: Sony Ericsson W760a

*UPDATE* This phone is a steaming pile of shit.

I stopped using it after about a week due to it’s crappiness. The Sony proprietary plug on the side never worked right, and the headphone jack never contacted the contacts in a reliable manner for more than a second (literally) and it refuses to charge. I went back to my Razr V3xx, which is a million billion times better at everything, including being a walkman.

Original review:

I sometimes have problems making decisions. Some people have trouble deciding between types of rice or they literally spend minutes going back and forth between honey and low-fat granola at Hy-Vee (*cough* Jeni *cough*). I seem to have a problem with free cell phone upgrades. I’d looked through all of the phones on AT&T’s website, and nothing seemed any better than my Razr v3xx, so I decided to wait a while. I thought about an iPhone or some form of Blackberry for a couple of seconds, but decided against one because a computer is better at the internet and a cell phone is better at being a phone. Plus they’re too big and cost too much.

Well, we happened to be by a Radio Shack last night, so I figured I’d stop in and look around. The nice lady behind the counter convinced me that free and a 30-day return policy warranted my getting something, so I did. I got an LG Shine. Why? It was made of metal and it was shiny… and that’s about it. I got it home and realized that it wasn’t really that great of a phone (strange feeling joystick, lousy speakerphone, harder than it needed to be to open), plus various applications crashed randomly. So I decided to actually research some alternatives, and I came up with the Sony Ericsson W760a. It wasn’t exactly free ($21), but Radio Shack beat AT&T’s web pricing by $80.

The Sony is better in pretty much every category and has some cool features that the Shine lacked: GPS navigation, accelerometer (games, display orientation, music navigation), very slick music/video/photo interface that doesn’t crash, faster menu system, full HTML support, 3.2 mp camera that actually takes decent photos, and much better speakers. It also has some interesting applications, such as mood-sensitive song selection and an FM radio tuner. The downsides are that I had to order a Memory Stick Micro (though it was only $3.88 for 2gb) and a Sony Ericssen-specific set of headphones ($4.50), it lacks a micro USB port… and it isn’t made of shiny metal.

Orientation-sensitive display mode similar to the iPhone (only less pretty):

Proprietary Sony Ericsson nonsense:

3D Need For Speed something-or-other that is controlled by handset movement:

Sample photo of a groaning Bug from the 3.2mp camera:

Road bike.

I finally took the 1994? Trek 2120 UK out on a 60 degree January road ride… it worked flawlessly, down to the probably 10-year-old tires and tubes. Now I just need matching purple neon spandex and a pair of Oakley M-Frames.