The paperwork for the Big D has been filed, finalizing what I’ve been waiting for since June of 2007. As part of the agreement, Herbie will be going back to Washington state to live out the rest of his days without me. So sad.

I loved cars as a kid, especially Herbie the love bug. A tenacious car with a mind of its own and a penchant for adventure and trouble. What’s not to love? I think it was the Herbie movies that attracted me to Volkswagens in the first place.

The New Beetle had captivated my attention since it went on sale in 1998. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since its debut to the public. The first one my family owned was a 2000 GLS. It was silver, had a manual transmission, and a really sweet tape deck. “The Pod”, as it was later christened (complete with vanity plates stating so), belonged to my younger stepsister, Ly¹.

She used to let me ride with her once in a while (read: all the time), especially if it was dark out and none of her friends could see me hanging out with her in public. We had many a good time in that car, and I have a lot of fond memories. Some of my favorites include:

Watching Ly hook up the kick-ass CD player via the cigarette lighter and tape adapter to listen to a song at the loudest possible audible level known to mankind only to change to a completely different song a mere 30 seconds into it.

Going to Taco Bell at 2 A.M. during their 39 cent taco days, ordering 30 tacos, then paying with a bag full of pennies.

Watching Ly attack crash into a shopping cart in an otherwise empty grocery store parking lot at 15 MPH. “I didn’t see it,” she said. How can you miss a shopping cart directly in front of you in an empty parking lot?

My first “real” car (meaning, my first new one and not some used clunker) was a red 2002 New Beetle. I got it in college. It had absolutely no optional features aside from an automatic engine. Hand crank windows, baby! OH YEA! But it was mine, and I loved it.

At one point in time, we actually had as many as four New Beetles, a Jetta, and two Touaregs in the family. That’s a lot of Volkswagens to have in your driveway at family get togethers.

I have always wanted to make a Herbie out of a New Beetle, and in 2005 I did just that. At least, sort of. A dealership in South Carolina had a GLS on the lot that was done up like Herbie. Apparently no one was interested in the car because it hadn’t sold or had many potentially interested customers. This was also during the year end sales event, when the redesigned 2006 bugs had just come out. The E.B.² and I were in the market for a new car. Herbie had every option available at the time (with the exception of traction control) installed. It really was Herbie: Fully Loaded, so to speak. We got a good deal on him, and so Herbie was purchased.

It’s been one of the most fun cars I’ve ever owned or driven. One of my favorite hobbies in Charleston was to clean up Herbie on the weekend, drive down to the battery, park him, and watch the tourist’s reactions. The overseas tourists were always the most fun, as most seemed to have no idea why the car was made to look like a race car or what the stripes and “53″ were all about. One time a news van even pulled up and shot some footage of the car, though I never saw it make the television broadcast.

Driving onto military bases in a New Beetle done up like Herbie is also something that I will never forget. The car was a total chick magnet in Charleston (sexy southern women love Herbie, apparently) but driving into security gates with armed guards was completely different. The faces of the guards were often priceless, as they weren’t quite sure how anyone in the military could drive a Herbie bug. But even armed men and women in uniform can’t hide a smirk or a chuckle from such an iconic symbol such as Herbie. Whether they’d admit it or not, I think they liked it, too.

Within a month, however, Herbie is going away. I have mixed feelings about this, as I’ve grown quite attached to the little car and I like the attention that it receives. In the end, though, it really is just a car with decals, and not worth fussing over, especially if relinquishing it grants me my freedom.

So, since Herbie is west coast bound, I’m left to get a new vehicle. I’m not so starry-eyed for the Volkswagen brand anymore (and no VW could ever top the fun I’ve had with Herbie), so Volkswagen was out this time around. Instead I’m going with a Toyota, because people that own them really love them, they’re highly rated by Consumer Reports, and, according to a lot of car magazines and “experts”, they’re better built than most cars and last longer than the competition.

Well, I didn’t go with Toyota exactly. I went with a Scion, but they’re made by Toyota. Since I don’t have any money, my options were pretty limited. Unfortunately, most “affordable” cars are poorly manufactured, have very little standard features, and are hideously ugly or plain looking.

I’ve always liked the look the the Scion tC. I looked at getting one around the same time that I shopped for Herbie, but the car hadn’t been out long enough to get any sense of quality or reliability so I passed. The car has been out for sometime now, and it’s gotten pretty good praise. So far, I’m really happy with it.

Plus, the standard features and price are hard to beat. The tC comes standard with:

1.) Integrated iPod control - plug in your iPod and control it through the car’s stereo system.

2.) Retractable sunroof and rear “mini sunroof” - the whole ceiling of the car is glass, and the front part of the sunroof opens. The backseat gets one, too, but it doesn’t open. Still, a rear “roof window” is neat.

3.) 17″ Alloy wheels - Not steel rims with a plastic hubcap. I hate those.

4.) Cruise control - Perfect for those Chicago trips to see Missy Higgins!

5.) Subwoofer - Sure, it’s not the greatest sub in the world, but it’s still adds a lot of bass to the stereo system. I don’t even know if any other cars in the same class as the Scion offer a subwoofer as standard.

6.) Lots of airbags - Even has side curtain airbags to protect my delicate head.

7.) Keyless entry - Inserting the key into the side of the door is so 1990s.

8.) 60/40 fold down rear seats - The Beetle had a collapsable rear seat, but it didn’t split. Sometimes you don’t need the whole backseat to fold down.

9.) Halogen headlights - Great for getting behind idiots and blinding them for driving like morons.

And while I’m certainly not going to win any races, the 161 HP engine is a very welcome step up from Herbie’s standard and ultimately subpar 115. It’s also supposed to get better gas mileage than the Beetle, but I’ve yet to verify this for myself.

I like the look, I like the features, and I like the price (less than $19,000). There are some amenities from Herbie that I will miss, but I think this is the best car for my lack of buck right now.

So, with a new car and my freedom, on to bigger and better things!

¹Pronounced “Lee”. Name changed to protect the privacy of the more innocent than me.
²Evil Bitch

Afishionados,

Don’t be fooled by the photo above. It’s not really AngryMan’s offspring, so don’t worry.

Have you ever seen the movie Critters? I think it’s the reason that I am so fucked up today.

Critters is like Gremlins, except that it’s less comedy and way less cool. The lack of plot involves evil space alien “hedgehogs” called Krites that come to Earth and eat people on a hillbilly family’s farm. Two bounty hunters (also from space) come to Earth to help save the planet. It’s got to be one of the worst movies ever made.

My parents let me watch Critters when I was 5 or 6 years old. There are really only two scenes that stick out in my mind but they’ve forever fucked me up psychologically.

The hillbilly family’s son (He’s like 12 years old or something) rides his bike through the field at night to try and get help from a neighbor or something because his dad is hurt by the Krites. The Krites, of course, are also in the field and bite his pant legs and bike tires. As a kid, I always thought of this when I rode my bike at night, and to this day I still refuse to drive my car through cornfields.

Another scene has the Krites inside the hillbilly house and they’re chewing E.T.’s head off. A pleather doll of E.T., anyway. And they tear that fucker to pieces. Perhaps it would have been better if they had instead chewed off Drew Barrymore’s head, sparing us countless films with her terrible acting.

Critters spawned three sequels, but Critters 5 was unfortunately canceled. The sequels, while naturally worse than even the horrid first film in the series, were not a complete loss.

Critters 2, for example, did have two excellent points.

Afishionados,

I’m happy to announce two new additions to our beloved family. Two new Intel Macs have been purchased for our humble home. A new 24; 2.4 GHz iMac and a 15″ 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro. Woo hoo. This brings the total number of Macs in the house to four, and the number in the family to five. Sure, we’ve still got a couple retarded PCs in the house but every family has its losers, right?

The big incentive for the le grande purchase was video chatting. Have you ever tried to video chat on a PC with more than one person? No, of course you haven’t because it’s ridiculously difficult if not impossible. Skype is free, but the video quality is crappy. AIM is nice, but what do you do it the person you want to chat with is on Yahoo? Bleh.

I’ve had my first foursome this week (video chat, anyway). My nephew in Cleveland was able to talk to Grandpa, Grandma, his Aunt, and myself, all for free and through the power of iChat. I’ve done video chats before, but never with more than one person at a time. It’s amazing how well it actually worked and the video quality was pretty good.

I don’t know why, but with so many new Macs in the house I’ve been thinking about my first Mac computer. It was the Titanium PowerBook G4 and it was (and still is) one of the sexiest computers ever. The tech specs are laughable by today’s standards, but in 2001 they were, as Darth Vader would say, impressive. Most impressive.

My TiBook had a 500 MHz G4 processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, a 20 gigabyte hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive (no burning of any kind), a 15″ screen with 1152 x 768 resolution, and Mac OS 9.1. The starting price was $3499, but that was before I added the wireless networking card, which was an additional $99.

In comparision, my MacBook Pro has a 2.4 GHz processor, 4 gigabytes (4096 megabytes) of RAM, a 160 gigabyte hard drive, built-in wireless networking, a DVD/CD burner, a 15″ screen with 1440 x 900 resolution, and Mac OS X 10.4.10. The cost of my model MacBook Pro is $2499. So the features have gone up but the price has come down.

I uncovered, after much, MUCH digging within Google, the original Titanium PowerBook information video. It’s only 5 minutes long, and it’s funny to see how excited everyone is by something that, by today’s standards, is an obsolete antique. Still, I wish I’d kept mine around for nostalgic purposes, but I sold it many years ago for the 667 MHz version.

The video is cool, I promise. It even has the song “Rain Dance” by Karl Jenkins in it. You can’t lose!

The Dell Inspiron 8600 that the MacBook Pro replaced has been formatted with an all-but-legit permanently activated version of Windows Vista Ultimate and is on its way to my brother Drew, who’s hard as hell on all his electronic equipment, gadgets, and toys. I figure, if you’re going to beat the shit out of something, might as well be a Dell with Windows.

(To the Dell’s credit, I am impressed that the ~3 year old laptop runs Windows Vista Ultimate with all its glorious bells, whistles, and eye candy. But, it’s still Windows.)

I’m sold on Macs for life. If you’re a Windows user and you’re happy with your PC, that’s great. I’m not looking to start a platform war. But if you’re a Windows user and you’re unhappy, remember: You don’t have to love your computer. But you certainly shouldn’t have to hate it, either.

Think different.

Afishionados,

Today was the best day that I’ve had in a really long time.

I spent the whole day with my sister, her husband, and my mom. We all went shopping at the mall and bought new clothes. I haven’t really bought any new clothes since joining the Navy, so I needed an update. I should look pretty good for school when I start in the fall.

My laptop has always had a black pixel out on the screen, which really has never bothered me too much. Until two days ago, when the little bastard decided to turn BRIGHT FUCKIN’ GREEN ALL THE TIME. It looked like this:

Annoying. Why did that pixel decide to “wake up”? Stay BLACK if you must, but not GREEN! Or red. Or blue. That’s the problem with technology these days: everything uses LCDs so you’re always at risk for having a stuck or dead pixel.

I called my local Apple store and they wouldn’t replace a screen because of one stuck pixel. Lucky me. Fortunately, an independent Apple retailer in my area also fixes Apple computers. And they DID replace the screen for me. They also did it in less than 48 hours, which is faster than ANY turnaround time I have ever experienced directly from Apple. It’s a brand new store and all the folks that work their are friendly. I want to take them all donuts for helping me out.

I’ve been keeping really busy lately, too. Tomorrow it’s off to Cleveland to help sis and husband with unpacking their stuff into their new apartment. As long as there’s beer, we’ll be fine.

I’ve also got something cookin’ in the OFAL Laboratory. I’m working on an Internet project and testing it out with some friends. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I think it could be really big. The graphics still need some work and it’s not quite ready for prime time. But I can say that it’s powered by WordPress and should have a bigger following than Old Fish and Lemonade. I’m excited. (Not that OFAL is going anywhere, mind you. This project is totally separate.)

Stay tuned!

Afishionados,

You can be an alcoholic but pretend that you’re not. You can talk about standing up to those who oppress you, but until you actually do it, you’ll never be free. And you can pretend that nothing is wrong, but it doesn’t make it true.

I’ve been out of the Navy since April 27th. It was an early discharge, but it was an honorable discharge. I didn’t do anything wrong and I won’t miss the Lincoln.

I’m trying to piece my life back together; trying to regain my footing. I have a plan in place to finish college, because that is what I really want to do. A plan to get as far away from nuclear power as possible and do something more creative.

But life is full of intricate twists and turns. When those close to you can no longer be depended upon, where does that leave you?

I’m leaving this weekend to go back to Ohio for the first time in years, where I hope to see everybody in my extended family. My brother is, at long last, getting out of the Marines and he’s already home. My youngest brother has promised me one of his infamous bonfires. It will be the first time that the three of us have been together in quite some time.

If Washington does not have the answers I need, then perhaps Ohio does. Catch you on the flipside.

&Afishionados,

After weeks of nonstop busywork onboard the Lincoln, I’ve been able to finally spend a quiet Friday night at home. I’m feeling exceptionally introspective tonight on the eve of my 25th birthday. I’ve been thinking how fast time has flown since I was 15, which leads me to believe that there is some truth to the old adage that “the more things change the more they stay the same”.

I’ve always had a passion for electronic gadgets. Ten years ago, my grandma bought me my first “sound system”. It had a compact disc player, two cassette decks, detachable speakers, and a remote control. It was also the very first CD player that I ever owned.

My CD player sat atop my twenty-some inch RCA television that was a hand-me-down from my grandpa. It was one of those console TVs from the early 90s that was encased in its own, ugly wooden cabinet. The picture tube was dying, so the lower corners of the screen “featured; large, green patches, but at least it was a color TV with a remote. I didn’t have cable TV in my room, but my dad helped me hook it up to our outdoor antenna so I was able to get the five local channels in my area.

Attached to my television was my first “home theater system”: My first (and only) VCR, complete with mono sound output and a wired remote control¹. Yea, sure, it ate tapes on occasion and the tracking could never be adjusted correctly, but it was still awesome.

My parents refused to buy me a Nintendo of any kind (something that upset me as a kid but am now thankful for, as it allowed me to grow up with my own imagination instead), though I did grow up with an Atari ST. It was our first home computer and allowed for word processing as well as gameplaying.

These days, things are nearly the same, but I am more attached to my toys and I have upgraded them. My TV has been upgraded to a 32 inch flat panel LCD, My VCR to a 1080i/720p DVD player, my boombox to a Denon surround sound tuner and an incredible 5.1 Definitive Technology speaker system, and my Atari to a Mac laptop, an Xbox 360, and a Nintendo Wii. Oh, and I have cable now instead of an antenna. Hell, I even managed to get a Logitech Harmony remote that is not only wireless, but seamlessly controls every entertainment device in my house as well.

This birthday seems like a big milestone for me and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I finally feel like I’m a “grown up” but I don’t really want to be. I may not be a kid anymore, but with all my fancy electronics I sure feel like one. But I would trade all of them for a chance to go back in time, just once, and play with my brothers in the backyard like we used to, dressed as Ninja Turtles and single-handingly saving the neighborhood from the Nazis who were always trying to kill us.

¹Yea, it was wired, but at least the cord could reach 6 to 8 feet away

Afishionados,

Today I may have put my position as “reactor operator” in jeopardy. I’m tired of living a life without feeling so today I did something positive about it. It remains to be seen whether or not the Navy will actually be able to aid me in this endeavor, or if I will simply receive your standard issue “Eat Motrin and drink more water” treatment.

In the Navy, no one believes you if you go to someone for help with a problem. Everyone has the mentality that you’re just trying to get out of work. I hope I can get someone to believe me.

Something has got to change, or I’m not going to make it.

Afishionados,

I’m feeling introspective tonight. I’ve been relaxing to the fabulous music of James Horner and re-examining my life. I’m not happy and it’s affecting my friends and family, so I’ve been pondering various schemes in hopes to change it and make it better.

I feel like I’ve lost my way on the path that is my life. I thought the Navy would be a step in the right direction but I’ve never had a job where I’ve felt so sidetracked and worthless. I hate it.

While there are good people in the military, it seems that most of them are too stupid to do anything else with their lives so they join the armed forces. I don’t think I have the patience to last beyond my required contractual obligation. There’s just too much petty bullshit involved and too many games that I don’t want to play.

Everyday it’s the same old stuff. The same idiotic First Classes and Chiefs with the same mindless drivel spewing from their pointless mouths: “Did you shave today? Why aren’t your boots polished? Did you iron your uniform at all, shipmate?”

Why are these the things that matter the most to so many people? I’ll never understand this. I’ve never onced asked another man about his shave, his haircut, his shoes, his clothes, or any other “military bearing” question that commonly comes up. I like to think that I have other things that I could worry about. If the only thing that you have to fuss about is how another person looks, then I want your job. A man’s clothes are not what really defines him. Looks aren’t everything, as George W. Bush proves.

I need a more creative outlet and I fully intend to find one. I don’t fancy myself as a good writer, so I don’t see my full-time career as a blogger taking off any time soon. But I wouldn’t mind dabbling in the areas of graphic design or photography. And I want to travel. Getting out of Washington is always a good thing.

James is done conducting for the night, and therefore I must retire. Tomorrow will soon be here, with it I hope comes a chance to start over fresh. If I continue the life of a mindless drone, then I’m afraid it will kill me in the end. I need meaning, I need a purpose. I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but I’m sure I can’t afford to miss it.