I’m not normally one for blogging the unfortunate events of other peoples’ lives, or at least, not when they look really, really like someone may have been seriously injured or killed, but, sometimes traffic in Taiwan (or is this China?) deserves a look.
No blood or guts, but watch at your own risk.
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I’ve started the domain transfer process, hopefully within the next 5 days, I will be over to my new hosting service.
This transfer includes the migration of all my e-mail accounts, so… cross your fingers.
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The party is over, the first World Twenty20 Series is over. The final between India and Pakistan was a tense a thrilling game right up to the final over.
As an American, raised on a fairly steady diet of English culture, Cricket is one thing that has remained elusive in my understanding of the English. It’s only in the recent Internet age when it was even possible for me to see a game a cricket, or find websites that (finally) got me the information to understand the game.
I’m not one to watch sports on TV. I generally believe sports are to be played, not watched. Still, in my effort to understand Cricket, I’ve spent some time recently watching as much as I possibly could. Most of the English games I’ve seen are Test and ODI (One Day International) against India. A couple Australian Twenty20 games and as many games as possible out of the World Twenty20 Series.
Having watched all three forms of Cricket in rapid succession, I’m mystified at comments like this:
KARACHI, Sept 23 – Former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad has warned that the continued promotion of Twenty20 cricket poses a threat to the traditional bastions of the sport, particularly at test level.
“They (the International Cricket Council) are turning cricket into baseball. In their bid to further commercialise and globalise the sport they are ruining its traditional character and spirit,†Miandad told Reuters on Sunday
from ESPN => Miandad issues warning over impact of Twenty20
An English friend of mine went further, his comment was, “It’s an abomination against the sport of Cricket.â€
And I read an even more bizarre comment from a current cricket player (can’t find the exact quote) that said the Twenty20 formt wasn’t real cricket, it was just a demonstration of the raw talent of the team members.
Maybe I don’t understand Cricket, but isn’t it the talent of the players that makes the difference in any form of the game? Or any sport for that matter?
All this seems like sour grapes to me. Just looking at the test matches reveals mostly empty stadiums, and, certainly the audience isn’t the same from day to day. Even ODI is 7 hours long. There is no stadium seat on this planet properly designed to contain a human butt comfortably for 7 hours.
Twenty20 improves (yes, I said it, in my opinion, improves) on this by reducing the length of the game to about 3 hours, and picking up the pacing. I do think some of the fielding restrictions are a bit of a mistake
The ICC even thinks they might get Cricket to crack the US (and China, but who cares?) market with the Twenty20 format – and I think they might. Test cricket, no chance. ODI, only in highlights, like golf, but Twenty20 stands a chance.
I really am mystified at the animosity to the Twenty20 format, and if anyone can enlighten me as to why I’d appreciate hearing it.
Oh, by the way, India won, by 5 runs, in the last over.
Some Cricket info from our friends at Wikipedia:
Cricket
Test Cricket
ODI One-Day International
Twenty20
Technorati Tags: Blog, Cricket, Sport, UK
So, not only does David Tennant get to take almost a full year off to pursue his “serious actingâ€, but now he gets a free trip to Rome. He’s really got the production team by the balls, it looks like.
There might be some spoilers here, so, read on at your own risk…
As I’m writing this the World Twenty 20 Series final is being held in South Africa (Twenty 20 Cricket, that is) with India vs Pakistan.
While both teams have played excellent games, including a nail-biter, tied game (India won on the bowl-off) that they played against each other earlier in the tournament, I’m rooting for India. Yuvraj Singh, in particular, has been absolutely devastating in his batting, including a remarkable Six 6′s (36 runs) in one over against England. (See video)
The rivalry between India and Pakistan has always been particularly keen, and this promises to be a heated match.
In the old days, when Pakistan won a cricket match against India, the players were showered with money and adulation. When they lost, their homes were burned down. Hopefully that’s no longer the case…
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Bill Maher’s got some lovely thoughts about the “Religious Test†explicitly forbidden in the US Constitution, and why we really should have one before we go into the voting both.
Cheers to onegoodmove.org for hosting this video capture. (As it is hosted on their site, I won’t embed it.)
See the video here. (onegoodmove => Bill Maher – New Rules) The relevant portion starts a couple minutes into the clip…
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I posted some initial thoughts the night we purchased our new used vehicle. (Or “pre-owned†as the English-challenged and/or marketing BS-speakers would call it.)
Now that we’ve completed the transaction, I’ve got some more thoughts on the experience. This is the first time I’ve ever bought a used car from a dealer.
Just before I bought my first new car, I learned two very important things: Never deal with salesman, go directly to a the sales manager and always do your research first. When I bought my new Firebird 17 years ago, I did just that. I researched the car I wanted, with exactly the options I wanted. I searched the lots, when they were closed, and found the exact car I was looking for and got the VIN. I researched the dealer and learned what kind of volume they do. I used information available to calculate the true dealer cost of the vehicle (not the one they claim to be their “costâ€.) I factored in a small, but fair profit, which was still well below market and then I called the sales manager directly and made a firm offer. He asked if I had talked with any of his salespeople, and when I said I had spoken to no one at his lot, he accepted the offer immediately.
It was probably the easiest money he made that day, and I still got a great deal.
I can’t say we did that with our Hyundai. We weren’t planning to buy a car that evening, and it is a testament to the power of salespeople and the weakness of the human brain that we did. Still, it’s been a good car and we’ve had no complaints. It was a fortunate turn of events for us.
We have been discussing the possibility of purchasing a minivan for some time now. As the kids have gotten bigger, the inadequacies of the Hyundai Sante Fe and Nissan Maxima were becoming apparent. With two child seats in the car, counterintuitive though it may be, only the smaller Nissan could transport our family and one extra passenger. The necessary positioning of the child seats in the Sante Fe placed them too close together for an adult to squeeze between them.
Our idea was to wait until Irene goes back to work next year and the family income improves before taking that step. Circumstances forced our hand this week.
With no budgeted money for a car purchase and hopes fading that we’d ever see any money for the damage to the Maxima, we were really unsure of what to purchase. Should we try to push ahead for the minivan, or fall back to another 4 door sedan for the next year?
Unlike in ’90 when I bought my Firebird, information on cars, new and used, is all over the Internet. We ran price checks and comparisons galore and what we discovered was that minivans of any recent vintage are too bloody expensive – or at least beyond our impromptu budget.
Continuing to search, we discovered a 2003 Toyota Sienna for just under $9,000. While a bit high on the mileage, the Kelly Blue Book put the vehicle at work over $10,000 even in only fair condition. The others were found online typically went for $16,000 and up.
We figured there must be something horribly wrong with the car and, considering that the dealership was 31 miles from home, we nearly gave it a miss. But, with nothing to do on a Friday night, we decided to head off to the other side of town and look at the car.
At the dealership, the car was stickered at $16,995, but when we showed them the print-out from the ‘net, they immediately agreed to “honor†that price. Talk about having a lot of room to haggle over price! $8,000 of haggle room!
We looked it over from top to bottom, check the warranty, the engine, the trim, the tires, took it on two test drives and ultimately decided to buy it.
So far, so good. But this is where I get a little bit irritated.
The price of the car online did not include some so-called dealer upgrades which had already been installed on the car, in particular some paint protection system and a vehicle alarm/keyless entry system. During our negotiations, both were presented to us a a fait accompli, in that they had been made part and parcel of the car. During “negotiationsâ€, they were repeatedly presented as such. Basically, “Too late, they’re on the car, that’s what we’re selling.â€
Frankly, I wasn’t too concerned about the alarm/keyless remote. Those are nice, and every car I’ve had for years has had it built in rather than being an after-market install. I still feel it should have been disclosed as part of the price upfront.
The paint protection thing seems more dubious, and gets more dubious the more I know about it. I regret the fact that we went in unprepared with knowledge on this particular bit of jiggery-pokery. I also regret that it was very late Friday night and we, by necessity, had the kids with us. That means when we were presented with the 90 page packet of paperwork to sign to get out the door, some of them got only the cursory reading.
One one point during the process, we were presented with a document that stated that we had “declined†the security system. When we pointed out that I thought we had accepted it because it was already part of the vehicle, they changed the form and continued on. Later, we were told that it would be a bit before we could take the vehicle, because the security system “was being installed right now.†This got my ire up a bit and I asked why were told it was already in the vehicle. “Oh, we install it in every vehicle on the lot, but once in a while we miss one by accident.â€
Honest mistake? Good question. Later it turned out that supposedly that wasn’t true. The security system had been installed, but didn’t work right when they attempted to release it to the control of the remote. (Their lot has some form of master, programmed control of the security system on all the cars.) The unit was to be replaced with a new, working one. Was that true? I could not know, but now I had my doubts. This is the problem with businesses, it takes so little to loose the customers’ trust and how can they ever get it back?
The paint protection thing is clearly a load of crap. Assuming the product works as advertised and completely protects the paint from fading and damage, that’s not a bad thing. What’s bad is that (A) it was presented to us as having been “done already†and therefore too late to remove and (B) that we’d receive additional treatments every 6 months to keep it that way.
Digging through some of the documents that got only a short examination (while the kids were disassembling the artificial plants) clearly indicates that we can reject the paint protection, even after it was applied and another demonstrates that what we really purchased was a 2-year subscription to the treatments. That was clearly presented deceptively to us during negotiations and although fully disclosed in the paperwork, I find this ethically questionable, at best.
Monday we’ll have to check out our options under “Buyer’s Remorse†laws in Arizona. It’s possible we can get a refund for that service.
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It has been an eventful week.
When we had the car accident, both Irene and I looked at the car, and saw that our vehicle had been raked along the driver’s side by the clod who struck us, crushing in the side, doors and shredding both tires.
Owing to what can only be some procedural problem, we did not get the driver’s name or insurance information at the time of the accident, and have been waiting with baited breath for the police report, which takes 10 days to be released. In the meantime, the car has been down at the impound yard.
Today it was necessary to go down there and retrieve our personal belongings from the car. Although the impound yard is not too far from our house, it’s in a seedy warehouse district, just next to The Great Alaskan Bush Company, <SARCASM>cultural highlight of Phoenix,</SARCASM> but the scenery doesn’t benefit from the proximity.
In the parking lot, a disreputable looking crowd of people was just hanging about, and the process to get into the yard is onerous.
Each person approaches the bullet-proof window and shouts through the inadequate opening to the completely disinterested and pathologically unhelpful cashier. Cell phones are banned because it interferes with the tow trucks (oh, cut the crap people!) somehow, and you must conclusively prove you own the vehicle before you can get in.
Just one problem. When we had the accident, the officer required that we provide the registration and proof of insurance, both of which I had; however, when I retrieved them from the glove box, I apparently grabbed last year’s registration. The officer, being a human being, and realizing we were considerably shaken up, accepted it and didn’t mention I’d given him the wrong one. Nothing would be different on it except the expiration date, anyway.
The mindless automaton working at the impound yard was a different story altogether. No current registration – no entry. Problem: The current registration must then still be inside the car, which I cannot get to. Catch-22.
Finally I was able to talk my way in by demonstrating that my insurance card was current and, obviously, If I didn’t own the car, why would I still have insurance on it?
Once inside the fortified security door, I was escorted to a cell, where they left me until someone came to escort me to the car. By cell I mean a locked, 8′X8′ portable holding tank with all the charm, I’m sure, of the county lockup.
Once released from the tank, I was escorted to the car. I cleaned out our personal belongings, most importantly, the car seats, the current registration and my genuine Taiwanese reusable Costco shopping bag.
Then I stopped to take some pictures of the damage.
At the time of the accident, Irene and I both looked at the damage. Irene contacted several body shops and discussed the situation with them before arranging to have the car towed to a shop for repair. Based on the description of the damage, that is, rear and side collision, damage to both doors, the body work both in front of and behind the tires, and damage to the wheels, the body shops all indicated that the damage was beyond the value of the car.
The thing is… upon inspecting the car in the daylight, I’m mystified at the damage. Indeed the collision crushed in the left rear quarter up to the rear door. The both left-side tires are shredded, and the body work around the tires is damaged. What’s strange is apart from so abrasions, the doors appear to be intact. Yet both of us clearly remember them being crumpled in.
Even conceding that, shortly after an accident, our brains were in a state of shock, I can’t figure out the damage seems to have occurred at the point of the front and rear tires, but not in-between. There was only one impact to our vehicle, of that I’m certain. That moment is etched in my mind.
What concerns me is that the damage doesn’t appear to be as bad as we described to the body shops, therefore the cost might no longer be more than the car is worth. Since we bought a car to replace it, one way of the other, the old Maxima will be leaving our possession, but perhaps it won’t be towed off to the junkyard after all.
After we came back from the impound yard, we had mail from the city of Phoenix. We received notice that we were victims on a DUI accident, and we finally have the name, if not the insurance information of our tormentor. One encouraging thing, he is being charged with DUI and Speeding, but there was no mention of driving without insurance. Perhaps there’s hope after all of getting these bills paid for.
In fact, it appears that victims of DUI accidents are potentially entitled to restitution, and we need to submit estimates within 10 days of the violation, which means we now have to get that car out of the impound Monday and get it to a body shop ASAP.
More fun.
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