10/2/08

As predicted, Gregg had problems getting Matilda to us last night. I'd go through it all but it just gets me all worked up again, and I don’t want to do it. So, I'll just tell about the stuff we did get done. I picked up John at his house around 1630 h and we started towards the shop. Some dude wants to trade a set of 5Zigen knockoffs for the Volks on Matilda and he was waiting at the shop. Now, John had told this dude I would be coming to John's house around 1630 h and we’d be at the shop around 1700 h or so. Well, dude was at the shop at 1615 h waiting. He called three times while we were on our way. We got hung out by a train at Northside Drive and North Main so we didn’t get to the shop until 1715 h or so. He called again as we were pulling up to the gate and we met in front of Marty’s shop to look at the wheels. He saw the Renault badges on Ms. Clio, which by the way may become Darth Versa’s new name but I'll ‘splain that in a bit, and asked if they sold them here. I said, “Nope.” He asked how I got it and I said, “The internet.” John pointed out I should start saying, “The internets” when asked, and I probably will. He looked the car over while John and I looked at the wheels. We’re still not sure why he even came to show them to us because we didn’t have the trade wheels for him and we’d all have to get together again later to make the deal. It was a total waste of his time. They were nice enough wheels though, I'll say that. Anyhoo, after he left we drove back to the shop. I changed clothes and got to work on the rear plate while John pulled the nose and installed the front. We had a discussion about whether to bend the front plate forward or backward. The argument for forward was it would be like a mini “Spook” spoiler. The argument for backward was it would just bark our shins and get all bent up. Backward won. We got the plates installed and stepped back for a look. They look good. I don’t like the green “Do It in a Datsun” license ring on the black plate now so I'm probably going to take that off. John is enamored with the black plate and finally said, “You know, those black plates would look tits on that black Versa!” We bandied about some possibilities and decided on “MSCLIO.” (Unfortunately, I just had a look and that plate is not available. So, I may not change the name of Darth Versa just yet. I looked at some other options and “A CLIO” is available. We’ll see.) He made it a point to say he was not trying to talk me into paying another $400.00 for plates though. Of course every time he made that point he followed it with, “They sure would be cool though.” Peer pressure, just what I need. I guess I can hang my hat on the fact that our first choice is unavailable and stop looking for alternatives. I do not need $400.00 license plates, no matter how awesome they’d look, on Darth Versa right now. I can justify it on Shichi somehow but not on Darth Versa, especially if I'm going to do $400.00 hot pink “QT3142” plates on George! (Hint: imagine a decimal point between the “3” and the “1”) I think I may have to start lying about that car and tell people, “I built it for my ‘girlfriend’ but she couldn’t make it to this car show.” That, or “hire” a “girlfriend” to bring it to shows with me. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, “Why don’t you just get a girlfriend?” Shut up, that’s why. Anyhoo, the whole thing is kind of moo unless I actually finger out why it’s got hot and get the thing going. I don’t know, we’ll see. Well, I was just looking on the myplates.com site again and I see that their “cheap” plates do come in the black background like the ones I got for Shichi and the pink background I want for George. The difference is on the “cheap” plates you can only get three letters and two numbers (AAA##) or two numbers and three letters (##AAA). On the plus side, you can also drop one space in there. I looked at “HI K17” as a possible Hello Kitty tie in and it is available. I don’t particularly care for “17” for “IT” but Juan has to do what Juan has to do. “KIT33” and “KIT13” are also possible kitty iterations. Oh, “HEL00” is also available but I don’t particularly care for it. If I were willing to move away from the Hello Kitty theme, I could do “12OOT” or “12OO T” on the pink background, that’s available. Yes, I know I just said two things “is” available. The state sees both of those numbers as the same. The space is irrelevant so my number agreement is technically correct, which it the best kind of correct when Juan is being pedantic. But I digress. I haven’t done enough cipherin’ and figgerin’ on possible AAA## or ##AAA plates for Darth Versa yet. I could tie in my love of conspiracy theories and Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” with “MIB42” I suppose. That’s available. So is “REN00” apparently, but I'm not sure I like it. Well, it is lunchtime so let me think on the plates some more. I might have something tomorrow. Toodles.