The Blog of Jason "Jayce" Olshefsky

I just got a call from someone claiming they were from Comix Café (3450 Winton Pl.) saying I won tickets to an upcoming show in a contest. I’ve heard stories about the place — like that they ban comics who perform at other local venues or that they have an excessive table minimum. I asked how I got into the contest, since I don’t remember signing up for anything in at least a few years. The person on the phone said I was “on a list”. She tried to hard-sell me “free” tickets to an upcoming performance. I asked, “is there a drink minimum or anything like that?” and she said there was: six dollars per person!

What a fucking scam.

I just said, “no thanks, then.”

So today I went to Personal FX Hair Studio (646 South Ave.) and visited with Joe. I know him from Lux Lounge (666 South Ave.) and the other week he said he wanted to do something with my beard. So I went to the salon and got trimmed up and got stinky dyes and tinfoil stuck in it then waited for 20 minutes or so. I was surprised at the result and now I’m getting used to it.

Before

After

So Ali and I spent half a day together watching movies. A friend of mine had recommended Casino Royale — mostly because of the free-running sequence in the beginning — but we just watched the film anyway. As James Bond movies go, I guess it’s fine. Maybe I just ran out of interest in such fantastic stories and we were both annoyed at the predictable and annoying plot twists. I also didn’t like the impossibly evil and impossibly genius villain — obviously a staple of Bond films, but comically absurd to me now.

The other film I picked up at The Rochester Public Library (115 South Ave.) on VHS (although they had it on DVD as well from Webster, I think). It was Bad Day at Black Rock and I discovered it looking for movies made near Burning Man in Nevada — particularly Gerlach, the Black Rock Desert, and the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation — that were otherwise not about Burning Man.

The movie is really quite good: a sort of socially-conscious noir-western set shortly after World War II. A stranger appears in the tiny town of Black Rock looking for a man named Komoko. The town descends from being unwelcoming to downright hostile toward him as they try to collectively hide the secret they failed to forget from 4 years prior.

In most of the establishing shots I was trying to figure out where they were in that part of Nevada, considering seriously where 447 crosses the railroad tracks at Gerlach. I thought I’d do more research and stumbled upon the WikiPedia article [which outlines the whole plot in detail, FYI] but it made no mention of filming anywhere in Nevada — citing only California — and sets the film in the fictional town of Black Rock, Arizona.

Returning to the Internet Movie Database’s page, I found that the shooting locations no longer mentioned “Black Rock, NV”. Returning to the location browser, I checked the nearby Nevada locales and noted the film’s sudden absence from the lists. So I think I ended up accidentally watching the movie for the wrong reasons, but in the end, it was a really good film.

Incidentally, there is a town of Black Rock: in both Arizona, and Nevada. There’s even one in New York. None of them look like they’re “towns”, though — more like “places” … possibly with black rocks. My old DeLorme map software reports (with map data from 1996) three in Arizona along with one in Nevada — none of which are near the ones found by Google. The one in New York agrees pretty much right on the spot.

None of them are even close to The Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

Well February is coming to a close and since we bought the Buick Wagon last year at the beginning of February, it was time for its inspection. Since I had a coupon I decided to go to my usual garage of Firestone (369 Jefferson Rd.).

I also brought along a coupon for “free coffee” at Jitters Café (3333 W. Henrietta Rd., in Southtown Plaza) since it was in the same plaza. It was a snowy day and it appeared that there was only one person working. They were hidden in back making someone else’s sandwich — for around 3 or 4 minutes with not even an acknowledgment of myself or the woman who came in after I did. This didn’t bode well. When the solitary employee finally got to me, I ordered a breakfast sandwich and the free coffee. She pointed out that the free 12-ounce coffee [I didn't notice whether the coupon even specified a size] would probably not fill my travel mug — all 14 ounces of it..

Ok, now I don’t know everything about running a coffee shop, but I do know that the cost of a cup of regular coffee is almost completely labor — coffee for a whole pot (even fancy coffee) might cost 50 cents.

Me and the woman behind me got our food at the same time, presented collectively with bland indifference. Fortunately they were different kinds and it was clear whose was whose.  In all, I’m not very impressed.

But to top things off, the Buick needed a few things. I had intended on bringing it in soon anyway for a regular shakedown but today I just wanted to get the inspection done quick. It passed — but the power steering pump was leaking as was the pinion bearing on the rear differential.

I thought it funny that I had to step back and rethink the day. I had originally planned to stay and wait, but the repairs would take until early afternoon. I almost stayed anyway but decided instead to get a few things done at home. They offered me a ride back to my house. Later in the day I returned and paid for the repairs, and then Ali brought me back when she got out of work to collect the beast.

I noticed the other day that one of my tonsils had become swollen and got some blotches on it. I didn’t think much of it other than to keep an eye on it. It got worse over the weekend so first thing Monday I went to the doctor’s office. Of course, I had to wait until the afternoon when they could fit me in and then sit around for 45 minutes for a 5-minute examination.

I thought I might have strep throat — the only problem being that I only had a mild sore throat and I hear that with strep it’s the worst sore throat you’ve ever had. Well, I ended up getting diagnosed with a generic “tonsillitis” and prescribed heavy-duty antibiotics. As it turns out, the infection is really very bad. There’s finally some improvement after a third of the antibiotic dose, but it’s not pretty.

In any case, I really haven’t been out much this week for that reason.

I got an ad in the mail for a thing called ClearWire which promises wireless Internet access “anywhere” at speeds of cable modem or DSL. It looked rather promising but I was suspicious — what’s the underlying technology, for instance? And will it be cheaper and/or better than what I have now?

So I did what I always do: I type in the name of the company and “sucks” into Google. The first thing to come up is ClearWire Sucks Dot Com. It puts forth a compelling case that while ClearWire may be fine for commonplace uses, the draconian policies for termination are worse than most cell phone carriers. Overall I was completely unimpressed for it seems the company hinges on secret additional charges (i.e. rental fees for equipment) to push the price beyond “competitive” and it has a standard 2-year contract with an early termination fee: including if ClearWire decides to terminate your account without cause.

I’m not particularly impressed with the terms for Internet services these days, but it’s worth it for me to quietly maintain my connection and keep my options open. I’m also unimpressed with cellular telephone service — in quality, cost, and customer service — so the last thing I want is to associate with a company that brings more of the same.

Last weekend I had taken out our 1992 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon to run some errands and to shake it down in preparation for driving to Pennsylvania in the coming weekend. I had noticed a problem with the oil pressure gauge: it would read normal pressure (20 psi at idle up to 45 psi or so when revved) but then would flutter occasionally, reading a much higher pressure (30 psi to maximum at over 60 psi). I was worried it was the oil pump but ruled it out for two reasons: if it were the pump, it would likely show low pressure and never high pressure, and the gauge was changing faster than it would be possible to do so (10 psi changes in a fraction of a second whereas a 10 psi change would ordinarily take a half-second or more).

I finally got out and checked under the hood. I figured the wire on the oil pressure sending unit was loose or broken — and when the engine vibrated, it would get loose and give those erroneous readings. Well I found the unit and went to wiggle the wire when it popped off in my hand. I figured it was some other sensor (like a block-temperature sensor perhaps) that just press-fit on. But when I cranked over the car, oil spurted out and the gauge read maximum. Indeed it was the oil pressure sensor, and it had been hanging on by a thread of rust.

I was very fortunate that it didn’t break on the road because it would have dumped all the oil in a matter of minutes and I’d have to have it towed.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

Since it was back in the driveway I decided to just buy the replacement part and install it myself. Perusing the Internet offered little help, other than that the sending unit for this particular model required a gigantic deep-well 1-3/16″ socket. I didn’t have a socket big enough so I decided to go ahead and buy a new sending unit. I went to an auto parts store and they had a replacement unit on hand, but it took a 1-1/16″ socket instead, and they didn’t have one deep enough in-stock. They did have a 1-3/16″ socket but I thought that maybe the replacement was the same size as the existing one even though they looked a little different in construction.

I hunted all around, stopping at 3 other auto parts stores. I finally found a socket that was deep enough at Sears so I bought that and headed back home. Naturally the original sending unit was 1-3/16″ so I ran back out to the first store and bought their socket. Now I’m $50 into this project.

I got back home and tried to get to the sending unit from the hood-side, but there was just no way. I resigned myself to getting the jacks out and going in from the bottom. This was comparatively easy and I was done in 15 minutes. The car fired up with no oil leak and the pressure gauge read something close to normal.  It did spook me on the trip, though, because it didn’t seem to change — I was worried the replacement unit didn’t have the right wiring and was falsely reading 40 psi. It started to work better as we continued so I think it’s working okay.

So I think I would have been better off having it dump its oil in the middle of the road. I’d have had it towed, sat in some shop for an hour, and they would have replaced the sending unit — probably all at a cost of $200. The advantage would have been that I would have not had to fight last-minute holiday shoppers plugging up the roads and not spent 6 hours and not had my fingers freeze off in the cold.

I guess you win some and you lose some.

As the wisest of you all know, today is a special holiday because it’s my Ali’s birthday. [And in case you're wondering, she turned (2006 age)+1.] So we started things off with blueberry pancakes in the morning. And then she got some cake at work. And then we went to Paola’s Burrito Place (1921 South Ave., formerly Big Dog’s Hots) for dinner at her preference. Then she opened her gifts but we didn’t have any of the pumpkin pie I made because we were stuffed from dinner. Finishing things off we went out to Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) and had some wine, meeting up with a group of friends from all different places in her life. In all, she had a great day.

I got up at 7 a.m. and put the turkey in the oven (after having prepared it all last night) and I got the rolls thawing. I got the kitchen cleaned up and then finished up cleaning up the house. I intended to go back to bed but it never actually happened. Ali came by around 10 and I got the coffee going. The flurry of activity around the house crescendoed around noon when I took the turkey out and Ali and I worked on potatoes, broccoli, gravy, cheese sauce, cooking the rolls, and getting the pies warmed up.

My parents arrived around 1 and Ali’s parents and kid sister arrived shortly after. Ali had brought her artichoke casserole, my parents brought stuffing and another pie, and Ali’s family brought pumpkin bread, wine, and squash. While moms and dads spent some time getting to know one another, Ali and I buzzed around, getting an excellent meal set up that basically went off without a hitch. I thought it wasn’t as organized as last year, but then I had no standard upon which to base things and everything I tried was pretty much for the first time. Our guests disagreed and felt it was even better (well it was just my parents and Ali last year so her family was without a point of comparison.)

It all went well and even the pies were well received (I had made pumpkin and apple — apple for the first time). Afterward it was off to Ali’s new house so my parents could see it and then everyone went home. All that work for a really great 4-hour period. It’s disproportionately skewed toward planning, but that’s the name of the game.

So Ali and I got things cleaned up a bit then took a nap. Thank goodness. We slept for 2 hours or so then got up and headed to my friend Rebecca’s party. It was once an annual thing, but last year she apparently broke her foot, bought a house, and disappeared. Well the hugely amazing party was back this year — with dozens of desserts that followed an astounding buffet that Ali and I had skipped for our own.

The friends and family there were all very good people. Ali had a great time and was glad she didn’t skip it — after all, she planned to get up early to do some seasonal work for our friends business at 5 a.m. the next day. She didn’t even leave until 11 or so — although both of us thankfully live just around the corner. I ended up consuming a steady stream of alcohol until quite late — I got home around 4:30 a.m. and considered calling Ali to see if she was up. [In fact she was.]

So it was an excellent holiday overall.

I signed up for this website called Experts-Exchange to find out why my Garmin eTrex Legend Navigator would suddenly die, leaving only a thin vertical line on the display that required removal of the batteries to reboot. I figured it had something to do with the recent firmware “upgrade” I gave it (knowing that these “upgrades” almost always have side effects like “sometimes ruins everything”, but this is how corporations make money). Or maybe it was just that the batteries were flaky.

Anyway, at this Expert-Exchange, you can sign up to the service for $12.95/month or cheaper for longer periods. Stepping back once: I had done a Google search and found this as a question on the site with two answers from “gurus” that I could reveal by signing up. There’s a 7-day free trial so I figured I’d give it a go.

So what was the “guru”-level answer as to what can be done to fix the problem? Did it include instructions on a firmware upgrade? Did it ask for more details? Did it describe a specific kind of failure that is either user-serviceable or not? Did two different people answer the question — or perhaps offer different advice?

At the risk of violating the terms of service of the site, let me just say it was none of those. The “solution(s)” even failed to include a link to buy a whole new unit. Now, it would be one thing if these answers were listed as “well, pretty crummy but it’s something”, but apparently this is the cream-of-the-crop — the very best Experts-Exchange has to offer.

Needless to say, I’ve canceled my free trial.

As a footnote, I also found this page that describes my problem and offers a link to a solution — along with some discussion absent from the page therein linked.