Tank 348 - 24 April 2K13 (The Gas Station Was Rockin' - Literally!)

I refilled the Mighty Corolla last night at the Fas Mart near the library. Gas was $3.249/gallon, which is pretty cheap around here. The car had been driven 383.7 miles at that point, and received 10.920 gallons, making for a fuel economy number of 35.14 mpg.

Last week I got the car inspected. The inspection had expired at the end of March, so my secret evil plan is to take it in after it's expired so I get an extra month from the inspection process. When I picked it up, the guy reported that a bearing needed replaced ("needed replaced" is poor language, I know, but it's a Southern convention that explains the thought in fewer words. It's much easier to say "the bearing needed replaced" instead of "the bearing needs to be replaced." It's like two less words!). So shortly I'll get that done. It currently makes a very noticeable hum as I drive around, but when I curve to the right and the weight of the car shifts more over the left wheels, the noise disappears. That's kind of fun.

I wonder if the poor bearing is helping to keep my fuel economy so subpar over the last year...

Oh, but more fun is that it was quite windy last night as I put gas in the car. The weatherman reported steady 20 mph winds with higher gusts. As I stood there squeezing the gas pump, the wind was coming right across the front of the car and it was hitting the gas pump straight on the wide side. And that pump was leaning back and forth. The top part where the cigarette ad was on its little flexible stand was leaning about an inch in each direction. The whole pump! So that was cool...

Tank 347 - 13 April 2K13 (The First Time This Happened)

Refueled the Mighty Corolla at the Fas mart near my home. 363.8 miles, 10.674 gallons, so 34.08 crappy miles per gallon. An interesting note is that after the second click, I had put exactly $35.00 in the tank. I wasn't even watching.

You'd think this would happen roughly once every 100 tanks. You'd be wrong. I looked at the numbers and this is the first and only time this has happened to me. I have a few tanks that ended in $x.99 and a few that were $x.01 or $x.o3, but this is the first that randomly came to an end right at a round whole dollar amount.

So I guess that's pretty rare.

Other than that, I have nothing to add.

Tank 346 - 2 April 2K13 (Too Much Going On To Post)

Sorry, I took the rest of last week off for personal reasons. But I did put more gas in the car on April 2, 11.297 gallons after driving 396.7 miles. So mileage of 35.12 mpg.

It was thirteen days between tanks of gas. I expect this tank will last at least that long, as the Mighty Corolla was parked for most of the 5-day weekend. Plus, I'm taking this Friday off, too. So probably it'll be a couple weeks before I refuel again.

Yay.

Meanwhile, I am questioning the profitability of this blog. I clearly underestimated the number of people in this country who are interested in not only fuel economy (not even great fuel economy any more, it's merely average) but also recreational bike riding stories.

Alas, there are too few to make this a worthwhile wealth generator. :-(

But this has been a good blog in that it goves me history of when my back went bad the first time.

And also one of the most popular posts is about how crappy the Delta Touch Faucet is, so I like to think I saved a couple people from making that horrible decision.

Tank 345: 20 March 2K13 - It'd be easier to just type 2013!

I refilled the Mighty Corolla yesterday on my way home, at the Fas Mart near my home. I had driven 394.4 miles and squoze in 10.873 gallons from a slow-pumping machine. Thus, my mileage was 36.27 mpg.

I haven't ridden my bike at all this week. Bummer.

I haven't gotten amazing gas mileage in, like, forever. Another bummer.

My "get-rich-quick-from-Google-Adsense" scheme is floundering (if I am using that word correctly). Bummer Number Three.

Next time I start up a blog, I'm going to make it more widely focused than "guys who ride bikes for exercise and drive small sedans that get mediocre fuel economy. And hate Delta faucets."

But I'm pretty sure I nailed that demographic!

SNEAKY ALABAMA!

Official state insect: the monarch butterfly
Official state butterfly: the eastern tiger swallowtail

Tank 344 - 10 March 2K13 - Battleship: the Movie wasn't as bad as everyone said!

I refueled the Mighty Corolla last night at the Fas Mart near the library again. 10.784 gallons, 381.7 miles, so it was 35.40 mpg. Not that good, but not that far below my average for the year so far (35.49 mpg).

It was 16 days between tanks this time. Year-to-date average days between fill-ups is 14.67 days. Due to the timing of this fill-up, and adding evening soccer practice trips into the mix (soccer season starts this wek for 2/3 of the young ones), I expect this tank will be used up faster than average.

Over the weekend I watched Battleship:" the Movie Based on the Hasbro Game." It wasn't bad! I basically enjoyed it.

I think I understand why critics didn't like it. 1) Americans had to give control to the Japanese in order to start winning against the aliens. 2) The Austrailian band AC/DC's song "Thunderstruck" was played almost in its entirety during a musical montage. 3) The Jeff Goldblum character, ressurected from "Independence Day," didn't get to be the hero, he only walked around saying "I tild you this would happen! You didn't listen to me, and here we are! I told you things wouldn't be good when the aliens found us!" and basically whines the whole movie. 4) The heroes at the end were WWII veterans! OLD MEN!

I will expound on these reasons here:

1) Hollywood bashed "Independence Day" because it was entirely the Americans who saved the world. I remember reviews that were critical about how the British, Koreans, Russians, and the rest of the armed world were shown just saying "it's about time those Yankees saved us!" and the movie critics though that was too jingoistic. So Battleship lets our Japanese friends lead the way (although just temporarily). Clearly, film critics don't like it that way either. Maybe next time the North Koreans will save the planet and they'll be satisfied. Probably not because it'll just be North Korean men and no women who do it...

2) Thunderstruck gets no respect. But it rocks. Film critics don't understand, I guess, because maybe they just think the only song by AC/DC worthy of immortalization in film is "Back in Black." I beg to differ.

3) The Jeff Goldblum character was clearly a rip off from "Independence Day." He stunk the place up, this can't be denied. Happily, he was only in a few scenes. But his lines in each scene were the same "I told you it would be crap! But did you listen? NOOOO!!" He was forgettable. And he had bad hair.

4) No way movie critics will respect members of the Greatest Generation as still being capable of kicking ass. I suppose they'll be happy when those guys are all dead, but you know what? We'll just make movies that take place in the '90s so they can still have WWII veterans in them! They are the Greatest Generation for a reason, folks, and that's because they went over there while still teenagers and did what they were told to do and they were victorious. And lots of them were killed. Those guys are tough as nails, lucky sumbitches who deserve our respect. But Hollywood film critics don't understand that, either. Probably Hollywood filmmakers, too, but somehow this got into the movie. And for that, I am thankful.

So, to sum things up, 3/4 of the movie points listed here are good. That's a solid C grade, bordering on B-minus, because AC/DC and old guys add bonus points.

Good entertainment. Good movie. Battleship!