I wanted to keep the Traxxas battery connectors and the two 6700mAh batteries that came with my used X-Maxx, really I did. I even bought a pair of SMC 9400 mAh batteries to give me more run time, with Traxxas connectors.
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The death of the hobby shop
One of the joys of my childhood was to spend literally hours day dreaming in the local hobby shop. It was a warm, welcoming place, set up to extract money from your wallet, but to provide both advice and and counseling.
But, that business model was already under pressure from online retailers even before the internet slaughtered the advice and counseling aspect of the vaunted Local Hobby Shop (LHS).
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Unpopular Views
Everybody has a few unpopular views and opinions. Here are some of mine:
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Review: Bladerunner 2049
I remember watching the original Bladerunner in one of the Century theaters in the 1980’s. A masterpiece of visual delight, it riffed off of the current hyper-popular branding and visual stimulation to weave a fantastic tale that succeeded, even with its overbearing narrative (the editors seemed to think us yanks needed to be hit over the head with the main plot lines.)
So, when I heard that they were making a sequel, I was delighted.
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Traxxas life – Batteries
As I mentioned before, I picked up a Traxxas X-maxx that was lightly used. Part of the package was their “Completer Kit”, in this case two monstrous 6700 mAh batteries, and since the dual ID link charger struggles to put out enough power to charge two of these monsters, the prior owner bought two of the beefier spec single chargers.
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The X-maxx Files – Day 1
As it arrived yesterday (super fast shipping for those who care, I Paypal’d the money on Thursday, and the truck arrived on Monday) I felt the need to get the rubber side down and test it out.
First, the body is perfect. No noticeable blemishes. A stock X-maxx with any real ‘bashing’ on the clock will have some scrapes, gouges, and possibly cracks in the lexan shell. It is clean.
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Oops, I did it
As part of the RC car bug that has bit me, I have been on the lookout for my next acquisition. I have been leaning towards an Arrma short wheelbase Truggy either their Notorious or the Outcast. Essentially the same chassis, but with different bodies.
But while I have been researching, I keep watching Kevin Talbot’s videos. Kevin is a basher par excellence. At first I thought his YouTube [Channel] was cartoonish, over the top, and while entertaining, not really serious. Partly this was because of his ad for his eBay business methods he prepends (for the record, I don’t mind that, and it isn’t that annoying) to the videos. But as I watch more and more of his pieces, there is a method to his madness.
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Public Transit in the age of COVID-19
I am a huge proponent of public transit, having blogged about it several times before, and being fortunate enough to work for an enlightened company who sponsors my transit pass.
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Terrible Movies
I have been grabbing a bunch of movies off of the TCM channel lately. Just browsing, and having my Tivo record them. Some absolute gems (Casablanca in HD is better than my DVD copy), and – to put it bluntly – turds.
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Mailing lists
As I consider a move from G-Suite to a less spying laden provider, I am cleaning up my massive pile of email (a lot less of a mess than my significant other, I might add) I stumble across a lot of messages from mailing lists I have subscribed to over the last 15 – 20 years.
As an example, in 2008, I was considering buying a Mini, and during my research, I signed up for updates. I never did buy it, instead buying a far superior Honda S2000, but the emails kept a comin’ (I signed up for it so long ago, it was still an @mac.com address!)
So, when these come in, I am now going through the unsubscribe process.
Mini, GlassDoor, Seeking Alpha, and many many more were unsubbed. And the process continues. I did whittle my total email count from ~16k messages to less than 7,000 emails. By deleting rafts of messages that are not interesting. It was truly astounding how many of the daily NY Times headline emails I had in my archive (answer: Almost 1,000 that I hadn’t deleted.)
Pope Moysuh