Car Trouble

We drive a 1998 Honda Accord, manual transmission. It's been a good, reliable car (as Hondas tend to be) but it's starting to show its age. The driver-side back door doesn't open from the outside any more; you have to reach around from the inside to open it. There's a very embarrassing clicking sound when you turn the wheel. I liken it to the sound you get when you put a playing card in the spokes of your bike—cute on a bike, not so cute on a car.

Wifey and I have different priorities for a car. It's the story of our lives really, so we have to work hard at compromise. For me, power and sexiness was key. I wanted a car that looked good and had plenty of pickup for those times I wanted to zoom around that fucking Prius that's in the wrong lane to be going the speed limit. Wifey is more concerned about fuel economy. She wants a hybrid ideally, but I'm kinda staunchly against the Prius so that cuts down our options. Have I mentioned I hate Prius drivers? Not for their ideology, but for the way they drive. They suck. I'd buy a Tesla in a heartbeat though, as would Wifey, but at $60k it's not happening any time soon.

We came up with a compromise list. About the only thing we could definitely agree on were that we wanted a manual transmission again (because they're fun to drive and damn sexy), and a moonroof. Essentially, we wanted what we currently have but in a newer car. The cars we settled on trying out were:

• Honda Accord EX, manual
• Honda Accord Hybrid
• Mazda 6

We struck out with every. single. one. We weren't asking for much: manual transmission, cloth seats (because Wifey is a vegetarian), and a moonroof. The exact same things that we have in our current Accord. 

We started out with the Mazda because it's a sexy car, has awesome ratings and customer satisfaction, and it's just something different than the Honda. The Mazda comes in 3 trims: Sport, i Touring, and Grand Touring. The Sport lacked a moonroof. The i Touring also lacked a moonroof, and it was only available in leatherette, which Wifey wasn't thrilled about even though it wasn't real leather. The Grand Touring would have, admittedly, gotten us everything we wanted—but it only came with leather seats. 

We moved on to the Honda. Safe, boring Honda. They've done a few things to the Honda since we got ours though, and the Accord is actually kinda sporty looking, and has a nice stick shift—a sporty, short one. It felt really good to drive. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the Hybrid was also a nice drive, despite the fact that it was a hybrid and automatic. Wifey was obviously very excited about the Hybrid too. The downsides to it? No moonroof, no manual transmission, and no trunk space. We were willing to overlook the transmission type, and even considered leaving the moonroof. The trunk space was the killer though. It's only about 12.7 cubic feet, which is simply not big enough. The back seats also don't fold down at all, so you only get that 12 feet—not a bit more. I'm a musician and have to haul gear around sometimes. It would be pretty tight to get my amp and guitar into a trunk that size. There's also the occasional Home Depot trip, trips to the Vineyard where we pack our lives up for a weekend, long road trips to Cleveland...you get the picture. 

The Accord EX was the only car we looked at that offered all the features we wanted. The only downside was that it came in all of two colors: light grey and dark grey. We were fine with this though. If we could get everything else we were more than willing to have our color prospects limited. We went through our local dealer who located two cars. We thought we were finally at the end of our journey, but those two were already spoken for and the dealer couldn't find anyone else in the area who had that exact model with those exact specs. 

We had struck out three times. 

Now we're kind've circling the wagons again, trying to figure our our next steps. We're extending our search to some other areas that we travel to from time to time. The Hybrid is still out, but we're hoping we can find the EX manual somewhere. The Mazda is likely out because not only does it only come in leatherette, it has no moonroof. 

Honestly, I don't get how fucked up these trim levels are. It's super frustrating. 

Streaming's Got Me Steaming

Friday night and I'm at home with The Kid because Wifey has a social engagement. I dig our Troublesome Twosome evenings because it's a nice bonding opportunity for the two of us, and often what I'll do is set up a movie night since we generally don't allow her a lot of screen time. We do it up: fun "junky dinner" (like hot dogs are something), popcorn, ice cream. The works. That night she asked to watch The Lion King. You remember The Lion King, right? "I just cant wait to be king"? "Kakuna Matata"? Came out in 1994?

So we hit the tv room and I prepare to search for it online. I'm used to this dance, y'know? It happens every time we want to watch something. I start off with Netflix and usually strike out because Netflix has zilch for movies. Then I move on to FiOS On-Demand because why not? Usually I can stop right there and get on with my evening. Not this night, my friends. Not this night. FiOS didn't have The Lion King. I move on to XBox and start searching their various video offerings for it, including Amazon Prime. Nothing. At this point I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I can find Big Hero 6, which was out not that long ago, but I can't find a decades old movie?  It didn't make sense to me. Unfortunately no amount of searching yielded the ability to stream The Lion King. So, we had to watch Bob the Builder episodes. A bunch of them. I fucking hate Bob the Builder. All of those construction vehicle characters have entirely too much hubris.

Later that night after the little one was asleep, I figured I'd treat myself to a little movie viewing. I had a desire to watch some super hero action/adventure, and I was kinda craving Robert Downey Jr. so I decided to look for a little Avengers. I followed much the same route as earlier (with the exception of the XBox Video because by this time I was laying in bed with my iPad). I started with Netflix, went on to Amazon Prime. Not available to stream. Netflix has some cute Avengers cartoons, but I didn't want cute cartoons. Okay, how about Iron Man? I'll even take the first one. Nope. At this point I wanted to throw something. So much content, so many services, and we still have really shitty selection. I honestly don't get what makes it so that I can't stream any of the Fast and Furious movies, or Spiderman or even Taken, but I can get Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Robocop? I can get something old as shit like The Fifth Element, but not The Lion King? Why can I stream Dirty Dancing but not Mannequin?!

I know, I know, there are complicated forces behind these things, legions of dark-suited media pimps haggling and bargaining across the biggest solid oak table you've ever seen. It just seems crazy to me that everything is not available to stream by now—especially the old stuff! Like, I thought Netflix was the Last Stand for some of these old movies. Who does it benefit to keep this stuff vaulted up? Surely you'd make more money letting a service offer all of this old stuff so that people like me can go traipsing down memory lane than by letting it rot in a vault? How about the fact that Age of Ultron is coming out soon? I can't be the only person who wanted to reacquaint myself with The Avengers so that I would be up-to-date when the movie releases soon.

I get that "they'd" much rather have you buy the DVD/BlueRay disc/whatever but surely there's a dropoff time where you reckon if someone hasn't bought it by then, they're not gonna. I haven't purchased Michael Keaton-era Batman; I doubt that's going to change now. So just freaking stream it!

I wound up watching Voltron that night. Voltron! I love Voltron, but c'mon. You have Voltron and you don't have Short Circuit?

Ugh.