Now the long wait for the rebuilt title begins. The paperwork was sent off yesterday, 3/29. Generally takes 4 to 6 weeks. In the meantime, I have a round of housekeeping planned. The Engine, transmission, and differential are all getting new oil. The spark plugs are going to be replaced along with the air filter. I have a pure bluetooth car kit that was just delivered today, it will allow me to do handsfree calls and stream music while retaining the stock radio. 

I also ordered an Autoexe steering wheel because the factory wheel is pretty ragged. After that I'll dive into suspension and exhaust and other fun stuff, stay tuned. 

Should be painted by the end of the week. Now it's time to start buying fun parts. 

With... A Miata. I've had my 96 Miata for a few years now, and I've taken it from a basket case to a pretty solid little car, but I just never really drive it. I've gotten old and it's a pain in the ass to drive, the Hard Top is nice but it's a pain in the ass to take off and put on, so I miss out on one of the coolest parts about a Miata, the open top driving. On the other hand, I've been spoiled by having a hard top. It's so much quieter, more secure, and (in my opinion) better looking than a soft top. 

So in looking for a new car, I went with the obvious, an NC Miata with the Power Retractable Hard Top. 

I picked this one up online from a salvage dealer. I will update this post when it's fixed later this week, I already have some parts coming in. 

I'm going to keep this one super mild and reliable so I have a fun car to drive while working on other more extensive projects. My plan is to replace the worn 140k mile steering wheel with an AutoExe wheel, put some revlimiter gauge faces in just because I like them, a RoadsterSport Street Single exhaust, and some kind of suspension, probably either the MeisterR coilovers or the FM setup. Aside from tires, thats about it. We'll see if I can manage to actually do that or if it suddenly sprouts a 2.5L swap. 

Last week I wrote a post about how great the Nintendo Switch is for travel, and mentioned I had ordered a travel adapter on amazon. The next day, people starting saying that using third party travel adapters with their switch after the software had updated to version 5.0 was bricking their Switch. Needless to say, I didn't use the adapter. I returned it to amazon, and ended up going a totally different route. 

For roughly the same price as the adapter, I bought a travel case for the whole thing

Specifically, this one. It holds the switch, the controller that comes with it, the power cable and HDMI cable, and an additional controller or pro controller. Also has a little bag for game cartridges and memory cards. Not near as portable, but at least keeps everything together and neat, and has a 0% chance of bricking my console. It still annoys the shit out of me that Nintendo not only refuses to make a compact travel dock, but also seems to be making it more difficult for third parties to make a product that their customers obviously want, but at the end of the day, that's not a hill I'm willing to die on. I'll just deal with it for now.

​Target actually has the official dock on sale for roughly $60, so I am considering just picking up one of those and keeping it in this case so I can just just grab the console and the controller, throw them in the case, and go. For now we'll see how just using the travel case and moving everything goes. I'll update after my next trip. 

This weekend, I was stuck in a Best Western in a small town. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to do around there, so I brought my Nintendo Switch. Also, when I moved about a year ago I cut the cord and went internet only on my cable plan (this is related, I swear). I tried a few of the streaming services, and settled on Hulu with Live TV because I already wanted Hulu anyway and they seem to have the most content for the money. Hulu also seems to be about the only streaming service that actually has a Switch App. So basically, I not only was able to bring my switch with me and play Stardew Valley for 11 hours straight on Saturday:

I was also able to use the Hulu App on the switch (once I got tired of trying to mine Irridium) to free myself from Hotel TV hell.

Although I didn’t use it this time because the hotel WiFi seemed to just be open, the switch is supposedly able to spawn a browser window via the settings app to log into WiFi networks, so that shouldn’t be a problem. The only real downside was the size of the switch dock, it takes up a lot of space for what should be a simple dongle. I think i have found a solution to that problem too though, according to Casey Liss of Accidental Tech Podcast, I can leave the dock at home next time and just use this dongle. I ordered one, along with a retractable HDMI cable that will easy go in a bag. Along with the travel charger I already have, I shouldn’t need to do anything other than throw my switch into a case and the pro controller into my suitcase to be able to game and stream TV in any place with an HDMI port. I will test out that adapter as soon as it arrives, but it has good reviews elsewhere online. So yeah, if you need another excuse to get a Switch, there you have it; streaming TV on an actual TV screen while stuck in a hotel room.

Edit - There are reports of third party docks bricking Switch consoles after the 5.0 software update that just came out. I'm holding off on using that dongle until this is sorted.