Toyota key won't turn

I've been having this problem for a number of months. The key won't turn in the ignition. I found that I had to jiggle the key back and forth and kind of shove it in. And if that didn't work, turn the key upside down. Eventually it worked. But now a new problem. The key wouldn't insert all the way in. Had to try pushing it in and out a number of times and eventually it worked. I went home and sprayed it with some silicon spray. And now the key goes in easier. But when I tried the old (less used key) it wouldn't turn. And only the more worn out key works putting it in one way. Though even that doesn't work sometimes on the first crack. Google. Sounds like it's the lock cylinder. I think I'll take it to B&A and see what they say.

[8/20/12] Took it to B&A and they said there's nothing they could do, but that the keys looked worn out.

So I went to City Mill and made a duplicate of the key that was in mom's closet.  That seems to work better.  But now that the lubricant has settled in, I can put the old key in and turn it after jiggling a couple times.  The other old key still doesn't work though.  I'm keeping the new duplicate key on my keychain but trying not to use it so I don't wear it out.  I'm also keeping the other old key on my keychain too.  I can still use it to unlock the door.

Charmed

After finally having bought all the Charmed DVD sets for Christie (not that I know that she knows where all of them are), I see some Charmed episodes have been uploaded on youtube.

1.0 - Unaired Pilot (just uploaded today, an older upload)
1.1 - Something Wicca This Way Comes
etc.

Amazon sales tax

The free ride is ending..

Attention Amazon shoppers: Be prepared to pay more when you purchase goods, depending on where you live.
 
The online retail giant will start charging sales tax in eight additional states in coming years, starting with California and Pennsylvania in September, as it puts down physical roots in more places. Amazon already collects sales tax in six states.

Tyler and JLo leaving American Idol

LOS ANGELES >> Jennifer Lopez is the second judge in two days to say she's leaving "American Idol."

Her representative, Mark Young, said today that Lopez is ending her time on television's most popular show after two years. Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler said the same thing on Thursday.

Lopez broke the news to "Idol" host Ryan Seacrest on his radio show.

"I really was dreading this phone call with you," she told him. "I honestly feel like the time has come that I have to get back to doing the other things that I do that I've put kind of on hold because I love 'Idol' so much."

That means the show's judging panel is down to one, Randy Jackson, and there are reports that he may take a different role on the program moving forward.

[9/1/12] The dawg days are over at "American Idol" ... TMZ has learned Randy Jackson is officially LEAVING the judge's table ... but will still remain a part of the show as a "mentor."

Sources connected to "Idol" tell us ... there's some concern among the brass that Jackson is not well-suited for the mentor role ... but they feel they need him because he's the glue that helps keep the show together.

As for his replacement ... sources tell us Nicki Minaj's deal is 99% done ... but still not a sure thing just yet.

American Idol may be ready for a major makeover. Last year's season finale, with Jessica Sanchez vs. Phil Phillips, had the smallest audience of any American Idol finale; even smaller than the first American Idol finale which aired in the slower summer months. Season 11's finale got just 21.5 million viewers. The biggest viewership for an American Idol finale was 38.1 million in 2003.

American Idol remains a cash cow for Fox. It pulls in about $500,000 for a 30-second commercial, and it remains one of the biggest draws on TV, despite a decline in audience in recent years. But few blame the cast of judges as responsible for the decline. Most observers say the ebb is a result of a combination of audience atigue and the rise of copy cat competition, especially, the arrival of Simon Cowell's "X-Factor" and NBC's "The Voice."

[9/16/12] The "American Idol" judges' panel is now complete with the naming of singer-rapper Nicki Minaj and country crooner Keith Urban.

The Fox network officially tapped the pair with an announcement today, confirming rumors surrounding them both just hours before the first round of auditions for next season was due to begin in New York.

The announcement also settled the status of Randy Jackson. He will stay put as the sole remaining original "Idol" judge, scotching rumors he might assume a different role on the popular talent competition.

This trio will join pop star Mariah Carey at a judges' panel now expanded to four members from its previous three.

KITV blacked out

Wow, this gotta be front page news in Hawaii.

KITV, the local ABC affiliate is no longer being carried by Oceanic (the Time Warner cable channel which is probably used by 90% of Hawaii's TV audience).

And not only in Hawaii, but cities like Boston, Kansas City, Lincoln NE, Louisville (CBS), Cincinnati, Pittsburgh.

Score one for Direct TV.

Amazingly, I see nothing of this in the Star Advertiser.  Well, wait for Hawaii to wake up to that message!

We'll see how many days this lasts.

***

OK, here's the Star-Advertiser story.

*** [7/20/12]

KITV is back on Oceanic!

Ernest Borgnine

Ernest Borgnine, the beefy screen star known for blustery, often villainous roles, but who won the best-actor Oscar for playing against type as a lovesick butcher in "Marty" in 1955, died Sunday. He was 95.

His longtime spokesman, Harry Flynn, told The Associated Press that Borgnine died of renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with his wife and children at his side.

Borgnine, who endeared himself to a generation of Baby Boomers with the 1960s TV comedy "McHale's Navy," first attracted notice in the early 1950s in villain roles, notably as the vicious Fatso Judson, who beat Frank Sinatra to death in "From Here to Eternity."

Then came "Marty," a low-budget film based on a Paddy Chayefsky television play that starred Rod Steiger. Borgnine played a 34-year-old who fears he is so unattractive he will never find romance. Then, at a dance, he meets a girl with the same fear.

"Sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts," Marty movingly tells his mother at one point in the film. "And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it. I chased after enough girls in my life. I-I went to enough dances. I got hurt enough. I don't wanna get hurt no more."

The realism of Chayefsky's prose and Delbert Mann's sensitive direction astonished audiences accustomed to happy Hollywood formulas. Borgnine won the Oscar and awards from the Cannes Film Festival, New York Critics and National Board of Review.

"The Oscar made me a star, and I'm grateful," Borgnine told an interviewer in 1966. "But I feel had I not won the Oscar I wouldn't have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life."

Those messes included four failed marriages, including one in 1964 to singer Ethel Merman that lasted less than six weeks.

But Borgnine's fifth marriage, in 1973 to Norwegian-born Tova Traesnaes, endured and brought with it an interesting business partnership. She manufactured and sold her own beauty products under the name of Tova and used her husband's rejuvenated face in her ads.

During a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, Borgnine expressed delight that their union had reached 34 years. "That's longer than the total of my four other marriages," he commented, laughing heartily.

Although still not a marquee star until after "Marty," the roles of heavies started coming regularly after "From Here to Eternity." Among the films: "Bad Day at Black Rock," ''Johnny Guitar," ''Demetrius and the Gladiators," ''Vera Cruz."

Then he successfully made the transition to TV comedy.

From 1962 to 1966, Borgnine a Navy vet himself starred in "McHale's Navy" as the commander of a World War II PT boat with a crew of misfits and malcontents. Obviously patterned after Phil Silvers' popular Sgt. Bilko, McHale was a con artist forever tricking his superior, Capt. Binghamton, played by the late Joe Flynn.

The cast took the show to the big screen in 1964 with a "McHale's Navy" movie.

Borgnine's later films included "Ice Station Zebra," ''The Adventurers," ''Willard," ''The Poseidon Adventure," ''The Greatest" (as Muhammad Ali's manager), "Convoy," ''Ravagers," ''Escape from New York," ''Moving Target" and "Mistress."

More recently, Borgnine had a recurring role as the apartment house doorman-cum-chef in the NBC sitcom "The Single Guy." He had a small role in the unsuccessful 1997 movie version of "McHale's Navy." And he was the voice of Mermaid Man on "SpongeBob SquarePants" and Carface on "All Dogs Go to Heaven 2."

On Jan. 24, 2007, Borgnine celebrated his 90th birthday with a party for friends and family at a West Hollywood bistro. He seemed little changed from his years as a lusty villain or sympathetic hero on the screen. His only concession to age had come at 88 when he gave up driving the bus he would take around the country, stopping to talk with local folks along the way.

During an interview at the time, Borgnine complained that he wanted to continue acting but most studio executives kept asking, "Is he still alive?"

"I just want to do more work," he said. "Every time I step in front of a camera I feel young again. I really do. It keeps your mind active and it keeps you going."

Andy Griffith

(CBS News) Actor Andy Griffith, whose portrayal of a rural sheriff in a popular 1960s TV show earned him the title of "America's Favorite Sheriff," died Tuesday morning. He was 86.

Pictures: Andy Griffith, 1926-2012

Read more: Celebrities remember Andy Griffith

His death was confirmed in a statement from the Dare County, N.C., sheriff's office. Griffith died at his home on Roanoke Island, Dare County, N.C., at approximately 7 a.m.

"Andy Griffith passed away, after an illness ... Mr. Griffith has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island," explained a statement from Griffith's family.

"Andy was a person of incredibly strong Christian faith and was prepared for the day he would be called Home to his Lord," the actor's wife, Cindi Griffith, said in a statement.

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that while Griffith's long career stretched from nightclubs to radio to movies to music, it was a role as a small-town sheriff that made him beloved to millions of Americans.

Viewers tuned in to "The Andy Griffith Show" not to watch Sheriff Andy Taylor solve big crimes, but to watch him solve the little problems of life in the fictional Mayberry, N.C. Don Knotts played Deputy Barney Fife, and Jim Nabors portrayed Gomer Pyle, the gas pumper. Most critics consider the show, which ran from 1960 to 1968, one of the top four or five sitcoms ever shown on television.

my movies on youtube (and other places)

I keep seeing more and more full-length movies on youtube.  Not sure how they upload full length movies.  And since they're probably violating copyright, the videos are likely to be taken off in a few weeks or months.  But anyway, here's some that I have found.

(Many of which I already have on DVD, so I have little to gain by watching them on youtube.  The other disadvantage?  No subtitles.)

Let's start with some Bruckheimer
Deja Vu (uploaded 3/25/12)
Gone in 60 Seconds (uploaded 6/25/12)
Enemy of the State (1998) (uploaded 2/18/12)
Armageddon (in 14 parts, uploaded 7/25/08)
The Rock (1996) (uploaded 2/20/12)
Con Air (8 parts, uploaded 6/7/12)
Crimson Tide (1996) (uploaded 2/22/12)

So you see, 5 of the 6 were uploaded this year (thus unlikely to last the year).
[7/13/12 - All except Deja Vu and Armageddon are gone]

Here's a few more that caught my eye
Independence Day (uploaded 11/1/11)
Push (uploaded 6/26/12)

X-Men (uploaded 6/25/12)
Hulk vs. Thor (uploaded 4/8/12)
Ultimate Avengers (uploaded 4/15/12)

[9/23/12] Green Lantern on vimeo (after I rented it from RedBox last night)

[2/9/13] checking the above links.  all the movies are gone except for Armageddon (which I have Criterion Collection DVD anyway).