MERVERNATION News

06/30/2000

Well, today at 12:00 they announced the new primary sponsor for Mark Martin and the #6 Taurus for the 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup Season. Phizer/Viagra has put up the money to have the hood of the car as advertising space. I admit that I am disapointed with Valvoline, and with the whole situation, but I hope this provides Martin with the support he needs to keep being a contender each week. Martin has actually been a spokes person for Phizer for a while, and has taken a big interest in promoting mens health. In that respect I am very happy for him and his team to be able to be involved in such a major way... another big word of change for 2001 is the Quality Care Ford Credit Taurus driven by Dale Jarrett is probably going to be brown next year... UPS is possibly looking for full time sponsorship. It just keeps getting stranger... more later.



06/29/2000

Its gonna be a strange looking field of cars in 2001. Im not talking about the Dodges.. they look pretty good.... but between the new car out there and all of the driver and sponsor changes shaping up for the end of this year, its going to be impossible to know whos who... first of all it look like Mark Martin and Valvoline are parting ways. primary sponsor of him since 1988... Chad little, 97 John Deere is going to be leaving Roush Racing and finding a new ride. Jonny Benson who left Roush Racing last year and has Lycos as a sponsor this year is supposedly going to get Valvoline next year. Rummor has it that Jack Roush requested Valvoline to provide the current amount of funds that the other teams were getting and when they said no, He began looking for other sponsorship for the #6. Valvoline is supposedly going to Benson because he is going to be a less expensive driver to support. Mark Martin is always a front runner, and guys like that can get the bigger bucks. Id like more than anything for Valvoline and Roush to meet an agreement and continue working together but if not, I hope he gets a good sponsor for Mark Martins car next year. something respectabe... Bill Eliot, voted fans favorite and most popular driver of the year about 14 times is losing McDonnalds as a sponsor. This is only the begining of the changes to come. Hopefully it works out for everyone, but the fans are going to be mad when all the t-shirts they purchased arent valid anymore. lol. anyway, talk about fast cars, I got a close up look at one of the NY State Trooper Camaro cars and the guy who drives it yesterday... NO I didnt get pulled over,. he was actually going to the place where I am currently working. I peeked in his window and saw a speedometer that went to 150. if its anything like other chevys that friends of mine have had,.. that means it probably goes about 130 and the extra spedo space is for looks. lol. actually I was told by the guy who does my transmission related work that the Trooper version of the Camaro is very different from the consumer version, so it probably utilizes most of its needle space. My cars spedometer goes to 140, and I know for a fact it goes up and beyond that... :) ... anyway, I finally got the last part of my web server figured out. my CGI stuff wasnt working... it turns out there was nothing wrong with my configuration like I thought and it was telling me... it was actually the very first line in the script... while it looked ok, I found out that durring file transfer of CGI and PL scripts, sometimes the first enter keystroke gets erased and when the script is run, it actually bunched up the first and second lines and causes the error. to fix it you have to go to the line under the first one, hit backspace, and then hit enter again. it still looks the same, but the invisible character is now there. its working perfectly now. Thanks to my friend Ryan for helping me out with that. I guess thats about all for now.. be back later



06/24/2000

Went to a computer show in Newburgh today. got a few things. 2 AMD K6-2 500's to upgrade my systems 3 and 4. picked up a modem for someone, and a 2.1 gig laptop hard drive for Dave. (see button on right). used the oppertunity of being up that way to stop in the vinyl store in middletown and pick up some more trance. came home and checked NASCAR Online to see how the truck race went... Greg Biffle won a 3rd straight race. (in his Roush Racing FORD Truck mind you) (Dodge has had trucks in the series for a while, but cant seem to get ahead of them Fords in the point standings). Practiced my live mixing for a while. Just getting ready to work on a few tracks I want to finish up... then its off to graduation for my sister. After that I think Im supposed to go the the town park and watch the fireworks and stuff. its the last night of the carnival I think. and I think before I do anything else right now, I have to set my tape to record Solid State. Still no shipment from Satellite Records... I have to get my web server together and put it in a case. its still just a pile of computer parts on top of my computer 4 monitor. hopefully I can get that done this weekend. last night I downloaded the Q3A point release... its up to version 1.17 and once you have that, you can also download what people call "the optimization DLL's"... they are parts of Quake 3 that are compiled in to DLL files and you place them in your BaseQ3 directory.. once you do this it can improve your frame rate up to 15 percent. I tried it and did notice a bit of improvement... I guess that enough random rambling for now.



06/21/2000

My pal Marlin is over on his page bragging about the new Dodge that will enter the NASCAR circuit in 2001. he has every right to brag, as he is a dodge man, I can see his excitement. I am even excited to see this happen... unfortionatly he has read something that is true, but not really the truth. I will explain. Hes bragged that Dodge has built an engine that is far better than what the other teams have now.. true maybe because all they are doing is concentrating on developing rather than working for races each week. not true because when a car is entered in NASCAR, it is templated. the body must meet a certain wind tunnel calculation, and the engine must meet a horse power calculation. NASCAR does this so no one has an unfair advantage or diaadvantage. so even if dodge mad an engine this is better, it would be tuned down or rebuilt to spec. however they really havent made anything BETTER per say,.. they made something different. Ford and Chevy have already built engines that are far superior to what they are runnning now, and until there is a rule change, it wont get utilized. Roush Racing which houses Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, Chad Little, and Kevin LePage, has a full time engine crew working on new technologies, and new ways to squeeze HP out of the current model allowed. Roush Racing also supplies the engines to quite a large number of teams, and must be on the ball with all thats going on. another comment he has is that Ford and Chevy are screaming bloody murder. not true. Ford and Chevy are making sure that NASCAR makes dodge meet the template. they have every right to make sure of it. of corse the other teams are going to say that it makes what they have look obsolete. and they will continue to say it till either dodge gets the template treatment, or till Ford, Chevy and Pontiac are allowed to use their new technology. I dont doubt that dodge could win the Daytona 500. I wouldnt put money on it either. the race will be what it is regardless of manufacturer. NASCAR this year has shown a level of compitetion greater than any other season and propably any other series. in the first 10 races ther were 10 different winniers. its anyones race. the teams are learing how to work better together, and the equipment is becoming more and more reliable. when all is said and done by the start of next year, Dodge wont be anything but another contestant in the manufacturers compitetion. no team will have an advantage when it comes to engines. it all boils down to how teams work with what they are given. how they set it up for gas milage which is inproportional to horse power. I am in no way blaming marlin for his excitment. I was the same way when ford switched to the Taurus in 98. and when that happened, all the articles read the same thing "watch out for the new car.. its gonna have better everything.." a new entry gives media something to write and speculate about, and sometimes causes rummors to start. I pay close attention to the scene each day and I gaurentee no one will have the upper hand. Your going to see a lot of strong teams that have got it together and those teams will win races. teams that are just starting out might striggle, and teams that are successful and making a manufacture switch could do the same, better, or worse. either way, when that green flag drops in february its not the car thats going to win, its going to be a skilled driver.



06/20/2000

Someone must have linked to me somewhere on a visited page, either that or people are just finding me, cause my hits are going up again... lately I have been averaging between 40-50 hits a day... which really isnt much when you look at some sites out there, but for me thats a lot (except for that time I had that song and link on Newgrounds).. remember I said I dont promote this page in any way really,. but somehow I am building a group of daily page checkers. I should make sure there is something new to post each day so you readers have something to look at (like this meaningless post :))... well whoever you all are, thanks for taking an interest in whatever it is you like about this site.



Last night I got to climb on our roof and learn about our antenna... thats right, "antenna"... we do not have cable, a dish, or any other means of TV. we have an antenna with channels 2,4,5,7,9,11,13 and thats it. and guess what.. we hardly even watch those,.. however each passing year our reception gets worse and my parents are thinking of getting something. the local cable company charges too much for too little... plus its like watching an MPG file on a 386.. all the time you see the stations glitch and then you see the little squares replace them selvs as the things starts to play again. that pretty much leavs a dish as the only option. it is cheaper per month, but it seems you truely do have to pay for each TV hooked up. you cant win. its pathetic that people are willing to pay so much money to have mindless entertainment like a boob-tube full of channels that usually have nothing that you really want to watch anyway. it seems even worse that we are being forced to pay for a bunch of channels we dont want in the first place, just to get good reception. if cable and satellite companies were smart, they would let you pick every channel you wanted, and leave out the ones you dont. let eveyone have a 100% customized package and have a per channel rate. we already know they can do it.. they turn off HBO, Showtime, and Cinimax in that way. why not the rest of the channels?..... so after solving nothing on the roof and climbing back down, I just stood arounf for a little while and practiced my live mixing by blindly grabbing records and trying to match them as best I could. it came out pretty decent. I was also messing around with a few songs that I have to finish.. I cant decide which one to concentrate on. with any luck I will have something done within a couple weeks from now. I guess thats about it for now. bbl.



06/18/2000

Went on a spending spree today.... actually it wasnt a spree, it was simple car maintenance. Started the day by going to Vin J's Oil & Lube in Chester (Valvoline store for oil change).. after that it was up to the Middletown Penskee for new tires. I have a friend who works there and told me to stop by. I got the Good Year Eagle GT II's (T Rated.. 118 MPH) for $95 a piece, and a 4 wheel alignment. the total would have been $542 but because my friend was there, and the guys were nice, I got the whole package for $488.. any money saved is a good thing. Plus it was nice to do business at Penskee... Penskee as in Roger Penskee,.. as in car owner for Rusty Wallace, and Jeremy Mayfield. I am giving this car the best I can afford. After i had this tire job done, I took a few corners (like the outside lane in goshen, at about 55 without sliding or squeeling 1 bit. gotta love that. so thats the story there... also during the day, I managed to stop at the record store up there and pick up some more trance vinyl... that, along with my order comming from satellite in NYC will give me enough material to put together 3:03 AM Vol 2 & 3.. (Hoagie is getting desprate for something new to listen too).. thats about it as of late.



06/13/2000

How bout that.. on Sunday this page rolled over to 10,000 hits. not bad for a little rinky dink page just over a year old. Especially since I have only submitted to a few search engines, half of which still dont include this site, and a few of which did include it, but for some reason dont anymore. Like Excite.. I was there for a few months, and have been vanished off the list ever since. I appear on Google cause Google is one of them search engines that pick up on you by itself... they should all work that way. either way, 10,000 aint bad.



06/09/2000

Back..... Actually I have been back since about 1:30 AM Monday morning, but havent had time to update. The races were real good. We had a ton of fun, met 5 different drivers and got autographs. First we met Tony Stewart (Home Depot #20).. this was the second time for me and my girlfriend... then we met Chad Little (John Deere #97), then Eliot Saddler (Citgo #21), then John Andretti (STP #43), and finally Ken Schrader (M&M's #36). we also got a peek at Rusty Wallace again, but as usual his line was do darn long it was a lost cause, mainly cause its get cut off at some point. So we saw plenty of action. a couple of wrecks, a couple of mechanical failures, and some good racing. in the Busch race, right off the bat, Mark Martin and the #60 Winn Dixie car had a failure in the carborator. through a series of pits during an early caution (about 5 stops) they were able to fix it and restart as the last car. he finished that race in second place after leading a good portion of it. in Winston Cup, Mark blew an engine, and was out early. that stunk. but we got to see Matt Kenseth come in second to Tony Stewart and increase his lead in the Rookie of the Year battle, which was great. Jeff Gordon hit the wall pretty much RIGHT in front of us on turn 4, and Rusty Wallace spun out right in front of us too, but he stayed out of the wall. it was a good weekend.. VERY hot too. infact it was so hot friday that I drank 9 cans of soda, 1 bottle of water, and 1 large cup of orange juice over the course of 5 - 7 hours and didnt take a leak for about 2 hours after that. I can only imagine I would have been dehydrated if I didnt drink all that. got a little sun burn but nothing like the leather skin I aquired at Pocono last year. that about sums up the weekend, write more later.



06/02/2000

Off to the races! (again...)
this morning at about 3:00 AM (3:03 AM would be nice.. lol.. inside joke) we are leaving for Dover Downs International Speedway. We are going to be there for a few days in the motorhome, and will be watching qualifying, second round qualifying, happy hour, the Busch race, and the Winston Cup race. theres going to be tons of trailers where they hold autograph sessions,.. hopefully we will be in the right place at the right time. We might have a good chance of getting on camera too, because in the Busch race, we are going to be right on the Start/Finish line, and in the Cup race, we are going to be on Turn 4, right infront of the Pit Entrance. those who know us,.. look for us, the races are being televised on TNN as far as I know... It should be a bunch of fun as usual.. I will update when I get back the beginning of next week, to let you know everything we did. see you later!



06/01/2000

Finally got the time and info needed to finish up my web server. everything was working, and I have been hosting my own page for about a week now. the only part that wasnt working was the pop3 support. I figured it out today, and its working like a champ.... talk about web pages, I am glad to say that my pal Sam has brought his page back up. In my eyes, the daily internet use just isnt the same without reading his page... Im glad he decided to stick with the Intrepid... Now to get Hoagies page back... I have a feeling the link is going to change to h0agie.mervernation.com before you know it. well.. I guess thats enough for now.. I gotta go to bed... one thing though.. why do people think they have to give You the finger just because you have a better car than they do, and you proved it? I guess the world may never know.

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