feel the love

i found out tonight that my blog was set up so that only members of blogger.com could post comments. i THINK that i have properly changed the settings so now anyone can post comments to my blog. aren't you lucky.

that rock got bigger

yeah i got my car back today and the final bill was $900.

might as well be a diamond

my car was hit today by a $700 rock...

i was driving up the freeway on my way to the fabric store (i want to make curtains... yes *I* want to make curtains. i know how to sew! do you want to make something of it?) but yeah i just bought an A/C, and to help keep my apartment cooler i want to make some curtains because i have six big windows in the living room. they've got blinds which help, but... anyway...

so i'm driving along and there is a lot of construction going on right now along that stretch. i am a few car lenghts behind a dumptruck and one lane over to the right... and out bounces a rock... too crowded and quick to swerve or anything, and it didn't look that big anyway... (big enough to see, small enough to not think about...) i ran over the rock, which bounced around under my car (sounded painful...)

anyway, i continue on my way... as i am exiting the freeway, i notice that it is harder to steer... feels like the power steering is out... but i pull over to see if there is anything visibly worse. not anything that i can tell... so i turn back around and head to my mechanic (about a half hour away.)

they are able to look at my car pretty quickly after i get there... power steering pump was hit, the fluid was all gone, the pump is fried from being w/o fluid, and the CV boot was torn...

they can have it done by tomorrow, which is nice, but parts and labor will cost over $700.

that's what credit cards are for... the things you need but can't afford. and while driving it without power steering not much more than annoying, waiting to fix it would make the whole thing MUCH worse and MUCH more expensive very quickly.

and THAT is my $700 rock.

who needs love like that?

A guy on the Utilikilts Yahoo discussion group was "assaulted" by a self-appointed woman playing Tartan Police. She gave him hell for being a non-Scot and wearing a kilt (even though Utilikilts are NOT Tartan kilts...) and my response to him was "as for people like her, i just feel sorry for them. i feel sorry that they need to waste so much time and effort judging the choices that i have made for me, the choices that do not impact their lives beyond the fact that they made eye contact with me."

which reminded me of a story...

a couple years back in my hometown, i stopped at Pick-N-Save to buy beer. The clerk was nearly old enough to be my mother, and there was one customer in line behind me. The clerk decided to strike up a conversation with the customer behind me... a discussion about ME and my nose ring... "Wow, don't cattle wear rings in their noses? Maybe put a chain on it and get lead around by it..." Comments like that. Of course, the man behind me agreed with the clerk 100%.

so, unfortunately it is only several years later that i came up with a great comeback... but i'll tuck it away hopefully to use at another time...

"I'd get FIRED for talking about a customer like that." and then insist on talking to a manager. i don't even care what she was commenting ON, it was that she was speaking negatively ABOUT ME to another customer... What if i had my nose pierced because i was from India? (or married to someone from India, since i with my reflectively white skin am CLEARLY not Indian...) a comment like that would be tantamount to commenting to a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke "So, where's the propeller for your beanie?" or saying to a veiled Muslim woman, "what, are you too ugly to be seen in public?"

i got my nose pierced while living in London fourteen years ago, and i got lots of compliments on it from the Indian women working at the local grocery store (my neighborhood was predominantly a mix of Middle Easterners and Asians). Now, i would have felt BAD and apologetic if the Indian women were offended that i had it done (since it's "their" thing) but if THEY like the nose ring on this white chick, then i have every right to wear it...

Es ist mir kalt

can i just say how thrilled i am that it is mid June and it is currently only 56 degrees? okay, it's midnight right now, but it didn't go above 70 degrees during the day... the cats are going crazy (in a happy good way) as opposed to lounging around in the heat (nothing is more patetic and sad than seeing a cat PANTING...) yes, i'm back to two blankets on the bed. a small slice of heaven :D

i'm never living anywhere than the Midwest...

the right to remain silent

so, anyone who knows me knows that i have sleeping problems. last night i was actually sleepy at 9pm, so i went to bed. i didn't have to be up early today or anything, i just wanted to actually sleep...

so i had some crazy dreams last night (and i actually slept for a really long time)..

at one point we are scavenging through a vacant lot at night and find some Soviet era patriotic pins (and a LOT of them...) the police are coming in the distance, and so we scatter... but the police are calling for me specifically. i don't know why, so we just keep going.

Later... i must have been living in a dorm or something, because i'm in my room trying to sleep, and the police come for me. in just my boxers and a t-shirt, i am forced to my knees and hancuffed and accused of... MURDER.

well, they left me with my cell phone, so i was texting everyone that i could get a hold of...

i was being accused of murdering someone that i didn't even know.

i woke up around midnight, and heard outside what sounded like gunshots, ten in all. kinda wishin' i'd called the cops, but it's not like i had much info. hell, one time we heard an explosion in the middle of the night and called the cops, they showed up at our place four hours later. not like we had more info than we told them over the phone.

car porn

in the next couple of days i'm going to be posting pics from the car show that i attened this morning... local VW club held a charity car show for Children's Hospital. i took 220 photos in less than two hours. i'm not posting all 200... but i will post a lot...

i've been calling photos of hot cars "car porn" for years, so i googled "car porn" to see if anyone else calls it that... hey i'm not the only one!

so, if you like Volkswagens, i'm gonna have a TON of pics up within the week... air-cooled and water-cooled. i love the Ghias and Type III's...