… I have purchased a new car.
An “Upgrade”
So a while back,
Then a few weeks ago I found out that it had actually gone away. And since FFXI accounts do not “freeze” like WoW accounts do — if you leave them idle too long the characters cannot easily be recovered (if at all) — I poked her again. Well, that is to say
So after some password exchange and payment switching, Uruki lives again. So now, poor Azalyn, long lost character of
So on Sunday I started the process of reconciling three accounts’ worth of gear to see what’s extra and needs to be sold. Then, just when I was done, someone mentioned “Why don’t you just use AltanaCubby?” to which I replied “What’s that?” and my mind was blown. It’s a program (that’s safe to use, people have watched its net usage) that reads your local FFXI cache and shows what items every character had in their inventory when you last logged in. And it can export a text file. So basically I could have done what I did in a fraction of the time. C’est la vie.
(I’ve realized after looking over this post that it has more commas and other random punctuation that even I normally use. I guess I’m in a non-linear frame of mind and can’t form sentences right now.)
Lost Subject #3: When Applicances Attack!
So yeah, the whole point of these “Lost Posts” was that I’d get caught up and I could go back to posting the small stuff, but once again I got distracted with work and stuff. So anyway…
I’ve only owned my house for three years now. I’ve been living in it for seven or eight, though. When I bought it from the ex-landlord I also bought the appliances as well, because they already had appliances in the other house where they were moving. The refrigerator was relatively new, but the oven/stove/microwave combo, the dishwasher, the washer and dryer were all as old as the house, which is about 22-23 years now. A few years ago, the microwave “died.” And by “died” I mean I spent $50 for a service call to determine that it would cost another $200 to replace a $.50 piece of plastic in the door latch that lets the microwave know the door is closed and can therefore turn on. (A $200 I opted not to pay.)
So I was due for another appliance dying. I should have suspected something was amiss when the dryer started taking longer and longer to dry a load, even when cleaning the lint filter. So, sure enough, halfway through a load of my laundry, the dryer died. I ended up having to air-dry that load and we couldn’t do any more loads; this was a pressing issue. I realized that when replacing the dryer I should probably replace the washer as well, for aesthetic reasons, because the washer’s probably not going to last much longer, and because Sears was having a deal where one major appliance was 10% off, two were 15% off and three were 20% off. (Although I was tempted, I opted not to replace, oh, the dishwasher for the extra 5%.)
So to Sears we went. Jenny was there because she’s one of those people who just has to be around when people do shopping for big items, I guess. And Hung was around because we made a dinner trip out of it. I found the dryer I wanted after not too long, but was torn between its matching brother (or sister, I’m not quite sure of the gender of appliances) and a cheaper, non-matching, not quite the same height so it wouldn’t line up other model. The matching model happened to be a front-loading high-efficiency washer, which came with two additional rebates, one from the power company and one from the water company. So it ended up not being too much more and the decision was made.
Two days later:
Shiny. They’re all high-tech and junk and the washer is so amazingly quiet, except for the spin cycle where it spins crazy-fast.
Gotta do it every time around.
85% Dennis Kucinich
84% Mike Gravel
82% Barack Obama
80% Chris Dodd
79% Hillary Clinton
79% Bill Richardson
77% John Edwards
75% Joe Biden
45% Rudy Giuliani
36% John McCain
33% Ron Paul
29% Mike Huckabee
28% Mitt Romney
19% Tom Tancredo
17% Fred Thompson
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
Four years ago, I did a similar test. Looks like I was 71% in line with Kucinich that time, yet 84% this time. *shrug* It looks like I’ve got a view which is sort of in line with the general Democrat’s view, but not directly in line with any of the candidates. So this makes the primary choice interesting, but I’ll probably be “kinda okay” with any of them for the actual election.
I should do actual research into the exact issues that each candidate agrees with me on. Then again we all know how much the candidate’s views actually impact policy when elected. (hint: not as much as the party’s.)
Lost Subject #2: Framed!
So on a lighter note… back when I had more disposable income, I bought stuff that I thought would look cool hanging on my wall. Then I kept putting them in poster tubes and an art portfolio and they never saw the light of day. I don’t remember the impetus, but I finally got the motivation to get them framed and to hang them up.
Actually I do think I remember. It was because I cleaned out the two corners of my bedroom that hadn’t been cleaned in years and I ended up rediscovering these items. Anyway, I measured some of the prints and posters that I knew would be standard-sized, and took the portfolio to Aaron Brothers. I knew that
Lost Subject #1: The Car of Death
I’ve been meaning to write about a few things recently, but as you may have noticed from the lack of entries recently, I… um… haven’t. So instead of making one big post like I normally do in this situation, I’m going to actually split them up so I won’t get the TLDR factor and people skip right over the wall of text.
So anyway, first subject: My car is trying to kill me.
About two or three months ago I got sick, pretty much just a normal cold (just about the time the Lego Millenium Falcon arrived so… um… let’s see… *looks at his entries* October 5th? Okay, so three months ago. After I got over the cold, I was skill coughing occasionally. I did what any normal person would do: I bought some cough drops and drank tea and just tried to wait it out. After a month of this on-and-off coughing, I started to wonder if there might be some external factor that was continuing to antagonize my throat. I began to suspect the car, but it wasn’t until I drove down to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving and was coughing the entire way that I became pretty sure of it.
I took the car to the mechanic last week, and it turns out there was not one, but two leaks in the engine. There was a transmission fluid leak, and a loose gasket that was causing some oil to burn. The thing is, I can’t smell anything, so I was suspicious. I got those things fixed anyway at a cost of about $600 (ignoring some other things that needed to be fixed for another $500 because I’m going to be getting a new car soon anyway, knock on wood) and I haven’t driven it much since then, but it’s still bugging me.
Someone I know who works in a car dealership mentioned it could be mold in the air conditioner and that there’s a service the dealer offers that basically forces air through the system and cleans it all out. I’m guessing this isn’t a cheap service, so I tried parking the car, opening all the windows, turning the air to full and spraying Lysol into the engine, hoping it would come through the system. When I smelled it in the cabin, I knew it was, so I did it a few times.
It didn’t seem to help. I’ve been feeling kind of light-headed and tired recently, and in the fear that it might be related, I’ve made a doctor’s appointment. I’m sure it’s going to be something silly, but hey, I’m insured now.