A nice little video for you on this the eve of all the hallows.

Running low on straws (In which I complain. A lot.)

I finally got the ignition fixed on the Purple Hatchback of Loveliness.

Actually, I'm not sure I had mentioned there was anything wrong with it, so wrapped up was I last week in posting pictures from the fair and wishing Steve a happy birthday.

In any case, the ignition suddenly started jamming last Sunday. Whichever key we tried would go in just fine, but wouldn't turn at all, not even enough to turn on the radio or (little detail here) put the car into neutral or anything.

After eleventy dozen tries, it finally did work and we drove it. But when we finished what we were doing and tried to drive home, it happened again.

So I dropped it off at the shop for them to look at on Monday at which time, of course, they inserted the key and started the car "thirty or forty times". I got a bonus "here, show me how you start the car" because, I guess, the first 18 months I had driven the car without ignition incident could have been an anomaly.

Plus, they didn't have the part to replace it anyway, so I asked them to track one down, and then I got in the car and drove to work.

Since the car is parked inside a locked gate both at home and at work, I simply left the key in the ignition all the time, making sure the radio & lights were off, and never had to worry about being able to start the car when I was next ready to drive it.

Of course, I also didn't have to worry about grocery shopping or any other sort of use of the car that didn't involve leaving it behind closed doors.

Funnily enough, the guy at the shop didn't call to tell me how much a new ignition switch would be. Not on Monday anyway. Or on Tuesday or Wednesday. Or Thursday.

So yesterday I stopped by and reminded them that I wanted to know how much the part would cost because I still wanted my car fixed, even if they couldn't replicate the problem. This time they figured maybe I did want to fix my car, and they called me back this morning to let me know that the part could be had, used, for three times what it costs new at any Auto Zone in the States.

But, this isn't the States and sometimes that happens, so we said to go ahead and get the part and I would drop the car off on the way home from work today, which I did.

And I went back to pick it up a couple of hours later and yes, they had replaced the ignition switch. Funnily enough, the one they took out is visibly damaged.

So, I'm a little disgruntled that they didn't follow up when I asked them to find a part I wanted to replace on my car, but I know how it is. Sometimes you're busy and if you don't think the work actually needs to be done, I can see how it would slip by.

But I'm more than a little disgruntled that the guy who did the work smoked in my car, which is disgusting, and somehow installed the switch in such a way that the chime beeps continually any time the door (or the other door, or the trunk) is open, even if the key is two blocks away from the car at the time.

The beeping from the key being left in the car all the time was actually really really annoying, and now it's a permanent feature! (Or at least till we Google it and find out how to fix it, or possibly take it back and make them fix it, or maybe find a new mechanic and get them to fix it...)

Seen (not all on the same day)

T-shirt (on a 3 year old):
"Friends Don't Let Friends
Idolize Celebrities"

Part of an ad on a food service truck [in Spanish]:
"Eating beef is good for you"

Bumper sticker on a shiny new Corolla:
"In my dreams I am a Kenyan"

Dealer label on a car:
"His & Hers Auto Sales
Zebulon, NC"

T-shirt:
"Don't believe everything you think"

Bumper sticker:
"Non-judgement day is near"

Please accept this baby pygmy hippo in lieu of a post this evening

Can't talk. Busy.

So, remember the Great Hard Drive Meltdown of '09?

I got my new hard drive this week and tonight I'm trying to format, partition and install it. This process is made easier by the fact that I have another computer running right next to it on the desk, and harder by the fact that I'm trying to format and partition a hard drive using a computer that currently has no (functional) hard drive or operating system.

It looks like it might work, but ... okay, this just in. It looks like it might not work.

Anyway, I'll be over here <----, messing with stuff.

Times gone by

San Rafael has gone through a number of iterations of the town fair, and one thing I noticed this time around was that they got the big-name franchise to provide the carnival rides.

This has not always been the case:

The fair's in town

Happy Birthday Steve!

Happy birthday to one of the best people on the whole Internet. Someday I'll make you a real cake, but for now you get another virtual one.


(With thanks and/or apologies to the maker of the original cake)

A "post"

Oh. Well.

I wanted to embed this, but I guess the best I can do is link to it.

We've all seen "quotation marks" used in questionable ways (not least in that accounting software manual I've been reading).

This here is one of the finest collections of such I've ever seen, although you'll be entirely unsurprised to learn that there's an entire "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks as well.

"Really bad" turns out to be a relative term

So, Bob posted this video from our trip, and I posted this photo, which I described as a Really Bad Bridge:


It really is a bad bridge (although not quite as bad as it looks in the video - the structure of it doesn't actually waver and weave as you drive over it), and they're building a new one right next to it, but for now it's the bad one or no beachy beachy for you.

But, it's not that bad a bridge. Not as bad as this other one that my coworkers and I crossed on our way home from the Expo last month - a route Bob and I didn't take on our trip, as it happens.

That other one, a one-lane suspension bridge built in the 1920s, collapsed this morning when a bus went over it.