Are you saving that for later?

Jon and I were sitting on my couch, each with a helping of some of my home-made cheesecake and peach ice cream (real calorie-counters, us). While we were eating, I looked over at him and saw he had some in his beard. My dad, also quite the beardy person, will remark that he’s “just saving it for later” when someone points out he has food in his beard. I tried to point at the food on Jon and ask “are you saving that for later?” but, creature of infinite grace that I am, I managed to whack the spoonful of cheesecake + ice cream that he was holding and knock it into his shoulder, smearing tastiness all over his shirt. We just stared at it for a minute, then he responded with “No, I’m saving this for later.”

Wife beater

This story is funny entirely because of the American slang term “wife beater“, meaning an A-shirt. Jon was at my place and had gotten something on his shirt, so he wanted to change. I didn’t have any large t-shirts that would work for him, so I offered him one of my wife beaters, explaining that, though small, it would stretch. He was all dubious, saying he’d never fit in the tiny shirt that fits me. I insisted he try it anyway, and I stood next to him as he tried it on. While trying to get his arm through the second sleeve, he managed to punch me in the head. I asked him if he did it “because I burnt the roast.”

• His car is 3 years older than mine (‘91 versus ‘88)… +1 janky point for Jon
• My car has a big, splotchy primer spot where paint should be… +1 for me
• His car’s muffler shakes and rattles like a busted washing machine… +1 for Jon
• My passenger-side speaker was recently receding into the door and you had to physically pull it outward in order to roll down the window… +1 for me
• His car is covered in a permanent layer of dog hair… +1 for Jon
• My car’s antenna is a welding rod… +1 for me
• His CD player just sits in an open area and occasionally skips when driving because it jumps up and down… +1 for Jon
• I have to run my heater often times in the summer to keep my car from overheating… +1 for me
• His interior light does not work at any setting… +1 for Jon
• While his odometer reads over 100,000 miles, mine broke at over 185,000 two years ago… +1 for me
• If you brush against his car’s exterior, you get dusty white paint on you… +1 for Jon
• My driver-side seat heater doesn’t work… +1 for me
• He carries around a box of quart oil bottles because such quantities were necessary when his car leaked like crazy… +1 for Jon
• One of my rear windows can’t be controlled by the driver’s buttons, so you have to snake your hand back to roll it up again… +1 for me
• The face of his CD player is held on with putty… +1 for Jon
• On a recent repair, the mechanic informed me that instead of having an air box/preheat thermostat, there was actually only a wad of duct tape in its place… +1 for me
• His car is so old it doesn’t have a passenger-side mirror… +1 for Jon

And now for the credits, i.e. bringing our cars back to the land of new automobiles:

• His air conditioner works great and doesn’t overheat the car… -1 for Jon
• I have automatic locks and windows… -1 for me
• My CD player is properly installed and doesn’t skip… -1 for me

Aaaand the outcome: 8 janky points for Jon’s car, and 6 for mine. That leaves Jon the winner by a smidgen, but I wonder if perhaps it wasn’t fair to assign each detail 1 point. Perhaps some, ah, features should really count for more points on the jankometer. For example, he contests that my having to run the heater in 90-degree F weather somehow should count for more than 1 janky point. What do you think? And how does your car rank?

I spent my evening coding a Ruby on Rails version of a PHP web application for one of my professors because his requests are involving hairier and hairier database stuff and I’m sick of using straight PHP when I know ActiveRecord, in all its glory, is just around the coding corner. The rewrite is progressing nicely; I’ve been coding my models and getting all the validates_presence_of, has_many... :through..., etc. stuff set up. I even used this lovely module to ensure I have proper foreign key constraints.

After my programming fest, I went to Jon’s house where, upon starting to watch Battlestar Galactica, we got interrupted by a flurry of activity: his step-dad Kevin started assembling a treadmill that had been hanging around in its box for a few weeks, occupying space in the living room (not that much has changed: the fully assembled treadmill is still in the living room), and Jon decided he could no longer bear their whistling toilet. You read that right: their downstairs toilet has been whistling in a high, keening manner for a few weeks now. There was debate tonight between Jon and Kevin as to whether anyone had actually called maintenance about the offending plumbing and I think the final consensus was that, no, no one had called, but no one was really going to get around to it either. I completely don’t understand that last part because a whistling toilet, especially one that’s freaking loud like this one was, is a big annoyance. Seriously, you go to use the loo and you have to turn the water on at the toilet base, it starts whistling while you do your thing, then you flush it and wait around for the tank to refill before hastily shutting off the water, lest it serenade you again.

Well so Jon took to prodding at the tank innards and I went back and forth between the living room and the bathroom, watching the two do-it-yourself projects develop. Jon on the john (snort) experimented with prodding various things, checking for leaks, loosening stuff, tightening stuff, and generally just invading the commode’s privacy. Kevin had me fetch up my rubber mallet from the back of my car (never know when you’re going to need such a thing) for use in whanging some plastic feet into place on the treadmill, but that didn’t go so well because the plastic was el cheapo and bent too much to stick. It’s really not all that exciting to watch a treadmill being assembled so we just chatted about various things while Jon made trips between the kitchen and bathroom, which is something that’ll either pique your curiosity or disturb you as you realize he was fiddling around with a toilet while he was in the bathroom.

Turns out he did silence the porcelain god by using a small bit of aluminum foil with a small bit of squishy foam wrapped around it, this all shoved into the little knobbly thing with the float on it. That’s as descriptive as it’ll get because I don’t know what to call all that stuff inside a toilet tank and if I try to be any more specific I’ll just end up using non-words like ‘fiddly bit’ and ‘doohicky’ which won’t clarify anything for you at all. The toilet now gives a pleasant little squeak after refilling and then sits there, quiet and complacent.

Well, mostly.

See, throughout the rest of the evening, we’d hear it start to sing again but before it could really get going in all its pitch-changing glory, it would shut up again. So it’s probably just a temporary fix and they’ll need to get a maintenance guy out there eventually to jab at it properly, with new parts and everything.

Excerpts from a Dog’s Diary

• 8:00 am – Dog food! My favorite thing!
• 9:30 am – A car ride! My favorite thing!
• 9:40 am – A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
• 10:30 am – Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
• 12:00 pm – Lunch! My favorite thing!
• 1:00 pm – Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
• 3:00 pm – Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
• 5:00 pm – Milk bones! My favorite thing!
• 7:00 pm – Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
• 8:00 pm – Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
• 11:00 pm – Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary

• My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.
• Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a ‘good little hunter’ I am. Bastards.
• There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of ‘allergies.’ I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage.
• Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.
• I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

  The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe… for now.

So I had it towed ASAP to a local Volvo repair shop, since I couldn’t get it started at all then. They assessed the damage at first being a bad thermostat, a bad preheat thermostat, grungy spark plugs, and a bad air mass meter, but when they took it out for a test drive, it stalled at a stop light and still ran very ragged under 35 mph. They figured out that an O2 sensor was bad, so I okayed them to fix that and the rest of it, too. There had been the possibility that my dad could fix whatever they didn’t, but he suggested I just go on and have them do everything since there would be the problem of getting the car to my dad or vice versa (we live across the state from one another).

There was some humor when it came to fixing that preheat thermostat because at first the guy I spoke with there (one of the managers, not the mechanic working on my car) said mine had been taped up with duct tape. But then when I called back like the next day to check on things, he told me to hold on, the mechanic had been saying something. When he got back on the line, he said that I didn’t actually have a preheat thermostat at all, there was just the empty box that holds it, and that was filled with duct tape. I just started laughing at this and asked “So you mean I’ve been driving around without this thing the whole time?” Apparently so. From what I understood, the whole point of this device was to bring the outside air temperature up inside the engine to a comfortable temperature for the engine to run in. Since I didn’t have one, the engine was working with 30-degree air or whatever was outside, and it’s wintertime, so of course it’s pretty cold out. Hence why the engine would tremble until I’d driven a few miles and it warmed up.

I had an epiphany yesterday, though. I’d been trying to think why on earth the past owner of this car would have thought it okay to replace some part with a wad of duct tape. Then I realized, we got this car at an auction in Florida (my dad and I disagree about this: he thinks it was Georgia where my uncle bought it; either way, it still came from a state much warmer in the winter than Kentucky), and how cold does it ever really get in Florida? My guess is that the part broke and the past owner either didn’t know its importance and didn’t care, or didn’t want to spring for a new part that he felt wasn’t necessary in such a warm climate, so he just removed it and… stuck in some duct tape? I admit, I don’t understand the duct tape; I think he had too high of expectations for its performance in this situation…

Anyway, so the total parts + labor + towing fee + initial look-at-it-to-diagnose-problem cost me $1,054.36. I could have bought a new used car (ha ha) for that cost, but then it probably would have needed some repairs or a checkup at least to get it up to the same quality as my Volvo once repaired, and I like this car, so I decided to fix it rather than buy another. You can bet your bunions that I’m asking everyone who’s getting me a Christmas gift this year to just give me money, though. :P

“Aww, turn that shit off.” – friend
“Why? I like this song.” – brother
“I don’t want to listen to that gay-ass shit!” – friend
“What do you mean?” – brother
“Listen to what he’s saying!” – friend
“…What do you think he’s saying?” – brother
“‘Gay love, got me on my knees, gay love, begging darling please’!” – friend
*amidst laughter* “No, he’s saying ‘Layla’, that’s the name of his guitar.” – brother
“…Oh.” – friend

Having grown up listening to Eric Clapton, Derek and the Dominos, and especially the song “Layla”, I found this hilarious, especially since I love that song. Wow, talk about misheard lyrics.

• It looks like a Yeti is on her feet. – Ashlee
• How many cows did you have to kill to get those shoes? – Wes
• Did she kill a snow leopard? – Wes

I think the winter season is an excuse for girls to whip out the most bizarre of footwear. I thought Ugg boots were just the end of the line for wacky shoes, but now I’m seeing even uglier stuff: knit boots, anyone? It seems so impractical to have fuzzy knit boots for a season filled with snow, ice, and rain on the ground. At least my garish rain boots are practical in that they keep my feet dry.

I have a funny story from yesterday. So I was sitting on my bed, studying for the calculus test, when Todd came over. He was very tired, having had a long day of work and then working out. He laid down on the floor and started watching TV, but before long, I noticed he was asleep. I let him sleep a while and then stopped studying to come sit down with him. I fiddled on my laptop a bit and found The Booze Test, which has a bunch of trivia questions about alcohol. I took it and Todd woke up, so I asked if he’d like to take it. Now, he was awake, though still acting all sluggish and sleepy, but he started to take the quiz.

Initially, I asked him the questions and put in his answers. It was on a per-question basis, so if you got a question wrong, you had a couple more chances to get it right. He got one question wrong several times and the quiz just stopped because he had lost all his points. He got annoyed because he hadn’t finished the quiz but I had, and told me I didn’t have to sound so happy when I told him he got a question wrong. I protested that I wasn’t sounding happy, I was just saying “wrong” in my normal voice. He was getting all upset and wanted to take the quiz himself, so I gave him the laptop. He was going through it but, after answering a question partway through the quiz, the page just stopped refreshing and wouldn’t show the next question. This made him even more upset, so he muttered something about going back to his place… Then promptly fell asleep again.

I stayed on the floor and pouted for a few minutes, because I was annoyed that he’d gotten all upset over a dumb quiz. He woke up about two minutes after he’d fallen asleep, saw me upset, and asked me what was wrong. I ignored him, thinking he was just being a jerk because he obviously knew what was wrong. He asked a couple more times and I finally told him that I didn’t appreciate him getting all annoyed with me over some dumb Internet quiz. There was a pause, then he asked, “When was this?” That was my first clue that something was up. I told him, “About two minutes ago!”, but he didn’t remember it at all. I confirmed that he really didn’t remember taking the quiz, getting upset at me, or getting upset at the quiz at all, then I described what had happened to him. Nope, still didn’t remember. I brought the quiz up on my laptop again, and he went through it, this time easily answering the questions, but it still didn’t seem familiar to him. Well for me, this was deja-vu real bad, except Todd wasn’t all grouchy and he was actually getting the questions right.

I’ve had that happen to me before, where I’ll apparently talk to my parents in the middle of the night if they notice me awake, something like that. Todd and I laughed about his experience later when we were going to Chipotle, and I told him I couldn’t really be upset at him since he didn’t even remember doing anything wrong. He told me that when he woke up and saw me all upset, he wondered if the hermit crab had died. I guess I know not to interact with Todd when he’s partially asleep, because he has a short temper then and won’t remember the conversation later anyway!

We have quizzes once a week, always on Friday. Today, however, he pulled out a quiz for us, explaining that we had to have something scary on Halloween. The note at the top said, “No calculators, books, cell phones or brains allowed.” For the date, he had “Fall 3² * 223″. Each question had the number of points it was worth marked; most were worth 2 or 3 points and dealt with the Taylor series. However, one was worth 0 points and asked, “What is the capital of Zimbabwe?” Gosh, he’s zany. My other professors today are going to be normal acting, though they may give us candy.

I usually only see squirrels and occasionally rabbits around campus; this was my first possum. Kind of exciting, really. I always like possums because I think they’re very cute; they’re kind of like big prehistoric rats, appearance-wise.