Category: car

Well, So Much For That Car.

August 3, 2008 / / 3 Comments

[This was on the 19th. I’ve been sick of dealing with the whole situation, so I haven’t made an effort to blog what happened.]

I’d just successfully tested for my Tae Soo Do red belt (just one more belt to go before black), and was on my way home on the beltline.  Jeremy and Christy were having a housewarming party, and I was looking forward to seeing them after a well-deserved and desperately-needed shower.

As I neared my exit, I noticed a long line of cop cars lining both sides of an on-ramp. I glanced back and forth between them and the road, wondering what would necessitate such an unusually large number of police–particularly because there didn’t seem to be anyone other than police there. There wasn’t a stopped civilian car in sight.

Just as I was about to pass the last of the police, the station wagon in front of me suddenly and inexplicably hit their brakes. I slammed on my own to avoid rear-ending it. As for the guy in the SUV behind me… well, he was still counting cop cars. He hit me with so much force that the weight of my body reclined my seatback all the way down. Since my headrest was now lying on the back seat and therefore unable to catch my head, my neck snapped as far back as it could go–which, as it turns out, is very nearly until the back of my head touches my spine. I was very briefly unconscious (probably a fraction of a second) and came to with my hands still clutched around the wheel. I maneuvered my car to the shoulder, paused for a moment to assess if I’d been injured but hadn’t yet noticed–I wasn’t–and got out to see how badly damaged my car was. The result:

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Google Is Starting to Get Creepy

March 28, 2008 / / 2 Comments

If I were a stalker, I’d start using Google Maps to search the streets for ex-girlfriends’ cars. I just found mine.


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It’s the red one.

This seems to have been taken some time last summer, since we’re still a few weeks from green around here. For the moment, I’m content with a lack of snow on the ground.

I sometimes wonder if I reveal too much information here. I just showed what my car looks like and the block I live on. If someone wanted to spend five minutes sleuthing, they could easily get my phone number and exact address as well. They’re not on the site, but I’m very easy to find if you know how to look.

Or maybe I’m just flattering myself. The internet is a big place, and just about the only people who come to my blog already know me. (Other than my Woz post–I submitted that to reddit and got about 5000 hits on it.)

Also, after looking at everything in the “car” category on my site, I realized that I somehow never bothered to mention that I got a new car more than a year ago. So there you go. I got a new car about a year ago. It’s a ’99 Mitsubishi Mirage, and it’s in great shape for being nearly a decade old. Just for fun, I checked the resale value for it yesterday. It’s actually worth more now than what I paid for it last year!

Man, I’m all over the place in this post. Stalking, Google, information disclosure, and my car.

b0rk3d

March 10, 2007 / / 0 Comments

All my shit is broken, dead, or dying.

  • Laptop – The power adapter died yesterday, and I don’t have an external charger for the battery. So it’s dead until I get a new one.
  • Phone – The outside screen hasn’t worked for six months or more, and the mic buzzes and clicks unless I hold it in one particular clawed grip. It rebooted in the middle of a phone call the other day.
  • PDA – Stopped charging. Instead, a spot just below the battery gets warm. I’m assuming there’s a short somewhere. I’ve had it since college, so it’s not worth fixing.
  • Car – I hit one of Madison’s massive potholes last week hard enough to send my hubcap flying. The car stopped running, and I managed to have just enough momentum to roll into a Pier 1 parking lot before it stopped for good. I’d already spent $800 keeping the piece of shit on the road this year, so I just threw up my hands and said the hell with it. It was towed to the junkyard Monday morning.