Catch-Up Time
What a month and a half. Or however long it's been. Whatever.
The Research Paper of Doom is finished, and I will whine on this site about it no more. However, I think I can safely say that for the time being, I am finally sick of Hamlet.
My continuing Vehicular Adventures: Toyota does indeed make a reliable car, but my fifteen-year-old Camry was finally showing signs of incipient breakdown. Perhaps if I had ever gotten the moon roof (that's what it's called, you can consult the website - a sunroof has a shaded glass covering, a moon roof has none) repaired I would have considered putting more money into fixing the frozen-shut-or-open windows, plugging up the various holes that oil, freon, and coolant were leaking out of, etc. (Ooh, bad grammar. So what, I'm not getting graded on this site. I hope.) Anyway - the last straw came when one day I shut the passenger door (I was putting something in the car on that side, or taking it out - I forget) and as I turned away I heard crack! thud-tinkle. I looked back, to see that the glass in the side-view mirror had fallen off. Not to mention the car was now overheating in heavy traffic and even if I had to stay at a red light for more than a few seconds and I was putting water in it every day.
So I bought a new car.
My first new car in (mumble mumble) years, and I hardly know what to do with myself. (Sentence fragment. Oh shut up.) I drove it around today in kind of a daze. A car! With working a/c! That doesn't overheat! And has no rust on it anywhere! (That's right, more sentence fragments. Am I channelling one of my high-school English teachers?) I briefly considered cheapo cars like the Kia Rio, and mooned over unattainables like the Honda Insight (no more links, I'm done with advertizing), but decided that I'd had enough of cheapo cars, so now I'm in hock for five years to a Toyota Echo.
Who needs food anyway.
I had to do lots of running around, when I really should be studying for finals. In the old car I had been ticketed for having a headlight out. (I tried to imagine the police in Miami bothering to ticket for such a thing and failed. But in the Land of the Great Mouse all vehicles must have both headlights working!) So that had to be repaired, the ticket taken care of. I finally got around to getting a new license with my new address. So basically the state of Florida collects a ten-dollar fee every time you move, since it's mandatory that your driver's license have your current residence on it. I'm there at the counter and the lady asked me if I wanted to register to vote. I hadn't realized you could do that at the license place; I think the last time I was there they did not yet have that handy service. "Cool!" said I -- now I can reveal that I hadn't reregistered in time to vote in the Presidential. No one got to fondle my chads! Anyway, when she asked me what party a small imp seized my brain and I said "Republican." So now I'm part of the Vast, Right-Wing Conspiracy. I'd go buy a hand gun except for the fact that all my money will be enriching the economies of the U.S. and Japan, so I won't have anything left over to donate to Smith & Wesson.
I bought one of those i-Zone cameras, on a whim (what else?), so I'll be updating this site with truly amateurish, teensy little photos. Can a webcam be far behind?