yet more Elias photos
by John at 5/30/2007 10:20:00 PM
Goose the Blog 2.0
"Oh, ha! Sarcasm: The last refuge of sons of bitches!"
5/30/2007
a new car!
by John at 5/30/2007 09:53:00 PM
Last Tuesday, as I was driving home from the store with an ice cream cake for Wendy's birthday, our car broke down. Luckily, it broke down right as I pulled into the driveway so the cake didn't melt.
Anyway, as I turned into the driveway, the power steering went out, the engine started to make a grinding noise, and pretty soon smoke started coming out of the passenger side front wheel well. When I opened the hood (after the smoke cleared a bit) there was oil all over the fan belts and splattered around the left half of the engine.
We talked it over and decided that because 1) I would have to get the car towed to a service station just to find out what was wrong with it, 2) the eleven year old Saab 900 was worth only $1400 when it was working, and 3) Wendy's experience is that the Saab is always expensive to fix, we decided to write it off (literally - we will donate it to charity) and just get a new car.
I wanted a subcompact, so the next day we test drove a loaded Toyota Yaris Liftback (super cute but sluggish), a Nissan Versa Hatchback SL with continuous variable transmission (drove like a bigger car, but had a poor cargo design with rear seats that did not fold flat), and a Honda Fit Sport with a manual transmission (drove like a small car, but had enough power and excellent cargo room). We got the Fit Sport. It's cool, based on the 160 miles we've driven it so far. I recommend it if you are in the market for a small car.
Anyway, as I turned into the driveway, the power steering went out, the engine started to make a grinding noise, and pretty soon smoke started coming out of the passenger side front wheel well. When I opened the hood (after the smoke cleared a bit) there was oil all over the fan belts and splattered around the left half of the engine.
We talked it over and decided that because 1) I would have to get the car towed to a service station just to find out what was wrong with it, 2) the eleven year old Saab 900 was worth only $1400 when it was working, and 3) Wendy's experience is that the Saab is always expensive to fix, we decided to write it off (literally - we will donate it to charity) and just get a new car.
I wanted a subcompact, so the next day we test drove a loaded Toyota Yaris Liftback (super cute but sluggish), a Nissan Versa Hatchback SL with continuous variable transmission (drove like a bigger car, but had a poor cargo design with rear seats that did not fold flat), and a Honda Fit Sport with a manual transmission (drove like a small car, but had enough power and excellent cargo room). We got the Fit Sport. It's cool, based on the 160 miles we've driven it so far. I recommend it if you are in the market for a small car.
5/22/2007
apparently, I've been living under a rock...
by John at 5/22/2007 11:05:00 AM
...because I just heard about the Will Ferrell/Adam McKay short film, The Landlord, starring McKay's two year old daughter, Pearl.
Labels: video
5/21/2007
5/17/2007
OMGOMGOMG!
by John at 5/17/2007 11:27:00 AM
Is this the best thing ever?!?
Remember Joe Alterio's "Robo-Equality Party" posters from a long time ago? They aren't on the internet anymore, which is sad, but now they have become a serialized web comic!
Remember Joe Alterio's "Robo-Equality Party" posters from a long time ago? They aren't on the internet anymore, which is sad, but now they have become a serialized web comic!
The Basic Virus: Welcome to the Robot Revolution
Labels: pop culture, robots
5/09/2007
Brian Eno
by Amy, Bill, Guillermo and Alma at 5/09/2007 02:42:00 PM
I have noticed a hankering to listen to Brian Eno of late. I heard that someone on this blog is or used to be a fan of his. Would this person be willing to suggest a first album purchase for a budding fan?
5/07/2007
aaaaaaahhhhhhh!
by John at 5/07/2007 11:24:00 AM
Doctor finds spiders in ear of boy with earache
What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear -- "like Rice Krispies" -- ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.
"They were walking on my eardrums," Jesse Courtney said.
Mostly true fact: When I was 13 or so, I read a news article or short story in Omni about a boy who had cockroaches crawl into his ear canal while he was asleep. I slept with headphones on (no music) for at least a week or two after that. It was uncomfortable, but it was significantly better than having bugs in your ear, I'm sure.*
Scary story number one: One time while I was in high school I was wearing pennyloafers without socks, as was the fashion, while putting gas in the car at a gas station. I felt something tickling my foot, so I slipped off my shoe and there was a spider inside! I may have screamed, but I definitely threw the shoe across the gas station parking lot. I had to hop over on one foot to retrieve it and shake the spider out.
Scary story number two: While a graduate student, I was brushing my teeth one morning when I felt some lint on the toothbrush. I took the brush out of my mouth and looked at it to facilitate removing the lint, but it wasn't lint it was a live spider! Aaaaahhhhhhhh! I do not recall what happened next. I may have passed out.
Got any scary stories to tell? I'm all ears.
-----
* There is a scene like this in the film Mountains of the Moon. One of the explorers falls asleep in his tent, which is unknowingly located on top of some sort of beetle hive. He wakes up with intense pain in his ear and he is covered in beetles. In a panic, he takes a compass needle and jams it into his ear canal repeatedly. Oops - now he's deaf in that ear.
P.S. The beetles weren't trying to eat into his brain or anything. Apparently, the inside of the ear is just super sensitive and even little beetle feet can cause pain.
Labels: horror, pop culture
5/02/2007
photos from Disney World
by John at 5/02/2007 09:57:00 PM
Lots of new photos from Disney World up on Flickr. Also, a video of Elias co-piloting the monorail.
Update: Interesting note - on the way back, after boarding the plane, Elias kept saying things like "Jet plane dropped" and "Jet plane fall down. (Where?) On the floor." Seriously, he did, over and over! I thought he might be talking about his toy jet planes back home, but Wendy was just about freaking out and gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine toy to distract him. Needless to say, that particular jet plane did not fall down, at least on that trip. So much for Elias's psychic powers.
And this one is for Wendy, because I kept singing part of it at appropriate times: Monorail. Monorail. Monorail!
Update: Interesting note - on the way back, after boarding the plane, Elias kept saying things like "Jet plane dropped" and "Jet plane fall down. (Where?) On the floor." Seriously, he did, over and over! I thought he might be talking about his toy jet planes back home, but Wendy was just about freaking out and gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine toy to distract him. Needless to say, that particular jet plane did not fall down, at least on that trip. So much for Elias's psychic powers.
And this one is for Wendy, because I kept singing part of it at appropriate times: Monorail. Monorail. Monorail!
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