• How to Disagree
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Eric called me this afternoon in a complete tizzy. There is a scorpion loose in his house and he wanted to know if it was OK if Bennie came back here for a couple of days until maintenance could spray. Of course it was fine - I’d rather have crazy kitty back than have her get hurt trying to tame a scorpion.

So the household is now brimming with kittens again, much to Mr. Bigglesworth’s chagrin. The kittens are almost a full 11 weeks old - it is amazing how much they’ve changed in those short weeks - Victoria is just the sweetest most gentle kitten, and Bennie is the total opposite. Lizzy and Mr. B get along super-fantastically now too, which makes me completely happy of course Kitties are far better to the repairing of mental health than any doctor or pill. MmmmHmmmm

Mr. Bigglesworth.

4×5 view camera, using expired Polaroid 59 instant color film

Good News: Battlestar Galactica Season 3 DVD’s shipping today!

Sad News: Author and visionary Arthur C. Clark died today.

Good News: I got to hangout with a great friend I haven’t seen probably since last summer when he drove off to California.

Sad News: When I was unloading film from some pictures I took of said friend, I discovered that one of the film holders was already EMPTY. Hopefully I got one shot, cause he won’t be back for a while.

I am a sad panda. Bennie went to her forever home on Monday, and I miss her. I think Victoria and Lizzie miss her too, but since they still have each other it is hard to tell. Victoria sure does a lot more sleeping without Bennie constantly attacking her. Something’s up with Lizzie’s milk machine too - all of her milk-makers on the right-paw side are swollen. So I get to call the vet tomorrow to find out if I need to haul her fuzzy but all over Tempe. She isn’t acting any weirder than normal, and is currently romping around the house with midnight crazies, so who knows.

On the plus side, Lizzie and Mr. B are getting along a lot better now - the other day Mr. B just walked right up to a snoozing Lizzy and started giving her a kitty-bath.

Kitties are so weird.

Happy Caturday.

Happy Caturday from Bennie and I jere at CCL* headquarters.

*Crazy Cat Lady

I took my MINI into get fixed yesterday, and picked it up today. $2500 this time. That fixed the power steering pump, replaced the oil pan gasket which was presumably leaking, and fixed the rocker panel that got moofed up when my jack broke whilst changing tires. They did wash the car and re-align my windshield washer jets for me, free of charge. What swell folk.

I added up the amount of money I have spent on the MINI since it was paid off went off of warranty (happened at the same time), then divided it by the number of months between now and then. Guess what? It still averages out to me making the same car payment. Plus the service folk advised me that my clutch is, on the outside, going to need replacement in 15k miles.

The major problem with this car is that in all of the Phoenix Metro area, there is only ONE place to get service on it. MINI of North Scottsdale is co-located (as most MINI dealerships are) with its big-sister brand BMW, and is surrounded on one side by Porsche of North Scottsdale and Land Rover of North Scottsdale. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

So what to do? Kelly Blue Book guesstimates that I have a potential “fair” trade-in value of $10k which isn’t bad for a car that’s 5 years old (as of March 6th!) with about 73k miles on it. Ideas running through my mind so far: trade in on a new car that’s tiny and inexpensive like a Yaris or something, or; trade it in on a more expensive new car (but still inexpensive overall) with a good trade in value and rack up the extended warranty and make $100-200 payments on a new car, or; buy a used motorcycle or scooter and just drive that for the short in-town things and only take the car when its raining, etc.

Right now the least expensive option is a scooter or used motorcycle. I can pick something like that up for under $3000 nicely equipped, and living in Phoenix there won’t be many times during the year where I couldn’t drive it. But then what about when I move from Phoenix? sigh

Any suggestions y’all?

Scifi.com has a funny new summary video that’s about 8 minutes long that summarizes Battlestar Galactica from the beginning upto the end of the 3rd season. It sums up all the necessary details and includes a heavy amount of humor as well.

Check it out at http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

I dunno WTF my MINI is playing at. Last night as I was walking to my car after watching a movie, I heard a noise coming from near my car - I didn’t know if it was my car or someone elses since I was in a parking lot… After driving home and exiting my car, I was pretty much 100% sure that it was my car, because said mystery noise could still be heard. After a few minutes of poking around I narrowed the problem down to the power steering pump.

You see its like this - MINI engineered the car to have an electric power steering pump so that it wouldn’t take power from the engine. Good idea - except mine decided to not turn off when the car was turned off. I could tell that it was draining my battery since - duh- it is a big hydraulic pump working when then alternator isn’t re-charging the car.

So last night I woke up ONCE hearing my car alarm going off. This wasn’t a big deal to me since car alarms go off here all the time, and it was quiet by the time my brain realized it was my car.. Not the case at about 6:50am (ugh). The MINI alarm is the Death Sound of the MINI’s battery - it went off in 30-40 second bursts for about five minutes sucking the last little bit of life from the battery. Nothing would let me turn the damn thing off either.. clicking the clicker, unlocking the driver door physically.. And since the locks to the rest of the car are electrical I couldn’t open the rear-hatch to disconnect the mostly-dead battery either. (Yes, my car’s battery is in the boot). Not having anything else left to do, I grabbed the owners manual and went up to my apartment to try and find a number to call. But before that could happen, she fell (hopefully permanently) silent.

I really really am not looking forward to paying for this.

Congrats to me, I just turned 11,111 days old.

w00t!